D&D 5E Feats for Monks

[Guest 6801328]

Crusher in the new UA is really good for monks,

Yes, except that the official version in Tasha's doesn't allow you to choose Dexterity for the +1 ASI, unlike Slasher and Piercer,

 

[CleverNickName]

Here's one I cooked up for my wife's monk.

Shadow Blade Technique​

Your mastery of shadow and stealth has transcended your peers, giving you new offensive and defensive powers.​

Prerequisites: Ki class feature, Shadow Arts class feature​

• Your Wisdom score increases by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You add Blur, Shadow Blade, and Zephyr Strike to your list of Shadow Arts.

Once upon a time, it also permanently increased the monk's ki points by 2, but that was a bit over-the-top so I cut it.

 

[jgsugden]

The basic problem is that monks get a huge amount of usefulness out of both dexterity and wisdom increases. As such, it is hard to compete with those benefits for a feat. +2 Dex = +1 to hit, +1 to damage (when making more attacks than most other party members), +1 AC, +1 dex saves, +1 stealth/acrobatics/sleight/thieves tools, and +1 initiative. +2 wisdom improves ability DCs, +1 AC, +1 wisdom saves and +1 insight/perception/animal handling/medicine and survival. That +1 to DCs is on abilities that often have no action costs as they do not require a separate bonus or full action, but instead trigger when you do something that uses a bonus action or action - making them very valuable.

You can choose a feat for role playing reasons, but for all the people playing for power gaming efficiency, ASIs for dex and wis are often the best.

 

[Flamestrike]

So when the new UA came out, I was really hoping to see something with 'monk' written all over it....and not so much.

There is literally a feat in Tashas that lets you increase your unarmed damage to 1d8.

From 1st level if you're human/ custom lineage.

 

[Gammadoodler]

There is literally a feat in Tashas that lets you increase your unarmed damage to 1d8.

From 1st level if you're human/ custom lineage.

Sure. Tasha's wasn't out yet at the time of this post. And it's good for most of the normal levels of play for a monk. It's not really a good comp for polearm master/great weapon master/sharpshooter though, as all those maintain combat relevance at all levels of play.

 

[Flamestrike]

Sure. Tasha's wasn't out yet at the time of this post. And it's good for most of the normal levels of play for a monk. It's not really a good comp for polearm master/great weapon master/sharpshooter though, as all those maintain combat relevance at all levels of play.

You can swap it out for a different F/S at higher level though. The Superior technique that gives you a manoeuvre known and a superiority dice is always useful as is Blind Fighting (thematic for a Monk too), or thrown weapon mastery (you can peg d10 + 2 + Dex damage shuriken).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes, except that the official version in Tasha's doesn't allow you to choose Dexterity for the +1 ASI, unlike Slasher and Piercer,

True, and we did mention that the UA things might be changed. Blind Fighting is much improved over the UA version.