Level 20: S Monk 12 / Champ Fighter 4 / Trick Cleric 4

[gfishfunk]

Any tweaks? I'm also looking for a good feat.

Concept: human butler to a noble halfling doctor/madman (rogue). Out of sight while unneeded, provides everything necessary provisions and assistance when requested. I don't know what the rest of the party will look like.

Point Buy: 27

Variant Human: +1 feat. Also, +1 feat after spending ASI.

Str: 10
Dex: 15 (+1 Racial) (+4 ASI) = 20
Con: 12
Wis: 15 (+1 Racial) (+4 ASI) = 20
Int: 10
Cha: 9

Skills: History, Stealth, Acrobatics, Insight, Athletics

We are doing a simple one-shot at level 20 because none of us have played at level 20 before. Largely, the order of levels take does not matter.

Shadow Monk 1-12:
- Mostly grabbing this for 2 attacks + 2 unarmed attacks as a bonus action, doing 1d8 damage.
- Also, able to turn invisible in dim light and hop between shadows, like a butler that is able to be anywhere required, whenever required, and overlooked until needed.

Chamption Fighter: 1-4
- Fighting Style: Protection (none work great, and I plan on him being entirely unarmed)
- Other Fighter things like second wind and action surge.
- Champion: increased crit range 19-20

Trickster Cleric: 1-4
- Spell focuses: Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Bane, and Sanctuary
- Ability to grant advantage on stealth checks are for noisy party members: "My master requests you take more care with your noise level, sir."
- Ability to create an illusion duplicate: this is where I think the build shines.

After burning an action to create a duplicate (and using my concentration), I get advantage on all attacks where the illusion is next to the target. That will help generate crits, as I will be essentially rolling 8 die per turn and need to hit 19 or 20. The main problem is that I am not going to doing a lot of additional crit damage.

Thoughts? Feat suggestions? I can alternative play a halfling for the lucky aspect to get another roll if I happen to roll a 1 on any attack.

[AvatarVecna]

Hrm...a highly skilled, combat-super-capable butler? A rogue with a touch of insanity that he guards? Clearly, this party needs a halfling warlock (with some of her invocations fluffed as sci-fi-tech, and some as magic) and a dwarf Thief Rogue.

[gfishfunk]

Hrm...a highly skilled, combat-super-capable butler? A rogue with a touch of insanity that he guards? Clearly, this party needs a halfling warlock (with some of her invocations fluffed as sci-fi-tech, and some as magic) and a dwarf Thief Rogue.

Is that a reference to some kind of media? I would love to know what it is, if so!

[AvatarVecna]

Is that a reference to some kind of media? I would love to know what it is, if so!

The "Artemis Fowl" series. It's an "our world has a magical world hiding under our nose" kind of series, and it would be easy to play it as a 5e game.

[gfishfunk]

The "Artemis Fowl" series. It's an "our world has a magical world hiding under our nose" kind of series, and it would be easy to play it as a 5e game.

Sounds familiar. I'll check it out! Thanks!

[Lombra]

Any tweaks? I'm also looking for a good feat.

Concept: human butler to a noble halfling doctor/madman (rogue). Out of sight while unneeded, provides everything necessary provisions and assistance when requested. I don't know what the rest of the party will look like.

Point Buy: 27

Variant Human: +1 feat. Also, +1 feat after spending ASI.

Str: 10
Dex: 15 (+1 Racial) (+4 ASI) = 20
Con: 12
Wis: 15 (+1 Racial) (+4 ASI) = 20
Int: 10
Cha: 9

Skills: History, Stealth, Acrobatics, Insight, Athletics

We are doing a simple one-shot at level 20 because none of us have played at level 20 before. Largely, the order of levels take does not matter.

Shadow Monk 1-12:
- Mostly grabbing this for 2 attacks + 2 unarmed attacks as a bonus action, doing 1d8 damage.
- Also, able to turn invisible in dim light and hop between shadows, like a butler that is able to be anywhere required, whenever required, and overlooked until needed.

