D&D (2024) D&D 5e 2024 Monk Handbook

[Not a Decepticon]

As we have enough information,I have decided to get early on the game and start making the Monk handbook, since I actually find the Monk one class that changed significantly, and I kinda enjoy what they're doing with it. Contents of this post have been based off a material currently avialable, with premiere of handbook some of this may be subject to change.

1. Color Guide
2. Party Roles
3. Ability Scores
4. Class Features
5. Subclasses
6. Species
7. Feats
8. Skills
9. Backgrounds
10. Sample Builds
11. Multiclassing
    1. Weapon Masteries
    2. Fighting Styles
    3. maneuvers
    4. Spells
    5. Sample Builds

Color guide

• Red - either not worth it or actively making you worse
• Orange - situational or limited, but not universally awful
• Purple - neutral choice - stronger than orange but still more limited than green
• Green - Solid choice
• Blue - Amazing!

Party Roles & the Core Fantasy of Being a Monk
The Monk's core fantasy is that of a martial artist, who fights without armor, often even without weapons. Monk is someone who relies on tier hand-to-hand combat training and regurally surpasses human ability through sheer skill, focus and determination.

Monk in 2024 D&D zips across the battlefield. Your abilities focus on hit and run tactics, making you you hard to hit back. You have incredible control over what you want to do with your action and bonus action, to the point I would describe the class as closest 5e ever got to Pathfinder 2e's superior 3-action economy. However, you do not have many hit points and your core resource - Focus - is limited. In many ways Monk acts less like a fantastical martial artist, and more like a Speedster. I expected the video above and instead got this
Which isn't inherently bad, but requires some expectation readjusting.

• Skirmisher - Monk's bread and butter. Go in, punch people, go out without being hit back, repeat.
• Battlefield Controller - your great movement allows you to rush into the group of enemies and harass them in many ways, varying from stunning, making them fall down, unleashing limited AoE as an Elements Monk, or just taking down people who are squishy and were suppsoed to be protected.
• Setup - The way you can move the enemies, or impose conditions actually makes you a good support frontliner for a dedicated damage dealer. Knock enemiws prone, stun them and then let Rogue, Paladin or Ranger finish them off.
• Duelist - This is a fun one, but situational. Grab a single dangerous enemy, drag them away from combat and keep there, beating them down while your buddies finish their buddies. Workd especially well against enemy spellcasters.
• Dodge Tank - Take dodge, sometimes with other bonus actions, go into group of enemies and do something they won't like - you will be drawing aggro, while being attacked with disadvantage and your buddies can safely shoot them at a distance. The problem is your AC is mediocre, so you need ways to boost it up, like specific spells or feats.
• Damage Dealer - This is purple because it's orange on lower levels, when you will need to compensate for your meekly d6 and then rely on mediocre d8, but once your martial arts die gets to d10, this turns to green. At highest level, a pure monk would be making six d12+7 attacks per turn, while a Monk with two levels of Fighter can do eight for d12+5

Ability Scores

• Strength - You get all you want from it - good save and bonus to shove and grapple checks - through other means. Still, there are builds in which it may be a good idea to have at least 10 in here
• Dexterity - The main core of this class, it's in your interest to maximalize it as fast as possible
• Constitution - The undumpable stat, argurably most important stat in the game
• Intelligence - You cannot afford to invest in this one
• Wisdom - Second most important stat, that you should maximalize, as not only it determines your AC but also Saving Throw Difficulty of your various abilities.
• Charisma - Again, you cannot afford it

Class Features

• Hit Dice: d8 that sadly leaves you way behind other martials, who have d10s. It could be worse, do not listen to people saying Monk has a second worst hit die in the game - majority of the classes have d8.
• Saving Throws: Strength and Dexterity, so one of two most important saves in the game and one that is rarer, but still sees some use.
• Skill Proficencies: 2 from Acrobatics, Athletics, Insight, History, Religion or Stealth, rather limited list
• Weapon Proficencies: Simple Meele weapons and Martial Weapons with Light property. Limited and WEIRD as it randomly includes single two-handed weapon and a single type of crossbow, but not sling.
• Toll Proficenices: nothing relevant to mechanical side of the game, these are mostly for roleplay. Cobblet's Tools could potentially see some use, but that's it.
• Armor Training: WHAT Armor?

Martial Arts - you can use following features when fighting unarmed or with one of Monk Weapons, which are Smilple Meele Weapons and light martial weapons.

• Bonus Unarmed Strikes - You can make an Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action. This is good at early levels - take dodge and then attack with this. Falls off later, once you get more to do with your Bonus Action, but remains solid backup option if you run out of Focus.
• Dexterous Attacks - Substitute your DEX in place for STR for attacks and damage, the base of the Monk's class.
• Martial Arts Dice - You can replace your damage die with your Martial Arts Die. It begins at d6, goes up to d8 at 5th level, d10 at 11th and d12 at 17th. You may consider using a weapon with better damage for early 4 levels and later begin substituting for it.

Unarmored Defense - When ot wearing an armor and shield you can add your WIS modifier to your Armor Class. On its own, it's mediocre, as it gives you worse armor class than wearing a starting level armor. It gets better with taking Dodge and then using Bonus Action for Unarmed Strike, however. Gets even better at 20th level, but Dodge Tank's main hurdle is to boost it up before you get there.

Monk's Focus - You gain Focus Points equal your Monk level, that you regain on short or long rest. You also get a bunch of cool abilities that you can agument by spending focus. Sadly you suffer from dependency on Focus that makes this your most important resource. You're not in any fight for the long run and you want to short rest often. The abilities get buffed at level 10 with heightened Focus, raising this to low Green.

• Flurry of Blows allows you to turn your Bonus Unarmed Strike into two Unarmed Strikes for 1 Focus Point, allowing you to make whooping three attacks on this level. At level 10 you can make three attacks with bonus action isntead, more than level 20 Fighter without Action Surge, upgradind this to Blue.
• Patient Defense allows you to Disengage as a Bonus action or Diseangage and Dodge at the same bonus aciton time, for 1 Focus Point. At level 10 whenever you use it you also roll your martial arts die and regain that many Hit points.
• Step of the Wind allows you to Dash as a bonus action or Dash and Diseangage as a single Bonus Action, for 1 Focus Point, and you can double your jump distance. This allows you to run past enemy lines without being hit and deck enemy wizard in the face. At level 10 you can grab a willing creature with you, for full Speedster experience.

Uncanny Metabolism - Once per long rest, if you roll Initiative without Focus Points left, you can regain them all. Great to keep you focused, pun very much intended, in fight, but makes me qustion why this wasn't incorproated into Monk's Focus or why they just didn't give us more Monk's Focus to begin with.

Unarmored Movement - You gain +10 extra feet of movement when not wearing armor and using a shield, it will increase with levels up to 30 feet at level 20. Combined with Step fo the Wind, it makes you the speedster of the party - if taking move, dash and step of the wind in the same turn, 20th level monk can move 180 feet.

Deflect Attacks - As a reaction you can reduce a single attack against you, meele or ranged, by 1d10+DEX modifier+monk level, so this scales up from 18 damage (assuming average rolls and 16 DC) when you get it, up to 37 damage at level 20. If you reduce damage to zero, you can spend one Focus to redirect it at another target, forcing them to make a DEX save or take damage equal two rolls of your Martial Arts die + your DEX. At 13th Level, this also applies to deflecting any type of Damage. It's a good use of your reaction, especially when RAW, even before Level 13, it allows you to deflect any attack that contains bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage, even if it does something like 1 slashing and 10f6 lightning. Sadly, it scales slowly.

Slow Fall - When you are falling you can use your reaction to reduce damage from the fall by your Monk level x5. Definition fo Situational, but it looks cool.

Extra Attack - you can Attack twice, instead of once, as a part of an Attack Action. This will add up, and you can now juggle your actions across action and bonus action as you see fit.

Stunning Strikes - It got nerfed from 2014 to once per turn, but remains strong. Whenever you hit anyone with a Monk Weapon or Unarmed Strike, you can force them to make a CON save for one Focus. If they fail, they're stunned - meaning they fail STR and DEX saves, cannot take actions or reactions, move (though there is debate about that one) or coherently speak and attacks on them have advantage - until start of your next turn. If they succeed, they're basically hit with both Slow and Vex weapon masteries. My advice is to use this early in turn to set a strong enemy up for onslaught of weapon masteries and similair abilities.

Empowered Strikes - You can change damage type of your Unarmed Strikes to Force, effectively bypassing resistances. However, it also screws you over if you were using Crusher, so better carry something for that.

Evasion - You know spells that make you save vs damage, where if you suceed you only get half damage? This makes it you take no damage and if you fail you only take half. It only targets Dexterity Saves, but this is a most common save in the game. In theory you could walk out of Meter Swarm or Scroll fo Comet unscrached with this and a lucky roll. Thankfully WotC backed off from trying to poach this for naughty word Bard, not they get it at level 14.

Acrobatic Movement - you can now run up the vertical surfaces and on liquids, as long as you don't end your turn there. And even then, when running up a wall you should be able to hold yourself with an Athletic Check. This allows for some fun shenanigans.

