Larian Studios

Good Day All,

Long time D&D guy; still have my original red d20 from the OG Basic Box…tho it’s pretty close to round now.
I started with the classic elf ftr/wiz and have always enjoyed having at least some toe-to-toe capability supplemented by big boosts, bursts and/or booms. Of course I played through and loved the BG2. Stoked to see what BG3 can be!
And Monk is an option you don’t always see.

My main ? is How Close to the 5e class rules are we? I totally get that the entire catalog of rules can’t be programmed; but does class advancement follow reasonably close to this: https://www.5esrd.com/database/class/monk/

For example, IF I take a 5th level of Monk will the unarmed damage die increase? Does Stunning Fist get added to his Ki abilities? It sounds like the ASI only happens per class, so 4 levels seems prudent since I like the 4E Subclass Ki ‘spells’ alongside the sorcerer’s. Or I guess I could go Monk3/Sor9 and add 5th level spell access to the full 12 plan…

I’m thinking Monk 1 then Sor 1 for the armor & hp bonus from the draconic source…and the ultimate versatility early.
And, also to open up more dialogue opportunities. Half-Wood Elf for the +5 move, +4 abilities & Stealth w/ Athletics & Acrobatics from monk. Monk 2 at 3rd for the move speed & Ki abilities; maybe at 4th too to open up the 4-Elements. But probably every other for a few levels.

Character Role: Flanker/Artillery/Scout
Sneak around and look ahead with Step of Wind to get away if needed, the physical attack/defense to survive some surprise face to face, and the spells to whittle down enemies from out of range whilst the rest of party does their thing.

Whatcha Think?

PS. I do understand that I am likely playing a slightly weaker character at higher levels by not reaching the tops of the classes and am totally down with the strategic challenges.

PSS. My current PC hits the minimum requirements but definitely not the suggested...Do you think this will be a major issue?



Thanks & Cheers!! -MV

Here's a link to the classes section of the bg3 wiki. It has all of the classes and what they get at the various levels. I believe it's close to 5e, but not always exact. There are some changes, to my understanding. I've played plenty of bg3, but never 5e tabletop.

https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Classes

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I like the idea of a monk/sorcerer, but personally, I haven't found a build I particularly like yet. The attributes end up getting spread a bit too thin for my liking. It needs dex and wis and cha, and I never want to let my con go too low...

There are, of course, items in the game that can help with this. For instance, you can find gloves that can increase a stat. But I've never been one to build a character off of gear I knew I'd be able to eventually find.

The game also allows you to respec your character for a very small cost. So, theoretically, you could always wait till you get the good gear to bump your stats, then respec to switch around your point spread. Plenty of folks do this from what I've seen, although, again, it's just not my playstyle. I can't imagine respeccing my character midway through the game without some huge story driven reason why. But all the same, it works for some folks.

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To my understanding, the draconic armor and the monk's unarmored defense do not stack. It's one or the other for the character, so that's worth considering.

You'd probably be better off as a Dragonborn Monk - Way of the Four Elements. Dragonborn gets a dragonbreath attack and resistance depending on the type. Way of the Four Elements gets you some magic like abilities based off ki.

I agree with JandK. You'd be spread too thin and in my opinion you would be weak. There's some monk gear scattered throughout the game to help build yourself. I'm sure you would want to go bare fisted tho I'd advise against it, you will always do more damage with weapons. I personally suggest dual wielding short swords or sickles as a monk.

If you are dead set on multi classing a monk, I suggest going as high as lvl 8, lvl 7 you get evasion and lvl 8 would be your second feat. Monks can apply their DEX and WIS modifier to their AC, if anything You'd be better off multi classing to a cleric or rogue. Druid too I suppose.

For cleric, I'd go War cleric for extra attack
For Rogue I'd go either thief or assassin, thief gets two bonus actions which would mix well with monk
For druid I go for anything with Misty Step for obvious reasons.

Ahh-Ha!! I've been trying to find a more reliable source for the BG3 info and kept coming up with all of the silly Spam pile gamer threads instead.
THANK YOU very much for sharing!!

Yeah, I was thinking of evening out with as many 14s as I can muster...STR comes in handy too, even if dex being higher can be swapped for monks attack & damage. Then boost the most important: DEX & CHR w Race bonus & ASIs

Good & Interesting Point on the AC stack or not. It does not specifically call out Natural Armor as not stacking tho it does mention Mage Armor & a barbarian ability. Hmmm, one of the main reasons to boost WIS IMHO...

I am with you on the respec idea; just sounds odd. I guess maybe in this case I could explain it away in my own head as he starts out just a monk but the Ki leads him to find the wellspring of magick buried inside...

