Hello, I'm playing Adventurer League, and decided that a Zhentarim Feral Tiefling Shadow Monk would be an entertaining character. A cohort recommended incorporating rogue into the build, and I must agree that the benefits of starting as a level 1 rogue outclasses the level 1 monk. In regards to long-term planning, I would like to reach 18 monk for the Empty Body ability. My question would therefore be:
Is level 2 Rogue cunning action worth slowing down my monk abilities further and sacrificing the final ability score improvement? That final ability score improvement can represent either 20 wisdom or the mobile feat.
The odds of you getting to level 20 are pretty slim, particularly since you're doing adventurer's league I don't think there's any WoTC published content that goes that high. The question is more like if you want to go to a 12/2, and even that would be pushing it. Unless you've heard from the DM that they plan to go to 20 somehow. What campaign are you planning to play in, do you know?
Early on, the DM focused on quests related to Mullmaster. However, he has lately been picking missions from other seasons, and decided that the tier 2 content would be the campaign book "Princes of the Apocalypse". The character I'm discussing is in the middle of a mission from "Tales from the Yawning Portal". From what I have discerned, he will be able to provide Tier 4 adventuring.
Hello, I'm playing Adventurer League, and decided that a Zhentarim Feral Tiefling Shadow Monk would be an entertaining character. A cohort recommended incorporating rogue into the build, and I must agree that the benefits of starting as a level 1 rogue outclasses the level 1 monk. In regards to long-term planning, I would like to reach 18 monk for the Empty Body ability. My question would therefore be:
Is level 2 Rogue cunning action worth slowing down my monk abilities further and sacrificing the final ability score improvement? That final ability score improvement can represent either 20 wisdom or the mobile feat.
Xalthu's point aside, Cunning Action has some redundancies with some of the uses of Ki points for monks. I think that you'd be able to see how much you use those abilities or would want to use them versus some other bonus action while you are playing to see if it's specifically useful for you. Getting a dash, disengage, or hide on a bonus action for free might be worth it. The hide will probably not be as useful for you as a monk, even if you are using a shortsword to get sneak attack for an extra d6 of damage. That is the part that's not "redundant" but some of it's features might be redundant with shadow monk generally.
Step of the Wind allows a disengage or a dash and your jump distance is doubled for the turn. It is technically superior, but requires a ki point and the jump distance isn't guaranteed to be part of your play style.
I don't think that you would need to go rogue 2 immediately, but as you play and consider those benefits in particular and how often you wished you had more ki points for your abilities (Step of the Wind if you're saving your Ki points for Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, or other abilities or your other abilities because your playstyle includes a lot of Steps of the Wind) then it might be more valuable than the monk ability that you lose. Someone else would have to comment on when you might take that level since I have no practical concept of monk progression.
Edit: Mobile feat would make your Step of the Wind more potent as a dash. It does give you a mini disengage against any creature that you attacked. It might also make the need to take a dash unnecessary if you only needed that extra 10 feet. I might be inclined to take that and do it sooner (perhaps right after you get your dex to 18?) if that was the option that you wanted. That would give you some time to get more data on your playstyle (including how often are you only wanting an extra 10 ft of movement and how often you only want to disengage from creatures that you attack). It would also give you more data on whether the extra benefits of Wisdom would be useful. You could ask the DM to keep track of the number of times you were hit because your AC was one too low, your Ki save DC was one two low, or you failed a wisdom save by 1. Keep a running tally and determine what level is too high to be acceptable. You'd also have to keep track of how many times these things were used so that you had a frame of reference (100 such "near misses" might be a lot for 200 total instances, but not really against 10,000). That does increase the bookkeeping for you (and for the DM, unless they just want to tell you every single time it happens giving the players more data than the DM wants them to have. Plus an adventure league DM may not want to participate in your project), so you might have to just go off of feel for that.
...don't rush to level 2 rogue...such a simple, smart answer. I like it. After I finish the current adventure, I believe my character will hit level 3. I'll keep him rogue level 1, and will withhold on the 2nd level until I understand my personal playstyle more. Thank you.
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Hello, I'm playing Adventurer League, and decided that a Zhentarim Feral Tiefling Shadow Monk would be an entertaining character. A cohort recommended incorporating rogue into the build, and I must agree that the benefits of starting as a level 1 rogue outclasses the level 1 monk. In regards to long-term planning, I would like to reach 18 monk for the Empty Body ability. My question would therefore be:
Is level 2 Rogue cunning action worth slowing down my monk abilities further and sacrificing the final ability score improvement? That final ability score improvement can represent either 20 wisdom or the mobile feat.
The odds of you getting to level 20 are pretty slim, particularly since you're doing adventurer's league I don't think there's any WoTC published content that goes that high. The question is more like if you want to go to a 12/2, and even that would be pushing it. Unless you've heard from the DM that they plan to go to 20 somehow. What campaign are you planning to play in, do you know?
Early on, the DM focused on quests related to Mullmaster. However, he has lately been picking missions from other seasons, and decided that the tier 2 content would be the campaign book "Princes of the Apocalypse". The character I'm discussing is in the middle of a mission from "Tales from the Yawning Portal". From what I have discerned, he will be able to provide Tier 4 adventuring.
Xalthu's point aside, Cunning Action has some redundancies with some of the uses of Ki points for monks. I think that you'd be able to see how much you use those abilities or would want to use them versus some other bonus action while you are playing to see if it's specifically useful for you. Getting a dash, disengage, or hide on a bonus action for free might be worth it. The hide will probably not be as useful for you as a monk, even if you are using a shortsword to get sneak attack for an extra d6 of damage. That is the part that's not "redundant" but some of it's features might be redundant with shadow monk generally.
Step of the Wind allows a disengage or a dash and your jump distance is doubled for the turn. It is technically superior, but requires a ki point and the jump distance isn't guaranteed to be part of your play style.
I don't think that you would need to go rogue 2 immediately, but as you play and consider those benefits in particular and how often you wished you had more ki points for your abilities (Step of the Wind if you're saving your Ki points for Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, or other abilities or your other abilities because your playstyle includes a lot of Steps of the Wind) then it might be more valuable than the monk ability that you lose. Someone else would have to comment on when you might take that level since I have no practical concept of monk progression.
Edit: Mobile feat would make your Step of the Wind more potent as a dash. It does give you a mini disengage against any creature that you attacked. It might also make the need to take a dash unnecessary if you only needed that extra 10 feet. I might be inclined to take that and do it sooner (perhaps right after you get your dex to 18?) if that was the option that you wanted. That would give you some time to get more data on your playstyle (including how often are you only wanting an extra 10 ft of movement and how often you only want to disengage from creatures that you attack). It would also give you more data on whether the extra benefits of Wisdom would be useful. You could ask the DM to keep track of the number of times you were hit because your AC was one too low, your Ki save DC was one two low, or you failed a wisdom save by 1. Keep a running tally and determine what level is too high to be acceptable. You'd also have to keep track of how many times these things were used so that you had a frame of reference (100 such "near misses" might be a lot for 200 total instances, but not really against 10,000). That does increase the bookkeeping for you (and for the DM, unless they just want to tell you every single time it happens giving the players more data than the DM wants them to have. Plus an adventure league DM may not want to participate in your project), so you might have to just go off of feel for that.
...don't rush to level 2 rogue...such a simple, smart answer. I like it. After I finish the current adventure, I believe my character will hit level 3. I'll keep him rogue level 1, and will withhold on the 2nd level until I understand my personal playstyle more. Thank you.