Backup character help

[Spacehamster]

So playing a battle smith but want to have a backup ready to save time in case I die, wanting to do either a lizard folk or bugbear Kensai monk with maybe a one level dip into war cleric for access to bless, shield of faith and divine favor + bonus action attack with your melee weapon(can be small boon if you find some good magic long sword or smthn).

We are using either standard array or rolled stats and Tasha’s flexible rules for where to put your racial ability increases.

Idea is straight Kensai to level 5 then the 1 cleric dip and then back to monk again. How would you level this toon? Any other race that would do better? Take a feat at 4 or just focus on getting DEX maxed first?

[RogueJK]

Bugbear Kensai Monk. High DEX, fairly high WIS, moderate CON. Something like this with Standard Array:
STR 12
DEX 15+1
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 13+2
CHA 8

Kensai Weapons: Longsword (or Battleaxe/Warhammer) and Longbow. Longsword is now a Monk weapon, so you can use DEX with it, and use it 2H for 1d10 Versatile damage dice. Plus you have 10' reach on attacks, thanks to Bugbear's Long-Limbed ability.

You'll also have 10 foot reach on your unarmed attacks. Utilize Agile Parry on most turns for an easy +2 AC. plus Martial Arts/Flurry for BA attacks.

This 10' reach on Longsword/Unarmed Strikes helps you to hit-and-run, staying outside of non-reach enemies' OAs.


Honestly, I'm not sure what the dip into Cleric gets you that would justify the delay to your Monk levels. Monks rely heavily on undiluted Monk levels to help keep up with enemy scaling, plus you get cool new abilities just about every level.

War Cleric only gets WISMOD number of Bonus Action attacks per day. And you already have free Bonus Action unarmd attacks any turn you want with Martial Arts, or 2x as many with Flurry. The difference between your Monk's unarmed strike at 1d6 at Level 5 and the longsword's 2H 1d10 is only 2 points of average damage. That's only about 6 extra points of damage over the course of a day, if using War Priest vs. plain old Martial Arts... Not worth being a full level behind in Monk abilities.

If you want Bless, you could get that (and Misty Step) from the Fey Touched feat, along with a +1 to WIS. That'd be a good pick at Monk 8, after bumping DEX to 18 at Monk 4. Then max DEX to 20 at Level 12.