Does A Monk Actually Benefit From Taking Mobile?

So in our side-game we have a party that just reached level 4 . A conquest paladin who's planing on taking sentinel, a Multiclasser (Mystic-1/Theurge Wizard-3) who has been taking a lot of control and support spells, a lore bard who is acting as another support, and my Aaracokra tranquility monk. There have been issues before with the conquest paladin, but through RP we've been working on the party conflicts.

Anyways, my stats are as follows

7-Str
20-Dex
14-Con
6-Int
17-Wis
14-Cha

(Yes we rolled and because of my pretty deece luck I put a lot of limiters on myself in the form of vows. All of them are flavor only, and so far its made me play my monk in a pretty different way than what I'm used to)

My party doesn't think there's any value in me taking the mobile feat because I'm already so fast, but I think it would be great for covering retreats and also opportunistic re-positioning due to not provoking AoO's from people. This would also allow us to catch up to a shadow monk that we've captured should she decide to attempt escape (Its a long story). They did bring up some tempting ones like observant and I like it as well. This was supposed to be a mystery type game, so either of them are good, but that got me thinking whether or not mobile was even useful.

So, what's your take on this?



Those vows if anyone was interested

Vow of the Chained- In order to bring awareness to/take a stand against slavery I wear chains along my wrists to symbolize the suffering and the shackles placed upon them

Vow of Truth- I am not allowed to lie, state half truths with intent to deceive, exaggerate, tell white lies etc. unless doing so would bring harm to another. if it would do so, then I must stay silent.

Vow of Poverty- I can only have 7 possessions and I can only have 7 gold set aside for myself at a time, any other gold I obtain must be given to the poor, donated to a church, or some other form of charity

Vow of Peace- I can't strike first in combat. When combat starts I can't deal damage for the first 2 rounds of combat. I must always give my opponents the option to either flee surrender or enter a civil society. if they are unable to do these things then and only then would it be acceptable for me to kill it.

Vow of Fasting- I can only eat rice or other bland/staple foods and I can only drink water. On religious holidays I may be allowed to eat a small portion of other bland, simple food to maintain proper nutrition. I also can't use alcohol, tobacco, drugs, potions, or other items that require me to eat or drink them.

No, Mobile is mostly redundant on a Monk.

Bonuses to movement speed decrease in benefit the more movement you have.

In order to avoid OAs you need to attack the creature first which means you're probably not attacking the ones you really want. It also doesn't stop creatures from just walking up to you and attack you on their turn.

There is benefit to it but it's not worth a feat. You esp. want to use your ASIs for Dex and Wis as they are both important for the Monk.

All that said, do what you want. You want to take it? Then take it. Don't mind what other people in the party want you to do.

Mobile is a pretty good feat for monks. But since you can get the main benefit for 1 ki point and a bonus action, I'd say it's not as good as more AC, which you can get by raising Wisdom. It really depends on whether you want to bonus action for something else (like two extra attacks...)

Observant will also let you raise your Wisdom bonus by +1, so that's a very strong choice for you.

Mobile will be great on a monk. You will be able to actually use hit and run tactics for no KI cost. You will be able to easily break away from the big melee at a moments notice and screen fodder off your squishier allies. You will be able to easily maneuver to the important target and start stunning / flurrying of blows it.

However, your Vow of Peace greatly limits any benefits you may have with the feat as you get virtually no use from the feat for the first 2 rounds of combat. So for your monk I'm not so sure.

FrogReaver said:

Mobile will be great on a monk. You will be able to actually use hit and run tactics for no KI cost. You will be able to easily break away from the big melee at a moments notice and screen fodder off your squishier allies. You will be able to easily maneuver to the important target and start stunning / flurrying of blows it.

However, your Vow of Peace greatly limits any benefits you may have with the feat as you get virtually no use from the feat for the first 2 rounds of combat. So for your monk I'm not so sure.

