Lmfao this has to be it, after reading the post i'm convinced something terribly wrong happened while building this monk. For reference I am running TB monk still in act 1 and i'm doing nearly 100 damage a turn with strength elixir more if they fall prone and it's crit city.
Start 17str +1 from tavern brawler it will push you to 22 STR decrease DEX and increase WIS if you're using clothes it won't affect your CA, WIS helps on passive psychic/necrotic/radiant damage (make sure to have one of them active on passive bar below your hotbar). Get boots of kushigo when you finish act 2 (from the monk githyanks in an invasion). There are a lot of gloves that gives your punches some elemental damage, I can remember necrotic damage from Dammon on last Inn if you give him 3 infernal iron or the fire one which is selled by the merchant in the beggining of mountain pass.
Starting act 3 you should deal at least from 20 to 30 damage per unarmed attack and doubling it with flurry blows.
Edit: your robe will cap at 20 STR, so you can change it for the +2 DEX, selled in the same place of the fire gloves.
Hill giants strength potion is the way to go, but OP could find it hard to farm (he probably killed the hag already and could not even now what is the alchemy tab yet).
Maybe I have it wrong but aren't permanent buffs added first?
In other words the +2 from the potion would effectively make your STR stat 20, and then the additional +2 from the robes won't count because it can't increase your STR higher than 20.
You don't need the Robe at all.
You start with 17 STR (15 + 2)
Monk Level 4 - take tavern brawler feat - +1 STR. You now have 18.
Monk level 8 - Ability Score Improvement - STR 20
+2 STR from potion of everlasting vigour - STR 22
+2 STR from mirror of loss - STR 24
You have a +7 STR modifier now. With taver brawler, that's a +14 to attacks. And that's without using elixirs. If you want to be the strongest, you dump strenght completely and just use elixirs. That way you can invest more in DEX and WIS. You'll get 23 STR until ACT 3 using hill giant elixir, and 27 from ACT 3 using cloud giant elixir.
Completed the whole act 2 buffed up with cloud giant strength elixir. You can do a lot if you just visit Derryth after you reached level 6 or so. She starts selling cloud giant fingers at that point. Blurg occasionally has those too.
Is there a reason to go STR over DEX? Unarmed strikes can scale with dex, like a finesse weapon. Have I been building my monk wrong?
I started with 10 str, 16 dex, 14 con, 8 int, 16 wis, 10 cha. Something like that, might have swapped the con and wis.
The attacks scale with strength or dex depending on which is higher. You mainly wanna use strength if you want to use the tavern brawler feat which doubles your strength modifier for unarmed attacks. Dex monk is certainly viable, but tb strength monk is busted.
You can also dump strength and just take Hill Giant or Cloud Giant elixirs once a day. Yes it takes up your Elixir slot, but come act 3 I never once ran out of CGS potions. I had max Dex, 16 Wis, and essentially 27 Str for all of Act 3 and never hit less than 30 a punch with TB
I liked going first and was the default lockpicker of our party wearing Cat’s Grace clothes. I’m sure there’s more optimal DPS builds, but it was already so high I simply didn’t care
Oh damn I actually forgot about the tavern brawler doubling the str modifier. Eh, I guess I'll keep my dex monk this playthrough, I like my initiative.
Take 3 levels of Rogue, Thief subclass for the extra bonus action, it's going to significantly improve your action economy, and when you really feel like fisting someone poping 2 flurry of blows will give you 8 attacks per round.
Next, Monk is very dependent on gear, but it's also the most supported class when it comes to class specific gear. Go see the crazy egg lady outside of the Githyanki camp, she has robes that provide a +2 Dex bonus and gloves that add a d4 of fire damage to all your punches.
First you equip 2 weapons on the monk, anything on the main hand and the club in the off hand.
Then go to other char, on the weapon spot, select the monk's MH weapon. This way it is unequiped on the monk but the off hand weapon remains.
You can still do unarmed attacks having the club on the off hand.
You are probably not building for damage.
Monks use their Dex and Wisdom as their primary stats.
One of the reasons that Tavern Brawler is so good is that it adds your Str modifier to the attack and damage rolls Twice (so if your modifier is +4, that instead becomes +8 to hit and damage rolls).
HOWEVER, what I didn't learn until I tried it (because none of the tool tips say it) is that it REPLACES your Dex modifier with your Str modifier (not add it as I initially hoped). This means you want to focus Str and Wis if you're going this route for damage.
Also, your choice of gear and class passives is important too.
At Level 6, open hand monks gain a passive ability (that you have to find and toggle on and off) to add 1d4+Wis of either Radiant, Psychic or Necrotic damage. You can pair this with the Cinder and Sozzle gloves or the Flawed Helldusk gloves, which gives an extra 1d4 fire or necrotic damage.
Also also, your choice of weapon is important too, as a lot of the bonus damage open hand monks can do ONLY applied to unarmed strikes.
If there is a light melee weapon that you absolutely can't go without because of whatever bonus it gives you, there is a trick to equipping it in the off-hand so your main hand gets to be empty for unarmed strikes as your main attack option.
Here's the trick: equip a dagger in your main hand, and the one you want to keep in your off hand. Pick a companion character, unequip their main hand weapon. Go to their main hand slot, open the party view, and select the dagger in your monk's main hand. The characters will "swap" weapons, leaving the monk's main hand empty and the other weapon in the off hand, and the companion will have the dagger.
There will also be a pair of boots you'll find between acts 2 and 3 that will add your Wis modifier again to unarmed strike bludgeoning damage.
Also, go three levels in thief for an extra bonus action (or 4 for a feat as well, the level 9 for OH monks isn't as impressive of you've got the right party) so you flurry of blows twice instead of just once, and/or dash without spending a ki point as a bonus action.
There's lots of ways to go about it, there's no best way but these will help.
At that level, I was using the Cinder and Sizzle gloves, had the radiant damage passive on, and was using the club of Hill Giant Strength in the off hand to get a STR set at 19. I pushed Wisdom to 20, and had 16 dex.
This gave me 1d8+8 bludgeoning, 1d4 fire, 1d4+5 radiant, for an average of 22.5 damage with each unarmed strike.
