Half-Elf Drow monk monastic tradition ?

[Mwhawk2]

Playing a monk for the first time in a Frostmaiden campaign and IÂ’m shooting for a spider theme with him. My party is composed of a Barbarian, Cleric, Artificer, and a Fighter. We just started and are at level 2, going into our second session of the campaign and very soon I will have to select his monastic tradition. Right now IÂ’m torn between Way of Mercy, Long Death, and Astral
Self. I narrowed it down to those three, because I feel they best fit my target theme of a half-Drow monk who practiced a Martial arts based on the movements and abilities of spiders. Any suggestions on which tradition might be best for combat versatility, survivability etc? I chose to keep the Drow magic abilities so at some point I will have access to Faerie Fire and the Darkness spell (though we rolled our characters using Point buy and although, using TashaÂ’s new ability score options, I was able to build his stats up, I still made CHA a dump stat (so I left him with 8, plus his racial bonus of +2 making it 10). His remaining stats are as follows:
STR-8/ INT-10/ DEX- 15/WIS-15/ CONS-14

Any thoughts on which monastic tradition might serve the concept and stats best? IÂ’m very curious about the two new TashaÂ’s Subclasses but I donÂ’t know many people whoÂ’ve played them or a Long Death monk. Given the non-standard racial choice of the Half-Drow, I figured IÂ’d put it out there to maybe hear some thoughts.
Thanks.

[LudicSavant]

https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24890247&postcount=831

[Mwhawk2]

Awesome! Quick question, you mention two options for this build. Either starting with Fighter at lvl 1, or Monk. If I decided to go with this build but focused on starting with Monk from lvl 1-5 (and given that the campaign only goes to about lvl 12) how would you recommend I build him? Is it still viable?

[LudicSavant]

Awesome! Quick question, you mention two options for this build. Either starting with Fighter at lvl 1, or Monk. If I decided to go with this build but focused on starting with Monk from lvl 1-5 (and given that the campaign only goes to about lvl 12) how would you recommend I build him? Is it still viable?

The disadvantage of starting with Monk is that you'll have Dex/Str proficiency rather than Con/Str, and therefore have a bit more fragile Concentration.

I think the Con route is better overall, but you'll be more than merely 'viable' either way.

[x3n0n]

Awesome! Quick question, you mention two options for this build. Either starting with Fighter at lvl 1, or Monk. If I decided to go with this build but focused on starting with Monk from lvl 1-5 (and given that the campaign only goes to about lvl 12) how would you recommend I build him? Is it still viable?

(I'm not Ludic; he may well disagree.)

Shadow Monk 1-5 is viable. There are real reasons to prefer either sequence over the other.

Downsides to Monk 1-5 relative to Fighter 1/Monk 1-5:
* no Blind Fighting until you take Fighter 1 as character level 6 or 7, so the core "gimmick" of the build (abusing Darkness/Blind Fighting for inexpensive advantage with Elven Accuracy) comes online then instead of at character level 4.
* no Con save proficiency (which is probably preferable over Dex) and no Second Wind.

Upsides of doing Monk 1-5: character level 5 is significantly better for the straight Monk than for the Fighter/Monk. Delaying the Monk 5 kit (especially Extra Attack and Stunning Strike) could be really frustrating when the rest of your party turns on their Extra Attacks and 3rd-level spells.

[LudicSavant]

(I'm not Ludic; he may well disagree.)

Shadow Monk 1-5 is viable. There are real reasons to prefer either sequence over the other.

Downsides to Monk 1-5 relative to Fighter 1/Monk 1-5:
* no Blind Fighting until you take Fighter 1 as character level 6 or 7, so the core "gimmick" of the build (abusing Darkness/Blind Fighting for inexpensive advantage with Elven Accuracy) comes online then instead of at character level 4.
* no Con save proficiency (which is probably preferable over Dex) and no Second Wind.

Upsides of doing Monk 1-5: character level 5 is significantly better for the straight Monk than for the Fighter/Monk. Delaying the Monk 5 kit (especially Extra Attack and Stunning Strike) could be really frustrating when the rest of your party turns on their Extra Attacks and 3rd-level spells.

Yeah, the advantage of starting Monk is that you'll have a stronger level 3, 5, and arguably 2. Whereas starting Fighter is generally going to be equal or better at all other levels.

[Evaar]

Mechanically, anything Ludic has put together will be top tier and you can play it with comfort.

