Originally Posted by neprostoman
I could live with it in a single player run, where I don't imperil my party laugh

BTW, wouldn't high STR partially substitute for the unarmed strikes used in the flurry of blows? If I remember correctly, your base unarmed damage is 1+STR and it works same in BG3 I think. That means the damage will be flat 6 by level 12 which is fine when compared to d10 dice the usual monks get.
[...]
What I am planning is:
- Set initial stats as 17 (STR), 8 (DEX), 15 (CON), 12 (INT), 12 (WIS), 10 (CHA) after the racial bonus applies
- Take Heavily Armored at level 4, boosting STR to 18 and solving the AC problem
- Take Heavy Armor Master at level 8, boosting STR to 19
- Take ASI at level 12, boosting STR to 20 and CON to 16
STR can be used for monks' unarmed strikes. You'd do the full 1d4+STR, with increasing die sizes at higher levels. At least, according to 5e rules...
If you're using a monk weapon, you should be able to use the Bonus Action unarmed strike (and flurry of blows) even if you're wielding a shield in the other hand. RAW, unarmed strikes can be kicks, headbutts, knee'ing, etc. (Did Larian implement is this way? Probably not.)

~Nothing else in the Monk or Way of Shadow subclass depends on Dex or using monk weapons, except for I suppose Evasion which would be more effective with higher Dex.

Your monk save DC would be low because of the 12 wisdom, so your Stunning Strikes would be ~ineffective. And of course you don't get the Unarmored Movement, but you've mentioned that already.

I wouldn't personally recommend this build, but it's not terrible. You just might die a lot before getting to level 4, with your ~13AC.

Last edited by mrfuji3; 04/07/23 03:54 PM. Reason: retracted because incorrect