Barbarian/Monk

[Calandir]

Think it will work well? I'm thinking of making pure rage beast who just punches everything to death. Viable?

[Madmarcus OO]

Semi-serious answer: Disciplined Rage

Using the possibility that a monk can use martial arts with any weapon that they are proficient with (this comes from Fextralife which might make it a little suspect) you can make this work.

If true then a Monk can use any weapon with Dex once you get martial weapon proficiency from Barbarian so you don't need Strength. Wisdom powers stunning strike. It's a great ability but it's also the only real ability outside of unarmored defense where the Monk uses Wisdom. Barbarian unarmored defense is available we don't need Wisdom. Given those two you become a very stat efficient class using Dex and Con to cover your attacks and AC.

Barbarian 1 / Monk 11 gives you pretty much a tougher monk (because you have a higher Con and reason to boost it) fighting with whatever weapon you want plus the ability to rage in tougher fights.

Barbarian 3 / Monk 9 gives you a Bearheart Monk. Pretty much the same as above but an extra rage per long rest so you can use it in most fights. Oh, and you resist almost all damage.

Monk 1 / Barbarian 11 gives you a Dex Barbarian who can use any weapon but without a shield. Flavorwise it's cool and it gives you better AC if you want to go two handed and unarmored (why wouldn't you!) but it probably isn't that much better than a straight Barbarian using medium armor.

Monk 3 / Barbarian 9 doesn't seem like it adds much but this might change once we know the Monk subclasses better. In both cases you might be better off going 4/8 instead of 3/9 to give you the additional ASI. You have two stats you want to max and both are important from the start so unless you cheese the respec stats option you won't get that much use out of stat boosting gear.

[medicinezombie]

Originally posted by Madmarcus OO:

Semi-serious answer: Disciplined Rage

Using the possibility that a monk can use martial arts with any weapon that they are proficient with (this comes from Fextralife which might make it a little suspect) you can make this work.

If true then a Monk can use any weapon with Dex once you get martial weapon proficiency from Barbarian so you don't need Strength. Wisdom powers stunning strike. It's a great ability but it's also the only real ability outside of unarmored defense where the Monk uses Wisdom. Barbarian unarmored defense is available we don't need Wisdom. Given those two you become a very stat efficient class using Dex and Con to cover your attacks and AC.

Barbarian 1 / Monk 11 gives you pretty much a tougher monk (because you have a higher Con and reason to boost it) fighting with whatever weapon you want plus the ability to rage in boss fights.

Barbarian 3 / Monk 9 gives you a Bearheart Monk. Pretty much the same as above but an extra rage per long rest so you can use it in most fights. Oh, and you resist almost all damage.

Monk 1 / Barbarian 11 gives you a Dex Barbarian who can use any weapon but without a shield. Flavorwise it's cool and it gives you better AC if you want to go two handed and unarmored (why wouldn't you!) but it probably isn't that much better than a straight Barbarian using medium armor.

Monk 3 / Barbarian 9 doesn't seem like it adds much but this might change once we know the Monk subclasses better. In both cases you might be better off going 4/8 instead of 3/9 to give you the additional ASI. You have two stats you want to max and both are important from the start so unless you cheese the respec stats option you won't get that much use out of stat boosting gear.

Both Rage and Reckless Attack require using STR, I don't really think DEX-Barbarian is worth doing because of this.

You are correct on WIS being a possible lower stat for this combo, but I think STR is more or less mandatory

[Farsha]

DEX version will have high ac and resistances from rage but not dmg rage can give.
So DEX for pure tank might work in theory.
But tanks do not work in BG3 really. You can’t force enemies to reliable attack a character in the game in most situations.
Control and dmg are way better than tanking in the game.
Barb is great dmg dealer and should be build as durable dps not a pure tank.

[Madmarcus OO]

Do you know that the damage from rage doesn't work with Dex? I haven't tried a Dex Barbarian in BG3 but the description only states melee attacks. Same with reckless attack.

There is a reason I put Barbarian 1 / Monk 11 first. My initial thought was a way to make a better monk not a better barbarian. Even if rage only gives the resistance (no damage) this character would be the same as a monk + more HP + physical resistance when raging + use of any weapon not only the traditional monk weapons. Barbarian 4 / Monk 8 starts to hurt you Ki a little but you would be tougher so you don't need to disengage as much plus you wouldn't be using stunning strike so you probably have enough Ki to fuel flurry.

That said, if rage and reckless attack work on any melee attack (as the game says they do) then Monk 1 / Barbarian 11 is basically a barbarian with probably +1 AC and the minor benefit of being able to use a bow more effectively for those times you need a ranged attack. The monk dip would allow you to use any weapon with Dex so you have all of the great sword, great axe, maul glory since GWM is tied to melee attack and the heavy weapon tag. It's probably slightly worse than a pure barbarian at level 12 due to missing an ASI.

Monk 4 / Barbarian 8 is the odd ball. We don't really know what you will gain with Monk 4 but I suspect that this is the least useful and probably not worth it.

[Dr Charko]

Aaaaabsolute viable but I would do it as such

1 Barbarian
7 levels of Monk (open hand most likely)
2 levels of Barbarian to grab the subclass (wildheart or wild, go nuts)
2 levels of Monk

As you level grab the tavern brawler feat and otherwise max strenght out and rise your con. Unfortunately you will likely want medium armour and a shied which which will cancel your monk mobility shenanigans but the higher base strength kinda saves that combined with the free jumps.

I'm playing it right now, it's a beast.

[V.V.R]

Originally posted by BrutalHonestGaming:

Anything is viable in this game 😆 I plan on making an Orc/Monk because they're always portrayed as Barbarians so I thought I would try something different 😝

No, not everything. Not a glimpse.

[V.V.R]

Originally posted by Dr Charko:

Aaaaabsolute viable but I would do it as such

1 Barbarian
7 levels of Monk (open hand most likely)
2 levels of Barbarian to grab the subclass (wildheart or wild, go nuts)
2 levels of Monk

As you level grab the tavern brawler feat and otherwise max strenght out and rise your con. Unfortunately you will likely want medium armour and a shied which which will cancel your monk mobility shenanigans but the higher base strength kinda saves that combined with the free jumps.

I'm playing it right now, it's a beast.

Why the need for medium and shield? There's a lot of unarmed monk no armor items there, you'll get enough AC with all strength - wisdom and gloves of dexterity, you can take ring of protection and cloak too, get 20-22ac, barb in bear can tank every damage, so no need to lose very nice unarmed buffs.