Character musings...heavy armor monk

[MeeposFire]

Yes I know heavy armor and monks do not normally go together but let us dispense with that shall we and just get to the thinking part of the thread.

Looking at the monk we have a class that has lots of special defenses, moderate offense, one fine disable, and great maneuverability. One of its bigger issues is madness and being fairly restrictive in how you can build it.

Now what I was thinking through was a monk that uses non standard weapons and armor. Just to see if it can be done and be reasonably effective.

Now what do we lose if we use armor and non-monk weapons? Surprisingly little actually. We mostly lose things we no longer need such as unarmored defense. However it is not without cost. We lose access to the bonus action unarmed attack from martial arts, unarmored speed (and its improvement at least by RAI and I am going with that), and this means that we also have dead levels on a non-spellcasting class (levels 1+9) which kind of sucks. Also while heavy armor typically reduces your MADness if we still cannot afford to get wisdom to effective levels that does mean that stunning strike will be less efficient.

For building this monk I was thinking fighter 1 (or 2)/monk19 (or18). The fighter level will nab us full weapon use, a fighting style, and most importantly the heavy armor. This build will likely be stuck with a 13 or so wisdom limiting the effectiveness of stunning attacks due to requiring a 13 in dex and wisdom. The fighting style could be key however (see below). The extra fighter level would give us a nova option but would drop us an ASI which we might need for an extra feat.

Another option would be to play a mountain dwarf monk20. His stats would be increased in just the right areas and he starts out with medium armor. This means at level 4 he can get heavy armor and be complete. You do have to wait a little bit but low levels go by the fastest and medium armor can service you in that small time frame I think. The bigger issue is the lack of solid weapon choices which can hurt what we can plan around this build.

Now if we do this I can see a character with overall great defenses (especially if you go long death). The question is can we get enough offense that he does not become a party liability? It is no good to be so good at defense that enemies just ignore you and you cannot kill them fast enough to compensate. This monk's offense would be similar to most weapon users levels 1-10 on most rounds but will not upgrade on its own after that (until level 17 in monk when you can get empty body with it making you invisible). He will also be mostly lacking nova options of any type (unless you take that 2nd fighter level).

My thinking is that you could compensate with feats. With fighting style you could take tunnel fighting and thus make yourself into a potentially OA force. There are also feats like sentinel and polearm master which can also net us extra attacks not on our turn and make enemies more likely to go after the monk. You could take warcaster with a cantrip (you would probably have to play as an elf or half elf since I do not think there will be enough feats for you to take magic initiate) and use booming blade to deal even more damage not on your turn. Speaking of magic if you somehow get shillelagh then that would make it even easier to reduce MAD and bring wisdom up to par but that too requires more expended resources and limits your weapon choice greatly (though it does work with shields and polearm master so it does have some potential value). Most of these can be comboed together as well. You could use great weapon master to deal more damage (if you go with shadow you can get advantage after you teleport and after going invisible though the second one is essentially usable once a fight maybe also empty body eventually).

Can we make this work fairly well on the whole? I am not wholly sure though a big reason for that is that as far as I know there are no agreed upon standards for what a character should be able to do at a given level so I cannot see if this will work.

As for a reason why we should even consider going through this effort outside of just the thinking exercise well consider this- do you ever get tired of the fact that unless you get very good ability scores that monks essentially need to spend almost all of their ASIs on ability scores and not feats? Many squeeze in mobile but to get others requires you to give up ability scores that you would need to survive due to needing two scores for your AC (of which you have trouble raising without using magic items that nearly all require attunement).

First attempt... fighter2/monk18 (long death) Using a half orc for fun. Starting ability scores Str 16, dex 13, con 14, int 10, wisdom 14, cha 8. Boost str twice, take sentinel and polearm master. As your fighting style take tunnel fighter. This character will deal less damage than most warriors especially on their turn but will be harder to get off the field of battle. While the damage may be less I think it will be good enough, and his abilities annoying enough, that enemies will want to get rid of him if they are close to him. Action surge could be used for extra attacks or to frighten enemies. I would probably use a reach weapon too to increase the value of using sentinel to stop people as well.

I am very tired so you could probably do better. Are their any takers?

[Goodberry]

Interesting. If I were going to do this, I would probably get Tavern Brawler and Grappler and make him and Unarmed fighter.

