Ok so I am a long time Gamer, 20+ years, who has played every version of D&D since 2nd ed and various other game systems. Well about to be able to rejoin my old group again after about 3 years away from the table and they are starting a new campagian for the new year and it will be their 1st 5e game as well. So far we have a Barberian, probably going totem archetype, a Devotion Paladin that is gonna dual weild long swords, and a Druid i don't know what style. So I was gonna try and play the stealthy infiltrator role but always like playing strong combatants as well so I was planing on starting as a monk and ending at 20 as a Monk (Open Hand) 8/ Rogue (Theif) 8/ Fighter (Champion) 4.
This is the Plan
Variant Human Monk Criminal Background
Starting Stats
Str 10
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 8
Skills
Acrobatics (Monk)
Athletics (Monk)
Stealth (Criminal)
Deception (Criminal)
Perception (Human)
Tools
Theives Tools (Criminal)
Carpenter Tools (Monk)
Three Dragon Ante (Criminal)
Feats
Alertness
Progression Theroy
1-6 Monk 1-6
7 Rogue 1
8 Fighter 1
9 Rogue 2
10 Fighter 2
11 Fighter 3
12 Rogue 3
13 Fighter 4
14 Rogue 4
15 Monk 7
16 Rogue 5
17 Rogue 6
18 Rogue 7
19 Rogue 8
20 Monk 8
My plan uses for my ASI/feats are
2 spent on +2 dex for +4 total
1 on Resislant Con
1 on Resislant Wis
1 on +1 Con +1 Wis
not sure on the order for those though.
My expertise plans are Athletics and Deception at rogue 1 and Perception or Stealth and Thieves Tools at Rogue 6. Not sure what skill to take when I multi-class into rogue though and not sure if my DM will let me take a different tool proficency when I do since I will already have thieves tools but if he does i will take disguise kit.
Will this be a solid and capable build through out? Is there any changes you would suggest?
Sadly you can only take the resilience feat once.
Why MC Thief? Champion? Apart from Fast Hands, Sneak Attack and some better hit dice, they do nothing from you. Even if you're in it for Sneak Attack, Shadoe Monk would be better than Open Hand.
My advice would be don't MC. At most dip one or two for Expertise or a Fighting Style if that's what you're after.
OK well with the party we have so far I was looking to fill a hole not filled yet as I am the last to join, though I think their is still a spot or two open if he can find any other players so there may be others but currently no prospects. What jumped out was no arcane, no roguey types and unsure about druid healing, as it has varied from edition to edition, so possible gap there. Well the campaign is about a province in his game that has never been played in before that was a more rugged frontier type place inhabited by goblins and feudal human tribes. Then the empire invaded and drove out the goblins and supressed the Keldrassian, the lord of battle mainly bloody war and slaughter, religion and enforced the worship of their main goddesses Luana, goddess of valorious and honorable combat, and Miranda, goddess of law and justice. Well about a 100 years ago the empire started to collapse and this province as one of the furtherest from the core was the 1st to throw off the yoke. Now it is in a tendative places of trying to establish an identity of it's own between the traditional ways and those of the empire and that is what the campaign is going to be about more or less. Well I was going to play a cleric/monk of Keldras who was from an underground order that had developed under the oppression of the empire. It is a brutal avicous order of monks and clerics that have learned to turn their bodies into living weapons so as to always be prepared for battle and war and to put down any and all who would hold them back or stand in their way. They also strive to make the weak strong as well as the weak have no place in this world so one must always strive to strengten themselves so they may survive and thrive in this world. My background is that of a criminal as I was orphaned on the streets along with my cousin till we were taken in by one of the major thieves guilds in the area, she was trained to seduce her way into places to steal from or kill her targets. My time on the streets had made me a cold and resourceful fighter despite only being of average strength so was being trained as a enforcer until I caught the eye of a member of the brotherhood one and was taken into the order and trained in their ways much to the anger of my old guild. Well my cousin is still my contact and she hates the life the guild has forced her into but is making the most of it as we plot to one day strike back at the leaders taking their heads and placingg her in charge. so my main motivation for adventuring is to become the strongest and most capabe shadow warrior I can to help her take down the guild one day.
