Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback A polite suggestion for monk.

My proposed rework for monk in Baldurs gate 3

After taking in many complaints about monk as a player and a DM and playing dungeons and dragons for over 30 years now. I have a balance suggestion for monk.
Change Martial arts as follows:
Flurry of Blows: When taking the attack action if a monk is wielding a monk weapon they may make an additional attack with that monk weapon OR if unarmed may make 2 additional unarmed strikes as a bonus action. These additional attacks do not add their attribute bonus to damage.
Evasive Maneuvers: you may use a bonus action to give yourself +2 AC and give all attackers disadvantage to hit you until the end of your next turn.
Efficient footwork: you may use your bonus action to Dash and choose one enemy that cannot perform attacks of opportunity on you.

Monk unarmed damage no longer scales past 1d8 (one handed weapons) have it scale at the same rate to 1d6 to match rogue but double the time they spend at 1d6 and have 1d8 replace the 1d10 levels for scaling.
Monks can wear hand wraps that can affect or alter unarmed damage allowing them to interact fairly with magic weapon and such spells. Monks unarmed strikes are once again considered weapons for spell interactions and wraps can be enchanted just like any other weapon. And can now interact with many other class features and feats allowing for drastically more build diversity.

Change stunning fist as follows:
(2ki) for the rest of this turn your attacks gain the stunning quality. At the end of your turn each enemy you have successfully hit must make a constitution savings throw against your monk save DC with a +1 to that DC for each time you struck them this turn or be stunned until the end of your next turn.

Allow monks to choose an archetype at lvl 1 much like a cleric with the following changes and provide them with 1 ki point every other level rounding up.
Open hand(lvl1) : your unarmed strikes add their attribute bonus (choose strength or dexterity whichever is higher) and you may spend one ki point when making a flurry of blows to add one additional unarmed strike attack to the effect.

Way of the four elements(lvl1): Make them full spellcasters based on wisdom, and their unarmed damage does not scale higher than a d6 and scales to it slower. However, provide them with lvl 1 spells that are bonus actions that include martial arts bonus attacks / attacks and add +1d4 elemental damage to each hit for that round and the next the dice scale up if cast at higher levels. Theme their other spells on the elemental spells from each type of spellcaster. (burning hands, searing smite ect.) including cantrips. or spells that could be explained by an elemental effect like jump being linked to wind.

Way of Shadow(lvl1) Gain proficiency in stealth or if already proficient from skill selection gain expertise in stealth, you can see in normal and magical darkness without penalty. At higher levels (maybe 4-5) give them access to sneak attack as a lvl 1 rogue(Stacking with any rogue levels aka 5 shadow+2 rogue is the same as a lvl 3 rogue for sneak attack).

The main problem I have seen with monk on a grand scale is that they are presently designed to interact with other classes at an absolute minimum. The builds due to this are very limited. Monk ac is basically capped much lower than other classes and other classes have much quicker access to ac buffing and damage buffing items, and at maximum level they suffer from not being able to obtain extra damage dice from weapon enchantments and spells like magic weapon drastically enhancing hit chance.
These changes are designed to allow drastically more monk builds by allowing interaction with other classes for multiclassing, and also with spells from themselves or allies. As well as causing more feat interactions such as dual wielder, fighting styles, and many others.
I would as a suggestion if you are going to go to lvl 20 in a sequel also maybe provide monk with a capstone like barbarian where wisdom and dexterity can move their cap up to 24 and they gain 4 of each. and have quivering palm work like my outlined stunning fist allowing it to work as a crowd clearer or as a single target takedown.

