@@DnDDeepDive Here is my spike growth build BM fighter3/Swarm Ranger5/Monk3 Action cast spike growth on the enemies, then action surge and extra attack with Pushing Attack maneuver x2, each attack can push enemy 15 ft. Then furry of blows with open hand, one blow push enemy 15 ft, then use ranger's swam bring back enemy 15 ft, then the final blow push 15 ft. So the target will get push around 75 ft back and forth in the Spike growth (2d4/5ft) total 30d4 dmg, not even counting the 4 attacks' dmg or crusher feat. For the race, I suggest any flying race, like Hexblood with Owlin Ancestral Legacy to get fly speed and Hex spell.
Y’know guys, I was pretty sure back in 8th & 9th grade that failing to learn that crap wasn’t “going on my permanent record!” But I still learned it, in case I was wrong. I wasn’t wrong. I’m never “wrong.” This is the only place it pays off for me. I need this!
My fellow DMs, if you love your monk players, give them an Eldritch claw tattoo early on. It doesn't break the game and it makes them feel awesome and useful.
You shouldn't even have to ask. If the fighter and barb are finding magic weapons, the monk should find his martial arts equivalent. Sadly proper gear doesn't make the monk awesome and useful by itself. It would be nice if the monk's only problem was that their "weapons" of choice were not covered very well in the treasure section of the DMG.
One thing to note: all dwarves get proficiency with battle axes, which are just a 4lb longsword functionally speaking. In light of this, you could instead trade your armor proficiencies for proficiency with something else like a whip or longbow to make yourself more versatile. Or calligraphy supplies. No judgement here.
I'm imagining a monastery deep underground who grows "special" mushrooms to eat and open their minds and become one with the universe around them. A very trippy backstory for a spore monk!
I just love how listening to Colby at 1.5x is just like listening to everybody else speaking normally lol. Anyway, thank u for the video, love Monk/Druid builds, keep up the good work.
I think that a smoother build plan for this is to take your first 5 levels in Monk before going into Druid. I understand that the reason you did not was to make your level 6 build look better on the spreadsheet, but I believe a more practical approach would be to get the Monk levels first so that you get extra attack as soon as possible and play it like any other melee monk up until that point.
Not gonna lie, as a DM, I enjoy it a little too much when my players use spike growth/ spell wall strategies. 'Cause even monsters understand a free battlefield hazard when they see it. My favorite one was when one of my larger monsters got trapped in by a Blade Wall, and just grappled a player and chucked him through it. Very memorable moment. That ogre you're fighting? Yeah, he might take some damage, but when he grapples you and hurls you through your own Spike Growth, you'll realize that it's not a perfect strategy.
I really like the Open Hand monk coupled with Crusher feat. You can first lift the creature 5 ft. up and then push it diagonally upwards 15 ft. with open hand technique, dealing 2d6 fall damage and knocking them prone.
27:25 that's why I as a DM threw in a fight where necrotic damage was one of the damage types that keeps the enemies from regenerating. Make the spores occasionally optimal.
Okay i gotta say: you were already the youtuber with the Most heartwarming Intro there is but the „its okay if you fall asleep - i wait here“ was the best even you ever did. Thanks for your awesome content 🙏❤
I mean, all Dwarves have Dwarven Combat Training so they're all proficient with battleaxes/warhammers, which are basically just cooler longswords, so no need to swap armor proficiencies for that
Another option for race/spell is hexblood. It gives hex (which, being a bonus action, can be used along with symbiotic entity) as well as getting separate +1s for a three-16s-three-8s spread and two skill proficiencies. Tried to build it out in the past, don't remember much specifics though. I wanted to go Mercy monk for flavor, but getting to the level 11 for flurry of blows compatibility was unreasonable.
I'm playing with the idea of combining this with Bladesinger. At lvl 6 you can use one of your attacks on your action to cast a cantrip. So you cast Spike Growth, push them 15 feet into it, then cast Thorn Whip and drag them back another 10 feet towards you. Play a Bugbear and you can even reach 10ft into the Spike Growth and hit them again, and you get an extra 2d6 each turn if you're before them in initiative (good chance as you'll have a decent DEX). The extra AC from Bladesinging also stacks with Unarmoured Defence.
I threw together a background based on this build. Historically, European monks were often brewers of beer, so I took brewer's supplies as my dwarven tool proficiency. Then I borrowed from the game Dwarf Fortress and decided that my monk's monastery uses fermented mushrooms to make their beer. From there it's an easy jump to spores druid, and I've always had fun with characters who cook or brew as part of a party. Seems like a good time! Edit: Of course that means a drunken master monk fits even better, but I'm only a few minutes into the build video right now so I don't know how necessary Open Hand is yet!
