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.
Hey! In all honesty, I might just stuck with the classical 5e rules to spice up my playthrough. I like challenge and restrictions, they make the pay off so much more satisfying. Yet I am happy to have started this build discussion in the first place, because FrostyFardragon, Warlocke and others convinced me to at least think about my survivability. It is no fun when you die every 30 minutes! I think my second run will be with optional rules enabled though, just to get a taste.
If you'd care for my 5 cents, I think their concerns are largely overblown and too latched onto 5E tabletop. BG3 is anything but 5E and if you play on normal, which is probably what EA is based on, the game difficulty is going to be a cakewalk because the way power curves work in too open-ended games means they get easier not harder and EA was already hella easy.
There are also a ridiculous number of ways to abuse BG3 mechanics, even by accident just playing normally, that aren't in 5E and itemization is also very different, plus Larian is homebrewing monks on top of all that. Unless you enjoy combat becoming a tedious chore instead of being challenging, a non-optimal party might actually be the best option. Obviously, we'll have to see how hardcore more is if you're planning on that, but I mean there are some lazy builds that could probably solo EA.
Having even one of those in a group of 4 will probably trivialize the game. I do agree str really doesn't work on monks even when trying to build for fun the way it might on say a ranger, but I would trust in Larian making monk a funner and better-supported experience than WoTC ever did, especially since it's the final class and thus spent the most time in development. And unless they go back and patch in more class reactivity on release, the ones that came later have increasingly more options when it comes to dialogue, so there should be quite a few of them for monk.