Self-Restoration - you no longer need to eat and you can, at the end of your turn, no action required, just...stop being poisoned, charmed or frightened. Very useful to avoid common enemy debuffers, but also very balanced to not make them entierly useless. I bump it up to Green for good game design.

Disciplined Survivor - You gain proficiency in all Saving Throws and can spend one Focus to reroll a faield save. This is a powerful defensive option, that will likely save your bacon many, many times. Truly worthy higher levels.

Perfect Focus - When you roll initiative and have less than 4 Focus, you have 4 focus. This is so weak it would be mediocre on low levels, even with improvement that makes it more useful, this high and next to Discipliend Survivor it looks like a bad joke.

Superior Defense - For 3 Focus you can gain resistance to all damage except Force for one minute. Another strong defensive option, but you can only use it at begining of your turn.

Body and Mind - DEX and WIS get up by 4 each, and you can get them even to 26, if you find a way. This means +2 to your attacks, damage, AC and save DC. If you get DEX and WIS to 20, you get AC of 24 and Save DC 21. Truly great capstone, that shapes how you interact with things like multiclassing - in games that do get to level 20 you actually want to stay as full Monk, while in the games where you will never go there, things are more nuanced.

Subclasses - You gain Subclass Features on levels 3, 6, 11 and 17

• Warrior of Elements- solid damage dealer, that feels less like the Avatar and more like a Super Sayan.
  • Elemental Attunment: You can spend 1 Focus to enter a super mode of sorts, in which you can choose a type of damage - acid, cold, fire or lightning, and deal them in place of your normal Unarmed Strike's bludgeoning damage (a lot of features of this subclass talk about damage type and its always these 4). It also extends your reach by 10 feet and you can force a saving throw on the target you hit to push them 10 feet away or forward. It changes your damage to less resisted types, let's you move them around, gives you reach. It's a ten minutes super mode that vastly increases your power.
  • Manipulate Elements - you get Elementalism, a cantrip that is basically Druid's prestidigitation, because apparently Druidcraft wasn't doing the job. I can see some uses of it and veterans always tell you this kind of cantrips is very powerful, but maybe it speaks of me as a player I never could do half amazing things they say these cantrips allow. Still, it's an extra stuff with minimum utility.
  • Elemental Burst - For 2 Focus you can cast a worse fireball - same range, same radius, same saving throw, but it deals damage equal three rolls of your Martial Art Die...which is a funny connection between a large explosion and martial arts die. Wizards finally introduced to the game PUNCHES FROM PUNCH DIMENSION. Anyway, the damage begins as 3d8 and goes up to 3d12. Average fireball hits for 32 damage per creature and this will be hitting for 15, so it's slightly worse than a half of real fireball. It scales up to doing on average 21 per creature, so it never catches up to even base fireball. Still, Fireball is evergreen spell for a reason, so weaker, more balanced version is still a good asset, especially when you lack better ranged options or AoEs. Also, you can change its damage type to something less resisted than fire, if you feel like.
  • Stride of Elements - Now whenever you activate Elemental Attunment, you get flying and swimming speed equal your basic speed. Meaning with Grappler feat you can just grab a guy, fly up and drop him to his death. This subclass was suppsoed to be the Avatar, but the more we go the more I think this is what Aang would be doing if Amazon got to do the live action....
  • Elemental Epitome - When you use Elemental Attunment, you gain resistance to one of 4 damage types, but can change it each turn. Whenever you take Step of the Wind you get additional 20 feet of movement and deal d12 of damage of type you're resisting to any creature you pass by 5 feet this turn. And you deal extra damage die of type you're resting on the Unarmed Strikes once per turn. Solid increase in everything, I especially recommend taking Step of the Wind, Dash and basic move in one round and just burn a whole army by flying above it.
• Warior of Mercy- This one was always seen as overpowered, so almost nothing about it changed. It remains a ton of bs that makes other subclasses look bad, but thankfully other classes rose up to its level
  • Hands of Healing - for 1 Focus or by replacing one of your attacks in Flurry of Blows, you can heal someone, including yourself, for roll of your Martial Arts Die + your Wisdom Modifier. At 6th level you can also remove blinded, deafened, paralyzed, poisoned, or stunned condition from the target, and on 11th level you can replace all your attacks in a flurry with healing for free, but you can only use those healing hands a number of times equal your Wisdom modifier per Long Rest.
  • Hands of Harm - When you hit with your unarmed strike, you can spend 1 Focus to deal it additional Martial Arts Die+Wisdom modifier of necrotic damage, once per turn. At 6th level you can also make them poisoned unti lthe end of your next turn. At 11th level you can add this to one of your Flurry attacks without paying Focus, but you can still use it only once per turn. Solid damage upstage, going from 7 on average, at low levels, to an average of 14 at level 20.
  • Hand of Ultimate Mercy - you can spend 5 focus to BRING THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE, as long as they died recently. They regain 4d10+your WIS modifier hit points and if they had any conditions you could remove with Hands of Healing, they no longer have them. You can use it once per Long Rest. You BRING BACK THE DEAD, that's what this does.
• Warrior of Open Hand - the go-to hand to hand expert, it has a mixture of great highs and low lows, but the highs allows it to stand on equal gorund with the other subclasses
  • Open Hand Technique - Whenever you hit with your Flurry of Blows, you can either make target unable to take reactions, or make them roll saving throws to not be knocked prone or pushed 15 feet away. With three attacks of Flurry, you can use all three of them on a single creature or the same one three times on different targets, on any combination of these. Combines great with a Weapon Masteries that do similair tihngs.
  • Wholeness of Body - A minor healing, that sadly eats your bonus action. It's more something to help in a pinch. I think it's actually worse as a bonus action than 2014 version, which was an action - you could multiclass with fighter and use this and second wind in the same turn - now you probably has something better to do with that bonus actions.
  • Fleet Step: Now you can add Step of the Wind (Dash or Dash+Disengage for 1 Focus) to any other Bonus action. Meaning you can Dash, Dodge and Diseangage as a single bonus action, or you can run up to someone, punch them five times, grapple them with Grappler Feat, and dash away with them in hands, for more grappler sheanigans.
  • Quivering Palm: You can spend 4 Focus when you hit a target to set up a saving throw you can activate as an action at any time within a number of DAYS equal your Monk level. On a failed save target takes 10d12 necrotic damage, half as much on a succesful one, up to 120 damage, 70 on average. It is sadly no longer the One Punch Man ability it was in 2014 version and while the damage is solid, I do not find it very impressive when your enemies have even 300+ hit points. Still, it's that one scene from Kill Bill, so the flavor is spot on.
• Warrior of Shadows- now this is a master of movement, manipulating darkness to remain hidden and strike from shadows and moving where Monk clearly should not. It is the most solid subclass, with every ability being a banger.
  • Shadow Arts - You can cast Minor Illusion, get 60 ft Darkvision or 60 ft increase of Dakrvision if you already have one (Orc, Dwarf or Drow just get 180 Darkvision now) and can spend 1 Focus to cast Darkness, except you can see in it and move it at the start of each of your turns. Notably, it may be one of the only ways to move Darkness in new rules.
  • Shadow Step - As a Bonus Action, when in darkness or dim light, you can teleport into another such area within 60 feet, and then have advantage on your next melee attack until end of that turn. At level 11 you can spend 1 focus to remove the requirement you need to be in darkness to use this and can immediatelly make one Unarmed Strike as a part of a Bonus Action. If you ever see me here calling other bonus action to teleport options subpar, this is why - nothing compares to this. It actually is better movement than Step of the Wind, until late game.
  • Cloak of Shadows - Whenever you're in Darkness or Dim light, for 3 Focus you can for 1 minute, or until you step in bright light, become Invisible, move through creatures or objects as if they were intangible, as long as you do not end movement inside of one, and use Flurry of Blows without paying. Open Hand watches you jealous for the last ability alone.