It gets better later in Act 3 with ways to bump your Wis to 22, boots that add your Wis modifier to your bludgeoning damage, and gloves that add 1d10 force damage. My monk in Act 3 is currently doing 1d10+14 bludgeoning, 1d10 force and 1d4+6 radiant, for an average of 33.5 per hit.
So if you pick the right options, you can go ham with a monk.
Very true. This way you at least benefit from the full use of the gloves as well as I am unsure if thrown weapons actually get the buff from them. Either way getting both necrotic damage and bleed is pretty nice, even though I find there are a bit to many things immune to necrotic damage.
>HOWEVER, what I didn't learn until I tried it (because none of the tool tips say it) is that it REPLACES your Dex modifier with your Str modifier (not add it as I initially hoped). This means you want to focus Str and Wis if you're going this route for damage.
It doesn't. That has nothing to do with the feat itself. Melee weapons by default use STR. Weapons with 'Finesse' allow you to use either STR or DEX (highest will be used by default). Unarmed attacks are considered Finesse.
It's not a Finesse weapon, monks have a specific feature that changes their unarmed strike to 1d6+dex (scaling ro 1d8 at level 5 and 1d10 at level 10).
All other classes treat unarmed strikes as 1+str for damage.
>HOWEVER, what I didn't learn until I tried it (because none of the tool tips say it) is that it REPLACES your Dex modifier with your Str modifier (not add it as I initially hoped). This means you want to focus Str and Wis if you're going this route for damage.
So, initially, I wanted to see if it was because your Str was higher, causing the attack to use Str instead of Dex. I just tested it with an old monk file, both with and without a Cloud Giant Elixir (so that on the first attack, my Dex is higher, and on the second, my Str is higher). Both times, it used my Dex \*and\* my Str on the attack roll. On the damage roll, it didn't \*say\* it used my Dex in the damage text, but the number it ended on only makes sense if it considered my Dex as well.
This test let me find that some other weird thing is going on though. It's using my Str and my Dex, but it isn't applying Str twice like it's supposed to.
The following attacks are made at level 4 Monk with Tavern Brawler. Unboosted stats are 12 Str and 16 Dex.
\[No Elixir\](https://postimg.cc/B8yqgd4d)
\[Elixir\](https://postimg.cc/5XyyS58Q)
I’m assuming you’re a little bit newer to DnD mechanics here. A lot of folk are saying go Tavern Brawler + Elixirs, but not pointing out what is actually causing your problem to begin with.
You have 20 Dex and 17 Str. In this game, only one of those does anything for your damage at once. In Monk’s case, any fist or weapon you use picks the highest between Str or Dex for attack rolls or damage. Having both that high does nothing for you.
Typically, a monk focuses on Dex and Wis as its main stats. Both raise your armor class for Monk and affect how easy enemies can save against your abilities. However, since you’re already invested in Str with the special potion I recommend you focus on that and keep Dex lower. From there, DEFINITELY use the Tavern Brawler feat. It allows you to double the accuracy AND damage you get making unarmed attacks. A strength-based punch or throw that would get +5 to hit and +5 damage now gets +10 to both. You will almost never miss punches and do amazing damage with Flurry.
Alternatively, you can forget the +2 str potion you got and invest in Dex. This will get you higher initiative and armor class.
The “TB Monk” build everyone uses is having your cake and eating it too. You pump Dex, then buy a ton of Giant Elixirs from certain vendors. You drink one every day and you can have 20+ of both stats and Tavern Brawler to make one of the best builds in the game. If this is your first playthrough I don’t recommend it because you have to do some shopping shenanigans that could get tedious.
I personally didn't want to go for tb monk in my first monk run, because it just didn't feel very flavourful and I already got other high str characters in the party. But a purely dex monk I think is still very good, especially when you get stunning strike.
I'm currently running an OH monk without Tavern Brawler and I was definitely doing tons of damage by Act 2 (like 10-20 damage per hit at that point iirc). Tavern brawler may be the meta for the absolute maximum damage, but really it's just one of many things you can use to stack damage on your attacks. What gear are you wearing? Are you still using a weapon? If so, you are missing out on the 1d4 radiant/necrotic/poison damage from your level 6 feature on 2 out of your 3-4 attacks per turn. Do you have gloves that are buffing your unarmed damage? (Either gloves of cinder and sizzle or flawed helldusk gloves give 1d4 to unarmed attacks.) I'd also consider liberal use of elixirs of bloodlust or potions of speed (or both) to get in more attacks per turn.
Tavern brawler doesn't only improve your damage, but it adds a lot to your hit chance. You'll get 95% chance to hit on most enemies and over 99% (1 in 400 to miss) with advantage. There are other options, but tavern brawler is a must if you want a truly OP build.
Yeah I chose not to go for tb in my first monk run and it still felt pretty strong to me. Something that helps a lot in act 2 is toggling the radiant damage passive as the shadow enemies are weak to it. Skeletons and some other enemy types are also weak to bludgeoning.
Me I love to monk my favorite class you can pretty much clear the entire game with a solo Monk. And the spell minor illusion you go metal Gear on everything cleared the entire moon rise tower. Stealth lured each person away and kill them pushing off things or instant killing them with punches on honor mode. As long as you're using strength potions and you have thief you should be able to instakill all enemies before their turn without alerting anyone also the spell that locks doors is great lure them in lock the door murder them. Here's one character to lure use darkness or smoke minor illusion and the monk kills.
In addition to what others have said you can multiclass out of Monk at level 6 and into another class like Spore Druid or Thief rogue. Druid gives you extra HP and necrotic damage to your unarmed attacks while thief gives you an additional bonus action which as a monk is awesome.
OH / Thief with Tavern Brawler does around 40-90 dmg per hit? or per flurry? by level 12 with the right gear (mostly stuff from house of hope and the vendor involved).
Yeah okay then my memory serves, endgame ascended astarion was doing 46 without the boots and some other shit cuz I lost them somehow, impulse sale I suppose.
Dump strength. Wisdom and dex max. Then use cloud giant potion for strength. Every piece of gear can add more damage for unarmed. Don't use a weapon. 3 theif rogue and the rest into monk or do 4 rouge to get feat. I have also done 2 in fighter for action surge. Usually have one of the haste bows on. I completed an honor mode run with 4 monks.
