Monk: Magic Initiate/Warlock/or Cleric?

[samuraijaques]

Hey guys,

I have another build i'm working on for a series of one shot dungeons played at level 6. I am trying to make a monk and have been thinking a lot about adding a little more damage to keep up with the rest of the party.

I'm either going drunken master or open hand as both of them let you kite effectively by providing essentially free disengages. Open hand is probably the more powerful of the two though.

What I would really like to do is get access to hex or divine favor to up my damage for important fights. The way I see it there are 3 ways I could go about this; 1 level dip of warlock, magic initiate (warlock) or a level dip of cleric with the war domain. I'm just not sure which is the best way to go.

- A 1 level dip of warlock gives me hex once per short rest but requires 13 cha which is going to be pretty much completely wasted and competing with the already somewhat MAD monk
- Magic initiate gives me hex just once per day but only costs me a feat which could be easily picked up with variant human
both of those options also get me booming blade which can be very useful on a monk with high mobility

And then there's the 1 level dip of cleric which gives me divine favor twice per day and uses WIS which I'm already going to be pumping. Also give me the ever useful guidance

I am torn on whether hex or divine favor is better in this situation. Hex lasts an hour but requires a bonus action to move to a new target. Divine favor only lasts a minute but doesn't require anything more than concentration after that. Divine favor does slightly less damage but it's only 1 point per hit on average so who really cares.

So, starting at 6 what's going to be the best way to go about this? I'm slightly leaning towards the cleric dip or possibly magic initiate. I don't think the warlock dip is worth it but I could be wrong.

What do you guys think?

[Snowbluff]

I had a Kensei monk/warlock in the group I'm DMing. He often found that he was too full on bonus actions.

If the game is going to level 10, I suggest Cleric. They get some good spells, and Spirit Guardians is a standout for a melee character, which will bring to outstrip 4x hex procs and take fewer of your actions.

[CTurbo]

I'd go Cleric all the way if you're just going to dip one level. You could pick Light or Tempest to have a fun use of your reaction.

Also consider a 3 level Ranger dip for Natural Explorer, favored enemy, fighting style, and Hunter for Horde Breaker or Colossus Slayer. Oh and Hunter's mark and a couple other spells.

[Zonugal]

Arcane Cleric can be a nice dip as it'll get you some Wizard cantrips but keyed off of Wisdom.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd go Cleric all the way if you're just going to dip one level. You could pick Light or Tempest to have a fun use of your reaction.


Arcane Cleric can be a nice dip as it'll get you some Wizard cantrips but keyed off of Wisdom.
They're looking for Divine Favor specifically, though, which is normally a Paladin spell, apart from the War domain list.

In any case, I'd go Open Hand Monk 5/War Cleric 1, I think. Unless you think magic weapons are going to be important a lot, in which case I'd go with Drunken Master + Magic Initiate. (The latter will be better for kiting; Disengage as a free action beats "no reactions from one or two foes," and Redirect Attack is just excellent.

[bid]

War domain features are pretty much wasted.
Martial arts is better than war priest and you'll never wear heavy armor.

Light has warding flare and faerie fire.
Tempest has wrath of the storm and fog cloud.

Extra attack is more important that hunter's mark, you'd have to wait until 5/2.

[Blackbando]

Martial arts is better than war priest.

Eh. Eventually, yes, but at lower levels, it can be nice to get extra damage off with a weapon instead of an unarmed strike (d8 v d4/d6). FoB wins out in damage, of course, but war priest costs nothing to use, just one of it's daily usages.

[Snowbluff]

War domain features are pretty much wasted.
Martial arts is better than war priest and you'll never wear heavy armor.

No one should be seriously considering War Domain. The base Cleric has a better bonus action attack than this fighting based subclass.

War Domain. Not even once.

[Potato_Priest]

No one should be seriously considering War Domain. The base Cleric has a better bonus action attack than this fighting based subclass.

War Domain. Not even once.