Species

• Aasimar - Darkvision 60 ft, useful Light cantrip, you get resistance to TWO damage types that are pretty common, and three different transformations, allowing you to either fly, deal radiant damage or terrify anyone who gets too close, each one which is great for Monk. On the other hand, your mediocre healing, that you cannot even apply to yourself, and the fact your auras use your bonus action, drags it down to Green.
• Dragonborn - Darkvision, 10 minutes flight and a resistance and AoE that can replace one of your attacks, and you can either choose to be resistant to a common damage type, but have your AoE more often resisted, or the other way around? What's not to love here?
• Dwarf - Darkvision 120 ft. Resistance to a common damage type, poison, and advantage against being poisoned and you get an additional hit point per level, making you effectively have d10 for hp. Great defensive option. Even the weakest ability, tremorsense, is more situational than actually weak.
• Elf- Advantage against being charmed and Darkvision, plus proficiency in Insight, Perception or Survival are decent,
  • Drow - increase Darkvision to 120 feet, gets you free Darkness and , weirdly, Faerie Fire. Which seems a very un-Drow spell, but is very useful, but Shadow Monk should be careful when aiming it to not get hit themselves. Dancing Lights is....dancing lights, spell I do not think anyone ever uses.
  • High Elf - Misty Step is kinda useless as a trade-off for Step of the Wind, Detect Magic is useful, but the real draw of this option is picking up cantrips and changing them as you feel like, allowing you some minor versitalisty
  • Wood Elf - Longstrider and Pass Without Trace and extra 5 feet of movement play into Monks strength very well. Druidcraft isn't bad.
• Gnome: Darkvision and permament advantage in what will probably be your two dump stats and your second strongest stat? That's pretty strong.
  • Forest Gnome: Minor Illusion and Speak with Animals are very situational spells
  • Rock Gnome: Prestidigitation with extra bonuses and mending. Slightly less situational.
• Goliath: Large Form gets you greater reach, which means more crowd control, and it pairs well with Open Hand at higher levels, but it requires a bit of setup due to using bonus action. Powerful Build helps you get out from grapples, hopefully so you can uno-reverse that. Giant Ancestry gives you one of several benefits of your choice you can use your proficiency times per long rest:
  • Cloud's Jaunt - you can use your bonus action to Misty Step....or you could use it to Step of the Wind way further away.
  • Fire's Burn- 1d10 fire damage on a hit. Not bad, but fire is the most resisted damage type in game, which makes it much less impressive.
  • Frost's Chill - less damage, but a slightly less resisted type and you get to slow down your target, making you even better at skirmishes.
  • Hill's Tumble - You can just knock someone prone, no save, up to six times at higher levels. Even if they're large and you're not. Even Open Hand wants it, as it allows you to knock prone with your regular attacks or impose two conditions with single hit through flurry of blows.
  • Stone's Endurance - a slightly good way to boost survivability.
  • Storm's Thunder - wastes your reaction for mediocre damage.
• Halfling - This species is PACKED. You can reroll your 1s on attacks and skill checks and saving throws, you can move through space of other creatures, you have advantage against being frightened and small bonus to stealth.
• Human - You get a free origin feat, a free skill and one use of inspiration? This species would only be better if selecting it had WotC book you with a massage palour. Then again, last time WotC sent someone to a client's house it wasn't pretty...
• Orc - 120 feet Darkvision, you can sometimes get miniscule hp from taking dash as a bonus action and one time you get reduced to 0 you can do your best "I didn't hear no bell"/"I can do this all day" impression. Monks are squishy, this will probably save you few times, but it diminishes at higher levels.
• Tiefling- Darkvision 60 ft and thaumaturgy cantrip are fine, but Tieflings shine in Fiendish Legacy, which give you damage resistance and at lest one ranged atack option.
  • Abyssal - Worth it for the Hold Person alone. Posion Resistance pairs well with Self-Restoration and you can actually try to pay enemies back with poison spray and ray of sickness. What keeps it from being blue is that poison is the second commonly resisted damage type
  • Chtonic - Good resistance to necrotic damage, another common type. Chill Touch is good against undead and false life can slightly increase your survivability. Sadly, ray of efeeblement is pretty weak.
  • Infernal - Resistance to most common damage type, offset by two spells dealing that type of damage, which is also most commonly resisted. Darkness let's other subclasses steal a bit from Shadows handbook and even Shadow Monk will benefit from an extra use of Darkness without paying Focus.

Feats
Origin Feats - you gain one origin feat tied to your background, humans get an additional one.

• Alert - I actually can see it being used, especially with Open Hand or with Stunning Strike - you have good dexterity so you will be rolling from +5 to +7 on Initiative. So you will go first usually. Meaning you can open every fight either doing stunning strike and possibly toppling and pushing your enemies, or you can let someone else go first if the need arises.
• Crafter - Outside of roleplay value I just do not see this getting any use.
• Healer - I cannot see this getting useful outside of a situation where no one else plays any of the myriad classes with healing abilities, maybe Mercy Monk gets a little bit more mileage from rerolling 1s on healing.
• Lucky - You get your proficiency bonus of luck points, that you can spend on getting advantage or giving others disadvantage. It's not as broken as it once was, but can still save you in a pinch, especially when you cannot afford other options to get advantage or take patient defense. Also, works with skills as well.
• Magic Initiate - You get two cantrips and a 1st level spell from this, I have done breakdown of good choices in mulsticlassing section.
• Musician - Listen, this is a nice feat, and someone will probably take it, but that probably will be the bard.
• Savage Attacker - Once per turn you can roll damage for a weapon attack twice and pick the result. Way too limited to be useful.
• Skilled - You don't get that many skills, so this may be useful if you want to be backup/replacement Rogue
• Tavern Brawler - Overall this is a bad feat, but on a Monk it improves. The feat gives you 1d4+STR unarmed damage and lets you reroll 1s on damages of your unarmed strikes. There is 6% chance you will just reroll a 1. But with Monk's unarmed strikes that chance starts at 2% and decreases all the way down to 0.6%, outright ten times less. Add to it that you can make five unarmed strikes per turn, and it actually makes for damage improvement that will add up. Especially when, unlike Savage Attacker, it doesn't have a limit of uses per turn. You can also once per turn push someone 5 ft, no save, for slightly lesser version of what Open Hand is doing.
• Tough - Effectively translates to +4 on Constitution, or changing your hit die to d12.

General Feats: All of those Feats you can only take when you're at least 4th level, many of them may require a specific ability score be high enough, but these requirements are flexible enough. Each also gives you a +1 to one Abbility Score from selected few, I included which ones you can choose for each in (brackets), though I may have been slipping on those it's not worth taking. Ability Score Improvement, +2 to one or +1 to two Ability Scores, is now considered feat in this edition, but I did not include it, since it's a baseline everyone should keep talking. Other feats are ranked compared to it.

