Zealot barbarian/Open hand monk level progression

[MightyDuck]

I have a build based on a very simple premise, which is getting really angry, punching people and sending them flying into the ether, so just for the fun of it I've decided to try and build a barbarian/monk multiclass that will be at least somewhat viable and a lot of fun to play, I'm not looking to optimise or anything as I know that would be impossible. My character's race is fallen aasimar and my stats, after racial modifiers, are;

Str: 18 (+4)
Dex: 14 (+2)
Con: 16 (+3)
Int: 12 (+1)
Wis: 13 (+1)
Cha: 14 (+2)

i currently plan on going barbarian 14 (path of the zealot) for relentless rage, divine fury and rage beyond death and monk 6 (Way of the open hand) for Open hand technique, ki points, stunning strike and ki-empowered strikes, however, I have no idea what kind of level progression to go for. On the one hand, I should probably go for 5 levels of barb for better AC, rage and extra attacks, maybe use weapons at first to make up for damage and then take tavern brawler at level 4. On the other hand, I'm probably gonna need ki-empowered strikes sooner rather than later, since non-magic resistance is gonna kick my ass if I don't and I want the crowd control from open hand technique asap. Any ideas, recommendations or completely different build ideas, I'm really stumped.

[djreynolds]

Str: 18 (+4)
Dex: 14 (+2)
Con: 16 (+3)
Int: 12 (+1)
Wis: 13 (+1)
Cha: 14 (+2)


So the stats are good, what you need to understand is something has too give. HP, AC, or wisdom based DC for monk stuff

In this case you will have Str/Con/Dex/Wis and so a lot of your maneuvers from open may not work.

Would you be willing to begin monk, knowing you will not have saving throw proficiency for constitution and may have to grab resilient con later?

[MightyDuck]

So the stats are good, what you need to understand is something has too give. HP, AC, or wisdom based DC for monk stuff

In this case you will have Str/Con/Dex/Wis and so a lot of your maneuvers from open may not work.

Would you be willing to begin monk, knowing you will not have saving throw proficiency for constitution and may have to grab resilient con later?

Here in lies my conundrum, I know I don't want to dump strength and I want a decent DC for the monk stuff, I'd drop dex but if I'm starting with monk (which will probably be my best bet) my AC is gonna be really low and I won't have rage to make up for it, I guess I could drop con but that's propably gonna hurt me even more.

As for not having proficiency in con saves, I think I'd probably be fine without it and it wouldn't be worth taking the Resilient feat at level 4 since that's just 1-2 levels away from when I'd switch to barbarian so it just doesn't seem worth. What do you recommend? Or does the idea just not work?

[Misterwhisper]

First of all, start at level 1 as barbarian, you want their ac calculation not the monk one.

Next I would take all ASI as stats. You will need it, badly.

I hate to sound like a broken record but check out the Pugilist class on DMsguild.

It is like thuggish barroom monks that are all about taking hits and outlasting their opponents. Their subclasses are good too, one of them is called The Sweet Science which would fit you well.

[Rukelnikov]

The main problem you will encounter, is that monk 6 cant be delayed for long since it's what makes your attacks count as magical so by lvl 10 tops you need to have that, I'd do Barb 1 for the fort saves, then Monk 1 so you don't have to wait 3 levels or more to start punching, now keep going Monk till 6, every barb lvl delays Extra attack, and if you pursue Barb EA first, you will end up getting Ki Empowered strikes by lvl 11 at the least.

[CTurbo]

Funny I'm seriously thinking about making a Fallen Aasimar Zealot Barb right now and was planning on making a thread about it. and the other character I'm torn between is a Lizardfolk Open Hand Monk with a level or 2 of Barb.

As for your character, I think the concept is going to be really hard to pull off especially with a race that doesn't give +2 to Str, Dex, or Wis.

Other being MAD, you've also got the problem on relying on two totally different resources that you only gain by taking as many levels in each class as possible. Rage and ki. Monks don't multiclass well since they rely on ki so much to take full advantage of their Monkiness.

I think to get the closest to what you want, You should only take a single Barb level, stay mostly Monk, and not prioritize Str. I'd rather have only a couple rages a day than a couple ki.

If you prioritize Str over Wis, your Open Hand Technique save DC is going to be way too low essentially defeating the purpose of your character.

Even if you went with a more even class split between the two, I still think you'd be better off going Wis>Str

I'd switch Str with Wis giving you 14 Str and 18 Wis and switch Dex and Con giving you 16 Dex and 14 Con

So-

14 Str
16 Dex
14 Con
12 Int
18 Wis
14 Cha

Take +2 Dex at Monk 4 and Monk 8 and maybe +2 Con or Tough at Monk 12, and +2 Wis at Monk 16

It'd be a really fun character for sure

[Crucius]

I think it is important to distiguish for yourself which levels contribute to your core playstyle, and which levels add only power.

For example, if you plan on using the open hand techniques a lot it makes more sense to go there before trying to get to barbarian 5. Extra attack is great and all but the techniques add more to fun.

It sounds to me it is beneficial to go to barb 1 - monk 3, then do barb 3 - monk 3 for the zealot archetype. After that I would look carefully at the game and see what it demands; lots of combats means more rages so higher barb, many enemies have nonmagical damage resistance means more monk. I predict monk will take precedence as more ki points also means more open hand goodness.

Hope this helps.

[tmjr6]

I've done something very similar to this in a campaign, where instead of punching into the aether, I focused on a different approach, grappling. With rages, you get advantage on Strength checks, and since grappling is an Athletics check, a raging barbarian has a better chance grabbing. To compensate, I had to grab Tavern Brawler as a variant human, but with the stats you have you could easily pick this up as your level 4 ASI. Then, you have a few options, I multiclassed into Battlemaster Fighter for 4 levels, I flavored each maneuver I took as different boxing techniques that I employed, finally I finished by putting my remaining levels into rogue. Expertise in Athletics was really icing on the cake at that point. And I was able to finish with my signature combo; jab, grab, and stab w/ sneak attack. Here's a link to my character at level 12, the campaign is still going, but we're closer to level 15 now. https://www.dndbeyond.com/profile/tmjr6/characters/9121308

[Man_Over_Game]

Talk to your DM about looking into my Prestige Classes homebrew in my signature. One of the Options is explicitly what you're describing:


You can use your Strength Attribute instead of your Dexterity Attribute for your Monk features.
Requirement: The only Monk subclass available to you is the Open Hand.

As to why this is balanced:

This does not aid Dexterity builds in any way
Strength is often paired with heavy weapons or heavy armor (neither of which can be applied to the monk)
the requirement to use the Open Hand monk means that Barbarians are not extremely buffed due to the Open Palm requiring use of Wisdom. You are now a MAD Barbarian stacking Constitution, Strength and Wisdom.



The only thing that this directly buffs is a Barbarian dipping 1 level into Monk, and this is suboptimal due to Monk having a resource that's dependent on class levels. This ends up giving your Barbarian the option to attack with a 1d4 as a bonus action, which is exactly the same thing you could get out of Polearm Master.

A Monk dipping Barbarian gains an accessible Rage, but due to the fact that much of the Open Hand features require not attacking or moving enemies away from you.

A Monk dipping Barbarian, or a Barbarian dipping Monk, has enough conflicts to prevent the option from too strong.

---------

TLDR, using the Option in the quote has virtually no way of becoming overpowered. Talk to your DM, refer him to this, and ask him to make an exception for your campaign.