Chamption Fighter: 1-4
- Fighting Style: Protection (none work great, and I plan on him being entirely unarmed)
- Other Fighter things like second wind and action surge.
- Champion: increased crit range 19-20

Trickster Cleric: 1-4
- Spell focuses: Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Bane, and Sanctuary
- Ability to grant advantage on stealth checks are for noisy party members: "My master requests you take more care with your noise level, sir."
- Ability to create an illusion duplicate: this is where I think the build shines.

After burning an action to create a duplicate (and using my concentration), I get advantage on all attacks where the illusion is next to the target. That will help generate crits, as I will be essentially rolling 8 die per turn and need to hit 19 or 20. The main problem is that I am not going to doing a lot of additional crit damage.

Thoughts? Feat suggestions? I can alternative play a halfling for the lucky aspect to get another roll if I happen to roll a 1 on any attack.

As far as feats are concerned: mobile is golden for monks and quick characters like that, for the second feat skulker is nice, but lucky is the way to go.
Actually considering the concentration requirements maybe a resilient in constitution or war caster could be better.
For the fighting style I'd go archery: +2 damage on shuriken throws (which scale with your martial arts die).

Looks like a fun build: very anime.

Edit: if completely unarmed means also no throwing weapons then the fighting style doesn's matter at all.

[AvatarVecna]

Edit: if completely unarmed means also no throwing weapons then the fighting style doesn's matter at all.

There's an argument for the Duelist style applying to unarmed strikes...but even if it doesn't, the Mariner Fighter Style from SCAG is nice for unarmed, unarmored Fighters.

[gfishfunk]

Right. I just had another idea that I might play around with: dropping cleric and taking rogue to level 2 (or 4, maybe) for expertise on athletics, and focusing on shoving people down with attack 1, and then stomping with attacks 2-4.

I mentioned Protection style, but I just checked and I would need a shield. Archery or Duelist would work if I give him a weapon. I love the idea of a completely unarmed combatant, but having a stick and beating people with it makes a certain amount of sense for the build.

I'll play with the numbers a bit more.

[Lombra]

There's an argument for the Duelist style applying to unarmed strikes...but even if it doesn't, the Mariner Fighter Style from SCAG is nice for unarmed, unarmored Fighters.

Errata claryfies that unarmed strikes do not count as weapons: it's a property of every character to use their body to deal damage, plus if they would count everyone would be dual wielding fists, which are not light weapons, thus breaking the rules by itself.
I can't find the mariner style: in which player's companion book is it?

[gfishfunk]

The Mariner style is from Unearthed Arcana: Waterborne Adventures.

[Lombra]

The Mariner style is from Unearthed Arcana: Waterborne Adventures.

Thanks, I totally missed that book.

[Lombra]

Right. I just had another idea that I might play around with: dropping cleric and taking rogue to level 2 (or 4, maybe) for expertise on athletics, and focusing on shoving people down with attack 1, and then stomping with attacks 2-4.

I mentioned Protection style, but I just checked and I would need a shield. Archery or Duelist would work if I give him a weapon. I love the idea of a completely unarmed combatant, but having a stick and beating people with it makes a certain amount of sense for the build.

I'll play with the numbers a bit more.

Expertise in athletics is really valueable, also increasing the sneak attack damage is a plus, and you could go arcane trickster to keep that illusion-theme on

[gfishfunk]

Also: I would need a weapon for stunning strike. I just caught that. I don't know why its required for that Monk feature.

[Lombra]

Also: I would need a weapon for stunning strike. I just caught that. I don't know why its required for that Monk feature.

This is so bad that even if I don't like house ruling I'd make it work even with unarmed strikes...

[Fflewddur Fflam]

Also: I would need a weapon for stunning strike. I just caught that. I don't know why its required for that Monk feature.

A monk's unarmed attack count as a "monk weapon" so you do not need a weapon for stunning strike.

[Fflewddur Fflam]

Any tweaks? I'm also looking for a good feat.

Concept: human butler to a noble halfling doctor/madman (rogue). Out of sight while unneeded, provides everything necessary provisions and assistance when requested. I don't know what the rest of the party will look like.

Point Buy: 27

Variant Human: +1 feat. Also, +1 feat after spending ASI.