I disagree with this sentence strongly, as from an optimization standpoint the war cleric is the strongest cleric for using GWM or Sharpshooter, but I'd definitely concur that the vast majority of monks should not be considering the war domain if it's power they are after.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I disagree with this sentence strongly, as from an optimization standpoint the war cleric is the strongest cleric for using GWM or Sharpshooter, but I'd definitely concur that the vast majority of monks should not be considering the war domain if it's power they are after.
Again, it's the spell they're after.

[samuraijaques]

The only reason I would go war domain cleric is for divine favor. It's just the fastest, lowest cost way to get to it.

I think the options are really drunken master 6 with magic initiate or open hand monk 5/war cleric 1.

Thanks for the replies guys

[Tikkun]

A little late to this party but have you considered using Way of Kensai rather than Drunken or Open Hand? Kensai weapons can be any simple or martial weapon that do not have the heavy or two handed property. This allows you to use a longsword or battle axe ( a 1d8 in one hand ) two handed--both are versatile weapons--for 1d10 damage. It is significantly better than the shortsword ( 1d6 ) or the traditional spear/quarterstaff--also 1d6--but when 2 handed 1d8. Plus Kensai can also use a longbow, which other monk traditions can not use, giving you a ranged option. Then depending on what you want--magic or martial--1 level of fighter for the dueling fighting style --+2 to weapon damage--or archery--+2 to hit with a bow. I am not a big fan of caster multi-classing with monk as simple spell like bless/hex/hunter's mark means you stand around doing nothing for your turn--along with wasting a feat on magic initiate. Take that feat and get mobile. Get in, hit and get out. Good luck on your choice.

[bid]

Again, it's the spell they're after.
Not exactly. It's the extra damage they're after.

3 uses of wrath is 27 damage. Same as about 10 hits with divine favor. And you still have 2 slots left.

[samuraijaques]

A little late to this party but have you considered using Way of Kensai rather than Drunken or Open Hand? Kensai weapons can be any simple or martial weapon that do not have the heavy or two handed property. This allows you to use a longsword or battle axe ( a 1d8 in one hand ) two handed--both are versatile weapons--for 1d10 damage. It is significantly better than the shortsword ( 1d6 ) or the traditional spear/quarterstaff--also 1d6--but when 2 handed 1d8. Plus Kensai can also use a longbow, which other monk traditions can not use, giving you a ranged option. Then depending on what you want--magic or martial--1 level of fighter for the dueling fighting style --+2 to weapon damage--or archery--+2 to hit with a bow. I am not a big fan of caster multi-classing with monk as simple spell like bless/hex/hunter's mark means you stand around doing nothing for your turn--along with wasting a feat on magic initiate. Take that feat and get mobile. Get in, hit and get out. Good luck on your choice.
Well I definitely can't take more than one level in a non monk class. I'd have to give up extra attack for that since we're starting at 6th. War domain cleric actually gives me martial weapons which means I can use longbows just fine. Also if I really wanted I could grab a ranged attack cantrip.

Both open hand monk and drunken master give you easy ways to hit and run without mobile. Not that mobile isn't useful.

Also the only spells I care about are hex and divine favor and they are both a bonus action to cast meaning I can sti make a full attack.


Not exactly. It's the extra damage they're after.

3 uses of wrath is 27 damage. Same as about 10 hits with divine favor. And you still have 2 slots left.
It is the extra damage I am after. Wrath does 2d8 so 3 times would be 24 unless I'm missing something. Also someone has to hit me to do that. And I'd rather they didn't do that.

If you have a better option that takes a level out of my build at most that can get me more damage than divine favor or hex reliably then I am all ears

[CTurbo]

Well I definitely can't take more than one level in a non monk class. I'd have to give up extra attack for that since we're starting at 6th. War domain cleric actually gives me martial weapons which means I can use longbows just fine. Also if I really wanted I could grab a ranged attack cantrip.

Both open hand monk and drunken master give you easy ways to hit and run without mobile. Not that mobile isn't useful.

Also the only spells I care about are hex and divine favor and they are both a bonus action to cast meaning I can sti make a full attack.


