Moon Druid/Astral Arms Monk

[elyktsorb]

So I've been thinking about this silliness for awhile where I be a Moon Druid (mostly just for better animals and transforming on a bonus action or an action)

And then when I'm in animal form I activate astral arms for shenanigans. This means that I shouldn't ever have to really focus dex, since my animal forms will have their own dex I can't change, I will always have access to a Wis based attack and will focus Wis so it doesn't hinder my saves for either class.

I don't quite know what the split should look like, but I'm pretty interested in doing this. Anyone have a good complementary race for this idea? I mean, aside from Bugbear or free feat human, obviously those are on my radar.

[CTurbo]

It's a neat idea. Seems like it would be more fun to be wildshaped into a small unassuming beast like a house cat haha.

The split is easy, first 2 levels are Moon Druid, and then the rest in Monk. I wouldn't be overly concerned with any feats. Maxing Wisdom should be your biggest goal which would happen at character level 10.

For races, something the gives a Wis boost is a must, and I'd probably at least want a 16 Dex for when you're in your regular form which will be quite often the first few levels.

Human
Half-Elf
Wood Elf
Aarakocra
Kenku
Ghostwise Halfling

Any of the above would let you start 16 Dex and Wis.

Ghostwise Halfling stands out since you could communicate telepathically while in beast form.

[elyktsorb]

It's a neat idea. Seems like it would be more fun to be wildshaped into a small unassuming beast like a house cat haha.

It would be very impractical, but exceptionally hilarious to just pop out hulking anchor arms as a house cat and deck someone.

[RogueJK]

Interesting concept, but there are things to consider:

1) Both Monk and Moon Druid rely heavily on single-class advancement to keep their scaling abilities competitive. If you do Druid 2/Monk X, your Astral Arms, Ki, and other Monk stuff will continue to scale, but you'll be limited to basic Combat Wild Shape forms. That Brown Bear that's so grossly powerful at Levels 2-3 quickly falls off in capabilities past Tier 1. Whereas if you do Monk 3/Moon Druid X to keep your Combat Wild Shape scaling, you'll only have 3 Ki points to work with, and only basic entry level Monk abilities with 1d4 damage on your astral attacks. Plus, Moon Druids already experience a bit of a "power slump" in their Combat Wild Shape forms in later Tier 2 before their Elemental forms come online at Druid 10, so any Monk levels further extend that slump past Character Level 10. (I can attest from personal experience that the delay of taking 1 level of Monk for the WIS AC boost in Wild Shape form is workable, but 3 levels of Monk would be much more noticeable/painful.)

2) Both Combat Wild Shape and Astral Arms are activated with a Bonus Action, which means it would take 2 turns to get that combo online.


On the other hand, it seems fun and funny. I'd totally consider playing that in a casual Level 5 one-shot. (Astral Self Monk 3/Moon Druid 2)

[5eNeedsDarksun]

It would be very impractical, but exceptionally hilarious to just pop out hulking anchor arms as a house cat and deck someone.

And based on this I think CTurbo's advice is good. If you're OK with being primarily a martial, then a 2 level dip into Moon Druid gets you what you want. There's tons of utility there for 2 one hour periods/ short rest, and if you ever want to add to your spellcasting to get for example, Pass Without Trace, you can always take a 3rd level of Druid.

[CTurbo]

I guess the important question is how will your DM rule Martial Arts while in beast form. I've known DMs that allow any natural beast attack to count as unarmed strikes and I've heard of DMs strictly ruling the opposite. My groups always rule that any beast attack is an "unarmed" attack so you could Flurry of Blows 2 bite attacks or claws or whatever.

A Moon Druid 2/Monk 8 wildshaped as a Brown Bear is going to be much stronger than a Moon Druid 10 wildshaped as a Brown Bear because of everything Monk adds to it like adding Wis to AC and being able to make 3-4 attacks per round.

Again, all this depends on how the DM would handle things.

[RogueJK]

A Moon Druid 2/Monk 8 wildshaped as a Brown Bear is going to be much stronger than a Moon Druid 10 wildshaped as a Brown Bear because of everything Monk adds to it like adding Wis to AC and being able to make 3-4 attacks per round

But not as strong as the various CR3 or Elemental forms available to a Moon Druid 10 but unavailable to a Moon Druid 2/Monk 8; a Moon Druid 10 wouldn't still be relying on the Brown Bear form. (Not to mention the Druid 10 also having access to up to Level 5 spells to further supplement its CR3/Elemental forms.)

Having 1-2 additional BA attacks doesn't make up for the fact that the Brown Bear's AC 11 (or even 14-15 after the Monk's +WIS) with 34 HP and +5 to hit on it primary attacks is abysmal for a frontline melee character at Character Level 10.