I like how this build feels thematically and character-wise. Though I'm not a huge fan on all the assumed caveats that go with it. Thanks for another fun build!
I played in a campaign with a rogue named "Charity". She was always encouraging people to "Give to Charity". They all did, eventually. Occasionally voluntarily. She really played up that pun. But it was great fun for everyone. I miss that campaign, lol.
What martial art does a Druidic Monk of Open Spores know? Kung Fungus. I'll see myself out. edit - made my comment before the video started. Colby makes same-ish joke during the preamble. High five!
My son directed me to your channel because of your really nice builds and I must say I'm impressed and appreciate the work that must have went into this
Looks like someone may have taken inspiration from the "Penicillin Pugilist" concept I mentioned a few builds back. ;) Btw, Hill Dwarf could also work for this since you don't actually need to have those armor proficiencies for the purposes of swapping them for weapon proficiencies. That's because all Dwarves already get Dwarven Combat Training, which gives them proficiency with Battleaxes, Handaxes, Light Hammers, and Warhammers. If you prefer the flavor of a Longsword over a Warhammer or Battleaxe, you can use that same Tasha's rule to swap out one Martial Weapon proficiency for another.
From theory crafting and my brother playing with this rule, the best homebrew fix for monks is simply to double the martial arts dice to 2 dice. This fixes a lot of Monk abilities that use the martial arts die that feel underwhelming as well as makes your attacks hit as hard as normal weapons do for most of the game, then gives you better weapon damage than base weapon damage later on. You still don't get great feat options, but the small amount more damage helps offset it a little.
Double is huge! 2d4 is already better than 1d8 right out of the gate, 2d6 is heavy weapon damage after the first scale (and better than the final scaling of martials arts RAW), 2d8 onwards is straight better than any (non-magical) weapon. Not saying you shouldn't do it, whatever works for each person's table ofc. A similar idea but a bit more conservative is to increase the size of the martial arts die by 1 all across the board (so it starts at a d6 instead of d4 for example, and when it hits what would be a d12 RAW make it 2d6 or 2d8)
@@eFRapidfire I have it as double for a few reasons. For one monks also have limited access to magic items and other damage boosting feats due to the limitations on their weapons. This means even with a boost further than normal weapons they barely keep up. Second double really isn't a lot. As you mentioned 2d4 is slightly better than a d8, which I'm fine with because that makes monk as good if not worse damage wise compared to other martials. 2d6 is greatsword or maul damage, getting the same weapon damage as other martials got at level 1 again I don't think is a big deal. Past that it still isn't a lot more damage, and bear in mind this scaling happens when other martials get damage boosts, namely paladin improved smite and fighter extra extra attack. so at level 11 getting 2 extra average damage per hit isn't a lot. And at level 17 you're competing with full builds, 9th level spells, crossbow sharpshooters and polearm great weapon masters. Even with this damage boost monks still don't really compete. Third, doubling it makes other monk features worth using. ki healing becomes useful. ascendent breath weapon is good damage. mercy abilities get stronger. sun soul stuff gets better. All these things that aren't worth doing normally become more worth it. Overall though, monks are severely underpowered as is. Even if they were great in combat they have little use outside of it. As martials go they are squishy and are forced into combat based builds and going in melee no less. If I gave monks a damage boost that made them the best dps in the game they would still be bad. Doubling the martial arts die doesn't even let them compete against half built characters let alone fully optimised builds with loads of options. There is no need to be conservative when it comes to monks. Try it at your table, see if it breaks anything. Guarantee you you'll still feel like you barely compare to the other martials at your table, and it'll feel balanced, if not weak.
My solve is to separate stunning strike dice from the rest of the ki dice. You get stunning strike dice equal to wisdom modifier+proficiency. You can convert one to the other at a rate of 2:1 either way. (2 Ki dice to 1 stunning strike die, or 2 stunning strike dice to 1 ki die). It makes 4 elements monk functional.
@@AllHailSp00nRiver What are you talking about? Ki doesn't use dice. My post is talking about the martial arts die and I think that is a more important and easy fix than Ki is. I can only assume you mean having two pools of ki points to as you say make 4 elements work. Ki is a big problem for monks, but I think it's a bit more complex to have a good solve for. 4 elements also just has a lot of problems, personally I just remade the abilities for the most part and doubled ki points per level. Tho Ki is kinda debatable because of how often you short rest, and equally some people want to limit stunning strike others just want more overall ki to get to choose what to use.
