February 27, 2024 • 21 mins
Fighters are versatile powerhouses, capable of countless techniques for applying cold steel to worthy opponents. Monks are ascetic disciples of the martial arts who have surpassed the physical limits through sheer willpower and skill. When combined you apply the speed of a martial artist with the skill of a dedicated murder machine. Eat your protein powder and don’t skip leg day as we go through everything you need to know about the 5e Dungeons & Dragons fighter monk multiclass. Let us know in the comments what you'd like to see next! Read the Full Blog Post Here: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/blogs/dnd/fighter-monk-5e-multiclass Support our Content; get a RPG dice Subscription: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/collections/subscription-sets-1/products/rpg-dice-subscription
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Fighters are versatile powerhouses, capable ofcountless techniques for applying cold steel to worthy
opponents. Monks are disciples of martialarts who have surpassed their physical limits through
sheer, will power and skill.When combined, you apply the speed of
a martial artist with the skill ofa dedicated warrior. Let's see what happens
when you remember to meditate and nevermiss leg day. Despite all the flact
(00:28):
that they've gotten over the years.D and D monks are well, they're
really cool, but they're mainly forout maneuvering their foes. Let's say you
also want to strike your opponents reallywell. By combining the fighter and the
monk, we can become a littlelittle less nimble, and in exchange,
become a little more Let's say directFighter monks have a very high DPS very
early. They're survivable, quick,and get to seamlessly play with most of
(00:51):
the features both classes have without clashingon the action economy. We don't have
to even really stretch between ability scores, and you'll still be able to effectively
multiply without having any dead levels.That doesn't mean there aren't downsides, though.
This class combination feels really good.At early levels, and if you're
only playing like a one shot orsomething at early levels, this might be
the best multi class for you todo, but your martial arts die increases
(01:12):
anyway at later class levels, makingit a redundant level dip if we continue
forward with Monk levels. However,if we continue forward with fighter levels instead,
we essentially get the primary benefits ofa high level Monk while only taking
a dip in the class. Thisdoes mean all of our builds will be
core Fighter with only some Monk levels, though it's also worth mentioning that the
(01:32):
five E Monk is fairly weak overall, thus the flack that they've gotten over
the years, and other than thatinitial Monk dip, it can be hard
to argue to pursue the class furtherconsidering the poor monk's damage output as if
anyone has ever played a monk.Because of the damage output, and as
with any multi class build, you'llbe delayed on your mid level class features
compared to builds of a single class, and will be outright losing on the
(01:53):
late game class features at twentieth level. The nice thing about this combination is
that it functions right off the bat, with only a single level in each
class, meaning you'll see the buildkick in as early as second level.
There are some more synergies we canwork out later, but the core synergy
starts around level two. All ofour featured fighter and monk abilities stack together
to build a more perfect martial machine. But we've got a few features and
(02:15):
options we really care about to makethe combination work. Starting with our significant
monk features, we have unarmored defense. Monks get an armor class equal to
ten plus their dexterity modifier plus theirwisdom modifier so long as they're not wearing
any armor. Most other monk featuresalso require us to be unarmored, so
we'll need to rely on this featurefor our defense. Thankfully, we'll be
able to maximize both dexterity and wisdomanyway, so this should be granting us
(02:38):
a respectable sixteen to eighteen AC inmost situations. And the next, of
course, we have martial arts.This is the core defining monk feature that
improves our unarmed strikes, lets themuse dexterity instead of strength, and allows
us to make an unarmed strike asa bonus action when we take the attack
action. Remember that this is differentfrom flurry of Blows and it's basically the
default free punch that we can makewithout spending key or any other resource.
(03:01):
Speaking of which we have key Theseare your mystical resources that you spend to
fuel most of the monk's abilities.Technically you gain a number of key points
as shown on their table, butit's basically equal to your monk levels starting
at second and starting at second weget three abilities we can spend those monk
points on. Flury of Blows isthe one we'll be using most often,
and it works exactly like our martialarts extra unarmed strike, but if we
(03:23):
spend a key point for Flurry ofBlows, we get a second and third
attack using unarmed strikes instead of justthe extra attack. Patient defense lets us
dodge as a bonus action at thecost of one key point, which is
situational but extremely useful and one ofthe reasons I keep playing Monk multi classes
whenever I get to play and finallystep of the win, lets us dash
(03:44):
or disengage as a bonus action forone key and also doubles our jumping distance
for the turn next. We haveunarmored movement. Very simply, monks get
extra speed when you first gain thefeature with your second Monk level. It's
ten extra feet of movement speed,and it improves to fifteen at six level,
twenty feet at tenth level, twentyfive feet at fourteenth level, and
thirty feet at eighteenth level. Justthe ten extra feet is a huge boost
(04:05):
to speed, and you'll typically beable to maneuver yourself however you'd like in
combat. And then we have dedicatedweapon. This class feature will only matter
for some of the bill variations,but this second level feature essentially lets us
convert a simple weapon or martial weaponinto a monk weapon. And then with
deflect missiles. Starting at third level, we can use a reaction to reduce
the damage taken by one D tenplus your Monk level plus your Dexterity modifier.
(04:29):
You only have the one reaction,but it's incredibly handedy to essentially negate
the odd arrow that flies at you. And then we have a rather late
addition to the Monk class key fueledattack. This third level feature lets you
use a key point for weapon attacksinstead of bonus action on armed strikes.
