Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Thoughts on monk stats?

Right... I keep forgetting about these requirements. That's actually terrible then, forget I said anything

How about keeping the Medium Armor and 17/14/14/8/12/8?

This gives at least decent DEX saves and better Stealth though your Stunning Strike DC would be terrible.

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.

Martial Arts

At 1st level, your practice of martial arts gives you mastery of combat styles that use unarmed strikes and monk weapons, which are shortswords and any simple melee weapons that don't have the two-handed or heavy property.

You gain the following benefits while you are unarmed or wielding only monk weapons and you aren't wearing armor or wielding a shield:

You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons.

You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table.

When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action.

Flurry of Blows is allowed but no BA unarmed strike.

If you ware wearing armour you can't make a monk unarmed strike.

Ah, my bad. Retracted. I was focusing too much on the monk weapon requirement.

I still don't think the build is terrible as it looks like you can still use Ki features(?) - Dodge/Disengage/Dash- for you bonus action, as well as use any other Larian-created bonus actions. Also, as has been said, you have the option to flurry of blows for 1+str mod damage, though that little damage might not be worth it...

Yeah, as a primary damaging ability it seems to be bad, but it can always kick in when you need to finish someone or something with low HP - 12 damage if both hits connect is still damage. Thanks for tuning in mrfuji3, my confidence levels in my ability to operate this build went from 99% to 100%

I am thinking about heavy armor and 17/8/15/9/14/8. The thing with medium armor and githyanki is that 14 DEX is still a 7 point investment into a stat. In my experience with stupid builds, adequately spraying into 4 attributes is impossible, thats why you need to limit the core to 3 or even 2 if possible. STR is a staple because of the racial mod. The only stats that can be 'cheated out' of the formula are CON and DEX - the first one can be substituted with Tough feat which equals 7 points in CON during the character creation (in terms of HP, STs will be sh** still) and the second one can be bypassed by heavily armored feat.

Absolutely not.
You don't wear armor and you don't use shields.
Despite all of this you are going to be in the thick of combat.
WIS and CON keep you alive by providing you HP and AC.
DEX keeps you alive be providing you AC and damage.

I would not make a meelee character below 14 CON, but 14 CON is really not good, 16 is where it starts getting good.
10 or 12 CON is only acceptable for characters who very rarely enter meelee.
Monks also don't get many HP point on lvl up, so keep that in mind too. You need CON.

As someone who has played D&D for 40 yrs, I have to agree with what the others are telling you.

Although you are more than welcome to play whatever you wish, in whatever fashion you wish, a STR based Monk using Standard Array Ability Scores or point buy (the systems BG3 is using) is at a severe disadvantage. Same with wearing armor as a monk.

You get more bang for your buck by maximizing DEX (affects to hit bonus, damage bonus, most common save, most commonly used combat and combat adjacent skills, and AC).

By wearing armor, it is like walking away leaving free money left behind on the table. By wearing armor you are giving up a class benefit of unarmored defense, while not really gaining anything in return. Wearing armor heavy enough to get a higher AC than unarmored defense of a DEX monk, means gaining disadvantage on stealth, etc.

If you want an armored fighter that fights with their fists, play a fighter and take Tavern Brawler - but a dex based monk is still better. It's like putting a trailer hitch onto a ferrari and trying to pull a 30' trailer. Can you? Yes, but why would you? If you want to pull a heavy load buy a truck, a ferrari isn't made for it. Again, can you... yes, but you're not playing to your strengths.

As a monk you want to maximize DEX, then put your next 2 highest scores into WIS and CON. This not only helps your AC, but also helps with HP (if you are going to be in melee range, you need to be able to take a hit, and as others have pointed out, the game likes to pick on low AC and low HP characters first).

Patient Defense + DEX build makes you very hard to hit, gives you excellent damage output, good skill check scores, a good dex save. It plays to your strengths.

There's nothing wrong with a STR build monk, as long as you are doing a manual roll for ability scores (and get lucky with a lot of high rolls), but with standard array or point buy system means you need to prioritize 3 scores... DEX, then WIS and CON. You can roleplay it anyway you want, but those three scores are a must.

True by 5e rules, but we have yet to see the larian take.

Thanks for your advice, I'll definitely consider it. I can't say I completely agree with 'gaining no benefit in return' part, because there are some and I've mentioned them before, like better jumps, better shoves, better throws, also isn't it cool to play as a fully armored shadow monk that is extremely mobile even with a full plate and can tank sh** with ease even if he gets hit? Shadow step is the thing I am mostly excited about, because BG3 has soooo many obscured areas it is insane. I'd consider multiclassing but shadow step is so deep into the monk tree therefore I'd like to go pure monk.