@@deathtoexistance an alternate idea and one I've played around with a bit: rather than scaling the dice size faster or doubling the dice amount, scale by number of dice! So d4, or maybe 2d4 at first level, and each level that would scale up the dice size, you instead add another d4.
I once knew that combat was going to start because the cleric (or the paladin) ran forward and smacked the high level necromancer. We had a life cleric, a vengeance or devotion paladin, an evocation wizard, and a spores druid (me) in the group. The wizard and I were backing away because the necromancer told the whole group to leave now. Then the cleric or paladin hit the necromancer in the face. At that point, I knew combat was going to start. Great video as always.~
Also I put these on and listen through mud work and the cheese grater had the same nucleus joke and was just as well executed. Man of simple tastes I am.
The Open Spores Drunk? Is this the first build where we use the changing your subclass option from Tasha's to retrain our Monk partway through from Open Hand to Drunken Master? Hold on, I need popcorn!
I only recently stumbled over your videos while searching for character builds to potentially use in BG3 and just wanted to say that you have a wonderful way of talking and teaching! People often yell or make crazy edits jumping all over the place, but you're calm, coherent and to-the-point without unnecessary "flavor" to spice it up. This video for example instantly made me switch from monk/cleric to monk/druid because you explained it so well with all the options I'd have which is great for a noob like me! So thank you and please keep making more videos like this :)
The proficiency swap from armor to longsword was a slick move, but I feel like there was a huge missed opportunity here to have a 2h Warhammer wielding Mountain Dwarf Monk. Then maybe Crusher could be squeezed in there somewhere so that all of your weapon AND unarmed strikes could make use of it. Plus, if it's a Druid multiclass you can get down w/ some Shillelagh shenanigans!
Agree a thousand percent about scaling, would love to see it more consistent. Methinks if this happened, the need to multi-class would diminish greatly. I personally would rather play a straight class and not feel underpowered!
i love this character so much! thanks Colby! as a character concept, i envisage a dwarven farmer as obsessed with the mushrooms in his underground cavern as the Hobbits of the Shire. personally, to stick with the farmer theme, i would choose a sickle (a reskinned scimitar) so he can harvest souls as eagerly as he harvests and nurtures his fungi, and i know that would slightly reduce his damage, but it would be so worth it! he spends most of his downtime teaching locals how to grow mushrooms better on the surface, once he has understood the perils of sunlight! I would ask for a homebrew version of Transport via Plants when he gets there, called "A Short Cut through Mushrooms". I love the idea that he momentarily shrinks the party down very small so they can teleport through a toadstool!
As someone who always plays mid-level one shots. Thank you, I always get to try out new builds and character concepts with d8fferent voices for each one.
I'm building a Thri-Kreen Spore Druid for a spelljammer game because having an ant looking character covered in those zombie fungi would be hilarious. This sounds like the perfect build to do it with.
I am using this to respec Halsin in BG3. With a salami. That should work.. In my headcanon, Halsin, during his centuries-long studies of the Shadow-cursed lands, has gained appreciation for solitude (and loneliness of being one of the rare few survivors of that war) and the unnatural rot due to the curse..and consequently how he appreciates natural decay (and undeath).
@@WormHunter it works quite well. If you stack the items that add spellcasting modifiers to attacks and if you did the moubtain pass and exploited the morninglord buff of radiant damage by sending him to camp then taking him in again each day to refresh the buff, this halsin will be a monster. Mine took half the hp of the final form of the act 2 final boss in a single turn with the help of portent dice and crit threshold lowering items.
I feel like flavor wise, and isn't too shabby mechanically, Mercy monk and spores druid would make a beautiful multiclass. Life and death, Heal and Harm. Very synergistic
I built this character but he was a drow, came from an evil monastery in the underdark that had a connection with a nearby fungal druid grove. Very cool character
My table has an open hand monk. It synergizes super well with our conquest Paladin. The Paladin’s aura drops enemies’ speed to zero. Then the monk knocks them prone and they can’t get up. Then they use just wail on the biggest thing on the battlefield while it’s groveling before them and they have advantage to melee attacks or let the cleric just stand next to them with spirit guardians.
I had an idea for a pseudo-necromancer using Spores Druid and Twilight Cleric. You can use the channel divinity on zombies and Aura of Vitality surprisingly doesn't state that it doesn't work on undead.
