Monk: importance of Stunning Strike and high wisdom?

[Floogal]

Summary: how important is Stunning Strike to a Monk's effectiveness?

I was wondering if it were feasible to make a reasonable low-wisdom Monk work. Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of Monk abilities that require Wisdom (beyond, of course, the effects of wisdom that every character enjoys: Perception rolls, saving throws, etc).

Starting with the monastic traditions...
- Way of the Shadow: the Minor Illusion cantrip DC target is the only ability affected by low wisdom
- Way of the Four Elements: you can only ever eventually know five disciplines at once, and there are six that have no saving throws: Elemental Attunement, Eternal Mountain Defense, Fangs of the Fire Snake, Mist Stance, Ride the Wind, Shape the Flowing River. Wave of the Rolling Earth is mostly usable as well.
- Way of the Drunken Master: none of its abilities have saving throws or reference wisdom, from my quick glance over.

Looking at the base class, there are actually only two abilities specifically requiring Wisdom:
- AC. Choosing Lizardfolk as the race, you can use its natural armour for 13+Dex, or effectively be equivalent to a 16-wis Monk. Not too shabby.
- Stunning Strike. This is the big one. It sounds like a good ability, but I'm not sure how important it is for a higher-level Monk to pull its weight in combat.


Background: My group and I don't have a lot of experience with the system, the GM is running an adventure path, we aren't powergamers. All players are using our group-rolled stat array of 16, 16, 12, 11, 10, 8. Generally, content from most officially published books is available.

For my backup character, I'm fond of both lizardfolk and monks, and enjoyed the idea of a "flurry of bites" character, since I understand the bite attack to modify unarmed strikes, and thus be compatible with Monk's upgrades to it. I thought about making use of the natural armour as well....

So a post-racial result of Str 12, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10 (I hate to waste the +1 Wis). The advantage of ignoring Wis is that I can quickly max Dex, then go for feats (Mobile, Mage Slayer, Sentinal, Lucky, Alert), or max out HP (+2 Con, Tough). Ignoring Stunning Strike means extra Ki points for Flurries, etc. Also, AC will max out at 18, not great.


I know that I'd probably be better off being a dex-based fighter or rogue, but my question stands: can a low-wisdom monk work? I consider "low wisdom" to be less than the 13 minimum required for multiclassing in/out of Monk.

[emeraldstreak]

nevermindddd

[Mortis_Elrod]

It’s definetly possible, but stunning strike is considered to be one of the most useful things monks get. It’s a very defining feature. I know you want to be a tough hard to kill guy so maybe do this instead:

10/16/14/11/17/8.

After that if you want to increase your Constitution go ahead. You can have your wisdom never move from there and still use an effective stunning strike since it increases with proficiency.


Or you can just ignore this and never stunning strike. That’s fine too as long as your okay with having one less feature.

[Citan]

Summary: how important is Stunning Strike to a Monk's effectiveness?

I was wondering if it were feasible to make a reasonable low-wisdom Monk work. Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of Monk abilities that require Wisdom (beyond, of course, the effects of wisdom that every character enjoys: Perception rolls, saving throws, etc).

Starting with the monastic traditions...
- Way of the Shadow: the Minor Illusion cantrip DC target is the only ability affected by low wisdom
- Way of the Four Elements: you can only ever eventually know five disciplines at once, and there are six that have no saving throws: Elemental Attunement, Eternal Mountain Defense, Fangs of the Fire Snake, Mist Stance, Ride the Wind, Shape the Flowing River. Wave of the Rolling Earth is mostly usable as well.
- Way of the Drunken Master: none of its abilities have saving throws or reference wisdom, from my quick glance over.

Looking at the base class, there are actually only two abilities specifically requiring Wisdom:
- AC. Choosing Lizardfolk as the race, you can use its natural armour for 13+Dex, or effectively be equivalent to a 16-wis Monk. Not too shabby.
- Stunning Strike. This is the big one. It sounds like a good ability, but I'm not sure how important it is for a higher-level Monk to pull its weight in combat.


Background: My group and I don't have a lot of experience with the system, the GM is running an adventure path, we aren't powergamers. All players are using our group-rolled stat array of 16, 16, 12, 11, 10, 8. Generally, content from most officially published books is available.

For my backup character, I'm fond of both lizardfolk and monks, and enjoyed the idea of a "flurry of bites" character, since I understand the bite attack to modify unarmed strikes, and thus be compatible with Monk's upgrades to it. I thought about making use of the natural armour as well....