It is the extra damage I am after. Wrath does 2d8 so 3 times would be 24 unless I'm missing something. Also someone has to hit me to do that. And I'd rather they didn't do that.

If you have a better option that takes a level out of my build at most that can get me more damage than divine favor or hex reliably then I am all ears


Wrath does 9 damage on average and you'd be able to use it 3-5 times depending on your Wis mod. Sure you don't want to get hit, but you are going to get hit anyway. Tempest gives you all weapons proficiency too.

[Potato_Priest]

Wrath does 9 damage on average and you'd be able to use it 3-5 times depending on your Wis mod. Sure you don't want to get hit, but you are going to get hit anyway. Tempest gives you all weapons proficiency too.

While he is going to get hit, wrath requires him to get hit in melee, which he's already looking at ways to avoid with hit and run monk abilities. Thus, while taking melee hits might still happen sometimes, wrath would be anti-synergistic to his playstyle. Additionally, while it doesn't cost a spell slot, that also means that you might theoretically use wrath fewer times per day than divine favor, since you get two first level spell slots per long rest from a 1 level cleric dip.

[Citan]

Hey guys,

I have another build i'm working on for a series of one shot dungeons played at level 6. I am trying to make a monk and have been thinking a lot about adding a little more damage to keep up with the rest of the party.

I'm either going drunken master or open hand as both of them let you kite effectively by providing essentially free disengages. Open hand is probably the more powerful of the two though.

What I would really like to do is get access to hex or divine favor to up my damage for important fights. The way I see it there are 3 ways I could go about this; 1 level dip of warlock, magic initiate (warlock) or a level dip of cleric with the war domain. I'm just not sure which is the best way to go.

- A 1 level dip of warlock gives me hex once per short rest but requires 13 cha which is going to be pretty much completely wasted and competing with the already somewhat MAD monk
- Magic initiate gives me hex just once per day but only costs me a feat which could be easily picked up with variant human
both of those options also get me booming blade which can be very useful on a monk with high mobility

And then there's the 1 level dip of cleric which gives me divine favor twice per day and uses WIS which I'm already going to be pumping. Also give me the ever useful guidance

I am torn on whether hex or divine favor is better in this situation. Hex lasts an hour but requires a bonus action to move to a new target. Divine favor only lasts a minute but doesn't require anything more than concentration after that. Divine favor does slightly less damage but it's only 1 point per hit on average so who really cares.

So, starting at 6 what's going to be the best way to go about this? I'm slightly leaning towards the cleric dip or possibly magic initiate. I don't think the warlock dip is worth it but I could be wrong.

What do you guys think?
Hi!

(Preamble: all of what I say is purely from an optimization point of view. Please ditch any or all of it if you are going for flavor. Flavor should always be over optimization, and it's not like you would make a flawed character anyways, 5e is well enough designed to prevent it from ever happening, unless it's your goal ^^).

Easy peasy answer for a single level dip: Cleric, with Death (Twin Chill Touch), Grave (bonus action Spare the Dying), Nature (Shillelagh / Thorns Whip), Light (Warding Flare), Tempest (damage on reaction), Trickery (help one friend being decent in Stealth).

Also, just forget about Divine Favor, really. It's completely worthless when you also have Bless.
Bless will...
- Help you hit (so when it makes the difference between hit or miss, you can view it as adding the full damage of a weapon attack ;)).
- Help OTHERS hit (since it affects 3 creatures at 1st level).
So you're already improving overall damage by a different magnitude than just adding some damage to your attacks, even if it does use an action so you're investing one turn of the encounter.
In addition to that, you also help everyone succeeds on saves, which means you will overall take less damage. Whether that makes a big difference or not will depend on encounters, but when it makes someone take half damage on a Burning Hands or avoid being restrained in an Entangle, you'll be glad you cast it.

And when you want to focus on you, Shield of Faith is still better than Divine Favor: having +2 on top of your probable 17 AC makes you much harder to hit: even when you (still) have ki to use Flurry and get the free disengage effect on hit, you're not sure you'll hit, and you don't know whatever other enemy may target you. Being more resilient mean you can stay longer in the hot zone or have better chance of surviving impromptu focus fire.