So that is my backstory and concept a brutal shadow warrior monk building himself into a true living weapon and insturment of destruction in order to take out a powerful guild of thieves. I was looking at warrior for action surge and improved crit and at rogue so I could get expertise in atheltics for sure since I have a 10 str and no plans to ever increase it but want to still be good at climbing and jumbing and what not to better get into places was a little unsure as to what I wanted for my other expertise as thieves tools, stealth, and perception all seemed like good choices. I was going back an forth on archetype between theif, as quick-hands ands a 2nd-story work both seemed solid for filling the rogue whole in the party, and assassin, for assassinate because it is awesome. Also uncanny dodge seemed like a huge survivablity boost.
Ok so after reading through your thread some more and thinking things over gonna go.
1 Monk 1
2 Rogue 1 (gaining insight and expertise in atheltics and Deception)
3 Monk 2
4 Monk 3 (open hand)
5 Monk 4 (Mobility)
6 Monk 5
7 Monk 6
8 Monk 7
9 Monk 8 (Dex +2)
10 Monk 9
11 Monk 10
12 Monk 11
13 Monk 12 (Dex +2)
14 Monk 13
15 Monk 14
16 Monk 15
17 Monk 16 (Wis +2)
18 Monk 17
19 Monk 18
20 Monk 19 (Wis +2)
What do you think?
jaappleton wrote:
souldragon_420 wrote:
souldragon_420 wrote:
Yunru wrote:
firstly there is nothing wrong with preplanning your character from 1-20. Different people are going to play the game differently and crass comments like "some mmorpg video game" are rude and unhelpful. plain and simple. He didnt ask your opinion on planning he asked if it was a good plan.
/rant
Multiclassing can be reeally powerful in this case, but I would advise you do it smaller, mnk14/rge3/fgtr3 would be great in my opinion but look through it yourself, basically look at every level of your new class and ask what you get from it and is it worth the opportunity cost(not getting that level in your first class). Most classes get their first big bonuses at lvl 3 in this case you would get 2d6 sneak attack, expertise, cunning action and (my advice) the assasin subclass and the cool start of combat stuff that seems really powerful. From fighter youd get a fighting style(dueling with a 1hand monk weapon?), second wind, action surge and champion for a bigger crit range, or battlemaster for more versatility/options. On top of all that you get the best stuff from monk. the downside is that you will only get 3 feats/stat improvements. that said I would make those feats count, im not as big a fan of resilient as a feat because it doesnt actually help that much in combat and seems kinda lame. Possible alternatives; Savage attacker, really ups your reliability, Mobility, Since you will be pretty squishy it lets you get in and out of combat without gettin smashed, I remember skulker being good for this kind of thing too(dont have my phb on hand sorry).
Also im concerned you may have athletics confused with acrobatics, most sneaky things would fall under acro imo, but if you plan on doing a lot of swimming/climbing go for it.
As far as your group goes it is true that you will always have to adapt to the situation and make sure to be flexible with your party and helpful where you can be even if it's outside your "role". That said if youre gonna be sneaky, be the best darn sneak theres ever been, and use that to solve your problems. Dont sacrifice what you want your character to be for "the good of the party" because you will probably end up with a subpar character that can't keep up with whats being thrown at you. I am really against switching roles mid-character. Find a way to change the game to make it work for the party you have. No tank? Pick people off one at a time sneakily and avoid large groups, No healer? take things a bit slower and rest/use potions, no ranged damage? close the gap faster. There are a lot of ways to use what youve already got to deal with a hard situation. You dont need to change your trajectory to better fit, just your tactics.
Happy Hunting!!
Echamil wrote:
souldragon_420 wrote:
souldragon_420 wrote:
Kithas48 wrote:
honestly you should probably be able to get by with just being proficient in the other stat, if you are really scared of traps or you know your dm loves em the dungeoneering feat could really help out!
Well is has never been to trap crazy in the other games I have played with him so your probably right expertise in thief tools and stealth would probably be best. Thanks for the advice.
No problem, hope your first campaign goes really well! I've personally fell in love with the new system 
Me too hopefully it will resale me on traditional fantasy been on a big urban fantasy kick lately, that or ultra high power god type games.
THe D8 is for unarmed *and* for monk weapons. So the short sword is also D8.
OMG your right that means I can go fighter take duelist and be doing 1d8+2 eventually with my monl weapon of choice. So hmm champion or battlemaster...