Some suggestions for equipment you may want to put in the game :
(Wraps are one handed weapons and a different wrap can be added to each hand your primary hand does any extra attacks past the “offhand” attack. Or alternatively you could program it to alternate back and forth)
Katars/Spiked wraps: causes 1 bleed from each hit of an unarmed strike capping at 3 each +1 to these weapons add to hit/damage and bleed cap. Changes unarmed damage type to Piercing/slashing
Cestus/Dastanas: Provides +1 ac and changes damage type to bludgeoning/Slashing respectively and raises the difficulty to disarm the monk by 2.
Ninja Claws: Provides a +2 to climb and changes as well as a +2 to disarm checks. Changes damage type to slashing for unarmed strikes. Enchanting these wraps provides attack damage and +1 to the skills it affects.
Longdeath wraps: Delivers 1 cold damage on each unarmed strike +1 and higher versions of this wrap add cold damage instead of physical damage.
Yellow rose Monastery wraps : delivers 1 thunder damage per unarmed strike +1 and higher versions of this item add thunder damage instead of physical damage.
Spiritual Cloth wraps : +2dc to the save difficulty of monk abilities and proficiency in wisdom saving throws.

Clothes:
Padded Gi: reduce the damage you receive from slashing/piercing/bludgeoning by 1, increase your AC by +1
Weighted sleeve Gi : Changes the reach of unarmed strikes to 10 feet. And adds 1 damage to those unarmed strikes. They can be considered ranged attacks.

The main idea I have here is to allow monk some cheap mundane ac if they want it but they have to trade damage for it. Also the weapons by default do not really add much to the monks damage, this also makes more of a meaningful choice between wielding a bigger damage monk weapon like a staff for versatile vs unarmed combat where in the current system there is no reason to not use a staff and unarmed afterwards in the bonus attacks. This also provides more of a “Thematic or sensible reason” for unarmed strikes to be “enchantable”, if completely unable to have their weapons (fancy party) just provide them a default handwrap that has no effect on hit or damage or damage type. Presently monk is very pidgeon holed into being either pure monk, monk/barb, monk/warlock, monk/pal, or monk/druid and really only specific subsets of these classes interact positively many of the class combo archetypes are actually much worse than just playing a pure version of the class being multiclass into(tavern brawler barbarian being one of the most obvious). Now with these changes warrior becomes much more interesting, as do many other archetypes, such as four elements mixing with cleric as more of a spellcaster support. There is no longer a reason to make monks abilities separated from other class abilities. Might be better for clarity to change the name of dual wielder to ambidextrous fighting style or something similar. With more equipment options mundanely affecting the monk a monk could choose to be a much bulkier front line fighter in trade for damage.
Also due to the differences between sneak attack and flurry it should put the monk solidly between normal front liners like barbarian and fighter but still below the rogue for damage. As the monk will have to successfully hit each time times whereas each time the rogue connects a sneak attack they get “their extra hits for free”. Although a little durability is available it shouldn’t overshadow fighter with heavy armor master, or a raging barbarian. Multiclassing options should allow the monk to “do what they want” by moving into say warlock to be a damage dealer (hex+ unarmed flurry), interacting better with smites, and cleric spells. Or going for fighter to benefit from fighting styles on attack or defense. Since shadow monks gain expertise, they can interact with and combo with rogue better but not overshadow the rogue itself as the “sneak attack and skill guy”. possibly see some green flame blade quarterstaff monks running around too ....

I forgot to mention that four elements monk should be able to use thier ki points much like wizard to recover spells on a short rest. The important thing here is to keep the spell list very focused on elemental effects or effects that could be explained by elemental mastery (like stoneskin being an earth mastery). keep support spells like healing from cleric etc. off the list.

Personally there is much more i would do to monk in a tabletop scenario but i tried to keep my suggestion as grounded in game design and realistic programming expectations as possible. I have modded in the Divinity engine before and have a general idea of the toolkit you guys are working with. While this isn't a "perfect" fix i see it as a reasonably implementable fix to help curb the incoming wave of complaints about monks game performance.