You're only getting one extra bonus actionattack, but it can potentially be more
impactful with a good weapon than thebonus attacks with just unarmed strikes. For
(04:51):
us, we won't be making muchuse of this unless we go the gun
monk route. More on that abit, and then we have quickened healing
gained it four level, you canspend two key points to heal a number
of hit points equal to a rollof your marshal dye plus your proficiency bonus.
It's not a huge amount of healingfor the cost, but you regain
key on a short rest and healingcan come in pretty handy. I think
(05:15):
a motorcycle just drove right past myhouse. And then at fifth level we
have focused aim. You can increaseyour attack roll by plus two for every
key point that you spend, upto a max of plus six. This
means that every time you're pretty sureyou are close to hitting your target,
you can bump it up on theroll to push it through and then with
extra attack just like most martial classes. Monks gain this at fifth level.
This means that we can make twoattacks and make a bonus action. Unarmed
(05:38):
attack using martial arts or with akey point flurry of blows gives us a
total of four attacks, two withour primary weapon and two unarmed strikes.
Note that this won't stack with thesame extra attack feature that the fighter gains,
though, but we'll still get threeto four attacks each turn. And
then we have monastic tradition. Wedon't need to go up to the third
month level to get one of theMonk's subclasses for the core of the build,
(06:00):
but for some of the stuff we'llbe stacking onto that core, we'll
need to get that third class levelfor the archetype feature. Now, moving
on to significant fighter features, wehave their hit points, and while the
upgrade between one D eight to oneD ten isn't huge, it's worth considering
that on average, every level offighter you take over Monk will make you
just a little bit beefier. Andthen we have their fighting style, obtained
(06:20):
with only one fighter level. Fightersget to choose among combat styles that are
all simple but significant buffs and combatabilities. We only care about the one
option, though, and that's unarmedfighting. Unarmed fighting lets us deal one
D six damage for our unarmed strikes, or one D eight if we aren't
armed with anything. One of themost useful abilities, second wind, also
picked up with only one fire level. This feature gives us a decent healing
(06:44):
option. It uses the bonus action, which is an ideal, but emergency
healing in the pocket is always useful. And then we have action surge gained
at second level. This is merelygreat for fair builds and absolutely bonkers on
the unfair builds. Sadly, mostof our monk features actually use our bonus
action, so an extra attack isn'tfantastic for us, but getting to cheat
on the action economy is always usefulin one way or another. I'm sorry,
(07:08):
dungeon masters. And when it comesto archetypes, we'll go into those
a little bit more in a moment, but a lot of the fighter archetypes,
and even just the initial third leveladditional features of those archetypes can be
incredible for the build. And thenwe have extra attack, which, just
like with the monk, you getit at fifth level and you cannot stack
it with the identical feature, butwe can still make our regular attacks unarmed
strikes if we choose to. Now, let's talk ability scores. Thankfully,
(07:31):
we don't have to spread our abilitiesthin and can essentially just build our character
out as if they were just monks. Firstly, you want dexterity as your
highest ability scores, it will factorinto both our attacks and our ac Thankfully,
our base class is fighter and we'llhave the opportunity to spend an ability
score improvement on a feat in additionto boosting up our core stats. Our
next highest ability score should be Wisdom, as it will fuel many of our
(07:54):
monk features and adds into our acthanks to unarmoured defense. For both Dexterity
and Wisdom, we want to geta minimum mobility modifier of plus three next.
Like with any martial character that wantsto get up onto the front lines,
we need to make every hit pointmatter. We'll want to take Constitution
as our third highest ability score topat out our hit points and make ourselves
a bit more survivable. Finally,everything else can be a dumpstat Intelligence and
(08:18):
charisma don't really factor into the buildat all, and neither should strength.
Surprisingly, though keep an eye onstrength depending on what route you go for.
I probably shouldn't be so definitive onthat. When it comes to equipment,
we're going fully unarmed here, sothe answer is no equipment at all.
There are some exceptions for the variationson the build, but generally you
don't need any weapons or armor forthis build whatsoever, which honestly is a
(08:41):
pretty cool role playing aspect of thisbuild. The idea of a character that
just doesn't need any weapons or anythingis very minimalist. I don't know.
That sounds pretty fun. When itcomes to what class you should start with,
it's kind of a close call,but I would advise taking your first
level in Monk. Starting with Monkgets us a bonus tool or in instrument
proficiency, and starting with Fighter wouldnet us heavy armor proficiency. Now,
(09:03):
normally heavy armoor proficiency is much morevaluable, but since we plan on going
unarmored anyway, we might as wellget the bonus tool. Starting out as
a Monk also gets us on armoreddefense right out of the gate, so
we don't have to awkwardly wear armorfor our first level just to ditch it
at second. Though, again,that would be a pretty fun role playing
opportunity where a character decides to embracelike their martial art or something like that.
