D&D 5E Basic Build Series: Monk

Author: SmugLookingBarrel

The Monk has long been maligned in D&D optimization circles for being somewhat of a new player trap. A lot of the features it gets look strong, but are weak in practice. However, the printing of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything brought us a new Monk subclass worth talking about. If you’re interested in playing a Monk at an optimized table, and not just by ignoring your Monk features and shooting a crossbow, this build, part of our Basic Build Series, uses the Way of Mercy to show you how to do it.

Race: Human (Variant) 

Ability Score Increases – +1 Dex, +1 Wis.
Feat – Fighting Initiate (Unarmed Fighting). This feat boosts the damage of our unarmed strikes to 1d8 while we’re not holding anything in our hands, which, even accounting for the lost damage from not using Dedicated Weapon, will increase our damage until level 11. We use our shortsword proficiency to qualify for the feat’s prerequisite.
Skill – Perception. The most used skill in the game, which fortunately uses our high Wisdom. 
Languages – Common and Dwarvish. The language choice doesn’t really matter, as it is campaign dependent and should be discussed with the DM. It can be useful to speak different languages from the rest of the party, or to have one obscure non-Common language that the entire party shares, so you can converse without the NPCs knowing what you’re talking about.

Class: Monk

Skills – Acrobatics, Stealth. Acrobatics is a way to escape from being grappled, which can shut down a melee character, while Stealth is a useful skill to have in both combat and roleplaying scenarios. 
Tool Proficiencies – Proficiency in an artisan’s tool or instrument of our choice. Check out our guide to Tools if you want help picking an artisan’s tool. We’ll opt for wind instrument proficiency, in case we find a pipes of haunting somewhere down the line or have a friendly Artificer in the party.
Martial Arts – While we’re unarmored and using monk weapons or no weapons, we can use Dexterity for our unarmed strikes and make an additional attack as a bonus action. The first benefit of this feature is what makes the Fighting Style from Fighting Initiate work with Dexterity instead of Strength.
Unarmored Defense – This feature helps remedy the fact that we’re not allowed to wear armor. We have an AC of 16, which is below average for a melee character at level 1, but better than those leather armor-wearing Rogues.

Ability Scores

8 Str, 15+1 Dex, 15 Con, 8 Int, 15+1 Wis, 8 Cha

Dexterity and Wisdom are the two most important ability scores for a Monk, so each should start at 16 after racial bonuses. Constitution is important to any character, and we need more of it than most, being a d8 hit die melee class, so we’re starting with a 15 in order to put 16 within reach with a half-feat.

Background (Urchin)

Skills – Sleight of Hand, Survival. Sleight of Hand is a reasonably useful skill based on our Dexterity, Stealth from Urchin we already have, so we’re choosing Survival, which will allow us to have every Dexterity and Wisdom skill once we get the two bonus skills from our subclass. 
Tools – Disguise kit, thieves’ tools.
Feature – City Secrets. A strong feature for any campaign in an urban setting, we can travel at double speed through any city, which seems fitting for a speedy monk. 
Creator’s Note – Making a custom background is RAW, the PHB on page 125 states, “The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions…To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.” For the sake of simplicity, the Urchin background was chosen here, but feel free to create a background that suits your character.

Equipment

Monk Starting Equipment

• A light crossbow
• An explorer’s pack
• 10 darts

Urchin Background Starting Equipment

• Small knife
• Map of your city
• Pet Mouse
• Token to remember your parents
• A set of common clothes 
• 10 Gold

Purchasing Goals

• A light crossbow and a bolts, in case you’re caught unable to use melee. 
• Since we’re using unarmed strikes and no armor, we don’t need to upgrade any of our equipment, so this section will instead list some magic items, no rarer than Uncommon, that you should look out for.
  • Eldritch claw tattoo: +1 to hit/damage with your unarmed strikes.
  • Cloak of protection: +1 to AC and saving throws.

Level 1 Strategy

At level 1, an Unarmed Fighting Monk is one of the highest damage builds in the game, we’re attacking twice for 1d8+3 damage with our unarmed strikes, which beats out even Polearm Master builds. Put this offensive power to use, and drop enemies before they have a chance to exploit your poor defenses.

Level 2 Monk

Ki – The Monk’s class resource, ki fuels our abilities. We get one point per Monk level and they recharge on a short rest. Currently, there are three things we can do with it, and one thing we will be doing with it most of the time. 

