Taking skill expert (Athletics) on a low strength monk worth it?

[Rfkannen]

Random idea, I have seen people say that str monks are good grapplers, but unless you are a tortle, you lose a lot by going str. Taking skill expert athletics would give you a pretty decent athletics score (especially since most monsters aren't proficient in athletics or acrobatics) and could open up some new playstyle tactics for a monk.

What do you think, would it be worth taking skill expert athletics on a nomral dex and wis based monk? What subclass would it be best for?

[MaxWilson]

Random idea, I have seen people say that str monks are good grapplers, but unless you are a tortle, you lose a lot by going str. Taking skill expert athletics would give you a pretty decent athletics score (especially since most monsters aren't proficient in athletics or acrobatics) and could open up some new playstyle tactics for a monk.

What do you think, would it be worth taking skill expert athletics on a nomral dex and wis based monk? What subclass would it be best for?

I've had fun in the past with Defensive Duelist + Prodigy (Athletics) Elemonk, because grappling + proning gives you something cool to do with your action without spending ki, and unlike a Fighter you don't lose any offense or defense while grappling. Using Skill Expert instead of Prodigy just makes that combo even better because now you get a stat bump along with the Athletics Expertise.

IMO the key to playing an Elemonk is to have good enough no-ki actions that you still have plenty of ki left for AoEs and Stunning Strike in tough fights, without being bored in the less-tough fights. Grappling, proning, DMG Disarm, shooting and catching arrows, parrying (Defensive Duelist), etc.

[Unoriginal]

Random idea, I have seen people say that str monks are good grapplers, but unless you are a tortle, you lose a lot by going str. Taking skill expert athletics would give you a pretty decent athletics score (especially since most monsters aren't proficient in athletics or acrobatics) and could open up some new playstyle tactics for a monk.

What do you think, would it be worth taking skill expert athletics on a nomral dex and wis based monk? What subclass would it be best for?

Beauregard from the second season of Critical Role is a Variant Human who took Prodigy with Expertise in Athletics, despite her having 10 in STR. Which means she now has the highest STR (Athletics) mod of the party

It worked out for her, even if most of Matt Mercer's encounters don't really encourage grappling.

[solidork]

Good for grappling and makes a ton of sense! Why wouldn't an unparalleled athlete be extremely skilled at Athletics? I mean, just think about what someone with a +10 in Athletics and a +10 in Acrobatics must be able to do? How do they move and fight? It was in the running when I picked Prodigy on my 8 Str Fighter/Warlock.

[da newt]

I like the idea of a grappler, but have never seen one played effectively. What are you hoping to accomplish that is more effective than just attacking?

If you spend one attack to attempt to grapple (no damage), then what?
Are you looking to drag folks around the battlefield because you have a party with hazard casters?
Are you hoping to grapple and then burn another attack for a shove (two attacks for no damage) to keep someone prone because you have a party that can nova melee damage with ADV from prone?

If you grapple and shove with your two attacks, can you flurry of blows or do you have to perform a normal attack to allow you to BA flurry (as opposed to the special attack - shove/grapple)?

In order to grapple and maintain a grapple you must use a free hand - your flurry of blows requires a free hand (right?), so you can't have a weapon in either hand if you want to grapple and flurry of blows?

Like I said, I'd love for this to work out, but I don't see how burning an action to keep someone from moving is really worth it. If you also had the grapple feat and that meant they were restrained, maybe, but at the cost of two feats ...

Please prove me wrong.

[PhoenixPhyre]

IMO, expertise is best used for things like this. Because the highest DCs just aren't that high by default, it's often better to shore up weakness rather than win more on strengths. Expertise lets you pretend to have a maxed score for specific things even when you don't even have a good score.

[Lavaeolus]

If you grapple and shove with your two attacks, can you flurry of blows or do you have to perform a normal attack to allow you to BA flurry (as opposed to the special attack - shove/grapple)?

In my view: this isn't too ambiguous. Flurry of Blows triggers "after you take the Attack action" -- which grappling and shoving is undoubtedly part of.


In order to grapple and maintain a grapple you must use a free hand - your flurry of blows requires a free hand (right?), so you can't have a weapon in either hand if you want to grapple and flurry of blows?

