Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, delivering a rapid-fire barrage of deadly arrows with pin-point accuracy. Suddenly, our hero is beset by a half-dozen of the evil duke's soldiers who kick down the door and rush onto the parapet. Wihtout even breaking his stride, our hero leaps, twists, and kicks their sergeant right in the face. Before the hapless mook's body even lands, our hero has bashed the rest of them into unconcious with a flurry of knee strikes and elbows. Mere seconds later, he nocks another arrow...
Here's my thoughts in a nutshell: I love archery-based heroes; I love acrobatic/parkour using heroes; and I love unarmed combat masters. I especially love when they can do it all.
In order to multiclass at all, you must meet the ability score prerequisites of both your base class and you new one. Per the table on PHB, p. 163, the "prereqs" of the Monk (Dex 13, Wis 13) match those of the Ranger (Dex 13, Wis 13).
This works out especially well, as the Monk's Martial Arts Class Feature can use Dex for attack and damage rolls with unarmed strikes and monk weapons (p.78), and all characters making a weapon attack add the same ability modifier used for the attack roll to the damage roll (p.196). All ranged weapons use Dex (p.176). So, we've got great synergy there.
The Ranger class's primary strength is mobility, versitility, and the ability to handle large groups of lower strength enemies (what we refer to in the Mutants & Masterminds community as "goon sweeping"). Rangers do tend to specialize in one form of fighting to the exclusion of others, ranged or melee being the big split, but can usually do okay in the other form. The Archery-focused Ranger usually fares worse in backup melee than the Melee-focused ranged does at being the back-up bowman, simply due to the Archer's lack of heavier armor, heavier weaponry, and the like. The Monk shares these same areas of expertise (mobility, goon sweeping, verisility), but is basically a melee-only class, they have some nominal thrown weapon utility, but mostly they want to punch people.
However, if you combine the two classes, I think you'll wind up with solid gold.
We'll opt for the Wood Elf Race, not only for the Ability Score increases but also for Elf Weapon Training (allowing us to get our archery action on from the start). The bonus movement, mask of the wild, and other elven abilities are just gravy. Folk Hero nets us a couple of solid skills, and Rustic Hospitality really adds to the Robin Hood feel.
Race: Wood Elf
Background: Folk Hero
Class: Monk 7 / Ranger 3
STR 11 +0
DEX 17 +3
CON 12 +1
INT 10 +0
WIS 15 +2
CHA 10 +0
1st) Monk 1 Unarmored Defense, Martial Arts
2nd) Monk 2 Ki, Unarmored Movement
3rd) Monk 3 Monastic Tradition [Open Hand], Deflect Missiles
4th) Monk 4 Feat [Sharpshooter], Slow Fall
5th) Monk 5 Extra Attack, Stunning Strike
6th) Ranger 1 Favored Enemy [Beasts], Natural Explorer [Forests]
7th) Ranger 2 Fighting Style [Archery], Spellcasting
8th) Ranger 3 Ranger Archetype [Hunter; Colossus Slayer], Primeval Awareness
9th) Monk 6 Ki-Empowered Strikes, Monastic Tradition Feature [Wholeness of Body]
10th) Monk 7 Evasion, Stillness of Mind
Hit Dice: 7d8+3d10 [i]Average HP: ~60[i]
Prof Bonus: +4
Saves: Strength, Dexterity
Armor: Light, Medium, Shields
Weapons: All Simple, All Martial
Tools: Tinker's Tools, Woodcarver's Tools, Vehicles (land)
Skills: Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Nature, Perception, Stealth, Survival
Martial Arts Damage: 1d6
Ki Points: 7
Unarmed Movement: +15'
Spells Known: 3 (Hunter's Mark; Ensaring Strike; Hail of Thorns)
Spell Slots: 3x 1st
Thoughts? Any advice for improving upon this framework?
You could also go Ranger Rogue... expertise in Acrobatics would go a long way towards running along rooftops. Pick up Tavern Brawler and get the D4 unarmed proficiency. Cunning action and sneak attack and evasion are also handy.
You could also go with a mix of fighter for the action surge, assasin rogue for assasinate, ranger for the collosus slayer and monk 2 for martial arts and ki.