However, for your theme of a spider-themed character, I have to refer you to the Way of Mercy.

You can add necrotic damage to your unarmed strikes. Really bad spider venom causes dermonecrotic effects.

Later on, you can inflict the poisoned condition with the same attacks. Again, spider venom.

This subclass also offers healing options. You might not think of a spider as a healer, but consider the literal other half of the spider - their web. With websilk, you literally knit wounds together in the blink of an eye.

You can characterize this however you'd like. Maybe you have a tattoo of a red hourglass on your right hand, and a tattoo of a web on your left hand; when you strike with the right you destroy, when you strike with the left you preserve. Or maybe you use a "gentle fist" style of martial arts characterized by precise, seemingly insignificant taps that actually directly impact the target's ki and cause the effects you desire. Or maybe it's super literal and you have actual webspinners and tiny injecting fangs embedded in your hands. Whatever sounds cool to you.

Darkness is a spider thing, too, and it's definitely a drow thing. But if I really wanted to go all-in on spider theming, Mercy is the subclass I would pick. It helps that it's also quite good.

[ZRN]

Mechanically, anything Ludic has put together will be top tier and you can play it with comfort.


Definitely true, but it's worth bearing in mind that that build means casting Darkness a lot, which is something you should check won't annoy your party.

[HPisBS]

Mechanically, anything Ludic has put together will be top tier and you can play it with comfort.

However, for your theme of a spider-themed character, I have to refer you to the Way of Mercy.

You can add necrotic damage to your unarmed strikes. Really bad spider venom causes dermonecrotic effects.

Later on, you can inflict the poisoned condition with the same attacks. Again, spider venom.

This subclass also offers healing options. You might not think of a spider as a healer, but consider the literal other half of the spider - their web. With websilk, you literally knit wounds together in the blink of an eye.
...



Definitely true, but it's worth bearing in mind that that build means casting Darkness a lot, which is something you should check won't annoy your party.

I'll echo both of these.

Shadow and Mercy were the first things that came to my mind when I saw the spider theming, but ZRN is right about party synergy. In order for you to rely on Darkness without impeding the rest of the party, they'd all need to grab Blind Fighting or Devil's Sight somehow. And only one of your allies even has native access; the rest would need to multiclass or grab a specific feat. That'd probably get in the way of whatever character concepts they already had in mind, so I wouldn't count on them all being cool with it.

On the other hand, you said the idea was for the Monk's martial arts to have been inspired by studying the movements of spiders, so Shadow Step could represent a jumping spider.

While spiders are silent, unseen ambushers, they're also (and more critically) venomous. Half of Mercy's features fit that perfectly. Now, the healing half... that's something of a reach. You do have ki, though, so there's no need to flavor the healing like actual spider silk. Instead, you could rapidly weave strands of ki to knit wounds back together (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo68oXZlPhw). It's still a bit contrived, but oh well. The necrotic / poison is the main, clearest connection to spiders that a Monk can have.

[Mercurias]

In answer to your original question:
-Astral Self will be best if you want to pump WIS, hang back 5 feet, and punch with your ghost-fists Jojo-Style. It’s a monk that has unique flavor, but it’s resource-intensive. You’ll want as much Ki as you can get your hands on.
-Long Death monks have lower damage compared to most other monk subclasses, but what they gain is a whole lot of survival. You’ll be hard to put down, but you won’t have many heavy damage spikes. With a fighter and a Barbarian in your party, though, being able to live with less healing while slapping enemies with stunning strikes would be plenty of contribution.
-Mercy Monks are capable off-healers as well as decent high speed strikers. Interestingly, their healing is more effective to cleanse conditions a la Lesser Restoration than it is at raw healing numbers (particularly when compared to a caster. It does get some awesome proficiencies, though.