Likewise, Flurry of Blows simply allows you to make two unarmed strikes, with no further requirements, as a bonus action. Headbutts and kicks are both explicitly listed as examples of unarmed strikes when the concept is defined; no requirement to have a free hand is implied.

[Iku Rex]

What subclass would it be best for? Way of the Astral Self (from Tasha). Arms of the Astral Self (lv3) lets you "use your Wisdom modifer in place of your Strength modifer when making Strength checks..."

[Sorinth]

The new Astral Self monk has an ability where they can use Wisdom instead of Strength for any checks/saves. So you wouldn't even need to be a Str monk, your atheltics would key off Wisdom.

I haven't played one yet, but they look like they will make excellent battlefield control martials. They are much SADer then normal monks as they can also use wisdom for their unarmed strikes attacks. So they can max wisdom and not worry too much about Dex (Beyond a good initial score). They get a strong Stunning Strike DC, reach, and have room for an extra feat or two so can grab skill expert and become high end grapplers.

[MaxWilson]

I like the idea of a grappler, but have never seen one played effectively. What are you hoping to accomplish that is more effective than just attacking?

If you spend one attack to attempt to grapple (no damage), then what?
Are you looking to drag folks around the battlefield because you have a party with hazard casters?
Are you hoping to grapple and then burn another attack for a shove (two attacks for no damage) to keep someone prone because you have a party that can nova melee damage with ADV from prone?

If you grapple and shove with your two attacks, can you flurry of blows or do you have to perform a normal attack to allow you to BA flurry (as opposed to the special attack - shove/grapple)?

In order to grapple and maintain a grapple you must use a free hand - your flurry of blows requires a free hand (right?), so you can't have a weapon in either hand if you want to grapple and flurry of blows?

Like I said, I'd love for this to work out, but I don't see how burning an action to keep someone from moving is really worth it. If you also had the grapple feat and that meant they were restrained, maybe, but at the cost of two feats ...

Please prove me wrong.

If you've got a good AC, grappling is approximately like a two-hit kill. If you're fighting e.g. a Star Spawn Hulk and two Star Spawn Manglers, you don't need to do 71 HP of damage in two attacks to basically remove a Mangler from the combat, you just need to successfully make two attacks (grapple + prone). If you've got an AC of 18ish (+4 from Defensive Duelist), a prone Mangler can do only negligible damage to you even Flurrying, as opposed to its normal "rip you to shreds" shtick whenever anyone in the party gets knocked prone or stunned or bitten and confounded by a Grue or restrained by a Larval Mage.

Can you do the same thing with Stunning Strike instead? Sure! There's even a synergy there--once you Stun a creature, it's incapacitated, and incapacitated creatures auto-fail grappling/shoving contests (per PHB errata (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/PH-Errata.pdf) for page 195-6), so grappling/proning it ensure that you don't need to spend MORE ki to keep it down next round. If you stun one Mangler on round 1, you can grapple + prone that Mangler on round 2 and potentially drag it with you as you run towards the other Mangler and then Flurry of Blows on it to stun it as well, and now on round 3 you've got both Manglers at a big disadvantage while you kick them to death at full damage, because you're a monk. (You DO lose out on Defensive Duelist in that case though because you have to sheathe your dagger, so it gets a little bit dangerous even with disadvantage. Each Mangler will do about 4 points of damage to you per round if Multiattacking, or 12 HP if they're Flurrying. Still, your party will have plenty of time to kill them, and any other melee attackers (e.g. summoned creatures) will be doing so at advantage, as well any Sharpshooter Crossbow Experts.)

That's just one example of course. E.g. you don't have to do 180 HP of damage in two attacks in order to mostly-neutralize a Death Knight, you just need to grapple/prone him with two attacks and then drag him out of Destructive Wave range (monk's high movement rate helps here). He's still got a one-time Fireball-ish option but he's probably already used that by the time you grapple him, and if you scared him enough he may even have wasted it on you (Evasion) instead of the rest of the party!

TL;DR grapple-proning is all about reducing the enemy's menu of options to nothing but bad choices.

[TheMango55]

In my view: this isn't too ambiguous. Flurry of Blows triggers "after you take the Attack action" -- which grappling and shoving is undoubtedly part of.




This would be an effective combo with the new mercy monk considering the extra damage they can do free with a flurry of blows.