I am also considering a 17/13/12/9/14/10 setup and then going:

- ASI +1 STR and +1 DEX at level 4
- Tough at level 8
- ASI +2 STR at level 12

This allows to have max AC while wearing medium armor which is also less likely to block off stealth and also this setup is less bad with Missile Deflection and Evasion.

It’s already implemented in the game. Barbarian and draconic sorcerer also have unarmored defense.

Nothing like as good as an Open Hand monk with a high wisdom.

Nothing like as mobile as an unarmored monk with +3m speed, increasing to +6m by level 10 (also stacks with Wood Elf).


No, because your hp suck.



That's assuming Larian don't simply code armor to turn off ALL monk abilities. Try Misty Step, available to EKs and gish wizards. Guarantied to still work in armour.

Wait, haven't you yourself told me that 16 CON is good? And 12 CON + tough is the exact equivalent of that in terms of HP.

Also, your examples are also cool, but why would you put them on the table as an opposition to mine? I am not doubting that monks are fun, but as I've said before I am looking for a Githyanki monk, the only way I can achieve high DEX and WIS is at the expanse of CON.

Let's say I start 12/15/14/9/15/8, then go:

- ASI +1 DEX and +1 WIS at level 4
- ASI +2 DEX at level 8
- ASI +2 DEX at level 12

This leaves me at 12/20/14/9/16/8, this is 18 AC and the full monk kit. HP will be low and AC not high enough to support that HP, I'll often have to rely on ki defensively if I want to remain in the fray of the battle, which means less damage. However I'll have much better missile deflection and Evasion. The damage will be just slightly lower if we don't include the flurry of blows in the formula - 4d6+STRx2 with an Extra Attack and a Greatsword and 3d8+DEXx3 with Extra Attack and unarmed strike for MA. However action economy is better in the first scenario which only uses an action. And AC with an uncommon full plate will be higher, as well as I'll have better CON. I think my idea is not as bad, not as bad as you are trying to tell at least. It is clear that traditional githyanki monk is better in some things, but I can see the benefits of my idea as well. Remember, I am playing a race with the racial +2 STR and +1 INT after all.

I think it is worth considering Flurry of Blows, though. 4d8 + 20 is a big step up from 4d6 + 10. The loss of stunning strike is also significant, as that is a major class feature and ability to not only attack, but to strike reliably with advantage is a big draw for monks, aside from the obvious benefit of just straight nullifying a powerful enemy.

When considering AC, it should also be factored in that bracers of defense are a no brainer and practically standard issue on monks, so your actual AC would be 20+.

That said, you can do what you want. This will work, sure, but you are pretty much turning your monk into a worse Eldritch Knight.

If you are worried about attributes though, are you opposed to just rolling your stats? It’s been stated several times that this feature will be in the final game.

You are right, if Larian won't be homebrewing items too much and include some staples - then this can fix AC just fine. Speaking of items, I bet there will also be more magical Greatswords and Armors in the final game which can spike the power of an armored STR monk as well.


If the option is present, I'll very likely go for it.
There was no confirmation yet, I am looking forwards to the PFH for getting this info.

Monks have low hp (for a front line melee character) out the box, and by wearing armour you are sacrificing the mobility monks use to avoid being hit. You need tough AS WELL.

You can have 15s in DEX, WIS and CON, which is the least bad choice available to Gith. Monks are far more dependant on ability scores than other classes, which is why it's important to look for racial boosts. Frankly, they are underpowered if you don't use rolled stats and roll well.

But you will never know if monks are fun, because you are not using the class defining monk abilities. It's like playing a wizard without casting spells or a rogue who never uses sneak attack.

There will also be magical weapons for monks too, though. A monk with a quarterstaff + 3 is doing 4d8 +26 for their flurries as opposed to 4d6 +16 with a greatsword +3.

But there is no need to belabor the point. Despite pointing out the flaws in this build, I’m actually all for oddball, unoptimized characters. From the “what character will you build” thread I made, it’s pretty clear lots of people are planning out multi-class characters that will be less effective than just a single class character. In spirit, this really isn’t any different. Also, the idea of a shadow monk (basically a ninja) who just strides out of the shadows fully armored and stands his ground is pretty amusing, at least.

Whatever you choose, I hope you enjoy your Gith-fu warrior.

Tasha's stat selection rules seemingly look to have made it in the game based on latest screenshots and tiktok videos, maybe in place or in addition of stat rolling, so technically speaking any race should work for any class if you don't mind leaving minor optimization on the table.

If they do dedicated weapon rules, you could also use more than just quarterstaff or spears, you can use battleaxes and longswords too, you'll just need to get the proficiency yourself like how woold elves get longsword.