Str: 10
Dex: 15 (+1 Racial) (+4 ASI) = 20
Con: 12
Wis: 15 (+1 Racial) (+4 ASI) = 20
Int: 10
Cha: 9

Skills: History, Stealth, Acrobatics, Insight, Athletics

We are doing a simple one-shot at level 20 because none of us have played at level 20 before. Largely, the order of levels take does not matter.

Shadow Monk 1-12:
- Mostly grabbing this for 2 attacks + 2 unarmed attacks as a bonus action, doing 1d8 damage.
- Also, able to turn invisible in dim light and hop between shadows, like a butler that is able to be anywhere required, whenever required, and overlooked until needed.

Chamption Fighter: 1-4
- Fighting Style: Protection (none work great, and I plan on him being entirely unarmed)
- Other Fighter things like second wind and action surge.
- Champion: increased crit range 19-20

Trickster Cleric: 1-4
- Spell focuses: Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Bane, and Sanctuary
- Ability to grant advantage on stealth checks are for noisy party members: "My master requests you take more care with your noise level, sir."
- Ability to create an illusion duplicate: this is where I think the build shines.

After burning an action to create a duplicate (and using my concentration), I get advantage on all attacks where the illusion is next to the target. That will help generate crits, as I will be essentially rolling 8 die per turn and need to hit 19 or 20. The main problem is that I am not going to doing a lot of additional crit damage.

Thoughts? Feat suggestions? I can alternative play a halfling for the lucky aspect to get another roll if I happen to roll a 1 on any attack.

The 4 levels of Fighter Champion give you practically nothing. You can't use any of the Fighting Styles except Archery and being a ranged monk does nothing for you. The "Improved Critical" of the Champion only works for "weapon attacks" and the monk's unarmed attack is not considered a weapon attack so that is useless for you, especially as the monk gets stronger unarmed attacks later. The one thing getting fighter levels gets for you is getting an extra attack at level 5 but you aren't going to level 5. But that's a long way to go for an extra attack with the rest of the class which does very little for you. EDIT! You already get an extra attack at Monk level 5, so going to Fighter 5 wouldn't help you anyway, sorry.

For your build, I'd recommend going Monk 14/Cleric 6. At monk 14, you get Diamond Soul which is too big of a thing to pass up. At Cleric 6, you will get 3rd level spells and another domain feature in addition to more channel divinity. Multi-classing in 5e can be detrimental if you are diluting the advantages of your main class too much. Like I said, the Fighter levels just don't do a whole lot for your build and you are much better off taking more monk levels.

Mobile is a nice feat for monks but Lucky is just a life-saver, get that one at first level.

[gfishfunk]

A monk's unarmed attack count as a "monk weapon" so you do not need a weapon for stunning strike.

I don't see that. It says you are proficient 'in unarmed strikes and monk weapons, which are shortswords and any simple melee weapons that don't have the two-handed or heavy property."

Also, "you can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strikes or monk weapons."

Both places talk about them as separate things, leading me to believe that a monk's unarmed attack does not count as a monk weapon. That being said, I would allow it per homerule because it makes sense.


The 4 levels of Fighter Champion give you practically nothing. You can't use any of the Fighting Styles except Archery and being a ranged monk does nothing for you. The "Improved Critical" of the Champion only works for "weapon attacks" and the monk's unarmed attack is not considered a weapon attack so that is useless for you, especially as the monk gets stronger unarmed attacks later. The one thing getting fighter levels gets for you is getting an extra attack at level 5 but you aren't going to level 5. But that's a long way to go for an extra attack with the rest of the class which does very little for you.

For your build, I'd recommend going Monk 14/Cleric 6. At monk 14, you get Diamond Soul which is too big of a thing to pass up. At Cleric 6, you will get 3rd level spells and another domain feature in addition to more channel divinity. Multi-classing in 5e can be detrimental if you are diluting the advantages of your main class too much. Like I said, the Fighter levels just don't do a whole lot for your build and you are much better off taking more monk levels.

Mobile is a nice feat for monks but Lucky is just a life-saver, get that one at first level.

I agree with your read of champion. I'll remove the 4 levels of fighter and consider 6 levels of Cleric. hmmmph.

