Building a Way of Shadow Monk. Is it worth multi-classing rogue?

[Odessa333]

Topic.

Game is intrige based, starting at level 3, standard 27 point buy. We have a Paladin, a Ranger, and a Rogue. I'm joining in as a variant human, way of shadow monk. In brief, I'm building her as a Sun Soul follower of Selune, delving into the darkness in order to bring light.

My initial build has
STR 10
DEX 16
CON 10
INT 8
WIS 16
CHA 14

racial bonus to DEX/WIS, and a +1 CHA from the 'actor' feat to impersonate people. Taking the charlatan background, she's skilled at disguise kits, forgery, impersonating voices (from feat) and will eventually get shadow step/invisibility to be quite skilled at infiltration.

So far I'm happy with this (well, I'd like CON to be higher, but can't have it all). My hang up is on skills. I get two from monk, deception and sleight of hand from charlatan, and one from variant human. I'm leaning towards Athletics and Stealth from monk, and then grabbing Persuasion from v. human as talking will be a major point of the game. This way, all but my INT skills have a decent modifier. Still, with my last character being a Half-elf bard, this feels like a steep decrease in skills. I'm wondering if a dip into Rogue would be worthwhile. I could gain proficiency in Acrobatics, Insight, Perception, survival, thieves tools, and two skills gaining expertise, not to mention a sneak attack die.

It feels like it could fit in well, I think. Yet with every multi-class like this, I worry what's the best order to take the levels in, how badly am I screwing over my monk progression, etc. I know I'm going any further than rogue (no warlock/bard dips, etc) and not sure if even rogue is worth it. If anyone has played such a concept, I'd love to get some feedback or advice.

Thanks for reading!

V

[Dralnu]

If you're looking for more potent skills, then yes, a Rogue dip can work out well. A single level dip gets you one more skill proficiency, thieves' tools, and expertise on two proficiencies. You also get 1d6 sneak attack, which works with light monk weapons but not your fists.

I think the best dips would be go straight to Monk 6 so you don't delay things like extra attack, stunning strike, and shadow step. Then 1, or 3 levels of Rogue. 1 level gets you what's mentioned above. 2 levels gets you cunning action, which is great, but not as good for a monk since you already have a ton of things to do with your bonus action. 3 levels could get you assassin, 2 more proficincies and a high burst damage surprise attack. If you're using SCAG, it sounds like maybe you'd like the mastermind rogue archetype. Its 3rd level ability has proficiencies and essentially the actor feat, so you don't need to spend a feat taking it.

After Monk 6 / Rogue 1-3, it's up to you what you want to focus on. Rogue will give you significantly better skills with another bump from expertise and eventually reliable talent. Monk gives you more ki points, which means more stunning strikes, one of the most potent combat abilities in the game.

[Nifft]

IMHO the basics are Rogue 3 + Monk6.

Then you have to decide what to do with your remaining 11 levels.

Also, you have to decide where to start: Rogue at level 1 gives you 2 more skills than Monk would.

[Lombra]

I'm playing a tiefling (sadly the PHB variant) shadow monk 4 and I plan on taking at least 3 levels of rogue after monk 6: it depends on the campaign, but generally at low levels a monk is much more reliable than a rogue during fights. The infiltration thing is probably something that will be useful at mid-high levels.

[Specter]

I'd go for just 1 level of Rogue, after level 6. Two Expertised skills are mandatory for those who focus on skills, and that 1d6 goes a long way.

And thieves' tools. And another skill.

[JumboWheat01]

You'd have to be using a Short Sword or a Dagger (or ranged, but this is monk we're talking about here,) in order to use that sneak attack die. Sneak attack specifically requires a weapon with the finesse property, which means all your other monk weapons (and especially your fists,) don't count. Though the expertise can be really handy, especially if you tag Stealth and Perception. You have the Dexterity and the Wisdom to make both exceptionally godly.

