Tortle barbarian/Kensei

[Spacehamster]

So in a 1-10 campaign, which order would you fine gents and ladies take your levels with this combination? 1 Barb —> 9 Kensei for more hp at start + rage right away and maximum ki points?

5 Kensei —> 4 barb —> 6 Kensei(or perhaps 1 rogue for sa and expertise?) for barb subclass and 1 more rage at cost of ki?

[Misterwhisper]

Neither.

Monk and barbarian are not a good combination.
Kensei sucks.
But most of all you have too many stats you would need.

[JNAProductions]

Neither.

Echoing this. Barbarian/Monk is not a good multiclass.

So, let me ask this: What are you trying to achieve with this?

[Lavaeolus]

So this probably isn't optimal, but Tortle does give us a chance at making it workable. Their natural armor (17 AC) is equal to non-enhanced medium armor, and the Tortle comes with just the right stat boosts that a decent stat spread is possible. With Point Buy, they can start with 16 STR / 14 WIS/CON/DEX; or, a little more uneven but open for a STR half-feat, they could start with 17 STR / 14 WIS/CON / 13 DEX.

(CHA and INT are, of course, dumped, so this is a character who mostly won't be excelling outside their niche. Technically speaking we have an 8 in one and a 9 in the other, so you could round it up at some point; but we probably have better things to go for.)

Relying on Tortle's natural armor, further improvements to DEX are unnecessary; our Deflect Missiles is less effective, but it's not the end of the world and Martial Arts can be used with STR. I'd play this as mostly a regular Monk, but one with limited access to Rage and Reckless Attack. Eventually 17 AC isn't going to be as good as a normal Monk with max'd out DEX and WIS, but for levels 1-10 it's less of an issue.

It makes sense to rush Monk 5, but I might start with a Barb level just to get the feeling going. Once we have our Extra Attack we can think more about branching out (go to Monk 6 if you think you'll run into enemies with nonmagical resistance). I'm a little torn on how many Barb levels to take; we should at least take Barb 2, we probably should take Barb 3 for a subclass (I'd go Bear Totem) and an extra Rage, and then Barb 4'll give us a ASI or feat. But each is cutting into our Monk progression. We really shouldn't go further than Barb 4, though.

It'd be nice to have Expertise, but I'd say no to a Rogue dip. We undermine a benefit of going STR+Kensei if we stick with finesse weapons, and with STR + proficiency in Athletics + advantage on STR checks, you're probably in an alright enough position to grapple anyhow. (Which is a maneuver we'll do better than a DEX Monk, at least.) Also, Monk isn't great at multiclassing thanks to Ki costs and the like, so we don't want to cut into it too much.

I think it's workable enough, dependent on party and campaign style. Our AC is lower than I'd like and we don't have a way to raise it, but Rage can at least give some damage resistance to make up for it. Be sure to use Agile Parry to mitigate it a bit, as well. Could be fun.

[Spacehamster]

Echoing this. Barbarian/Monk is not a good multiclass.

So, let me ask this: What are you trying to achieve with this?

With tortle it is a known good multi class combo combining rage and monk goodliness, tortle AC removes most of the negatives for early to mid game, trying to achieve a fun if not optimal build and a monk that does bit more damage than the straight monk plus a ninja tortle feel.

[Spacehamster]

So this probably isn't optimal, but Tortle does give us a chance at making it workable. Their natural armor (17 AC) is equal to non-enhanced medium armor, and the Tortle comes with just the right stat boosts that a decent stat spread is possible. With Point Buy, they can start with 16 STR / 14 WIS/CON/DEX; or, a little more uneven but open for a STR half-feat, they could start with 17 STR / 14 WIS/CON / 13 DEX.

(CHA and INT are, of course, dumped, so this is a character who mostly won't be excelling outside their niche. Technically speaking we have an 8 in one and a 9 in the other, so you could round it up at some point; but we probably have better things to go for.)

Relying on Tortle's natural armor, further improvements to DEX are unnecessary; our Deflect Missiles is less effective, but it's not the end of the world and Martial Arts can be used with STR. I'd play this as mostly a regular Monk, but one with limited access to Rage and Reckless Attack. Eventually 17 AC isn't going to be as good as a normal Monk with max'd out DEX and WIS, but for levels 1-10 it's less of an issue.

It makes sense to rush Monk 5, but I might start with a Barb level just to get the feeling going. Once we have our Extra Attack we can think more about branching out (go to Monk 6 if you think you'll run into enemies with nonmagical resistance). I'm a little torn on how many Barb levels to take; we should at least take Barb 2, we probably should take Barb 3 for a subclass (I'd go Bear Totem) and an extra Rage, and then Barb 4'll give us a ASI or feat. But each is cutting into our Monk progression. We really shouldn't go further than Barb 4, though.

It'd be nice to have Expertise, but I'd say no to a Rogue dip. We undermine a benefit of going STR+Kensei if we stick with finesse weapons, and with STR + proficiency in Athletics + advantage on STR checks, you're probably in an alright enough position to grapple anyhow. (Which is a maneuver we'll do better than a DEX Monk, at least.) Also, Monk isn't great at multiclassing thanks to Ki costs and the like, so we don't want to cut into it too much.

I think it's workable enough, dependent on party and campaign style. Our AC is lower than I'd like and we don't have a way to raise it, but Rage can at least give some damage resistance to make up for it. Be sure to use Agile Parry to mitigate it a bit, as well. Could be fun.

