Almost perfect except for one thing- wouldn’t Tigress technically be a Leonin as she’s a big cat? Also, who would play which subclass one this AMAZING scenario?! 😁 ~_~
You did mention the astral self being the most social character in the party, because the visage gives advantage on some checks, but also--if you're making them a tortle, they really don't need their dexterity for much of anything, so investing in charisma instead might make things a bit less bleak. Coupled with a background that gives persuasion and/or deception, and it's still not amazing but it's not quite as rough as you might think.
If you can fit it on (ex. if you have an odd Wisdom score at character creation), taking the Skill Expert feat to get expertise in Athletics could make you even MORE ridiculous(ly fun) as you start grappling and shoving everything around you with your Astral Arms with aplomb - AND if they’re melee-based foes without reach, the enemies can’t even get to you to retaliate.
Thank you for mentioning Exploration as one of the big difficulties. I'm designing a subclass for every class and was lost on the Monk. I had it built in as being able to pass into the Ethereal Plane, but couldn't figure out a mid level ability for them. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! They can already shunt themselves to the Etherea Plane, as a reaction, to avoid attacks, like the Blink spell, but this takes it a step further and builds on it. Thank you. Also being tied to the Ethereal Plane gives you a slightly higher AC as you are harder to target as you aren't partially there and looks whispy or ghostly.
It has been forever since I heard anyone mention Tenchu. It was great fun that you had a poisoned rice bowl that you could just throw any distance and the idiot would be like "I'm obviously going to eat this random rice I found in the yard at midnight".
I played a Tortle Astral Self Monk in an all-Monk one shot. It was a ton of fun, for sure, and as both an Astral Self Monk and a Tortle, I was actually able to make a monk build that dumped DEX and focused on Wisdom. The Telekinetic Feat and Magic Initiate Druid for Shillelagh also helped
About the fighter, monk overlap: I've introduced my Chinese partner to DnD and she wanted to play a martial character. I showed her the options. And a half hour later she still could not see a difference between monks and fighters flavorwise. She's a huge fan of kungfu stories and kungfu is what in her mind fighting looks like.
Especially since I've seen it pointed out that in actual martial arts movies, fighting barehanded is not something you do by choice, it's what you do when you lose or don't have a weapon.
@@snazzyfeathers conceptual i love the monk. But not as religious figures or wise man but as the only way in DnD to play a nimble fighter who doesn't relie on armor. So if I could redesign the classes of DnD I would merge the fighter and monk into one class. Ad level 1 a player must decide if the character is a finesse or brute fighter. That should to more than a decision between strength and dexterity as main stat. Maybe finnese fighters attack more and brutes hit harder? Ad second level the character can pick a fighting style. If you pick the unarmed fighting style you have a martial artist and can call yourself a monk if you flavor your character like that. A finesse fighter with the dueling fighting style could be a swashbuckler. And so on.
(while I haven't finished the episode yet) I especially liked your early comment about a group fighting against a tyrannical regime. Historically, some "martial arts" weapons and fighting styles were peasant things so that they weren't "an armed resistance". I think a monk party fighting against tyranny would be great and could even have some robinhood elements. Not needing to have formal weapons and armor lets the party blend in among the populace the way that people in heavy armor with a halbard just can't.
I've actually been in an all monk campaign for a bit. 4 of us are testing the dm's homebrew subclasses while 1 more is playing a Way of Astral Self. It's honestly been really fun, but I'd love to play with all official stuff.
@davidcarnan1270 It's called the Way of Technique, which is basically 4 subclasses in one, each designed to 'fix' a problem with monk. They're all based on real martial arts (he's a 3rd degree black belt so this mattered a lot to him). There's the Weapon Style, which gives you a fighting style and eventually let's you use any weapon as a monk weapon (including heavy weapons). There's the Mixed Style, which let's you be an even stronger support martial with features that can analyze a creature's weakest stat, high level can change the saving throw for SS, etc. Mixed really thrives in a party with Casters. There's Hard Style, which ups the damage of Martial Arts and can freely knock enemies around. And then there's Soft Style, which can exchange movement speed to do damage to creature's that miss them, at high levels you can spend ki to have evasion on any save. Overall, it's been very fun and exciting.
Constition-based Monk would be a cool thing for DnD to develop. Think super into Iron Body (body hardening) techniques. Their moves would be based on tanking damage and doing damage to opponents when they deflect blows in melee range. (Because their bones are so hard getting blocked hurts the attacker more than the monk, and the monk knows how to block into opponents' weak points). Spec them into immunity to sickened and stunned and poisoned, and instead of slow fall give resistance to forced movement. Stuff like that.
I actually like the ascendent dragon as well cause that also has some social features on top of its breath and getting magic punches well before everyone else
I think the ascendent dragon is probably the second best monk (behind way of mercy), most of the features have one or more uses without using ki (that is super rare for monks), so you can stunning strike a ton, and still have some aoe stuff from your subclass (I know, it's weaker than just having a blaster on the team, but when you compare it to other monk subclasses, yeah I believe it's the second best)
@@logancuster8035End it's not like there's a lot of alternatives for multi target burst damage. (Other than 4 elements or sun soul, whose only options are more expensive and/or come online much later. I think that if we're going with an aaracokra and shadow and astral self monks making the astral self as the birdman makes the most combat sense. Astral self's darkness spell won't hinder the other players (through good positioning) and synergizes well with the extra reach. Having some monks that are a dhampir would also go a long way to keep most of them alive. (long death feels very suited for this)
im under the impression that monty and kelly straight up forgot about that subclass because they werent impressed with it on release if i remember correctly, but it's a great subclass
Timely topic for me, guys, thanks! I'm playing a WereRaven in a party with a goblin druid, half-elf warlock, and an elf-based Dhampir life cleric. We're starting 5e Candlekeep adventure book with a newbie GM. I've played D&D since 1980s, so this is fun. My choice to fill the role of melee striker is to go astral self. Flyby blows from 10 feet up, yo!
Props to Monty for the OG PS1 game reference. The Tenchu games were one of my favorite franchises, alongside Syphon Filter and Final Fantasy for the PS during my adolescence. Very hard to get the perfect scores in Tenchu
I would just make Shredder a Fighter/Rogue multiclass. The mechanics and thematics work out perfectly with no need to alter the rules. Just give him spiked Elven Chainmail so he can stealth without disadvantage and we're good to go.
I don't remember Shredder doing a whole bunch of hiding and sneak attacking. TBH, I'd make Shredder as a Ranger. A Fey Wanderer maybe, if it can be assumed that Dimension X is kinda like the Feywild.
Does the Revenant Blades Feat that turns a double-bladed scimitar into a finesse weapon qualify for converting a heavy weapon into something a monk can use?
For the races you could do Tortle, Tabaxi, Aarakorcra, and Lizard Folk and have each of the representing the four cardinal deities of Chinese mythology…Genbu, Byakko, Suzaku, and Seiryu….and they are fighting a yellow or gold Dragon born who used to be their leader but turned evil who is the yellow dragon of center
I love the idea of the Monk Managerie all having a shared background, like they were all woodland creatures that came in contact with a strong magical item or eldritch being that transformed them.
Honestly I LOVE the kensei monk using thrown weapons like daggers and darts, you could go running into the enemy throwing darts, once you're close use your daggers and fists to gain the attack bonus and AC bonus, keep in mind that the kensei skills don't require ranged weapons but ranged attacks that can trigger with thrown weapons
The best part of the Kensei is that you can diversify a lot with Tasha’s starting off with three weapons as long as you get it from your background/species.
@@leodouskyron5671 yeah, kensei has so many weapon options but I like using the one's that exploit all the features they can like a spear, it's a melee thrown weapon, if you're a monk with a whole lot of speed then you can throw your spear, run and catch it right after it hits making an unarmed strike and gaining the dmg an AC bonus to with some style points 😎
We had a group that sadly never got together to do the game but an idea that I'd still run today as it still feels like a great story to play Setting something akin to the oriental adventures books we got, a group of monks in the northen region of the land survive an invasion on there homeland and monetary from a new evil power that has stirred, they set out on a mission and pilgrimage south where they go to different regions for aid from different monasteries. Each monastery has a different outlook and drastically different practices, our party of monks find the troubles of there homeland are not unique and that they need not only convince the other masters for aid but to help them with their own issues. The larger arc of the story was for this group of rag-tag monks to go around the cotenant meeting with masters, maybe learning lessons from each one in an effort to unite them and "maybe" growing enough themselves that they become a big player in the effort to fight back against the new BB. I liked the idea they would go to one region and meet a group of monks who were all about mastery of the mind and focus, then later they meet the greatest drunken master who happens to be an orc monk that lives like a hermit making homebrew in the woods and convince him to help them dispite him clearly not liking civilization much and preferring his peaceful glade
My DM and I once worked at making the Turtles so we definitely went Tortle. I did Donatello and I actually found he worked better as a pure Kensei Monk but he takes Artificer Initiate so he gets the tools, a cantrip, and a level one spell. I gave him Booming Blade which I think works amazing with the Bo staff
You guys mentioned grabbing Bless with Fey Touched but don’t overlook Bane. The Astral Self Monk can double down on Wisdom and be the best Stunner in the party while also boosting everybody else
I'm trying to imagine Monty running for a cutesy all anthropomorphic animal D&D party: DM Monty: "Alright Shadow Bunny... you slip inside the hollow of the tree, finding it much larger inside than out. The walls are covered with luminous moss and fungi, and by their light, you see the inner space holds a rotting, deliquescent gore which rises to your knees, making progress labored. In the center of the space is a massive undulating, fruiting, piping, writhing plant pod that smells of rotting flesh & stale blood, overlaid by a heady scent of exotic perfume which nearly takes your breath away. Innumerable tendrils suddenly explode from the top of the pod, whipping wildly through the air as the thing begins to transform. Roll for initiative." Shadow Bun Bun: "I signed up for a cute adventure! Not cosmic horror!" Dm Monty: "I am who I am."