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The way I've been working with that has been to move around and disarm people(dmg page 270 I think) and I've also been a bit of an evasion tank, going out in front to take some attacks which I have a high enough AC to dodge (as well as taking the dodge action)

ad_hoc said:

No, Mobile is mostly redundant on a Monk.

Bonuses to movement speed decrease in benefit the more movement you have.

In order to avoid OAs you need to attack the creature first which means you're probably not attacking the ones you really want. It also doesn't stop creatures from just walking up to you and attack you on their turn.

There is benefit to it but it's not worth a feat. You esp. want to use your ASIs for Dex and Wis as they are both important for the Monk.

All that said, do what you want. You want to take it? Then take it. Don't mind what other people in the party want you to do.

Click to expand...

I agree that movement is less good if it's the only thing going for you, but like I mentioned before, we might need to catch a person. I've also used this before to carry our paladin and effectively boost his speed/reposition him. Not carrying a lot of items and him being light are pretty handy.

Yes I do have to attack in order to avoid AoO's, but the amount of attacks that monks get as well as the fact that you can move between your attacks makes me think it's alright

I agree that Dex and Wis are pretty important, but I've already got so much of them that I think I could skirt by.

Not being able to attack in the two most important rounds of combat is the big limiter for mobile on a monk.

Being able to attack and move with impunity does allow more disarm, trip, and shove, attempts against more targets, though. Not as good as the Drunken Master’s feature, but still good.

doctorbadwolf said:

Not being able to attack in the two most important rounds of combat is the big limiter for mobile on a monk.

Being able to attack and move with impunity does allow more disarm, trip, and shove, attempts against more targets, though. Not as good as the Drunken Master’s feature, but still good.

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The DM and I made it and worded it in such a way that allows for me to run around disarming people/AC tanking. I can't deal damage, distinctly diffrent than I can't do anything.

Allistar1801 said:

I agree that movement is less good if it's the only thing going for you, but like I mentioned before, we might need to catch a person. I've also used this before to carry our paladin and effectively boost his speed/reposition him. Not carrying a lot of items and him being light are pretty handy.

Yes I do have to attack in order to avoid AoO's, but the amount of attacks that monks get as well as the fact that you can move between your attacks makes me think it's alright

I agree that Dex and Wis are pretty important, but I've already got so much of them that I think I could skirt by.

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Well, not if you're using Flurry. Both of those need to come immediately after the last attack of the attack action. Personally I'd rather eat an OA from a mook (if it comes to it) and get my full attacks against the target I'm trying to Stunning Strike than take a feat so I can use an attack to avoid an OA. The amount of times that specific scenario will happen is pretty rare.

If you need to avoid many OAs then you have a Monk ability for that. If you need defense, you have another Monk ability for that too (Dodge).

But, as I said, take the thing you think will be most fun. Maybe that is Mobile, maybe it is something else like Observant which will help you engage with a different pillar. In a vacuum if I had to take a (combat) feat as a Monk I like Alert.

ad_hoc said:

Well, not if you're using Flurry. Both of those need to come immediately after the last attack of the attack action. Personally I'd rather eat an OA from a mook (if it comes to it) and get my full attacks against the target I'm trying to Stunning Strike than take a feat so I can use an attack to avoid an OA. The amount of times that specific scenario will happen is pretty rare.

If you need to avoid many OAs then you have a Monk ability for that. If you need defense, you have another Monk ability for that too (Dodge).

But, as I said, take the thing you think will be most fun. Maybe that is Mobile, maybe it is something else like Observant which will help you engage with a different pillar. In a vacuum if I had to take a (combat) feat as a Monk I like Alert.

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Yeah, you do get monk abilities to avoid stuff like this, but ki is a pretty valuable resource at low tier play and you dont want to use it for just anything. Just as well it consumes your bonus action meaning less attacks and less damage/you're in the same spot except now you're down a ki point. If it comes down to it i can eat an AoO, but I'd rather not do that very often.

About the flurry thing correct me if Im wrong, but doesnt flurry just give you two attacks? If its the case that you cant re-target wouldn't the extra attack feature be the same way?