Monk: fists useless?

[Theinvoker]

i'm tryng the monk. i like that he can attack 2 times every turn (if he has nothing else to to as bonus action) but i can't find unarmed combat useful at all.
Staves does 1d8 damage
Fists does 1d4 and then 1d6. Maybe they will become 1d8 later, BUT....can they be magical too?? Staves can be +1 or +2
I found gloves that gives 1d4 bonus fire damage to unarmed combat...nice but i already have the same buff on a staff and i can use gloves that gives +2 to CA

Is there something i'm missing. is it unarmed combat weak and useless?
if i remember well, in BG2 fists becomes magical after some levels, plus even if the damage was not hight, i had more attacks per turn compared to if i was using a weapon.

[Pitty Sensual]

Originally posted by Theinvoker:

Originally posted by Pitty Sensual:

rogue thief = 2 bonus actions
open first = when you hit with action, you can hit with bonus action
monk 5 = extra atk
----- there you already got 4
fighter 2 gives and extra attack with Surge, so you got a turn doing 5 hits

rogue?? fighter? i'm talking about monk only
Monk has 1 action (+1 unlocked after some leves) and 1 bonus action
when you say 4 attacks i mean 4 actions without counting bonus actions

Didnt understand...
Rogue and fighter are multiclasses to improve monk, you will play as a monk, using monk atks lol
When i say 4 attacks i mean 2 Actions and 2 Bonus actions. I dont think pure Monks can do more than 2 attacks with actions, and can only do 4 with bonus action if you use an especific helm and has less than 50% hit points. If you find a way, please let us know for more OP Builds

and yes, Brawler works with offhand attacks too

[Pitty Sensual]

Originally posted by Theinvoker:

Originally posted by Cthulhu Allspark:

idk if it has already been said.
STR monk, all the way. i played until early act 3 and then changed to see what all the rave is about and OMG.
i went from doing 6-14 damage to 24-36 dmg. my AC went from 18 all the way up to 22, i got more hp and a higher chance to hit. there is 0 reason to play dex monk

i just said the opposite.
you can't get more CA with low Dex, assuming CON, WIS, INT, CHA are the same and you only switch 17 to strenght instead of Dex (17-10 or 10-17 in my case). you get CA only with armors but there is no sens to play monk if you want to wear armor and do damage. play a fighter instead.

and as i said, damage is good (with tavern talen) on the action only, but not on bonus action. it will not be added on bunus attacks including the flurry (double hit)

There is clothings that gives extra AC, i mean, its not like the 26 AC of my rogue, but he gets 20 AC with Mage Armor
and BTW, fighters dont do the dmg of a monk (the one with multiclass, pure monks sucks as same as pure rogues sucks) fighters cant use that sweet glove

Soul Fist: Your unarmed attacks deal an additional 1~10 Force Damage.
Soul Catching: Once per turn, on an unarmed hit, you regain 10 hit points. Alternatively, you may forego healing to gain Advantage on Attack Rolls and Saving Throws until the end of your next turn.
Constitution +2 (up to 20)

[LichAlexander]

Originally posted by Mijj:

Originally posted by Quelsec:

The answer here would be style and tavern brawler feat.

So you recommend to build a STR monk instead of DEX to play with this feat? What about AC?

My solution to this problem is Elixir of Hill/Cloud Giant Strength. Just buy them on vendors when you see them they are pretty cheap and they last until you take a long rest and set your strength stat to 21/27 respectively, I am currently running a monk of the open hand with intent to multiclass 3 levels for Thief rogue to get the extra bonus action and start the game with the following stat distribution:

STR - 8 (becomes 21 with Elixir of Hill Giant Strength sold by Ethel in the Grove for 60gold)
Dex - 16
Con - 13 (+1 from Tavern Brawler Feat puts this at 14)
Int - 10
Wis - 17 ( +1 from Auntie Ethel for 18 and later ASI up to 20)
Cha - 10
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This gives a solid AC of 16 unarmored to start the game and later up to 18 BEFORE items that magically increase AC (such as the bracers that give +2 AC if unarmored) and before any external buffs that increase AC (Warding Bond, Shield of Faith, Mirror Image, etc.) When you look at an endgame version of this build you could be making up to 8 attacks per turn that without items could do 1d6 + 16 Bludgeoning + 1d4 + 5 Force/Radiant/Necrotic each with magical property and a +12 to hit, assuming all attacks hit their target and only rolled 1s on the damage die youd still do 184 damage with just punching and not including any items that add more dice or flat damage which is insane for a naked guy with no weapon

[Pitty Sensual]

Originally posted by Hellbourne:

Originally posted by Mijj:

So you recommend to build a STR monk instead of DEX to play with this feat? What about AC?