I think another good inspiration (of course with some liberties) would be power ranger. Most of the time they are using hand to hand combat and are a part of some institution. Realistically, they would likely need some Artificer lvls, but I think that's a good group idea.
I’ll throw out there that I was surprised to discover how well Goliath merge with Monk builds. They have a reaction to reduce damage, (which is usually available on monks) cold resistance which is nice, Athletics and Powerful Build helps realize the idea of being a well muscled individual even though you probably dumped Strength. Great video Dudes! I was worried that you had stopped this series. 😅
Not being able to multiclass severely restricts this party’s versatility, so here’s some of my ideas for monk multiclassing: - Mercy + Death Domain - Shadow + Gloomstalker - Ascendant Dragon + Drakewarden - Ascendant Dragon + Draconic Bloodline - Astral Self + Twilight Domain - Astral Self + Circle of Stars - Astral Self + Echo Knight - Astral Self + Horizon Walker - Astral Self + Arcane Trickster - Drunken Master + Scout - Drunken Master + Swashbuckler - Drunken Master + College of Dance - Drunken Master + Brawler - Four Elements + Genie Warlock - Four Elements + Circle of the Land - Sun Soul + Light Domain - Cobalt Soul + Inquisitive Rogue
True, but allowing multiclassing kind of defeats the purpose of this series, which is to compare the synergy and overlap of the base classes. You can't really evaluate how good an "All Monk" party is if the Shadow Spores character is more Druid than Monk, and the Mercy Twilight character is more Cleric than Monk.
bugbear way of the astral self monk using the uncommon "eldritch claw tattoo" would be absolutely amazing.. the tattoo has two abilities, one passive and one active. "Magical Strikes. While the tattoo is on your skin, your unarmed strikes are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming immunity and resistance to nonmagical attacks, and you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls with unarmed strikes. Eldritch Maul. As a bonus action, you can empower the tattoo for 1 minute. For the duration, each of your melee attacks with a weapon or an unarmed strike can reach a target up to 15 feet away from you, as inky tendrils launch toward the target. In addition, your melee attacks deal an extra 1d6 force damage on a hit. Once used, this bonus action can't be used again until the next dawn." for this build, both are great but what we're focused on is the active ability. it says your unarmed strikes can now hit up to 15 feet away... this sets your baseline melee attack distance to 15 feet. now, as a bugbear you get: "Long-Limbed. When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal." this adds 5 to your baseline melee range.. so that means with the tattoo you're now at 20 ft melee. finally, the astral self monk gets Arms of the Astral Self, which has several things.. but the main one here is "When you make an unarmed strike with the arms on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal." this, again, adds 5 feet to your base melee (unarmed) attack range... a bugbear astral self monk using an activated eldritch claw tattoo can punch you from 25 feet away.. including being able to flurry of blows from that distance...
Unfortunately, I'm sure most DM's would shoot this down (and would be right to do so), as Eldritch Maul doesn't increase your unarmed reach; rather, it replaces it with the 15ft. However, the Astral Monk Bugbear alone would be awesome with that 15ft reach.
With both the monk video and the warlock video you mentioned how since everyone wants to short rest the class gets better since you dont have to convince people to short rest for you. Ive always wondered what the best short rest focused party would be. Probably Warlock, monk, fighter and maybe moon druid too. Genie warlock to get Sanctuary Vessel, moon druid for lots of wild shape, plus your pick of fighter and monk subclasses. I think it would make for an interesting video to see your guys' ideas on it.
Hey Dudes, I've been playing with the idea of getting rid of Ki all together and just letting the monk do what it want to do through normal action economy. Maybe have features that cost Ki be limited to once per turn, number of times per day or rest recharge. This channel talks about the short comings of monks a lot and I'm with you. They need to be reworked from the ground up. So how would you do it? I'd love to hear how the Dungeon Dudes would redesign the monk. Love this channel, party on dudes 🤘🏻
Big missed opportunity on the bunny Kensei. That’s Usagi Yojimbo!!! Before haringon race came out I made a tabaxi Kensei and played him as rabbit instead of cat. I played in Decent into Avernus up to about level 8 or 9. It was awesome! I even got an adamantium sword and a silver sword. One for structures and one for devils lol. I wanted to take blowgun for my ranged weapon. Imagine a blowgun with no poison doing a d10+d4+dex!
I’ve seen a fun alt feature for 3rd level monks that takes inspiration from the Samurai fighter. Words of Wisdom lets the Monk use their Wisdom modifier in place of Charisma when making Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion checks. The idea being that through their travels as a monk, they gain a greater insight and understanding of how to best speak to an individual for the greatest impact behind their words
Considering what was said in this episode in regards to 3 pillars of play and weaknesses, my thoughts are these: An all monk party can make for a great campaign. Combat might be their best field from what the monks bring to the table. Yes, fighters and paladins and wizards end combats faster. But since every monk is in the same rythm, no player feels like falling behind. They are all quiet good in getting somewhere and if they have access to the right magic items, there is nothing that could stop them. The monks lack social abbilities, but this could be overcome in multiple ways to keep the campaign fun: - again magic items (hat of disguise, cloak of charisma, belt of dwarven kind, ...) - ignore the stats and just roleplay it - befriend an ally who than does the talking. (This is your April O'Neil to the Ninja Tortles) So, year - this can totally work and be lot of fun.
The issue with melee Monk skirmishing is that the movement is still not enough, unless you start close already (which case it only works until the enemy stops moving towards you pointlessly). Lets say you have 35ft base (Wood Elf), +15ft (we'll say this is before Tier 3), +10ft Mobile = 60ft movement speed. So, you start at say 40ft away: you move 35ft, hit, move 25ft back - you are now 30ft away from the enemy and still a potential target for 95% of enemies. Alright that didn't work, so lets try again. So, you start at say 20ft away for some reason: you move 15ft, hit, move 45ft back - you are now 50ft away from the enemy, roughly 1/6 of enemies will still be able to get to you by Speed alone (and many of the slower ones have alternatives to melee), but still, not bad. So, the ones that didn't get to you and are melee, they either get close but no cigar, allowing you to do the same again... or they don't. If they don't, you are now 50ft away and are going to have to spend all your movement speed getting to them, instead. The skirmishing style with the sort of speeds the Monk is looking at will frequently make the enemy not be able to attack them, but often they still will. The Monk AC is lacking, due to being too MAD to focus on Unarmored Defense. The HP is also lacking. The Monk damage is lacking. Now, hopefully you come up against just single targets and hopefully they fail to Save against the Stunning Strike (you do have a decent amount as a whole party of Monks) and you get easy Short Rests to replenish - otherwise you lack all the magic features that make combat easy, lack the AC and HP to survive, skirmishing helps mitigate some turns but not others, and you lack out of combat utility too. That said, a full ranged Monk party would be pretty hard to catch in combat. Still weak to magic... but who isn't if you don't have a Paladin's Aura of Protection? There is a reason 95% of 5e monsters don't cast spells.
Some homebrew magic items for monks: martial art books, by attuning they can augment their martial art with the ability in the book (a feat, feature from another class or subclass). Also a consumable item that increases your ki pool.
I would have liked to have heard all of the pillars mentioned here, but it was still a really cool episode. Thank you. Also, the movement speed boost across the board would make for a crazy fast/mobile party. I think that would be one of the other big benefits.
Way of Mercy monk also gives a great shoutout to one of the granddaddies of martial arts anime, Hokuto no Ken aka Fist of the North Star. While Quivering Palm is probably the more iconic representation in D&D, something heavily emphasized in the series is the ability of Hokuto Shinken to both destroy and to heal. Way of Mercy is a great way to represent Toki, the pacifist character who sought to push the limits of the healing ability of the art.
The thing about making an all one class party, like you guys brought up, in how effective it is, is based on the DM. Because if I was DMing an all monk party, I'd probably try to run it where the inciting event is something that, when the monks go to the broader world, they're automatically revered in some way. If you see a person dressed like a Tibetan monk, you are more likely to believe they are a monk. And when that person says something to you, you're inclined to believe them. I'd give a party of all monks advantage on deception checks.
