How are monks supposed to work?

[My Own Treacherous Hand]

I turned Minsc into a level 12 elemental monk because he's bald and I didn't have one already. What I'm finding is that he hits pretty hard so long as he has ki, but gets hit (hard) by every melee attack sent his way, and can't be used as a front-liner which is not at all what I expected. Is this what I should expect or am I probably doing things wrong?

[/dev/random]

You turned Minsc into a monk because he is bald? What a stereotypical thinking. A shame.

[Kiyaya]

Monks tend to be a bit squishy and fare better as a hit-and-run style class with their fantastic movement capabilities.

[Husker_85]

Tav Monks usually have some incredibly powerful Monk specific gear by the time they reach lvl 12. Also the 4 Elements Monk is definitely more of a sniper than a front-liner; most people end up building for an Open Palm Monk unless they're cross-classing with Rogue and using Shadow Monk. Even still, they're known for being glass-cannon type of builds where you're hopefully killing everything on turn 1 so they don't get a chance to fight back.

[Zogtar]

You'll want to use stealth as much as possible.

Monks are hard hitting glass cannons with high movement and evasion.

70-132 damage per flurry of blows if built correctly.

[victorvnv]

My Minsk is also a monk because he is big strong and bald and likes to punch things.

Honestly this class or a Barbarian fits his character way more than a ranger.

There are several armors like the elven armor and the legendary one from Raphael that doesn’t need proficiency so you want to give those to him and he will do just fine as frontliner

[deadsanta]

If you made Minsc into a Monk then you probably should have gone maximum Dex/Wisdom, and used elixirs for his Strength. you get to 18/20, use the mirror for another +2 Wis, and you have +4/+6 = base 20 AC, top him off with a couple armor items and buff him in combat so he's rolling around 24 AC. The point of a Monk is just being able to stand in the front while delivering ungodly 1 target damage, it's not to be a dodge tank (That's reserved for abjuration wizards.)

With the right items Minsc does around 100 damage/turn before Ki attacks or crits, goes first every turn and moves like 30m. I do prefer the OH Monk though, so I'm not sure if elemental monk works the same.

-Bracers of defense or unarmed attack gloves.
-Wisdom +dmg boots from Astral plane gith.
-Some AC item(s) like prot ring or cloak
-One of the endgame robes for monks, there are like 5.

My monk was a 8/4 monk/rogue picker with extra bonus attacks for extra unarmed attacks.

[My Own Treacherous Hand]

Thanks for the tips - he's definitely not killing things in 1 turn though. Maybe because I'm on tactician, maybe because he's making do with what little monk gear I held onto. I'll look into that tip about Raphael though.

[deadsanta]

Originally posted by My Own Treacherous Hand:

Thanks for the tips - he's definitely not killing things in 1 turn though. Maybe because I'm on tactician, maybe because he's making do with what little monk gear I held onto. I'll look into that tip about Raphael though.

Respec him OH monk 8/4 monk rogue, tavern brawler with +unarmed stuff. But now that I think of it, if you tossed the good boots, robe, ring, gloves then it'll be a challenge to gear him. Can you buy any of it back? Barbarian would be *much* easier to gear up with what you likely kept lying around.

[jonnin]

Monks work like this:
str as high as you can get it.
tavern brawler feat.
now you have +10 or more to hit and damage with (?monk weapons?) and (for sure) your fists. You get 2 attacks right off, one from your attack, and another that unlocks because you made an attack. If you use ki, you instead get 3 attacks right off, the double punch bonus action attack. At level 5 you get a second main hand attack, and at level 8, swapping to thief, you get another bonus action. That can mean that on a tough fight, you get 6 attacks using ki double punches. You can also regain some ki from the act 1 amulet & also innate monk choices, between sleeps. If you triple class from there into fighter, you can do action surge and unload again, while adding an armor option. My monk uses staff and topples enemy on the first attack to gain even better hit chances after. You are all but ensured to do well over 50 damage per round when it matters.

as for defense, I prefer an armored monk so I can ignore dex** and wisdom. As a human, minsc can use light armor and a shield, and oddly, that shield will NOT impact his ability to punch things. ** you do want 14 dex or so as you can afford it for AC.

[berrako]

Honestly, what even that class make a room in the game?

This is suposse to be be a fantasy game with sword and magic not some martial arts garbage

The worst part is not that the class exist, wich is fine. It's that half the items in the game give stupid bonus for hth only useful for one class

[/dev/random]

Originally posted by berrako:

Honestly, what even that class make a room in the game?

This is suposse to be be a fantasy game with sword and magic not some martial arts garbage

The worst part is not that the class exist, wich is fine. It's that half the items in the game give stupid bonus for hth only useful for one class

I'm pretty sure monks exist in the DnD setting.