[PoeticDwarf]

It's not bad and could work, but gives little. In most cases full fighter (or rogue of you wanna be mobile) is just better. And dex/wis monk will reach high AC. The dmg is with martial arts not higher this way. Cool, but doesn't add much to "the monk"

[Hrugner]

You lose the entire martial arts entry. Not just the bonus action unarmed attack, but also the unarmed damage bonus. This means your flurry is a flurry of 1+str damage attacks. Not very useful. You could snag heavy armor shield and the shillelagh spell from nature cleric, you'd lose your expanded weapon selection but you could be weak and clumsy and beat people with a stick while wearing heavy armor and a shield. It does have comic appeal. I don't know though. By the time everyone is picking up their first feat, you'll be making one attack with a magic club and spending precious ki for 1+X X being probably not so great.

I'm honestly not seeing a whole lot of synergy here. Monk gives you evasion which could be replaced by shield master. Deflect arrows which will suck without a high dex for blocking the damage and returning fire. Your remaining ki options are bonus action dodge, disengage or dash.

I could see grabbing some monk levels to support an armored character who really needed bonus action dodge and open hand technique for some reason, but it would still be slow progress.

I'd make a list of the things you wanted from monk and work backward finding other methods of collecting the abilities you want. If it's just the monk label, just call your dude a monk and take something monk like as a background.

[mabriss lethe]

I think an eldritch knight +tavern brawler could accomplish a lot of very monk-like things in armor, possibly to greater effect than slapping armor on a monk.

[Grod_The_Giant]

MAD? You just need Dex and Wis, with Con as a secondary the same as everyone else in the game. That's pretty normal. Not sure what the point of heavy armor is, though. Even besides losing all your class features, you're just trading a Dex dependency for a Str one.

[MeeposFire]

I guess I should have stated my purpose better as the character I would envision isn't really a monk, I am only trying to use the monk class to poach a bunch of tasty defensive abilities. The trick of course is that monks are not all that strong offensively and any that they have is mostly lost when you wear armor and use non-monk weapons. On the plus side now you can get more options for weapons and some things (like anything that uses str) are actually better.
In terms of stuff that we get from monk we get extra attack, long death tanking abilities, all saves, reroll saves, bonus action dodge, empty body, and the list goes on. Mostly defensive which is why I am trying to think of ways to improve offense to keep from making a turtle character that just gets ignored completely and thus being a drain on the party.

As for some specific criticisms. The deflect arrows ability is not hurt that much. Certainly it is still effective just not as effective. The ability has your monk level and a d10 which make up the vast majority of its power (each of those will be worth more than your dex mod on average even at max). At worst we are talking a loss of 4 points of damage reduction. Something we would want but not something that makes the ability useless at all. I do not really consider the counter attack ability too much especially if I am picking up sentinel and/or polearm mastery.

Monks can get good AC with their natural abilities. The cost is a nearly all consuming buying of dex and wisdom. Unless you play with great starting ability scores you will likely need all but one ASI for ability score boosts (or perhaps all of them). Heavy armor allows you to choose to pick up very different strategies.

This idea is not to be a normal monk but to see how far we can take it and get something good out of it.

Tavern brawler does have some neat tricks but I am not sure if it would be worth it on this particular character unless you can think of a strategy ubiquitous enough to take one of our few feat slots. If you can that might be fun.

One thing I was considering today is actually giving up empty body (which honestly is sweet enough to be a capstone) and take more fighter levels. Going battlemaster gives you more nova potential and some status effects.

One thing that would require some DM approval since some are quite specific on needing the attack action if they allow you o shove instead of attacking when using a flurry of blows then flurry is still useful. One ki and a bonus action and get 2 chances at knocking prone an enemy and if you succeed on the first attempt you get a shot dealing minor damage.

In the end I am just trying to see if you can get enough offense to go with its overall great defenses.

[Naanomi]

Hilldwarf with first level Nature Cleric dip... Only needs WIS and CON, heavy armor and shield + quarter staff?

[MeeposFire]

Hilldwarf with first level Nature Cleric dip... Only needs WIS and CON, heavy armor and shield + quarter staff?

Solves many building problems except it probably does not solve my potential offense issues much unless do you think the offensive potential to be effective. It is tempting though as you could be VERY tough.

[Shaofoo]

Monks can get good AC with their natural abilities. The cost is a nearly all consuming buying of dex and wisdom. Unless you play with great starting ability scores you will likely need all but one ASI for ability score boosts (or perhaps all of them). Heavy armor allows you to choose to pick up very different strategies.