(09:28):
I don't know, there's something interestingthere. Now. When it comes
to the feats that both classes have, there are a slew of them that
seem to fit into our build,but I find that most of them are
kind of traps tavern Brawler mostly givesus redundant features and the bonus action Grapple
clashes with our flurry of blows.Similarly, Grappler feels like it could work,
but the feet only grants us advantageafter we've grappled a creature and the
(09:52):
pinning feature is confusingly bad. Thereare a couple feats that may be worth
taking, and we should just coverthose really quick. First, we have
Crusher, which deals bludgeoning damage,conveniently the damage type dealt by well our
fists connecting with our enemy's face.It gives us a single point of strength
or constitution and two pretty interesting bonuses. Once per turn, we can shove
(10:13):
creatures five feet when we hit themwith bludgeting damage, and whenever we critically
hit with bludgeting damage, we andour allies all get advantage on attacks that
target that same guy until the startof our next turn. Normally, this
feed is a bit underwhelming when usinga single big bludgeoning weapon, but with
a flurry of attacks all potentially criticallyhitting our odds of triggering the free advantage
is pretty high. Keep in mindthis all attacks with the target, not
(10:37):
just attacks from you. This meansyou can potentially give your entire party advantage
against a boss for a whole round. And then we have Gunner, which
revolves around firearms obviously, and it'sonly going to be useful if we go
down the gun Monk build. It'sa half feet as well, giving us
a point of dexterity. Along withthe following features. We have proficiency with
firearms. We get to ignore theloading property on guns, which is pretty
(10:58):
big within five feet, doesn't imposedisadvantage unranged attacks for us. All of
this is predicated on the setting havingaccess to firearms, of course, or
if your DM is willing to havefirearms, but in those settings, it
does everything we could ever want itto do. Ignoring loading means we can
pick guns up with a higher damageoutput, and no disadvantage means we're free
(11:20):
to shoot and punch in any combinationwe want. The core interaction we're going
to take advantage of is the combinationof the fighter's unarmed fighting style in the
Monk's Martial Arts feature, both ofwhich are gained at first level of each
class. Both features interact in aweird way. Unarmed fighting style lets us
deal one D six plus strength orone D eight if completely unarmed with unarmed
strikes. Martial Arts at first levellets us deal one D four plus dexterity
(11:43):
for unarmed strikes, and because ofthe way the features are worded, the
end result is that with both featureswe're now allowed to deal one D eight
plus dexterity with each punch. Normally, a monk wouldn't be able to do
this until their eleventh level, whentheir martial arts die increases, and by
taking the unarmed fighting style, wecan essentially skip ahead and do the same
thing at second level. At justour second character level, we'll be able
(12:05):
to make two attacks in a turn, each attack dealing one D eight plus
three damage per hit. With justone more monk level, we'll have access
to key and Flurry of Blows,making us capable of three attacks a turn
for a total of twenty three that'sthree D eight plus nine. Now let's
finally get into the builds. Allof these strategies utilize the core of the
build, but we can tweak andimprove upon it, taking it in some
(12:28):
very interesting directions. First, wehave the Battlefist Monk. This is what
I would consider to be the defaultroot for this multi class combination. We
start with the core of the build, take one additional Monk level for Key
and Flurry of Blows, and takeall of our remaining levels and fighters selecting
the battle Master fighter archetype. BattleMaster is already arguably one of the strongest
and most versatile fighter archetypes, andit doesn't use up our bonus action since
(12:50):
many of our more powerful maneuvers triggeron hits. The battle Master gets four
and eventually more superiority dice. Ithas d eights they can use to activate
a set of different options called maneuvers, and they recharge on a short rest.
You get to select three battle maneuvers, and we really want to prioritize
options that can take advantage of ournumerous attacks that don't use up our bonus
action. I recommend choosing at leastone of the following, either disarming attack,
(13:15):
menacing attack, and tripping attack.All three function in similar ways,
adding our superiority die to the damageof an attack while either nerfing their ability
to attack you or buffing your abilityto attack them. Disarming attack forces the
target to save or drop their weapon. Menacing attack causes the target to be
afraid of you until the end oftheir next turn. On a failed save
and tripping attack well, it tripsthem and knocks them over on a failed
(13:39):
save. Tripping is especially brutal forus here, since we'll get advantage on
all of our remaining attacks while wepummel our opponent into the ground. Finally,
it's probably prudent to take perry,which lets us reduce the damage of
an oncoming attack by our superiority dieplus dexterity modifier, effectively patting out our
hit points when needed. To putthis all together, let's take a fifth
leveled example with T two levels ofMonk and three levels of Fighter. Using
(14:01):
a bonus action for flury of Blows, we've got three unarmed attacks, all
of which deal one D eight plusthree bludgeoning damage for a damage output of
twenty three. Where it gets interestingis when we throw one of our maneuvers
in there as well. Once oneof our unarmed strikes lands, we can
trigger tripping attack, dealing an extraone D eight damage along with a solid
chance of knocking our opponent prone,granting us advantage on the rest of our
(14:22):
attacks and likely for our allies attacksas well. All in all, at
fifth level, as a character thatgives us twenty seven. That's four D
eight plus nine damage a turn withhigh odds on a full party advantage buff
for massive damage, and then wehave Champion of Harm. For this build,
we're going to do the same criticalhit fishing while also taking advantage of
a weird additional damage interaction to tryand get some devastating crits to start off.
(14:46):
We're going to stick with the coreof the build, taking a fire
level and the unarmed fighting style alongwith our Monk level. We won a
total of three monk levels selecting theWay of Mercy Monk archetype, and all
of our remaining levels should go towardsfighter taking the Champion archetype Sambien fighters are
a bit bland admittedly, but importantlyat third level, their critical hit range
increases to nineteen and twenty, andsince we'll often be attacking three times a
(15:09):
turn, our odds of snagging theodd critical hit are statistically quite high.
