Monk/Fighters drinking from Tasha's Cauldron

[Segev]

How worth it is expending a feat or a multiclass level for a Monk to pick up the Unarmed Fighting Style? A Vhuman Monk could get a jump from d4 to d8 damage with his unarmed strikes at level 1. Any other monk can get a jump from d6 to d8 at level 4 or 8. Any Monk can multiclass to Fighter (or could start Fighter and multiclass to Monk) to pick up UFS and have a d8 to start with.

However, when the Monk level 11 comes along, the Monk class's own die type is also a d8, rendering about 60 to 75% of the fighting style useless. (The grapple damage is still nice, but is it worth a dip or a feat?) On the other hand, many games never get to level 11, or stop shortly thereafter. It always kind-of bugs me, though, to have something that you buy "for early levels" that is entirely or all but entirely obsoleted by things you get just by leveling up.

So, do you think it's worth it? It certainly seems like Fighter 1 -> Monk 1-4 at the least, and arguably up to Monk 10, is a pretty good way to boost Monk damage. Whether the cost of a feat is more worth it, and waiting for level 4 to jump to d8 rather than d6 at the cost of a feat, is another question.

What do people think?

[Eldariel]

How worth it is expending a feat or a multiclass level for a Monk to pick up the Unarmed Fighting Style? A Vhuman Monk could get a jump from d4 to d8 damage with his unarmed strikes at level 1. Any other monk can get a jump from d6 to d8 at level 4 or 8. Any Monk can multiclass to Fighter (or could start Fighter and multiclass to Monk) to pick up UFS and have a d8 to start with.

However, when the Monk level 11 comes along, the Monk class's own die type is also a d8, rendering about 60 to 75% of the fighting style useless. (The grapple damage is still nice, but is it worth a dip or a feat?) On the other hand, many games never get to level 11, or stop shortly thereafter. It always kind-of bugs me, though, to have something that you buy "for early levels" that is entirely or all but entirely obsoleted by things you get just by leveling up.

So, do you think it's worth it? It certainly seems like Fighter 1 -> Monk 1-4 at the least, and arguably up to Monk 10, is a pretty good way to boost Monk damage. Whether the cost of a feat is more worth it, and waiting for level 4 to jump to d8 rather than d6 at the cost of a feat, is another question.

What do people think?

Well. On low levels, Monk's biggest problem is the dearth of Ki, which this exacerbates by giving you one less level of Monk and thus one less point of Ki. Which is a pretty big opportunity cost, as well as delayed Stunning Fist. But there's merit to this: Fighter is always a somewhat reasonable multiclass option (Fighter 2 for Action Surge is always enthralling) and I think that goes for this case too; getting those 3-4 hits on levels 6+ at 1d8 base is nice (though e.g. Warlock multiclass for Hex would of course give more damage but with an increased Bonus Action clog).

Ultimately, I think the base damage of UA Strike is kinda peanuts so this isn't that big but it isn't certainly worthless either.

[MaxWilson]

How worth it is expending a feat or a multiclass level for a Monk to pick up the Unarmed Fighting Style? A Vhuman Monk could get a jump from d4 to d8 damage with his unarmed strikes at level 1. Any other monk can get a jump from d6 to d8 at level 4 or 8. Any Monk can multiclass to Fighter (or could start Fighter and multiclass to Monk) to pick up UFS and have a d8 to start with.

However, when the Monk level 11 comes along, the Monk class's own die type is also a d8, rendering about 60 to 75% of the fighting style useless. (The grapple damage is still nice, but is it worth a dip or a feat?) On the other hand, many games never get to level 11, or stop shortly thereafter. It always kind-of bugs me, though, to have something that you buy "for early levels" that is entirely or all but entirely obsoleted by things you get just by leveling up.

So, do you think it's worth it? It certainly seems like Fighter 1 -> Monk 1-4 at the least, and arguably up to Monk 10, is a pretty good way to boost Monk damage. Whether the cost of a feat is more worth it, and waiting for level 4 to jump to d8 rather than d6 at the cost of a feat, is another question.