You can get as high enough as Plate like AC with just raising Dex and barely raising Wis. With a 15/14 starting score and just a +1 from racial Dex and Wis so you start at 16/15. Lets say the first ASI you choose to raise both Wis and Con or choose a half feat to raise Wis (Resilient is a waste due to you eventually getting all proficiency saves). And another two ASI to fully max out Dex. And that leaves you with two ASI left to choose whatever feats and that point that I just chose to put into Con just because.

But I also don't know what feats would you actually choose for a Monk. Polearm Master is only useful for the OA on reach since you'll have a more damaging bonus action attack and Resilience is a waste since you'll get proficiency in all eventually anyway. I sincerely don't know any feats that are must haves for a monk, there can be useful feats for monks but these are all situational. I honestly think maxing out Dex and Wis is the way to go for a monk.

I think the best way to get the best offense with the monk package is to go full monk, wearing armor just restricts the monk unnecessarily. Heck even a level in rogue is better than a level in fighter since a Monk could use both expertise and sneak attack which directly raises the offense of a monk's capabilities.

I do think you are overvaluing AC too much. Monks might not have the highest AC but I don't think they need it, they can even Dodge as a bonus action if they so desire.

[ravenkith]

Heavy armor Monk Stuff

As things stand, it's a pretty bad plan to try to put heavy armor on a monk, for many of the reasons that you and others point out.

As you also point out, upping melee damage is going to be a necessity, and there are really only three ways to do that: GWM, Sneak dice, or Smite. You can also try to do it with spells, but that's usually not horribly effective.

If it weren't for the ability requirements for multiclassing, I'd say that this concept almost begs for a Paladin/Monk mix (heavy on the paladin), but then, you'd have little to fuel smites with.

Now that I think about it, if your whole point is tasty defensive abilities, a Paladin (Ancients) 8/Sorceror 12 mix with the tavern brawler feat seems more apt.

I'm AFB right now, so I'm not sure of the stat requirements, but I think it's STR/CHA, which would synergize real well with the Sorc.

Go variant tiefling (winged), and you'll get the ability to fly at will (30ft), darkvision, and resistance to fire.

You'd get heavy armor, shields, smiting, extra attack, CHA to saves, resistance to magic and 1/2 casting progression from Pally, and Full casting progression from sorc, as well as metamagic. I'd go wild mage and get access to tides of chaos and bend luck, as they seem like they might be more helpful in the long run, and have a nifty recharge mechanic tied to your spellcasting, but you could go draconic and pick up a second resistance...

With this build, you can pickup anything and turn it into an improvised weapon, which then becomes a weapon attack, which then qualifies for smite. You are instantly an armored version of Jackie Chan.

Pickup shield mastery and you'll get the shield bash option and evasion (note, you can also use your shield as an improvised weapon, and get smite with it in melee), and now you're a knock-off Captain America...

...with 8th level spell slots and knowing 6th level sorc spells and 2nd level pally spells.

[Jamesps]

I've thought about this a lot and the best reason I can think to do it is so you can use Great Weapon Master or Pole Arm Master.

You'll end up as a kind of weird Heavy Weapon fighter with enormously good defense and less offense. Your ki will probably be used primarily to take free dodge actions, as well as occasionally make tremendous leaps and dashes (you can use a ki point to jump 40 feet once your strength is maxed, including a 16 foot vertical jump). Eventually you'll want to use it for stunning, which will help with landing your GWM attacks.

Like I said, your defense will significantly outpace a fighter's despite your lower hp, but you'll never be on par with one offensively. Still, having a character with all saves who can reroll failed saves, immune to poison, virtually immune to fear and charm, able to catch arrows, and eventually turn invisible and take half damage from everything should ensure that you're always going to be the last man standing no matter how bad it gets.

[Asmodouche]

I'm digging the polearm idea. You can still stunning- strike. Why waste ki on crappy karate chops?

[Shaofoo]

I'm digging the polearm idea. You can still stunning- strike. Why waste ki on crappy karate chops?

Because eventually you can deal d10 on a bonus action instead of a d4.

Polearm master isn't good for monks, they only benefit from the OA on entering their reach.

[Jamesps]

Because eventually you can deal d10 on a bonus action instead of a d4.