The Way of Mercy is a bitof an odd duck designed as the healing
Monk. We can use key pointsfor healing, not our focus, but
still pretty useful, and we getproficiency in insight, medicine and herbalism kits,
and we get a weird plague doctormask that does literally nothing but looks
(15:30):
cool, especially if you're into plaguedoctor aesthetics. The future we're actually going
to care about, however, iscalled hand of Harm, which lets us
spend a key point to do bonusdamage on an unarmed strike equal to our
martial arts dive plus our wisdom modifier. All that doesn't sound like an amazing
use of our key, but ithas some unique functionality for us. Firstly,
we don't have to decide to applythis extra damage until we've already hit
(15:52):
with the attack. Next, andmost importantly, this is treated as extra
damage dealt by the attack itself,which means it also is doubled on a
critical hit. Armed with improved criticaland multiple attacks, we can fish for
our criticals and pophand of harm wheneverwe land one at seventh level, one
of our critical hits with hand ofHarm applied will deal thirteen that's two D
eight plus four bludgeoning damage and thirteennecrotic damage for a nasty twenty six damage
(16:18):
punch. And then we have JohnWick, I mean gun Monk. Here
we're going to make the biggest departurefrom the core concept and turn our monk
fighter into a revolver twirling and quickpunching desperado. A bit of warning,
though the odds are high, rDM isn't playing around with guns, and
even if they are, they maynot allow Matthew Mercer's gun Slinger fighter archetype
since it's still technically unofficial material.But loosen up, DMS. You're telling
(16:44):
me you can't figure out a wayto counter that anyway. Firstly, we'll
be starting out with the same corebuild, but we'll be getting up to
three monk levels and taking the wayof the Kensi Monk archetype, and all
of our remaining levels should go intofighter taking the Gunslinger archetype. Finally,
at our first opportunity, we'll wantto take the gunner feet, either at
our seventh level with our first ASIor at first level if your DM is
allowing variant humans with the free feet, which again they might not. But
(17:10):
come on, DMS, what areyou doing. We're still going for the
same ability scores of dexterity and wisdom, since thankfully the Gunslinger grit ability is
also based on wisdom. We've nowput quite a few strange features in the
pot here, but I promise they'regoing to melt together pretty well into something
wonderful. To get this party started, though, you'll need to figure out
what firearms your DM is giving youaccess to. There are the matt Mercer
(17:30):
firearms included as part of the archetype, but there's also the Renaissance, Modern
and futuristic firearms found within the DMG. If you're using the Matte Mercer firearms,
your best option without unique weapons isgoing to be a Blunderbuss, which
is a short range, one handedgun that deals to D eight damage.
If using Renaissance firearms, your bestoption is going to be the pistol,
(17:52):
a one D ten damage weapon.If you have access to modern firearms,
which I know is a bit ofa stretch, your best bet is going
to be a rev which deals toD eight damage. And if you're lucky
enough to be playing around with futuristicfirearms, say in like a spell Jammer
campaign or something like that, yourbest option is the laser pistol, which
deals an insane three D six damage. Next, and I know this will
(18:14):
be very weird for our unarmed build, but we need to put a one
handed monk weapon in our other hand. This can be practically any one handed
melee weapon. Just pick whatever youthink is coolest or best reflects your worldview.
All right, and now that wehave our weapons, we need to
select both of them as our Kensiweapons. This not only converts them to
monk weapons, but gives us twospecial benefits, one intended for range and
(18:36):
the other intended for melee. Theranged one is a bit meh, but
the melee one is worth going after. Whenever we make unarmed strikes while also
holding onto a Kensi melee weapon,we get plus two AC until our next
turn. Okay, so now we'reseventh level, and much like me on
an average Tuesday, we've got ablunderbuss in one hand and a dagger in
the other. How does this allwork? Well, we're going to be
(18:57):
playing some silly games with some rulesmanution, but the end result should be
pretty glorious. Firstly, we runin and shoot our target with our blunderbuss
point blank, ignoring the disadvantage dueto the gunner feet. Then, even
though both of our hands are full, they're full of monk weapons, and
because of martial arts, we canstill make unarmed strikes, and we get
to make two unarmed strikes using flurryof blows. Because we aren't completely unarmed,
(19:21):
they'll be D six's rather than Deights. But that plus two AC
is too good for just holding adagger that is now essentially our shield.
And also because of the gunner feet, we completely ignore the loading property on
our weapons. And we're not doneyet because we still have all of the
gunslinger's grit and trick shots to playwith that all give us secondary effects on
(19:41):
our gun attacks. We can activatea trick shot by spending a grit point,
and we regain all those grit pointson a short rest. We really
want to take winging shot that'll knockour enemy prone when we blast them in
the face. It feels like itshould do more than that, but that's
what we're going with. So toput all of this together, we can
use our extra speed to rush upinto our opponent's face and we can blast
(20:02):
them with a blunderbuss using winging shotto knock them prone. We then immediately
headbut our elbow our target for flurryof blows and make two unarmed attacks against
our prone target. We've now donetwenty five damage. That's two D eight
plus two D six plus nine andour standing above a prone target with a
plus two bonus to our AC untilour next turn. Due to Gunner ignoring
(20:22):
the loading feature entirely, we canrepeat this every turn so long as we
have the key and grip points remaining, and more importantly, we get to
be a cool martial arts cowboy whiledoing it. I know I just flooded
this whole video with a bunch ofmechanical advantages and things that you can get
in game, but I cannot stressenough how much this multi class opens you
(20:42):
up to so many cool role playingopportunities and basically any story that you're in,
especially if your DM is cool andallows you to use guns. Thank
you guys so much for watching.I really appreciate it. Be sure to
like and subscribe because we're putting outnew content like this all the time.