I played a monk for many years in 3.0/3.5, all the way to level 25 (epic level handbook). My quivering palm never worked (you could do it once a week), until the final boss battle against a horde of ancient dragon avatars (those are gods, sir) where I instantly killed an ancient black dragon avatar with the first hit of the battle! That truly was epic
This just seems like a fun way to build a character. Combining this idea with the video I saw elsewhere for a Princess Peach build using the same two classes and sub-classes results in a lot of options, toughness, and versatility in a class pairing that you would not think would have so much synergy on first inspection. And oh JOY the flavor. If this character somehow ends up as the main healer of a party, good luck bringing them down as any strategist would be wont to do. They can always just NOT get into melee and have plenty of other options to just keep enemies off of them while doing other druid things, and they don't have the typical back-liner weakness to archer-types, having a fair hit die, good ac, as well as the all-important deflect missiles. An important note as well if your monk/druid is being swarmed, they can use wild shape in conjunction with martial arts to potentially be even tankier, or mobile, at the possible cost of constant damage output. It just seems really strong to me regardless of whether the main plan works, just because of the sheer number of options you have for if it doesn't.
Another thing I forgot to mention: Spike Growth is amazing defensively. You can center it around yourself and if anyone wants to get to you while you sling spells or summons, they have to slog IN through it and risk getting pushed back OUT through it, just to have to do it again. As long as you don't move within it, it doesn't hurt you either. If they fly, then they have a big target on them for the rest of your party, or those damage spells druids have access to. Additionally, while I like the flavor of a longsword monk, as others have stated, Dwarves get battle axe proficiency already; but more importantly there's a must-have magic weapon for Druids called the Moon Sickle. It may only be a d4 for damage for some reason, but it's a pre-built monk weapon so you can replace that d4 with your martial arts die depending on your monk levels, and it gives a sweet +1/2/3 to your spell save DCs, spell attacks, and melee attacks and damage. You also get an extra d4 healing any time you cast a healing spell. AND if you have a lenient DM, you could even convince them to let you re-flavor it into another weapon type like a battle axe or a long sword. I played Ace Ventura as a post-When Nature Calls Druid with Rafiki's (yes, from The Lion King) staff as a re-flavored +2 moon sickle in quarterstaff form as an example.
Hey Colby I think I found a diamond in the rough. The Archfey warlock is a class that is not often played but it seems like a great way to give your warlock advantage. Because they get special access to Faerie Fire, I feel like an elven accuracy build could make great use of this feature! I wonder what you could do to optimize this build? Fighter and sorcerer dips for nova round with two (6) Scorching Rays and an Eldritch Blast all at triple advantage is my first thought…
Seeing the Open Hand Monk's ability to push a target 15 feet away, on a failed Str save, gives me an idea for multiclassing Open Hand Monk with Swarmkeeper Ranger. Swarmkeeper also has the ability to, once per turn, push a target 15 feet away on a failed Str save after hitting them with an attack. So a build that forces the enemy to make TWO Str saves, possibly pushing them 30 feet if they fail both, sounds like it could be kinda fun.
Id argue, part of the reason why its ok that SE is a action is that its features are not actually tied to the temporary hit points unlike e.g. Armor of Agathys which technically can last as a active spell for way longer than it has any effect. So at least by RAW, just having 1thp from something else when activating SE and choosing not to overwrite the existing THP means you never gained (per phb text on THP) and thus cant lose those THP, so it is just a 10 minute long (or shorter if you wildshape again) buff.
I like what someone said a little ways down get crusher feat to bump them 5 feet into their air and then use your flurry of blows to hit them another 15 feet up. They fall prone take 2d6 damage and you use your second flurry on them while they lay prone. A really cool upper cut high kick combo
I actually on my own stumbled on a very similar build a few months ago taking advantage of the AOE damage and additional on hit damage that the Spore Druid provides and comboing that with any number of the Monk subclasses. Also taking advantage of spell slots to supplement the monks otherwise resource intensive utility
I'm getting over a cold now too. We could sing some Johny Cash duets. Also, I have to admit, I have fallen asleep more than once listening to your soothing voice.
Danica Banadeuce is the best monk in the DND verse imho. Fell in love with the monk class when I read the Cleric Quintet as a kid and saw what she could do with no weapons.
Really wish this vid was out before I started playing my current spores druid. Seems like a seriously fun character. Think the damage numbers are criminally underrated considering that you could apply most of the mid/late lvl tactics to control damaging multiple enemies with plant growth/insect plague/spores or similar combo. Then just knock em back with your sword monk every time they near the border of the control area. That monk foundation really lends itself to any controller build and acheives that scalable monk flavored fun that you talked about. Makes me think that a legit druid flavored monk subclass would be dangerously fun. Really unique and well-rounded build. Love it.