Thanks for a constructive answer, most people on the forum seem very negative usually to builds that are not a 100% optimized munchkin builds. :) I went with 1 barb at start for better hp and survivability at start from rage and then right into monk. Started with 18/14/14/8/13/8 and will take resilient(WIS) at 4 monk to even out WIS, Prob max STR with 2nd ASI. Reason for 18 STR at 1 is we get a free feat at level 1.

Character were lots of fun and kicked butt, reached 1 barb, 2 monk before we quit our first session of curse of Stradh. :)

[Dork_Forge]

Personally, Barbarian to 4 and Monk the rest of the way to maximise Ki and Martial Arts die improvements. Once you get Kensei you can switch from a Quarterstaff to two handing a longsword: 2d10+1d6+21 (once you max Str) isn't bad damage at all, especially since you have the option to Flurry and use Kensei's mini-smite for a but more damage when needed. Though if you were looking for more damage out of the build, it'd really be as simple as taking Zealot for the extra 1d6+2 (per proposed split) per turn.

It's not the most optimum of builds, but it's more than viable, has a lot of flexibility and sounds really fun to play.

[stoutstien]

A fun combo is kensei and AG barb. you can forgo STR all together than the 13 needed for multiclassing and be a highly mobile tank that also grants resistance from attack damage from the biggest threat to the rest of the party. both monks and barbs have lots of fun toggles to turn off and on.

[elyktsorb]

I'm currently doing this as a Barb 3 (totem, bear) and a Monk 3 (Long Death) I thought about Kensei for a long time, and at the end the Kensei is only really good if your DM refuses to give you magic weapons that a Monk can use regularly. In fact I gave them all a lot of thought, but I figured the temp hp on kill from long death will end up going a long way. Now I'll also mention that this character uses rolled stats (and mine are good btw) but I would have done it even with the standard array. The array I would have gone with was

16 STR
12 DEX
14 Con
8 INT
14 WIS
8 CHA

(My rolled stats btw)
(
18 STR
15 DEX
14 CON
10 INT
17 WIS
9 CHA )

And Ultimately the plus 1 modifier to Dex, Str and Wis hasn't really meant all that much, I'm still doing pretty good, just snag some defense gauntlets at some point and don't even care about ac again.

[Mikal]

Thanks for a constructive answer, most people on the forum seem very negative usually to builds that are not a 100% optimized munchkin builds. :)

Maybe don't ask for optimization help/opinions then? I mean... you literally asked how people would take a crap multiclass, and most people logically answered "we wouldn't, it's crap".

So... yeah. Get off yer high horse.

Oh, and insulting a group then adding ": )" doesn't make it better. If anything it's insulting.

[Spacehamster]

Maybe don't ask for optimization help/opinions then? I mean... you literally asked how people would take a crap multiclass, and most people logically answered "we wouldn't, it's crap".

So... yeah. Get off yer high horse.

Oh, and insulting a group then adding ": )" doesn't make it better. If anything it's insulting.

I did not mention optimization anywhere in the op but w/e...

Edit: oh and how is commenting that much ppl only think about optimization instead of fun is not an insult it were just an observation...

[JNAProductions]

I did not mention optimization anywhere in the op but w/e...

So what do you call asking for advice on how to make the most potent character?

I'm not saying "Don't do this." But I am saying it's generally subpar. And your answers for "Why do this?" were purely mechanical. They weren't even very specific.

[Mikal]

I did not mention optimization anywhere in the op but w/e...

Oh, so you want BAD advice then? In that case take Barb 5 and Monk 5, to make sure you overlap that Extra Attack and have yourself a total dead level!

Also if it's PB I'd go 9-11-11-15-10-15 (11-11-11-15-11-15 after racial mods). I'd put my two ASIs to shore it up though, +1 Int and +1 Cha the first time, then +2 Int the second time so you'll finish with 11-11-11-18-11-16

Now take a look at the above and ask me if that's honestly what you wanted when you asked people how they'd make a character build. If the answer is "no", then yeah. You implied optimization.



Edit: oh and how is commenting that much ppl only think about optimization instead of fun is not an insult it were just an observation...


Thanks for a constructive answer, most people on the forum seem very negative usually to builds that are not a 100% optimized munchkin builds. :)


Well one, that's not what you said. You said people are very negative towards builds not 100% optimized/munchkin...
And munchkin is a pejorative term... Also making an assumption that optimization is somehow "anti-fun"...

[stoutstien]

Good/bad are too subjective to be useful when talking about something like this. a better question would be does a monk Barbarian multi-class have the capacity to do enough damage to meet a given threshold I.e. the standarf of warlock using Eldritch blast + agonizing + hex with similar research expenditures? does the multi-class have the tools to fulfill the role that they're trying to?

[Spiritchaser]

I’m not really up on monk barb MC, but I have to think that the barb subclass is going to be pretty important, and that it’s going to be critical to match it to the role you want and to What your party needs.

My first thoughts are:

1. Ancestral Guardian... partly because this is my favourite subclass right now (thank you echo knight!), but also because monk mobility could work well with ancestral protectors.

Smacking the big bad with a your debuff and then just not being there for retribution won’t always be possible, but it’ll be fun when it works out. This feels like it could have some decent synergy... but I confess to being biased.

2. Possibly wolf totem if you know there are other melee characters to fight beside. This means staying in harm’s way a bit more than monks would ordinarily want, but you do have rage so... maybe That works better than normal.

3. I don’t really see this as a DPS machine, but Zelot will make you slightly less bad if that’s what you wanted.

4. I’m not a huge fan of bear totem for this.