At this point, with multiple books released a few years since the 5e monk was introduced.... It really feels like the Monk is very purposely intended to be a very "sub optimal" choice. They've had a ton of opportunities to "fix" the Monk and have just refused to do it. We need to find who is in charge of the Monk hate and ask why.
It's not even that hard to fix the monk. They could have rolled out super simple fixes that would make them much better on their lunch breaks and shoved them into any of the splat books.
They assume more short rests, or more single combats on a long rest, than your group is experiencing. THAT is what they are balanced around. And they have surveys and feedback to go buy, not just the most vocal minority that hates monks because they don't fit their group's combat loadout.
I think part of it’s because their playtests are balanced around this kind of adventuring day: small fights, miniboss, short rest, small fights, miniboss, short rest, small fights, main boss. And they *must* expect every monk to save all their ki for spamming Stunning Strike on each fight’s boss. They *hate* the fact that a monk can spam a status effect multiple times per round, even though in most campaigns or adventures, it’s nowhere near as effective, at least not consistently, as they think it is. They must also give tremendous weight to any stuns when determining factors that contribute to victory in boss fights, rather than all the support and control that can get the stuns to land effectively and all the damage that actually kills the boss. Because of this multi-stun spam against bosses, they assume every monk is overpowered out of the gate. That’s the theory I subscribe to, anyway.
@@muddlewait8844 I do think that's a big part of it. Monks can be incredibly powerful in certain kinds of fights, but astonishingly weak in others. Which, frankly, would be OK if it was a subclass going all in on clowning town guards and librarians, but as a base class I think it's a misfire. Stunning Strike is a bad design
The nerf from a 30 foot radius aura to a 10 foot radius aura was one of the most severe nerfs I’ve seen for a while. I could understand if they raised it back up for the final feature, but being stuck with 2 squares feels bad
The monk's primary feature is its speed. This actually takes that AWAY from the monk, forcing you to stay close to your allies if they want any kind of benefit
And the number I picked is THREE. No more, no less. Three shall be the number I shall count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four I shall not count, neither count I two, excepting I then proceed to three. Five is right out.
If anyone is reading this, I fully recommend trying this build out. I tried it earlier today in a Christmas-based one-shot. Similar to Colby, I LOVE monk. I love their aesthetic and flavour options and I am immensely sad that they don't seem to be able to compete with other classes at high levels. However, this dragon build absolutely rocks. The BBEG (Satan Claus) had quite low dex and con saves so I ended up hitting all but one of my breath weapons at full power and I gotta say, it is EXTREMELY satisfying to roll 2 breath weapons in one turn, and then see the look on my friends faces as I say "action surge" to do it again. I even got to use telekinesis to push and pull teammates and enemies alike. Thanks for the work you put in, Mr. Colby. The next one-shot I'm in, I'm gonna try the grappler monk.
Just had a cool idea of monk flying up into the air breathing 4 cones down onto the battlefield and then landing in a superhero pose on the ground, taking no damage because of Slow Fall.
At 20 feet up, your 20-foot cone is effectively a 20-foot circle for grounded enemies. Calculating area, this means an increase from 50 square feet to 314 square feet of effectiveness. Edit: Actually, I think it is 250 to 314, since a 5x5 square is actually 25 square feet. I could try to guess an angle for a more precise measurement, but I won't. Either way, flying dragon monk spewing breath from above is way cooler and more effective than on the ground lol
My idea was using the wings to fly up and kamikaze-ing down into enemies dealing fall damage to them but not taking any myself because of slow fall lol easiest 5d6 damage ever
To be honest, even to casters, Con stat is important, especially for Concentration check. I can give one defense for Stunning Strike: it is great at burning Big Bad Ass' Legendary Resistances. You really tried to make this one work somehow. Good job.
@@DnDDeepDive I have just made a dragon monk/ ancestral guardians barb multi that has 18 con at level 9 for our current campaign. Though admittedly he was made for starting at 9 because my previous character died. So I didn’t have to deal with low level problems.
This is just genius! - - Spoiler Alert: I initally thought, playing a Dragonborn would be rendundant for playing an Ascendant Dragon Monk, as far as the breath weapon is concerned, since the Monk himself gets one anyway. I did not thnik of the possibility of replacing both attacks with different breath weapons and boosting them with the tempest clerics destructive wrath feature. Grab yourself an Amulet of the Devout and have even more fun.
I think that blind fighting would be a good fighting style option since the tempest cleric dip gives fog cloud. Also, I think it's really thematically cool for a monk to be able to fight blind, especially one based on dragons
A tasha's optional feature "falling on enemies" on p.170 would allow our ascendant monk to land on an enemy after our flight straight up (increasing the cone to hit more squares on a grid) 90 feet and ending your turn in midair, plummeting to the ground ontop of a creature which would have to pass a dc 15 dex check or be knocked prone and take 9d6/2 damage which thanks to slowfall we entirely negate at 11th level (worst case scenario with all of the dice rolling the highest value)
New build timeeeee. I like to believe that when I theory crafting builds that they sound this cool. When I’m reality they just come out sounding like a dork that focused on one weird thing 😂😂😂
It was really gratifying to see this video, I had just started planning out a dragonborn dragon monk for the next campaign my party is doing, and was wondering if I was heading down a stupid path so started looking for people who had done vids on the dragon monk - this was a great watch!
Yes! I had a similar idea to this when I saw all the new Fizban player options! My thought was that you could flavor your Action Surged double Dragonborn breath weapon and double Monk breath weapon as one big blast of energy from your mouth! I really wanted to try to find ways to add more cone attacks onto that, but no luck. The best option I could find was a third multiclass for Quickened Dragon Breath, but then you need Charisma on top of your Constitution and Wisdom.