• Actor - It's very unlikely you will even qualify for it and you have no Charisma to capitalize on it anyway. (Charisma)
• Armor Feats - you cannot use Monk abilities in armor, do not take any of those.
• Athlete - A bunch of minor features. Really, the only thing keeping it from being Red is that a lot of animals can now knock you prone on a hit, no save, so in a specific type of game you may not want to waste half of your movement to stand up every turn. (Str or Dex or Con)
• Charger - When you take Dash, you can move 10 extra feet and if you make an attack after moving at least 10 feet you can either add d8 to your damage or push the target away. Does not work with bonus action-using attacks. You could potentially get some extra mileage out of it, but there are more reliable ways to get push. Really only worth taking if you want to maximalize your movement.
• Chef - This is one of those support feats that it's good for someone to have, but it scales poorly with levels. It may have uses for a party of other short-rest focused characters. So if you're playing two-people game with Warlock as only other party member and on low level, then this is fantastic. (Constitution or Wisdom)
• Crossbow Expert - Fun fact, Hand Crossbows count as Monk weapons now. The way this is worded means you won't be getting much from a dual wielding property. But ignoring of loading properties and firing in meele without disadvantage, while punching people with your bonus action....You wanna be fantasy John Wick? Because that's what this is for.
• Crusher - Crusher is complicated due to the fact your main source of bludgeoning damage are your unarmed strikes and damage from those you can change for much better Force damage...but the way it is written, this only applies to unarmed strikes. You have good reasons to combine this with Weapon Master or Fighter/Ranger dip, pick up a quaterstaff and effectively have weaker push on a topple weapon and vex on a crit. Would be Green if it wasn't bad if your fantasy is to fight unarmed or use weapon that already has push, like a greatclub (Strength or Constitution)
• Defensive Duelist - I do think this may actually be good if you're using a finesse weapon, like Daggers. In 2014 version this was trash, but now it's working the same way a shield spell does - use a reaction to increase your AC until beginning of your next turn. Shield is more reliable solid bonus, while this beginns at +2 and goes with proficiency all the way to +6. Before level 13 it's losing with Magic Initiate to get Shield, later it gets significantly better. (Dexterity)
• Dual Wielder - It removes light requirements form your off-hand weapon, while you're still needing it for Monk weapons. (Strength or Dexterity)
• Durable - Advantage on Death saves and you get to roll hit dice as a bonus action. Not bad, but you should probably just avoid getting down in the first place and you don't have bonus action to spare. (Constitution)
• Elemental Adept - This applies only for spells dealing one of listed damage types. If you would beg the DM to allow you use it with Elements Monk, then it becomes Blue and would even pick Goliath with Fire's Burn for it (Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma)
• Fey-Touched - I will keep going on this horse, but Misty Step is bad for 2024 Monk, who can easily move much further without provoking opportunity attacks with Step fo the Wind, but the other spell has some nice choices, see guide to spells below (Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma)
• Grappler - You can hit creatures AND grapple them at the same time. You get advantage on punching creatures you're grappling. You can move with a grappled creature without halving your speed. Your enromous Monk speed. Here is just few things you can do with this feat: Grapple up to two opponnents, then run up the wall, drop them for up to 10d6 damage per creature, and then either use athletic check to stay on the wall or run back down. Run with grappled creature over liquis, drop it in the middle and run back. Bonus points if the liquid is something like lava or acid. Carry the grappled creature while running circles over the edge of Spike Growth, making it take damage until it gets shredded. This is so much fun.
• Great Weapon Master - relies on Heavy Weapons, not for you as hard as possible. It even is literally written to not work with few weapons you can use two-handed.
• Inspiring Leader - It's another one of support feats that may be good to have, now you can tie it to Wisdom so it makes it more avialable for you. It does scale better than Chef with levels and it does add up, but make sure you're not overstepping into territorry of another player, like party face or dedicated healer. (Wisdom or Charisma)
• Keen Mind - You probably won't even qualify for it, less alone benefit from it. (intelligence)
• Mage Slayer - This is actually really good - whenever you damage creatures, you impose disadvantage on saving throws to maintain Concentration, and you can once per short or long rest just say no to a failed Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma saving throw. Meaning you, who are already the most likely to get close to magic user behind enemy lines and make even half a dozen attacks, are bound to break the enemy concentration. Defense against nasty effects like Hold Person and Banishment is very useful too. (Strength or Dexterity)
• Martial Weapon Training - You are already proficient with weapons you can use as Monk weapons. (Strength or Dexterity)
• Mounted Combatant - You are faster than most mounts, you don't want to get hit and you yourself have evasion. Having a mount is not for your. (Strength, Dexterity or Wisdom)
• Observant - This is just Skill Expert, but more limited? Why is this a separate feat? The only situations where you would want to take it is if you either took or plan taking Skill Expert for other skills than Insight, Investigation or Perception, od DM for some reason banned Skill Expert, but not this (Intelligence or Wisdom)
• Piercer - You have an access to Daggers, javelin, spears, light crossbows and shortswords, so a specific build can get some use out of this for raw damage, especially if you're going for Assassin multiclass. (Strength or Dexterity)
• Poisoner - You can make poisons in your free time. You can apply them as a bonus action for a minute or until you hit. You can effectively deal a target extra 2d8 poison damage, that ignores resistance. Sadly it's not as good as on Assassin Rogue, but may still help with raw damage. I suspect Shadow Monk will have most use of it. (Dexterity or Intelligence)
• Polearm Master - You won't be getting anything out of the bonus action hit because you're better off using Flurry or anything else... unless you run out of the focus points. You cannot use any of reach weapons reactive strike works best with...but there is just something funny about using it with a quaterstaff and toppling someone who just tried to walk to you and punch you. Very situational, but there may be some fun builds with it. (Strength, Dexterity)
• Resilent - This is good in campaigns that end before level 14, and useless after reaching level 14. But even in campaigns it is good, it will be situational, depending on whenever or not the enemies use some common type of attack, targetting specific saving throw other than DEX or STR. So it may be better in Curse of Strahd, where lot of enemies can charm the target, for example. (any you don't have saving throw proficiency in)
• Ritual Caster - This one is weird, because the way it is written this feat does not require you to actually be able to cast spells, meaning you can RAW take it, get bunch of first level spells and just always cast them as rituals. You can even cast them using shirt time, once per long rest at least. As all ritual spells must be first level, consult my spells for Monks guide below. Expect this to turn red with inevitable erratta, there is no way this is intentional. And if it isn't, well I be damned. (intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma)
• Sentinel - creatures within 5 feet of you can get hit with opportunitty attacks even if they take an effort to not, and you can reduce their speed to zero with a hit. This got heavily nerfed, but I think it may still be very helpful for a Dodge Tank or Duelist-style Monk. (Strength or Dexterity)
• Shadow Touched - Free Invisibility and one Illusion or Necromancy Spell, makes it slightly better than Fey Touched. Consult my magic guide for spell selection. (Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma)
• Sharpshooter - The only weapon you can use this with is hand crossbow, and that one is much better with Crossbow Expert, and you pretty much lose any reason to take both now that sharpshooter doesn't let you take -5 attack penalty for extra damage. (Dexterity)
• Shield Master - You don't use shields, Captain America is not a Monk.
• Skill Expert - New skill and an expertise, may be very important for many builds. (any)
• Skulker - Blindsight 10 feet, advantage on Stealth checks with Hide action, and you don't end Hidden condition on an attack roll that misses. Goes Green on Shadow Monk or any Monk that cares about beign hidden. (Dexterity)
• Slasher - you can once per turn reduce someone's speed by 10 feet and you get a better sap on crits, but only on your slashing weapons. This include handaxe (which already has vex), sickle and scimitar (which both have nick). Sadly your are raw blocked from using it on a whip to impose 20 ft speed reduction on a 10 feet reach. (Strength or Dexterity)
• Speedy - Your speed increases by 10 feet and whenever you take Dash action you ignore difficult terrain, plus opportunitty attacks against you have disadvantage, so you can sometimes save on Focus Points. Due to Step of the Wind, you get a bit more of it than other classes, especially as Open Hand. (Dexterity or Constitution)
• Spell Sniper - You don't qualify for this. If you do, it's antiethical to the way you're supposed to play the Monk and you may be a wrong class.
• Telekinetic - Beefed, more useful Mage Hand carries this feat, because if you want to shove people, you're better off picking weapon mastery, that won't eat your bonus action, or take Open Hand.
• Telepathic - Slightly more useful than Telekinetic, but still too niche. I could see Shadow Monk getting something out of it, depending on how strict your DM is.
• War Caster - You don't have spellcasting, why would you want that?
• Weapon Master - I have a big gripe with the fact that Monk didn't get anything resembling weapon mastery, with an exception limited to the Open Hand. Sesiously, when Barbarian can be said to know better about actual use of fighting technique than the martial artist, I think all flavor got thrown out of the window, crashed on the pavement and then got steamrolled. The fact you can get Weapon Mastery through this feat is a blessing, even if its limited to use with weapons. Below is a guide which masteries to pick. So, if it's so good, why is it purple? Simple - if you're not playing a game that goes to higher levels, you're better off grabbing 2-3 levels of Fighter, Ranger or Rogue.

Epic Boons - you can select those feats only if you get a Feat on level 19 or 20. So yes, if you multiclass correctly, you can get two. Almost every one of them also grants +1 to a single Ability Score from several options. I don't feel like writing "Boon of" of million times, so I will cut the names down to diffirent parts

• Combt Prowess - You can just declare you didn't mis an attack, but then you cannot use it again until yout next turn. I'm dice cursed so I cannot give it less than Green, especially when Monk gets to do so many things with their attacks, at least one I'd build. Seriously tho, you make mroe attacks than anyone else, you will get more out of it than anyone else (Any)
• Dimensional Travel - After taking attack action or casting a spell, you can teleport up to 30 feet at no action cost. Stacks with Shadow monk's abilities and makes you even more of a terror jumping around the battlefield than before. (Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma)
• Energy Resistance - you gain resistance to one of several types of damage, you can change it at long rest, and you can use reaction to redirect damage of type you're resisting to another target. Uncle Iroh redirecting lightning. On Elements Monk it means having two resistances at once. (Costitution, Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma)
• Fate - 8 times you can, once per turn, roll 2d4 to add or substract from a d20 roll. On long rest you regain 2d4 expended uses of this. Very strong, as close as we can get to what Lucky once was (Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma)
• Fortitude - This boon doesn't give you a free +1, weirdly. You gain 40 hit points permamently and once per round whenever you get hit points back you can get additional bonus equal your CON modifier. Which is probably mediocre. If you're going down often, 40 hit points may be a good idea, tho.
• Irresistible Offense: Your bludgeoning, piercing and slashing attacks ignore resistance - a must have for any build utilizing Crusher, Piercer or Slasher or using weapons at all, since you cannot turn weapon damage into Force. Also, once per turn, if you roll a critical hit, you add damage equal Ability Score increased by this feat. Not Ability Modifier, Ability Score. On a monk this can mean even 25 extra damage. (Strength or Dexterity)
• Night Spirit - You have resistance to all damage except Radiant or Psychic in Darkness or Dim Light and can become invisible as a bonus action. Shadow Monk is getting into shenanigans with this one. (Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma)
• Recovery - Once per Long Rest, when you're reduced to 0 hit points, you can instead drop to one and regain half of your hit points isntead. Amusingly it does not say you cannot use it if you're killed by massive damage like other similair abilities. Also, when you are on zero hit points and get hit, you can roll death save instead of falling it. If you liked doing the "I didn't hear no bell"/"I can do this all day" impressions, I mentioned when discussing Orc Monk, or go down often, you will get mileage out of this one. (Constitution)
• Skill - you gain proficiency in all skills, but do nto gain +1 to Ability Score. You can probably get the Proficiency much earlier on different builds, as Monk you do not need it that much.
• Speed - You can now disengage to also end grappled and restrained conditions, which is a small bonus, significantly better on Open Hand. The real sheanigans start with extra 30 feet of movement. Full Monk with this and Speedy can have 100 feet movement before even trying to Dash, which allows some of sheanigans. (Dexterity)
• Spell Recall - You're not a spellcaster.
• Truesight - 60 feet of Truesight, I guess in case no one in the party cares to pinpoint invisible enemies. This is too late to be truly useful. (Any)

