D&D 5E Looking for a good combat Monk build. Any help?

DND_Reborn · Jun 23, 2019

The title says it all. I am thinking of making a monk but I would like him to be effective in combat and so far see little that encourages me to think monks can be really good at fighting.

If anyone knows strategies or builds I'd be grateful. Thanks!

Xeviat · Jun 23, 2019

I feel like monks are already pretty good at combat. Early on, you're doing equal damage to a Rogue with equal hp and AC, and you have flurry as a back pocket ability when you need to do more damage. Later, you have enough Ki to easily flurry every round, and you start to utilize Stunning Fist as your way to put down tough targets (since you'll have advantage on every attack after).

I feel like their damage slows down at higher levels (11 and 17 increase your die size, but that's only functionally +1 damage per hit). At that point, though, your AC starts to outstrip everyone but shield users, you get proficiency in all saves, and cheap rerolling of saves. You become very fast and very defensible. For the low cost of 1 ki, you're doing 4 attacks for 1d10+5, which is on part with a 20th level fighter without action surge. It's harder to leverage big attacks (lacking action surge, smite, or other big booms), but a lot of your subclasses make up for that.

I don't know of any specific builds. I would recommend pushing your Dex to 20 and then pushing your Wis to 20. Start with a quarterstaff in two hands for the 1d8 damage until you hit 11th level; then you can use whatever because all your monk weapons will be 1d10.

It probably really depends on what you want out of combat. All of the subclasses seem good, except for Way of the Four Elements (all you get are more ways to spend your limited Ki).

Fenris-77 · Jun 23, 2019

Some players get decent mileage out of dipping fighter for 2 or 3 levels. Lvl 2 you get action surge and a fighting style, both which add solid combat value. If you want to go to three you could go battle master and add a bunch of maneuvers to your fighting which are both effective and pretty fluffy for martial arts.

If you don't want to MC, then the advice above is solid.

jaelis · Jun 23, 2019

As for subclasses: open hand and kensei are solid. Avoid five elements, and shadow isn’t so much a combat build. I think long desth is decent, but I’m less familiar.

Xeviat · Jun 23, 2019

jaelis said:
As for subclasses: open hand and kensei are solid. Avoid five elements, and shadow isn’t so much a combat build. I think long desth is decent, but I’m less familiar.

Sunsoul makes me happy. I don't think it's the best, but it has a lot of ranged and area effect attacks that are quite fun.

FrogReaver · Jun 23, 2019

dnd4vr said:
The title says it all. I am thinking of making a monk but I would like him to be effective in combat and so far see little that encourages me to think monks can be really good at fighting.

If anyone knows strategies or builds I'd be grateful. Thanks!

For most of the game monks keep up in damage with a battlemaster fighter that doesn't use a -5/+10 ability. You have less NOVA. However, you have better defensive abilities and more control abilities. You can cover a lot of ground. You can make use of a bow (even a longbow if you are an elf).

As far as monk tactics go there are a lot of variations.

For damage go rogue
For more NOVA multiclass into battlemaster fighter
For survivability take mobile feat - allows crazy hit and run tactics

If you want out of combat abilities go shadow monk.
If you want in combat abilities go open hand monk - being able to cheaply knock prone is great especially when your not going all out on stunning strikes.

One of the most overlooked monk abilities is the bonus action dodge ability. It's great and allows you to tank almost as well as barbarians if you dump your ki into it.

As far as character build - i'm all about pumping monk until I feel I can do everything I want without having to worry much about ki. For me that starts being about level 8 or maybe a little higher. So I really don't think much about multiclassing before then.

FrogReaver · Jun 23, 2019

Open Fist Monk Tactics -
Take Mobile Feat ASAP. Move in with your extra movement, attack and flurry of blows, knock enemy prone, use 20ft of remaining movement to move out of most enemies threat range once they stand up. (Preferred Race = Wood Elf for extra movement and stat bonuses).

Shadow Monk Tactics -
#1 You have a cheap darkvision spell. Make use of it by going Variant human for whatever feat you like the look of. Healer is nice. Observant can be really good and thematic.
#2 Make use of your cheap Pass Without Trace spell. Using it often will (especially in tier 2) will allow for the party to get surprise much easier and allow some combats to be bypassed altogether.

General Monk Tactics -
Don't forget you can use a bow. If you get a bit injured there's no harm in falling back to range to avoid further damage. You can easily spend a ki to disengage to do so and still get to attack. The extra movement helps ensure you can be a relatively safe distance away that round as well.

Even if you are not an open fist month, if you take atheletics proficiency you can attempt to prone enemies with your first attack at level 5 and still use flurry of blows. On successful checks your next 3 attacks (assuming flurry of blows) are made at advantage and some allies may get advantage attacks as well. Try not to hard dump str if you want to try this. 1 level of rogue is recommended for expertise athletics.

DND_Reborn · Jun 23, 2019

Thanks all for your input so far. I was looking towards either Kensai or Open Hand, but wondered if I was missing anything. I plan to multiclass with Rogue and going with Scout for the Skirmisher feature. I'll keep reading for any other ideas.

FrogReaver · Jun 23, 2019

dnd4vr said:
Thanks all for your input so far. I was looking towards either Kensai or Open Hand, but wondered if I was missing anything. I plan to multiclass with Rogue and going with Scout for the Skirmisher feature. I'll keep reading for any other ideas.

Give your desire to multiclass I recommend Open Hand and get the mobile feat. I'm not completely sold on the skirmisher feature but the rogue in general is solid and the extra skills the scout gets are a nice addition.

The Kensai's really better for an archer monk build IMO. You get a bonus action damage increase. You get a ki based damage increase. Both of those are great for bows. The melee version gets +2 AC and the damage increase costs the same as flurry of blows and will have roughly the same effect. Until way later level it will be too expensive to consistently use both of those abilities in tandem.

Compared with the open fist who gets to spend 1 ki for flurry of blows and has the additional effect of a chance to knock prone (dex save so pretty effective) it's hard to pass up. The only issue is the higher level open fist monk abilities kinda suck, but you were going to multiclass rogue either way.

Dausuul · Jun 23, 2019

I'll cast my vote for Open Hand monk as the best all-around combatant.

The main thing to keep in mind that raw damage is not what monks do. They are a mix of damage, debuff, and control. To get good value out of a monk in combat, you need to be aware of the tactical situation and coordinate with other PCs. Your most powerful ability, Stunning Strike, is nothing special if you're the only one attacking the target... but if you land it on a monster and then the whole party unloads on that monster, the results are gruesome. And you can drop 3-4 Stunning Strikes a round if you're willing to spend the ki. (Take it from a DM with a monk-loving player: Boss monsters hate Stunning Strike. I've seen that guy burn through a boss's Legendary Resistance, all of it, in a single turn.)

The Open Hand Technique options don't deal extra damage but are very good tactical tools. You can knock enemies off cliffs. You can run around a ranged attacker and push it 30 feet into reach of your slow, tanky fighter friend, or put a melee attacker out of reach of the wizard in the back. If you can get to a flying enemy, you can knock it out of the air by making it prone. And if an enemy is so foolish as to use the Ready action where you can see them, you can shut that right down.

If MCing rogue, keep in mind that Cunning Action and Martial Arts will be competing for your bonus action each round.

If you have a spare feat lying around, give some thought to Magic Initiate: Druid. Druid? Yes, druid. Shillelagh is your jam. Take the weapon you were probably using anyway, and turn it into a Wisdom-based attack. Then max out Wisdom instead of Dexterity* and make your save DCs two points higher.

[size=-2]*Eventually you will want to max them both, but that doesn't happen until 16th level.[/size]