Great video! This is super detailed and helpful for someone like me who just started playing an ascendant dragon monk, and I'm very glad I found this channel. Optimization is my thing, and I will definitely be looking (already have) at more of your stuff. One thing I would like to throw out there for anyone looking at a lvl 19/20 build is to consider taking +1 level into monk and -1 level into cleric (or +2 and -2) IF your DM likes to throw out 4+ enemies at a time and you aren't consistently deprived of ki points. Before reading further, the TL;DR is that if you consistently have the ki available to augment your monk breath attack and can consistently hit an additional 1+ enemies with it, taking 17 or 18 lvls in your monk class may be a good or even better alternative build for you. The reason being that lvl 17 is a huge upgrade for the ascendant dragon monk - in general, the martial arts die goes from 1d8 to 1d10 and as always you get 1 more ki point per monk lvl. But most importantly, the monastic tradition gets its final upgrade which allows you to augment the breath attack for 1 ki point, expanding it from a 20 ft to 60 ft cone (or 90 ft line) and upgrading the damage from 3d10 to 4d10. You also get blindvision (nice but no damage), and when you cast the aspect of the wyrm aura as a bonus action, you deal 3d10 damage with it to creatures of your choosing (no friendly fire, yay, though the damage can be completely mitigated with a saving throw as opposed to half damage). So where lvl 17 ascendant dragon monk really shines is when you can hit additional enemies with the expanded cone of the augmented monk breath attack. The math: - At lvl 20, if you took 2 lvls in cleric (lvl 16 monk / lvl 2 fighter / lvl 2 cleric) and use the bronze dragon breath attack with Destructive Wrath, it becomes 40 dmg per target instead of 4d10 per target = +18 avg dmg per target or a +54 avg dmg increase overall assuming 3 targets are hit and all fail the saving throw. Note that +54 dmg only applies to one bronze dragon breath attack in your 4-hit combo (bronze breath -> monk breath -> action surge -> bronze breath -> monk breath) since you need a short rest per use of Destructive Wrath. - At lvl 20, if you took +1/+2 lvls in monk (lvl 18 monk / lvl 2 fighter or lvl 17 monk / lvl 2 fighter / lvl 1 cleric) and use the augmented monk breath attack, it becomes 4d10 per target instead of 3d8 per target as it would be with the lvl 2 cleric build = +8.5 avg dmg per target or a 25.5 avg dmg increase overall assuming 3 targets are hit and all fail the saving throw. However, you can augment BOTH monk breath attacks in your 4-hit combo, so you actually multiply the increased damage by 2 for +17 avg dmg per target or a +51 avg dmg increase overall with the same assumptions. So if you hit 3 targets with both breath attacks, then the lvl 17/18 monk build is only -1 avg dmg per target hit vs the lvl 2 cleric build. But if you hit 3 targets with the bronze breath and can hit 1 or more additional targets with the augmented monk breath (4+ targets total), it surpasses the lvl 2 cleric build. Now, this may be too many targets to count on hitting consistently, but with a 60 ft cone and high movement speed to position yourself, I think it is more than doable IF your DM tends to throw out a lot of enemies. If your DM prefers to use single, powerful enemies, then the lvl 2 cleric build may be a better choice (though since both builds are multi-target focused, you may want to use a different build altogether). The other important thing to take into consideration is that each augmented monk breath will require1 ki point, so this build is much more ki hungry. Buuut, on the flip side, a lvl 17/18 monk gets that free 3d10 AOE damage whenever you cast the aspect of the wyrm aura, which is a bonus action! It would take a pretty specific setup, but it could result in a super nova turn consisting of 4 breath attacks and 1 aura attack. Also the 1d10 martial arts die will carry over into the occasional punches you may do. But this is minor, sustained damage, and the point of this build is burst damage, so I would only lightly take that into account. If anyone sees errors in my logic, please do let me know!
As a small bonus to starting with druid 1 you can pick up absorb elements for some extra tank and elemental melee damage for shil'. Healing spells, while not the strongest, will benefit well from your maxed wisdom. The damage spells aren't suggested as you already have enough hogging your action economy but a case can be made for some of them.
You mentioned wanting to be able to use slow fall more... that's totally A Thing with single turn flight that you get from Ascendant Dragon. You fly up to attack a flying enemy and maybe run out of movement, but you can slow fall when you lose flying at the end of the turn. It eats up your reaction for the turn but it looks really damn cool.
Even better you can fly up and grapple them. Then when you’ve beaten them to death or have stunned them and drop them you get to slow fall as their corpse drops beneath you
Agreed on single target vs. multi-target. i focus on single-target burst myself as anything multi-target can kill is usually not a threat. its best to remove threats off the board 1st. Excellent focus on this build. unique burst aoe focus using a monk and the class choices are perfect. I can't see how i'd change it. agreed as well that the ascendant dragon could be stronger. Enjoyed this build, imo best monk you've done.