37:21 Glad they brought this up, I can't sing the graces of Fey-Touched enough. Hex allowed my monk's flurry of blows, at level 3, to do 43 damage. High dex mod, an extra 1d6 per attack, while getting 3 attacks? I coupled this with the halfling's Lucky feature, meaning a 1 on any of these was a re-roll, so minimum damage or misses were less likely.
Wow! A Tenchu reference! I loved that game. I only managed to do the gauntlet through the town once unseen but it felt amazing when I got top score without killing a single person.
I think the all monk party really opens up if you allow multiclassing. You can get a lot of the martial arts flavor just from 1 level in monk, and then you allow some really diverse "Martial Artist" characters. If it's just pure monk, some fun ways to make a unique build can be to go Loxodon or Lizardfolk, which allows you to dump wisdom as long as you ignore and features with save DCs. With Lizardfolk you can focus on Dex + Con since you get the 3 ac from unarmored bonus anyways, and Loxodon you can do a Str + Con monk. Both work well for building a beefier martial artist.
We have a way of the serpent Monk in our drakkenheim campaign. With a gloom stalker ranger, light domain cleric and an evocation wizard. I have found that the power level is pretty on par and doesn't upset the balance within the party. And most importantly everyone is having fun!
I'm really interested in the Everyone plays Ranger episode. Our current main 5e group has ended up with two Rangers in it so we're half way to it already.
This whole video series reminds me of the Iron Kingdoms RPG from Privateer Press. Character creation there was defacto multi-classing. You would take two Professions and smash them together. So you could be a Noble and a Soldier, or am Alchemist and a Field Mechanic, or a Death Stalker and a Duelist. So you could form a party and say, "Your team is an elite team of the Cygnar army, everyone must have the Soldier profession." That ensures that everyone has the soldier half of the equation, but the second profession, the archtype, the race, etc... all lets you come up with massively different characters. Man, IKRPG was so good. And being able to quickly move from RPG scale games to massive armies clashing was awesome (IKRPG was the RPG offshoot of Warmachine/Hordes) So whether you were dealing with a dozen minis on the table, or hundreds, it was an easy transition.
I played a Tabaxi Shadow Monk with Mobile, wound up being able to move like 240 ft on a single turn by level 10, with step of the wind and feline agility. You can be anywhere you want, and still have an action when you get there. Sidebar, Shadow Monk also gets Silence, which was surprisingly effective against spellcasters because it makes casting spells with verbal components impossible. Also deflect missiles feels amazing every single time.
I played an all monk one shot a few years ago, it was an event set up by my best friend’s dojo. All the black belts had been kidnapped and we had to rescue them. I’d never played a monk before and I don’t think I ever would’ve picked one intentionally, but it was such a fun game, one of the best I’ve ever played.
Party is prepping for a Spelljammer campaign. Another player and I randomly both decided to play Monk. We are using the UA OneD&D rules. He is making a religious monk who is a disciple of his previous character who became a god of taverns and wandering. Likely going way of the open hand. I stumbled into realizing that through the Warrior of the Elements subclass, I can gain +10 foot reach...combined with a bugbear, I now have 20 feet of reach. I can instantly go in on the first enemy I find, and drop 3d6 for each attack at first level (on the first round). At level 4 I am aiming for grappler. So I can then grapple, at 20ft away, and start controlling space on our spelljammer, with pretty ridiculous efficiency. The rest of our party is pretty dex based....we are effectively going to be a mercenary band of stealth pirates.
I will say this one was interesting. I don’t know if this one would be on the table for a 4 player monk party but I do want to propose the ascendant dragon monk with its solid group damage and vertical damage type could be handy. As well as they could be a little better a social interactions by being able to reroll a preseason check could help but it’s not a lot.
We cannot be afraid to think outside of the box a bit. Strip the Monk of being explicitly about (Eastern-themed) martial arts (you can still have a character do that, but make it not intrinsic to the class) and you have a very serviceable "generic adventurer" archetype for the kind of swords and sorcery setting that isn't quite as high fantasy as D&D. For example: I ran a campaign setting where a Dwarven Monk had what what he called an Adventurer's Academy--he was teaching young Dwarves (and anyone else who applied) to be Kensei Monks. They were especially suited towards (and perhaps the only ones really capable of) being Strength-based Monks (who can use the Kensei's Deft Strike combined with the optional Monk's Ki-Fueled Attack to get around armor killing your bonus action attacks.) Dex-based they make a great dedicated swordsman/archer. 4 Elements Monk reskinned as a kind of Sorcerer, with the Rune Carver background and whichever spell-granting feats feel appropriate. 4 Elements is a poor spellcaster--when compared to real spellcasters. If it is the only spellcaster, then Hold Person, Fireball, etc, are nothing to sneeze at, especially since the entire party is running on Monk rest time. Hand Of Mercy is some kind of killer/healer. The old saying about learning how to save lives teaches your how to take lives applies here. Way of Shadows is an obvious somewhat magical Rogue-alike or a not-as-obvious spellcaster counterpart to the 4 Elements. Take backgrounds/feats that give you cantrips and spells appropriate to either role. Astral Monk is... JoJo. It's still JoJo. The thing about an all-Monk party is that everyone gets to be somewhat all-rounded and then specialize into a role without having to worry that their attempt at specialization falls short of someone else's base class. I feel like the only other class that has this same potential is Warlock (which, incidentally, I think also work better as an all-party concept when you downplay the patron aspect, hell, call them all hedge wizards/witches/sorcerers/etc and make the magic of the setting a less structured, more piecemeal affair). Sidenote: though Stunlocked Murder is fun, an all Monk party is actually more fun if the encounters are appropriately powered and no one uses Stunning Strike; it de-emphasizes Wisdom for a lot of the Monk roles, allowing for more feat use.
XD My party is running an all-monk "one-shot" (it's already been two sessions, and looks like it will grow into a full campaign) right now, so the video came out at the perfect time.
Love that you mentioned Assassin's Creed for your video. Actually used a Kensei Monk for an Assassin-Style character in an Eberron Oneshot, that was a really fun character :)
I gave my Monk player a set of magic brass knuckles that increase his unarmed attacks by one die size, they're a +1 weapon but at the start of his turn he can give that bonus up to gain some temp hp until the start of his next turn, it fills in the offense and defense gaps but not at the same time
I really like how NADDPOD did this for an arc about a group of all Monks (although one did take a couple Cleric levels as well, but let’s be honest, you’re not going to deny Emily Axford some spells) and how they got around the Charisma element so effectively by making them all high ranking military, retired or not, so that they could flex that instead of rely on their mechanically low Charismas.
I'm very excited to Sebastian Crowe's Guide to Drakkenheim. I backed it on KS and can't wait to crack open my physical copy and smell that new Content smell.
I'm watching this less than a day after watching D20's Unsleeping City chapter 2, episode 16, aka "the time they fought a bunch of monks." That fight was absolutely insane and really shows how good Monks are at just preventing enemies from doing things
We played a One-shot with my group. I had a Elf-shaped Warforged named Elfon't. Of course everyone was proficient in Acrobatics and would do mundane and everyday action with jumps and twirls. It was glorious.
In an all monk party where everyone is spamming stunning strikes and the foes eventually have to fail the save the elements monk can actually have some really good moments with Fang of Fire Snake and Water Whip.
The all monk party is great for a Mortal Combat themed game. It has the tournament theme with and some espionage that play into their strengths and really fits what you would imagine your monk doing.
Since Drunken master is the definition of roleplay>>mechanics in dnd and you need one for flavor, Drunken master should be a Splinter-like npc for the group. He sends the group on their quests, drinks and tells "i'm too old for that stuff" stories all the time. And an honorable mention of a campaign idea is Kung-Fu panda - you almost got there with your 4 animal monks party. And you could be a martial heavy Power rangers group (i'm sure this version exists)
I quite like the idea of a campaign where the party are on a pilgrimage then making them an all monk or all cleric party. Maybe a campaign set in Calimshan it's full of monasteries and friaries etc
Astral monk can be the face of the party. If they're a tortle they can entirely ignore dex and focus on cha as a secondary stat. They also get some abilities for social interaction.
I think in an all one class campaign, I would roll stats straight down the line (4d6k3 still, but they can’t assign them), that way you get some variation in what each monk is actually good at.
idk if anyone has mentioned this yet, but you could make a strength-based monk with GWM if you multiclass into an eldritch knight fighter. essentially swing a heavy weapon with your /attack action, drop the weapon so you have your hands free, and then flurry of blows/stunning strike (neither of which require you use a *monk* weapon during your attack) with your BA. if you want to use your weapon again, summon it back to your hand with weapon bond as BA next turn, attack, rinse and repeat. neat thing about unarmed strikes is that dex is optional. neater thing about ki is that you can use it basically without restriction. of course, it may not be an optimal way of playing a monk or a fighter, and you'd likely have to rely on a tortle's natural armor for AC because you'd be keeping dex at a minimum, but that's at least one way to do it.
Rival adventuring groups have come up a couple times in this series, and I just thought of a cool exercize to tack onto the series: populate the rival same-class party with all the subclasses that you *don't* pick for the PC group. Then maybe try to match them one-on-one as arch-rivals like you have with the Super Friends vs. the Legion of Doom. It's very Jungian-Shadow-self and wonderfully comic-booky.