Skills
Class Skills are in italics

• Acrobatics - Helps you break off grapple, which can shoot down your movement, and DM may demand a roll for various stunts you're doing
• Animal Handling - if you can get it, you may be very good at it, and the image of a Monk walking up to a bear or tiger and calmign them down (or intimidating into leaving) is very cool. If you have Ranger or Druid, you'd be stepping into their territorry, however.
• Arcana - tied to your dump stat, fits like fist to the face
• Athletics - Second one DM may ask you to roll for various stunts, also helps with grapple and many other restraining effects, if you want to be running up the walls, this allows you to not fall off.
• Deception - It's suboptimal mechanically, but I can see some flavor of picking it up, especially for Drunken Master-type who pretends to be drunk.
• History - I honestly do not get why would it be on you to pick this.
• Insight - Your social skill of choice, it gives you an important and often neglected role in social encounters. Get expertise on it and you can tell when someoen is lying majority of times, without all baggage zone of truth carries. I may be biased, as one of characters I always see as my idea of Monk is DC's Cassandra Cain and one of cool scene from her classic '99 series was when she accompannied Batman to a meeting with some cops and would just tell him whenever they're lying to his face.
• Intimidation - I wish you had Charisma to spare to use this, or if you had an ability that lets you intimidate with Wisdom. An image of an enemy that is about to pick a fight with a Monk, only to then realize how outclassed they are and back off is part of the Monk fantasy for me.
• Investigation - I see how you should be good at it, but for some reason it's tied to your Intelligence, which means you likely won't be good at it.
• Medicine - I would soo exchange History over it, it would make Healer feat more viable option
• Nature - Similiar to animal Handling, if you can get it, you'd be good at it, but make sure to not step on Ranger or Druid's toes.
• Perception - I am baffled why you don't have this on your skill list, argurably most important skill in the game and it fits Monks so well.
• Performance - As with Deception and Investigation, you don't have Ability Scores to spare to be good at it, but man, you could get a lot of flavor from beign good at it.
• Persuasion - Opposite of Intimidation, I think using it would be outright against the core fantasy of a Monk - I recal few stories where martial artist tries to diffuse the situation with some thugs and almost always has to resort to either intimidation or violence.
• Religion - Honestly, the only reason this isn't red is because a common image of warrior monk is intertwined with Buddhism, so I can see some flavor of taking this.
• Sleight of Hand - With high DEX and Stelth being so big part of Monk's fantasy, I can see you having good use of this.
• Stealth - You can do great here, with your high Dexterity. It's one of core skills of a Monk in my opinion. And since watching Enter the Dragon, I have always seen it as big part of Monk fantasy.
• Survival - Last one of "make sure you don't step into Ranger and Druid's domain before taking this".

Backgrounds
Each backgrounds provides a +3 you can distribute as either three +1s or +2 and +1 between three Ability Scores, an Origin Feat and proficiency in two skills and a tool.

• Acolyte - INT, WIS or CHA, Cleric Magic Initiate, Insight and Religion. So one relevant Ability Score, one relevant skill and a good feat. Too much of a mixed bag, the only thing keeping it from red is few multiclass builds that could benefit from it.
• Artisan - STR, DEX or INT, Crafter feat, Investigation and Persuasion, all meshes with Monk so poorly you understand why stereotypical Monk eschews material posessions.
• Charlatan - DEX, CON and CHA, Deception, Sleight of Hand and three other skills from Skilled. I can see this work on some builds, especially may be fun if you're going for drunken master roleplay, it covers few skills I complained about you not getting AND gfives you few more.
• Criminal - DEX, CON or INT, Alert, Sleight of Hand, Stealth and THIEVE'S TOOLS, one of few relevant tool proficiencies. Perfect if you want to fill for replacement Rogue.
• Entertainer - STR, DEX, CHA, Musician, Acrobatics and Performance. Not a worthy combination
• Farmer - STR, CON or WIS, Tough, Animal Handling and Nature. Good if you want to be spare Ranger and you can be a bit tankier with rounded CON and Tough. Heck, Tough alone drags it to Green.
• Guard - STR, INT, WIS, Alert, Athletics and Perception - good skills, good feat, bad Ability Scores, may work for more niche builds.
• Guide - DEX, CON or WIS, Druid Magic Initiate, Stealth and Survival, this all ads up to a very solid choice.
• Hermit - CON, WIS, CHA (ON A HERMIT??! THE DEFINITION OF ANTISOCIAL?!), Healer, Medicine and Religion. I think it's better to leave this for Clerics or Drudis it was intended for.
• Merchant - CON, INT or CHA, Lucky Feat, Animal handling and Persuasion. Lucky is good but it's not that good to justify everything else here.
• Noble - STR, INT or CHA, Skilled, History and Persuasion. Again, Skilled is not good enough to justify rest of it, just pick Charlatan.
• Sage - CON, INT or WIS, Arcana nad History, only Wizard Magic Initiatie keeps it from going into red
• Sailor - STR, DEX or WIS, Tavern Brawler, Acrobatics and Perception - it drops to Green if you go Open Hand or use weapons, but solid ASI array and good skills make it great choice.
• Scribe - DEX, INT or WIS, Skilled, Investigation and Perception. That is very nice, Investigation is only thing not sinergizing.
• Soldier - STR, DEX, CON, Savage Attacker, Athletics and Intimidation...a weak feat drags it down, the opposite of Farmer, somehow.
• Wayfarer - DEX, WIS or CHA, Lucky, Insight, Stelth and THEVE'S TOOLS. Another great option for eing replacement Rogue, even better than Criminal.

Customizing your Background - the exact rules are not yet revealed before premiere of DMG, but from what we know so far, you should be able to select an origin feat, two skills and increase to two Ability Scores. Prioritize Dexterity and Wisdom, then Constitution, select one of blue or green feats and skills. This paragraph may change once full rules are revealed.

Sample Builds

Staff Master
Human Warrior of the Open Hand Monk 20
Background: Guide: (+2 DEX +1 WIS)
STR 12 DEX 17 CON 13 INT 8 WIS 16 CHA 10
Origin: Magic Initiate Feat (Druid, Sheillagh, Cure Wounds) Bonus: Tavern Brawler
4th Weapon Master (Quaterstaff, Topple)
8th: Polearm Master
12th: +2 WIS
16th: +2 WIS
19th: Boon of Irressistible Offense

Use Quaterstaff to topple your enemies and Open Hand Technique to push them, once your Wisdom catches up to your Dexterity, start using Sheillagh

My Name is Wallace of House West and I'm Fastest Elf Alive
Wood Elf Warrior of the Open Hand Monk 20
Background: Wayfarer (+2 DEX +1 WIS)
STR: 12 DEX: 17 CON 13 INT 8 WIS 16 CHA: 10
Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Investigation, Perception
Feats:
Origin: Lucky
4th Level: Grappler
8th: Ability Score Improvement (+2 Wisdom)
12th: Speedy
16th: Charger
19th: Boon of Speed

Total Speed: 30 base feet +5 Wood Elf +10 Longstrider +30 Monk + 30 Boon of Speed +10 Speedy +10 on Dash from Charger = on two dash actions you can reach maximum speed of 365 ft per turn, or 6.9 miles per hour. Nice. You can replace Charger with Skill expert to get expertise in Atheltics for grappling.

Dodge Tank
Goliath (Hill's Tumble) Warrior of Elements Monk 20
Background: Sage
STR 10 DEX 15 CON 14 INT 8 WIS 16 CHA 12
Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Insight, Perception, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
Feats:
Origin: Magic Initiate Wizard (Blade Ward, Chill Touch, Shield),
4th: Mage Slayer (+1 DEX)
8th: +2 Wisdom
12th: +2 Dexterity
16: +2 Dexterity
19th: Boon of Energy Resistance (+1 Constitution)

With Blade Ward and Shield you can get effective AC of 31 at level 20 (22 Base +5 from Shield, taking dodge translates into effectively +2 AC, potential -4 to enemy attack from Blade Ward translates to +4 AC), you have several resistances, and enough ways to deal damage and be annoying to draw the attacks. If Xanathat's Guide to Everything is approved at the table, consider replacing SHield with Absorb Elements and Mage Slayer with Defensive Duelist.

Multiclassing - in 2024 version of D&D multiclassing needs to be done strategically. Usually you won't want to Multiclass before level 5, but with Empowered Strikes and Evasion you may actually want to put it off for after level 7 or even 8. Monk gets significantly less impressive in the middle levels, but gets some good stuff towards end levels, so multiclassing is way worse in a game that is expected to reach levels 17-20, especially since your level 20 capstone is so good. You should be careful you don't accidentially multiclass yourself from getting Epic Boons by taking multiclass at wrong time. With one exception I limited myself to not include classes you probably won't have Ability Scores to multiclass - if you can legally take levels in Paladin as a Monk, you probably are not the kind of player who needs a guide like this one to have fun anyway and my advice will actively make game less fun for you.