Go see what we're doing over onour website at skullsplitterdce dot com. And
if you or someone in your partyis building a Monk Fighter multi class,
(21:04):
I would love to hear about yourcharacter down in the comments. Thanks again
for watching. My name is PatrickFerguson from skull Splitter Dice and until next
time, farewell
Fighters are versatile powerhouses, capable ofcountless techniques for applying cold steel to worthy
opponents. Monks are disciples of martialarts who have surpassed their physical limits through
sheer, will power and skill.When combined, you apply the speed of
a martial artist with the skill ofa dedicated warrior. Let's see what happens
when you remember to meditate and nevermiss leg day. Despite all the flact
(00:28):
that they've gotten over the years.D and D monks are well, they're
really cool, but they're mainly forout maneuvering their foes. Let's say you
also want to strike your opponents reallywell. By combining the fighter and the
monk, we can become a littlelittle less nimble, and in exchange,
become a little more Let's say directFighter monks have a very high DPS very
early. They're survivable, quick,and get to seamlessly play with most of
(00:51):
the features both classes have without clashingon the action economy. We don't have
to even really stretch between ability scores, and you'll still be able to effectively
multiply without having any dead levels.That doesn't mean there aren't downsides, though.
This class combination feels really good.At early levels, and if you're
only playing like a one shot orsomething at early levels, this might be
the best multi class for you todo, but your martial arts die increases
(01:12):
anyway at later class levels, makingit a redundant level dip if we continue
forward with Monk levels. However,if we continue forward with fighter levels instead,
we essentially get the primary benefits ofa high level Monk while only taking
a dip in the class. Thisdoes mean all of our builds will be
core Fighter with only some Monk levels, though it's also worth mentioning that the
(01:32):
five E Monk is fairly weak overall, thus the flack that they've gotten over
the years, and other than thatinitial Monk dip, it can be hard
to argue to pursue the class furtherconsidering the poor monk's damage output as if
anyone has ever played a monk.Because of the damage output, and as
with any multi class build, you'llbe delayed on your mid level class features
compared to builds of a single class, and will be outright losing on the
(01:53):
late game class features at twentieth level. The nice thing about this combination is
that it functions right off the bat, with only a single level in each
class, meaning you'll see the buildkick in as early as second level.
There are some more synergies we canwork out later, but the core synergy
starts around level two. All ofour featured fighter and monk abilities stack together
to build a more perfect martial machine. But we've got a few features and
(02:15):
options we really care about to makethe combination work. Starting with our significant
monk features, we have unarmored defense. Monks get an armor class equal to
ten plus their dexterity modifier plus theirwisdom modifier so long as they're not wearing
any armor. Most other monk featuresalso require us to be unarmored, so
we'll need to rely on this featurefor our defense. Thankfully, we'll be
able to maximize both dexterity and wisdomanyway, so this should be granting us
(02:38):
a respectable sixteen to eighteen AC inmost situations. And the next, of
course, we have martial arts.This is the core defining monk feature that
improves our unarmed strikes, lets themuse dexterity instead of strength, and allows
us to make an unarmed strike asa bonus action when we take the attack
action. Remember that this is differentfrom flurry of Blows and it's basically the
default free punch that we can makewithout spending key or any other resource.
(03:01):
Speaking of which we have key Theseare your mystical resources that you spend to
fuel most of the monk's abilities.Technically you gain a number of key points
as shown on their table, butit's basically equal to your monk levels starting
at second and starting at second weget three abilities we can spend those monk
points on. Flury of Blows isthe one we'll be using most often,
and it works exactly like our martialarts extra unarmed strike, but if we
(03:23):
spend a key point for Flurry ofBlows, we get a second and third
attack using unarmed strikes instead of justthe extra attack. Patient defense lets us
dodge as a bonus action at thecost of one key point, which is
situational but extremely useful and one ofthe reasons I keep playing Monk multi classes
whenever I get to play and finallystep of the win, lets us dash
(03:44):
or disengage as a bonus action forone key and also doubles our jumping distance
for the turn next. We haveunarmored movement. Very simply, monks get
extra speed when you first gain thefeature with your second Monk level. It's
ten extra feet of movement speed,and it improves to fifteen at six level,
twenty feet at tenth level, twentyfive feet at fourteenth level, and
thirty feet at eighteenth level. Justthe ten extra feet is a huge boost
(04:05):
to speed, and you'll typically beable to maneuver yourself however you'd like in
combat. And then we have dedicatedweapon. This class feature will only matter
for some of the bill variations,but this second level feature essentially lets us
convert a simple weapon or martial weaponinto a monk weapon. And then with
deflect missiles. Starting at third level, we can use a reaction to reduce
the damage taken by one D tenplus your Monk level plus your Dexterity modifier.
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You only have the one reaction,but it's incredibly handedy to essentially negate
the odd arrow that flies at you. And then we have a rather late
addition to the Monk class key fueledattack. This third level feature lets you
use a key point for weapon attacksinstead of bonus action on armed strikes.
You're only getting one extra bonus actionattack, but it can potentially be more
impactful with a good weapon than thebonus attacks with just unarmed strikes. For
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us, we won't be making muchuse of this unless we go the gun
monk route. More on that abit, and then we have quickened healing
gained it four level, you canspend two key points to heal a number
of hit points equal to a rollof your marshal dye plus your proficiency bonus.