I hope you will take my advice in part or in whole as four elements monk has by much of the community almost been shunned as unplayable. There are many videos out there some of which go very in depth as to why monk is performing so poorly. if you need i could provide a few or would be happy to go over any targeted questions for specific mechanics. the TLDR is that monks have damage more on par with the "tanks" of the game at early levels and they have no ac options for a very long time (ion stones and the belt for +2ac). additionally they tend to actually get outscaled or remain at pace with tanks. frequently outpaced by support or "half damage dealers" like warpriest or thunder priests while offering none of thier utility. certain spells available to other d8 hit die classes are drastically better than more expensive monk features like stunning fist when compared to hold person. and full damage dealers in the same wieght class like rogue have drastically more consistent damage although rogues have less attacks a dual wielding rogue tends to keep up in attacks with a non flurrying monk and add onto this that every round a rogue is able to land a single attack they in essence hit 1/2 times thier level rounded up additional times. so a dual wielding rogue at level 10 has in essence 3 chances to cause 5 additional hits with no cost, whereas a flurrying monk has to land every attack to get anywhere near the same damage and spend ki.

Another important issue we have found in our games with monk is its inability to fight at range. the sling is a poor damage weapon, and even the crossbows is limited while many other classes can attack multiple times with these weapons or better weapons. In addition using spells and bonus actions to pile on extra damage.

If you can, have a look at the monk class in Dungeons And Dragons Online (the MMO originally from Atari / Turbine, ran by someone else now) to compare to.

The melee combat was implemented brilliantly, both the unarmed with handwraps and the light monk weapon trees.

Additionally they included Shurikens as centred weapons, and the option to use Str, Dex, or Wis for attack and damage rolls.

Then even more fun came with multiclassing and the specialist skill trees - Ninja Spies from the monk enhancement tree could remain centred with shortswords, Vistani Fighters with daggers or kukri, and with 6 fighter levels you could be centred with your specialized weapon in Kensai including ranged weapons, but only ever a single weapon type. But you could never be centred in any armour heavier than cloth or with shields.

Shuriken specialization added things like extra throws, glancing hits etc, and monks made for the fastest 'bunny hopping' as they called it thrower builds in the game, with both halflings getting bonuses to all thrown weapons, and Drow specifically getting bonuses to Shurikens and a bunch of melee weapons like rapiers.

Personally I made and really enjoyed a Ninja Spy multiclass using 4 paladin levels for maximised Aura of Grace, 6 monk levels for Ninja Spy specializiation, and 10 rogue levels maxed out loads of my skills, sneak damage and a high end rogue feat slot at level 10 for opportunist - the build was the fastest hitting and highest doublestrike melee spec in the game, with invincible saving throws and maximum unarmoured defenses (dodge / incorporeal), and all rogue utility - locks, traps, mobility and social skills, while sneak skills were ignored entirely as ninja spies gained a 30s improved invisibility clickie on a 60s cooldown negating the need for sneak skills.

But then when trying to run any of the end game difficulty stuff, if I didn't pass a dodge, AC or incorporeal check I died in 1 or if lucky 2 hits and got reduced to throwing shurikens at everything But I could straight up fly through all the traps / mazes / tank anything that only did save based damage while typing in /sleep. In the end game content if stuff wasnt held, fascinated or disco'd, trying to melee in pyjamas was just nope.

To the OP: I'm not understanding why you want to revamp martial arts or damage scaling on monks. In the early levels monks can be extremely competitive in terms of damage. I think they are the only class that has the option of two attacks per round at level 1, and you can do it using a quarterstaff wielded 2 handed for 1d8 then a bonus action unarmed attack for 1d4. At level 2, they can spend a ki point to make up to 3 attacks in a single round, again 1d8, 1d4, 1d4 and all of them get the attribute bonus to damage, which again monks can choose as dex or str. By 5th level they have 2 or 3 attacks per round and upwards of 4 all at 1d6 or 1d8/1d8/1d6/1d6 if using a quarterstaff two handed which keeps them up there with rogue sneak attack damage. If the monk goes to 6 they no longer need to rely on a magical weapon if they use their fists, but they can still use magical monk weapons which gives them a bit of versatility in how to manage the party equipment.