I am more of a table top guy and my once in a while D&D crew went the Pathfinder route when WotC did away with 3.5. As a character build detail nerd I enjoy the complexities & stack potential...and having the plan for growth.

But my schedule not syncing with most of those people means I'm very, very much looking forward to the single player version of BG3. And I think its going to be fun having the monk running amok with his 45 regular speed; in & out of combat swiftly AND blasting some spells off...I just can't seem to get enough Fireball in my life!?!! No, not that rot-gut stuff; I drink Real Whiskey

Dragonborn is definitely a cool option. I'm thinking maybe my second character would be a full cleric of tempest (only I might think Thor instead)...maybe dragonborn Gold for fire & lightning resist & attack
Maybe that character would be who I try to get some of my friends together for a team play through...

Evasion. YES. Always a very good ability. I did see one article claiming that a rogue/monk multi build was one of the most deadly & most fun...
I will have to read up more on rogue at some point

Thanks for the input!! Cheers!

If you want Thor, then sorcerer 5/ cleric 6/ wizzard 1 is the way to go or just 6 sorcerer/ 6 tempest cleric will do it.

You will have the heavy shiny Thor armor, deal massive damage with quickened spell create water + call lightning/ chain lighting which with tempest will deal max damage .

For monk there is zero point going war cleric as someone suggested as the extra attack you will get from war cleric costs a bonus action and a monk can already do an extra attack as a bonus action by default . Also much better to spend the bonus action on fists of fury.

You will be much better off as Open hand monk 8 and then 4 levels thief rogue for the 3rd feat and extra bonus attack.

This way you can get Tavern brawler + Alert + Ability points to max your strength and will be able to deal 2 normal strikes plus 2 double fists of fury with the bonus actions for 6 attacks a turn. With haste that’s 8 attacks and with Alert you will always go first so you can stun your enemies as well.

Yeah I actually forgot about the monk extra attack, haven't played a monk in awhile. But the more I look in to it, the more I see why you'd wanna go monk/sorc. Here is how I would play it. The only thing I'm conflicted with is either go open hand or elements with monk. Picker's choice I guess.

I would go as black dragonborn, kill Karlach for Infernal Robe from Mazora and have cold ancestry, it can be whatever ancestry you want, I'm just saying. That would be poison, fire, and cold resistance all at once. It looks pretty interesting.

Level 8 Monk, Level 4 Sorcerer

Stats
STR= 8 + (+2 Stat Potion)
DEX= 16 + (+4 Ability Improvement)
CON= 16
INT= 8
WIS= 15 + (+1 Hag Hair)
CHA= 10

Feats
Ability Improvement (+2 Dex)
Warcaster
Ability Improvement (+2 Dex)

Class
Sorcerer - Draconic Bloodline
Draconic Ancestry: (Choose Resistance)
Metamagic: Distant Spell
Metamagic: Extended Spell
Metamagic: Quickened Spell

Cantrips
Blade Ward
Ray of Frost
Fire Bolt
Shocking Grasp
Friends

Spells
Shield
Blur
Misty Step
Enlarge/Reduce
Mirror Image

I don't tend to favor sorcerer builds with low charisma, but I can see value in this approach.

I think I'd change the cantrips and the warcaster feat.

The low charisma is going to make the ray of frost and shocking grasp cantrips too weak to bother with. (Normally, I consider both of those to be S tier, but not here.) Firebolt could still be useful for exploding flameable items, smokepowder, surfaces, barrels, etc. As such, I'd replace ray of frost and shocking grasp with something more utility in nature, considering mage hand and minor illusion, perhaps.

The warcaster feat doesn't seem especially necessary. There's just enough concentration spells in the arsenal to warrant the expenditure of a feat. Instead, something like Alert would go a lot further, imo.

A part of me is questioning the metamagic choices, but with the abundance of scrolls, I suppose there'd be ample opportunity to use them.

Actually I don't think you use your Spell modifier on cantrips, not without using a special amulet for it. Keep in mind "ray of frost" can hinder movement on a target creature. But anyway, it's all debatable isn't it? I must admit shocking grasp could go. I haven't tested this build in combat yet, but I did workshop it on an existing save with a respec to see how it would come together.

The metamagic comes with the sorc class, Distant Spell for Misty Step, extended Spell for spells with duration in a long fight if needed, and Quickened Spell turns a spell into an extra action. I didn't see much use for the other metamagics with a build like this.

Anyway it could be fun.

P.S. I would like to see what you guys would pick. I've actually become interested in the topic.

I also wanted to add if I was to replace warcaster feat, I'd probably just go for another 2 points into wisdom for another point in AC and perception checks.

The modifier is used on attack rolls for ray of frost, shocking grasp, firebolt, and bone chill. It's used for save dc in regards to poison spray and acid splash.