Also, I just noticed this weird little fact: Flurry of Blows does not require you to make an attack, just make an attack action. Hence, you can flurry of blows right after using a grapple or a shove. This is unlike two-weapon fighting that states "when you take the attack action and attack with a light melee weapon..."

I think you could potentially shove someone to the ground at level 3 and spend the Ki to do two unarmed strikes with advantage. That was what I was going for, but without the crit machine focusing on that is kind of pointless.

Once I have a chance to rework it, I'll throw something else on the boards.

Thanks Fflam, this is the exact sort of feedback I was looking for. Much appreciated!

[Fflewddur Fflam]

I don't see that. It says you are proficient 'in unarmed strikes and monk weapons, which are shortswords and any simple melee weapons that don't have the two-handed or heavy property."

Also, "you can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strikes or monk weapons."

Both places talk about them as separate things, leading me to believe that a monk's unarmed attack does not count as a monk weapon. That being said, I would allow it per homerule because it makes sense.


Thanks Fflam, this is the exact sort of feedback I was looking for. Much appreciated!

No prob! You need to look at the errata for the Player's Handbook, namely this:

Melee Attacks (p. 195). The rule on unarmed strikes should read as follows:
“Instead of using a weapon to make a melee weapon attack, you can use an unarmed strike: a punch, kick, head-butt, or similar forceful blow (none of which count as weapons). On a hit, an unarmed strike deals bludgeoning damage equal to 1 + your Strength modifier. You are proficient with your unarmed strikes.”

This classifies "unarmed strike" as a "melee weapon attack" even though it is no longer considered a "melee weapon" that you can use with a lot of feats, fighting styles, sneak attack, etc. What this errata tells you is that you can use your unarmed strike with stunning strike since stunning strike occurs from a "melee weapon attack".

More here: https://merricb.com/2015/06/11/dd-players-handbook-errata-and-unarmed-strike/

[Fflewddur Fflam]

Any tweaks? I'm also looking for a good feat.

Point Buy: 27

Variant Human: +1 feat. Also, +1 feat after spending ASI.

Str: 10
Dex: 15 (+1 Racial) (+4 ASI) = 20
Con: 12
Wis: 15 (+1 Racial) (+4 ASI) = 20
Int: 10
Cha: 9

Skills: History, Stealth, Acrobatics, Insight, Athletics


May I suggest starting ability scores with your Variant Human:
STR 10
DEX 16 (increase to 20)
CON 14
WIS 16 (increase to 20)
INT 8
CHA 8

Intelligence and charisma are dump stats for you, they give you nothing, but having constitution at 14 instead of 12 will give you 20 more hit points at level 20 plus +1 better on Con saving throws. Hit points are your friend.

Feat-wise I would take Lucky at first level, Lucky is such a life-saver, you rolled poorly on a crucial saving throw or attack? Try that again! Some Big Bad rolled a critical hit on you? Try that again!

Mobile is a nice feat for monk but it's a little extraneous. You get some extra speed, but you are already speedy. You can attack and then move away without getting an attack of opportunity against you, but you can already do that via various methods: spending a ki point to bonus action disengage or do a stunning strike on someone.

If you find yourself getting a second feat after Lucky, I would consider getting "tough". 2 extra hit points per level?!? That's like having +4 to your Con (well, without the bonus to saves)! At 20th level you have 40 additional hit points. Hit points are your friend.

Also, and I can't stress this enough, you should use your extra proficiency skill as a variant human on perception. Perception is HUGE in this game and with the high wisdom on a monk and proficiency in perception, it will be very difficult for creatures to ever get surprise on you, and getting surprised can be a killer. Perception is that one skill that you really should try to put on every character you make in this game.

Also, having proficiency in acrobatic and athletics is a bit redundant. Usually, you can choose to use either of these whenever your character has to do something physical, the DM will give you that option so DEX based characters and STR based characters can both do physical things via different means.

[Fflewddur Fflam]

Because I'm interested in multiclassing monk with cleric myself, I did this little comparison between a Monk 12/ Cleric 8 versus a Monk 14/Cleric 6 with Trickery domain.

Monk 14/Cleric 6 Benefits
+5 ft speed (+25 ft vs + 20 ft). A negligible advantage.