[Tanngrisnr]

Playing a monk for the first time in a Frostmaiden campaign and IÂ’m shooting for a spider theme with him. My party is composed of a Barbarian, Cleric, Artificer, and a Fighter. We just started and are at level 2, going into our second session of the campaign and very soon I will have to select his monastic tradition. Right now IÂ’m torn between Way of Mercy, Long Death, and Astral
Self. I narrowed it down to those three, because I feel they best fit my target theme of a half-Drow monk who practiced a Martial arts based on the movements and abilities of spiders. Any suggestions on which tradition might be best for combat versatility, survivability etc? I chose to keep the Drow magic abilities so at some point I will have access to Faerie Fire and the Darkness spell (though we rolled our characters using Point buy and although, using TashaÂ’s new ability score options, I was able to build his stats up, I still made CHA a dump stat (so I left him with 8, plus his racial bonus of +2 making it 10). His remaining stats are as follows:
STR-8/ INT-10/ DEX- 15/WIS-15/ CONS-14

Any thoughts on which monastic tradition might serve the concept and stats best? IÂ’m very curious about the two new TashaÂ’s Subclasses but I donÂ’t know many people whoÂ’ve played them or a Long Death monk. Given the non-standard racial choice of the Half-Drow, I figured IÂ’d put it out there to maybe hear some thoughts.
Thanks.

I don't have any build suggestions, but your character reminded me of the Black Raven Monastery in the Icewind Dale 2 PC Game. The monastery was founded by a drow who espaced slavery in the Underdark.

I loved that game and this was a cool memory. Thanks! :smallbiggrin:

[LudicSavant]

Definitely true, but it's worth bearing in mind that that build means casting Darkness a lot, which is something you should check won't annoy your party.

Aye. That said...


Shadow and Mercy were the first things that came to my mind when I saw the spider theming, but ZRN is right about party synergy. In order for you to rely on Darkness without impeding the rest of the party, they'd all need to grab Blind Fighting or Devil's Sight somehow.

While Blind-Fighting or Devil's Sight are certainly useful synergies, they're far from necessary to have Darkness help (rather than hinder) your party. I feel saying they're necessary is like saying that Sculpt Spells is necessary for Fireball, or that Fog Cloud and Sleet Storm were useless spells before the release of Tasha's and the Blind-Fighting style. Which I don't think is the case -- those spells are very powerful when used well.

I include some notes about how to consistently help your party with Darkness in the Spell Tactics section of the build post (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24890247&postcount=831). There's also a particularly productive discussion about Darkness in the following posts, with tips from myself and others -- the people arguing that Darkness would cause synergy issues actually get convinced and change their mind (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24895175&postcount=878), a rare thing on the internet. https://forums.giantitp.com/images/sand/icons/icon_thumbsup.png

This is not to say that there are no parties where Darkness is anti-synergistic -- it's just a lot fewer than "anyone without Blind-Fighting or Devil's Sight." You should always check for party synergy when choosing any build! For example, you wouldn't want to focus on buffing weapon attacks in a party that targets people with saves and spell attacks (like Eldritch Blast), or focus on knocking people prone in a party full of kiting archers, or play a Wolf Totem Barbarian as the only melee character, etc.

[HPisBS]

snip

Yeah, I tend to forget that Darkness can be put on an object, then flickered by covering and uncovering it again. You usually only get 1 free "use an object" action, though, so flickering isn't quite a perfect solution. (Unless the DM accepts whatever workaround you want to employ, like putting the object in your mouth or something. I guess that'd make for a fun strobe light effect whenever you need to tell you tell your party members something lol.)

It'd also require you - or a teammate - to already be in the midst of things when you cast it, rather than just casting it with range. At least you'd have the Monk's speed boost to help get it where you need it.

Having some frontliner (presumably) who'd normally be hampered by Darkness carry a 3rd lvl Continual Flame sounds wonky, but probably workable.


- Whether your group runs Darkness like an ink blot or just like an area in which nothing can be illuminated (thus potentially silhouetting / backlighting the contents) would also have an impact.


Maybe my intuition is off, but it seems to me that, even if we grant that all of that mostly works in the party's favor, it'd still be cumbersome enough to make work that the other players would tire of it before long. Especially if it's your go-to tactic for most encounters.


--- Besides, spiders rely on Web Sense in the dark, not Blindsight. :smalltongue: Actually, Giant Spiders do have 10 ft blindsight for some reason lol

[LudicSavant]

When I roleplayed a drow martial artist, one of the things I did was research spiders in order to add extra flair to the techniques and philosophy. For example, I might reference how spider sense works (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygt6W64gatE) when talking about how my Monk learned to have such a high Perception score, and Blind-Fighting.

[micahaphone]

I quite like the way of mercy suggestions, and wanted to pitch in a potential character growth/conflict and the reason for healing - Elistraee is the god of second chances, forgiveness, dancing, grace, and drow redemption. A follower of hers could synthesize their previous life experience doing drow stuff with her teachings to make a balanced and interesting monk