Hence why the Brown Bear is a fantastic and popular Wild Shape form for a Moon Druid when it first comes online at Level 2, but quickly drops off in effectiveness after Tier 1 as it is superseded by higher CR forms and eventually Elemental forms.

This is why all the various multiclass concept builds that try to start by saying "I'll dip Moon Druid 2 so I can Wild Shape and fight in bear form..." just don't work outside of Tier 1 play (Moon Druid 2/Other Class 1-3). Moon Druids necessarily must continue to take Druid levels if they want their Combat Wild Shape forms to scale along with your enemies and remain relevant/competitive.

Whereas if all you're after is a Monk who can Wild Shape into a few animal forms for exploration/infiltration purposes outside of combat, Druid 2 (Moon or otherwise) might be a worthwhile dip if you're willing to accept the delay to your Monk abilities. But in that case, I'd be more apt to do Stars Druid 2 and just stick to basic non-moon Wild Shape forms, and at least get a number of other useful Druid subclass abilities, some of which scale with Proficiency instead of Druid level. (Stars Druid 2 with Dragon Starry Form might be especially attractive for an Astral Self Monk with their WIS-based grapple/shove checks.)

[elyktsorb]

Interesting concept, but there are things to consider:

1) Both Monk and Moon Druid rely heavily on single-class advancement to keep their scaling abilities competitive. If you do Druid 2/Monk X, your Astral Arms, Ki, and other Monk stuff will continue to scale, but you'll be limited to basic Combat Wild Shape forms. That Brown Bear that's so grossly powerful at Levels 2-3 quickly falls off in capabilities past Tier 1. Whereas if you do Monk 3/Moon Druid X to keep your Combat Wild Shape scaling, you'll only have 3 Ki points to work with, and only basic entry level Monk abilities with 1d4 damage on your astral attacks. Plus, Moon Druids already experience a bit of a "power slump" in their Combat Wild Shape forms in later Tier 2 before their Elemental forms come online at Druid 10, so any Monk levels further extend that slump past Character Level 10. (I can attest from personal experience that the delay of taking 1 level of Monk for the WIS AC boost in Wild Shape form is workable, but 3 levels of Monk would be much more noticeable/painful.)

I've played a Moon Druid/Assassin Rogue to level 16 at a relatively even split, I know what I'm getting into on that front. Additionally I could go variant human, or custom and get unarmed fighting, which can work with the astral arms as it just states the astral arms can be used to make unarmed strikes, and unarmed fighting just allows your unarmed strikes to deal more damage, and given I don't plan to use a weapon or a shield (especially in wild shape) that's a d8 off the bat. Then once my monk damage is at a d8 just swap it to blind fighting.

2) Both Combat Wild Shape and Astral Arms are activated with a Bonus Action, which means it would take 2 turns to get that combo online.

Moon Druids can wildshape on an action or a bonus action, so only 1 turn. Additionally it's easy to set up one or both before a combat begins. Especially since Wild Shapes minimum is an hour, and astral arms get 10 minutes.

I guess the important question is how will your DM rule Martial Arts while in beast form.

Again, all this depends on how the DM would handle things.

None of this is really relevant, as I'll be using the Astral Arms in wildshape to attack for the most part.

Whereas if all you're after is a Monk who can Wild Shape into a few animal forms for exploration/infiltration purposes outside of combat, Druid 2 (Moon or otherwise) might be a worthwhile dip if you're willing to accept the delay to your Monk abilities. But in that case, I'd be more apt to do Stars Druid 2 and just stick to basic non-moon Wild Shape forms, and at least get a number of other useful Druid subclass abilities, some of which scale with Proficiency instead of Druid level. (Stars Druid 2 with Dragon Starry Form might be especially attractive for an Astral Self Monk with their WIS-based grapple/shove checks.)

Ultimately I imagine I may go up to Druid 4 for the ASI, but 3 is probably a good cut off for good utility druid spells.

I've played a few Druid/X characters (Monk, Rogue, Barbarian, Cleric) and it's always been interesting. Stars would probably be fun if you wanted to do grapples without investing in strength. But other than that it doesn't really have anything specific to go with a monk. I have played a high level Land Druid/Open Hand Monk before and the spell utility was quite good.

For the most part the Moon Forms provide a lot of temp hp for little level investment on top of all the utility you get out of other animal forms and other druid spells, and the Dire Wolf has pack tactics. Turn into a Dire Wolf, and as long as one of your allies is next to the enemy, all of your Astral Arm strikes are at advantage, and you don't even put yourself in danger since your astral arms have additional reach.