An interesting build. Conjure animals and Conjure woodland beings are tricky spells to use but they can be really interesting if the players and the dm talk about it beforehand.
As a lifelong professional Shakespearean actor, I can indeed verify that 10 minutes is a very long monologue. Not even Hamlet goes that long at a single go!
Kinda thought you would squeeze a little Ranger in there. Swarmkeeper Ranger is a great way to replicate the effects (Once per turn) of Open Hand Monk without spending Ki. Loved the build/video as always!
The synchronicity is strong! I built a Spore Monk over the weekend, as well. A Witherbloom Plasmoid Astral Self Circle of Spores (based on Murf from Star Trek Prodigy). Simple build, Monk 1, Druid 2, then Monk the rest of the way. Tops out with five attacks dealing 1d10+5 force + 1d6 necrotic per hit, and an additional 2d4 necrotic on a reaction. Sustained damage averages 75 per round, which is terrible for a d4 build, but pretty darn good at most tables I sit at. And the additional Cantrip attacks for range with the ability to heal and be useful out of combat makes it feel good.
Spike growth is where teamwork comes in into play. Your Martials dont have to go in. Instead surround the area and punish all who try to leave. If a strong character has access to flight you can grapple enemies and drag them though while you are above the effects
I think part of what I liked about earlier versions, there was very little that scaled at all. Hit points, spells and sneak attack damage in 2e were the main considerations. Made it a lot easier as DM to gauge how well PCs will perform against various monsters.
Fun fact. With the crusher feet you can launch your enemy 20ft straight up in the air! Then take fall damage! When you hit them with bludgeoning damage with your fist, you can moves them 5ft straight up with the crusher feat and then another 15ft from your open hand technique. They then fall back down and take 2d6 fall damage. This also makes them fall prone as well. Too bad Druids can’t cast Cloud of Daggers instead of Moonbeam. With it only being a 5ft cub, instead of a 40ft tall cylinder, you can punch them straight up in the air like Ryu and out of the area affect. So you could first hit them into Cloud of Daggers for the first time and then run up to them to punch them again. Then you yell, “Shoryuken!!” as you proceed to uppercut them 20ft up, out of CoD, and fall back down into it (prone) for double the damage. They then start their turn getting up inside CoD and take l damage from it again for the FORTH time! But alas… the spell casters that are able to cast it don’t use wisdom. It makes me kind of mad that monks are; well, so MAD🤷♂️
I really like this idea, and a really neat way to re-flavor a spores druid is to make them like a vampire character. Replace spores with blood and you're basically done. Wild shape into a bat or wolf, get extra necrotic damage, cool combat and utility spells that you can also flavor as vampiric abilities. It just works
Wierdly, kinda love the "gettin over a cold voice". I've always love when i get the "slept too long, or got over bing sick voice", but always find i'm chacing that high from it.
Man, your post-cold voice plus the fact that I've got myself a new pair of headphones today… it is so soothing and goosebump-inducing at the same time. 😩 #nohomo #okaymaybealittlebitbuuut
I wonder if you could come up with a build that plays around Heat Metal somehow. The fantasy of going in and lighting yourself on fire as you grapple and pummel someone seems fun and chaotic to play. Maybe a team build where one guy focuses on grappling or otherwise forcing metal onto the target and the other focuses on heating that metal and/or lighting their fire-resistant ally ablaze along with their foes.
I actually had this same multiclass idea and was gonna try it for Bg3 And then I found ur video off of the Dungeon Dudes xD After watching the the vid ive decided on 6 monk 6 druid seeing as the game caps out at lvl 12. Many thx good sir!
Actually, contrary to your statement, I want WofC to make multiclassing easier. Multiclassing is fun. Very fun. You can create countless original combinations not available in any other game. If they come in OneDnD with a cap of 10 levels per class and softens (and balances) multiclass options I would be really happy, because it really feels bad to leave your core class, but heck, there's awesome stuff you can make by dipping levels. I made a halfling genie warlock / astral monk that was actually the patron itself using the halfling as a vessel. Cursing, punching remotely with black smoke (the astral arms feature). The genie's vessel acted as a seal to the patron. It was an awesome character and it was only possible because of how good and flexible 5e's multiclassing is. Well, just look into this channel and all the builds that are only possible because of multiclassing.