So this got me inspired to do a variant to this build. Not a nova build but sounds super fun. Its a Way of the Ascendant Dragon Monk, Circle of the Moon Druid. DRAGON KITTY Quick rundown. Level 1 Gem Dragonborn Monk. The next Milestone for this character arrives at level 7. In this case a milestone is when both class abilities come together to be something cool. Level 5 Monk, Level 2 Druid. So you use your wild shape to become a lion, tiger or ice spider. Each of which has its place, but for the moment we will look at the lion. With 5 levels in monk you now have extra attack. And in lion form you have a 17 Ac and some fun abilities that work well with your other abilities. But with that n mind I will refer to the fact that we have 6 breath weapons, 3 from race 3 from class. So the combinations are kind of cool now. A baddy is ahead of you so you pounce, breath weaponing the target and their friends.(First attack) As you land on your target you claw them with a chance to knock them prone. (Second attack) So now we have are bonus action. If the pounce worked you could make a bite attack. Even if it didn't you could use flurry to hit them 2 more time with unarmed. If you knocked them prone you might want to use stunning with an attack so everyone in melee has advantage vs them for a round. You can dodge if you don't want to get hurt. If you use step of the wind you can jump 50ft, If its more than that you can sprout wing and have a fly speed of 60ft. And you have pack tactics, although by this level I might be using tiger more often for the extra Hp. Fast forward to level 11 we are now level 6 druid. Are 2 feats are gift of the dragon, gem and metallic. This gives us a few fun things we can do while in beast form and build up our Wis. But the most important part is 3rd level spells to cast summon fey before shapeshifting to give yourself a rider :) I think this is too funny. Especially if you have a paladin. They summon their mount and you can be: Oh yeah and summon a rider. After that I would bring monk up to level 11. This gets you Wings Unfurled for more flight, evasion, Aspect of the Wyrm and are breath weapon goes up. Should you go past level 17 you could finish with either class or take a dip into fighter or cleric to give yourself some other ability that can be used in you Dragon Kitty form.
A minor correction: Dedicated Weapon requires that you have proficiency in the weapon, so you couldn't use it with a longsword until you take the first fighter level.
good call - forgot we didn't pick that up via racial proficiencies etc. Admittedly, I really do think if I were playing this I'd go Druid 1 for shillelagh so I probably wasn't thinking about weapons carefully enough :).
All monks should start with a +0 Dragonhide belt. Solves so many inherent issues with the class*. And definitely Randall's best work yet. *While yes it also helps with scaling, a +0 Dragonhide Belt mainly helps with the tricky situation that is Ki point economy. An economy that has only gotten worse as 5e has progressed, think introduction of optional features like Ki Fueled Attack, Quickened Healing, Focused Aim. As ki resets on a short rest Monks can't be given too many ki points as they'd risk running over every encounter. And we all know the issues of having too few. However giving the option for an injection of ki points once per day - what a +0 Dragonhide belt would functionally be - SHOULD(have not play tested this idea in the slightest, open to talk about it) cover both worries. Going 2 levels rogue for Step of the Wind/Cunning Action redundancy - among all other reasons to take rogue - AND a +0 Dragonhide Belt would make for an excellent monk. (You can't regain Ki points if you haven't unlocked them) How realistic does anyone think getting the (non cannon) +0 belt would be? Following the logic given, that +1/+2/+3 = Uncommon/Rare/Very Rare, a +0 belt would be common, or set to the asking price of 10(1d6+1) ~ 45gp. Given that rogues start with about 100 from the class and an average of 10 from a background, Buying that + a Rapier + Thieves' Tools leaves you with 15gp to make a backpack that actually suits your needs(Armor? You have Dex).
I've been considering and thinking up unique ways for Monks to regain Ki in combat for each subclass. The idea came when I thought Drinking Alcohol should be more involved in the Drunken Fist. Like: When this Monk drinks Alchohol, he gains 2 Ki points (but not more than max) then rolls a Wis Saving Throw to not being Poisoned. Typically it should be Con for alcohol but I think a Drunken Monk, a proficient drinker, can convert alcohol into ki. Failing the save means he didn't convert all the Alchohol. Four Element Monks regains 2~3 Ki by using the cantrip Elemental Attunement. Basically using an Action to absorb the elemental energies around him. Open Hand Monk: once per day( or PB a day) regain ki = to wis. Kensei: When you hit a creature with a Kensei weapon, use a reaction to regain Ki = to PB, once a day. Long Death: (added to Touch of Death) you also gain Wis mod of Ki. Shadow: Use Action to Meditate while in Darkness to regain 2 ki. Sun Soul: Use Action to Meditate under Bright Light, regain 3~4 ki (class needs the buff to upclass its' one spell) Mercy: when healed by another or other external means like a Potion, Mercy monks convert the excess positive energy into Ki, regain 2 ki. Astral: ??? When it drops a foe to 0 HP with the astral arms, regain 2 ki?? Dragon: when hit by an elemental attack of fire/cold/ect./ect. Use a reaction to absorb the energy and regain Wis Mod Ki???
@@ruga-ventoj I think all they really had to do was allow maybe 1? 10 minute meditation per long rest that did a refill kinda like a prayer of healing option vs long rest. Having been cat napped which is similar but not built in it works good
I think this is your best monk build. Notice that full monk is totally a good option. I'd have gone gem dragon, picked up alert, observant, +2 dex, +2 dex. I'd still nova on some surprise rounds. You're one good magic item from awesome.
This is exactly what I thought to do when I saw these options. Another good use of the limited fly is to use it to fire the breath weapon down onto the enemies which gives you a circular AOE option if that can get more targets
Very nice thematic build, thank you! One alternative route: cut fighter completely and sacrifice one Monk level to add three levels of Glamour Bard. Mantle of Inspiration would fix one issue this build is likely to face, i.e. enemies are usually rather spread out at the beginning of combat. So you wait for one round until the enemies have gathered around your party members. Then you have your party members move away on your turn using the Mantle. And then you drop 2x Breath. This way, you might get more enemies in your cones. Admittedly, this change would make you more MAD and hence cost you Dex and Con. Plus, your nova would have to be spread over two turns since you wouldn't have Action Surge anymore. Still, could be interesting to reflect battlefield realities.
Love the idea of fighter for the extra actions, not a huge fan of cleric but I love the build and deffo gonna try fit an monk which I don’t normally play into the rotation.
Hey, if you want a Bender build, unfortunately Sorcerer is closer in effect to an Avatar Bender than mostly monk. (unless you want to play an Air bender and need Slow fall ) Storm= Air, Dragon= fire, Water/Earth= ehhh but Meta Magic Transmuted Spell should cover the elements.