It is an interesting combination. If I get a chance, I might play with a build myself and post it here. Just my two cents.

https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Necklace_of_Elemental_Augmentation

This is the necklace I speak of. It allows the wearer to add their spell modifier to elemental cantrips. This is why it leads me to believe you originally don't add your Spell modifier to them. Also when I respec'ed a lvl 12 for all this, the cantrips show good damage up to 20+ damage. This is with low charisma too.


I appreciate your thoughts and would love to see what you'd come up with.

Oh, I meant the attack roll modifier, not for damage. I was just talking about the "to hit" chance.

Oh I see, that is a good point. Only way of finding out if it's worth going for or not with those cantrips would be testing it. In which, I'm about to start a new character just for this. See how it goes.

I just learned that you won't get the draconic resistance without being a lvl 6 Sorcerer. No exceptions.

Edit: Also Elemental Affinity: Resistance only kicks in if you cast a damaging spell. So.. There are 2 ways to go about this. Either respec later and build towards Charisma, sacrifice Dexterity, then make up for it with Gloves of Dexterity, miss out on getting evasion and an extra feat (bad choice imo) or forget about the resistance and be happy with the AC base that Draconic Resilience gives and only go up to lvl 4 Sorcerer.

This could still be a good combo just for the tools in making your character near impossible to hit.

After further workshopping, this is what I came up with that I plan on working toward as I progress and I'm sure everyone will play it a bit differently.

Damage cantrips have a good hit chance so far, still gotta test it on more tanky subjects. But seems viable.

Starting class is your save proficiency in which I started with Monk. It's not much different than what I already posted but more detailed and with some minor tweaks.

Monk/Draconic

A Fun Discussion on a FUN character build, eh!?! Thanks! Here's what I'm thinking so far...I have not even purchased the game yet. Tiny bit worried that my 5-ish year old rig hits all the minimum system reqs but barely; i.e. Not Suggested.

SKILLS: Urchin = Stealth & Sleight of Hand (traps & locks!); Monk = Insight & Athletics; Wood Elf = Perception & Stealth (*can I sub?*)
(*also, are Acrobatics & Athletics really exact same Use?? Doesn’t Athletics help with Jump? Acrobatics for avoiding AoOs?? I wanted Acro over Insight...*)

STR 12
DEX 16 14+2 creation
CON 10
WIS 14 13+1 creation
INT 10
CHR 14

So I am also thinking Monk first and then probably split to Sorcerer at 2nd & possibly follow a 1 for 1 progression at least up to Monk3/Sor3…but leaving a bit of the order up to circumstance should the game push me in one way or the other.

Wood Elf for the speed boost, Longbow, Darkvision & Perception. I think this character will be fun early with the increased movement helping to minimize the toe-to-toe danger while hurling lots of Firebolts at range. As far as I can tell:
AC 18 = Draconic 3 + 3 Dex + 2 Wis; And hopefully the Draconic Resistance also helps offset the HP from low CON.
DEX is easily the best ability to have +3 to attack, damage, initiative, AC, Reflex? & ranged attacks…or spells will be CHR, huh?

My higher level assumption was that most comments would suggest ALL the spellcaster levels for the more powerful spell access; But you guys seem to be way more into the Monk abilities. I am thinking 4 or 5 levels of Monk & the rest Sorcerer.
Need the ASI to CHR at 4th…which would probably be 4/3 total of 7. Monk 5 for Stun & extra attack is probably worth missing out on that last Feat/ASI from hitting Sor8…

Thought I read somewhere that the cantrips level by character level/not class…so, can still eventually get that unlimited all day Firebolt up to 3d10+3, no??

I also assume that there will be bosses who are resistant to fire & bludgeoning and will therefore require other elemental access like Chromatic Orb, likely Lightning Bolt, Ice Storm etc. I also enjoy how the few extra Ki tricks of the 4-Elements can be cast whilst silenced and expand options in certain situations: specifically the push attack that can knock enemies prone & 20’ away. Similar to the first Shout in Skyrim, eh?

PS: Saw you had Mirror Image on your list…a long time favorite to be sure!! And done so spookily in Conan!
Have you ever seen it paired with Blink?? Can stretch the bleeeeps out of your Images

My thoughts

My idea was, let Monk do the damage, close, medium, and long range and let Sorcerer be your buffs.

Edit: Also I went with Asmodeus Tiefling in this Monk/Sorc playthrough. I get fire resistance, movement speed (9m), Darkvision (12m), Darkness Spell, and Infernal Rebuke. Tieflings in general is great for Charisma based classes btw bc they can apply their Charisma bonus to their racial spells. Tho I have low Charisma, I mainly have it for tools, later I can get the Eversight Ring and make further use of the Darkness spell.