Don’t need a shortsword that deals bonus damage against undead when your monk gets 10 attacks per turn dealing 35 - 45 damage per hit and almost never missing.
My party for most of the game is:
Tav 1: Storm Sorcerer
Tav 2: Open Hand Monk / Thief Rogue / Spore Druid
Karlach: Battlemaster Fighter / Wildheart Barbarian
Wyll: Devotion Paladin / Fiend Warlock / Fighter
With the exception of the sorcerer, everybody is kitted out for melee. Everyone just focuses on damage (though Karlach is more of a tank, still hits hard because she can smite when not raging). No healing, no crowd control, just raw DPS. They steamroll everything without any trouble.
That's a very powerful combination indeed.
However, my point is that a single class Fighter Battlemaster with Sharpshooter will match that damage output AND can spread the damage to several targets and adapt to enemy vulnerabilities with special arrows. So I find ranged combat more straightforward to achieving a similar outcome. More boring perhaps, but just hit level up and pick the obvious ranged combat perks and you won't have to think about much else.
