Katar wielding melee build?

[Greenflame]

I am interested in a melee combatant, using punching daggers.

I was thinking monk, but I really like the idea of a dex-based barb to start off with.

The idea is that he's a young human (using variant, as I like feats). Urchin background. Lots of pent up anger, kind of a brawler, and thematically, I think the katar are really neat concept.

So starting as barbarian would be kind of cool. I was thinking a transition to monk, so he could learn to control his impulsiveness (but utilize rage properly). Or, if multi-classing at level 1 is possible?

Is there a good build for that, or do you have better suggestions?

[Vaz]

You can't use Rage damage bonus with non-Str Weapons, and there's no real Dexy Barbarian. The unarmoured defence doesn't stack either, and as a Barbarian/Melee, you're going to want some decent resilience going on.

You can certainly multiclass at level 1, but bear in mind that you need to have minimum stats of Str 13, Dex 13, and Wis 13. Combined with the typical desire for decent Con, you're completely MAD (multi attribute dependent).

I mean, it can work, but you're going to be really lagging behind in your Monk DC's, so that basically means that you're going to want to make yourself a Shadow Monk so you're not completely gimped, but that still means you're going to want to improve your strength rather than Dex, so you're not missing half of your class features simply because of dex.

[Foxhound438]

Personally I'd just stick to monk, or maybe strength rogue if you want to do something out of the ordinary. If you're willing to also use a shield, fighter might be fine as well with dueling style and some maneuvers.

[Rerem115]

Could just go straight Fighter. Punching stuff all day is kind of what you described as a character concept.

[djreynolds]

Could just go straight Fighter. Punching stuff all day is kind of what you described as a character concept.

Go straight fighter... grab magic initiate and grab hex

[Quoxis]

If you're rolling for stats and get lucky, going monkbarian is an ok choice, but i'd advise to focus on str as the attack stat.
Start barb, get unarmored defense with con+dex+10, rage which combined with d12 hp makes the low dc hurt less. Then go monk (up to 5 for multiattack), grabbing sweeties like deflect missiles etc for further survivability, maybe take "long death" as your order (temp hp on enemy kill and later on also the ability to literally say "not today" in the face of death) and go stab things indefinitely with rage damage, resistences and all kinds of other cool stuff.
You won't be spamming stunning strikes like people here make it look like you're supposed to, but that's not the concept you're after anyway.

At barb1/monk5 or 6 you can do what you want - go more monk for more ki points to invest in flurries (each of your hits gets the rage damage bonus, so you wanna hit as often as possible!) and other monk features, go barb for higher hp and the respective features, more rages and rage damage, or mix it up with one or more levels of fighter (action surge seems scary on this build, and you could very well use the dual wielding fighting style), if you're feeling like it even rogue (katar = refluffed dagger, meaning it still counts as a finesse weapon, whether you wield it with dex or str is unimportant).

[Grod_The_Giant]

Nothing wrong with fluffing Flurry of Blows as berserker rage. Open Hand actually fits about perfectly with your idea here-- at low levels you're pretty much just a brutal brawler, with all-out offense and some basic bobbing-and-weaving going on. Around 6th you start to transition; things like Wholeness of Body and Stillness of Mind can be either bloody-minded toughness or zen Ki-power, but by the time you're hitting 11th-13th you're in full zen-master mode.

[Greenflame]

Lots of food for thought.

Thanks.

I think I'll be completely MAD as stated, but the dm is pretty lenient with rolls, so I should be able to get close to what I want.

Tossing in fighter levels for action surge and dual wielding seems nice too.

I'll have to see what each setup would be at higher levels so as not to gimp myself.

[Arkhios]

I would argue that 5e's short sword is better as a katar than dagger is. 5e's short sword is already unthrowable, but it's piercing, finesse, and most importantly, light melee weapon.

Moreover, if you compare it to 3.5 punching dagger, they have equal critical damage potentials (if you forget ability modifiers for a while as they apply quite differently between the editions):

3.5 punching dagger was 1d4 with critical multiplier x3, that's a total of 12 when maximized.

In 5e, every weapon deals only double damage on a critical, and thus, short sword, with its 1d6 would also deal 12 points on a critical before you add ability modifier.

On top of that, short sword is a monk weapon so you could flesh out the concept any way you please.