• Barbarian- Requires 13 Strength, depending on the build you will probably prioritize Constitution over Wisdom, to use Barbarian's better Unarmored Defense.
• Cleric- Good spell list, good healing/ranged damage with Channel Divinity.
  • Life - Bless and Empowered Healing can help you a bit, but the fact your Channel Divinity is tied to your level will drag this down a bit.
  • Light - An AoE spell, two ranged option spells, see Invisibility, an AoE radiant damage, and imposing disadvantage on an attack? Clear winner for me.
  • Trickery - You can get yourself advantage on Stealth, mess with people with an illusion channel divinity and you get few good spells for social and stealth. Good especially for sneaky builds.
  • War - War Priest is useless on you, but Guided Strike can be useful in a pinch and bonus spells give you extra ranged option and Shield of Faith.
• Druid - Spellcasting is good to have, Wild Shape will probably be used mostly for stealth purposes, or for Wild Companion
  • Land - A wide variety of spells to get as a bonus, plus the Land's Aid is a fun little AoE with extra small healing.
  • Moon - You would need to invest so many levels in Druid for benefits of the Moon to add up you'd be Druid with Monk dip, not the other way around.
  • Sea - You can have powerful aura of the storm with no concentration, dealing minor damage and pushing enemies away, and you get nice array of extra spells.
  • Stars - Star Map is a nice bonus, but out of your Starry Forms, only Dragon is consistently useful, with Archer being a ranged option yes, but at the cost of your Bonus action you often are better off just closing the distance.
• Fighter- Weapon Mastery, Second Wind that you can use to heal yourself for d10 or add to your skill checks, expelling it only if you succeed, Fighting Style, ACTION SURGE - Fighter comes in swinging.
  • Battlemaster - extra skill, 3 different maneuvers and four d8 superiority dice. Certainly the strongest option, really helps to bring the master of martial arts vibe and greatly increase versitality.
  • Champion - You score crits on 19 or 20 and can move for free a bit after scoring a crit and you have advantage on initiative rolls and Athletics checks. Not bad but there are better options.
  • Eldritch Knight - This was once Red, but now EK is no longer limited to two schools of magic, meaning you can choose spells that do not require saving throw or spell attack roll. Also if you have some cool weapons you can make sure they cannot be taken away from you and even summon them as a bonus action, like an anime character.
  • Psi Warrior - You get psionic dice, they're d6'es and will stay that way, but you gain more of them as you increase your proficiency bonus, which isn't tied to specific class but overall level. Sadly, two of three things you can do with them rely on your INT, which you don't have to spare.
• Ranger- You get Weapon Masteries, few spell slots, free castings of Hunter's Mark, Extra Skill Proficiency and Expertise and a Fighting Style. Ranger is packed with goodies.
  • Beastmaster - You can summon a beast to aid you, with its various abilities scaling with your Proficiency nad not class level...except for hit points, which makes this thing quickly become so squishy (and let's be honest, at 5 times your Ranger level it's squishy even on full Ranger), meaning it should stay away from meele and aid you in other means...that can also be done by a familiar. Just get Magic Initiate and Find Familiar.
  • Fey Wanderer - An additional d4 psychic damage varying from once per turn to on all attacks, depending how many enemies you're facing, and an ability to add your Wisdom to Charisma checks, which even makes bonus Charm Person spell suddenly so much better. This is strong, very strong.
  • Gloomstalker - You add Wisdom to initiative checks, can move extra 10 feet on first turn of combat, and you can, a number of times equal your Wisdom modifier per long rest, deal creature you hit additional d8 psychic damage and make it roll saving throw or be frightened. You get 60 ft Darkvision that stack's with Shadow Monk's (so a Drow, Dwarf or Orc now has 240 ft Darkvision) and are Invisible to creatures who use Darkvision. And you get Disguise Self. This is amazing, especially for Shadow Monk.
  • Hunter - You get additional lore boost to Hunter's Mark and can each long Rest decide if you'd rather deal additional d8 damage per turn to creature that's not having full hit points, or get an additional attack an a creature adjecent to one you hit. The latter means Monk 11/Hunter Ranger 3 with scimitars and Nick can make seven attacks per turn. It's only not blue because it's not as peckaed as Gloomstalker and Fey Wanderer
• Rogue - Rogue gives you weapon mastery, extra skills, sneak attack and additional things to do with your bonus action in form of Hide, which will make Shadow Monk happy.
  • Arcane Trickster - You don't really have INT for getting most out of it. but you actually can pick utility and non-save no-attack spells like Shield. See spells guide bellow.
  • Assassin - Advantage on initiative rolls, advantage on attacks against creatures that didn't act in first round and additional damage, plus proficiency with Poisoner's kit.
  • Soulknife - You get psychic dice you can use to either speak telepathically with other creatures or add it to your skill checks. The latter use is why you'd want it - your dice will stay as d6's, but you get as many as your proficiency modifier and only expend them if you succeed. You also get Psychic Blades, but honestly, they're not very good for a Monk because they don't qualify as Monk weapons..
  • Thief - You get to add Sleight of Hand and Use Object to your list of bonus actions, you get climbing speed faster and can use Dexterity to make Jump check. Which isn't a lot, may have situational uses.

Weapon Masteries
As a Monk you get access to weapons with following Weapon Masteries. Remember that use of Masteries themselves you need to unlock either by feat or multiclassing:

• Nick - when you wield this weapon off-hand, you can make an off-hand attack with it as a part of your attack action, instead of dedicating it a whole bonus action. Which frees your bonus action for flurry. Monk 10/Fighter 2 can now make total of 8 attacks, substituting the martial arts die in place of the normal weapon damage die. Nick is the quickest way to maximalize your attacks. Also, as fluffybunbunkittens has pointed out below, Nick breaks the "don't multiclass before level 5" rule, as strategically selected multiclass into 1 level of Fighter, Ranger or Rogue to get Nick may offset delaying of getting extra attack.
• Push - You can push the creature you hit five feet away from you, no save. Pushes your enemies further than Tavern Brawler, and unlike Crusher has no limits how many times you can use it in a turn AND you don't need to push the enemies to unoccupied space. However, you get it only on the greatclub, which drags it down a bit.
• Sap - Creature you hit with it has disadvantage on its next attack roll. It's on a weak weapon, mace, and one you are better off replacing with something that pushes or topples. May be a bit better if you try to be Dodge Tank,
• Slow - Until start of your next turn, target's speed is reduced. You get it on all two weapons, one of which is ranged.
• Topple - nothing better than knocking your opponnent prone. It honestly wins agaisnt push for simple reason that it's avialble on two weapons I think of when thinking of martial arts - staff and spear - and there are ways to get to push your opponnents without weapon mastery, but there aren't many ways to topple them. And yes, technically you could just replace an attack with shove action, but it is so much better to do both.
• Vex - On a hit, next attack against the target has advantage. Good to set up a Rogue, even better if you multiclassed into one, solid just to make sure you land punches.

Fighting Styles
Fighting Styles became a feats in this version fo the game, that you can obtain through multiclassing into a class with Fighting Style feature.

• Archery - +2 to attack rolls with ranged weapons, pays off only if you often use a ranged weapon.
• Blind-Fighting - If you go for stealthy build, pick Skulker instead. If you want to do an archetypical blind martial artist trope, it may be a good choice.
• Defense - You don;'t wear armor.
• Dueling -this one depends on interpretation of the two-weapon fighting rules, as by RAW you could potentially use two-weapon fighting by attacking with one weapon, dropping it, pulling out another and attacking with it, while benefitting from the +2 on both, which effectively makes it a better choice than actual two weapon fighting style. If your DM tells you that's stupid, which they may, this drops to orange
• Great Weapon Fighting - a slight damage boost to one versitile and one two-handed weapon you can use.
• Interception - It requires you to be using a weapon to begin with, but I do not find the effect that good.
• Protection - You need a shield to use it.
• Thrown-Weapon Fighting - slight boost to damage when you use thrown weapons, which you actually have quite a few.
• Two-Weapon Fighting - Necessary if you have a weapon with Nick mastery, otherwise do not bother.
• Unarmed Fighting -Depends on how soon you get, if you dip into Fighter at level 2 it will be few levels before that damage falls off, offset by your own Unarmed strike.

Battlemaster Maneuvers

• Ambush - May be an interesting aid for Shadow Monk, but I don't feel it being that useful.
• Bait and Switch - if you often find yourself in situation where a squishy party member is surrounded by enemies, this is good, I guess.
• Commander's Strike - If you have someone who outclasses your damage output, this is great, otherwise not so much.
• Commanding Presence - I's based off yor Charisma.
• Disarming Attack - This plays well with other abilities you have. Make enemy drop a weapon/mcguffin, then push them, if possible with the same attack, then topple them and grapple them to keep them in place.
• Distracting Strike - Another one to set up someone to deal a lot of damage, but far less convoluded, useful if you don't have a weapon with Vex.
• Evasive Footwork - You can already disengage as a bonus action, AC bonus is not enough.
• Feinting Attack - Get an advantage on your own attack and extra damage...for a Bonus Action., There are better uses of that for a Monk.
• Goading Attack - Good if you also get to disengage or dodge after succesfully applying it, often making enemy just get disadvantage and unable to do anything about it.
• Lunging Attack - You can dash as a bonus action for free.
• Maneuvering Attack - In theory there are situations where this could be useful but I struggle to come up with one on the spot.
• Menancing Attack - Frightened is a good condition to impose, but many enemies are immune to it.
• Parry - Here is a fun fact. This doesn't use your reaction. If you use this on top of Declect Attack, you can potentially reduce more attacks to 0 and strike back.
• Precision Attack - potentially can turn your miss into a hit, which is very nice.
• Pushing Attack - another way to push enemies is always welcome, especially when you can add this on top of another attack.
• Rally - Bonus Action to give an ally temporary hit points. Not bad but you have better uses of your bonus action.
• Riposte - An interesting option, especially if you have high ac and utilize a lot of condition-imposing attacks. Idea of toppling an enemy who missed your attack is very amusing.
• Sweeping Attack - this is very martial arts movie/anime movie - you kick someone so hard your kick carries over to the next guy.
• Tactical Assessement - You can use this to boost your Insight, ironically it will be your social technique.
• Trip Attack - Another way to topple enemies.