This is my 1st monk and I've done a strength build and am really enjoying it! Modeled after Raiden. Dive at 'em and knock 'em prone, then wail on 'em with lightning attacks ! Really like your quadruple breath / action surge idea. GM gave me some gauntlets that do extra d4 damage, so i could survive the 1st few levels :D I wonder if I spray them with water 1st, if they would be vulnerable to lightning damage??
38:04 This point just made the similarity between Ascendant Dragon and Fairy Tail's Dragon Slayers stand out even more... the biggest difference would be that they are limited to one damage type, and could regain their ki points by absorbing their damage type (which they're effectively immune to).
Oooh or a more balanced alternative: when the aura's resistance absorbs damage, every 10 points absorbed from a single effect regains one ki point. Also the aura can be activated as a reaction to taking the appropriate damage type, ala the Absorb Elements spell (which they'd probably at least consider taking a Magic Initiate feat or dip to gain lol)
House rules I wrote and used to make monks multi class better and feel a little bit more powerful Ki specialty 2nd-level monk feature Starting at second level, may choose one feature that costs one ki point and once per turn it no longer requires ki. Whenever you gain a level in this class you can change the feature that no longer requires ki for a different one that requires one ki point. The only caveat is you have to errata mercy monk so they can’t heal infinitely I recommend just making their flurry of healing temporary HP. Unless the Target is unconscious
For those who decide to go for an armor build, remember that while you don't have access to the bonus action unarmed attack from Martial Arts, you do get to use Flurry of Blows should you want a bit of extra single target damage (and you did take the attack action to use your breath weapons).
Thanks. I was looking at a dragon breath focused build. The monk looks interesting. I found flavouring a bladesinger with burning hand and dragons breath feels stronger. With the meta magic feat you can at level 5 use dragon breath (cast in the round before) + fireball via quickened. Taking custom lineage you could have a familiar and a tiny servant or the character + the quickened spell all at level 5 a lot going. In round two: 2× Dragons breath + fireball + a cantrip like poison spray or green flame blade. A lot of burst AoE. Is a very different build idea. The monk part is cool.
Sapphire dragon would get another form of flight and some more mind powers to go with the telekinetic feat...also using thunder damage for some heavenly thunder & lightning. Not to mention, if you can jump high enough the cones become diameter circles for some fireball level coverage. Edit: spelling
You know, I didn't think much about the fact that Destructive Wrath also works with Thunder Damage. Good call. I do love the potential for AOE incapacitate from Metallic, but the Con save probably makes it not all that useable, especially as the DC is based on *your* Con. I might have to change my mind to Sapphire here.
@@DnDDeepDive yeah the hardest part for me to decide is whether to get 6 levels of cleric for the 2nd channel divinity and thunderbolt strike for the knockbacks or to just get more monk levels and therefore ki. Being able to breathe lightning and then maximize the thunder then action surge and repeat per short rest would be sooooo fun.
it is interesting to me that sometimes people learn a word by hearing it spoken by a knowledgeably fluent speaker, and some times by reading it, and pronouncing it, in their head at least, as they assume it should be pronounced these second types of people can then propagate this potentially incorrect pronunciation, and even be quite convinced that it is entirely correct, and then, through common use, it can even become an accepted alternative, or even the preference this, I believe, is what happened to "Homage" among many other words), which I think comes from the French, and was originally pronounced "oh- MAHJ", but has become anglicized in American usage to "HOM-aj" vocabulary and language are imprecise means of communication, but it is the best we have, and, while I love debating and discussing it, it saddens me when people get all bent and twisted because someone has another opinion on "Proper Grammar or Pronunciation"
i feel like the best way to use that step of the wind flying feature is if you did a monk grappler and picked them up before suplexing them, itd be pretty neat for that but yea its still kinda bad.
I can't help but think that there has to be a way to get 3 levels of ranger in there so you can go DrakeWarden to really fill out the Dragon theme. And, helpfully, you can pick up Shillelagh at Ranger2.
This couldn't have come at a better time. Monk is one of my primary class choices and I'm building one for an upcoming campaign. Needed some ideas to get the juices going and this might be the direction I'm looking at for this Worshiper of Bahamut.
Argh! It could have been so cool if they'd gone all in! Draconic claws, or the elemental strikes increasing your damage, dragon scales, or vision or gaining wings at 14 like a sorc. You've made an awesome build but the subclass could have been SO much more 😓
I decided to check the Metallic Breath Weapon to be sure you were right. Turns out using it at all is once per short rest. Though, that's still cool to do if you were 11 levels of Fighter. Three Breath Weapons in one action? Sounds like something you'd wanna do. :)
I realize this vid is old but who knows maybe you'll see a comment. Ever look at non-official sources? I really like The Way of the Living Weapon Monk from Exploring Eberron, which was written by the creator of Eberron so it's relatively "real". I think it gives the Monk decent damage boosts and really encourages unarmed strikes, which is a way I've wanted to play the Monk.
I thought you had to be proficient with a weapon to make it your dedicated weapon. Maybe I'm just blanking on how you get the longsword proficiency. I'm getting old. lol
You're right - I wasn't thinking closely enough about weapon proficiencies. And also, I think like I said if I were playing this I'd 100% start Druid for shillelagh :).
May I direct your attention to a new rule in Tasha's that may be of interest to this build. Shared falling damage, when falling into the same square as another creature you can force the creature who's square you fall into to make a DC 15 dex save. On a failed save you and the fallen on creature each take half of the falling damage. Since the damage is falling damage if the fallen on creature takes at least 1 damage from the fall it is knocked prone. Additionally I believe the monk slowfall could be applied after the damage is split allowing you to get out Scott free. This allows you to make a weaponized move action and the dragon monk would be particularly effective at using it.