My solution to this problem is Elixir of Hill/Cloud Giant Strength. Just buy them on vendors when you see them they are pretty cheap and they last until you take a long rest and set your strength stat to 21/27 respectively, I am currently running a monk of the open hand with intent to multiclass 3 levels for Thief rogue to get the extra bonus action and start the game with the following stat distribution:

STR - 8 (becomes 21 with Elixir of Hill Giant Strength sold by Ethel in the Grove for 60gold)
Dex - 16
Con - 13 (+1 from Tavern Brawler Feat puts this at 14)
Int - 10
Wis - 17 ( +1 from Auntie Ethel for 18 and later ASI up to 20)
Cha - 10
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This gives a solid AC of 16 unarmored to start the game and later up to 18 BEFORE items that magically increase AC (such as the bracers that give +2 AC if unarmored) and before any external buffs that increase AC (Warding Bond, Shield of Faith, Mirror Image, etc.) When you look at an endgame version of this build you could be making up to 8 attacks per turn that without items could do 1d6 + 16 Bludgeoning + 1d4 + 5 Force/Radiant/Necrotic each with magical property and a +12 to hit, assuming all attacks hit their target and only rolled 1s on the damage die youd still do 184 damage with just punching and not including any items that add more dice or flat damage which is insane for a naked guy with no weapon

Thats true, you can have mores wis, in my dark urge play thru im going 8 str too and probably using the +2 str permanente in someone else, still thinking if i want to pot anything else.. and putting the +2 in anything from mirror in wis

[Chaos]

There are a bunch of items you can get that add 1-6 fire and 1-6 necrotic for the monk fists but as a class in D&D 5e it sucks. Earlier versions of D&D monk was my fave class and resembled Bruce Lee made of iron and punched Paladins clear out of their armour and back to Valhalla.

Also there is perk that doubles your strength bonus damage with fists which I would imagine is insane with 23 strength.

[Xiwang]

Originally posted by Theinvoker:

no damage

there is an old lady living near the cauldron in the tiefling camp, buy from her the staff and the hill giant strenght elixir (this thing is good, buy it every single time get the giant fingers as many as you can, look for that component because your build depends on it), make sure your monk have 8 strenght score and 13 constitution, you always give priority to dex and wisdom, they should be 16 in each. get up to lvl 4, pick the tavern brawler feat, pick as the enhanced stat constitution for a total of 14. congrats you have 15 + prof to hit and +15 damage per hit, dont use the staff anymore. you can hit 4 times at lvl 5 by using flurry of blows so your minimun damage output is 90 - 100. you get additional damage from many other sources later for your unarmed attacks. you can also throw objects/weapons and deal massive damage with almost guaranteed hits.

get someone who knows the spell enlarge, use it in yourself. get into ranger and pick hunter and colosus slayer at lvl 3. +1d8 per hit to opponents that have not their full hp.

put the rest of your lvls in barbarian. wildhearth for resistance to all damage or berserker to pick of people and throw them.

your attacks count as magical from lvl 6 if i remember well, so your maximun damage is around 150 - 200 per turn. you get all of your ki via short rests.

[Xiwang]

Originally posted by Xiwang:

...

maybe im misscalculating the tavern brawler, if i do, then its 54 minimun damage per turn at lvl 5.

[LichAlexander]

Originally posted by Pitty Sensual:

Originally posted by Hellbourne:

My solution to this problem is Elixir of Hill/Cloud Giant Strength. Just buy them on vendors when you see them they are pretty cheap and they last until you take a long rest and set your strength stat to 21/27 respectively, I am currently running a monk of the open hand with intent to multiclass 3 levels for Thief rogue to get the extra bonus action and start the game with the following stat distribution:

STR - 8 (becomes 21 with Elixir of Hill Giant Strength sold by Ethel in the Grove for 60gold)
Dex - 16
Con - 13 (+1 from Tavern Brawler Feat puts this at 14)
Int - 10
Wis - 17 ( +1 from Auntie Ethel for 18 and later ASI up to 20)
Cha - 10
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This gives a solid AC of 16 unarmored to start the game and later up to 18 BEFORE items that magically increase AC (such as the bracers that give +2 AC if unarmored) and before any external buffs that increase AC (Warding Bond, Shield of Faith, Mirror Image, etc.) When you look at an endgame version of this build you could be making up to 8 attacks per turn that without items could do 1d6 + 16 Bludgeoning + 1d4 + 5 Force/Radiant/Necrotic each with magical property and a +12 to hit, assuming all attacks hit their target and only rolled 1s on the damage die youd still do 184 damage with just punching and not including any items that add more dice or flat damage which is insane for a naked guy with no weapon

Thats true, you can have mores wis, in my dark urge play thru im going 8 str too and probably using the +2 str permanente in someone else, still thinking if i want to pot anything else.. and putting the +2 in anything from mirror in wis

That is what I was planning on doing myself with the mirror, the main reason I didn't bring it up was to keep everything easily figured out as early as act 1 so people who read it and haven't tested it yet can see how easily and quickly monk gets rather wild.

[Theinvoker]

i'm not going to dual class. specially not a monk or rogue. fighter-mage multi class in BG2 was cool...but multi class is not dual class.

[Theinvoker]

Originally posted by Xiwang:

Originally posted by Theinvoker:

no damage

there is an old lady living near the cauldron in the tiefling camp, buy from her the staff and the hill giant strenght elixir (this thing is good, buy it every single time get the giant fingers as many as you can, look for that component because your build depends on it), make sure your monk have 8 strenght score and 13 constitution, you always give priority to dex and wisdom, they should be 16 in each. get up to lvl 4, pick the tavern brawler feat, pick as the enhanced stat constitution for a total of 14. congrats you have 15 + prof to hit and +15 damage per hit, dont use the staff anymore. you can hit 4 times at lvl 5 by using flurry of blows so your minimun damage output is 90 - 100. you get additional damage from many other sources later for your unarmed attacks. you can also throw objects/weapons and deal massive damage with almost guaranteed hits.

get someone who knows the spell enlarge, use it in yourself. get into ranger and pick hunter and colosus slayer at lvl 3. +1d8 per hit to opponents that have not their full hp.

put the rest of your lvls in barbarian. wildhearth for resistance to all damage or berserker to pick of people and throw them.

your attacks count as magical from lvl 6 if i remember well, so your maximun damage is around 150 - 200 per turn. you get all of your ki via short rests.

i'm already beyond that witch. does the potion give permanent strenght?? i hate potions in general, i never use them. so i don't want to drink that potion every now and then to have high strenght

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Monks aren't for dpr, they are for stunlocking.

[Pitty Sensual]

Originally posted by Theinvoker:

i'm not going to dual class. specially not a monk or rogue. fighter-mage multi class in BG2 was cool...but multi class is not dual class.

So you basically wants to rant about a class, not looking for ways to improve it. So yes, pure monk is ♥♥♥♥ in dnd and will be ♥♥♥♥ here compared with other classes

[Xiwang]

man you can deal damage with only being a pure monk using the giant hill potion and tavern brawler. the stats are 8 ster 16 dex 13 con 8 int 16 wis the points that left anywhere, just dont make con going above 13.

+10 to damage and hit just from tavern brawler and the giant hill strenght elixir it last until long rest, its made by using giant hill fingers and salts. that is all the damage other classes get. and there are gloves that add extra damage out there, rings and other things.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Elizadeath:

1d4 + 3 + 1d4 + 3 + 1d4 + 3 is three attacks with 17 dex. thats 9+ 3d4, which is substantially more than 1d10 which you get for a firebolt, or 1d12+ 3 from a greataxe. this situation scales pretty well with items. seems fine in the game, esp with tavern brawler

Except that's three attacks (rolls) you have to land, unlike a two handed weapon that needs to only hit once. Then with the feat savage attacker + great weapon master. You'll almost always max your damage.

[Elrodeus]

I don't play monk, but I have a friend that is playing a monk (didn't multiclass) in my current tabletop campaign and at level 8 he's doing more damage than anyone else in our party and that includes a Barbarian.

I don't know how he built him but I've seen him not only attack with both hands but do multi-attacks and stuff and it's insane how much damage he can do. It's possible, it just takes a good bit of planning and the right feats.