It's not a huge amount of healingfor the cost, but you regain
key on a short rest and healingcan come in pretty handy. I think
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a motorcycle just drove right past myhouse. And then at fifth level we
have focused aim. You can increaseyour attack roll by plus two for every
key point that you spend, upto a max of plus six. This
means that every time you're pretty sureyou are close to hitting your target,
you can bump it up on theroll to push it through and then with
extra attack just like most martial classes. Monks gain this at fifth level.
This means that we can make twoattacks and make a bonus action. Unarmed
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attack using martial arts or with akey point flurry of blows gives us a
total of four attacks, two withour primary weapon and two unarmed strikes.
Note that this won't stack with thesame extra attack feature that the fighter gains,
though, but we'll still get threeto four attacks each turn. And
then we have monastic tradition. Wedon't need to go up to the third
month level to get one of theMonk's subclasses for the core of the build,
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but for some of the stuff we'llbe stacking onto that core, we'll
need to get that third class levelfor the archetype feature. Now, moving
on to significant fighter features, wehave their hit points, and while the
upgrade between one D eight to oneD ten isn't huge, it's worth considering
that on average, every level offighter you take over Monk will make you
just a little bit beefier. Andthen we have their fighting style, obtained
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with only one fighter level. Fightersget to choose among combat styles that are
all simple but significant buffs and combatabilities. We only care about the one
option, though, and that's unarmedfighting. Unarmed fighting lets us deal one
D six damage for our unarmed strikes, or one D eight if we aren't
armed with anything. One of themost useful abilities, second wind, also
picked up with only one fire level. This feature gives us a decent healing
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option. It uses the bonus action, which is an ideal, but emergency
healing in the pocket is always useful. And then we have action surge gained
at second level. This is merelygreat for fair builds and absolutely bonkers on
the unfair builds. Sadly, mostof our monk features actually use our bonus
action, so an extra attack isn'tfantastic for us, but getting to cheat
on the action economy is always usefulin one way or another. I'm sorry,
(07:08):
dungeon masters. And when it comesto archetypes, we'll go into those
a little bit more in a moment, but a lot of the fighter archetypes,
and even just the initial third leveladditional features of those archetypes can be
incredible for the build. And thenwe have extra attack, which, just
like with the monk, you getit at fifth level and you cannot stack
it with the identical feature, butwe can still make our regular attacks unarmed
strikes if we choose to. Now, let's talk ability scores. Thankfully,
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we don't have to spread our abilitiesthin and can essentially just build our character
out as if they were just monks. Firstly, you want dexterity as your
highest ability scores, it will factorinto both our attacks and our ac Thankfully,
our base class is fighter and we'llhave the opportunity to spend an ability
score improvement on a feat in additionto boosting up our core stats. Our
next highest ability score should be Wisdom, as it will fuel many of our
(07:54):
monk features and adds into our acthanks to unarmoured defense. For both Dexterity
and Wisdom, we want to geta minimum mobility modifier of plus three next.
Like with any martial character that wantsto get up onto the front lines,
we need to make every hit pointmatter. We'll want to take Constitution
as our third highest ability score topat out our hit points and make ourselves
a bit more survivable. Finally,everything else can be a dumpstat Intelligence and
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charisma don't really factor into the buildat all, and neither should strength.
Surprisingly, though keep an eye onstrength depending on what route you go for.
I probably shouldn't be so definitive onthat. When it comes to equipment,
we're going fully unarmed here, sothe answer is no equipment at all.
There are some exceptions for the variationson the build, but generally you
don't need any weapons or armor forthis build whatsoever, which honestly is a
(08:41):
pretty cool role playing aspect of thisbuild. The idea of a character that
just doesn't need any weapons or anythingis very minimalist. I don't know.
That sounds pretty fun. When itcomes to what class you should start with,
it's kind of a close call,but I would advise taking your first
level in Monk. Starting with Monkgets us a bonus tool or in instrument
proficiency, and starting with Fighter wouldnet us heavy armor proficiency. Now,
(09:03):
normally heavy armoor proficiency is much morevaluable, but since we plan on going
unarmored anyway, we might as wellget the bonus tool. Starting out as
a Monk also gets us on armoreddefense right out of the gate, so
we don't have to awkwardly wear armorfor our first level just to ditch it
at second. Though, again,that would be a pretty fun role playing
opportunity where a character decides to embracelike their martial art or something like that.