[RogueJK]

Stars would probably be fun if you wanted to do grapples without investing in strength. But other than that it doesn't really have anything specific to go with a monk.

For an Astral Self Monk in particular, it lets you lean even further into the WIS-SAD nature of the subclass, giving you access to WIS-based Shillelagh quarterstaff attacks (useful while you wait for your unarmed strikes to scale to d8s), plus giving you access to several different WIS-based ranged attack options: Druid cantrips, plus free Guiding Bolts whose uses scale with Proficiency Bonus not Druid level, plus Bonus Action Archer Form ranged attacks.

[elyktsorb]

For an Astral Self Monk in particular, it lets you lean even further into the WIS-SAD nature of the subclass, giving you access to WIS-based Shillelagh quarterstaff attacks (useful while you wait for your unarmed strikes to scale to d8s), plus giving you access to several different WIS-based ranged attack options: Druid cantrips, plus free Guiding Bolts whose uses scale with Proficiency Bonus not Druid level, plus Bonus Action Archer Form ranged attacks.

I mean at that point it seems like you're mostly just being a Stars Druid who took 3 levels of Monk so they could grapple with Wisdom. Which doesn't sound like a bad idea, but isn't what I want to go for. Not to mention, with so many ranged options, why bother going for melee.

[Quietus]

My main concern is that you're going to have a nasty glut of bonus actions to get going.

Transform : bonus action
Activate arms : bonus action
Martial arts/ flurry of blows : bonus action

Barring activating wild shape early (or having to reactivate it in combat), you won't be making bonus action attacks until third level.

[RogueJK]

My main concern is that you're going to have a nasty glut of bonus actions to get going.

Transform : bonus action
Activate arms : bonus action
Martial arts/ flurry of blows : bonus action

Barring activating wild shape early (or having to reactivate it in combat), you won't be making bonus action attacks until third level.

I was under the same impression initially, but as elyktsorb correctly pointed out, a Moon Druid has the ability to Wild Shape as an Action or a Bonus Action. All Druids can Wild Shape as an Action. Moon Druids gain the additional ability via Combat Wild Shape to Wild Shape as a Bonus Action, but they do not lose their base Druid ability to Wild Shape as an Action.

Therefore, you could both Wild Shape (Action) and activate Astral Arms (Bonus Action) in one turn. In addition, since activating your Astral Arms triggers a 10' AoE damage effect, you still have the ability to deal at least some damage that turn when activating both Wild Shape and Astral Arms.

[elyktsorb]

I was under the same impression initially, but as elyktsorb correctly pointed out, a Moon Druid has the ability to Wild Shape as an Action or a Bonus Action. All Druids can Wild Shape as an Action. Moon Druids gain the additional ability via Combat Wild Shape to Wild Shape as a Bonus Action, but they do not lose their base Druid ability to Wild Shape as an Action.

Therefore, you could both Wild Shape (Action) and activate Astral Arms (Bonus Action) in one turn. In addition, since activating your Astral Arms triggers a 10' AoE damage effect, you still have the ability to deal at least some damage that turn when activating both Wild Shape and Astral Arms.

Yeah, even if you don't start wildshaped, you can wildshape, and then activate astral arms, and the 10' aoe is so that you can deal damage with the arms the turn you summon them because you can't use a different bonus action. Probably why it rolls 2 dies on your martial table, because 1 ki point to summon them is the same as doing a flurry of blows, but in an aoe.

In fact if the arms had a way to be dismissed at will it would actually make more sense to just summon them for 10' aoe damage, unsummon them, and the summon them again next turn. If you were hitting more than 1 enemy with the aoe and they both failed the save, that's just added flurry damage per additional enemy it hits.

[RogueJK]

In fact if the arms had a way to be dismissed at will it would actually make more sense to just summon them for 10' aoe damage, unsummon them, and the summon them again next turn. If you were hitting more than 1 enemy with the aoe and they both failed the save, that's just added flurry damage per additional enemy it hits.

Not quite.

Keep in mind, the damage on a FoB hit is your Martial Arts dice plus your WISMOD or DEXMOD.

So, for example, FoB could be doing 1d6+4 and 1d6+4, for a total of 2d6+8, while the AoE just does 2d6. So two FoB hits could be doing more damage than even two enemies failing their AoE saves (15 average damage vs. 14 average damage), and the damage can be focused on one enemy alone instead of being spread around.

Plus FoB can crit. And FoB hits can be used for Stunning Strikes.

In addition, as you get into higher levels, enemies scale their saves more than their ACs, and also start getting Legendary Saves. So attack rolls can have even more benefit over saves in the long run.

So while the AoE is nice added damage, it's not a replacement for FoB.