I was 100% planning on flying up and falling on enemies with this build, but a closer read and a chat with my DMs made me think otherwise: pretty sure that the slow fall reduction would happen *before* any damage to you and the person you land on: "any damage resulting from the fall is divided evenly between them." You DM may rule otherwise, of course, and actually, I don't believe the enemy even needs to take damage to be knocked prone. They just have to fail their Dex save :).
@@DnDDeepDive in that case still totally worth it, if you don't have to deal damage then its free attempt to knock something prone. I mean it would cost you a reaction to take no damage from it but how much use is a monk getting out of a reaction
This would be great to play because you would be so awful at everything else. Your like the guy who skips leg day but you skipped everything but breath day. I love it.
I've said it before, I've played a Way of the Open Hand monk for a few years now and at no time did Jugs ever feel underpowered. Maybe it's the campaign or perhaps I was lucky but that's been my experience.
For that last level I'd go fighter 3 and take echo knight so I could maximize the range and strategic use of my breath weapons. Because of the change in language about breath weapons being attacks, the echo should: a. Be able to use them and B. Be able to use the unleash incarnation attack when you use a breath attack.
While techniquely correct, Unleashed Incarnation only allows an additional Melee attack. So after the breath attacks, you would have to use your lighting fists.
Love it glad that they added dragon subclasses they kind of screwed over the Monk it was better an Unearthed Arcana keep up the good work can I going to keep my eye out for that Conquest video
How about a monk build done with Hindu mythology as it's base Colby? Not enough has been done in D&D using Hindu mythology. That's what we're doing, my friend! It's so rich with epic heroic tales...
Future Build: Little Dragon Hulk. Kobold, Tasha's adjustments. 15(+2 to 17) Str, 13/14 con/int, 10's the rest. 2 Fighter, 2 Wizard (War Wizard), then 11 total levels of fighter (rune knight). Fighting style - I think blindfighting is fun. At 4 fighter, take great weapon master and pick up a heavy weapon. At combat starts grow to medium or large size as space allows and swing away with advantage and GWM. at 6 take slasher or piercer (str). At 8 have lots of options - can take Aberrant dragonmark (shield) for defensiveness and rounding out con, could boost str to 20, could take war caster, could take polearm master if you wanted to use a polearm instead of a 5' range heavy weapon, could take sentinel for utility. Once you've gotten your 3rd attack as a fighter, dip into wizard for 1 more level for 2nd level spells. You can now cast enlarge upon yourself in a pinch if out of rune knight feature uses, so you can keep using GWM. From here probably get to 12 fighter for another asi or feat, then 4 wizard for another asi or feat. You definitely want warcaster in one of these so you can cast spells with your weapon out if you haven't already. If you aren't getting much out of blindfighting you might consider the fighting style which grants a maneuver, take the martial adept feat, and have 3 maneuvers and 2 dice / SR to add to your repertoire. So standard order of operations - grow big, start swinging. If you are hit or fail a save, use your war wizard reaction if it will help. on 2nd round bonus action expeditious retreat and start flying around the battlefield crushing fools. use allies or a familiar for advantage. If you are willing to take the -1's to saves, you could have gotten 13 wisdom, and after 12/4 Fighter/Wiz you could take 1 level of cleric, gaining access to bless, shield of faith, and protection from Evil & Good. Since you will have low wisdom and levels, a subclass that gives good bonus spells is probably important. War gives divine favor and shield of faith, life gives bless and cure wounds, peace gives heroism and sanctuary. For the "out there" version, depending on how your DM treats charming and speaking with animals, you could go nature cleric and charm a beast as a mount, in this instance taking animal handling as a skill early and using it to manage/tame the creature. Mammoths, Giant Constrictor Snakes, Giant Bats, giant scorpions, giant wall walking lizards... suddenly become fun options for a nominally small kobold.
Been trying to make a Legend of Dragoon Elemental warrior type. Been using Paladin/Druid, but have considered a monk Druid or pure monk for the Dragon flavors.
Some food for thought: A regular medium creature with a 5ft melee range controls 8 squares. A regular medium creature with a reach weapon giving a 10ft melee range controls 24 squares. A bugbear with a reach weapon has a 15ft melee range, controlling 48 squares. A bugbear rune knight who becomes large, with a reach weapon, occupies 4 squares and controls 60(!) squares. (Same idea for a bugbear on a large mount) Ok... so I'm curious to see what that bugbear rune knight could uniquely do with that much melee range...
Level 4 ASI take Magic Initiate - Druid to ensure Ki points up to that point, then two Druid cantrips (shillelagh and...thorn whip?) And a level 1 spell. Longstrider? Animal Friendship? Just a thought.
What really sucks is that you cannot get to the lvl 17 monk ability that greatly enlarges your monk breath weapon's cone unless you either give up the fighter levels or the cleric levels. I think I might do a version where there is no tempest cleric.
Although this may be a bit of a stretch.... a cone is a very specific 3D shape as opposed to a fan. Would it not be conceivable to fly above the targets using the wings unfurled feature and do your breath weapon downwards to make the cross sectional area now a circle?