I'd agree with others in saying you should probably hold off 'till after you get your extra attack before dipping into rogue, and then I'd wait until after you snag the Monk's ability to become proficient in all saving throws (an awesome upgrade,) before snagging any more rogue levels.

[Arial Black]

IMHO the basics are Rogue 3 + Monk6.

Then you have to decide what to do with your remaining 11 levels.

Also, you have to decide where to start: Rogue at level 1 gives you 2 more skills than Monk would.

One more really. If you start as a rogue you get four skills. If you start as a monk you get two, and then a third when you multiclass into rogue.

[JellyPooga]

From the way you describe this character, I imagine an Ancients Paladin dip might be thematically appropriate. Rogue levels aren't out of place in a build that incorporated this, either. Monk/Rogue/Paladin with the kind of stat array you propose is a decent multiclass if your not interested in "teh ult1mate powah".

Base: Str: 12, Dex: 15, Con: 10, Int: 8, Wis: 14, Cha: 13
Feat: Actor, Racial: +1 Str, +1 Dex
Modified: Str: 13, Dex: 16, Con: 10, Int: 8, Wis: 14, Cha: 14

Monk 1/Rogue 2/Paladin 3
- You've got Unarmoured Defence (AC: 15), Sneak Attack, Divine Smite, Proficiency in 6 Skills (1 Racial +2 Class +1 Multiclass +2 Background) and Expertise in 2, Str and Dex Save proficiency and the Dueling Fighting Style (which meshes quite nicely with the "short sword and unarmed strike" style of fighting).

Monk 6/Rogue 2/Paladin 3
- Most of your Monk goodies have come online, roughly in line with the times a single-class character is getting significant bumps. You've gained an ASI/Feat; I recommend Resilient (Wis), with a mind to bump Str and Wis when you next pick up an ASI.

From here, you have the option of improving in any of your many skill-sets. Monk levels boost your mobility and guerrilla fighting style, Rogue levels bump up your skills somewhat and add to your defensive nature and Paladin levels enhance your mystical/religious side with more spells/smites and supernatural abilities.

If it were me, my level 20 build would be Monk 6/Rogue 3/Paladin 11. I know it goes against the core concept of a Monk with dips and into the territory of a Paladin/Monk with a Rogue dip, but I think it fits the character concept as described and whilst not an ultimate power-house in combat, will have a variety of offensive and defensive options at his disposal as well as a respectable alpha-strike potential and out-of-combat utility.

[Gtdead]

Start as Rogue 1 and MC into Monk. You can get up to 7 skills that way, expertise with 2 of them. Unless you want to build for more damage, stay at 1-2 levels of rogue. Monk is a solid class and if your campaign is going to reach 20, empty body is as good a capstone as it gets imo.

[djreynolds]

Topic.

Game is intrige based, starting at level 3, standard 27 point buy. We have a Paladin, a Ranger, and a Rogue. I'm joining in as a variant human, way of shadow monk. In brief, I'm building her as a Sun Soul follower of Selune, delving into the darkness in order to bring light.

My initial build has
STR 10
DEX 16
CON 10
INT 8
WIS 16
CHA 14

racial bonus to DEX/WIS, and a +1 CHA from the 'actor' feat to impersonate people. Taking the charlatan background, she's skilled at disguise kits, forgery, impersonating voices (from feat) and will eventually get shadow step/invisibility to be quite skilled at infiltration.

So far I'm happy with this (well, I'd like CON to be higher, but can't have it all). My hang up is on skills. I get two from monk, deception and sleight of hand from charlatan, and one from variant human. I'm leaning towards Athletics and Stealth from monk, and then grabbing Persuasion from v. human as talking will be a major point of the game. This way, all but my INT skills have a decent modifier. Still, with my last character being a Half-elf bard, this feels like a steep decrease in skills. I'm wondering if a dip into Rogue would be worthwhile. I could gain proficiency in Acrobatics, Insight, Perception, survival, thieves tools, and two skills gaining expertise, not to mention a sneak attack die.

