Monk Build Advice Sought

[MaestroMercutio]

Hello everyone! Long time reader/first time poster here.

I'm currently playing my first monk in a 5e campaign. The party is at level 3. I initially picked the Way of Mercy, but felt that it didn't fit my character (a Lizardfolk investigator-type) and my DM let me switch to the Way of Shadows, which fits his personality and story progression a lot better.

We have rolled stats and I got some absurdly good rolls. My character's max HP at this level is 27.

STR: 14
DEX: 18
CON: 17
INT: 15
WIS: 17
CHA: 15

I'm debating whether it'd be better to pick up the Fey-Touched feat for Misty Step, Hunters' Mark and a boost to my Wisdom, or if I should boost my CON and WIS to 18s? Fey-Touched would fit story-wise (my character jumped through a portal to the Feywild in our second session and narrowly missed a percentile roll that could have put him out of the campaign entirely).

I'm also thinking down the road about whether I should take a dip into a different class for a less ki-expensive means to get darkvision. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Amnestic]

I'd go +1 Con/+1 Wis personally.

(Shadow) monk bonus action is already packed, they already have a teleport (sometimes limited though it may be), and unlimited bonus action attacks making hunter's mark more 'costly' to use.

Darkvision's ki cost shouldn't be a big deal if you use it at the start of the day and then immediately short rest your ki back while everyone else is making breakfast. It's effectively free.

[CTurbo]

I don't think you could go wrong with either option. Bumping Con and Wis is boring but definitely effective.

Fey Touched could be really good on a Shadow Monk that will likely only spend roughly half of his time in dim light or darkness thus only having access to many subclass features part of the time.

Both options gets you +1 Wis so you're really only weighing +1 Con vs 2 once per day spells and I think the 2 spells wins easily.

Multiclassing is tricky with Monks as the more Ki you have, the better your character functions. But with stats like that, anything is possible and practically ever other class will have something interesting to offer depending on what you're looking for.

[Psyren]

To be fair, I would treat it more as +2 Con since the 17 is functionally identical to a 16 mechanically. (I'm not aware of anything that cares about Con score rather than Con modifier, anyway.)

@OP - given that your character concept is an investigator, Skill Expert might be useful for bumping your Wis too. I think any of the three options should work.

[Hairfish]

3 levels (or 4, for the ASI) into Gloom Stalker Ranger would net you a bunch of abilities that complement Shadow Monk:
- darkvision, which you'd otherwise have to spend ki on for basic functionality with your subclass
- 3x 1st level spell slots and Hunter's Mark, freeing Fey-Touched up for another 1st-level Div/Ench spell
- add Wis to initiative, which works well with your high stats
- Blind Fighting fighting style, so you can "see" through your own darkness or a wizard's Fog Cloud, and effectively battle invisible creatures
- Another skill proficiency and expertise in a skill (like Athletics)
- invisibility in darkness (even against a warlock's Devil's Sight)

[Sorinth]

Your stats are good enough that I'm not sure you need to bump your Con score as early as level 4. If I wasn't planning to MC into Rogue then I'd take Skill Expert, and even if taking a Rogue level I'd still consider it if there the game was going to have lots of things for you to investigate.

If you want some extra magic then Fey Touched is always nice, though Shadow Touched might be better and if you take Disguise Self or Silent Image then it's just as Fey as going Fey Touched so can be fluffed super easy.

[MaestroMercutio]

Thank you so much for your feedback so far! I've often been a Paladin player, so this is a new experience for me.

@Sorinth: That is a good point. I had thought about a Rogue dip when the character was still a Mercy Monk (I had so many skills). It's still an appealing potential direction, as the two expertises could be helpful eventually. I don't know if it'd scale well at this stage. My character got pretty much one-shot by a banshee in our last session, so that might be why the CON increase looks attractive.

@Hairfish - This idea for a multiclass definitely stood out to me. It's a pretty big investment, but there do seem to be some good returns. The spellcasting would let me pick up Eldritch Adept. I didn't know that Umbral Sight makes you invisible to Devil's Sight. The party has a Beastmaster Ranger with a player that is new to DnD, so I'm thinking I'll avoid this unless she decides not to continue.

If I find the ki cost for Darkvision is getting expensive I had been bandying about potentially taking a 1 level dip into a Shadow Magic Sorcerer for 120 ft of Darvision, utility cantrips to affect light sources, snag a couple of spells to help with infiltrations, and open me up for using an ASI to grab Devil's Sight with Eldritch Adept. It feels like a slightly less expensive investment than three levels of Ranger, though the returns are much less than what a ranger can offer (I hadn't read the optional Canny feature before).

@Psyren - True! I hadn't thought about Skill Expert. Another upside to the CON increase is that so many of the Shadow Arts spells require concentration.

@CTurbo - I've been pondering whether I could work with it storywise. He slips through a portal, has a bunch of tomes he's been reading about the Feywild. I'd thought about flavouring Fey-Touched as him learning to tap into the spaces that the Fey travel (a la the King's Road from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell) with Misty Step. The Shadow Step feature could be him getting more proficient in it. It seems redundant to grab Misty Step when I'll eventually be able to teleport with a bonus action, so I'm a little hesitant about it.