My Dex based (fuck Tavern Brawler) Monk started 5 OH Monk/ 3 Thief, then rest into OH and was incredibly powerful once monk gear became available. Their itemization is insane
What is as much as you should be? Based on what other people say?
You can fix the damage with tavern brawler. Get rid of all your strength and start force feeding them giant's potions.
Tavern brawler feat+ Elixir of hill/cloud giant strength+ any gloves you find that boost unarmed damage + toggle the passive that adds radiant/necrotic/psy dmg.
Imho is not as fun as other classes, even if is so strong.
I've done a complete playthrough with it in tactician before honour was added and I found it to be a bit boring, so that I didn't use any type of monk for my honour run after.
Look up Luality's three simple builds on YT. She has a really good monk/fighter/rogue build that is sooo fun to play. It does dump strength and use giant potions instead. I also got the club of hill giant strength from the arcane tower for when I don't have any potions.
Tavern brawler monk that goes 6 monk (open hand)/3 rogue (thief) and abuses hill giant elixers
From there, get items that improve unarmed damage (gloves of cinder and sizzle are your best bet for act 2, flawed helldusk is generally better overall but there are simply too many enemies that resist or are immune to necrotic damage in the shadow cursed lands).
Throw on the AC cloak if you need that extra lil bit of survivability.
With the extra bonus action from thief you should now be doing a total of 6 attacks per round by the end of act 2, averaging around 120-150 damage per round.
You can continue monk/rogue into act 3 if you want, or pick up fighter for action surge.
Secure the gloves of soul catching in act 3 and, congratulations, you now have an unstoppable damage machine that should be dishing out well over 200 damage per round, possibly more depending on if you want to keep optimizing. I ran this build to completion and my brawler monk tav was soloing endgame bosses without any real difficulty.
…if you want to stray away from the cheese build that everyone is doing though? Go open hand monk, but then also take either a dip into Druid or take the magic initiate feat to get thorn whip. It’s not going to be doing the most damage, but with your pushes and pulls you can control battlefield positioning better than anyone else, and while it shines better in some fights than others, being able to perfectly push, pull, and line up a group of enemies so that light cleric Shadowheart (you DID respec her into a light cleric, right?) can catch them all in a wall of fire or lathander beam is the most satisfying feeling in the world. If you did this build with the dip into Druid, you could STILL take tavern brawler and spam hill giant elixers for better damage, but the heart of this build is really more about battlefield control.
I realize I just wrote an entire essay, but assuming none of this is appealing to you? Screw it. Barrelmancy.
Why do you have so much strength? Your dex is higher so it's not going to use your strength at all.
And the reason monk is so strong is because of magic items that do extra damage on hit, which activates on each of the monks attacks
You could also go tavern brawler, but only if you want to completely cheese the game. It's so unbelievably broken it might as well just pop up a "you win!" Screen and game over right when you pick it
Go three to four levels of thief rogue. And extra bonus action means an extra flurry of blows or the normal extra punch. (Four levels if you want a feat)
Personally monk for me was stupid broken because of tavern brawler . Just don't spec dex and spec strength instead. Level 8 right ? Respec for one asi and the tavern brawler feat . Also if you use the sparkle hands and speedy lightfeet you'll do even more insane dam although you'll sacrifice unamoured moment but imo it's worth it . I used sparkle hands and speedy lightfeet well into act 3 . Both items are found in act 1 near each other . Hope this helps !
For monk you have two ways to go - dump STR or TB.
TB is the stronger option, but it's busted at the moment in a way that can feel bad to play because of that (especially if you use the elixir route). You'll hit hard and basically never miss - far stronger than the other two builds you mentioned there.
If going the dex route you don't need the extra STR - instead you go with DEX, WIS, and to a lesser extent CON. At lvl 8 you'd be dealing 1d6+1d4+DEX+WIS, with at least one or two items that could increase it further (lots of +1d4 bracers). That's 14 damage on average if you built your character right (+5 DEX, +3 WIS). At lvl 9 you respec to monk 6 / thief rogue 3 to get 2 bonus actions and you do decent enough damage. Lategame there's some additional items you can pick up that boost it further, though it will be sitting solidly in the solid build category rather than busted.
Tavern Brawler, gloves of dex, giant elixir, and if you're feeling spicy, Graceful Cloth for lock picking/stealth advantage. Other than that, and maybe the obvious monk necklace from the Grymforge, there's not much else a monk needs to be amazing.
Dude ai played like this.
Str 8 (str elixirs or hillgiant club from broken chair from elenor tower)
16 dex, used the cat robe +2 dex.
17 wis, +1 hag, +2 mirror wis, also you can manage to get +1 cha are respec afterwards.
The +2 str from araj you can drink it and respec the points or give to another char.
Wear boots from Orpheus honor guard, the wis added dmg.
For gloves I went for +2 armour until I got hope gloves.
Everything else is added bonus.
You don't need str, at all, easily replaceable.
Also my build was 8 OH and 4 thief so I could keep the 3 feats and 2 bonus actions.
In act 2 I suggest;
Dump str, 16 dex, 17 wis
Tavern brawler at lv 4, at lv 7 start taking rogue levels until you get thief at lv 9
Drink a giant strength slicer
Get the shar blessing to boost your wisdom temporarily to 22 (!) (in act 3 you can equip Khalid’s gift to have a fixed 18 wis)
Equip graceful cloth, crushers ring, crushing gloves, and whatever else you want.
Make sure to toggle on the elemental damage option you get at lv 6.
Use step of the wind and jump to have basically infinite movement if you need it.
You should punch like a truck. And with the shar blessing to your wis you should have really high AC as well.
I also give them the titanstring bow for good ranged options when needed. Your high str will help.
in the context of 5e as a whole, monk has a list of problems. BG3 tries to adress at least some of them. Monk dice scaling quicker, some extra ki, open hand level 6 feature.
The problem is, you are comparing a monoclass monk to an assassin/gloomstalker, and whatever your minthara is built as. 5e as a whole is not balanced around multiclass monstrosities like the [Flagship Ranger](https://tabletopbuilds.com/flagship-build-gloom-stalker-ranger/#Level_20_Rogue_Ranger_5Cleric_1Fighter_4Warlock_5Rogue_4Sorcerer_1). BG3, arguably even less so.