Spells

With Spells I will be covering Cleric and Druid level 1&2 spells, as they lean themselves to multiclassing better, while Wizard spells will be limited to level 1 because you will probably access them through Magic Initiate, Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight. Ranger is assumed to be accessed through multiclassing, but due to Extra Attack not stacking, I do not think anyone will take more than 4 levels of this. I Marked Spells you can gain from Fey Touched - DIVINATION and ENCHANTMENT - and Shadow Touched - ILLUSION and NECROMANCY. Rituals are in italics.

• Cleric- Clerics are very strong, you will find something for you for sure.
  • Cantrips:
    • Guidance - I wish it was a reaction spell, but it is still very useful.
    • Light - Good if party members do not have darkvision, let's you save on torches, good for someone to have it. Shadow Monk beware, as it may screw over your whole thing if used carelessly
    • Mending - this is useful and someone should have it, may as well be you.
    • Resistance - one time -1d4 of damage to a single damage type. I want old resistance bad.
    • Sacred Flame - 60 ft, weak damage, not really that strong but it is a ranged option.
    • Spare the Dying - If you have someone who goes down often and you need to make sure they don't die because healer is sick of them.
    • Thaumaturgy - an utiltiy spell, more for theatrics than anything else.
    • Toll the Dead - ranged damage, good against wounded creatures, you may have some extra roleplay from hitting fleeing opponnent with it. Like this
  • 1st Level:
    • Bane - -d4 on enemy attacks and saving throws, possibly very good when you don't want to get hit and want them to fail saves on your topple and push techniques. ENCHANTMENT
    • Bless - +d4 on attacks for you and two buddies is very good, since you are making more attacks than anyone else. ENCHANTMENT
    • Command - Despite what some are saying, it has a series of good chocies, for creative use. ENCHANTMENT
    • Create or Destroy Water - there is some utility of this, but you can probably do better.
    • Cure Wounds - 2d8+WIS on of healing is always good.
    • Detect Evil and Good, Detect Magic, Detect poison and Disease - I will be discussing these together, as each one is a good utiltiy spell, but doesn't help you much as a Monk. You can take it if no one else does. DIVINATION x3
    • Guiding Bolt - 120 ft range, 4d6 radiant damage, advantage on next attack against the target.
    • Healing Word - You don't have bonus action for healing other people
    • Inflict Wounds - 2d10 necrotic damage on a failed save. Until level 11 it outpaces your regular two attacks from attack action, then it starts falling behind. NECROMANCY
    • Purify Food and Drink - Utility spell, you can probably do better, but it is not bad.
    • Sanctuary - I kinda miss the fact that Open Hand no longer gets it, even if replacement is so much better. This can easily be played as an aura of fear, that prevents weaker-willed enemies from attacking you.
    • Shield of Faith - Solid +2 AC is very good, especially when you spam dodge.
  • 2nd Level -
    • Aid - You and two allies gain 5 hit points for 8 hours. Not temporary hit points, hit points maximum hit points. Meaning you can now heal for more and it stacks with temporary hit points. It may not feel like much, but benefits of this stack over time.
    • Augury - Useful and may lead to interesting roleplay, but do not know if worth highest spell slot on a limited list as yours will be. DIVINATION
    • Blindness/Deafness - Blindness is a good condition to put on an opponnent, but the spell loses on a number of targets to Color Spray. NECROMANCY
    • Calm Emotions - You could potentially get some great roleplay moment out of this, but usually you're not for not making enemies stop fighting.
    • Continual Flame - I don't see much use of it
    • Enchance Ability - Advantage on skill checks in one Ability. Advantages are not that hard to come by, just accept someone else's help action.
    • Find Traps - Traps-based spider-sense spell that's not doing much. "Oh hey, there is a trap here!" if I'm casting it, I probably already guessed that.
    • Gentle Repose - It has utility, but a lot of times you may just want to heal instead
    • Hold Person - Cast this as an action, then deliver flurry of blows, often with additional effects. Great choice on a Monk.
    • Lesser Restoration - This is helpful, since conditions removed by this one are the kind you don't want to have.
    • Locate Object - utility, you may not have room for it.
    • Prayer of Healing - Gain benefits of short rest and 2d8 temporary hit points and give it to your entire party too? Yes please!
    • Protection from Poison - Utiltiy with extra use, you could possibly cast it on yourself to remove poisoned condition and protect yourself form it in the future, but it becoems much worse once you get an ability to remove poisoned condition from yourself..
    • Silence - drop this on enemy caster, especially after carrying them away from their allies, then lay the smackdown. ILLUSION
    • Spiritual Weapon - Concentration and eats your bonus action. Useless
    • Warding Bond - You are waaay to sqhuishy for using this, you want someone to cast it on you, not other way aorund.
    • Zone of Truth - Utility one, powerful but possibly will be taken by someone else. ENCHANTMENT
• Druid- A lot of strong options for both feats or multiclassing.
  • Cantrips
    • Elementalism - It took place of multiple lesser elemental spells, though I do not think you can get with this into as many shenanigans as with Mold Earth.
    • Message - always goot way to communicate
    • Poison Spray - Good damage, poor range, easily resisted type. Weak ranged option overall.
    • Produce Flame - Weak range, weak action economy, weak damage and of commonly resisted type
    • Shillelagh - WIS to attacks with a staff, allowing you to become slightly less MAD and prioritise Wisdom, but only when you use specific weapons. Can do well with correct Weapon Masteries.
    • Starry Whisp - Basically better Sacred Flame, which isn't much
    • Thorn Whip - Short range and damage, but allows you to move enemies towards you and some flexible DMs get you to use it on buildings, to be Spider-Man.
  • 1st Level:
    • Animal Friendship - you can charm a beast. I don't see this coming often. ENCHANTMENT
    • Charm Person - Very odd Choice for a Monk, but it could have some shenanigan potential. ENCHANTMENT
    • Entangle - Restraining spell. Cast this on enemies, have a buddy cast AoE, then push or drag into it whoever was outside.
    • Faerie Fire -Remove invisible enemies, gives advantage on attacks against the creatures inside. I kinda want it on Shadow Monk just for humor of roleplaying getting OFFENDED someone else dared to sneak around you.
    • Fog Cloud - a smoke greante, may be useful to escape and for ninja roleplay.
    • Goodberry - More a "ruin survival playstyle" spell than a healing spell.
    • Jump - If you find yourself in situations, where you need to jump and move a lot, this may be moderatelly useful.
    • Longstrider - +10 feet to movement, solid chocie for a speedster.
    • Protection from Good and Evil - if you know a type of enemy you are fighting, this is free disadvantage on their attacks and condition removal, always welcome.
    • Speak With Animals - Utility spell, you probably know what I am about to say - very useful, but you may not be able to afford it. DIVINATION
    • Thunderwave - AoE, good enough damage, rarely resisted type.
  • 2nd Level
    • Animal Messenger - this is funny, may be a slight utility use. ENCHANTMENT
    • Barkskin - For 1 hour your AC cannot fall below 17, this may be good on builds that start without maxing up DEX and WIS, but will fall off later.
    • Beast Sense - Only work if you have an animal buddy.
    • Darkvision - Generally if you need to see in the dark, you're either playing Shadow Monk, multiclassing Gloomstalker or playing a species with Darkvision.
    • Enlarge/Reduce - Grow in size and get 1d4 bonus to your Unarmed Strike damage
    • Flame Blade - you trade 2 attacks that begin damage at 1d6+3 on minimum, assiming you have 16+ DEX, and then go up,for one attack of 3d6. Just no.
    • Flaming Sphere - would be much better if it didn't eat into your bonus action
    • Gust of Wind - control spell, you may be too busy pushing people to use it.
    • Heat Metal - Powerwul way of dealing with enemies at a distance, really makes them feel mad they have armor and you are kicking their butts regardless.
    • Locate Animals or Plants - Same as other Locate Spells, but slightly worse due to type of things it finds. DIVINATION
    • Moonbeam - This is a good continuous AoE, would be perfect if it didn't eat into your actions to move it. Lowkey funny to have on Shadow Monk due to contrast with Dakness
    • Pass Without Trace - Amazing for stealth, especially when combined with wildshape into something small and Shadow Monk's abilities.
    • Spike Growth - Amazing on any build that pushes enemies around or grapples them a lot, allows you to turn the spell into a shredder.
• Ranger - Spells wise Ranger is sadly very situational or mediocre, thankfully you will likely get those spells on top of multiclassing.
  • Spells
    • Alarm - Strong utility and protection form ambushes.
    • Ensnaring Strike - You need to waste your Bonus action to restrain someone. There may be the cases where this has its uses, duelist role will probably utilize it more, but overall, not worth the trade-off.
    • Hail of Thorns - Better than Ensnaring Strike by the virtue of relying on your ranged attack - if you are using ranged weapons, you may not be using bonus action at all.
    • Hunter's Mark - solid extra damage, but it eats your bonus action. Best on a damage dealer/duelist role. DIVINATION
    • Magic Weapon - for 1 hour give a nonmagical weapon +1 bonus. Good until you do find a magical weapon of the same type
    • Searing Smite - Wants your bonus action for continuous 1d6 fire damage
• Wizard - There are many good choices, but also many weak ones, embarassment of riches can overwhelm players.
  • Cantrips:
    • Acid Splash - not strong range or damage, but rarely resisted type.
    • Blade Ward - concentration spell that reduces attacks on you by 1d4. Stacks nicely with Shield/Defensive Duelist or Deflect Attacks
    • Chill Touch - necrotic damage and great range, plus some smaller benefits make this a solid choice
    • Dancing Lights - this spell increasingly has harder and harder time justiffying itself.
    • Fire Bolt - great range, great damage, only commonly resisted type drags it down.
    • Friends - it got improved...but you still are not the person to use this.
    • Mage Hand - a bit of utility, gets better if you get to wizard spells through Arcane Trickster
    • Minor illusion - Utility, may help your Shadow Monk in a pinch.
    • Prestidigitation - Utility
    • Ray of Frost - mediocre range, commonly resisted damage type, weak damage, slow effect barelly drag it to purple
    • Shocking Grasp - You have other ways to ensure your enemy won't take attacks of opportunity, this is too weak to pass two attacks for.
    • True Strike - if you are using a weapon, this is a great improvement until you reach 5th level, then less so but still may have its uses, especially if you need radiant damage.
  • Spells:
    • Arcane Vigor - Bonus action to expend two hit dice to heal himself. You will probably be using bonus action for something else and have different methods of healing.
    • Burning Hands - AoE with a cone, but of commonly resisted type.
    • Cause Fear - Weak debuff to apply on a single target.
    • Chromatic Orb - a ranged option that may be more than one target, but too much of leaving things to a chance.
    • Color Spray - Blinded is a good condition to put on enemies, and the way you want to draw aggro you can get multiple targets in a cone. ILLUSION
    • Comprehend Languages - good utility, you will need to translate the other language to party face, however.
    • Disguise Self - May be useful, but overall you shouldn't be doing this type of infiltration. ILLUSION
    • Expeditious Retreat - You can do this on your own.
    • False Life - 6-12 temporary hit points. Falls off at higher levels, but can sometiems be enough to keep you in combat a bit longer. NECROMANCY
    • Feather Fall - You can do it on yourself, this basically trades your spell from magic initiate for more Focus points
    • Find Familiar - Familiar is a good thing to have, if only to provide free flanking or help action, and utility of this is big.
    • Grease - Not bad on a build with Speedy or if you have a buddy doing AoE and you really want to make sure people you push into it stay there.
    • Identify - Utility, DIVINATION
    • Illusory Script - Utiltiy but of very limtied use, ILLUSION
    • Mage Armor - If you cannot have 16 in both DEX and WIS at the beginning, this lets you keep up until you do.
    • Magic Missile - Ranged option with autohit, can be helpful.
    • Ray of Sickness - ranged option with 2d8 poison damage and poisoned condition, but the damage type is ofthen resisted. NECROMANCY
    • Shield - +5 AC on reaction, great if you are facing something Deflect Attack cannot even hope to deal with.
    • Silet Image - Another utility, may actually help with sneak. ILLUSION
    • Sleep - New Sleep scales not with amount of hp per level, but requires a saving throw, which means the spell no longer falls off at higher levels, especially when you cannot upcast it. ENCHANTMENT
    • Tasha's Hideous Laughter - May actually be a good way to remove a dangerous enemy, while you deal with their mooks or an ally. Overall too situational compared to just dishing damage, however. ENCHANTMENT
    • Tenser's Floating Disc - Utility that finds less and less use.
    • Unseen Servant - Utility, could be helpful in combat by flanking, but this is midigated by using your bonus action.
    • Witch Bolt - Poor ranged option, continuous damage in exchange for bonus action just isn't worth it.