Maybe something like Monk 2 / Ranger 3 / Fighter 2 / Rogue 3 ? You delay a fair bit your extra attack but you amass a lot fo ways to deal extra damage from all the classes.
Open hand is probably the best genenric monk subclass, but if you multiclass like my example, the shadow something or the elemental sublass may be equally attractive choices.
Coredump00 wrote:
Archon007 wrote:
Rogue doesn't really get much utility from the Wisdom Attribute; which kinda hampers the "double dip" synergy of Monk/Ranger.
Also, although the class features of Rogue are solid, they are pretty much the epitome of single-target damage dealers, whereas Monk and Ranger both emphasize goon sweeping. Don't get me wrong, I think a Shadow Monk/Assassin Rogue would make for a heckua fun character, that build would skew more Golgo 13 and less Arrow.
Batgirl_III wrote:
I also want versatility; given the way Martial Arts damage will scale with levels compared to the longbow damage (which will scale, but with a flatter curve) the ability to "spike" single target damage every now and again will be handy.
Since its not necessarily a good idea to plan on dropping the bow, mêlée will be restricted to unarmed or single-handed monk weapons. So no quarterstaves. At lower levels, the longbow trumps unarmed martial arts for damage, but breaks about even when Flurry of Blows comes in. In the lower-middle levels, Martial Arts begins to pull away and eventually surpasses the bow...
Since this is for Organized Play, I'm building this character "in the blind," without knowing the focuses of the other players any given week. She'll need to be able to handle both roles, even if she edges towards goon sweeping.
Batgirl_III wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Batgirl_III wrote:
durntaur wrote:
I'm not trying to do anything Monk-ish via the Longbow anyway. Flurry of Blows and the various Ki abilities are purely for mêlée, so I don't see it ever being a practical problem in real play.
DM: "The orge is fifty feet away..."
Player: "I shoot him with my bow."
DM: "A phase spider suddenly appears behind you!"
Player: "I kick it in the face."
Not really seeing how that will raise any issues.
Batgirl_III wrote:
Personally I think the level 1-5 abilities of the monk are perfect for any archer.
You get extra attack. A reaction to reduce ranged attack damage. You get ki that you can spend to dodge or dash or disengage as needed. You get extra movement. You get an easy to switch to melee alternative when something gets to close. When you hit that nearby enemy you can stun it then walk 45ft away while it still sits there it's next turn. You then can use your exceptional normal movement to put another 45ft between you and it and shoot it with your longbow again.
If you need to run in and save an ally you can Bonus action dash and then you get to attempt to stun the enemy that's focusing on him. If that doesn't work therese still the chance it decides to start focusing on you.
Monks make one of the most defensive and versatile archer setups I've ever theory crafted 
Exactly; if I can legally draw or sheathe a weapon as part of my Move or Attack Action, mechanically, I see little problem from narratively saying I'm just holding it in one hand and punching somebody with the other.
Mind you, I'm coming from a background of heavy narrative-driven gaming (Mutants & Masterminds being my forte) so this little bit of mechanic/story segregation is just sort of my default assumption.
Batgirl_III wrote:
A bow held in one hand not to be used as a ranged weapon could be ruled as wielding an improvised club (a monk weapon), allowing Martial Arts to still apply while in melee. How such a ruling would interact with magic bows is a bit of a gray area, depending on the nature of the magic ability. Would a +1 bow get the +1 when used to smack someone in the face, like we frequently see Green Arrow do while fighting nameless mooks?
In Mutants & Masterminds, I refer to these sort of odd-ball mechanical edge cases or various genre-reinforcing tropes as "gentleman's agreements" between the player(s) and game master in order to keep play moving without too much worry.
The classic genre "gentleman's agreement" in the superhero genre is the utter inability of the hero's love-interest to recognize Captain Captialism is Joe Everyman in a domino mask. The classic mechanical "gentleman's agreement" is that the good Captain's Atomic Vision can melt an armored car to slag but only knocks out the bank robber in the next combat round.
I get a distinct impression that the designers of 5e want to incourage this sort of "don't sweat the small stuff" approach the 5e. So if I do stumble across some sort of longbow that grants a special effect when held, we can just work out an agreement that works for us.