If you go one more level of Fighter, you can take Arcane Archer for the Bursting Arrow feature and do another 2d6 Force damage to all targets within a 10' burst twice per short rest. Since you're just killing time until your next long rest anyways...
instead of Bronze Metallic Dragonborn for lightning damage you could go Sapphire Gem Dragonborn for Thunder damage, Tempest Clerics Channel Divinity Destructive Wrath works with lightning AND thunder damage, you could alternatively go Zeal domain Cleric for fire and thunder btw I just recently realized that Zeal domain is very similar Channel Divinity Consuming Fervor causes max damage on fire and thunder, instead of lightning ad thunder of Channel Divinity Destructive Wrath, Resounding Strike pushes 10 feet on thunder (which I generally prefer due to Booming Blade and Thunderclap existing, while there's no good cantrip for lightning), while Thunderbolt Strike pushes 10 feet on lightning, Zeal domain Divine Strike adds 1d8/2d8 of the weapon damage, while Tempest domain Divine Strike adds 1d8/2d8 thunder damage, both get martial weapons and heavy armor proficiency, just their other level 1 and their level 17 features are really different (seriously, pushing with Lightning Lure is self defeating and Shocking grasp isn't that great either, but pushing on Booming Blade is very synergistic and Thunderclap is a damn I'm surrounded spell, so also very synergistic , the Green/Wind Merfolk can get a Druid Cantrip / Thunderclap, as do Vahadar Elfs, Booming Blade can be gained by a number of feats, alternative race choices or by taking a level in a class that gets it, since Booming Blade uses a melee attack to hit, it doesn't matter from which Spell List you take it, but Thunderclap you wanna get from the Druid spell lists for the Wisdom spell casting modifier, as that's the same as Clerics, sadly Druids don't get Booming Blade, so that'd mean 2 level dips in different classes if you want both, thus I'd go with Spell Sniper or Magic Initiate for that, also worth mentioning that getting into melee range isn't bad due to the martial weapons and heavy armor proficiency, ...now I really wanna make a Storm Sorcerer that uses Zeal Cleric instead of Tempest Cleric for melee gear, damage increase and push back, tough I also hate that going Cleric 6 prevents Sorcerer 17/18, at least it still allows for Sorcerer 14, which makes Tempest domain Clerics level 1 feature Wrath of the Storm obsolete)
Love the build. What would be a good balance of how many Ki points a monk should have? I'm fine with them getting only one per level but maybe upping the initial amount by 2.
Thanks! Hm... I'd maybe start with 1 per level + PB? Something like that feels closer to balanced to me. Or perhaps, instead, allow uses of monk abilities to be done without spending Ki, say, once per short rest, then ki points for uses after that? etc.
@@DnDDeepDive I like adding PB to it. I do agree that monk needs more Ki, but you have to be careful because otherwise you end up with a level 2 character that can make 3 attacks for days
@@logancuster8035 at level 2? then put Kobold on it to give all of those attacks advantage if the monk is attacking and enemy adjacent to an enemy? that's 3 attacks pretty reliably all with advantage at level 2. and then scale that upwards. This is why if people say double monks ki points I start sweating. so adding your PB is a really cool idea to me but anything above that and I get warry.
One error with the Tasha's optional level 2 Feature: Dedicated Weapon. You also must be proficient with the selected weapon. So unfortunately this build can't utilize a Long Sword until we dip into Fighter. Which hurts, but at least it gets there before long. Could go Fighter at level 1 to bypass this. Also allows you to get a fighting style off the bat. Unarmed would be nice. There are going to be countless rounds still just want to BA punch, or Punch Punch. Make those extra jabs pack twice the wallop. Later on, you'll have more ki to splurge. This will sometimes go to Step of the Wind to hit more squares and safely, but again, other times just peachy adding damage. Flurry of blows is typically the best use of your Ki, and Ascendant Dragonborns don't need to go against the grain there. You can breath and punch twice all in one round. Unarmed fighting will gets ton of mileage before Monk level 12. Being able to apply various damtypes to your fists also makes them stronger than your d10 weapon in niche situations. One extra tip with Unfurled Wings. It can target a 4x4 square by flying directly above your desired AoE. Turn the 20ft cone into a 10ft radius. This doubles the amount of squares you'll hit from 10 to 20. That's 3 applicable AoE shapes with multiple damtypes on a character with fantastic maneuverability who isn't afraid to flirt with the front lines. Small Cone/line/radius blasts never dreamed of having it this good. I think you should always attempt to Breaths with Wings. Three targets per calculation becomes a very modest variable when you do. The nova round will definitely shine brighter. Also puts less pressure on your BA Telekinetic option. More BA fists. More numbers for the chart. The Resistance Aura is confusing a lot of people. Clumping should not come to mind. How often is the Paladin within 10ft of his whole team during a fight? Even with multiple, game changing mechanical auras, hardly ever. Nor would they really want to be. More often than not it's just gonna benefit the whole team on an opening round, which is great. Team gets blasted or CC'd before they can act and you help with that. Afterward...it's mostly just helping the front line. Still fantastic. That front line has to be held. Paladins however can't go up, dip back, nor zoom over to their allies--wherever they may be. Monks can! When the backline needs resistance, you'll be there to help. When the frontline is getting pummeled, you'll be there. It's usually not everyone dying at once because your team SHOULD spread out. The DM is likely focusing fire to a certain extent as well. Deflect Missiles and Evasion makes the monk a perfect shield for backlines. The Paladin will never reach the mage in the rear who is about to lose concentration. No, not because their Concentration Check won't be high enough without Aura of Protection, but because they're about to drop to 0. Keep in mind this is a subclass from a Dragon book. Good chance if it's in play, so too are copious amounts of enemy breath weapons. Not everyone has Absorb Elements--or maybe their Reaction was used to Shield or something. Even when you aren't protecting an extra extra ally or two, you are always able to activate the right resistance for yourself. Since in this build you're a dragonborn...you get two! This allows you to pick a more obscure damtype with your racial selection and fall back on Evasion and the Aura more for more common damtypes like Fire and Cold. Or double down on defensive damtypes and splurge on Fearful Presence more. The build is great, but I don't think you have to focus as hard on the breaths. They add to the monk's kit quite a bit in terms of free power, versatile power, and complimentary power. You are a monk who is prioritizing Wis. You should be attempting to stun in more situations than other monks do. Equal at the very least. Plenty of breath weapons can be used before spending any Ki. You have lots of tools for control against strong enemies that are few in number, and tools for the weaker, albeit numerous fodder. Since talk of level 20 came up for once, I think a fun alternative would be dropping the second level of cleric. I'd say take it early too so you and your team can enjoy its features longer. So maybe Fighter 1, Monk 5, Fighter 2, Cleric 1, Monk X from there. At level 20 you could unlock the spiffy buffs to your Ascendant breath. Ridiculous increase in range (tripled), some damage, some blind sense, some free aura activation damage. It will easily surpass the once per rest Tempest Channel Divinity. Just doesn't come online until the end. It'd be a shame to reach level 20 and not enjoy this though. You get most everything else still. By level 20, battlefields should be epic with tons of enemies if not all out armies pitted against each other. Get some serious Kamehameha waves going every round for the cost of a punch.