Which brings me to point two: Monks actually have good synergy with some other classes depending on how you build them. In the example above, a 6th level monk specialized shadow is a prime option for multi-classing into a rogue assassin. Assuming the game lets us hit 11 (and because they mentioned they were looking at raising the level cap above the earlier stated 10 I think we can feel safe in assuming that) A 6 shadow monk/5 rogue assassin has equal damage as an 11 rogue assassin all other things being equal ( 11 rogue sneak attack 1d8+6d6 + bonuses 6 monk/5 rogue sneak attack 1d6 + 3d6 + bonuses, 1d6 + bonuses, 1d6 + bonuses, and potentially 1d6 + bonuses for a total potential of 7d6 + (bonusesx4). Lets assume the rogue has a 20 dex and a +2 rapier for +7 damage and the monk has 18 dex and a +2 short sword for +6 damage. Rogue average damage will be 4.5 + 21 + 7 = 32.5 while the monk average will be 14 + 3.5 + 3.5 + 18 = 39 or 14 + 3.5 + 3.5 + 3.5 + 24 = 48.5 using a flurry of blows. Even if the rogue dual wields it will only add an average of 3.5 (and magical damage bonus if any on the second hand weapon) damage for a total of 36-39 unless you multiclass into a class that has the two weapon fighting style. Assuming you took 1 level of fighter or ranger to get two weapon fighting style you would get an additional bonus of +5 to bring the total to 41-44 depending on the magical bonus of the offhand weapon if any.) Monk splash fighter can be useful for second wind, dueling style, and action surge. I can attest that monk/warlock is a great combo in table top, and even a splash of warlock really helps monks giving them access to one of the best ranged cantrips in the game and access to things like a Staff of Power which gives AC, saves, and + damage and shares the same rarity level as +2 magical armor.

And that brings me to the third issue with itemization, and that is monk itemization is only as bad as the programmers make it. Yes, monks can't wear armor, but they can wear bracers of armor, cloaks of protection, and rings of protection which are all rare or uncommon items, +1 armor of any kind is rare. Monks can use a any simple weapon that doesn't have the two handed or heavy property and short sword with their martial arts ability, and that includes using a quarterstaff as a two handed weapon. Yes, monks have a lower AC cap (I think a standard monk can hit 24, and a monk/(warlock/wizard/sorcerer) can hit 25) than some other classes but that is true of other classes as well, but monks are possibly the only class that can use the dodge action as a bonus action. And amongst non-spell casters one of the places monks shine IMO is their options in the action economy. They have offensive, defensive, and utility options for their bonus actions and Open palm monks add utility to the offensive bonus actions. They have incredible movement speed and the ability to run on liquids or vertical surfaces at higher levels; built in slow fall just increases their movement options. And honestly deflect missiles is a fantastic reaction option for defense and offense. A monk using deflect missiles can catch a dwarven thrower and keep it or even throw it back at the thrower as a weapon as was ruled in the latest Sage Advice compendium.

Of course this is just my take on 5e monks, because they are vastly different than the monks from earlier editions. YMMV

If the polite suggestion does not work, I suggest you do a rude suggestion.

They are actually not, almost every class can access two attacks at lvl 1 all they have to do is offhand a proficient weapon most of which are a bigger damage die. Rogues for instance has a similar starting ac way more options for scaling ac early and does two attacks very easily at 1d6 now the monk gets to add stat bonus for free at lvl 1 however the rogue can easily take dual wielder to close this gap. Additionally every time the rogue sets up a sneak attack situation which only requires a suprise assault or one ally also threatening. they automatically get the same damage as an additional hit so theoretically an optimized lvl 1 thief has more attacks and more consistent damage than a lvl 3 monk. the monk has far less access to magical items in raw, they have to this point been in about 0 of the modules released by wizards of the monk hate. The dodge action as a bonus action only applies if you are spending KI which means you wont be flurrying which means all your damage calculations are incredibly inaccurate. multiclassing slows access to the very important lvl 5 power bump to 1d6 and the extra attack which they need to stay steady with fighter and barbarian WHILE SPENDING KI. while those two other classes with hulking HP pools access to damage reduction and magic on every slot of thier character do the same damage without spending resources.

