Help making New Monk for Decent into Avernus (No Spoilers Please)

[Glarnog]

Using Tasha's' ability score assignments what are races that will work well for a Long Death Monk (or any other sub that would work well)? Unassigned and unmodified stats of 16, 16, 15, 14, 13, 7. Will be a party of just 4. A warlock, artificer, and rogue in addition to the monk. Starting at first level. Not knowing subs or builds of the others feels like my monk will be front line/tank.

Stating a new game soon, new characters, and new rules. In 5e I've only really played an Evoker and Moon druid. I considered a barbarian, and of course a paladin in hell sounds fun. However the flavor and abilities of the monk seem fun. I am being mindful of the party size and composition in my build. I want to have fun, variety, and of course contribute. The only thing I know about the campaign is there will be some MadMax vehicle stuff. So not sure what skill driving those would be under, but I would like that.

Some House Rules:

Attribute Creation: In order to set your attributes, roll 4d6 and choose the highest three dice. Do this six times. Then assign the figures to your attributes.

Evil amongst Us: You may choose to be lawful evil or neutral evil (not chaotic evil). If you choose to be evil, please let me know.

Deal with the Devil: If you choose to play as either the Warlock class or the Tiefling or Aasimar race, please let me know. I’ll help with your backstory.

Flexible Racial Attributes: When you select a race with attribute bonuses, you can apply these bonuses to any attribute rather than the ones described. You cannon apply two sets of bonuses to the same attribute.

Burgeoning Heroes: Your character begins with five additional hit points.

Heroic Inspiration: All characters begin with one point of inspiration.

Devastating Critical Hits: Characters and creatures double all damage on a critical hit rather than simply rolling twice the number of dice.

Sundered Shields: When a character carrying a non-magical shield is hit by a melee weapon attack, they can choose to have their shield destroyed and take no damage from the attack.

Warrior Scholars: In addition to any skills granted by your race, class, and background, you may choose one of the following: (1) +2 Religion, (2) +2 Arcana, (3) +2 History, (4) +2 Investigation, or (5) 1 additional language (Player’s Choice)

Wealth of Bhaal: In the cave where the characters killed the cultist of Bhaal, they found a treasure chest. Gain 5d10 extra gold at character creation.

Steeds of the Hellriders: All characters begin with a riding horse and a +2 in Animal Handling.

So primarily looking for race advice, but any advice would be appreciated since it's my first monk.

Thanks all

[carrdrivesyou]

Using Tasha's' ability score assignments what are races that will work well for a Long Death Monk (or any other sub that would work well)? Unassigned and unmodified stats of 16, 16, 15, 14, 13, 7. Will be a party of just 4. A warlock, artificer, and rogue in addition to the monk. Starting at first level. Not knowing subs or builds of the others feels like my monk will be front line/tank.

...

So primarily looking for race advice, but any advice would be appreciated since it's my first monk.

Thanks all

Here are my suggestions:

1. Protector Aasimar - get a solid mechanical ability to fly, decent damage resistances, and is generally thematic to the concept and story.

2. Hill Dwarf - nabs you an extra hit point per level (take the tough feat or dwarven resilience feat for super tankiness), be a crazed and unstoppable barfighter punching your way across hell.

3. Yuan-ti Pureblood - a bit OP and banned by several DMs (so check with yours), magic resistance and poison immunity are amazing, standard stats are trash for a monk.

4. Kobold - Depending on how your DM handles it, the lighting may not be actual Daylight, and so Sunlight Sensitivity will not likely apply. Have someone's familiar flap overhead for pack tactics.


Hope this helps and you enjoy your trek across the blasted landscape!

[Eldariel]

Tank Monk? Hmm... Normally I'd go Shadow Monk but...in this case that's actually not at all reliable. It's playable but I wouldn't bother building around it. Tiefling would go great but for obvious reasons, its cool stuff isn't so cool here. Pass Without Trace would be superb for this party though, so it's still something to consider.

Long Death is the tankiest Monk subclass so if you just go basic Monk with Longdeath subclass, you'll probably be fine up front (obviously you won't get subclass for two levels but it's important far as synergising your race, potential feats, and subclass abilities). To further play up that angle, the mentioned Hill Dwarf, or simple Variant Human with Tough as the feat, is more than fine. Obviously Mobile is also usefulish on any Monk as it frees you up from using Disengage and letting you play somewhat kity, which can be a worthwhile boost to your melee prowess.


As a Monk, your ASIs are more or less spoken for in increasing your Dex & Wis, especially if you are a frontliner (though one somewhat unconventional option, which does kinda sidestep this, is taking a race or a 1 level dip in a class offering armor and then just being an armored Monk using Stunning Strike for most of your Ki, which actually works pretty well on low levels). This means that a race like Vuman or Custom Lineage that gets a free feat opens up your options pretty significantly.

It's also worth noting that levels 1-3 are broadly Monk's weakest point. On low levels, you have little Ki and it doesn't do anything that impressive. Higher up it gets better, especially with strong subclasses. So you'll have to do a bit of struggling at first but you'll come onto your own in the mid levels. Just something to be aware of: on level 1, you have two less HP + whole Second Wind + Fighting Style + 2 points of AC less than Fighter and all you get to show for it is the off-hand attack. This means you are pretty squishy and there's little you can do about it other than dipping an armor-using class. So be careful and try and default to ranged attacks and unfair fights as much as possible on the first level.

[Scarytincan]

Been eyeballing making a black lizardfolk long death monk lately with tashas stat flexibility, not super optimized but liked the imagery and the extra THP to start fights before I get more from killing ppl, and maybe the piercer feat to up 17 dex to 18 and supplement all the easy access to piercing damage.

https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D14199148/

(can anyone tell me how to link that in a way that just shows image without ppl having to click links? I'm much closer to a forum newbie than savant when it comes to posting. Thanks in advance)

[Glarnog]

Thank you all so much for the great feedback. Really helps me focus with so many options. The dm does not allow feats though.