I agree with Mercy for support/healing with the Healer feat and Herbalism Kit proficiency to make healing potions, and Shadow for stealth with the Eldritch Adept feat for Devil's Sight. You should have grabbed Way of the Long Death for a tank with quarterstaff, polearm master (for AoO when approached), crusher and sentinel. Lastly is your Astral Self who focuses on Wisdom so their Stunning Strike DC is really high and they focus on stun locking dangerous opponents. Shadow can also take the Throwing fighting style with a feat to have decent ranged attacks with daggers/darts and Astral Self can take Magic Initiate or perhaps start with a Strixhaven background to get a cantrip for ranged attacks.
Colby did an astral self grappler - if your DM allows grappling with all four arms, you could totally do a goon squad where your Astral Self strength grappler monk just completely locks down an encounter and the other three do the smackdown.
Fun to try to establish character roles in this party. The only real way to have a tank is if somebody takes the Tough feat. Astral Self is the beat-down and I *guess* the negotiator. Shadow is explorer/infiltrator, and Utility. Mercy is Support, and Beatdown. Would be great if Cobalt Soul were an option here to be the Investigator cause otherwise it’s just gonna be whoever picks up Investigation proficiency.
1. Circle of the Moon = Tank Melee, Exploration, Social (Guidance, High Charisma) 2. Circle of the Land (Grassland) = Utility Spells > Invisibility, Haste, Divination 3. Circle of the Shepard = Summoning Meat Shields or Exploring, Spirit Totem Support 4. Circle of the Stars = Archer Ranged Offense, Chalice Healing
In 2nd Ed AD&D, I was always struck with the resemblance of the monks class to Remo from "The Destroyer" book series. Rather than a holy warrior, Remo was an disciplined assassin working in secret for the American government. His teacher was the latest Master of the "Sun Source of All Martial Arts - Sinanju". Every form of martial arts were supposedly derived from people trying to copy it.
Way of mercy is definitely the best monk, but the Kensei archer is definitely a strong contender. Get yourself a long bow with the sharpshooter feat, fire twice with your action. If you hit, spend 1 ki for extra martial arts damage. If you miss, spend 1-3 ki for +2-6 to hit. Either way you spent ki, which means you get a bonus action shot. That's pretty decent dpr, better than anything else the monk gets.
One of my favorite things that a subclass can do is give something the main class isn't necessarily good at. The Fey Wanderer, for instance, gives an option for a Ranger to take on a more social/leadership role, where the Ranger is typically dumping their Charisma stat. I feel the closest a Monk subclass gets to that is maybe the Cobalt Soul or Mercy, as it gives the Monk better access to something it normally is not good at (interrogation/investigating, and healing). I'd love to see a Monk that perhaps gains bonuses or a focus on more Intelligence-based ideas like a Monk that focuses on written knowledge and practices that are improved by their Wisdom, or a Charisma-based idea like a Monk that focuses on dancing or performance that is improved by their Wisdom. I'm certain these ideas have been homebrewed ad nauseam, but it would be nice to see official support for it!
I am playing a strength Barbarian/Monk/Fighter tortle in a campaign right now. Flury of blows allows for unarmed strikes without the need for a dex attack first with a heavy weapon. Pick up unarmed fighting style from the fighter to not rely on the monks unarmed strike die and you have a great character. I took bear totem, and ascendant dragon as subclasses.
The magic items for monks that don’t use attunement slots is combination of gauntlets of dexterity and bracers of defense for defense and for offense, let’s say a +2 or +3 plain Jane monk weapon (1 of melee and 1 of range). Then get a feat where the monk gets hunters mark. Then at some point, the monk can multiclass with 3 or 5 levels of rogue (getting advantage with their abilities and tactics). And getting the sharp shooter feat for their ranged attacks. And at this point this the monk’s probability to hit range or melee (2 or 4) is very high, especially with advanced (almost guaranteed to hit every time). I have a monk of 8th level (single class) dealing 50+ hps every single round with 4 hits. And that’s average damage with 4 hits.
A Grung Monk can force a Con Saving throw each punch he make only by be a Grung without waste any resource and poison the enemies. Much fun with the variant options with each color of Grung makes a different effect add to the poison.
You guys are talking about Stillness of Mind and climbing walls and stuff like that that are very high level ( 9+ ) But the Astral Self monk second subclass feature at level 6, although not all encompassing for any situation, grants them intimidation proficiency, so they could be the Face of the group, and give it a slight edge instead of being totally hopeless.
I think if there’s an all monk party, the ideal default combat mode would be everyone pickup Sharpshooter at level 4 and shortbows, darts, and slings for everyone. That way whomever is nearest an enemy, they flurry/stunning strike, and the rest Sharpshooter ranged attacks with advantage from the stun, using Ki fueled attacks for third attacks, and focused aim to trigger the ki fueled attacks (or if kensei/four elements, use deft strike/fangs of fire snake). The weapon die scales with monk die, and keeping most of the team at range allows the AC of monks to be mitigated a bit. That would an absolute terror. As for classes, agree with Mercy (eg cleric role), Shadow (eg Thief role), and Kensei (fighter roll), but really even though it’s poopie, Way of Four Elements is really the only way to bring in more magical crowd control/have a mage. Take fangs of fire snake (for said combat improvement above), hold person (to swap out for Fireball at 11), Fly, and Wall of Stone. Gives material area damage and control and proper fly (and a generous gem may let your upcast affect others). Basically, in the land of the blind, the one eyed glaucoma man is king.
Strength based monk patch: barbarian + battle master fighter with unarmed fighting style, push attack, trip attack, grappling strike, evasive footwork, and the tavern brawler and mobile feats
When i think strength based monk, i think of the ones that take hits from hands, feet, and blunt objects without moving or flinching. Then pairing that with those martial artists that break stacks of bricks and such. They would play as a monk that dares the enemy to hit them only to have a way to reduce damage and swing back with blows that dead additional bludgeoning or force damage.
I feel like a Long Death monk would act really well as a front liner for the part given they get more survivability with the extra temp hitpoints they get throughout battles.
I've ran an all monk party once in my game as a one shot. I think I had 6 players that night and I did premade characters for them. Kensei, Open Hand, Four Elements, Mercy, Drunken Master, and Shadow. My players still talk about it as one of the best experiences they've had at the table.
Yuan-ti + Tabaxi + Thri-Kreen + Hadozee + Aarakocra + Sir Bearington = Kung Fu Panda and the Furious Five
Yesss
I was thinking about Kung Fu Panda. It could be fun!
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought that
I hate this so much that it has circled back around to being amazing.
Almost perfect except for one thing- wouldn’t Tigress technically be a Leonin as she’s a big cat?
Also, who would play which subclass one this AMAZING scenario?! 😁
~_~
8:52 if it goes poorly you have yourself a Tortle party kill.
*slow clap*
"ba-dum...tiss"
Way of the tumbleweed
How dare you!?
I want to like this comment twice😂
You did mention the astral self being the most social character in the party, because the visage gives advantage on some checks, but also--if you're making them a tortle, they really don't need their dexterity for much of anything, so investing in charisma instead might make things a bit less bleak. Coupled with a background that gives persuasion and/or deception, and it's still not amazing but it's not quite as rough as you might think.
Master oogway
I mean don't drop dex completely cuz theyre still the front liner, gotta land some attacks. but like a 12 ish could be fine maybe
@@TheOneAverageJoe astral self uses wisdom to attack
@@LowlySlime oh true
If you can fit it on (ex. if you have an odd Wisdom score at character creation), taking the Skill Expert feat to get expertise in Athletics could make you even MORE ridiculous(ly fun) as you start grappling and shoving everything around you with your Astral Arms with aplomb - AND if they’re melee-based foes without reach, the enemies can’t even get to you to retaliate.
Happy the "Everyone Plays a Single Class" series is starting back up. Cool idea.
Not Another D&D podcast did an all Monk mini arc. They were really good about getting in and out of places FAST
Thank you for mentioning Exploration as one of the big difficulties. I'm designing a subclass for every class and was lost on the Monk. I had it built in as being able to pass into the Ethereal Plane, but couldn't figure out a mid level ability for them. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! They can already shunt themselves to the Etherea Plane, as a reaction, to avoid attacks, like the Blink spell, but this takes it a step further and builds on it. Thank you.
Also being tied to the Ethereal Plane gives you a slightly higher AC as you are harder to target as you aren't partially there and looks whispy or ghostly.
It has been forever since I heard anyone mention Tenchu. It was great fun that you had a poisoned rice bowl that you could just throw any distance and the idiot would be like "I'm obviously going to eat this random rice I found in the yard at midnight".
Walking an infinite repeating pattern makes you hungry. "I hate guard duty."
Now I want to play Tenchu
Theory: everyone’s underpaid and starving 😅🤤 that riceball’s a week’s salary! Better take my chances
Don't forget the caltrops.