@Amnestic - I think the party and the DM would possibly be willing to let him cast it in the mid-afternoon and do a quick rest. I'll see how it plays out! :)

[RogueJK]

The mechanically optimal route would likely be to do +1 CON/+1 WIS at 4, then 20 DEX at 8 and 20 WIS at 12. But you're already ahead of the curve in stats, with the typical Monks only hitting 18 DEX/WIS at Monk 8 at the earliest and 20 DEX/WIS at Monk 16 at the earliest, plus having to content themselves with a mere 14ish CON. So you can afford to do a WIS half-feat like Skill Expert or Fey/Shadow Touched at 4 and still be in good shape.


I wouldn't multiclass 3 levels into Ranger. The Monk gets good stuff every level, and relies on gaining additional Monk levels to keep its Ki scaling.

However, dipping just 1 level into Rogue or Shadow Sorcerer might be worth the delay. 1 level into Twilight Cleric is another option, gaining you 300' Darkvision, letting you get Advantage on Initiative, and allowing you to leverage your higher WIS with Cleric cantrips/spells (as opposed to just your moderate CHA).

But regardless, I wouldn't do that until after Monk 6 at the earliest. You want Extra Attack, Stunning Strike, and Ki Empowered Strikes ASAP. (And the Shadow teleport.)

[MaestroMercutio]

RogueJK, that's some good advice. I think if we level up soon, I'll take the +1 CON/+1 WIS.

Looking at Twilight Domain, I think it would greatly benefit the party even on a 1 level dip. We have a party that consists of two humans (Lore Bard and Divination Wizard), a halfling (Beastmaster Ranger), a half-orc (Devotion Paladin), and my lizardfolk. The lack of darkvision in the party would be mitigated by Eyes of the Night's shared darkvision features. I'm a little leery about Twilight Domain though, since it has so many powerful features and our Wizard has talked about doing a cleric dip (Bless and Bane really fit with the Divination theme he has going).

I also might talk to our DM and see if she'll allow me to take Eldritch Adept without a dip. She's acknowledged a couple of times that in her experience Monks could do with a bit of a buff.

Thank you again everyone for your input!

[Hairfish]

Eldritch Adept only requires having Warlock class levels if the invocation chosen has any prerequisites. If you're talking about using it to pick up Devil's Sight, it doesn't have prerequisites.

[Psyren]

Eldritch Adept only requires having Warlock class levels if the invocation chosen has any prerequisites. If you're talking about using it to pick up Devil's Sight, it doesn't have prerequisites.

You do however need the Spellcasting or Pact Magic features regardless, which monk doesn't have on its own.

[MaestroMercutio]

I've been daydreaming a bit more, and I think that if I end up deciding that darkvision without ki is important (and if the party continues with our very enjoyable RP focused playstyle), I'll do the 1-level dip into a Shadow Magic Sorcerer.

With two spells known and two slots, I think Disguise Self could be useful for infiltration purposes. I'm not sure what other level 1 spell (that isn't too CHA dependent) feels ninja appropriate. As far as cantrips go, Control Flames seems like it would be very useful for adjusting the lighting my character perceives (and I can see how grabbing Shape Water, Message, and another cantrip could be handy). Control Flames and Shape Water's components only being somatic also feels ninjaesque.

And that's on top of the dip opening Eldritch Adept for Devil's Sight, so that the character can shadow step into/in magical darkness.

Twilight Cleric is 100% more useful for combat purposes (martial weapons for Dedicated Weapon/shareable longer-range darkvision/the boost re-initiative/Cleric Cantrips/more flexible spell choices as a prepared caster/a higher hit die).

[RogueJK]

Good Sorcerer spell options include Absorb Elements, Shield, and Silvery Barbs, any of which are useful in combat and none of which care about your CHA score.

Or a utility option could be Jump, which combined with your Step of the Wind ability, would allow you to jump 6x your normal distance (though still limited by your total Dash movement). With your current 14 STR, that'd work out to be a 30' running vertical leap (with 40' remaining movement), or a 70' running long jump (with no remaining movement, unless you also use your Action to Dash).

Message would be a very useful pickup for your other cantrip, allowing you to communicate silently while sneaking/scouting ahead.

[Keravath]

3 levels (or 4, for the ASI) into Gloom Stalker Ranger would net you a bunch of abilities that complement Shadow Monk:

- invisibility in darkness (even against a warlock's Devil's Sight)

I just wanted to correct the last point. A warlock with Devil's Sight can clearly see a Gloom Stalker ranger in the dark. The Gloom Stalker invisibility feature says "You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness."

Warlock Devil's sight is NOT darkvision. The monster version of Devil's Sight IS described as darkvision but the Warlock version is simply called "Devils Sight".

"Devil’s Sight

You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet."

.. and is not affected by the Gloomstalker invisibility feature.