Sample Builds

Drizz't but Shirtless
Drow Way of the Shadow Monk 17/Gloomstalker Ranger 3
Origin: Charlatan (+2 DEX +1 CON)
STR 8 DEX: 17 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 14 CHA 12
Skills: Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception (expertise), Sleight of Hand, Stealth
Feats:
Origin: Alert
Fighting Style: Two- Weapon Fighting
Weapon Mastery: Scimitar-Nick
Skulker
Slasher
+2 WIS
+2 WIS
Boon of the Night Spirit (Dexterity)

John Wick With a Crossbow
Orc Warrior of Mercy 16/Champion Fighter 4
Background: Farmer (+1 CON +2 WIS)
STR 8 DEX 15 CON 16 INT 10 WIS 16 CHA 8
Skills: Animal Handling, Athletics, Nature, Stealth
Feats
Origin: Tough
4th: Crossbow Expert
8th +2 DEX
12th: Piercer
19th: Boon of Irresistible Offence
20th:: Boon of Recovery

Simple build where you come in, begin shooting and wacking people and refuse to die. Your AC could be better, but you can make up for that with tougness, healing and ability to keep going beyond the odds. You can increase complexity by going Battlemaster and grabbing few maneuvers

Legendary Super Saiyan
Aasimar Warrior of the Elements Monk 17/Circle of the Sea Druid 3
Background: Scribe (+1 DEX +2 WIS)
STR: 10 DEX 16 CON 14 WIS 17 CHA 8
Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Perception, Stealth, Survival
Feat:
Origin: Skilled
Elemental Adept (type depending on your spells selection)
+2 DEX
+2 WIS
+2 DEX
Boon of Energy Resistance

You get multiple damage resistances and multiple types of damage you deal, some passively even - your aura itself is hurting the enemies.

 

[Rabulias]

Thanks for the work on this. Just FYI there are a lot of sections with black font that do not show well to those of using dark mode.

 

[Rabulias]

Also, I believe there is an outstanding question about whether you can move or not while stunned in the 2024 rules. A strict reading of the condition indicates it does not affect movement, but there is other text that suggests it does. Errata or a clarification may be coming.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Thanks for the work on this. Just FYI there are a lot of sections with black font that do not show well to those of using dark mode.

After I'm back from weekend trip I will be changing black for another color. Glad you enjoyed the handbook

 

[Mistwell]

Four D&D podcasters (Insight Check, D4 Deep Dive, Treantmonk, and Pack Tactics) ran a playtest a while ago. It was based on the UA version, but as the monk is little changed in the final version from this playtest version, it's a pretty fair test of the new Monk. And the new monk KICKS SO MUCH BUTT! Worth a watch.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Thanks for the work on this. Just FYI there are a lot of sections with black font that do not show well to those of using dark mode.

I changed black to purple.

 

[mellored]

I changed black to purple.

Helpful, but not quite what he ment.

Click the light bulb in the top right, next to the search button. That will change the background of the website.

Then look at your feat section.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Helpful, but not quite what he ment.

Click the light bulb in the top right, next to the search button. That will change the background of the website.

Then look at your feat section.

Okay now I see the issue, should be fixed now.

My ext plan is to tomorrow edit the entire post for all mispelling and other mistakes.

 

[Charkomangus]

You can't take Element Adept (Fire) for only Goliath's Fire's Burn as it requires spellcasting (it only applies to spells too).

Thanks for making this, was a lovely read!

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Usually you won't want to Multiclass before level 5

As a counter-argument, you want to hit lv5 mainly for Extra Attack... but Nick gets you that as early as lv2!
Classes with lv1 damage riders to go with Nick are Fighter (TWF style) and Rogue (sneak attack, skills)
TWF style is only going to benefit the one Nick attack (eventually +5), while sneak attack is (conditional) +3.5.
I'm going to pick the Rogue, just because the extra skills feel so nice for the unskilled lump that is the Monk.

brief combat comparison
Monk1/Rogue1 (with daggers) vs Monk2
Rogue Monk doesn't have Ki abilities yet, but is a goddamn terror with 3 attacks + sneak attack
Rogue Monk wins, as they out-damage Flurry of Blows every turn, for free (no Ki Dodge, though)

Monk2/Rogue1 vs Monk3
pure Monk gets Deflect Attacks omg
Rogue Monk still has the edge on free damage, but subclasses even that out if they spend Ki
pure Monk wins purely through having tons more survivability from Deflect

Monk3/Rogue1 vs Monk4
Rogue Monk catches up on features, while pure monk improves everything by raising their stat(s)
Rogue Monk still maintains the edge on damage
this is an even level if pure Monk picks up Grappler as their feat (or gets +1 in both Dex and Wis)

Monk4/Rogue1 vs Monk5
pure monk gets Extra Attack, unarmed die increase, and Stunning Strike
pure monk wins hard, as now they have the same number of attacks, but the attacks are just better

lv6+
Monk stops getting game-changing new features every level
Rogue Monk is back on top, as now they will mostly just be 1 Ki behind, but get an extra d8+d6 attack

So, who is better basically alternates by level, but in the end, Rogue Monk gets a free attack + extra skill + Expertises at an increasingly lower cost. And it's mainly the skill access that makes me a big cheerleader for the MonkX/Rogue1 dip, as that either opens up the playing ground in what you can be capable of (especially in combination with tool proficiencies giving you advantage where appliciable), or lets you become the super-ninja by sticking to your Stealth/Perception/SleightOfHand strengths. No, climbing walls is not one of those strengths (until suddenly at lv9 you can run up them).

But hold on! What if the pure Monk picks up Weapon Master as the feat? Then they are getting an extra Nick attack, yes, but it has no riders - it's just your base unarmed die in damage, which isn't exactly impressive (unless you somehow get a Flametongue dagger, I guess). One level is also much less of a cost than spending a feat that you only get per 4 levels.