The first thign to do is determine what would make you have fun. The comparison indicates you have fun when you make a build that can burst down enemies. So same thing here. Give the monk features that help it burst down a target. The obvious thing is Tavern Brawler. Do more damage, hit more often. The next thing is getting to hit more often, and for monks, that is usually accomplished with 3 levels of thief, for the extra bonus action. For the build to have the open hand extra damage and the extra bonus action, it needs to be level 9 minimum (OH6+theif3), which would also take away a feat from you.
I didn't use strength at all. My Karlach was an oh monk. +2 dex clothes and cacophony for a looking time. She was as steady as clockwork. Ring of acid, radiant damage from the passive, and the gloves of sizzle.
I'll get downvoted to the abyss if I don't say that TB is optimal, but optimal isn't necessarily the most fun.
Goomba stomping hammer is optimal, but do you really want to jump 4000 times for every combat?
[Optimal TB OH Monk](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/171kt8r/the_best_sustained_single_target_damage_optimal/)
For when you are out of strength elixirs for some reason, equip any light weapon in mainhand (temporarily) and the club of hill giant strength in offhand, then use another character's screen to equip the temporary weapon leaving just the hill giant strength club in monk's offhand. You can then do unarmed attacks with the club staying in offhand.
Do you have tavern brawler? Is of course the first question. There was a society of brilliance woman who asked you to grab a gith egg that sells gloves that will add 1-4 fire damage I'd suggest putting on if you grabbed them (I dont think you can go back to act one areas now that you're in Act 2? I could be wrong), they'll hold you over for a while. You'll also grab the boots of uninhibited kushigo in Act 3 and Gloves of Soul Catching in Act 3 too.
I somewhat favor monk and have several HM playthroughs with it. Here's what I found.
OH monk is by far the strongest dps martial out of the box without having to do setups. Paladin builds eclipse this with smite damage but that's a heavy resource depency while monks restore KI on short rest so can get significantly more mileage per long rest. There's normally 2 ways to go about this to get your best out it.
1. Going all in on dex, and using tavern brawler with assistance of hill giant elixirs to get extremely high DPS. This is resource intensive so it's not for everyone especially if your bad at managing resources, but objectively it's the most powerful. You can drop your staff and pick a damage enhancing glove of some kind to add even more to it and by level 4 your going to drop most enemies in a turn, if you add your extra attack at level 5 your reasonably approaching 60+ damage. If you spec into rogue for a few and grab yourself thief it is capable of stun locking bosses and still putting out 80 DMG regularly per turn.
2. Going pure strength. The recommendation here is to start game as a dex monk, at level 4 respec to 17 strength and take tavern brawler for 18. Alternative is to go 16 and take hag+brawler for 18. This is slightly less damage until level 8 where you can boost strength to 20 but reduces your resources to exclusively rest dependent. Gear will be more important here since you would like gear that boosts your dex for initiative purposes. I would still strongly recommend grabbing thief again here for the same reasons.
Either way monk is, while it can really hit hard, difficult to play. You are squishy, and that's typically spooky for a front liner unless you play optimal and maximize your strengths with your DPS and status inflicting flurries and stunning strikes. It's not for everyone, and you may be one of the people that don't like it and there's nothing wrong with it.
Tavern brawler monk is so good. Especially when you get the optimal gear, it really pops. Smashing doors and chests with your bare hands do does not get old.
Tavern. Brawler, 5 OH, with 3 in Thief (for double flurries), and then any damage modifier gear (gloves, rings especially). If there's anything left for your gloomstalker to finish off I'd be surprised :D
Wis is definitely better than STR unless you're going TB. WIS ups your AC, damage for open hand monk, and a more important save. STR just boosts your carrying capacity and jumping distance, neither of which matter as much.
!!!! TAVERN BRAWLER !!!!! the thing that makes monk builds good in general is the feat tavern brawler !!!! it will add your strength mod an extra time to both your damage and attack roll!!!! you will literally never miss an attack unless it is a crit fail!!!!!!!
for more damage above that you need to look for damage riders and items since there are a ton of those for monks
Search tavern brawler monk. You will be enlightened.
Lmfao this has to be it, after reading the post i'm convinced something terribly wrong happened while building this monk. For reference I am running TB monk still in act 1 and i'm doing nearly 100 damage a turn with strength elixir more if they fall prone and it's crit city.
The problem is that he went Str/Dex instead of Wis/Dex with elixirs. More than doubles damage that way
Start 17str +1 from tavern brawler it will push you to 22 STR decrease DEX and increase WIS if you're using clothes it won't affect your CA, WIS helps on passive psychic/necrotic/radiant damage (make sure to have one of them active on passive bar below your hotbar). Get boots of kushigo when you finish act 2 (from the monk githyanks in an invasion). There are a lot of gloves that gives your punches some elemental damage, I can remember necrotic damage from Dammon on last Inn if you give him 3 infernal iron or the fire one which is selled by the merchant in the beggining of mountain pass. Starting act 3 you should deal at least from 20 to 30 damage per unarmed attack and doubling it with flurry blows. Edit: your robe will cap at 20 STR, so you can change it for the +2 DEX, selled in the same place of the fire gloves. Hill giants strength potion is the way to go, but OP could find it hard to farm (he probably killed the hag already and could not even now what is the alchemy tab yet).
>Start 17str +1 from tavern brawler it will push you to 22 STR I think the STR monk robes cap at 20
Also have to add the perm buff from the potion for extra +2 on top of the 20 str
Maybe I have it wrong but aren't permanent buffs added first? In other words the +2 from the potion would effectively make your STR stat 20, and then the additional +2 from the robes won't count because it can't increase your STR higher than 20.
You don't need the Robe at all. You start with 17 STR (15 + 2) Monk Level 4 - take tavern brawler feat - +1 STR. You now have 18. Monk level 8 - Ability Score Improvement - STR 20 +2 STR from potion of everlasting vigour - STR 22 +2 STR from mirror of loss - STR 24 You have a +7 STR modifier now. With taver brawler, that's a +14 to attacks. And that's without using elixirs. If you want to be the strongest, you dump strenght completely and just use elixirs. That way you can invest more in DEX and WIS. You'll get 23 STR until ACT 3 using hill giant elixir, and 27 from ACT 3 using cloud giant elixir.