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I don't know, there's something interestingthere. Now. When it comes
to the feats that both classes have, there are a slew of them that
seem to fit into our build,but I find that most of them are
kind of traps tavern Brawler mostly givesus redundant features and the bonus action Grapple
clashes with our flurry of blows.Similarly, Grappler feels like it could work,
but the feet only grants us advantageafter we've grappled a creature and the
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pinning feature is confusingly bad. Thereare a couple feats that may be worth
taking, and we should just coverthose really quick. First, we have
Crusher, which deals bludgeoning damage,conveniently the damage type dealt by well our
fists connecting with our enemy's face.It gives us a single point of strength
or constitution and two pretty interesting bonuses. Once per turn, we can shove
(10:13):
creatures five feet when we hit themwith bludgeting damage, and whenever we critically
hit with bludgeting damage, we andour allies all get advantage on attacks that
target that same guy until the startof our next turn. Normally, this
feed is a bit underwhelming when usinga single big bludgeoning weapon, but with
a flurry of attacks all potentially criticallyhitting our odds of triggering the free advantage
is pretty high. Keep in mindthis all attacks with the target, not
(10:37):
just attacks from you. This meansyou can potentially give your entire party advantage
against a boss for a whole round. And then we have Gunner, which
revolves around firearms obviously, and it'sonly going to be useful if we go
down the gun Monk build. It'sa half feet as well, giving us
a point of dexterity. Along withthe following features. We have proficiency with
firearms. We get to ignore theloading property on guns, which is pretty
(10:58):
big within five feet, doesn't imposedisadvantage unranged attacks for us. All of
this is predicated on the setting havingaccess to firearms, of course, or
if your DM is willing to havefirearms, but in those settings, it
does everything we could ever want itto do. Ignoring loading means we can
pick guns up with a higher damageoutput, and no disadvantage means we're free
(11:20):
to shoot and punch in any combinationwe want. The core interaction we're going
to take advantage of is the combinationof the fighter's unarmed fighting style in the
Monk's Martial Arts feature, both ofwhich are gained at first level of each
class. Both features interact in aweird way. Unarmed fighting style lets us
deal one D six plus strength orone D eight if completely unarmed with unarmed
strikes. Martial Arts at first levellets us deal one D four plus dexterity
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for unarmed strikes, and because ofthe way the features are worded, the
end result is that with both featureswe're now allowed to deal one D eight
plus dexterity with each punch. Normally, a monk wouldn't be able to do
this until their eleventh level, whentheir martial arts die increases, and by
taking the unarmed fighting style, wecan essentially skip ahead and do the same
thing at second level. At justour second character level, we'll be able
(12:05):
to make two attacks in a turn, each attack dealing one D eight plus
three damage per hit. With justone more monk level, we'll have access
to key and Flurry of Blows,making us capable of three attacks a turn
for a total of twenty three that'sthree D eight plus nine. Now let's
finally get into the builds. Allof these strategies utilize the core of the
build, but we can tweak andimprove upon it, taking it in some
(12:28):
very interesting directions. First, wehave the Battlefist Monk. This is what
I would consider to be the defaultroot for this multi class combination. We
start with the core of the build, take one additional Monk level for Key
and Flurry of Blows, and takeall of our remaining levels and fighters selecting
the battle Master fighter archetype. BattleMaster is already arguably one of the strongest
and most versatile fighter archetypes, andit doesn't use up our bonus action since
(12:50):
many of our more powerful maneuvers triggeron hits. The battle Master gets four
and eventually more superiority dice. Ithas d eights they can use to activate
a set of different options called maneuvers, and they recharge on a short rest.
You get to select three battle maneuvers, and we really want to prioritize
options that can take advantage of ournumerous attacks that don't use up our bonus
action. I recommend choosing at leastone of the following, either disarming attack,
(13:15):
menacing attack, and tripping attack.All three function in similar ways,
adding our superiority die to the damageof an attack while either nerfing their ability
to attack you or buffing your abilityto attack them. Disarming attack forces the
target to save or drop their weapon. Menacing attack causes the target to be
afraid of you until the end oftheir next turn. On a failed save
and tripping attack well, it tripsthem and knocks them over on a failed
(13:39):
save. Tripping is especially brutal forus here, since we'll get advantage on
all of our remaining attacks while wepummel our opponent into the ground. Finally,
it's probably prudent to take perry,which lets us reduce the damage of
an oncoming attack by our superiority dieplus dexterity modifier, effectively patting out our
hit points when needed. To putthis all together, let's take a fifth
leveled example with T two levels ofMonk and three levels of Fighter. Using
(14:01):
a bonus action for flury of Blows, we've got three unarmed attacks, all
of which deal one D eight plusthree bludgeoning damage for a damage output of
twenty three. Where it gets interestingis when we throw one of our maneuvers
in there as well. Once oneof our unarmed strikes lands, we can
trigger tripping attack, dealing an extraone D eight damage along with a solid
chance of knocking our opponent prone,granting us advantage on the rest of our
(14:22):
attacks and likely for our allies attacksas well. All in all, at
fifth level, as a character thatgives us twenty seven. That's four D
eight plus nine damage a turn withhigh odds on a full party advantage buff
for massive damage, and then wehave Champion of Harm. For this build,
we're going to do the same criticalhit fishing while also taking advantage of
a weird additional damage interaction to tryand get some devastating crits to start off.
(14:46):
We're going to stick with the coreof the build, taking a fire
level and the unarmed fighting style alongwith our Monk level. We won a
total of three monk levels selecting theWay of Mercy Monk archetype, and all
of our remaining levels should go towardsfighter taking the Champion archetype Sambien fighters are
a bit bland admittedly, but importantlyat third level, their critical hit range
increases to nineteen and twenty, andsince we'll often be attacking three times a
(15:09):
turn, our odds of snagging theodd critical hit are statistically quite high.