I played a Tortle Astral Self Monk in an all-Monk one shot. It was a ton of fun, for sure, and as both an Astral Self Monk and a Tortle, I was actually able to make a monk build that dumped DEX and focused on Wisdom. The Telekinetic Feat and Magic Initiate Druid for Shillelagh also helped
About the fighter, monk overlap: I've introduced my Chinese partner to DnD and she wanted to play a martial character. I showed her the options. And a half hour later she still could not see a difference between monks and fighters flavorwise. She's a huge fan of kungfu stories and kungfu is what in her mind fighting looks like.
Especially since I've seen it pointed out that in actual martial arts movies, fighting barehanded is not something you do by choice, it's what you do when you lose or don't have a weapon.
Monk should always have just been a fighter sub class.
Now that the Unarmed Fighting style is a thing fighters get, monks kind of become less and less special
@@YMasterS maybe not that but see beneath….
@@snazzyfeathers conceptual i love the monk. But not as religious figures or wise man but as the only way in DnD to play a nimble fighter who doesn't relie on armor.
So if I could redesign the classes of DnD I would merge the fighter and monk into one class. Ad level 1 a player must decide if the character is a finesse or brute fighter. That should to more than a decision between strength and dexterity as main stat. Maybe finnese fighters attack more and brutes hit harder?
Ad second level the character can pick a fighting style. If you pick the unarmed fighting style you have a martial artist and can call yourself a monk if you flavor your character like that. A finesse fighter with the dueling fighting style could be a swashbuckler. And so on.
(while I haven't finished the episode yet) I especially liked your early comment about a group fighting against a tyrannical regime. Historically, some "martial arts" weapons and fighting styles were peasant things so that they weren't "an armed resistance". I think a monk party fighting against tyranny would be great and could even have some robinhood elements. Not needing to have formal weapons and armor lets the party blend in among the populace the way that people in heavy armor with a halbard just can't.
Long Bow is a heavy weapon, so Kensei seems like the only Monk being able to use heavy weapon as Monk weapon.
Longbow was a special exception for the class
I've actually been in an all monk campaign for a bit. 4 of us are testing the dm's homebrew subclasses while 1 more is playing a Way of Astral Self. It's honestly been really fun, but I'd love to play with all official stuff.
Just going to leave that out there and NOT tell us about the cool subclasses...?
@davidcarnan1270 It's called the Way of Technique, which is basically 4 subclasses in one, each designed to 'fix' a problem with monk. They're all based on real martial arts (he's a 3rd degree black belt so this mattered a lot to him). There's the Weapon Style, which gives you a fighting style and eventually let's you use any weapon as a monk weapon (including heavy weapons). There's the Mixed Style, which let's you be an even stronger support martial with features that can analyze a creature's weakest stat, high level can change the saving throw for SS, etc. Mixed really thrives in a party with Casters. There's Hard Style, which ups the damage of Martial Arts and can freely knock enemies around. And then there's Soft Style, which can exchange movement speed to do damage to creature's that miss them, at high levels you can spend ki to have evasion on any save. Overall, it's been very fun and exciting.
@@DParkerNunya wtf.... that's dope as fuck. i love basing the abilities on actual martial arts too, makes it feel real
Kensei= Aarakocra, Astral Self= Loxodon, Shaodow= Tabaxi or Harengon, Mercy= Tortle
I really hope we get to see Colby play a monk in Drakkenheim!
Astral Self could also be Hadozee with a quarterstaff and be Sun Wu Kong
Strength based monk should definitely be a thing. I love the idea of a grappler judo monk instead of the typical agile striker type
I mean, Judo is still Dexterity, no? It's just defensive agility (turning an enemy's strength against them) instead of offensive agility.
I love the image of a monk using Deflect Missile against a cannon ball and just palming it in their hand.
Constition-based Monk would be a cool thing for DnD to develop. Think super into Iron Body (body hardening) techniques. Their moves would be based on tanking damage and doing damage to opponents when they deflect blows in melee range. (Because their bones are so hard getting blocked hurts the attacker more than the monk, and the monk knows how to block into opponents' weak points). Spec them into immunity to sickened and stunned and poisoned, and instead of slow fall give resistance to forced movement. Stuff like that.
I always wanted a Luchador monk. Grapples and flips and weird combos
Basically a Barbarian focused on unarmed/grappling, with Rage flavoured as Focus
I actually like the ascendent dragon as well cause that also has some social features on top of its breath and getting magic punches well before everyone else
Colby has done an Ascendant Dragon Monk build that isn’t terrible.
It focuses on multi target burst damage, which this party will struggle with hard.
I think the ascendent dragon is probably the second best monk (behind way of mercy), most of the features have one or more uses without using ki (that is super rare for monks), so you can stunning strike a ton, and still have some aoe stuff from your subclass (I know, it's weaker than just having a blaster on the team, but when you compare it to other monk subclasses, yeah I believe it's the second best)
@@logancuster8035End it's not like there's a lot of alternatives for multi target burst damage. (Other than 4 elements or sun soul, whose only options are more expensive and/or come online much later.
I think that if we're going with an aaracokra and shadow and astral self monks making the astral self as the birdman makes the most combat sense. Astral self's darkness spell won't hinder the other players (through good positioning) and synergizes well with the extra reach.
Having some monks that are a dhampir would also go a long way to keep most of them alive. (long death feels very suited for this)
im under the impression that monty and kelly straight up forgot about that subclass because they werent impressed with it on release if i remember correctly, but it's a great subclass
@@MVCx_xB I mean I disagree, I think it’s pretty weak, but not completely unsalvageable. It does at least bring something the other monks don’t.
I believe "What if everyone played a monk?" Is how Baki was thought up.
Monks, Unarmed Fighters and Barbarians.
Yujiro is like, a level 200 monk, level 20 in all subclasses and if there are any spare levels remaining, the rest are fighter and barbarian.
Lmfao
Last season was a 1v1 between two astral monks
Bruh so good
Timely topic for me, guys, thanks! I'm playing a WereRaven in a party with a goblin druid, half-elf warlock, and an elf-based Dhampir life cleric. We're starting 5e Candlekeep adventure book with a newbie GM. I've played D&D since 1980s, so this is fun. My choice to fill the role of melee striker is to go astral self. Flyby blows from 10 feet up, yo!
"Your Cognac Style will fail to the superior Bourbon Style" -Drunken Masters
This sounds like a riot. It made me think of a mead-drinker crossing a bridge with a sake-drinker and becoming battle buddies.
6:04 - YES!! Tenchu reference. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins was one of the best games ever. Groundbreaking for it's time.
Props to Monty for the OG PS1 game reference. The Tenchu games were one of my favorite franchises, alongside Syphon Filter and Final Fantasy for the PS during my adolescence. Very hard to get the perfect scores in Tenchu
I would just make Shredder a Fighter/Rogue multiclass. The mechanics and thematics work out perfectly with no need to alter the rules. Just give him spiked Elven Chainmail so he can stealth without disadvantage and we're good to go.
I don't remember Shredder doing a whole bunch of hiding and sneak attacking. TBH, I'd make Shredder as a Ranger. A Fey Wanderer maybe, if it can be assumed that Dimension X is kinda like the Feywild.
@@TheRawrnstuff You don't remember the guy who is a literal Ninja Master hiding and fighting? Is this a serious post? Stop.
@@greyelf1537 I don't. I remember him scheming, boasting, and leaving his lackeys to deal with things. You stop.
The success of this party depends on one primary question: are Drakkenheim subclasses allowed? 😬😬😬
So Colby did watch. We'll wait for that strength based monk.😂
Now I want to see a one shot of Colby, the Dudes, and Treantmonk all playing monks.
And if the players want to really bring things to the next level -- is the new monk from OneD&D playtest 8 allowed?
Does the Revenant Blades Feat that turns a double-bladed scimitar into a finesse weapon qualify for converting a heavy weapon into something a monk can use?
@@jase7300 it doesnt remove the heavy property so you cannot convert it into a monk weapon with kensei or dedicated weapon
For the races you could do Tortle, Tabaxi, Aarakorcra, and Lizard Folk and have each of the representing the four cardinal deities of Chinese mythology…Genbu, Byakko, Suzaku, and Seiryu….and they are fighting a yellow or gold Dragon born who used to be their leader but turned evil who is the yellow dragon of center
The "Middle Age Martial Artist Tortles" jingle cracked me up! Specially the "buy a boat" in hte end!
The insignia of claws item from hoard of the dragon queen gives a +1 to unarmed strikes, makes them magical, and doesn't require attunement
I love the idea of the Monk Managerie all having a shared background, like they were all woodland creatures that came in contact with a strong magical item or eldritch being that transformed them.
The mutagen
I'd love to see a variant of this series making a party of 4 characters that are multi-classed across all classes. You can do it!
And remember that Astral Self monks can be pretty good grapplers too! Some additional control can go a long way
Honestly I LOVE the kensei monk using thrown weapons like daggers and darts, you could go running into the enemy throwing darts, once you're close use your daggers and fists to gain the attack bonus and AC bonus, keep in mind that the kensei skills don't require ranged weapons but ranged attacks that can trigger with thrown weapons
The best part of the Kensei is that you can diversify a lot with Tasha’s starting off with three weapons as long as you get it from your background/species.