It feels like it could fit in well, I think. Yet with every multi-class like this, I worry what's the best order to take the levels in, how badly am I screwing over my monk progression, etc. I know I'm going any further than rogue (no warlock/bard dips, etc) and not sure if even rogue is worth it. If anyone has played such a concept, I'd love to get some feedback or advice.

Thanks for reading!

V

What about bard? Why not bard? You have a rogue in the party, let him do his stuff. Could be very cool combo and you have the stats and jack of trades will help out.

[Corran]

Havent read all the posts yet, so apologies if I am repeating anything.

Hear me out for a minute. A generally known good monk build, is the one that uses a warlock build. Especially if we are talking about a shadow monk. I am not an expert as far as monk build goes, but I believe it has to do mainly with applying hex to all of your attacks, which are many. Also, there is always the potential to use devil's sight to exploit the darkness that the shadow monk can cast. So, if I recall correctly from posts I ve read here and there, it is a 2 level warlock dip. The biggest drawback behind this idea, is that 13 you must have in charisma. Though, since you are already going for a decent charisma score, everything suggests to me that this dip is ideal for you. Not only optimization-wise, but also to help you with what you seem to be asking.

You want more skills? Take the invocation beguiling influence, that will give you deception and persuasion, so that will net you two extra skills - perception and acrobatics maybe?- apart from what you already mentioned having).

You want to be good at infiltration/spying stuff, and you already have the actor feat? Take the mask of many faces invocation. Disguise self at-will, at no cost. Take whatever appearance you want, and let the actor feat take care of things like the sound of your voice, and help you with all the charisma checks you will be making. Mask of many faces + actor feat is a powerful combination, and can ensure a lot of fun.

ps: If you wanted sth a bit more optimised, you might look to swap beliguering influence with devil's sight (both are invocations), though I feel the first two invocations I detailed above are what you really seek.

[Specter]

You want more skills? Take the invocation beguiling influence, that will give you deception and persuasion, so that will net you two extra skills - perception and acrobatics maybe?- apart from what you already mentioned having).

I don't really see the point of being the party's face if you're a monk.

[MrFahrenheit]

I will advocate the same 1 or 3 levels of rogue as your dip...though I'd recommend considering thief, not just assassin. Adding sleight of hand to your bonus action repertoire is incredible, and always relevant so long as the enemy has any items on it which it isn't actively using. Swipe a weapon-reliant BBEG's backup sword, punch him twice, then let the fighter disarm his equipped sword. BBEG is now attacking for 1+STR mod.

Or maybe the BBEG is an archer. Swipe his quiver!

[JumboWheat01]

I don't really see the point of being the party's face if you're a monk.

Well monks (eventually) get the ability to understand EVERY spoken language and be under stood no matter the things spoken language. So it helps you get across the language barrier, assuming your DM even pays attention to that sort of thing.


Or maybe the BBEG is an archer. Swipe his quiver!

Genius! Why did I never think of that on my little rogue guy?

[Biggstick]

Havent read all the posts yet, so apologies if I am repeating anything.

Hear me out for a minute. A generally known good monk build, is the one that uses a warlock build. Especially if we are talking about a shadow monk. I am not an expert as far as monk build goes, but I believe it has to do mainly with applying hex to all of your attacks, which are many. Also, there is always the potential to use devil's sight to exploit the darkness that the shadow monk can cast. So, if I recall correctly from posts I ve read here and there, it is a 2 level warlock dip. The biggest drawback behind this idea, is that 13 you must have in charisma. Though, since you are already going for a decent charisma score, everything suggests to me that this dip is ideal for you. Not only optimization-wise, but also to help you with what you seem to be asking.

You want more skills? Take the invocation beguiling influence, that will give you deception and persuasion, so that will net you two extra skills - perception and acrobatics maybe?- apart from what you already mentioned having).