I had a lvl 5 arcane archer fighter with burst shot do 102 ranged damage in a single round and everything he used besides a scroll came back on a short rest. only 1 crit, because flame arrows.

Tons of spell effects specifically target a weapon which you cannot do for a monk in raw, you can magic weapon the staff but the extra attacks are all non weapon attacks and don't gain the bonuses, while a warpriest that has the same amount of flurries with martial weapons at lvl 1 that a lvl 3 monk has can gain the benefit on all hits.

Yes DM's can bridge the gap, by throwing stats at the monk earlier, but by raw the cost of most monk ac buffing items are over 2000 gold in a system that doesnt hand out more than 100 gold for most quests under lvl 7.

5th edition doesn't really work that way though, the class is supposed to carry most of its own power your really only supposed to get about 3 magic items of any real power ..... any non monk can throw on platemail and not lose thier class abilities simply by being proficient, monk literally loses thier whole class for throwing padded armor on .... or a shield. Those two items dont need to be magical to outscale the monks entire build history from level 1 to 20. A level one fighter with platemail and a shield will have higher ac than a monk of tremendous level, beyond even the scope of this game. Thats a 22 at lvl one for another front liner that can stay pretty close on damage, or be equal if they drop to 20 only 4 points off your lvl 20 max for monk.

The underbalance of monk is almost as egregious as the underbalance of ranger.
what you are siting when you say "just multiclass into warlock" is actually "just multiclass into one of the best damage dealers in the game and basically be a warlock and more valuable as a warlock than several levels of monk provide. if you are a lvl 3 monk and lvl 1 warlock almost 50% of your damage comes from warlock ..... that shouldn't be the case.

as you parse your damage you are forgetting monks have a much harder time accessing hit adjusting effects, their fists gain nothing from most spells and abilities, they cannot gain benefit from fighter styles, they arent weapons just weapon attacks. they cannot penetrate any damage reduction until level 6 so while a fighter with a magic dagger can deal full damage you can only deal full damage with your first attack (the staff) all your unarmed damage is divided in half. they will miss more often and deal full damage far less than every class in the game besides them as well due to this.

there are countless interactions that nerf the monks damage that regular character types have absolutely no problem circumventing and getting full damage out.
Reassess your damage curve where a thief has 2 magic short swords and the monk has a magic staff against say ... a were rat. easily encounterable at lvl 3 (dragon of icespire peak does this).

" In the example above, a 6th level monk specialized shadow is a prime option for multi-classing into a rogue assassin. Assuming the game lets us hit 11 (and because they mentioned they were looking at raising the level cap above the earlier stated 10 I think we can feel safe in assuming that) A 6 shadow monk/5 rogue assassin has equal damage as an 11 rogue assassin all other things being equal ( 11 rogue sneak attack 1d8+6d6 + bonuses 6 monk/5 rogue sneak attack 1d6 + 3d6 + bonuses, 1d6 + bonuses, 1d6 + bonuses, and potentially 1d6 + bonuses for a total potential of 7d6 + (bonusesx4). Lets assume the rogue has a 20 dex and a +2 rapier for +7 damage and the monk has 18 dex and a +2 short sword for +6 damage. Rogue average damage will be 4.5 + 21 + 7 = 32.5 while the monk average will be 14 + 3.5 + 3.5 + 18 = 39 or 14 + 3.5 + 3.5 + 3.5 + 24 = 48.5 using a flurry of blows."

see just breaking this down number one a 6 shadow monk only has 1-2d6 sneak in my example, paired with rogue 5 is 2d6, so this character is already more of a rogue than not a rogue but the rogue 11 has a sneak attack of 5d6. All those extra attacks on flurry are martial arts attacks including the offhand one you don't get to use the sword for the offhand if you are flurrying it specifically states ALL the extra attacks are unarmed, so theres -10% chance to hit for all of them and -2 flat damage the rogue hands down destroys in that example. The monk HAS TO SUCCESSFULLY hit all attacks, any single one hit for the rogue puts them way ahead in damage if it qualifies as a sneak attack and sneak attack is FREE, it has no resource to depend on like monk flurry does. after the the 6th round the rogue keeps going with an endless supply in the tank and you drop off. So your example actually perfectly highlights my point. SPENDING resources you are less than a dpt using a free ability. if the rogue hits one time and triggers sneak attack he gets 5 extra hits the monk only get 3-4, if the first hit for both doesnt hit, the rogue continues to have a higher chance to trigger sneak attack due to the higher accuracy of attacking with a magic weapon, and a higher DPH.