@@ghostfather1390 Oh, I meant 2 levels of Fighter total. One Fighter level to start, and then the 2nd level of Fighter after taking 5 Monk levels. Then your cleric level, then keep going monk. The cleric level I feel is fairly optional though so if you wanted to unlock a Fighter sub instead, you certainly could. Everyone likes to dip 2 levels of Fighter for Action Surge, and it does pain me to see them so rarely go up one level more for a sub. Surge is great, but fighter subs can add a lot more than one potent trick per rest. I do feel that a single level Cleric dip pairs very well typically with Monks. Tons of options, and with Tasha's power also on the table, it's hard to pass up. Still lots of good options for a fighter sub. I think the easiest pick is Echo Knight if your DM will allow it. Just the strongest, most fun fighter in general. That's obviously subjective, but the main feature costs no resource and that fun is always at your disposal. So if you like the sound of it...dig in. The only concern is it competing with your BA, but those almost all cost a resource. I think it compliments well. I'd also rethink the Telepathic Feat for Fey Touched with this sub. Echo Knight fits breathy monk great with providing more breath weapon angles from your Echo's position. It can fly same as you with your wings. Not sure if it'd inherit your Slow Fall. Probably not, but up to your DM. Any fall damage would destroy it so the Echo's flight is potentially more limiting. If free uses and Ki are gone then that's usually no longer an issue. Unleash Incarnation lets you go for a bigger burst round. 6 attacks in a round instead of 4. Two more if you want to Flurry of blows. Hex from Fey Touched here picks up a lot of value. Very reliable, juicy damage rounds if a stun gets in. Imposing disadvantage on Str checks with your Hex also becomes another solid way to generate advantage for yourself and melee allies. Probably don't have the best bonuses, but you can setup Str based allies to easily push people down and around. Lots of options. Nice synergy to boost Con since the Dborn breath DCs and Echo Knight's Unleash Incarnation attacks scale off it. Con also benefits the Cleric dip for their concentration checks, but that's a lot less noticeable. Rune Knight is great too. Tons of perks. Flurry of Blows lets you benefit from the d6 damage on Giant's Might even if you use all your Attack Actions for breaths. Fantastic if you specifically want to grapple better, and bigger, things. This would pair best with a Tabaxi for the grab and go cheese. Dash straight up and then drop your victims. Could even Action Surge this to double, or even triple dash if they were grappled still from last turn. Could grab two targets, then double dash all in one turn if lucky. Not sure how high you're going to get lol. Probably need to be Str based, or maybe a Goliath. Definitely talk with your DM to see what level of hijinx they'll tolerate here before building it. Most all the early runes are good even you don't want to try and abuse Jump Good fall damage. Rune DCs again scale with Con here. Improve breath weaps with Restrained condition from Fire Rune. Improve your ability to defend others from even more types of attacks with Cloud Rune. Fire Rune has some potentially nice synergy if your DM is fine with you electing this attack order of operations. Attack, hit, stun attempt, lands, evoke fire rune. Unless they feel Fire Rune should be declared at the same time as Stunning attempts, that guarantees an extra 2d6 damage going through. The restrained condition is then kind of wasted since they're already stunned...so maybe not entirely free. If this happens on an opportunity attack of yours, then you could get more synergy. They're stunned until the end of your next turn. They also make checks against Restrained for up to a minute at the end of their turns. So if you went, then some allies, then they went and provoked, they're going to still be vulnerable again regardless what you do on your next turn. All other scenarios, stun and restrain conditions just kind of overlap and don't help one another outside of being an extra resource. Arguably, if you've landed a stun on non-boss targets, the team should be able to clean up that target without wasting a rune activation. Frost Rune also has some potential synergy with Intimidation too. Advantage all the time, and an extra reroll per day with Ascendant. Could also argue this is redundant! This would be if you're somehow the party face with some decent Cha...or DM allowing optional Str for Intim checks? All a bit of a stretch. I wish my party had way better Intim though. No one spec'd for it, and I can't tell you how many interrogations we've squandered. Stone Rune is another great-ish control option for this very controlling monk, and more Reactions are welcome as well. You also can pick up 120ft darkvision here since the new Dborns still don't have that for...reasons. Nor would Goliath. Tabaxi would. The main issue with this rune is Charm immunity, but diversifying your control potential just makes you ready for anything. Real tough choice of which 2 runes you want to learn here since they can all flourish. Battlemaster is always a potent and fun default if neither of these interest you or your DM. You now have even more choices to strain with. I'd say the 3 best maneuvers for this monk would be...ew. All of them? I can see almost any of these fitting. A lot are either based on your attacks, or support your allies. You'll do a ton of both throughout your career. So it depends highly on your party composition what is best, but the 3 most interesting to me based on this monk: Evasive Footwork, Bait & Switch, and Trip Attack. Evasive Footwork I'd guess sis seldom taken, and it'd be fun to make it shine. Combo it with Unfurled Wings to Dash instead of Disengage when you need to really fly somewhere fast for the perfect breath setups. If nothing else this can be a good way to eat up enemy Reactions if your AC is strong. Imagine how many allies you can peel for, or unique abilities you disable. Assuming your DM has monsters consistently OA. Could even use your Action/Surge to Dodge with this Dash move if it's really going to seal the deal. Yet another improved form of control. Bait and Switch adds a way to save a specific ally rather than a bunch at once. This will come up a ton since you can get wherever you want, and can even be combined with Evasive Footwork. You get to choose to bolster their AC, but if you just got them out of dodge you could also up yours now. Add 2d6 to your AC, and then pay every enemy on the battlefield a visit. Ask each for a high five, and jeer, "Too slow!" with every failed attack roll. Trip Attack since at the end of the day, you're a Monk Fighter and you will still hit things. A lot. Breath resources will dry up or not be ideal setups every single round. Your Dex might not be prioritized over Wis in this build, but it should still be solid. This gives you another way to grant advantage without going up against opposed str checks. It also works great with Stunning Strike since it's then guaranteed to land. Use it on the last attack before Stun wears off and you can string together melee advantage attacks a lot more often. Doesn't really matter what your DPR is when the heavy hitters can do their job better. Just be careful of screwing over any ranged allies. Hopefully the squad is versatile since this monk can support errybody. So yeah, I hope you like options, because these subs inject in a crazy amount in both builds and play in-game. The cleric dip is simpler if not. You'd get a few extra abilities that mostly layer on top rather than weave together.