Polearm master isn't good for monks, they only benefit from the OA on entering their reach.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

Most pole arms do d10 damage already, and only do the d4 on the final attack. This is a loss of an average of 3 damage at 17th level, and at low levels is actually advantageous.

One of the benefits to pole-arm master is it works in heavy armor as well, unlike monk martial arts. You probably wouldn't get it just for the reaction attack, but if you already wanted to make a strength monk it'll compensate you for all of you rlost damage, and give you a little bit extra for your trouble (with reaction attacks).

So since the OP wanted to wear heavy armor, it's a good workaround to prevent them from losing out on bonus action attacks.

Addendum: Also if you find a magical pole arm by 17th level that should negate the disadvantage to damage.

[MeeposFire]

Well remember everybody this is not an actual character I m playing. Just a thought experiment. The monks nice defensive package seemed to be an intersting thing to combine with heavy armor since that allows us those defensive abilities without being saddled with only dex/wis type characters with almost no room for feats.

GWM would certainly help damage but without access to advantage or big accuracy boosts I would imagine it would be hard to sue effectively. At level 18 all monks get it with empty body but that is too late in the game to use as a practical strategy. Shadow monks get some abilities that help (and also get a nice boost to offense at level 17) but have somewhat situational limitations on their ability to use them (the teleport that grants advantage requires a level of darkness which while fairly common is not always going to be there ad only applies to one attack and their ability to be invisible at will requires darkness and essentially a loss of a round making it a 1st turn attack).

Polearm mastery and sentinel can net you more attacks off your turn and on it which is quite nice. It does not boost your damage on a hit however. You could boost PM by taking warcaster and booming blade but I doubt most characters could afford that with these other feats. One nice thing with this combo is that even if the total damage isn't the best it is possible that it would annoy your enemies enough that they feel they to get rid of you before some of your allies which is a win in my thinking.

So would either of these two ideas be enough damage to make this a viable character if it were real?

Also the nature cleric idea is agood one in many ways. It solves some of the ability score problems and does a good job of being very hard to kill but my question would be do you think the greater utility of cleric spells and basic playability of the combo (needing even less ability than the fighter option while giving you all the most important bits) grant enough to overcome the complete lack of any sort of nova what so ever? Would it be better to just drop things like empty body particularly if you were going this combo to pick up 3 levels of fighter or so to get a boost to your nova damage (action surge and maneuvers) even if it would cost a feat?

[Yuroch Kern]

Thanks for this. You just solved my samurai build with Fighter 2/Elemental monk the rest! \m/

[PeteNutButter]

I went down this theory crafting rabbit hole a while back. With plate and bonus action dodge spamming you are one of the tankiest things that can be. Pick up sentinel and peel for the team.

Do you really need to deal a ton of damage if you can keep the big bad from ever attacking your ranged?

The big problem is how many dead levels there are. Aside from the occasional goodies, most monk levels just give more ki. Maybe multi class more/sooner?

You could also start as a nature cleric but instead of shillelagh pick up create bonfire and take tavern brawler. Punch them grapple them. Then put a bonfire on them on second round. Moving in and out of the fire triggers damage again(doubling its damage), all the while you can still take action and bonus action on subsequent rounds. Probably need a rogue level to get expertise in grapple though. You get bonus cool points for holding people's faces in the fire.

[MeeposFire]

Thanks for this. You just solved my samurai build with Fighter 2/Elemental monk the rest! \m/

Well that is great to hear. So would you be willing to post your character? I would be intersted to see what sort of thing you are going to play.

[Yuroch Kern]

Right on. After rolling...

Vuman F2/E.Monk 3

Str 17(+1)
Dex 14
Con 16
Int 10
Wis 14
Chr 10(+1)
AC 19 (Full-plate, Defense style)
HP 49

Feat: Alert
Ki: 3, Uses Fist of Unbroken Air

Senzan Desai was an aspiring retainer until he discovered his lord betrayed the Emperor. Believing that suicide for honor means less honorable people to face injustice, he disobeyed the order for seppuku and exposed his now late Daimyo. He now wanders until he can find a noble house to serve again.

The basic idea here is he is continuing his monastic training while getting used to the notion of being ronin. All his gear is refluffed to asian analogies (O-yori, Katana, Daikyu, Wakizashi) and is like some of the mystical swordsman of film and anime. The Alert represents his Zanshin and Iai-justu, and the Ki is used for his shouts, like the samurai class used to have in earlier editions.