Monk 1/Pal 2/Moon Druid X- Would it work

[diplomancer]

Basically, can a moon druid in wild shape use a Monk's Unarmored Defense and smite away with his spell slots from Paladin's divine smite.

I don't see anything in the rules that forbid it, but is the cost of delaying the druid levels worth it? In point-buy it can easily be done with a Variant Human, S13,D13,C14,I8,W16 (observant),Ch13. All you care about is Wisdom, so the MAD is not so much of a problem.

[MeimuHakurei]

Delaying your casting is always a drawback since by the time you get to be a smiting kung-fu bear, a pure moon druid can summon a pack of wolves to surround the enemy with while also being wild shaped. Also, the full druid is one ASI ahead of you.

[hymer]

Basically, can a moon druid in wild shape use a Monk's Unarmored Defense and smite away with his spell slots from Paladin's divine smite.
I've not seen official confirmation, but there was a developer tweet in support of Unarmored Defense working in wild shape. As long as the DM is fine with it, it will work.


[...]but is the cost of delaying the druid levels worth it?
That depends. If you do this (and you should really consider a level of barb instead of monk, btw; which is better depends a lot on your wisdom score and what level you are playing at), you pretty severely gimp your spellcasting. Even for moon druids, spellcasting is superior to wild shape in power and versatility, with some few exceptions. But if you don't want to be a spellcaster, it may be a trade you can usefully make. The paladin smite really makes a difference for wild shape damage output, which needs a boost to make it a primary tool in battle.

I wouldn't do it. I've only tried it in simulation, but I'd rather have my full spellcasting and all my spell slots to use for it, than I'd boost wild shape.

[nickl_2000]

one of the issues you will see with this will be the attack bonus. Beasts attack bonus start to lag behind PCs for pure Moon Druids between level 5 and 9 (in your case 8-12). This may end up being pretty painful unless you can find a way to boost your attack bonus. After all, smite only helps if you hit first.

[OverLordOcelot]

I think it sounds neat on paper but in practice it will be weak because you push back your druid abilities too much. Let's look at how it works:

You probably want to go druid 3 first, unless you expect to find non-metal heavy armor and want the paladin armor proficiency. Moon druid at level 2 is hilariously overpowered, able to soak more damage than the rest of the party put together without even using a heal spell. Level 3 druid gets you some of the best second level spells in the game - Pass Without Trace, Healing Spirit, Heat Metal, Hold Person, and Spike Growth are all really good, and Earthbind, Darkvision, and Locate Object are situational but great if their situation comes up. So you get to level 3, then do your multiclass, and get wisdom to AC plus smites at 6th level, which makes a good comparison point.

The straight Druid 6 has 3 less AC than you in forms, but is now changing into CR2 forms like giant constrictor snake from the MM (60HP, blindsight, 2d8+4 damage with automatic grapple and restrain on a hit) and giant spitting lizard from Encounters in the Jungle of Chult (only 45HP, but bite is d8+3 plus 2d4 poison and grapples, or can spit poision for 3d6+3 to 2 targets, and gets tail reaction when an opponent approaches to knock them prone and end their move). Their animal attacks also are magic weapons now, and you're at a level where there are a lot of enemies resistant to non-magic, non-silver. The druid also has an ASI, which I would spend on war caster or resilient con to enable the druid to hold spells much better while wild shaped. The mix can smite significantly increasing the damage of forms to a limited extent, but with only 7 spell slots smiting is limited, especially if you're wanting to reserve some of those level 2 slots for 'heal the party back to full' or 'give the party +10 to stealth'. The full druid doesn't have smites, but instead can summon a pack of animals to do extra damage and effects or can drop a moonbeam to do continuous 2-3d10 damage per round to an enemy he has restrained. And with 4/3/3 spells vs 4/3 the straight druid has a lot more casting options, plus will generally be dropping one concentration spell per combat instead of multiple smites, so can do a lot more utility casting.

