Cracklin' Kensei

[Amechra]

I recently got it into my head that a High Elf Kensei (picking up Booming Blade as my Elf cantrip) might be a fun character to play post-Tasha's. My main rationales are...

1. Accuracy boosts (such as, I dunno, Focused Aim and Unerring Accuracy) are at their best when you can make one big attack. Booming Blade is one of the best ways to pick one up without a lot of multiclassing.
2. Ki-Fueled Strike means that we can follow up our big Booming Blade hit with a bonus-action attack — two longsword attacks + the Booming Blade rider feels on-par, if not better, than two longsword attacks + Flurry of Blows.
3. After 6th level, the Kensei can always trigger Ki-Fueled Strike if they want/need to — use Focused Aim on a miss and Deft Strike on a hit. Other subclasses can swing this, but usually they're either using a special action (Shadow, Elements) or they're better off just flurrying anyway (Mercy, Sun Soul).
4. Booming Blade works really well with Mobile, which is a feat that most Monks are already looking to pick up. Jog up, hit someone, and jog away — if they follow you, they take a chunk of damage. If they try to hit you with ranged attacks... you're a Monk.
5. You're going to be a pretty decent switch-hitter. If something too far away to profitably slash, you can pull out your longbow and fire off three attacks per turn.
6. It's pretty stylish. One strike for big damage, and then they get hurt some more if they dare to move? Sweet.
7. Oh, yeah, and Tasha's lets you trade in that +1 Int for +1 Wis. Which is pretty solid if you're doing point buy or the standard array.

I'm reasonably certain that the damage would be decent — I'm not sure how to treat the "conditional" damage from Booming Blade when crunching numbers, but it looks like it wouldn't be out of place in a party where people aren't beelining for the Objectively Correct Options For Martial Damage. On top of that, it's a setup that would be absolutely fine with picking up Elven Accuracy + Sharpshooter (if you want to optimize your ranged damage), since you have a big melee attack that you can use Elven Accuracy with — it'd be very tight stat-wise, though.

As for ki usage... by the time this comes online, you'll have 6+ ki points to play with between short rests, and you only need to spend 1 ki point on any round where you want to maintain your damage. You shouldn't have too many problems with running out of ki if your party tends to take a short rest every couple of encounters — the only exception is if you need to throw out some Stunning Strikes to burn through some legendary saves, but that's not going to be your primary combat role.

I'm curious about how people would optimize this "combo" (it's hardly worth the term) — the one big tweak I can think of is replacing the High Elf part with a one level dip in Arcana Cleric (which would also let us pick up a few cool spells for utility purposes), but that would also delay everything by a level... and this is a build that properly comes online at 6th level, so I'm not sure if that delay would actually be worth it unless you were starting at higher levels.

[x3n0n]

I don't think I'd do it on a point-buy Monk; spending an ASI slot on something that doesn't bump Dex or Wis (Mobile) in the first half of Monk progression feels really really painful when you're starting from no better than 17&16 Dex&Wis. (Vs taking a feat as v.human/custom-lineage.) Given rolled stats, maybe?

I'm normally VERY skeptical of Booming Blade on non-Eldritch-Knight characters with Extra Attack. Here, you're turning down two shots at 1d10+4 (assuming 18 Dex) for 1d10+1d8(+rider?), plus maybe another 1d10+4 with Ki-Fueled Attack (imitating the Eldritch Knight at the cost of 1 ki), and losing the option of Agile Parry, Martial Arts BA, and Flurry of Blows. I can see that working on a case-by-case basis, but it's not particularly compelling to me in the normal case.

That said, this is the best argument I've seen for it (and it gets numerically much more compelling at character level 11, where you're getting an extra d8 on both attack and rider when you don't get Fighter's Extra Attack 2); also, I do really like the BB/"Disengage"+archery synergy.

If someone feels like they've "played out" the first set of variations on "normal" Kensei, I think this is a fun tweak. If you end up with BB from some inexpensive source (say, a hypothetical magic item instead of a feat/race/multiclass), I think that would be fun to experiment with. Perhaps even a late-career Magic Initiate or Aberrant Dragonmark instead of starting with High Elf; as I mentioned, the damage case looks a lot better in tier 3 and later.

PS: On first read, I had missed your reference to Unerring Accuracy. That's really attractive when you get up that far.

[Pyrophilios]

I don't think that is that optimal.

Assuming a Kensai usinga longsword with two hands:

At lvl. 6 you gain one attack with 1d10+1d8+4 = 14 damage (leaving out the damage on movement as you can't force that to trigger) + Crit chance 1d10+1d8/20 = 0,5
If you instead a attack twice you get 2d10+8 = 19 damage + Crit chance 2x 1d10/20 = 0,55
Deft strike gets better with more attacks as you can trigger it specifically after a successfull attack and therefore a higher crit chance to double its effect.
If you somehow can get advantage, the crit chance doubles again, so I'd say at this level attacking more is still better - even more so if you can get your hands on a magic weapon.
With Elvish accuracy this moves even further in favor of attacking more often.

[Amechra]

I mean, you're right Pyrophilios, at least in terms of damage. However, it's kinda important to consider that avoiding Booming Blade's secondary damage involves not moving, which can have important crowd-control ramifications. If your opponent is in a situation where they have to move to do something productive, it's 23 damage vs. 19 damage (on average)... and if they want to deny you that damage, they have to effectively skip their turn.

On top of that, Booming Blade gets more out of accuracy boosts (AKA Focused Aim) — if I'm spending 1 ki to give myself +2 attack on a normal longsword attack, I'm just giving myself, what, +0.95 expected damage? Meanwhile, BB gives me +1.4 expected damage and the rider.

I never claimed that it was optimal — I was mostly just bringing it up as a fun alternative. Plus, hey, if the Booming Blade plan doesn't work out? I can just ask to trade it out for some cool utility

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x3n0n, I agree with everything you said... except that I'm spending 1 ki just to imitate the Eldritch Knight. It's War Magic plus a +2 to hit or +1d6/1d8/1d10 damage.

Also, I'd argue that picking up BB as a High Elf isn't all that expensive — it gives you the stat boosts you crave (especially with Tasha's in play) and a bunch of proficiencies. It's not like most races are crazy-good for Monks anyway.

[x3n0n]

x3n0n, I agree with everything you said... except that I'm spending 1 ki just to imitate the Eldritch Knight. It's War Magic plus a +2 to hit or +1d6/1d8/1d10 damage.

Also, I'd argue that picking up BB as a High Elf isn't all that expensive — it gives you the stat boosts you crave (especially with Tasha's in play) and a bunch of proficiencies. It's not like most races are crazy-good for Monks anyway.

Good point about the additional benefit of the ki spend vs vanilla War Magic.

I think it's not that High Elf is *bad* for a Monk, but that the "feat races" are so much stronger for a super ASI-starved class, especially with point buy. If I actually had to play through levels 1-4, I'd much rather not have a significant portion of my value tied up in something that I definitely won't be getting value out of until 5th and probably 6th level. (Perhaps as the second cantrip on MI: Sorc or MI: Wizard instead?)

Like I said, I'd be more tempted to add the cantrip in tier 3 via feat or dip, but I wouldn't sneer at someone doing it early if they were bored with "normal" Kensei. :)

[Dork_Forge]

Interesting idea, though I think I'd probably go for V. Human Magic Initiate (Warlock) and grab both scagtrips and maybe Hex? If not Hex then Sorc and grab Shield. The ability to switch to GFB for mob situations does wonders for your damage assuming the fire damage type isn't an issue.