@@leodouskyron5671 yeah, kensei has so many weapon options but I like using the one's that exploit all the features they can like a spear, it's a melee thrown weapon, if you're a monk with a whole lot of speed then you can throw your spear, run and catch it right after it hits making an unarmed strike and gaining the dmg an AC bonus to with some style points 😎
We had a group that sadly never got together to do the game but an idea that I'd still run today as it still feels like a great story to play
Setting something akin to the oriental adventures books we got, a group of monks in the northen region of the land survive an invasion on there homeland and monetary from a new evil power that has stirred, they set out on a mission and pilgrimage south where they go to different regions for aid from different monasteries. Each monastery has a different outlook and drastically different practices, our party of monks find the troubles of there homeland are not unique and that they need not only convince the other masters for aid but to help them with their own issues.
The larger arc of the story was for this group of rag-tag monks to go around the cotenant meeting with masters, maybe learning lessons from each one in an effort to unite them and "maybe" growing enough themselves that they become a big player in the effort to fight back against the new BB.
I liked the idea they would go to one region and meet a group of monks who were all about mastery of the mind and focus, then later they meet the greatest drunken master who happens to be an orc monk that lives like a hermit making homebrew in the woods and convince him to help them dispite him clearly not liking civilization much and preferring his peaceful glade
My DM and I once worked at making the Turtles so we definitely went Tortle. I did Donatello and I actually found he worked better as a pure Kensei Monk but he takes Artificer Initiate so he gets the tools, a cantrip, and a level one spell. I gave him Booming Blade which I think works amazing with the Bo staff
You guys mentioned grabbing Bless with Fey Touched but don’t overlook Bane. The Astral Self Monk can double down on Wisdom and be the best Stunner in the party while also boosting everybody else
I'm trying to imagine Monty running for a cutesy all anthropomorphic animal D&D party:
DM Monty: "Alright Shadow Bunny... you slip inside the hollow of the tree, finding it much larger inside than out. The walls are covered with luminous moss and fungi, and by their light, you see the inner space holds a rotting, deliquescent gore which rises to your knees, making progress labored. In the center of the space is a massive undulating, fruiting, piping, writhing plant pod that smells of rotting flesh & stale blood, overlaid by a heady scent of exotic perfume which nearly takes your breath away. Innumerable tendrils suddenly explode from the top of the pod, whipping wildly through the air as the thing begins to transform. Roll for initiative."
Shadow Bun Bun: "I signed up for a cute adventure! Not cosmic horror!"
Dm Monty: "I am who I am."
I think another good inspiration (of course with some liberties) would be power ranger. Most of the time they are using hand to hand combat and are a part of some institution. Realistically, they would likely need some Artificer lvls, but I think that's a good group idea.
Way of mercy for the rabbit who hands out easter eggs that either heal or harm! And obviously the rabbit mask for the rabbit lol
I appreciate Monty's shoutout to the the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu; an underutilized trope.
I’ll throw out there that I was surprised to discover how well Goliath merge with Monk builds. They have a reaction to reduce damage, (which is usually available on monks) cold resistance which is nice, Athletics and Powerful Build helps realize the idea of being a well muscled individual even though you probably dumped Strength.
Great video Dudes! I was worried that you had stopped this series. 😅
Not being able to multiclass severely restricts this party’s versatility, so here’s some of my ideas for monk multiclassing:
- Mercy + Death Domain
- Shadow + Gloomstalker
- Ascendant Dragon + Drakewarden
- Ascendant Dragon + Draconic Bloodline
- Astral Self + Twilight Domain
- Astral Self + Circle of Stars
- Astral Self + Echo Knight
- Astral Self + Horizon Walker
- Astral Self + Arcane Trickster
- Drunken Master + Scout
- Drunken Master + Swashbuckler
- Drunken Master + College of Dance
- Drunken Master + Brawler
- Four Elements + Genie Warlock
- Four Elements + Circle of the Land
- Sun Soul + Light Domain
- Cobalt Soul + Inquisitive Rogue
True, but allowing multiclassing kind of defeats the purpose of this series, which is to compare the synergy and overlap of the base classes. You can't really evaluate how good an "All Monk" party is if the Shadow Spores character is more Druid than Monk, and the Mercy Twilight character is more Cleric than Monk.
bugbear way of the astral self monk using the uncommon "eldritch claw tattoo" would be absolutely amazing..
the tattoo has two abilities, one passive and one active.
"Magical Strikes. While the tattoo is on your skin, your unarmed strikes are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming immunity and resistance to nonmagical attacks, and you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls with unarmed strikes.
Eldritch Maul. As a bonus action, you can empower the tattoo for 1 minute. For the duration, each of your melee attacks with a weapon or an unarmed strike can reach a target up to 15 feet away from you, as inky tendrils launch toward the target. In addition, your melee attacks deal an extra 1d6 force damage on a hit. Once used, this bonus action can't be used again until the next dawn."
for this build, both are great but what we're focused on is the active ability. it says your unarmed strikes can now hit up to 15 feet away... this sets your baseline melee attack distance to 15 feet.
now, as a bugbear you get:
"Long-Limbed. When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal."
this adds 5 to your baseline melee range.. so that means with the tattoo you're now at 20 ft melee.
finally, the astral self monk gets Arms of the Astral Self, which has several things.. but the main one here is
"When you make an unarmed strike with the arms on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal."
this, again, adds 5 feet to your base melee (unarmed) attack range...
a bugbear astral self monk using an activated eldritch claw tattoo can punch you from 25 feet away.. including being able to flurry of blows from that distance...
Unfortunately, I'm sure most DM's would shoot this down (and would be right to do so), as Eldritch Maul doesn't increase your unarmed reach; rather, it replaces it with the 15ft.
However, the Astral Monk Bugbear alone would be awesome with that 15ft reach.
With both the monk video and the warlock video you mentioned how since everyone wants to short rest the class gets better since you dont have to convince people to short rest for you. Ive always wondered what the best short rest focused party would be. Probably Warlock, monk, fighter and maybe moon druid too. Genie warlock to get Sanctuary Vessel, moon druid for lots of wild shape, plus your pick of fighter and monk subclasses. I think it would make for an interesting video to see your guys' ideas on it.
Hey Dudes, I've been playing with the idea of getting rid of Ki all together and just letting the monk do what it want to do through normal action economy. Maybe have features that cost Ki be limited to once per turn, number of times per day or rest recharge.
This channel talks about the short comings of monks a lot and I'm with you. They need to be reworked from the ground up. So how would you do it? I'd love to hear how the Dungeon Dudes would redesign the monk. Love this channel, party on dudes 🤘🏻
At the “all menagerie” stage I thought you guys would make the jump to Kung Fu Panda (stork, tigress, ugwe, …)
Big missed opportunity on the bunny Kensei. That’s Usagi Yojimbo!!! Before haringon race came out I made a tabaxi Kensei and played him as rabbit instead of cat. I played in Decent into Avernus up to about level 8 or 9. It was awesome! I even got an adamantium sword and a silver sword. One for structures and one for devils lol. I wanted to take blowgun for my ranged weapon. Imagine a blowgun with no poison doing a d10+d4+dex!
I’ve seen a fun alt feature for 3rd level monks that takes inspiration from the Samurai fighter. Words of Wisdom lets the Monk use their Wisdom modifier in place of Charisma when making Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion checks. The idea being that through their travels as a monk, they gain a greater insight and understanding of how to best speak to an individual for the greatest impact behind their words
In my Drakkenhiem game game I ruled that if shadow monk uses their ki points to cast darkness they can see through it
Considering what was said in this episode in regards to 3 pillars of play and weaknesses, my thoughts are these:
An all monk party can make for a great campaign. Combat might be their best field from what the monks bring to the table. Yes, fighters and paladins and wizards end combats faster. But since every monk is in the same rythm, no player feels like falling behind.
They are all quiet good in getting somewhere and if they have access to the right magic items, there is nothing that could stop them.
The monks lack social abbilities, but this could be overcome in multiple ways to keep the campaign fun:
- again magic items (hat of disguise, cloak of charisma, belt of dwarven kind, ...)
- ignore the stats and just roleplay it
- befriend an ally who than does the talking. (This is your April O'Neil to the Ninja Tortles)
So, year - this can totally work and be lot of fun.
"Ninja! Your tea party is over!"
(Does anyone else remember that Australian ABC short that played between cartoons in the 90's?)
The issue with melee Monk skirmishing is that the movement is still not enough, unless you start close already (which case it only works until the enemy stops moving towards you pointlessly).
Lets say you have 35ft base (Wood Elf), +15ft (we'll say this is before Tier 3), +10ft Mobile = 60ft movement speed.
So, you start at say 40ft away: you move 35ft, hit, move 25ft back - you are now 30ft away from the enemy and still a potential target for 95% of enemies. Alright that didn't work, so lets try again.
So, you start at say 20ft away for some reason: you move 15ft, hit, move 45ft back - you are now 50ft away from the enemy, roughly 1/6 of enemies will still be able to get to you by Speed alone (and many of the slower ones have alternatives to melee), but still, not bad. So, the ones that didn't get to you and are melee, they either get close but no cigar, allowing you to do the same again... or they don't. If they don't, you are now 50ft away and are going to have to spend all your movement speed getting to them, instead.