+2 Ki points (14 ki vs 12 ki). A negligible advantage especially when you recover ki on a short rest.

Diamond Soul. Well, this is the big reason to go for Monk 14. We add our proficiency to all saving throws, so before as a monk we just had Str and Dex, now we have Con (big), Wis (very big), Int, and Cha. Plus we can spend a ki point to reroll any missed saving throw. This is one of those amazing traits that can make the monk such a hard class to take down.

Monk 12/ Cleric 8 Benefits
+1 ASI. Depends on what you do with it, I suppose. As a variant human, you will already have a feat at first level, and you can get both your Dex and Wis up to 20 without this ASI. So.... Is there a feat that is as good as Diamond Soul? Nope. But there are more advantages to this build.

Destroy Undead up to CR 1 instead of CR 1/2. This won't matter to you at high levels, you won't be running into any wimpy CR 1 undead.

4th Level spells. We can only have 3rd level cleric spells at Cleric 6. But there are some good 4th level spells to buff our monk (or others). Death Ward and Freedom of Movement are nice.EDIT! The Trickery domain gives you the 4th level spell, Polymorph! Depending on how lenient your DM is, you could abuse the living **** out of this spell with your monk. This alone might tip the build in favor of going Monk 12/Cleric 8.

1 more spell slot. Remember that for a multiclass caster, we use the table on page 165 in the PHB to determine spell slots. A Monk 12/Cleric 8 casts as a level 12 caster while a Monk 14/Cleric 6 casts as a level 10 caster. That means you get one more spell slot at 6th level (you already have one at 6th as a level 10 caster). You won't know any 6th level spells as a level 8 Cleric, but you can always cast lower level spells in that spell slot for more power. Not a big difference, really.

Divine Strike. We get +1d8 poison damage/turn with a "weapon attack" and from the PHB errata we've learned that a monk's unarmed strike is a melee "weapon attack" so this works. Unfortunately, a lot of creatures are either resistant or immune to poison damage.

So there you go!

[gfishfunk]

All good info. I need to toy with the numbers (and I haven't had any chance to do so last night).

Here are the other ideas that I am kicking around:

Monk 14, Cleric 4-5, Ranger/Rogue/Barbarian 1-2?

Barbarian gets a bit MAD, but having a few rages for damage resistance does not sound terrible.

I also might change things up and add a quarterstaff as a 'walking cane'. The lack of multiclassing options due to everything requiring a melee weapon attack are staggering.

[Fflewddur Fflam]

All good info. I need to toy with the numbers (and I haven't had any chance to do so last night).

Here are the other ideas that I am kicking around:

Monk 14, Cleric 4-5, Ranger/Rogue/Barbarian 1-2?

Barbarian gets a bit MAD, but having a few rages for damage resistance does not sound terrible.

I also might change things up and add a quarterstaff as a 'walking cane'. The lack of multiclassing options due to everything requiring a melee weapon attack are staggering.

Monk with Barbarian is sucky. Your rage and reckless attack only works with a strength based attack but a strength-based monk in 5e is seriously disadvantaged. 5e enables a monk to add both their attack and damage rolls with their dex, just like only strength used to do, so if you make a strength-based monk, you have to give up on one of the monk's other necessary attributes like Dex or Wis. You give up on Dex and he's got a lower AC and he has a harder time making evasion saving throws. You give up on Wis and you also lower your AC and your stunning strikes become easier to save against.

Also note that a Barbarian's unarmored defense does not stack with the monk's, when you have two different formulas determining your AC, you have to choose one, you can't have both. So forget about barbarian with monk.

Rogue is a very viable multiclass with monk. Even though you can only do sneak-attack with a finesse or ranged weapon, you can only do sneak attack damage once per turn and your other attacks that turn can be all Jackie Chan. But just go Monk 14/Rogue 6 then. Having cleric levels there as well just dilutes it. 5e is not a system where little bits of stuff here and there gives you a whole lot (unless we are talking about Warlock 2), if you must multiclass in 5e, just keep it to two classes and get enough of each to make a difference.