The Way of Mercy is a bitof an odd duck designed as the healing
Monk. We can use key pointsfor healing, not our focus, but
still pretty useful, and we getproficiency in insight, medicine and herbalism kits,
and we get a weird plague doctormask that does literally nothing but looks
(15:30):
cool, especially if you're into plaguedoctor aesthetics. The future we're actually going
to care about, however, iscalled hand of Harm, which lets us
spend a key point to do bonusdamage on an unarmed strike equal to our
martial arts dive plus our wisdom modifier. All that doesn't sound like an amazing
use of our key, but ithas some unique functionality for us. Firstly,
we don't have to decide to applythis extra damage until we've already hit
(15:52):
with the attack. Next, andmost importantly, this is treated as extra
damage dealt by the attack itself,which means it also is doubled on a
critical hit. Armed with improved criticaland multiple attacks, we can fish for
our criticals and pophand of harm wheneverwe land one at seventh level, one
of our critical hits with hand ofHarm applied will deal thirteen that's two D
eight plus four bludgeoning damage and thirteennecrotic damage for a nasty twenty six damage
(16:18):
punch. And then we have JohnWick, I mean gun Monk. Here
we're going to make the biggest departurefrom the core concept and turn our monk
fighter into a revolver twirling and quickpunching desperado. A bit of warning,
though the odds are high, rDM isn't playing around with guns, and
even if they are, they maynot allow Matthew Mercer's gun Slinger fighter archetype
since it's still technically unofficial material.But loosen up, DMS. You're telling
(16:44):
me you can't figure out a wayto counter that anyway. Firstly, we'll
be starting out with the same corebuild, but we'll be getting up to
three monk levels and taking the wayof the Kensi Monk archetype, and all
of our remaining levels should go intofighter taking the Gunslinger archetype. Finally,
at our first opportunity, we'll wantto take the gunner feet, either at
our seventh level with our first ASIor at first level if your DM is
allowing variant humans with the free feet, which again they might not. But
(17:10):
come on, DMS, what areyou doing. We're still going for the
same ability scores of dexterity and wisdom, since thankfully the Gunslinger grit ability is
also based on wisdom. We've nowput quite a few strange features in the
pot here, but I promise they'regoing to melt together pretty well into something
wonderful. To get this party started, though, you'll need to figure out
what firearms your DM is giving youaccess to. There are the matt Mercer
(17:30):
firearms included as part of the archetype, but there's also the Renaissance, Modern
and futuristic firearms found within the DMG. If you're using the Matte Mercer firearms,
your best option without unique weapons isgoing to be a Blunderbuss, which
is a short range, one handedgun that deals to D eight damage.
If using Renaissance firearms, your bestoption is going to be the pistol,
(17:52):
a one D ten damage weapon.If you have access to modern firearms,
which I know is a bit ofa stretch, your best bet is going
to be a rev which deals toD eight damage. And if you're lucky
enough to be playing around with futuristicfirearms, say in like a spell Jammer
campaign or something like that, yourbest option is the laser pistol, which
deals an insane three D six damage. Next, and I know this will
(18:14):
be very weird for our unarmed build, but we need to put a one
handed monk weapon in our other hand. This can be practically any one handed
melee weapon. Just pick whatever youthink is coolest or best reflects your worldview.
All right, and now that wehave our weapons, we need to
select both of them as our Kensiweapons. This not only converts them to
monk weapons, but gives us twospecial benefits, one intended for range and
(18:36):
the other intended for melee. Theranged one is a bit meh, but
the melee one is worth going after. Whenever we make unarmed strikes while also
holding onto a Kensi melee weapon,we get plus two AC until our next
turn. Okay, so now we'reseventh level, and much like me on
an average Tuesday, we've got ablunderbuss in one hand and a dagger in
the other. How does this allwork? Well, we're going to be
(18:57):
playing some silly games with some rulesmanution, but the end result should be
pretty glorious. Firstly, we runin and shoot our target with our blunderbuss
point blank, ignoring the disadvantage dueto the gunner feet. Then, even
though both of our hands are full, they're full of monk weapons, and
because of martial arts, we canstill make unarmed strikes, and we get
to make two unarmed strikes using flurryof blows. Because we aren't completely unarmed,
(19:21):
they'll be D six's rather than Deights. But that plus two AC
is too good for just holding adagger that is now essentially our shield.
And also because of the gunner feet, we completely ignore the loading property on
our weapons. And we're not doneyet because we still have all of the
gunslinger's grit and trick shots to playwith that all give us secondary effects on
(19:41):
our gun attacks. We can activatea trick shot by spending a grit point,
and we regain all those grit pointson a short rest. We really
want to take winging shot that'll knockour enemy prone when we blast them in
the face. It feels like itshould do more than that, but that's
what we're going with. So toput all of this together, we can
use our extra speed to rush upinto our opponent's face and we can blast
(20:02):
them with a blunderbuss using winging shotto knock them prone. We then immediately
headbut our elbow our target for flurryof blows and make two unarmed attacks against
our prone target. We've now donetwenty five damage. That's two D eight
plus two D six plus nine andour standing above a prone target with a
plus two bonus to our AC untilour next turn. Due to Gunner ignoring
(20:22):
the loading feature entirely, we canrepeat this every turn so long as we
have the key and grip points remaining, and more importantly, we get to
be a cool martial arts cowboy whiledoing it. I know I just flooded
this whole video with a bunch ofmechanical advantages and things that you can get
in game, but I cannot stressenough how much this multi class opens you
(20:42):
up to so many cool role playingopportunities and basically any story that you're in,
especially if your DM is cool andallows you to use guns. Thank
you guys so much for watching.I really appreciate it. Be sure to
like and subscribe because we're putting outnew content like this all the time.
Go see what we're doing over onour website at skullsplitterdce dot com. And
if you or someone in your partyis building a Monk Fighter multi class,
(21:04):
I would love to hear about yourcharacter down in the comments. Thanks again
for watching. My name is PatrickFerguson from skull Splitter Dice and until next
time, farewell
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