samcifer
2020-11-23, 02:32 PM
We did a one-shot this weekend with lv. 12 characters and a stat block of 16, 16, 15, 14, 13, and 12. I wanted to try out the new Astral Self monk and decided to optimize him by going with Bugbear for my race and +2 Dex / +1 Wis, then used my 2 ASIs to max out Dex and boost Wis.
Wnting more damage, I decided to go 11 as monk and 1 level of hexblade, then took Mage Hand and Prestidigitation as my cantrips along with Shield and Hex for my levelled spells. I made my favored monk weapon a whip (giving me 15ft. reach on all my melee attacks as the astral arms also add +5ft. of range on attacks, giving me double-reach on melee fighting).
We were only allowed t have a single long rest in the homebrewed dungeon we were going through, but could take as many short rests as we wanted.
I sweated bullets in the first encounter when I took nearly 50 damage from several enemies and one of them tried to fuse with my body (the real body, not just my astral form from the monk sub-class).
For the second and third of the 3 battles we went up against 2 solo bosses, a nharlatemp (guessing on spelling here as well as the fact that it was kind of pig-demon fiend, can't remember the actual name), then a Balor Demon. In turn 1 of each encounter I cast Hex and selected Constitution for the save they had disadvantage on.
Basically The pig-demon got stunned and went down before my second turn. The same happened with the second boss and while it took 2 and a half rounds, I kept it stun-locked so that it could only use its burning aura to do any damage to us. I never had encounters go so easily for me before and enjoyed feeling important for once (strategy-wise, at least).
The troublesome dm of my group didn't seem to mind me using it, but he made it clear that whenever he dms, if I tried to use that character he'd make sure to stun me with his monsters as much as possible to make sure I couldn't use that tactic against him.
The DM I *did* use it on felt rather sad that his bosses were taken down so easily.
I honestly never had so much fun with a character before, but doubt I'll ever be allowed to use that combo again in my group.
Wnting more damage, I decided to go 11 as monk and 1 level of hexblade, then took Mage Hand and Prestidigitation as my cantrips along with Shield and Hex for my levelled spells. I made my favored monk weapon a whip (giving me 15ft. reach on all my melee attacks as the astral arms also add +5ft. of range on attacks, giving me double-reach on melee fighting).
We were only allowed t have a single long rest in the homebrewed dungeon we were going through, but could take as many short rests as we wanted.
I sweated bullets in the first encounter when I took nearly 50 damage from several enemies and one of them tried to fuse with my body (the real body, not just my astral form from the monk sub-class).
For the second and third of the 3 battles we went up against 2 solo bosses, a nharlatemp (guessing on spelling here as well as the fact that it was kind of pig-demon fiend, can't remember the actual name), then a Balor Demon. In turn 1 of each encounter I cast Hex and selected Constitution for the save they had disadvantage on.
Basically The pig-demon got stunned and went down before my second turn. The same happened with the second boss and while it took 2 and a half rounds, I kept it stun-locked so that it could only use its burning aura to do any damage to us. I never had encounters go so easily for me before and enjoyed feeling important for once (strategy-wise, at least).
The troublesome dm of my group didn't seem to mind me using it, but he made it clear that whenever he dms, if I tried to use that character he'd make sure to stun me with his monsters as much as possible to make sure I couldn't use that tactic against him.
The DM I *did* use it on felt rather sad that his bosses were taken down so easily.
I honestly never had so much fun with a character before, but doubt I'll ever be allowed to use that combo again in my group.