You want to be good at infiltration/spying stuff, and you already have the actor feat? Take the mask of many faces invocation. Disguise self at-will, at no cost. Take whatever appearance you want, and let the actor feat take care of things like the sound of your voice, and help you with all the charisma checks you will be making. Mask of many faces + actor feat is a powerful combination, and can ensure a lot of fun.

ps: If you wanted sth a bit more optimised, you might look to swap beliguering influence with devil's sight (both are invocations), though I feel the first two invocations I detailed above are what you really seek.

This right here. You already have 14 charisma and are qualified for the Warlock multiclass. The Mask of Many Faces invocation fits in exactly with what you're trying to do. Having disguise kit proficiency and the Actor Feat just make it even better. For your second invocation, Devil's sight will take care of that pesky not being able to see in the dark part of being human, as well as let you abuse the darkness spell for (almost) always on advantage. You also get to add a couple cantrips and first level spells to your repertoire. If you decide to go Fiend lock, you've found a nice little way to constantly pick up temporary hp as well.

Six levels of Monk, two levels of Warlock, then get back to Monk and continue on to late game Monk goodness.

[djreynolds]

Monk with warlock and bard, just enough of these two classes to open up some possibilities. 3 levels of lore bard will give you some flexibility to skills and expertise and access to spells. Warlock and mask of many faces sounds awesome, and you have the stats.

Check out the UA bard kits, the jester could be really cool, college of satire

[Malifice]

Topic.

Game is intrige based, starting at level 3, standard 27 point buy. We have a Paladin, a Ranger, and a Rogue. I'm joining in as a variant human, way of shadow monk. In brief, I'm building her as a Sun Soul follower of Selune, delving into the darkness in order to bring light.



Firstly, you aware that there is a Sun Soul monk archetype in the SCAG?

Secondly, do not MC before 5th level. Stunning fist and extra attack come online at 5th, and you do not want to delay getting them for any reason at all, ever.

After that, a dip is totally worth it.

[Citan]

Topic.

Game is intrige based, starting at level 3, standard 27 point buy. We have a Paladin, a Ranger, and a Rogue. I'm joining in as a variant human, way of shadow monk. In brief, I'm building her as a Sun Soul follower of Selune, delving into the darkness in order to bring light.

My initial build has
STR 10
DEX 16
CON 10
INT 8
WIS 16
CHA 14

racial bonus to DEX/WIS, and a +1 CHA from the 'actor' feat to impersonate people. Taking the charlatan background, she's skilled at disguise kits, forgery, impersonating voices (from feat) and will eventually get shadow step/invisibility to be quite skilled at infiltration.

So far I'm happy with this (well, I'd like CON to be higher, but can't have it all). My hang up is on skills.

V
If you really just want more skills without hanging Monk progression, Skilled feat is right here for you.
Beyond that, 1-3 levels in Rogue or Warlock can totally be worth it as was detailed by others.
I'd tend to favor Warlock because Hex would be a steep increase in damage and basically the only use of your concentration, however you have a very bad Constitution so there is a high chance you'd drop it fast.

So, in case you're interested in Warlock dip as far as three levels, I'd suggest the following changes in your build.
Dump STR hard and reduce WIS to 14 so you can bump your CON to 14 at least. For a Shadow Monk, most abilities don't rely on WIS, so only your Stunning Strike will suffer.
Then start Monk 1 / Warlock 2 (I'm gonna get yelled at by others but well... ^^), taking free Mage Armour as one of your invocation. That way you get same AC as before at the cost of an invocation, but much better HP and concentration.

You can then build Monk levels as far as you want, taking the third level in Warlock whenever you want in second half, swapping Mage Armor for another. Tome Pact would be great for you with Ritual invocations, you could fill in the role of a Cleric or Wizard if the DM provides you many occasions to learn rituals. Otherwise, the Chain pact will give you a familiar that provides magic resistance which is always nice.

If all this seems too bothersome for any reason, just stick with Monk X and a few levels of Rogue somewhere...
(Imo, you should still start Monk because for someone in the front lines, STR related spells would be more dangerous as they tend to block mobility).