The skirmishing style with the sort of speeds the Monk is looking at will frequently make the enemy not be able to attack them, but often they still will. The Monk AC is lacking, due to being too MAD to focus on Unarmored Defense. The HP is also lacking. The Monk damage is lacking. Now, hopefully you come up against just single targets and hopefully they fail to Save against the Stunning Strike (you do have a decent amount as a whole party of Monks) and you get easy Short Rests to replenish - otherwise you lack all the magic features that make combat easy, lack the AC and HP to survive, skirmishing helps mitigate some turns but not others, and you lack out of combat utility too.
That said, a full ranged Monk party would be pretty hard to catch in combat. Still weak to magic... but who isn't if you don't have a Paladin's Aura of Protection? There is a reason 95% of 5e monsters don't cast spells.
Some homebrew magic items for monks: martial art books, by attuning they can augment their martial art with the ability in the book (a feat, feature from another class or subclass). Also a consumable item that increases your ki pool.
I would have liked to have heard all of the pillars mentioned here, but it was still a really cool episode. Thank you.
Also, the movement speed boost across the board would make for a crazy fast/mobile party. I think that would be one of the other big benefits.
Way of Mercy monk also gives a great shoutout to one of the granddaddies of martial arts anime, Hokuto no Ken aka Fist of the North Star. While Quivering Palm is probably the more iconic representation in D&D, something heavily emphasized in the series is the ability of Hokuto Shinken to both destroy and to heal. Way of Mercy is a great way to represent Toki, the pacifist character who sought to push the limits of the healing ability of the art.
The thing about making an all one class party, like you guys brought up, in how effective it is, is based on the DM. Because if I was DMing an all monk party, I'd probably try to run it where the inciting event is something that, when the monks go to the broader world, they're automatically revered in some way. If you see a person dressed like a Tibetan monk, you are more likely to believe they are a monk. And when that person says something to you, you're inclined to believe them. I'd give a party of all monks advantage on deception checks.
37:21 Glad they brought this up, I can't sing the graces of Fey-Touched enough. Hex allowed my monk's flurry of blows, at level 3, to do 43 damage. High dex mod, an extra 1d6 per attack, while getting 3 attacks? I coupled this with the halfling's Lucky feature, meaning a 1 on any of these was a re-roll, so minimum damage or misses were less likely.
Great video, guys!! I also thought about Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, both members of the Arashikage Ninja Clan.
Wow! A Tenchu reference! I loved that game. I only managed to do the gauntlet through the town once unseen but it felt amazing when I got top score without killing a single person.
Been waiting for this one! Will Monty tear monks to pieces 🤔
I think the all monk party really opens up if you allow multiclassing. You can get a lot of the martial arts flavor just from 1 level in monk, and then you allow some really diverse "Martial Artist" characters.
If it's just pure monk, some fun ways to make a unique build can be to go Loxodon or Lizardfolk, which allows you to dump wisdom as long as you ignore and features with save DCs. With Lizardfolk you can focus on Dex + Con since you get the 3 ac from unarmored bonus anyways, and Loxodon you can do a Str + Con monk. Both work well for building a beefier martial artist.
We have a way of the serpent Monk in our drakkenheim campaign. With a gloom stalker ranger, light domain cleric and an evocation wizard. I have found that the power level is pretty on par and doesn't upset the balance within the party. And most importantly everyone is having fun!
I'm really interested in the Everyone plays Ranger episode.
Our current main 5e group has ended up with two Rangers in it so we're half way to it already.
This whole video series reminds me of the Iron Kingdoms RPG from Privateer Press. Character creation there was defacto multi-classing. You would take two Professions and smash them together. So you could be a Noble and a Soldier, or am Alchemist and a Field Mechanic, or a Death Stalker and a Duelist.
So you could form a party and say, "Your team is an elite team of the Cygnar army, everyone must have the Soldier profession." That ensures that everyone has the soldier half of the equation, but the second profession, the archtype, the race, etc... all lets you come up with massively different characters.
Man, IKRPG was so good. And being able to quickly move from RPG scale games to massive armies clashing was awesome (IKRPG was the RPG offshoot of Warmachine/Hordes) So whether you were dealing with a dozen minis on the table, or hundreds, it was an easy transition.
I played a Tabaxi Shadow Monk with Mobile, wound up being able to move like 240 ft on a single turn by level 10, with step of the wind and feline agility. You can be anywhere you want, and still have an action when you get there. Sidebar, Shadow Monk also gets Silence, which was surprisingly effective against spellcasters because it makes casting spells with verbal components impossible.
Also deflect missiles feels amazing every single time.
I played an all monk one shot a few years ago, it was an event set up by my best friend’s dojo. All the black belts had been kidnapped and we had to rescue them. I’d never played a monk before and I don’t think I ever would’ve picked one intentionally, but it was such a fun game, one of the best I’ve ever played.
Party is prepping for a Spelljammer campaign.
Another player and I randomly both decided to play Monk. We are using the UA OneD&D rules.
He is making a religious monk who is a disciple of his previous character who became a god of taverns and wandering. Likely going way of the open hand.
I stumbled into realizing that through the Warrior of the Elements subclass, I can gain +10 foot reach...combined with a bugbear, I now have 20 feet of reach. I can instantly go in on the first enemy I find, and drop 3d6 for each attack at first level (on the first round). At level 4 I am aiming for grappler. So I can then grapple, at 20ft away, and start controlling space on our spelljammer, with pretty ridiculous efficiency.
The rest of our party is pretty dex based....we are effectively going to be a mercenary band of stealth pirates.
I will say this one was interesting. I don’t know if this one would be on the table for a 4 player monk party but I do want to propose the ascendant dragon monk with its solid group damage and vertical damage type could be handy. As well as they could be a little better a social interactions by being able to reroll a preseason check could help but it’s not a lot.
Oh yeah! Ascendant dragon is so fun.
We cannot be afraid to think outside of the box a bit. Strip the Monk of being explicitly about (Eastern-themed) martial arts (you can still have a character do that, but make it not intrinsic to the class) and you have a very serviceable "generic adventurer" archetype for the kind of swords and sorcery setting that isn't quite as high fantasy as D&D. For example: I ran a campaign setting where a Dwarven Monk had what what he called an Adventurer's Academy--he was teaching young Dwarves (and anyone else who applied) to be Kensei Monks. They were especially suited towards (and perhaps the only ones really capable of) being Strength-based Monks (who can use the Kensei's Deft Strike combined with the optional Monk's Ki-Fueled Attack to get around armor killing your bonus action attacks.) Dex-based they make a great dedicated swordsman/archer.
4 Elements Monk reskinned as a kind of Sorcerer, with the Rune Carver background and whichever spell-granting feats feel appropriate. 4 Elements is a poor spellcaster--when compared to real spellcasters. If it is the only spellcaster, then Hold Person, Fireball, etc, are nothing to sneeze at, especially since the entire party is running on Monk rest time.
Hand Of Mercy is some kind of killer/healer. The old saying about learning how to save lives teaches your how to take lives applies here.
Way of Shadows is an obvious somewhat magical Rogue-alike or a not-as-obvious spellcaster counterpart to the 4 Elements. Take backgrounds/feats that give you cantrips and spells appropriate to either role.
Astral Monk is... JoJo. It's still JoJo.
The thing about an all-Monk party is that everyone gets to be somewhat all-rounded and then specialize into a role without having to worry that their attempt at specialization falls short of someone else's base class. I feel like the only other class that has this same potential is Warlock (which, incidentally, I think also work better as an all-party concept when you downplay the patron aspect, hell, call them all hedge wizards/witches/sorcerers/etc and make the magic of the setting a less structured, more piecemeal affair). Sidenote: though Stunlocked Murder is fun, an all Monk party is actually more fun if the encounters are appropriately powered and no one uses Stunning Strike; it de-emphasizes Wisdom for a lot of the Monk roles, allowing for more feat use.
XD My party is running an all-monk "one-shot" (it's already been two sessions, and looks like it will grow into a full campaign) right now, so the video came out at the perfect time.
Love that you mentioned Assassin's Creed for your video. Actually used a Kensei Monk for an Assassin-Style character in an Eberron Oneshot, that was a really fun character :)
I gave my Monk player a set of magic brass knuckles that increase his unarmed attacks by one die size, they're a +1 weapon but at the start of his turn he can give that bonus up to gain some temp hp until the start of his next turn, it fills in the offense and defense gaps but not at the same time
I really like how NADDPOD did this for an arc about a group of all Monks (although one did take a couple Cleric levels as well, but let’s be honest, you’re not going to deny Emily Axford some spells) and how they got around the Charisma element so effectively by making them all high ranking military, retired or not, so that they could flex that instead of rely on their mechanically low Charismas.
I'm very excited to Sebastian Crowe's Guide to Drakkenheim. I backed it on KS and can't wait to crack open my physical copy and smell that new Content smell.
Man, I loved playing the Tenchu Z demo on the Xbox 360. Those were fun times.
