Brian Chin
First Post
Just got winged boots for a 4th level open fist monk (who took the mobility feat) in Adventurer’s League. I normally play tanks who heal or tanks who dps so I was trying to think of good ways to use a monk at low tier which can’t really tank or dps particularly well. I’m gonna throw out the ideas I have come up with and would be interested in seeing any other ideas that people have.
TACTICS:
1. Hit and Run. Mobility and/or Step of the Wind allows me to attack and potentially retreat from reach (especially with a 50’ fly speed) encouraging the enemies to throw more attacks at the more heavily armored front line tanks and heavy dps.
2. Drag and Drop. With a 14 strength I have 210 lbs I can carry without reducing speed to 5. Of course, my own gear counts against that and moving a grappled creature halves my speed. Dropping guys in plate armor is right out but it works pretty well on anybody else with a high ac.
3. Over the Edge. With a decent strength, shove actions can work and with way of the open fist I can push with a wisdom based strength save.
4. Airlift Allies. I can grapple allies and then move them at half speed. Useful for weaklings who cannot make athletics or acrobatics checks. Also, since it counts as forced movement, my moved allies don’t provoke attacks of opportunity for moving away. For bonus points, have a healer ready a heal and then airlift them to the target. No more healers dying in an attempt to get to touch range.
5. Mobile Healing Delivery. Either bringing healing potions to allies or administering them to allies who would be out of reach for everybody else.
6. Breaking Grabs. Shoving enemies out of range to break grabs for low strength/dex allies, particularly those which deal automatic damage.
7. Mage Hunting. Multiple small hits from a Flurry of Blows are rough when you are concentrating. Mages are bad at avoiding grapples. If they use attack roll spells flying above the mage would really cut their effectiveness.
8. Outranging Archers. Being able to fly in and out of short/long range for a light crossbow means being able to attack without being attacked back or making it hard to hit back. Catch arrows is extra useful when you are giving them range penalties already reducing the number of hits you have to react to.
9. Grabbing Weapons. Nobody takes the Battlemaster’s Disarming Strike because you need an open hand to take the dropped weapon or else it just costs the enemy a free object interraction to rearm. While disarming requires a weapon in one hand monk unarmed strikes don’t require a second open hand. Archers always drop their bows to pull swords when engaged in melee but when you swoop over and drop those bows out of range it makes them think twice about economy of actions. Many spells require material components and nobody takes multiple spell foci. Also consider that the DMG has rules for disarming or you can go contested roll per the PHB. The Martial Adept feat also gets you 2 encounter disarms that inflict melee damage +1d6 and are a dex instead of str for you.
Those are the ideas I came up with for a low level flying Monk with Mobility and Way of the Open Fist. I hope other people can find some use for these ideas and would love it if anybody has other ideas for things such a monk (or even a monk in general) can do to support their allies and do useful things that others could not do or would be suboptimal for them to spend their turn doing.
TACTICS:
1. Hit and Run. Mobility and/or Step of the Wind allows me to attack and potentially retreat from reach (especially with a 50’ fly speed) encouraging the enemies to throw more attacks at the more heavily armored front line tanks and heavy dps.
2. Drag and Drop. With a 14 strength I have 210 lbs I can carry without reducing speed to 5. Of course, my own gear counts against that and moving a grappled creature halves my speed. Dropping guys in plate armor is right out but it works pretty well on anybody else with a high ac.
3. Over the Edge. With a decent strength, shove actions can work and with way of the open fist I can push with a wisdom based strength save.
4. Airlift Allies. I can grapple allies and then move them at half speed. Useful for weaklings who cannot make athletics or acrobatics checks. Also, since it counts as forced movement, my moved allies don’t provoke attacks of opportunity for moving away. For bonus points, have a healer ready a heal and then airlift them to the target. No more healers dying in an attempt to get to touch range.
5. Mobile Healing Delivery. Either bringing healing potions to allies or administering them to allies who would be out of reach for everybody else.
6. Breaking Grabs. Shoving enemies out of range to break grabs for low strength/dex allies, particularly those which deal automatic damage.
7. Mage Hunting. Multiple small hits from a Flurry of Blows are rough when you are concentrating. Mages are bad at avoiding grapples. If they use attack roll spells flying above the mage would really cut their effectiveness.
8. Outranging Archers. Being able to fly in and out of short/long range for a light crossbow means being able to attack without being attacked back or making it hard to hit back. Catch arrows is extra useful when you are giving them range penalties already reducing the number of hits you have to react to.
9. Grabbing Weapons. Nobody takes the Battlemaster’s Disarming Strike because you need an open hand to take the dropped weapon or else it just costs the enemy a free object interraction to rearm. While disarming requires a weapon in one hand monk unarmed strikes don’t require a second open hand. Archers always drop their bows to pull swords when engaged in melee but when you swoop over and drop those bows out of range it makes them think twice about economy of actions. Many spells require material components and nobody takes multiple spell foci. Also consider that the DMG has rules for disarming or you can go contested roll per the PHB. The Martial Adept feat also gets you 2 encounter disarms that inflict melee damage +1d6 and are a dex instead of str for you.
Those are the ideas I came up with for a low level flying Monk with Mobility and Way of the Open Fist. I hope other people can find some use for these ideas and would love it if anybody has other ideas for things such a monk (or even a monk in general) can do to support their allies and do useful things that others could not do or would be suboptimal for them to spend their turn doing.