High Level Build Advice Needed (Champion/Bladesinger/Shadow Monk)

[tieren]

I've never had a campaign that went past level 11 before, until my current one.

We just leveled to 14 last week, and it doesn't show any signs of winding up soon. I figure at a minimum it would take us 3 more levels to work through most of the story points we know about (who knows what may be waiting to be discovered). So I find myself in new territory with my character.

My current build is fighter 2/wizard 8/monk 4, took bladesinger as wizard subclass and way of shadow as monk subclass. I now have a vorpal weapon and am therefore looking to take Champion as my fighter subclass (DM says the vorpal effect will trigger on the expanded crit range).

The original concept was based on the X-man character Nightcrawler, he teleports around and stabs or kicks things. Shadow Step at Monk 6 was a primary goal of the build initially, but I found with the wizard levels and some magic items I was able to teleport nearly as much as I wanted without the unlimited teleports of Shadow Step. I started off fighter for the fighting style and Con saves but just took another for action surge and moving towards champion.

I am torn with how to progress the next few levels and my ultimate level 20 goal. I'm torn between the following options:

A. Fighter 3/Wizard 13/Monk 4 - abandons further progress in Monk to focus on getting to Wizard 13 for 7th level spells. Originally I wanted to avoid becoming a powerful wizard because then there is very little reason to run up and stab things which is what I wanted to do the most.

B. Fighter 3/Wizard 11/Monk 6 - gets shadow step at the cost level 7 spells, also loses an ASI (Wiz12)

C. Fighter 4/Wizard 10/Monk 6 - picks up the ASI at fighter 4 lost by not getting wizard 12, but also gives up 6th level spells. Level 10 in wizard does give the bladesinger subclass feature Song of Defense, which isn't nothing but not something I'm excited about. Having a second 5th level slot is the main appeal.

I've been dependent on a Headband of Intellect since character creation, but with one more ASI I can raise my base Int to 18 and free up the attunement slot, which I also think would be a cool story moment for my character to finally be able to get rid of it.

Any thoughts on which way you would take such a character?

If relevant I have Res(Dex), Elven Accuracy, and +2 to Dex as my ASI's so far. Ability spread is Str 8, Dex 22 (manual), Con 14, Int 16 (19 w/ headband), Wis 14, Cha 8.

[Menzath]

I have a few thoughts on what you could do, depending on bonus action usage. Either way I think taking any levels in Champion is terrible.

One thought would be fighter4( going battle Master or echo knight) whatever remaining levels either all in on wiz or monk. If you are going deep melee with that stat spread I'd say wiz. The extra utility from spells and song of defense will save your life. For battle Master you get all the fancy maneuvers, and the saves would be dex based. For echo knight this gives you a semi at will teleport and a few other fun things.

Second recommendation would be fighter 8(eldritch knight)/wiz8/monk4
Because of the wording for bladesinging extra attack being a cantrip, and how eldritch knights war magic reads you would be able to do something like attack>booming/green flame blade> bonus attack. This would let you save ki points to use for dodge/disengage/dash/shadow arts.
This only gets you spells slots as a wiz10, but for a melee/cantrip attacker that should be plenty.

Either choice would get you 2 more ASI's.

[J-H]

Have you talked to your DM about rebuilding the character? If Shadow Monk isn't giving you any actual mobility, why not get rid of it in favor of more Bladesinger?
Extra Attack is nice to have if you are still using weapon attacks instead of attack cantrips.

[tieren]

The special extra attack of the Bladesinger lets me cast a cantrip as part of the Extra Attack feature. SO I already get to cantrip attack (Booming/greenflame/swordburst) and get a melee attack. I can action surge to do that twice and I can flurry of blows to get 2 unarmed strikes on my bonus action.

I don't have 5th level spells yet, but once I do everything has to be considered in the light of using my bonus action to control Animate Objects. Although I would only have one 5th level slot so one fight per day.

My current favorite attack set up is potion of speed, bladesinging, concentrate on spirit shroud = 1 sword attack + 1cantrip + 1 haste action sword attack + 2 unarmed strikes from flurry of blows, each hit getting the extra radiant damage from spirit shroud.

I'll be honest I hadn't even considered Eldritch Knight, that's an interesting thought, thank you. I'll dwell on it. I was originally planning on Echo Knight for the teleportation before I got the Moonblade with the vorpal weapon effect. After I got it I took elven accuracy to fish for more crits, and that expanded crit range from Champion is pretty attractive.

I would not want to build out of monk, some for role play reasons, and some for the whole point of the build initially was to see if I could make an effective monk/wizard multiclass build. I had theory crafted it before and getting to actually play it from 5-14 level has been a blast.

[Menzath]

The special extra attack of the Bladesinger lets me cast a cantrip as part of the Extra Attack feature. SO I already get to cantrip attack (Booming/greenflame/swordburst) and get a melee attack. I can action surge to do that twice and I can flurry of blows to get 2 unarmed strikes on my bonus action.


I should have been a little clearer in what I said about the attacks and eldritch knight.

I was under the assumption that you would be using a magic weapon with a better damage die than unarmed strike damage, so the bonus action attack in this case would be more useful than the monk martial arts bonus action attack.
And yes flurry for more attacks, but again with a non-monk magic weapon a single attack at higher levels may be more preferable(resistances and such).

[tieren]

I should have been a little clearer in what I said about the attacks and eldritch knight.

I was under the assumption that you would be using a magic weapon with a better damage die than unarmed strike damage, so the bonus action attack in this case would be more useful than the monk martial arts bonus action attack.
And yes flurry for more attacks, but again with a non-monk magic weapon a single attack at higher levels may be more preferable(resistances and such).

Oh I get that, I was responding to the other poster who appeared to be differentiating between weapon attacks and attack cantrips.

My moonblade is a monk weapon, but has a d8 damage die which is better than my martial arts die. Getting 3 swings with it as an eldritch knight is worth consideration, especially since it is a vorpal weapon as well.

Edit:
I talked myself into leaning more Monk with the build, so I am now shooting for Fighter 3 (Champion)/ Wizard 9 (Bladesinger)/ Monk 8 (Shadow).

Other fighter options looked interesting, but the more I thought about them the more I thought my next character should be a fighter. This character is an arcane ninja. Wizard 9 gets me the one 5th level slot so I won't be tempted to Animate Objects every fight, and Monk 8 gets me my last ASI (and evasion compared to level 6 builds).