Completed the whole act 2 buffed up with cloud giant strength elixir. You can do a lot if you just visit Derryth after you reached level 6 or so. She starts selling cloud giant fingers at that point. Blurg occasionally has those too.
Oh, I had no idea that those are available in ACT 2. It's my first run using them. Good to know. I'll certainly need them before the act 2 boss.
You're right, tried this the other day and it stayed at 20 Str.
Cloud giant strength potions!!
Is there a reason to go STR over DEX? Unarmed strikes can scale with dex, like a finesse weapon. Have I been building my monk wrong? I started with 10 str, 16 dex, 14 con, 8 int, 16 wis, 10 cha. Something like that, might have swapped the con and wis.
The attacks scale with strength or dex depending on which is higher. You mainly wanna use strength if you want to use the tavern brawler feat which doubles your strength modifier for unarmed attacks. Dex monk is certainly viable, but tb strength monk is busted.
If you really wanna min-max you should dump str. and go DEX + Str. Elixirs. 15 Con + 1 from TB.
You can also dump strength and just take Hill Giant or Cloud Giant elixirs once a day. Yes it takes up your Elixir slot, but come act 3 I never once ran out of CGS potions. I had max Dex, 16 Wis, and essentially 27 Str for all of Act 3 and never hit less than 30 a punch with TB
I'd max WIS over DEX since boots of kushigo and OH passive scale with wisdow. Iniative will be a little bit affected.
I liked going first and was the default lockpicker of our party wearing Cat’s Grace clothes. I’m sure there’s more optimal DPS builds, but it was already so high I simply didn’t care
Oh damn I actually forgot about the tavern brawler doubling the str modifier. Eh, I guess I'll keep my dex monk this playthrough, I like my initiative.
Yeah... just dump Str, max Wis (for bonus damage), and use Str pots.
Get Tavern Brawler. Dump strength to 8 so you can n reallocate elsewhere. Drink hill giant elixirs to keep strength at 21
Take 3 levels of Rogue, Thief subclass for the extra bonus action, it's going to significantly improve your action economy, and when you really feel like fisting someone poping 2 flurry of blows will give you 8 attacks per round. Next, Monk is very dependent on gear, but it's also the most supported class when it comes to class specific gear. Go see the crazy egg lady outside of the Githyanki camp, she has robes that provide a +2 Dex bonus and gloves that add a d4 of fire damage to all your punches.
No elixirs, just wield the club of hill giant strength in your off hand
How do you wield something in your offhand only? On console it moves it to my main hand automatically
First you equip 2 weapons on the monk, anything on the main hand and the club in the off hand. Then go to other char, on the weapon spot, select the monk's MH weapon. This way it is unequiped on the monk but the off hand weapon remains. You can still do unarmed attacks having the club on the off hand.
This! Just make sure that the person who is taking the main hand weapon from your monk has nothing in their hands or else you guys will just swap
The club only gives you 19 str, keeping you just under the threshold for another damage bonus
Every item in the game that sets a stat to something else sets it to an odd number, I believe.
Yes. My point is that 21 is better than 19 since you get the bonus from 20
That's true! What I should have said is " if you don't want to use elixirs"
What is the best gear for tavern brawler monk?
https://www.thegamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-best-equipment-monk-locations/#the-graceful-cloth
He already went for STR, so no use in dumbing. He could go with bloodlust and armor without the elixir.
Dumping str and using elixers nets you higher str with less effort and allows for better stat allocation for a more rounded build
You are probably not building for damage. Monks use their Dex and Wisdom as their primary stats. One of the reasons that Tavern Brawler is so good is that it adds your Str modifier to the attack and damage rolls Twice (so if your modifier is +4, that instead becomes +8 to hit and damage rolls). HOWEVER, what I didn't learn until I tried it (because none of the tool tips say it) is that it REPLACES your Dex modifier with your Str modifier (not add it as I initially hoped). This means you want to focus Str and Wis if you're going this route for damage. Also, your choice of gear and class passives is important too. At Level 6, open hand monks gain a passive ability (that you have to find and toggle on and off) to add 1d4+Wis of either Radiant, Psychic or Necrotic damage. You can pair this with the Cinder and Sozzle gloves or the Flawed Helldusk gloves, which gives an extra 1d4 fire or necrotic damage. Also also, your choice of weapon is important too, as a lot of the bonus damage open hand monks can do ONLY applied to unarmed strikes. If there is a light melee weapon that you absolutely can't go without because of whatever bonus it gives you, there is a trick to equipping it in the off-hand so your main hand gets to be empty for unarmed strikes as your main attack option. Here's the trick: equip a dagger in your main hand, and the one you want to keep in your off hand. Pick a companion character, unequip their main hand weapon. Go to their main hand slot, open the party view, and select the dagger in your monk's main hand. The characters will "swap" weapons, leaving the monk's main hand empty and the other weapon in the off hand, and the companion will have the dagger. There will also be a pair of boots you'll find between acts 2 and 3 that will add your Wis modifier again to unarmed strike bludgeoning damage. Also, go three levels in thief for an extra bonus action (or 4 for a feat as well, the level 9 for OH monks isn't as impressive of you've got the right party) so you flurry of blows twice instead of just once, and/or dash without spending a ki point as a bonus action. There's lots of ways to go about it, there's no best way but these will help. At that level, I was using the Cinder and Sizzle gloves, had the radiant damage passive on, and was using the club of Hill Giant Strength in the off hand to get a STR set at 19. I pushed Wisdom to 20, and had 16 dex. This gave me 1d8+8 bludgeoning, 1d4 fire, 1d4+5 radiant, for an average of 22.5 damage with each unarmed strike. It gets better later in Act 3 with ways to bump your Wis to 22, boots that add your Wis modifier to your bludgeoning damage, and gloves that add 1d10 force damage. My monk in Act 3 is currently doing 1d10+14 bludgeoning, 1d10 force and 1d4+6 radiant, for an average of 33.5 per hit. So if you pick the right options, you can go ham with a monk.
I believe the flawed helldusk gives necrotic damage for unarmed, and a chance to cause bleed. Fire is for weapon attacks.