16th as in the level, or the date? Because if it's the level stay Monk, especially since you're going Open Hand. You are just one (ONE!) level away from Quivering Palm a.k.a. "Kill 'em With Your Awesome". Dip Rogue at 18th level if you want Expertise. Alternatively if you really want that Expertise you can put off killing people with your awesome and have your first level be Rogue.
Note that Quivering Palm has two outcomes:
- Instakill
- 10d10 damage
Are you willing to swap that for a +2 to two of your attacks per turn?
Heh, a nasty trick is to dip two levels of Wizard for the Divination Portent. If you roll low, use it to make the opponent fail that all-important Con save. If you roll high, just use it to ensure an attack hits or something.
16th as in January 16th we are starting at 1st level. Was debating not getting expertise and just going 4 in fighter to get dueling, action surge, and an archtype without losing any feats or maybe not worrying about the feat and just going 3 fighter to make Quivering Palm my lvl 20 capstone. Also if I do not sure which archtype to go champion for 19-20 crit since I will be making a lot of attacks or battlemaster for superiority dice. An added bonus of going fighter instead is it allows me to use hand axe instaed of short sword which is more fitting with my gods prefered weapons and like I said my criminal background gives me the skills and tools I need to cover the rogue stuff for the party.
Monk Weapons (the ones that scale) are only Simple Melee. Other than that... If you're not after Expertise early, start Monk and don't switch until at least level 6. Stunning Strike is just. That. Good.
I am aware of monk weapons all being simple weapons I am thinking of not going for expertise at all and just going 3 or 4 in fighter to get the deuling fighting style, action surge, and a fighter archtype just trying to debate which is the better archtype to pick up champion or battlemaster.
Battlemaster, no question. Even if you just pick up the one that increases accuracy, I don't need to state how amazingly useful it is to (potentially) turn a miss into a hit now do I? :P
OK wow yeah I had been miss reading it this whole time I thought it was just added dmg and i was like why use it when I can use a different one and add dmg and effect. Ok so yeah think I am gonna go like 8 monk then 4 fighter to keep my ASI/Feats and then monk on to 20. Gonna take Disarming strike (seems to pair well with with stunning strike and open hands flurry abilities), Precision Strike, and either Reposte or Menacing for my 3rd strike.
souldragon_420 wrote:
Couple of things to keep in mind. Dueling fighting style will not help with your Monk bonus attack, nor your Flurry of Blows. Still may be worth taking, but just wanted to make you aware.
Precision strike is a good maneuver, but careful when thinking about it. Yunru is right when he added 'potentially'.... To use it, you need to miss, by a certain amount, then actually roll more than that. The higher the number (8) the more often you can roll, but the more often you still miss. The lower the number (1) the more often you go from Miss to Hit, but the less often you get a chance to roll.
For example, if you decided that you will only use a die if you miss by 5 or less... it means you will end up still missing 1 out of 4 times. If you roll all the time (<=8) you will still miss 2 out of 4 times. Of course, you don't know how long it will take to miss by that much four times... that part is not in your control.
Some of the other maneuvers, however, are more in your control. Opponents miss on a regular basis, so using Riposte is pretty much up to you. You still need to hit, but you also do extra damage. I can't see Precision doing more damage than RIposte.
Champion lets you up the Critical, which effects all your attacks, of course, you don't know when you will actually get that Crit...
You may also want to consider staying with Monk.
Lets look at Monk8/Fighter4 vs Monk 12.
Dueling style gives you + 2 for your attack action attacks, but nothing for the bonus action attacks.
Going from d6 to d8 gives you +1 for every attack you make.
Precision or Riposte or whatever, may give you more attacks and hits..
Getting 4 more Ki points means you can get 4 more FoB's (with open hand buffs), or Stunning Strikes, or Deflect Missile return attacks, or... etc...
Second wind lets you heal 1d10+4 per short rest. (ave 28.5)
Open Hand healing will increase by 12, from 24 to 36 hp.
You also get to move 5'/rd faster, move along walls and on water (hey, wonder if that includes a water fall...), immune to disease and poison, and start every day with a Sanctuary spell.
And, of course, it puts you that much closer for things like Diamond Soul and Quivering Palm.....