So a post-racial result of Str 12, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10 (I hate to waste the +1 Wis). The advantage of ignoring Wis is that I can quickly max Dex, then go for feats (Mobile, Mage Slayer, Sentinal, Lucky, Alert), or max out HP (+2 Con, Tough). Ignoring Stunning Strike means extra Ki points for Flurries, etc. Also, AC will max out at 18, not great.


I know that I'd probably be better off being a dex-based fighter or rogue, but my question stands: can a low-wisdom monk work? I consider "low wisdom" to be less than the 13 minimum required for multiclassing in/out of Monk.
Well, as you said, "it depends".
More precisely, in my view, it depends widly depending on two very important things.
- Choice of Way.
- Main chassis vs dip.

For a pure Monk, I find hard to "dump" WIS, but pretty acceptable to have only 14-16 for...
- Shadow Monk, whole carreer (so many things to spend Ki on already),
- Open Hand, until you reach level 12 or so (after that you really want to bump WIS in preparation for that Quivering Palm), although it does make your free rider attempt less appealing.
- Sun Soul, provided you chose that way mainly for the ranged attacks.
- 4E, if you only pick non-WIS dependant features.
With that said, this is "theorycraft" view.

Per my personal taste, I would never play a 4E / Sun Soul / Long Death Monk with less than a starting 16 and I'd quickly push it to "20 WIS at level 12" target, because their special features are the main attraction to me.

Now for a multiclass Monk? Everything is possible.
I'd see as a very intelligent choice the dump of WIS to 14 on a Shadow Monk / Rogue or Shadow Monk / Warlock multiclass for example.
I'd had no problem seeing a low-WIS, fire-themed 4E Monk / Draconic Sorcerer either...
Or for an archer Ranger that happened to take a few levels of Monk to get extra defense and mobility (so he just wants Dash and Dodge as bonus action for a ki).
Or for a Long Death Monk that got some Rogue's talent (up to Uncanny Dodge) because he wanted a different kind of resilience (ditching lvl 11 "avoid 0 HP" and level 14 "get pseudo-advantage on save" for immediate "halve one instance of damage" in addition to "higher chance to get THP").
Or for an Open Hand Monk that prefers keeping a lowish DC but compensates by earlier investment such as Mobile + Rogue/Battlemaster "striker features"...
Or for a 4E Flying Monk that plans on combining Mage Slayer and Grappler to become a pain for enemy casters...

Basically as soon as you are fine with NOT using either Stunning Strike (any Monk), spells (4E, Sun Soul), FoB riders (Open Hand) or free Fear (Long Death) and you know how to cope with lack of good Unarmored (getting armor proficiency, Mage Armor, natural armor, relying on evasion) it's a perfectly sound choice to keep low WIS. :)


I'd find it a waste on Sun Sou

[Naanomi]

Tortle Monks could probably be passable without DEX or WIS

[Floogal]

Thanks for the responses, good point about Tortles as another option, have they been officially published in a book yet?

Ultimately, I was unsure how amazing Stunning Strike was in play, as I imagine many higher-level monsters have good constitution saves. I'll take your word, Mortis_Elrod, that it's a defining, important feature that shouldn't be ignored.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Thanks for the responses, good point about Tortles as another option, have they been officially published in a book yet?

Ultimately, I was unsure how amazing Stunning Strike was in play, as I imagine many higher-level monsters have good constitution saves. I'll take your word, Mortis_Elrod, that it's a defining, important feature that shouldn't be ignored.

Now I feel like if you don’t have fun it’s my fault.

I’m just a dude and d&d games have huge range when it comes to fun and viable, so you know.....don’t feel the need to follow my advice


But I think that most people who see a monk who doesn’t attempt to stun see a monk who isn’t doing their job. If you want to play a monk with a different job and everyone is on board with it ( and even if they aren’t) then you should do it.

[Easy_Lee]

14 Con and 16+ in wisdom and dexterity is, mechanically, the optimal choice for anything but a multiclassing monk. A lot of people do shadow monk / rogue, but even then wisdom is a more useful stat than constitution.

Lizardfolk monk is a cool idea. It reminds of of Iksar monks from EverQuest. But even if you go that route, you still want to raise your wisdom to at least 16 if you can help it.

DEX > WIS > CON is the standard advice for any pure monk.

[mephnick]

We had a Monk in SKT who basically never used it, since you know...giants. She was still pretty useful as a scout/damage/"off-tank" character.

The next character I want to play is a Lizardfolk Kensai. I'll probably have a decent Wis, but won't really be using Ki to Stunning Strike. I'm expecting to be competent.