• Flurry of Blows: Spend 1 ki as a bonus action to make two unarmed strikes. 1 ki for an extra 1d8+3 attack is a reasonable tradeoff, and this will be our main use of ki for this level. 
• Patient Defense: Spend 1 ki as a bonus action to dodge. While that’s a solid effect, the fact that it costs us 2 attacks makes it not worth using the majority of the time.
• Step of the Wind Spend 1 ki as a bonus action to Dash or Disengage, and double your jump height. Again, a solid ability that’s too expensive for us to use. 

Unarmored Movement –  Our movement speed increases to 40 feet. A solid increase that will help us get into melee turn 1 to start dealing damage. 
Dedicated Weapon (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional feature) – We can turn one martial weapon we’re proficient in into a monk weapon. Because the Unarmed Fighting style requires us to be wielding no weapons and is a bigger damage bonus, we won’t be using this. If you are a race with a weapon proficiency, you should choose warhammer for this feature if you can and likely skip the Fighting Initiate feat entirely.

Level 3 Monk 

Monastic Tradition – Way of Mercy.
Implements of Mercy (Way of Mercy feature) – Two more skills in Insight and Medicine, and we get a mask, which is a purely flavorful addition. 
Hands of Healing (Way of Mercy feature) – Spend one ki as an action to heal someone for 1d4+3, or do it for free as part of a Flurry of Blows. Not worth an action (even with the Optional Feature Ki-Fueled Attack), but if an ally is down, you can use Flurry of Blows to bring them back up while still making two attacks. If you are about to short rest, you can use Hands of Healing to expend any remaining ki and heal someone up a bit.
Hands of Harm (Way of Mercy feature) – Once per turn, spend one ki when you hit with an unarmed strike to deal 1d4+3 damage. Even without benefiting from Unarmed Fighting Style, this is more damage than a Flurry of Blows (for the same ki cost) because Hand of Harm can’t miss. This is what you should primarily be using your ki on now. 
Deflect Missiles – We can use our reaction to reduce the damage from a ranged attack, and if we reduce it to 0, we can throw it back as the same reaction. Not a spectacular feature, but worth using just for the damage reduction, since you’re not doing anything else with your reaction. 
Ki-fueled Attack (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional Feature) – If we spend ki as part of our action, we can make an unarmed strike as a bonus action. For some Monk subclasses, this is useful, but for us, we always want to be attacking with our action, which means Martial Arts is giving us an attack as a bonus action.

Level 4 Monk

Ability Score Improvement – +2 Dex. We’re primarily a damage dealer, so we’re raising our attacking stat at this level, which will also boost our AC and our initiative. 
Slow Fall – When we fall, we take significantly less fall damage, reduced by 5 times our Monk level. Since the cap for fall damage is 20d6 (average 70), we’ll eventually be able to take no damage even if we fall from high orbit, which is impressive if nothing else. 
Quickened Healing (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional Feature) – We can spend 2 ki as an action to heal for one roll of our martial arts die, plus our proficiency. Hands of Healing is more efficient than Quickened Healing. If you are using this build as a guide for a different Monastic Tradition, you should only use Quickened Healing if you’re about to take a short rest and recover your ki anyways.

Level 5 Monk

Extra Attack – We can now make two attacks as part of our attack action, which gives us more damage as well as more opportunities to apply a Hand of Harm. 
Stunning Strike – One of the most commonly cited features when discussing the power of the Monk, this has one major problem: Constitution is a very bad save to target, as most monsters, especially at higher levels, have extremely good Constitution. Combine that with the fact that we won’t be raising our Wisdom until very late, and this is a feature we won’t be using very often.
Martial Arts Improvement  – Martial Arts scales to 1d6. While our Fighting Style is still more damage for unarmed strikes, this increases the healing and damage of our subclass features. 
Focused Aim (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional Feature) – When we miss with an attack, we can spend 1 to 3 ki to give the attack a +2 bonus for each ki we spend. For us, one unarmed strike is as good as another, so this is only worth using if you know you’ve missed by exactly 1 or 2. Start paying more attention to possible enemy AC in combats a bit more, if you don’t already.

Level 6 Monk

Ki-Empowered Strikes – Our unarmed strikes now bypass Magic Resistance. 
Physician’s Touch (Way of Mercy feature) – Our Hand of Healing can cure a condition and our Hand of Harm can apply poison with no saving throw. As far as healing+restoring goes, you’re one of the best in the game at it, being able to use one of your attacks from Flurry of Blows to bring an ally back from 0 and/or remove a condition. Being able to impose the poisoned condition with Hand of Harm is very strong, given how debilitating that condition is, and how frequently we plan to use it.