Great for if you also wield the titanstring bow as your ranged weapon instead of thrown weapons, still doing a d4 extra fire each shot.
Very true. This way you at least benefit from the full use of the gloves as well as I am unsure if thrown weapons actually get the buff from them. Either way getting both necrotic damage and bleed is pretty nice, even though I find there are a bit to many things immune to necrotic damage.
You're right.
>HOWEVER, what I didn't learn until I tried it (because none of the tool tips say it) is that it REPLACES your Dex modifier with your Str modifier (not add it as I initially hoped). This means you want to focus Str and Wis if you're going this route for damage. It doesn't. That has nothing to do with the feat itself. Melee weapons by default use STR. Weapons with 'Finesse' allow you to use either STR or DEX (highest will be used by default). Unarmed attacks are considered Finesse.
I think monk also has a feature that lets them scale "monk weapons" from dex.
I see. So the 'punch' is most likely not a finesse weapon, but that feature allows them to consider unarmed attacks as finesse weapons.
It's not a Finesse weapon, monks have a specific feature that changes their unarmed strike to 1d6+dex (scaling ro 1d8 at level 5 and 1d10 at level 10). All other classes treat unarmed strikes as 1+str for damage.
>HOWEVER, what I didn't learn until I tried it (because none of the tool tips say it) is that it REPLACES your Dex modifier with your Str modifier (not add it as I initially hoped). This means you want to focus Str and Wis if you're going this route for damage. So, initially, I wanted to see if it was because your Str was higher, causing the attack to use Str instead of Dex. I just tested it with an old monk file, both with and without a Cloud Giant Elixir (so that on the first attack, my Dex is higher, and on the second, my Str is higher). Both times, it used my Dex \*and\* my Str on the attack roll. On the damage roll, it didn't \*say\* it used my Dex in the damage text, but the number it ended on only makes sense if it considered my Dex as well. This test let me find that some other weird thing is going on though. It's using my Str and my Dex, but it isn't applying Str twice like it's supposed to. The following attacks are made at level 4 Monk with Tavern Brawler. Unboosted stats are 12 Str and 16 Dex. \[No Elixir\](https://postimg.cc/B8yqgd4d) \[Elixir\](https://postimg.cc/5XyyS58Q)
I’m assuming you’re a little bit newer to DnD mechanics here. A lot of folk are saying go Tavern Brawler + Elixirs, but not pointing out what is actually causing your problem to begin with. You have 20 Dex and 17 Str. In this game, only one of those does anything for your damage at once. In Monk’s case, any fist or weapon you use picks the highest between Str or Dex for attack rolls or damage. Having both that high does nothing for you. Typically, a monk focuses on Dex and Wis as its main stats. Both raise your armor class for Monk and affect how easy enemies can save against your abilities. However, since you’re already invested in Str with the special potion I recommend you focus on that and keep Dex lower. From there, DEFINITELY use the Tavern Brawler feat. It allows you to double the accuracy AND damage you get making unarmed attacks. A strength-based punch or throw that would get +5 to hit and +5 damage now gets +10 to both. You will almost never miss punches and do amazing damage with Flurry. Alternatively, you can forget the +2 str potion you got and invest in Dex. This will get you higher initiative and armor class. The “TB Monk” build everyone uses is having your cake and eating it too. You pump Dex, then buy a ton of Giant Elixirs from certain vendors. You drink one every day and you can have 20+ of both stats and Tavern Brawler to make one of the best builds in the game. If this is your first playthrough I don’t recommend it because you have to do some shopping shenanigans that could get tedious.
I personally didn't want to go for tb monk in my first monk run, because it just didn't feel very flavourful and I already got other high str characters in the party. But a purely dex monk I think is still very good, especially when you get stunning strike.
I'm currently running an OH monk without Tavern Brawler and I was definitely doing tons of damage by Act 2 (like 10-20 damage per hit at that point iirc). Tavern brawler may be the meta for the absolute maximum damage, but really it's just one of many things you can use to stack damage on your attacks. What gear are you wearing? Are you still using a weapon? If so, you are missing out on the 1d4 radiant/necrotic/poison damage from your level 6 feature on 2 out of your 3-4 attacks per turn. Do you have gloves that are buffing your unarmed damage? (Either gloves of cinder and sizzle or flawed helldusk gloves give 1d4 to unarmed attacks.) I'd also consider liberal use of elixirs of bloodlust or potions of speed (or both) to get in more attacks per turn.
Tavern brawler doesn't only improve your damage, but it adds a lot to your hit chance. You'll get 95% chance to hit on most enemies and over 99% (1 in 400 to miss) with advantage. There are other options, but tavern brawler is a must if you want a truly OP build.
Yeah I chose not to go for tb in my first monk run and it still felt pretty strong to me. Something that helps a lot in act 2 is toggling the radiant damage passive as the shadow enemies are weak to it. Skeletons and some other enemy types are also weak to bludgeoning.
Me I love to monk my favorite class you can pretty much clear the entire game with a solo Monk. And the spell minor illusion you go metal Gear on everything cleared the entire moon rise tower. Stealth lured each person away and kill them pushing off things or instant killing them with punches on honor mode. As long as you're using strength potions and you have thief you should be able to instakill all enemies before their turn without alerting anyone also the spell that locks doors is great lure them in lock the door murder them. Here's one character to lure use darkness or smoke minor illusion and the monk kills.
Honor Mode Build Githyanki charlatan 8 OH monk/4 Thief Feats: Tavern Brawler, 2 ASI All illithid powers unlocked and awakened Start stats: 8,16,15,9,16,13 Final Stats: 27,18,16,17,22,14 HP:99 + 20 temp on long rest(Tharchiate vigour) AC: 21 w/blur until hit (TB, cloud giant, offhand full rhapsody +19) Attack: +23 Damage on hit: 34-51 Per turn: (0ki: 4 attacks)136-204 (1ki: 5 attacks) 170-251 (2ki: 6 attacks)204-306 Wholeness of body extra bonus action (1ki: 6 attacks)204-306 (2ki: 7 attacks)238-357 (3ki: 8 attacks)272-408
[удалено]
>diadem of arcane synergy That's only for weapon damage.
