Where to go next

[Bigmeaty]

I'm currently playing a tabaxi swashbuckler 4/sun soul monk 3. We just hit level 18 and will be leveling up this Friday before we start our game. I'm pretty sure I'm going to take monk 4 so I can get that a feat but I could bump my WIS as well as it's only a 16 right now. As far as feats go I was thinking of picking up magic initiate and grabbing GFB/BB and find familiar. And then I'm trying to figure out the level split for the rest of the character. I'm thinking rogue 15/monk 5 so I get extra attack although I'd lose out on an ASI/feat that way. Other options would be rogue 16/monk 4 or rogue 12/monk 8. What do you guys think? Any other feats I should be looking at? Right now my stats are STR 7, DEX 20, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 16, CHA 12.

Thanks for any advice- Ben

[DrKerosene]

I suppose there are some laundry list questions to ask, like how many other people are in the Party (including NPCs of any significance), what are their classes, does anyone have a preferred combat style or combo? And maybe some other stuff like “what has your DM been throwing at you”?

I think taking the fourth level of Monk, and then a fifth level too, is probably best without further information.

Getting your Wisdom to 16 would be like having +1 light armor, and boosts a number of Monk things and an important Save.



Taking Magic Initiate may be okay until you get Extra Attack. Booming Blade goes well with a Bonus Action Disengage, but it will be at the cost of Extra Attack and any Bonus Action Unarmed Strikes/Flurry you may use at level 9+. The soft lockdown effect is nice, but seems nearly useless against those with ranged attacks.

Greenflame Blade seems more straight-forward if you just want to increase your single attack damage, or if you want a way to autohit high-AC targets adjacent to a lower-AC target, but still prevents additional attacks.

If your team has a Caster who has been targeting you with Haste, and you’ve been using the Ready Action to get an attack on someone else’s turn (getting Sneak Attack twice in a round), then taking a fifth level or Rogue may be worth considering. However this would compete with Uncanny Dodge for your Reaction, and only really adds 2d6 damage per round.

Your consideration of Magic Initiate for a Familiar makes me think you probably lack an arcane caster, so the Haste stuff is probably worthless.

[Bigmeaty]

DrKerosene...Thank you for such a thorough response. Let me try and answer all of your questions.

It's a party of 4. We have a Druid (can't remember what circle), a sorlock (Hexblade/Shadow Sorc), and a pally (Oath of Conquest) and then me swashbuckler/monk.

As far as favored combat styles and or combos...the sorlock does the standard darkness/EB. The druid is mainly a caster with little thought given to wildshape. The pally is our newest player so he sometimes forgets what he can do...but usually relies on hits with his greataxe+smite and sentinel for his damage. And then I run around with monk speed, feline agility, and the various swashbuckler abilities to sneak attack/staberate things and then get out without reprisal.

Our current quest involves dealing with a necrotic plague sweeping the land so it's been a lot of undead lately hence the sunblade and way of the sun soul so we can skip all that undead fortitude nonsense.

Currently my WIS is already at 16 so with unarmored defense my AC is at 18. If I bumped my WIS to 18 it would boost my AC to 19 but I'm not sure if I want to waste an ASI/Feat on that since we have access to a pretty reliable magic shop and could just get bracers of defense.


I was thinking find familiar just for the enhanced scouting abilities/RP opportunities. I'm open to other suggestions for the level one slot. I was thinking booming blade/gfb because they both scale with character level...but more importantly they allow rakish audacity to work because you only have to make a melee attack, not take the attack action for it to proc. If my math is right at 4 rogue/4 monk my average DPR should be (4.5+7)+(3.5*2)+(2.5+5)= 26, if I flurry it's (4.5+7)+(3.5*2)+(2.5*2+5)=28.5, BB (4.5+7)+(3.5*2)+(4.5)+(4.5*2)=32 if the target moves and I can spam it every turn where as I'll only be able to flurry as long as I have ki points...green flame blade might be redundant although it does allow me to spread the damage around. Then at 5th level we get (4.5*2+14)+(3.5*2)+(2.5+5)=37.5 with extra attack and martial arts, (4.5*2+14)+(3.5*2)+(2.5*2+10)=50 with flurry of blows. So I think that extra level in monk is definitely worth it...but having options is always good. Hope that provides some more context.

Cheers,
Ben

[Keravath]

You might want to consider monk 15/rogue 5 as an option. It gives you a lot more ki and a lot more attacks to play with. You also get proficiency with all saves at monk 14 though it depends on how high a level you expect the campaign to get to ..

Monk can be extremely effective with stunning and a monk can use a short sword (finesse monk weapon) to enable sneak attack for their weapon attacks.

Monk 14/rogue 6 still gives the saves and the second round of expertise from rogue.

In the short term, I think monk 5 for the extra attack would be really useful. You also get some more ki to spend and ki refreshes on short rests. You also pick up stun. If you boost your Wis to 18 you also increase the stun DC.

Booming blade doesn't really add that much .. you get a d8 extra damage and maybe some rider damage but give up the second opportunity to land sneak attack if the first misses.

[DrKerosene]

If your Druid has access to enough wild animals and downtime, they should be able to make most of the scouting uses of a Familiar unnecessary.

If the Druid hasn’t taken the cantrip “Guidance” yet, that may be something you can get from picking Cleric for your Magic Initiate feat. Bless would probably be a good 1st level spell in that case.

If you pick Warlock, you could take Hex, which makes opposed skill checks much more possible in an emergency scenario, or when an opportune moment presents itself.

If you want an alternative pseudo-stun, a successful Shocking Grasp stops the target from using Reactions (not like you need that to leave) but this can reduce some nasty reprecussions for melee and casters against Big Bad Bosses. I don’t think it will work with sneak attack without DM permission.

If you’re DM is cruel, he may make the GFB secondary target damage a “mandatory” thing, where you can hurt an ally or start random fires. Or they may make it hard to find the incense to replace your Familiar when it dies.

But you know your game better than I do, so if you think a Familiar and two attack Cantrips will help you and the Party, go for it.

[Bigmeaty]

Dr Kerosene- Our DM is pretty awesome and definitely takes the rule of fun to heart. As long as what were proposing isn't inherently broken and we can provide good role playing justification for it he'll usually approve it. For instance he house ruled the sunblade can still trigger martial arts even though by RAW it shouldn't.

Also as a far as choosing a secondary target for gfb he tends to follow what sages advice and the errata says about it in that you don't have to pick a secondary target.

I don't know if they'll help the party but they certainly won't hurt them and gives me more fun RP things.

Keravath- This campaign probably won't make it to 20 but our DM has already stated when we wrap this up we can either create new characters for the next chapter or continue with our current. I've never hit level 20 with a character so I'm keen to keep mine.

I had thought about extra monk levels although my character is based loosely off Minato/the anbu black ops (from Naruto) so I always envisioned him moving like a blur through the battlefield, striking his target down, and getting out before anyone knows what to do and while thematically it sounds more like an assassin mechanically swashbuckler was the better fit. So the real question is how much of each level to take...rogue 12/monk 8 would maximize my ASI/Feats while keeping my sneak Attack reasonable, increasing my martial arts die, and giving me ridiculous amounts of movement. But rogue 15/monk 5 would increase my sneak Attack damage at the cost of martial arts damage, ki points and movement.

The other option I haven't really thought about is multiclassing into a third class. As long as I have the prequisite ASI and can tell a good story about how my character learned this new class I can do it.

Cheers,
Ben