I'm watching this less than a day after watching D20's Unsleeping City chapter 2, episode 16, aka "the time they fought a bunch of monks." That fight was absolutely insane and really shows how good Monks are at just preventing enemies from doing things
We played a One-shot with my group. I had a Elf-shaped Warforged named Elfon't.
Of course everyone was proficient in Acrobatics and would do mundane and everyday action with jumps and twirls. It was glorious.
astral self fits excellently with tortle because you can kinda ignore dex
In an all monk party where everyone is spamming stunning strikes and the foes eventually have to fail the save the elements monk can actually have some really good moments with Fang of Fire Snake and Water Whip.
The all monk party is great for a Mortal Combat themed game. It has the tournament theme with and some espionage that play into their strengths and really fits what you would imagine your monk doing.
Since Drunken master is the definition of roleplay>>mechanics in dnd and you need one for flavor, Drunken master should be a Splinter-like npc for the group. He sends the group on their quests, drinks and tells "i'm too old for that stuff" stories all the time. And an honorable mention of a campaign idea is Kung-Fu panda - you almost got there with your 4 animal monks party. And you could be a martial heavy Power rangers group (i'm sure this version exists)
What if when you had one take the magic initiate feat, they choose Guidance? Helpful in many situations.
I quite like the idea of a campaign where the party are on a pilgrimage then making them an all monk or all cleric party.
Maybe a campaign set in Calimshan it's full of monasteries and friaries etc
Astral monk can be the face of the party. If they're a tortle they can entirely ignore dex and focus on cha as a secondary stat. They also get some abilities for social interaction.
I think in an all one class campaign, I would roll stats straight down the line (4d6k3 still, but they can’t assign them), that way you get some variation in what each monk is actually good at.
idk if anyone has mentioned this yet, but you could make a strength-based monk with GWM if you multiclass into an eldritch knight fighter. essentially swing a heavy weapon with your /attack action, drop the weapon so you have your hands free, and then flurry of blows/stunning strike (neither of which require you use a *monk* weapon during your attack) with your BA. if you want to use your weapon again, summon it back to your hand with weapon bond as BA next turn, attack, rinse and repeat.
neat thing about unarmed strikes is that dex is optional. neater thing about ki is that you can use it basically without restriction.
of course, it may not be an optimal way of playing a monk or a fighter, and you'd likely have to rely on a tortle's natural armor for AC because you'd be keeping dex at a minimum, but that's at least one way to do it.
Rival adventuring groups have come up a couple times in this series, and I just thought of a cool exercize to tack onto the series: populate the rival same-class party with all the subclasses that you *don't* pick for the PC group. Then maybe try to match them one-on-one as arch-rivals like you have with the Super Friends vs. the Legion of Doom. It's very Jungian-Shadow-self and wonderfully comic-booky.
I agree with Mercy for support/healing with the Healer feat and Herbalism Kit proficiency to make healing potions, and Shadow for stealth with the Eldritch Adept feat for Devil's Sight. You should have grabbed Way of the Long Death for a tank with quarterstaff, polearm master (for AoO when approached), crusher and sentinel. Lastly is your Astral Self who focuses on Wisdom so their Stunning Strike DC is really high and they focus on stun locking dangerous opponents. Shadow can also take the Throwing fighting style with a feat to have decent ranged attacks with daggers/darts and Astral Self can take Magic Initiate or perhaps start with a Strixhaven background to get a cantrip for ranged attacks.
Colby did an astral self grappler - if your DM allows grappling with all four arms, you could totally do a goon squad where your Astral Self strength grappler monk just completely locks down an encounter and the other three do the smackdown.
Fun to try to establish character roles in this party. The only real way to have a tank is if somebody takes the Tough feat. Astral Self is the beat-down and I *guess* the negotiator. Shadow is explorer/infiltrator, and Utility. Mercy is Support, and Beatdown. Would be great if Cobalt Soul were an option here to be the Investigator cause otherwise it’s just gonna be whoever picks up Investigation proficiency.
1. Circle of the Moon = Tank Melee, Exploration, Social (Guidance, High Charisma)
2. Circle of the Land (Grassland) = Utility Spells > Invisibility, Haste, Divination
3. Circle of the Shepard = Summoning Meat Shields or Exploring, Spirit Totem Support
4. Circle of the Stars = Archer Ranged Offense, Chalice Healing
In 2nd Ed AD&D, I was always struck with the resemblance of the monks class to Remo from "The Destroyer" book series. Rather than a holy warrior, Remo was an disciplined assassin working in secret for the American government. His teacher was the latest Master of the "Sun Source of All Martial Arts - Sinanju". Every form of martial arts were supposedly derived from people trying to copy it.
Way of mercy is definitely the best monk, but the Kensei archer is definitely a strong contender. Get yourself a long bow with the sharpshooter feat, fire twice with your action. If you hit, spend 1 ki for extra martial arts damage. If you miss, spend 1-3 ki for +2-6 to hit. Either way you spent ki, which means you get a bonus action shot. That's pretty decent dpr, better than anything else the monk gets.
One of my favorite things that a subclass can do is give something the main class isn't necessarily good at. The Fey Wanderer, for instance, gives an option for a Ranger to take on a more social/leadership role, where the Ranger is typically dumping their Charisma stat. I feel the closest a Monk subclass gets to that is maybe the Cobalt Soul or Mercy, as it gives the Monk better access to something it normally is not good at (interrogation/investigating, and healing). I'd love to see a Monk that perhaps gains bonuses or a focus on more Intelligence-based ideas like a Monk that focuses on written knowledge and practices that are improved by their Wisdom, or a Charisma-based idea like a Monk that focuses on dancing or performance that is improved by their Wisdom. I'm certain these ideas have been homebrewed ad nauseam, but it would be nice to see official support for it!
I think a one or two level dip into a few of the other classes would help, but fun concept. Heavy skirmisher vibes, hit and fade operations.
And with attunement slots for magic, you can get those items you mentioned in this video
I am playing a strength Barbarian/Monk/Fighter tortle in a campaign right now. Flury of blows allows for unarmed strikes without the need for a dex attack first with a heavy weapon. Pick up unarmed fighting style from the fighter to not rely on the monks unarmed strike die and you have a great character. I took bear totem, and ascendant dragon as subclasses.
The magic items for monks that don’t use attunement slots is combination of gauntlets of dexterity and bracers of defense for defense and for offense, let’s say a +2 or +3 plain Jane monk weapon (1 of melee and 1 of range). Then get a feat where the monk gets hunters mark. Then at some point, the monk can multiclass with 3 or 5 levels of rogue (getting advantage with their abilities and tactics). And getting the sharp shooter feat for their ranged attacks. And at this point this the monk’s probability to hit range or melee (2 or 4) is very high, especially with advanced (almost guaranteed to hit every time). I have a monk of 8th level (single class) dealing 50+ hps every single round with 4 hits. And that’s average damage with 4 hits.
A Grung Monk can force a Con Saving throw each punch he make only by be a Grung without waste any resource and poison the enemies. Much fun with the variant options with each color of Grung makes a different effect add to the poison.
You guys are talking about Stillness of Mind and climbing walls and stuff like that that are very high level ( 9+ ) But the Astral Self monk second subclass feature at level 6, although not all encompassing for any situation, grants them intimidation proficiency, so they could be the Face of the group, and give it a slight edge instead of being totally hopeless.
I think if there’s an all monk party, the ideal default combat mode would be everyone pickup Sharpshooter at level 4 and shortbows, darts, and slings for everyone. That way whomever is nearest an enemy, they flurry/stunning strike, and the rest Sharpshooter ranged attacks with advantage from the stun, using Ki fueled attacks for third attacks, and focused aim to trigger the ki fueled attacks (or if kensei/four elements, use deft strike/fangs of fire snake). The weapon die scales with monk die, and keeping most of the team at range allows the AC of monks to be mitigated a bit. That would an absolute terror.
As for classes, agree with Mercy (eg cleric role), Shadow (eg Thief role), and Kensei (fighter roll), but really even though it’s poopie, Way of Four Elements is really the only way to bring in more magical crowd control/have a mage. Take fangs of fire snake (for said combat improvement above), hold person (to swap out for Fireball at 11), Fly, and Wall of Stone. Gives material area damage and control and proper fly (and a generous gem may let your upcast affect others). Basically, in the land of the blind, the one eyed glaucoma man is king.
Strength based monk patch: barbarian + battle master fighter with unarmed fighting style, push attack, trip attack, grappling strike, evasive footwork, and the tavern brawler and mobile feats
When i think strength based monk, i think of the ones that take hits from hands, feet, and blunt objects without moving or flinching. Then pairing that with those martial artists that break stacks of bricks and such.
They would play as a monk that dares the enemy to hit them only to have a way to reduce damage and swing back with blows that dead additional bludgeoning or force damage.
I feel like a Long Death monk would act really well as a front liner for the part given they get more survivability with the extra temp hitpoints they get throughout battles.
I've ran an all monk party once in my game as a one shot. I think I had 6 players that night and I did premade characters for them. Kensei, Open Hand, Four Elements, Mercy, Drunken Master, and Shadow. My players still talk about it as one of the best experiences they've had at the table.