Ranger 2, like fighter, or Paladin with monk, gives you nothing. The Fighting styles are useless to a monk. Some first level ranger spells? Who cares, you are just taking away from your cleric levels and spells.

The most powerful monk you can have is going to be a level 20 Open Hand Monk, or maybe a Monk 18/Warlock 2 if you want to be boringly cliched about it. Everything else just dilutes the monk class. BUT that being said, multiclassing to rogue or cleric or druid or some other non-fighter class can give your monk some abilities and some versatility that he would not have.

They really constructed 5e to dissuade multi-classing because most of the classes get all their best stuff at later levels, not earlier. If you construct a multi-class with all sorts of levels that are just around 2 or 4 levels, you are going to end up with a really nerfed character that isn't very impressive at doing any one thing.

[gfishfunk]

I see that, but if I am at 14 Monk and 5 Cleric, I don't see one more level in either helpful.

15 on Monk gives me Timeless Body, but I don't really need it for the character concept. 16 gives another ASI, which is pretty good - so I might do that.

6 Cleric gives me a redundant feature from the domain, but does give an extra level 3 spell slot.

While Barbarian does not give much of anything, Rage can give me bursts of resistance, which is not too bad for livability. I am aware that it does nothing to help with rage damage and the unarmored defense does not stack.

I think 14m/6c is probably the most optimized, but I think I would enjoy 14m/5c/1b would be fun and niche-y.

[Fflewddur Fflam]

I see that, but if I am at 14 Monk and 5 Cleric, I don't see one more level in either helpful.

15 on Monk gives me Timeless Body, but I don't really need it for the character concept. 16 gives another ASI, which is pretty good - so I might do that.

6 Cleric gives me a redundant feature from the domain, but does give an extra level 3 spell slot.

While Barbarian does not give much of anything, Rage can give me bursts of resistance, which is not too bad for livability. I am aware that it does nothing to help with rage damage and the unarmored defense does not stack.

I think 14m/6c is probably the most optimized, but I think I would enjoy 14m/5c/1b would be fun and niche-y.

Well, it's your character, you can do whatever you want with it! I'm just saying with barbarian, you're getting a whole lot of nothing that you can't use for one thing that you can.

Also, you're still doing the trickery domain with cleric, right? Cleric 6 is totally helpful. You get an extra Chanel Divinity per rest which is essential for those abilities AND you get Cloak of Shadows, a really useful ability.

[gfishfunk]

Well, it's your character, you can do whatever you want with it! I'm just saying with barbarian, you're getting a whole lot of nothing that you can't use for one thing that you can.

Also, you're still doing the trickery domain with cleric, right? Cleric 6 is totally helpful. You get an extra Chanel Divinity per rest which is essential for those abilities AND you get Cloak of Shadows, a really useful ability.

I'll look at it again. I thought Cloak of Shadows was redundant, and I did not see the extra channel divinity. All I have is the SDL available at the moment and it does not have the Shadow Monk or Trickery Cleric details.

[djreynolds]

How about cleric of light? And dump the fighter. Cleric of light gives that warding flare, just as good as protection but limited to your wisdom modifier per short rest.

[vorpalaxe]

ok it is late and i just registered for this forum just for you because i love this build and i see you are an active forum warrior. my lvl 20 build==>> monk of the open hand lvl12. trickster cleric with spells: guidance, resistance, sacred flame, spare the dying.. command, create/destroy water, detect magic, healing word, purify food and drink, !!!shield of faith!!!.. aid, lesser restoration, blindness/deafness... stats: STR 8 CON 16 DEX 20 INT 10 WIS 20 CHA 10 (get belt of strength) feat: resilience... proficient in CON DEX WIS, acrobatics stealth athletics. background? faction agent: Tymora (chaotic good). fighter: +2 to ranged attacks. Edit: if this rule about unarmed attacks counting as weapon attacks for monks is a real thing then it will be better to use a level 8 cleric instead of any levels in fighter.. this is because you get d8 poison damage on one hit every turn at level 8 trickery cleric.


most toons are best using some multi class at lvl 20. bard and barbarian are great pure classes. fighter 20 gets 5 attacks i think? also maybe good. this warlock in my party is OP...