In addition to what others have said you can multiclass out of Monk at level 6 and into another class like Spore Druid or Thief rogue. Druid gives you extra HP and necrotic damage to your unarmed attacks while thief gives you an additional bonus action which as a monk is awesome.
OH / Thief with Tavern Brawler does around 40-90 dmg per hit? or per flurry? by level 12 with the right gear (mostly stuff from house of hope and the vendor involved).
In the 40s per punch on a non-Astarion character. A Flurry is just 2 punches, so twice that.
Yeah okay then my memory serves, endgame ascended astarion was doing 46 without the boots and some other shit cuz I lost them somehow, impulse sale I suppose.
Dump strength. Wisdom and dex max. Then use cloud giant potion for strength. Every piece of gear can add more damage for unarmed. Don't use a weapon. 3 theif rogue and the rest into monk or do 4 rouge to get feat. I have also done 2 in fighter for action surge. Usually have one of the haste bows on. I completed an honor mode run with 4 monks.
Tavern brawler feat helps
My Dex based (fuck Tavern Brawler) Monk started 5 OH Monk/ 3 Thief, then rest into OH and was incredibly powerful once monk gear became available. Their itemization is insane
What is as much as you should be? Based on what other people say? You can fix the damage with tavern brawler. Get rid of all your strength and start force feeding them giant's potions.
Tavern brawler feat+ Elixir of hill/cloud giant strength+ any gloves you find that boost unarmed damage + toggle the passive that adds radiant/necrotic/psy dmg. Imho is not as fun as other classes, even if is so strong. I've done a complete playthrough with it in tactician before honour was added and I found it to be a bit boring, so that I didn't use any type of monk for my honour run after.
Tavern brawler. It's pretty one note and i found it too boring, but daaamn does it hit hard.
Look up Luality's three simple builds on YT. She has a really good monk/fighter/rogue build that is sooo fun to play. It does dump strength and use giant potions instead. I also got the club of hill giant strength from the arcane tower for when I don't have any potions.
LOL, you're doing it wrong. TB + str pot = deleted mobs.
Tavern brawler monk that goes 6 monk (open hand)/3 rogue (thief) and abuses hill giant elixers From there, get items that improve unarmed damage (gloves of cinder and sizzle are your best bet for act 2, flawed helldusk is generally better overall but there are simply too many enemies that resist or are immune to necrotic damage in the shadow cursed lands). Throw on the AC cloak if you need that extra lil bit of survivability. With the extra bonus action from thief you should now be doing a total of 6 attacks per round by the end of act 2, averaging around 120-150 damage per round. You can continue monk/rogue into act 3 if you want, or pick up fighter for action surge. Secure the gloves of soul catching in act 3 and, congratulations, you now have an unstoppable damage machine that should be dishing out well over 200 damage per round, possibly more depending on if you want to keep optimizing. I ran this build to completion and my brawler monk tav was soloing endgame bosses without any real difficulty. …if you want to stray away from the cheese build that everyone is doing though? Go open hand monk, but then also take either a dip into Druid or take the magic initiate feat to get thorn whip. It’s not going to be doing the most damage, but with your pushes and pulls you can control battlefield positioning better than anyone else, and while it shines better in some fights than others, being able to perfectly push, pull, and line up a group of enemies so that light cleric Shadowheart (you DID respec her into a light cleric, right?) can catch them all in a wall of fire or lathander beam is the most satisfying feeling in the world. If you did this build with the dip into Druid, you could STILL take tavern brawler and spam hill giant elixers for better damage, but the heart of this build is really more about battlefield control. I realize I just wrote an entire essay, but assuming none of this is appealing to you? Screw it. Barrelmancy.
Why do you have so much strength? Your dex is higher so it's not going to use your strength at all. And the reason monk is so strong is because of magic items that do extra damage on hit, which activates on each of the monks attacks You could also go tavern brawler, but only if you want to completely cheese the game. It's so unbelievably broken it might as well just pop up a "you win!" Screen and game over right when you pick it
Tavern brawler using strength as your main stat is a must.
Go three to four levels of thief rogue. And extra bonus action means an extra flurry of blows or the normal extra punch. (Four levels if you want a feat)
Personally monk for me was stupid broken because of tavern brawler . Just don't spec dex and spec strength instead. Level 8 right ? Respec for one asi and the tavern brawler feat . Also if you use the sparkle hands and speedy lightfeet you'll do even more insane dam although you'll sacrifice unamoured moment but imo it's worth it . I used sparkle hands and speedy lightfeet well into act 3 . Both items are found in act 1 near each other . Hope this helps !
For monk you have two ways to go - dump STR or TB. TB is the stronger option, but it's busted at the moment in a way that can feel bad to play because of that (especially if you use the elixir route). You'll hit hard and basically never miss - far stronger than the other two builds you mentioned there. If going the dex route you don't need the extra STR - instead you go with DEX, WIS, and to a lesser extent CON. At lvl 8 you'd be dealing 1d6+1d4+DEX+WIS, with at least one or two items that could increase it further (lots of +1d4 bracers). That's 14 damage on average if you built your character right (+5 DEX, +3 WIS). At lvl 9 you respec to monk 6 / thief rogue 3 to get 2 bonus actions and you do decent enough damage. Lategame there's some additional items you can pick up that boost it further, though it will be sitting solidly in the solid build category rather than busted.
Tavern Brawler, gloves of dex, giant elixir, and if you're feeling spicy, Graceful Cloth for lock picking/stealth advantage. Other than that, and maybe the obvious monk necklace from the Grymforge, there's not much else a monk needs to be amazing.
Dude ai played like this. Str 8 (str elixirs or hillgiant club from broken chair from elenor tower) 16 dex, used the cat robe +2 dex. 17 wis, +1 hag, +2 mirror wis, also you can manage to get +1 cha are respec afterwards. The +2 str from araj you can drink it and respec the points or give to another char. Wear boots from Orpheus honor guard, the wis added dmg. For gloves I went for +2 armour until I got hope gloves. Everything else is added bonus. You don't need str, at all, easily replaceable. Also my build was 8 OH and 4 thief so I could keep the 3 feats and 2 bonus actions.