Dueling style by raw does not provide any benefit to monk they specifically nerfed all fighting style bonuses. your fist is not a "weapon" it can only perform weapon attacks by raw.
Dipping fighter for one fighting style is hardly a hinderance to rogue.

There is a lot going on here so I'll just go post by post. In the first post, the dual wielder talent does not provide stat bonus damage to an offhand weapon, only a fighting style does that. That talent is required to dual wield anything other than 2 light weapons however. But your point stands on the bonus attack feature, so pretty much any class can do it, but without the fighting style they lose the stat bonus to damage.

\Monks have basically no access to armor or shield magic items, but they can use any simple magic weapons or magical short swords without sacrificing any of their abilities, so I'm not sure what scaling you're talking about. If it's magic, well that is the person that creates the campaign. My group doesn't use a lot of published adventures but if I remember right the only magical item that rogues can use and monks can't in Lost Mines is a +1 long sword. I also recall that adventure having a ring of protection which monks can use. But it just serves to highlight that the ball is in Larian's hands how they stock the dungeon.

With flurry, yes you won't be using flurry of blows all the time, but you still can use your bonus action to make 1 unarmed attack if you use the attack action, so you reliably have the option for 3 attacks a round from 5th level every round. And the fact that you can regain all your ki points on a short rest means you are far less restricted in how you spend your ki, particularly in a hard fight.

As far as weapon enchants, most only affect the a targeted weapon so you don't gain the benefit on a dual wield attack. But yeah, divine favor and crusader's mantle require a weapon so you only get the benefit on your attacks made with a monk weapon.

As far as gold goes, it really is going to be up to Larian if they are going to provide a shop that sells magic items, but in the few published modules my group has played, there were no places to buy magical items. If you go by AL rules, well you are limited to scrolls and potions for the most part. So again I'm not sure how this benefits rogues or monks.

A first level fighter will generally not have plate armor, it's 1,500gp for a set in the PHB. Plate armor provides 18 AC, a shield provides +2 AC so a fighter wearing non-magical plate and shield will have an AC of 20. And yes, that is pretty much max level for a monk, but monks aren't supposed to be front line fighters in the same way as fighters, paladins, and barbarians. Monks are far more analogous to rogues and rangers in that sense.

As far as magic items, monks really don't need any magic items to do well, but can benefit from a ton of them. And it really depends on the campaign you are playing, the low magic campaigns I've played in made monks extremely valuable, but they performed very well in high magic campaigns as well.

With the monk/rogue example you are right that I added the magical bonus of a +2 short sword to the bonus attacks, so a non-flurry attack chain would average 37 damage and a flurry attack chain would average 44.5. And I didn't include the option for the rogue to make a dual wield attack which would add an average of 3.5 for 37 damage and it could go a bit higher if the off-hand weapon is magic. But the point is to show that these classes have synergy and that the damage output is similar, but they offer very playstyles. And while you are correct in that the monk has more attack rolls so more chances of failure to hit, the monk also has more chances to land a sneak attack and the monk/rogue can use stunning strike to gain advantage to all attacks on a stunned enemy so in that way the monk has options that straight rogues don't in that they can engage in one on one combat and still utilize sneak attack. Again the point of the matter is monks have a lot of synergy. None of their abilities require unarmed attacks, but the bonus action attacks are always unarmed.

Honestly I don't see monks as having the problems that you are suggesting unless you are trying to shoehorn them into an always unarmed attack mode which is not monk RAW or RAI. I think they have synergies with multiple classes making them good multi-class options with the exception of the MAD nature of monks. But ultimately this is only my opinion, and YMMV.