What do people think?

Hopefully you're using a weapon for d8 damage anyway, so this only increases the damage on your bonus action: Martial Arts, Flurry of Blows, or nothing. I'm of the opinion that Flurry of Blows is rarely worth doing unless you want it for more Stunning Strike attempts, so this is just a way to get approximately +1 damage per round in Tier 1 and +0.5 damage in Tier 2, at the cost of being behind on Stunning Strike and Extra Attack. I don't think it's worth it--unlike dipping Fighter for Archery style on a Kensei Sharpshooter, which is totally worth it.

As for feats, there are much better feats for a monk like Alert, Defensive Duelist, and Mobile.

[x3n0n]

How worth it is expending a feat or a multiclass level for a Monk to pick up the Unarmed Fighting Style? A Vhuman Monk could get a jump from d4 to d8 damage with his unarmed strikes at level 1. Any other monk can get a jump from d6 to d8 at level 4 or 8. Any Monk can multiclass to Fighter (or could start Fighter and multiclass to Monk) to pick up UFS and have a d8 to start with.

However, when the Monk level 11 comes along, the Monk class's own die type is also a d8, rendering about 60 to 75% of the fighting style useless. (The grapple damage is still nice, but is it worth a dip or a feat?) On the other hand, many games never get to level 11, or stop shortly thereafter. It always kind-of bugs me, though, to have something that you buy "for early levels" that is entirely or all but entirely obsoleted by things you get just by leveling up.

So, do you think it's worth it? It certainly seems like Fighter 1 -> Monk 1-4 at the least, and arguably up to Monk 10, is a pretty good way to boost Monk damage. Whether the cost of a feat is more worth it, and waiting for level 4 to jump to d8 rather than d6 at the cost of a feat, is another question.

What do people think?

As Eldariel said, the delayed advancement of the Fighter multiclass is really painful. I don't think I'd do that until the last couple of levels of my career, at which point the Unarmed fighting style is moot.

The Fighting Initiate feat allows you to trade out the selected fighting style at any level in which you gain an ASI.

I think v.human/custom, Fighting Initiate (Unarmed) at level 1 is quite possibly worth it for all of tier 1. Trade it in at level 4, 8, or 12.

Blind Fighting can be excellent, especially if someone on your team already likes to use obscurement. (Bonus points for Way of Shadow and a team that can tolerate Darkness spam.)
Dueling is acceptable at level 5+ unless your subclass is unusually unarmed-strike-focused (like both in TCoE), and is even better with Ki-Fueled Strike. (Bonus points if you have proficiency with a d8 one-handed weapon to use with Dedicated Weapon.)
Interception is fine. (shrug)
Thrown weapons or Archery might be ok, perhaps for a Kensei, who can reliably trigger Ki-Fueled Strike on ranged weapons at level 6+.

All that said, the earlier posters aren't wrong about the feat either--the opportunity cost of not taking one of those other feats is really high.

Perhaps on a subclass that is highly incentivized to Flurry frequently or focus on Unarmed Strikes (Open Hand/Drunken Master/Astral Self), and then only through level 8; hopefully you can make good use of Blind Fighting later.

[Amechra]

It depends on how far you're going to go into Monk.

The real winner here is the Druid, honestly. Before Tasha's, a Druid might have dipped into Monk to grab Unarmored Defense - the BA unarmed strike they could get from Martial Arts was lackluster, at best. Now they can spend a feat to up that BA attack to 1d8+Str or Dex (depending on the form), and they get an extra benefit for grappling.

Moon Druids going four levels deep into Monk might be a thing - VHuman Druid (Moon) 6/Monk (Astral) 4/Druid +10, maybe? Out of nowhere, an otherwise normal cat sprouts buff ghost arms, then starts punching people from a range while engaging in some Wisdom-based grappling.