D&D 5E How much speed could a fast monk gain, if a fast monk could gain speed?

Piratecat · Oct 21, 2014

As a thought experiment, how fast can we get a monk to go?

Wood elf: base 35 feet.
Monk 18+: +30 feet.
Transmuter's stone: +10 feet.
Mobile feat: + 10 feet
Wizard 1: expeditious retreat (dash when cast, and as a bonus action)
Hasted: speed is doubled, gains an additional action (not a bonus action) that can be used to Dash

Am I missing anything? By my reckoning, a wood elf wizard 1/monk 19 with a transmuter's stone can move 85 feet. If she casts expeditious retreat on herself, she moves 255 feet a round. (85 normal + 85 dash + 85 bonus action dash). And when hasted, that speed is doubled, and she gets a weird additional Dash, so 170 move + 170 dash + 170 haste-dash + 170 bonus action = 680 feet in a round. A round is six seconds, so that's 6800 feet a minute, or 77 MPH.

Nifty. Okay, point out my rules gaffes!

Joe Liker · Oct 21, 2014

Surely haste only doubles the base speed, and then the additive bonuses go on top of that.

Boarstorm · Oct 21, 2014

Away from book, but do we have an order of operations for bonus stacking? IE, multiples before additions, etc.?

chriton227 · Oct 21, 2014

The Mk18/Wiz1 will need the help of someone else for the Haste spell.

How about Monk 14 for the +25' move, Barbarian 5 for the +10' move, and Wiz 1 for the Expeditious Retreat, along with the wood elf, Transmuter's Stone, and Mobile feat, and a friend with haste, that should get the speed up to 90' for a total of 720' per round.

Or for stand-alone, you could go Monk 7 (+15'), Barbarian 5 (+10'), Wizard 5 (to cast haste), Rogue 2 (for cunning action for the bonus action dash), wood elf, Transmuter's Stone, and Mobile and be at 80' without outside help, for a total of 640' per round.

Piratecat · Oct 21, 2014

I figure the same transmuter who's lending him the transmuter stone is casting haste. TEAMWORK!

For haste, "the target's speed is doubled." Expeditious retreat just gives you bonus dashes. I think it pretty clearly (at least RAW) doubles all bonuses, although I wouldn't blame a DM who limited that.

I like to think of it as, if you start within 5 feet of an enemy, you can circle him 17 times without drawing an opportunity attack.

Zaruthustran · Oct 21, 2014

You're already relying on outside help for the Haste, so why not rely on outside help for the Philosopher's Stone? Maybe it's the same wizard friend who's boosting you.

Pick up Expeditious Retreat through Magic Initiate--now you don't need that Wizard level.

So instead, go with Monk 18 and Fighter 2. Action Surge! You've added another Dash to your arsenal.

That's land speed, in high elf form.

You could also try mixing Monk with two levels of Druid, and Wild Shape into a cheetah. ;p Not sure if the bonus to base speed will net out as being worth more than an entire additional Dash action.

Piratecat · Oct 22, 2014

chriton227 said:
How about Monk 14 for the +25' move, Barbarian 5 for the +10' move, and Wiz 1 for the Expeditious Retreat, along with the wood elf, Transmuter's Stone, and Mobile feat, and a friend with haste, that should get the speed up to 90' for a total of 720' per round.

That's about 82 MPH. [MENTION=1457]Zaruthustran[/MENTION]'s brings us up to 850 feet for the first round. The PC can't maintain it, but for those 6 seconds the character hits 96.5 MPH. Nice.

EDIT: with Zarathustran's additional suggestion (movement from a battle master fighter), we're up to 850 feet + 85 feet = 935 feet in one round. That's 106.25 MPH. Dang.

Zaruthustran · Oct 22, 2014

Since we're already allowing outside help: how about a friendly Battle Master with Manuevering Strike? Now we can move 1/2 Speed off-turn as a Reaction.

Doesn't affect single-turn distance, but does give net gain in single-round distance.

Piratecat · Oct 23, 2014

Sure! That's an extra 85 feet. Totally worth it. I'm amused that the half-move is almost three times a normal person's move.

RangerWickett · Oct 23, 2014

The newly spoiled Ring of Spell Storing could get you the haste.

Of course, if you jumped from a sufficient height, you could go much faster than 90 mph, albeit only in one direction.

The fastest move speed I ever accomplished in 3.5 involved lining up ponies with a 5-ft. gap between them. Then get a 1st level ranger (or anyone with a +9 Ride check, 4 ranks, +2 Dex, +3 Skill Focus) to mount as a free action, dismount on the far side, mount the next pony, repeat. You can move as far as there are ponies available, and still take your move action after that.

For optimal freight transportation, first have a hundred 1st level shifter druids (from the PHB2) pick up cargo equal to 5x their maximum load, then shapeshift into cats. Everything they carry is subsumed into their own form, effectively eliminating their weight. Put all the cats into a bag of holding (which could easily hold a hundred cats). You've now got a bag of holding that effectively contains twenty tons or so of freight. Have your Ranger lightning bolt across the world, then retrieve the cats and have them return to human form to deposit all they carried. The druids can do this at-will.

Of course, the hard part is lining up ponies over the span of hundreds of miles. That said, I'm pretty sure the rules don't quite specify what a steed is, so I'd say anything you can mount works, such as, say, a pommel horse. Building those should be way easier than building an actual railroad, and this is much faster.