As you go up in levels, you're always 3 levels behind on full casting. So when the straight druid pops up to 7 to add spells like polymorph, conjure woodland beings, wall of fire, and guardian of nature (advantage on attacks and +d6 damage per attack) to his toolkit, the mix gets his ASI and is still behind. When the mix finally gets magical weapon attacks and CR2 forms, the straight druid gets CR3 forms and 5th level spells like Conjure elemental, upcast conjure animals (for things like 2x giant constrictor snakes), greater restoration, reincarnation, and wall of stone. And all along the smiting druid will be spell-slot starved since he's burning multiple smites per major combat, while the straight druid will generally have slots to spare because 4/3/3/3/1 mostly using single concentration spells in combat goes further thatn 4/3/3/1 while smiting. And then in another level the straight druid gets elemental forms while the mix is still poking around with higher AC CR2 forms.

IMO you lose out in this combination. It's not wholly ineffective, but I don't think that a bit of form AC and smites makes up for severely delaying your form and spellcasting progression.

[Rukelnikov]

Depends on what you are looking for. Smiting Druid is better to go nova, if you do 1 or 2 encounters per long rest, you will probably hurt a bit for spells early on, but it will probably be on par, in terms of damage dealing, since lvl 7 (Druid5/Paladin2) and ahead since lvl 9 (Druid7/Paladin2), when you will be hitting very often and spamming smites left and right. The more encounters/long rest your party does, the more the scales tip to the other side.

The monk level would, as a rule of thumb, grant you around 3 more AC, however, survivability is already your strong point, I think you would be better off not delaying Druid any further.

[RogueJK]

A Moon Druid can afford a 1 level dip into Monk or Barbarian for better Wildshape AC without delaying their spells, class features, and Wildshape options too much. But taking 3 levels in other classes would be too much, and not worth the trade-off.

Moon Druids' Wildshape options are somewhat over powered for Tier 1, but can be somewhat underpowered for Tier 2. This then gets better once you get Elemental forms at 10th. You'd be taking that "Tier 2 Power Slump" and extending it well into Tier 3, where it would be even more noticeable.

[tieren]

My understanding is unarmored defense will only work with forms that do not have 'natural armor" in their stat block.

[RogueJK]

My understanding is unarmored defense will only work with forms that do not have 'natural armor" in their stat block.

It still works with creatures who have Natural Armor. You just can't benefit from both Natural Armor and Unarmored Defense. You choose one or the other.

You can either calculate their AC as NatArmor + DEX OR calculate their AC as DEX + WIS for Monk / DEX + CON for Barbarian. (Unarmored Defense is typically the better option for a Druid/Monk, since nearly every Wildshape creature only has +1/+2/+3 Natural Armor, whereas a PC Druid/Monk usually has +3/+4/+5 in WIS. But there are a few exceptions with higher Natural Armor, like Earth Elementals.)

See Page 2 of the Sage Advice Compendium, under "How do you calculate a creature’s Armor Class (AC)?": https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf

It reads (bold emphasis mine):


Here are some ways to calculate your base AC:
Unarmored: 10 + your Dexterity modifier.
Armored: Use the AC entry for the armor you’re wearing (see PH, 145). For example, in leather armor, you calculate your AC as 11 + your Dexterity modifier, and in chain mail, your AC is simply 16.
Unarmored Defense (Barbarian): 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier.
Unarmored Defense (Monk): 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Wisdom modifier.
Draconic Resilience (Sorcerer): 13 + your Dexterity modifier.
Natural Armor: 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your natural armor bonus. This is a calculation method typically used only by monsters and NPCs, although it is also relevant to a druid or another character who assumes a form that has natural armor.

These methods—along with any others that give you a formula for calculating your AC—are mutually exclusive; you can benefit from only one at a time. If you have access to more than one, you pick which one to use. For example, if you’re a sorcerer/monk, you can use either Unarmored Defense or Draconic Resilience, not both. Similarly, a druid/barbarian who transforms into a beast form that has natural armor can use either the beast’s natural armor or Unarmored Defense (you aren’t considered to be wearing armor when you use natural armor).

[OverLordOcelot]

Also, you're giving up some useful stats to afford the MC stats - notably a 14-16 dex gives you +1-2 AC and +1-2 inititative over this build, and you could bump con up to 15 if you were looking for resilient later. The monk unarmored defense is not really helpful in caster form until high levels, since a shield plus studded leather or hide gives 14 AC while monk only gives 13. While you don't like to spend a lot of time meleeing in caster form, if you have a lot of fights it's not worth wild shaping for minor stuff, and in tougher fights you tend to get knocked out of your first wild shape.