Now, for 2-levels dip (one now, one on first gained level -if any-), you have many options to you.

Cleric: some Channel Divinity options are great: Knowledge would make you skillmonkey, Light will ensure party doesn't fear Darkness, even Forge (make money, counterfeit important things), Grave (if you have a Rogue or Paladin in party for example), Life ("lessened Mass Healing Words as an action") and Trickery (advantage on your attacks, use Spare the Daying at distance) are cool choices. Especially since as a short-rest reliant class, you will want those as often as possible so those CD won't be an afterthought but something really used.

Warlock: yeah, CHA is a pain, 2 levels would it make worth it?
Well, possibly, it mainly depends on whether there are Invocations you fancy: obviously don't pick the offensive ones. But between (from memory, check yourself to be sure ^^) free Detect Magic, free Mage Armor (so you can boost DEX first), extra skills, free Disguise Self, free False Life... Many interesting choices. :)
Plus you get 2 short-rest slots: what's true for CD is true for those. :)

BUT, you wouldn't get Bless, which is kinda sad.
So, enter the Divine Soul Sorcerer / Hexblade Warlock.

Divine Soul Sorcerer 1 (now) / Hexblade Warlock 1 (char level 7).
You get Booming Blade and GreenFlame Blade when those could be useful to you, along with Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, Mage Hand and Spare the Dying or Guidance.
You also get Bless free (Law affinity) or Cure Wounds (Good), to pair with whatever you fancy among Shield of Faith, Shield, Healing Words, Absorb Elements (2 spells only, hard choice ;)) and Comprehend Languages / Expeditious Retreat (well yeah, it spares you ki ;)) / Hex / Shield / Wrathful Smite (from Warlock).
(I'd go with free Bless, Healing Words, Shield of Faith on Sorcerer, and Comprehend Language and Shield/Absorb Elements but really any combination works).

You also get a short-rest 2d4 bonus to saving throw or attack roll.
You also get the Hexblade hex (bonus action for, against one enemy, crit on 19, bonus damage to all attacks and around 3 THP when you kill it).

This is imo worth getting 13 CHA, to pick Sorcerer right now and Warlock later...
I wouldn't say it's better than plan Cleric 2 though. Just different (or rather, I think it's overall a bit better in benefits in the long run, but the toll on ability scores and the fact you're talking about a one-shot -so probably not over char level 8- counterbalances that). :)

[Tikkun]

I am not going to attempt to argue you out of your desire to use Way of Open Hand or Drunken Master. I strongly suggest you take Mobile ASAP. Why? You only have one bonus action per turn. If you use it to cast a spell or move a spell you have lost the ability to Flurry, and, thus the ability to get out without a reaction from your foe. Hence Mobile which allows you to ignore both difficult terrain and prevents the opponent from an opportunity attack against you. Let us know what you do and how it plays.

[samuraijaques]

Wrath does 9 damage on average and you'd be able to use it 3-5 times depending on your Wis mod. Sure you don't want to get hit, but you are going to get hit anyway. Tempest gives you all weapons proficiency too.
Oh duh cuz there's no 0. Yeah still not worth it for me.

Hi!

(Preamble: all of what I say is purely from an optimization point of view. Please ditch any or all of it if you are going for flavor. Flavor should always be over optimization, and it's not like you would make a flawed character anyways, 5e is well enough designed to prevent it from ever happening, unless it's your goal ^^).

Easy peasy answer for a single level dip: Cleric, with Death (Twin Chill Touch), Grave (bonus action Spare the Dying), Nature (Shillelagh / Thorns Whip), Light (Warding Flare), Tempest (damage on reaction), Trickery (help one friend being decent in Stealth).