[Quietus]

I was under the same impression initially, but as elyktsorb correctly pointed out, a Moon Druid has the ability to Wild Shape as an Action or a Bonus Action. All Druids can Wild Shape as an Action. Moon Druids gain the additional ability via Combat Wild Shape to Wild Shape as a Bonus Action, but they do not lose their base Druid ability to Wild Shape as an Action.

Therefore, you could both Wild Shape (Action) and activate Astral Arms (Bonus Action) in one turn. In addition, since activating your Astral Arms triggers a 10' AoE damage effect, you still have the ability to deal at least some damage that turn when activating both Wild Shape and Astral Arms.

So your contribution on round 1 (the most important round) is going to be entirely encapsulated in that 10' AoE damage, and a tiny hp buffer for yourself? Personally, that doesn't sound satisfying.

[elyktsorb]

So your contribution on round 1 (the most important round) is going to be entirely encapsulated in that 10' AoE damage, and a tiny hp buffer for yourself? Personally, that doesn't sound satisfying.

I wager in most cases I will go into round 1 with one or both of those already active. I'm not really here to convince you on if it's something you'd enjoy yourself tho.

[Quietus]

I wager in most cases I will go into round 1 with one or both of those already active. I'm not really here to convince you on if it's something you'd enjoy yourself tho.

That's fair, I find I get relatively little prebuff warning, typically. And level 2 wildshape options don't have the HP or AC to withstand many attacks, leading to re-upping wild shape mis combat.

I do hope my original comment didn't come across as argumentative, it wasn't intended that way. Just an observation that my experience/taste would lead to this specific combination feeling underwhelming, in case you might feel the same way.

[elyktsorb]

That's fair, I find I get relatively little prebuff warning, typically. And level 2 wildshape options don't have the HP or AC to withstand many attacks, leading to re-upping wild shape mis combat.

I do hope my original comment didn't come across as argumentative, it wasn't intended that way. Just an observation that my experience/taste would lead to this specific combination feeling underwhelming, in case you might feel the same way.

Sure, plenty of combat will happen without the ability to buff yourself immediately, but more often then not you'll have time, or time between things to do stuff. Like, you don't have to set up astral arms the same turn, you could wait for the next one, do it while running to targets, etc.

Feeling underwhelming is a very objective thing. You're chatting with someone who played a Moon Druid/Assassin Rogue for a campaign that went from level 3 to level 17, and I kept both classes pretty even. I only got to actually 'assassin' someone once during that entire campaign. Was a pretty good assassin tho, used purple worm poison, basically insta-killed a boss dude, probably wasn't worth the entire rest of the campaign but those are the choices I make in an effort of slightly silly multiclass shenanigans.

[Psyren]

That's fair, I find I get relatively little prebuff warning, typically. And level 2 wildshape options don't have the HP or AC to withstand many attacks, leading to re-upping wild shape mis combat.

I do hope my original comment didn't come across as argumentative, it wasn't intended that way. Just an observation that my experience/taste would lead to this specific combination feeling underwhelming, in case you might feel the same way.

Well, the idea of the "Moonk" combo is that you'll be relying on Monk AC rather than Wildshape AC most of the time. That has a floor AC of 14-15, and several forms can get it into the 16-18 range - well above what most CR 0-2 animal forms give you.

Now, with that said, I mostly agree with you - I'm not really seeing the point of the combo for an Astral Monk specifically. Running around as a multi-limbed tiger or bear is a fun visual, but even if your DM makes the (very dicey) ruling that your animal form natural attacks count as unarmed strikes, in order to get the primary benefit of the subclass - Wis to hit and damage - you need to attack with the arms specifically, which means you're not Multiattacking. And if you're not doing that, I'm left wondering why you have those two druid levels diluting your monk progression to begin with. You'd get better damage faster (and more attacks) going straight monk.

[elyktsorb]

I'm left wondering why you have those two druid levels diluting your monk progression to begin with. You'd get better damage faster (and more attacks) going straight monk.

2 lvls of moon druid provides useful temp hp, a lot of utility in druid spells, scouting options, and find familiar.

It isn't the most optimal deal, but the silliness of being a bear with astral arms is what sells me on it the most. Ultimately other druid subclasses probably provide more optimal benefits.

[Psyren]

2 lvls of moon druid provides useful temp hp, a lot of utility in druid spells, scouting options, and find familiar.

It isn't the most optimal deal, but the silliness of being a bear with astral arms is what sells me on it the most. Ultimately other druid subclasses probably provide more optimal benefits.

Again, I'm not saying 2 levels of moon druid can't benefit a monk, it's Astral Monk specifically that has anti-synergy. I acknowledged that the visual had appeal.