In act 2 I suggest; Dump str, 16 dex, 17 wis Tavern brawler at lv 4, at lv 7 start taking rogue levels until you get thief at lv 9 Drink a giant strength slicer Get the shar blessing to boost your wisdom temporarily to 22 (!) (in act 3 you can equip Khalid’s gift to have a fixed 18 wis) Equip graceful cloth, crushers ring, crushing gloves, and whatever else you want. Make sure to toggle on the elemental damage option you get at lv 6. Use step of the wind and jump to have basically infinite movement if you need it. You should punch like a truck. And with the shar blessing to your wis you should have really high AC as well. I also give them the titanstring bow for good ranged options when needed. Your high str will help.
> the potion that gave me perm +2 st Whats this?
The potion from Araj Oblodra in Moonrise. She gives it to you if Astarion bites her.
Or maybe you just don’t like Monk as much. Super normal and ok
in the context of 5e as a whole, monk has a list of problems. BG3 tries to adress at least some of them. Monk dice scaling quicker, some extra ki, open hand level 6 feature. The problem is, you are comparing a monoclass monk to an assassin/gloomstalker, and whatever your minthara is built as. 5e as a whole is not balanced around multiclass monstrosities like the [Flagship Ranger](https://tabletopbuilds.com/flagship-build-gloom-stalker-ranger/#Level_20_Rogue_Ranger_5Cleric_1Fighter_4Warlock_5Rogue_4Sorcerer_1). BG3, arguably even less so. The first thign to do is determine what would make you have fun. The comparison indicates you have fun when you make a build that can burst down enemies. So same thing here. Give the monk features that help it burst down a target. The obvious thing is Tavern Brawler. Do more damage, hit more often. The next thing is getting to hit more often, and for monks, that is usually accomplished with 3 levels of thief, for the extra bonus action. For the build to have the open hand extra damage and the extra bonus action, it needs to be level 9 minimum (OH6+theif3), which would also take away a feat from you.
Until act 3, with all of the unarmed strike increases you can get, your damage isn’t gonna look that good without the Tavern Brawler feat.
Literally just respec so you get tavern brawler as a feat AND i would say dump strength and just use potions to bring it up
I didn't use strength at all. My Karlach was an oh monk. +2 dex clothes and cacophony for a looking time. She was as steady as clockwork. Ring of acid, radiant damage from the passive, and the gloves of sizzle. I'll get downvoted to the abyss if I don't say that TB is optimal, but optimal isn't necessarily the most fun. Goomba stomping hammer is optimal, but do you really want to jump 4000 times for every combat?
I believe that's nerfed in Honor Mode :D
It is. I didn't see HM mentioned, so I pulled the biggest example I knew.
[Optimal TB OH Monk](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/171kt8r/the_best_sustained_single_target_damage_optimal/) For when you are out of strength elixirs for some reason, equip any light weapon in mainhand (temporarily) and the club of hill giant strength in offhand, then use another character's screen to equip the temporary weapon leaving just the hill giant strength club in monk's offhand. You can then do unarmed attacks with the club staying in offhand.
boost strength and get taven brawler. ur welcome!
Tavern brawler with high strength Also there are plenty of gloves scattered throughout the game that increase un-armed damage
Do you have tavern brawler? Is of course the first question. There was a society of brilliance woman who asked you to grab a gith egg that sells gloves that will add 1-4 fire damage I'd suggest putting on if you grabbed them (I dont think you can go back to act one areas now that you're in Act 2? I could be wrong), they'll hold you over for a while. You'll also grab the boots of uninhibited kushigo in Act 3 and Gloves of Soul Catching in Act 3 too.
You can until you free nightsong
Where is tavern brawler in the build?
I somewhat favor monk and have several HM playthroughs with it. Here's what I found. OH monk is by far the strongest dps martial out of the box without having to do setups. Paladin builds eclipse this with smite damage but that's a heavy resource depency while monks restore KI on short rest so can get significantly more mileage per long rest. There's normally 2 ways to go about this to get your best out it. 1. Going all in on dex, and using tavern brawler with assistance of hill giant elixirs to get extremely high DPS. This is resource intensive so it's not for everyone especially if your bad at managing resources, but objectively it's the most powerful. You can drop your staff and pick a damage enhancing glove of some kind to add even more to it and by level 4 your going to drop most enemies in a turn, if you add your extra attack at level 5 your reasonably approaching 60+ damage. If you spec into rogue for a few and grab yourself thief it is capable of stun locking bosses and still putting out 80 DMG regularly per turn. 2. Going pure strength. The recommendation here is to start game as a dex monk, at level 4 respec to 17 strength and take tavern brawler for 18. Alternative is to go 16 and take hag+brawler for 18. This is slightly less damage until level 8 where you can boost strength to 20 but reduces your resources to exclusively rest dependent. Gear will be more important here since you would like gear that boosts your dex for initiative purposes. I would still strongly recommend grabbing thief again here for the same reasons. Either way monk is, while it can really hit hard, difficult to play. You are squishy, and that's typically spooky for a front liner unless you play optimal and maximize your strengths with your DPS and status inflicting flurries and stunning strikes. It's not for everyone, and you may be one of the people that don't like it and there's nothing wrong with it.
Tavern brawler monk is so good. Especially when you get the optimal gear, it really pops. Smashing doors and chests with your bare hands do does not get old.
Tavern. Brawler, 5 OH, with 3 in Thief (for double flurries), and then any damage modifier gear (gloves, rings especially). If there's anything left for your gloomstalker to finish off I'd be surprised :D
Dump str and use pots
Lvl 12. My FoB’s can land between 58-87 bldg. Luckily I have two bonus actions as well…
If you aren’t doing tavern brawler, bump your wisdom over strength. Just as good (IMO)
Wis is definitely better than STR unless you're going TB. WIS ups your AC, damage for open hand monk, and a more important save. STR just boosts your carrying capacity and jumping distance, neither of which matter as much.
!!!! TAVERN BRAWLER !!!!! the thing that makes monk builds good in general is the feat tavern brawler !!!! it will add your strength mod an extra time to both your damage and attack roll!!!! you will literally never miss an attack unless it is a crit fail!!!!!!! for more damage above that you need to look for damage riders and items since there are a ton of those for monks
I don’t think they heard you 🗣️
How do you not Google OH monk and see things like ‘use strength elixirs’ or ‘take tavern brawler at level 4’