I do want to add one thing that the monk 6/ rogue 5 brings to the table and that is shadow step, a bonus action teleport in dim light or darkness that makes the first attack after the teleport advantage. Doesn't cost chi, and the only limitation is a bonus action so once per round. Combine that with stunning strikes and the monk combo can create its own advantage on attacks in a way that rogues can't, and shadow step can also be used defensively after an attack in dim light to teleport up to 60' away with no chance of an attack of opportunity. A 6th level monk base movement of 45'(40' small size/50 wood elf) a round and you have a class that in dim light or darkness can move 105' (100'/110') without using an action or 150' (145'/155') using the dash action, again burning no resources other than actions/bonus actions to do so. Shadow arts allows for pass with out a trace and the with the rogue levels you can use expertise on stealth make you insanely hard to spot when you are sneaking making you an ambush master, which is why you take the assassin subclass from rogue and become a ninja. Wood elf is pretty much a perfect pick for this because you get increased base movement, dark vision, and mask of the wild for even more stealth. Halfling would also be a fantastic pick with +2 dex, lucky and the ability to hide standing behind taller people, but the loss of dark vision could be less than optimal depending on how Larian deals with short rests (if it's like table top then it is no problem, just cast dark vision before a short rest and it lasts 8 hours and you get your chi back after the rest). Like I said it is all trade offs, but I personally feel that the gains more than offset the losses depending on how Larian sets up the environment.

Last thing, dueling fighting style still applies to monk weapons, including a short sword which also has the finesse property. So a dip of 2 in fighter is legit for a monk that wants a small damage boost to your monk weapon attacks, a small heal, and action surge. Or a monk could legit dip Paladin 2 to pick up Lay on Hands, dueling fighting style, and divine smite for an extra bit of burst potential.

When doing the level 6 shadow monk into Rogue though, you are meant to lose all the non rogue levels worth of Assassination die, so you can't do that and go around assassinating everything as a trade off. What it does do is stack all the melee features - sneak damage die, apply poison, doublestrike from rogue and faster attacks, movement and slowfall from monk. It makes for one of the most powerful and fastest unarmoured melee specs, but highly glass cannon, as you have to focus on keeping dodge, AC and incorporeal (Ninja Spy in DDO gives 30s Improved invis and lesser displacement with 60s down time), so a lot of times you are almost invulnerable for 30s then need to back out until Shadow Fade recharges. But then when they introduced Reaper difficulty into DDO, all pyjama melee builds became invalid at higher levels. As soon as the dodge / block / incorp / save stacking failed you died, and it was very difficult to heal 1-2 hit kills vs fighter type classes being to take at least 4 hits before dying. That was also a game thst was adapted to real time combat so it would be very different balance wise to turn based, so in this game you would have a chance to always heal if you could at least survive one hit.

It also depends on how many levels we will have, so with DDOs 3.5 ruleset you had 20 class levels then 10 epic levels which were separate. Adding on 4 paladin levels gave loads more unarmoured defenses from Aura of Grace, but that needed the full 20 levels to manage for a 4 / 6 / 10 split.

The build was also very sat heavy as you could only dump Str - 16+ Dex was needed for AC and Weapon Finessed shortswords, 14 con to still have some HP, 14 int for skill points and trap skills DC, 14 Wis ffor monk AC, 14 CHA for Aura of Grace and social skills. Then the more you could pump DEX, WIS and CHA through tomes and gear, the more 'invincible' you got until trying the end game reaper difficulty. But when properly geared you could just blitz through the entire game on the regular difficulties.

Oh I forgot I had a video of the build, and yes I totally only made it just for hitting as fast as possible with pudding summoning swords:



This was before I added the Paladin levels, it was 7 monk / 13 rogue before, then I made it even more tankier with 4 paladin.