Also, just forget about Divine Favor, really. It's completely worthless when you also have Bless.
Bless will...
- Help you hit (so when it makes the difference between hit or miss, you can view it as adding the full damage of a weapon attack ;)).
- Help OTHERS hit (since it affects 3 creatures at 1st level).
So you're already improving overall damage by a different magnitude than just adding some damage to your attacks, even if it does use an action so you're investing one turn of the encounter.
In addition to that, you also help everyone succeeds on saves, which means you will overall take less damage. Whether that makes a big difference or not will depend on encounters, but when it makes someone take half damage on a Burning Hands or avoid being restrained in an Entangle, you'll be glad you cast it.

And when you want to focus on you, Shield of Faith is still better than Divine Favor: having +2 on top of your probable 17 AC makes you much harder to hit: even when you (still) have ki to use Flurry and get the free disengage effect on hit, you're not sure you'll hit, and you don't know whatever other enemy may target you. Being more resilient mean you can stay longer in the hot zone or have better chance of surviving impromptu focus fire.

Now, for 2-levels dip (one now, one on first gained level -if any-), you have many options to you.

Cleric: some Channel Divinity options are great: Knowledge would make you skillmonkey, Light will ensure party doesn't fear Darkness, even Forge (make money, counterfeit important things), Grave (if you have a Rogue or Paladin in party for example), Life ("lessened Mass Healing Words as an action") and Trickery (advantage on your attacks, use Spare the Daying at distance) are cool choices. Especially since as a short-rest reliant class, you will want those as often as possible so those CD won't be an afterthought but something really used.

Warlock: yeah, CHA is a pain, 2 levels would it make worth it?
Well, possibly, it mainly depends on whether there are Invocations you fancy: obviously don't pick the offensive ones. But between (from memory, check yourself to be sure ^^) free Detect Magic, free Mage Armor (so you can boost DEX first), extra skills, free Disguise Self, free False Life... Many interesting choices. :)
Plus you get 2 short-rest slots: what's true for CD is true for those. :)

BUT, you wouldn't get Bless, which is kinda sad.
So, enter the Divine Soul Sorcerer / Hexblade Warlock.

Divine Soul Sorcerer 1 (now) / Hexblade Warlock 1 (char level 7).
You get Booming Blade and GreenFlame Blade when those could be useful to you, along with Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, Mage Hand and Spare the Dying or Guidance.
You also get Bless free (Law affinity) or Cure Wounds (Good), to pair with whatever you fancy among Shield of Faith, Shield, Healing Words, Absorb Elements (2 spells only, hard choice ;)) and Comprehend Languages / Expeditious Retreat (well yeah, it spares you ki ;)) / Hex / Shield / Wrathful Smite (from Warlock).
(I'd go with free Bless, Healing Words, Shield of Faith on Sorcerer, and Comprehend Language and Shield/Absorb Elements but really any combination works).

You also get a short-rest 2d4 bonus to saving throw or attack roll.
You also get the Hexblade hex (bonus action for, against one enemy, crit on 19, bonus damage to all attacks and around 3 THP when you kill it).

This is imo worth getting 13 CHA, to pick Sorcerer right now and Warlock later...
I wouldn't say it's better than plan Cleric 2 though. Just different (or rather, I think it's overall a bit better in benefits in the long run, but the toll on ability scores and the fact you're talking about a one-shot -so probably not over char level 8- counterbalances that). :)
Thanks for the detailed write up. Bless actually nets me less damage than divine favor against everything less than like 20+ AC and even then it's marginal at best. It doesn't even compete with hex at all. It does up saves though which is nice. But I can pick it and divine favor with a level of cleric so I can just choose whatever suits the current situation.

I don't think we're going to get to level up so two levels in another class isn't going to happen unfortunately.


I am not going to attempt to argue you out of your desire to use Way of Open Hand or Drunken Master. I strongly suggest you take Mobile ASAP. Why? You only have one bonus action per turn. If you use it to cast a spell or move a spell you have lost the ability to Flurry, and, thus the ability to get out without a reaction from your foe. Hence Mobile which allows you to ignore both difficult terrain and prevents the opponent from an opportunity attack against you. Let us know what you do and how it plays.
I think what I'm going to do is go open hand, take a level of cleric and use my variant human feat for mobile.