Level 7 Monk

Evasion – If we’re subjected to an effect that allows a Dexterity saving throw for half damage, we take no damage if we succeed, and half damage if we fail. A solid defensive feature, and given our low hit points, any feature that allows us to avoid damage is good. 
Stillness of Mind – Use an action to end a charm or fear effect. This ability has a few problems, namely that many charm or fear effects lock you out of your action, but if you can use this, you might as well!

Level 8 Monk

Ability Score Improvement – +2 Dex. We now have the maximum possible Dexterity, and thus the maximum bonus to our attack and damage rolls, as well as boosting our initiative and our Armor Class. We now have the same AC as a level 1 Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger with a shield, so that’s something.

Level 9 Monk

Unarmored Movement Improvement – We can now run on walls and over water. Not the most game-changing feature, but anything that will help us get closer to our targets is worth having.

Level 10 Monk

Purity of Body – We’re now immune to poison and disease. This is technically the lowest level class feature that grants a damage immunity of any kind, and poison is a common damage type, so we have that going for us. There is a race that gets it though.

Level 11 Monk

Flurry of Healing and Harm (Way of Mercy feature) – When we use Flurry of Blows, we can turn each hit into Hand of Healing, or we can get one Hand of Harm for free. This is basically an extra attack, since for the same ki cost, we’re now using Flurry of Blows and getting Hand of Harm on top of that. 
Martial Arts Improvement  – Martial Arts scales to 1d8. It’s now caught up with the damage bonus from the Unarmed Fighting style, and also boosted our Hand of Harm.

Level 12 Monk

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Crusher (+1 Con). Now that we have our maximum Dexterity, we’re taking this feat to raise our Constitution to 16, while also adding an element of control to our unarmed strikes with a 5 foot push and a debuff effect on a critical hit. 

Level 12 Strategy

Unarmed Style from Fighting Initiate has served us well for 10 levels, but we’ve made it to the point where it’s become useless. Thankfully, we can retrain it to any other Fighting Style when we get an Ability Score Improvement. We’re switching to Blind Fighting, so we have blindsight with a range of 10 feet. You can now coordinate with any spellcasters in the party that want to emphasize heavy obscurement more in their strategies.

Level 13 Monk

Tongue of the Sun and Moon – Vous pouvez comprendre toutes les langues parlées. De plus, toute créature capable de comprendre une langue peut comprendre ce que vous dites.

Level 14 Monk

Diamond Soul – Proficiency in all saving throws, and we can spend 1 ki to reroll any failed save. It comes late, but this is a solid increase in our defense and will help us make our important saving throws.

Level 15 Monk

Timeless Body – This feature basically doesn’t do anything. Extremely rare is the campaign where your characters risk getting to the natural end of their lives before it’s over. Your fellow party members may be getting 8th level spells at this level. Sorry.

Level 16 Monk

Ability Score Improvement – +2 Wisdom. Now that we have our 20 Dexterity and fixed Constitution, we’ll be spending our next Ability Score Improvement boosting our Wisdom, which will raise our ki DC as well as our Armor Class.

Level 17 Monk

Hand of Ultimate Mercy (Way of Mercy feature) – After a set of solid subclass features, the Mercy Monk ends on a strange one. It’s a raise dead that can be done after more time has passed than revivify (but not as much as actual raise dead), plus it heals the creature and cures them of most conditions. It does cost 5 ki, which at this point is probably more of an investment than a level 3 spell slot for your Cleric friend. If you don’t already have any party members who can raise dead, here’s your extremely late addition.

Level 18 Monk 

Empty Body – Spend 4 ki to become invisible for a minute, plus resist all damage but force. A bit expensive, and only worth doing if you can set it up before combat, but worth using in that instance. You can also spend 8 Ki points to cast astral projection on yourself, if that ever becomes relevant for your specific campaign.

Level 19 Monk

Ability Score Improvement – +2 Wisdom. Finally, we’re able to raise our Wisdom to 20, which boosts our AC and the DC of our Monk abilities to their maximum. We now have 20 AC! (This is less than an especially rich Fighter could have at level 1, but who’s counting.)

Level 20 Monk

Perfect Self – Perfectly terrible. At the start of a combat in which we have no ki, we regain four. Hooray.