'BLURRY, DODGE, BLOCK, SAVE, INCORP, BLURRY, DODGE, BLOCK, SAVE, SAVE, SAVE' Is usually how its meant to be. And halfling with healing dragonmark and more sneak hit bonuses. Sneak hit bonuses from Halfling, Ninja Spy, and Halfling trees and using a deception item lets you apply sneak damage while soloing. The healer hireling just make it so I don't have to bother self healing, and the figurine summons distract stuff. It got traps, locks and all social skills plus UMD jump and heal too, but at the expense of never having enough rogue levels to successfully assassinate anything. Another drawback was needing to use up regular feat slots including one epic feat slot to take the advanced monk stance feats as you dont get them for free with only 6 monk levels.

Oh one time I remember I joined a raid and we only had 1 healer and it needed two, not even any bards were online. So I told everyone I would pop heal scrolls with my UMD and it worked with very few deaths (the dragonmark was very limited without scrolls as well).

After adding the 4 paladin levels I could also pop some lay on hands and cure light wounds on top of the few dragonmark heals, but never enough to be a primary healer - usually a much better idea to heal the healer when playing with others or ofc use them for myself when soloing. The healing dragonmark gave access to 4 heals per rest and loads of lighter cure spells, and also unlocks the halflings 'Positive energy leeches' skill which gave a restoration over time effect. Things which can also be used from scrolls & UMD, but without having to take my weapons off.

right but all the flurry attacks are still restricted to martial arts. a flurrying monk at top level doesn't really attack much more than a fighter and all thier extra attacks are martial arts. if you want to flurry or martial arts you cannot use the offhand weapon attack they are mutually exclusive so speccing into fighter for the same damage dice does nothing but let you lose potential attack numbers for a more accurate 2 attack turn. which is still really low damage.

in regards to the shadow step it also prevents martial arts and flurry of blows because those are also bonus actions.

you just keep stringing bonus actions together like they can all be used at once. they cannot. dipping into paladin is basically a weaker version of speccing into rogue, smite uses your bonus action so you are using up your extra attacks to hit as hard as you would have if you didnt. Its also a limited resource, much like Ki. It also doesnt help you in ranged combat very much. a place the monk is incredibly weak in raw PHB. lazer monk mitigates this some but its not in the scope of this game.

Level wise they are very clearly talking in the 10-12 range.

"advantage a rogue can't" ove half your build is rogue .... way of the shadow is a rogue monk hybrid you are quoteing a 3/4 thf as being able to do things thiefs cant .... swashbuckler and samurai can get all these effects for 3 level dips. just no.,

Oh it depends on the individual game and how they implement the rules, not strictly however it works in PnP.

In DDO, 2 levels of paladin gives you Aura of Grace, and immediately adds your CHA modifier to Saves. At 4 levels you gain and can Specialize up to to the second to top tier of the Sacred Defender tree, so you can add extra saves, AC, increase dodge cap, physical and magical reduction and all that. And it stacks with all other bonuses from the Monk and Rogue levels, see here for reference https://ddowiki.com/page/Sacred_Defender_enhancements

This isn't necessarily something that is going to work in 5.0, PnP, or BG3, just like the multiclassing options from earlier BG games or NWN1+2 are going to be entirely different too.

So the multiclass I used when I last playe a monk class in any DDO game was Sacred Defender plus Ninja Spy and actually very little from the Rogue levels other than getting the sneak damage levels and Opportunist at 10 levels. The Rogue levels could very easily be changed to figher ones, but you would lose most of your skills as well.

DDO is not 5th edition so theres no real reason to qoute it. 3rd edition mechanics and 5th edition mechanics are not really compatible. 3rd edition was much more about character customization and on a much higher power level on the whole.

and yes actually it does matter because wizards will pressure them to use raw as much as possible.

I forgot to mention barbarian using reckless attack to force advantage. with the added hp and rage to protect the rogue from dying.

We arent talking about what all kinds of DM's will do, we are talking about Larian and what they will do with a very weak RAW class. they are doing work on ranger and im excited to see it. im just hoping that how bad ranger is doesn't hide monks poor design as well.

Multiclassing in 5th edition is actually looking very crap to me. It was my favourite part of both NWN games and DDO.