This sounds great, although I would take the Druid dip at level 2. What happens at Monk level 15 that would make any difference to which dragon type you choose? Level 17 provides some interesting powers, but I don't see what difference your dragon type would make. If you mean level 15 overall, I could see that lightning would be a better choice, although Saphire Dragons get Thunder for their breath weapon which would also work, plus you get telepathy and flight. You have 4 classes (counting Druid) that you will be taking. Cleric saves on Cha and Wis, Druid saves on Int and Wis, Fighter saves on Con and Str, and Monk saves on Dex and Str. Our choice for primary saves is Wis, Con or Dex; which would be better? Monks can't take a Longsword as their dedicated weapon; they aren't proficient with it. You'll have to move Fighter to 2nd level if you want this. Oh wait, Tasha's doesn't require that anymore. Sorry about that!
Even with all the 'new' monk options I look at the 5E Monk then I look at wizards of the coast and ask "Who hurt you? What did the monk do to deserve this?". Take a look at monks in Pathfinder. Hellafun to play, plenty of power. Heck got back to D&D 3.5. Ascendant Dragon Monk could actually turn into a gosh darn dragon!!! I love D&D. I've been playing for over 30 years. However, 5th edition continually feels like Wizards replaced my dice with marshmallows for fear I'd hurt myself.
Have you thought about creating a 'class' char using a different class? EG: Create a Rogue using a Wizard class, or a Barbarian using a Bard class, etc.
So... As of today there are 4 dragon "themed" subclasses. Going overboard with the 'all drake, everything' vibe, what is the least worst sor/ran/fig/mon build you think is possible? I'm thinking dips in Draconic, Banneret and Asendant, then 7 levels with the Drakewarden ranger. They might be terrible, but at least they gets to ride their drake 😆.
Out of curiosity, did you try a calculation with a level 3 monk and then all in fighter to overwhelm with multiple attacks? Blow out all 6 breath attacks plus some weapon attacks? Not sure if that would have been a stronger AoE Nova. Just an idea.
Its almost always better to clear the field (imho) than try to focus a single strong enemy out the gates, at least in the first 2 tiers of play. It seems counter-intuitive - kill the most dangerous one first! - but time and again I have watched parties get dragged down and buried under the resounding tide of the action economy of minions and weaker creatures. If you can clear the field, you MUST clear the field, imho.
Not just for damage either, creatures can grapple you and prevent you from targeting those high priority enemies anyway (especially if you’re a melee martial), having that AOE option is so very useful
in my experience it is almost always best to clear out the smallest and weakest first purely for the action economy, especially if there is a great level disparity, let the tank do their job and engage the big bad, while the rest focus on taking out the minions asap, and then gang up on the bbeg I guess that I am just saying that I agree with you, heh
Hey Colby, I have a suggestion, coming from the group I'm playing with: optimizing some sort of caster that is able to get the widest possible spell list, ideally prepared to swap at a long rest, we discussed maybe a mark of healing wizard? not sure. (There's also another one involving a trapfinding and trapmaking wizard, but dont mind me) Love your videos and podcast, I'm subscribed in google podcasts as well. Huge thanks!
Question or perhaps future idea: Have you ever looked at the Yuan-Ti Oath of Ancients Paladin? Maybe with a dip into Hexblade, Sorcerer, or both. Near immunity to spells, potential for very high AC, and good against swarms if you get Sleep via Fey Touched or Heavy Armor Master. I am working on this concept right now - trying to find a decent way to punish or otherwise penalize enemies for targeting people other than myself. Thinking Interception fighting style, compelled Duel, and/or the Sentinel feat.
*Every* monk works best if you lean-in to its actual abilities. Even disregarding the subclasses; the class itself is a skirmisher that uses multiple attacks to be effective (opposite of Rogues which go all in on the "one shot one kill" idea). Yes, the monk has a lot of options for their bonus action; but if you are gauging their combat ability, then that bonus action attack should be in use every round. Even at first level, 2d4+6 will consistently outshine 1d8+3 or even 2d6+3... at 8-14 base damage every round is nothing to shrug off. If you are Step of the Wind in combat, it should be to get to a priority target or escape when you are close to death, but if you don't need it, save it for non-combat.
