Monk Building in 2024

 While in previous RPGs, I was never terribly excited about Monk-style unarmed combatants, there's something I really like about the way that D&D's 5th Edition presents them. The 10th/50th anniversary update to the class has taken a fun but flawed class and turned it into an absolute beast - while I do some napkin math here and there, I'm not an optimizer and I'm not intending to tell you what you have to do to deal the absolute most damage with this class. The way I play, the "optimization" I do for a character is really just to help it better fulfill the fantasy of the character (this is part of the reason I don't really like multiclassing, as I think the vast majority of multiclass character are less about crafting an interesting story and more about just eking out some more damage per round - though there are exceptions to be sure).

That said, it is fun to be effective in the game. I know there are people who enjoy playing a character who is really bad at certain things (my Wizard, for example, with a -1 to Wisdom, is utterly naive and credulous) but in general, I think you're going to have more fun if your character is at least good at the things they're supposed to be good at.

Of course, your definition of "good" can vary greatly. Personally, I think that the game is balanced such that a character who just plays things straightforwardly, taking ability score improvements at each level rather than feats (yes, I know that ASIs technically are feats now) should do just fine as long as they're not, you know, a Wizard with a +1 to Strength trying to primarily attack with a +1 Sword because it's magic (unless they're using the new True Strike!)

So this is more about things to consider rather than hard and fast rules.

Backgrounds (and Origin Feats)

You are going to see a lot more Monks who live a life on the sea. Sailors were always popular for getting Athletics and Perception proficiencies (both common skill checks) but on top of this, the new version gives Strength, Dex, and Wisdom as its potential ability boosts, as well as the Tavern Brawler feature, which is particularly attractive to a class that uses a lot of Unarmed Strikes.

    I will note here that I'm very curious to see how the new DMG handles custom backgrounds. Frankly, I think that the new Backgrounds feel like a step back in the sense that it was so liberating when Tasha's Cauldron of Everything started letting us swap out, say, Charisma and Intelligence boosts on a Tiefling for other abilities. While this makes Background choice more meaningful, I also fear that we'll see the same classes taking the same backgrounds every time.

But how important is Tavern Brawler to a Monk, and what might we get instead?

The feat does the following:

First, you can use a d4 for damage instead of 1 for unarmed strike damage, adding your Strength to it. This is fully redundant for us, as our Martial Arts feature now starts us off with a d6 (going up to a d12 by tier 4) and lets us use Dexterity for both the damage and the save DC for the Grapple and Shove options.

Second, we can reroll 1s we roll on the dice for our unarmed strikes. How much does this get us?

On a d6, we go from 3.5 to 3.9. On a d8, we go from 4.5 to 4.9. On a d10, we go from 5.5 to 5.95, and on a d12, we go from 6.5 to 6.96. If we consider a typical no-FP-cost turn level 5 and up, we're talking a difference of 1.2-1.3 damage. That's pretty marginal.

We also get proficiency in Improvised Weapons - but these are not Simple Weapons or Martial Weapons with the Light Property (hey, did you know a Hand Crossbow is a Monk Weapon now?)

So we're at best 1 for 3 so far. However, the last part is pretty enticing: Once per turn, we can push a creature 5 feet when we damage them with an unarmed strike. Note that unlike a Shove, there's no saving throw against this and no size restriction - this can technically push the Tarrasque back if you hit that AC 25 (or whatever it is in the new Monster Manual).

    Does this mean you have to be a Sailor?

I'd say it's definitely appealing, but it's not the only viable Background. Charlatans, Criminals, Guides, Scribes, Soldiers, and Wayfarers all get Dexterity and either Wisdom or Constitution.

Of these, I'm always a little hesitant to get a Magic Initiate or other spell-granting feat on a class that doesn't have spell slots, as it's nice to be able to cast those spells more than once a day. Some of these grant the Alert and Skilled feats, which are both solid. I'm less impressed by the new version of Lucky - which is now proactive advantage rather than a reactive re-roll. Savage Attacker, which you get from Soldier, feels like possibly the least powerful Origin feat, but the math of figuring out the whole "roll twice and take the higher amount" is too complex for my sleepy brain.

Now - let's talk loadout.

Monks don't get Weapon Mastery, and with Martial Arts dice all now bumped up (and starting with a d6) you'll probably want to start off with a d8 weapon (Quarterstaff and Spear are both good ones - the latter is part of the Monk's new starting equipment. Note that as a heavy melee weapon, a Greatclub will impose disadvantage on attacks if you don't have a 13 in Strength or higher).

I'm hoping we'll see Wraps of Unarmed Mastery (which come in +1/+2/+3 variants and provide a bonus to the attack and damage rolls of your Unarmed Strikes), introduced in the Book of Many Things, added to the new DMG, but if they're not or your DM just forgets they exist, you might want to still fight with a weapon so you can have a +1 or otherwise magically boosted thing. However, I'm assuming the Wraps will be there, in which case you should be able to safely swap to pure Unarmed Strikes once you hit level 5.

If you want to squeeze one more attack in, you could potentially grab Weapon Mastery via a feat or a multiclass dip in order to grab a weapon with the Nick property. By tier 3, even a lowly dagger in the off hand will be hitting for 1d10. A fighter could get you a Nick weapon and a Vex weapon for your main hand, as well as the Two Weapon Fighting Style so that nick weapon is also adding your Dexterity modifier. But this will also delay your Monk progression (and, if you have a chance of hitting level 20 in your campaign, will prevent you from getting what is probably the best level 20 capstone feature for any class).

Now, one of the huge changes for Monks is actually a general change for Unarmed Strikes - where previously these were just hitting something with your fist, foot, or other part of your body and doing damage, now an Unarmed Strike covers both this option as well as Shoving and Grappling.

This means that our bonus action Unarmed Strike and Flurry of Blows can potentially have us do a ton of Grappling and Shoving (though we'll probably only be able to grapple at most two creatures at a time - a very lenient DM might allow a Plasmoid to grapple more).

For this reason, I think no class will be as attracted to the Grappler feat as the Monk will. Grappler both boosts either Dexterity or Strength by 1 (we'll obviously take Dexterity). Once a turn, it will allow us to both hit the target for damage with an unarmed strike and attempt a Grapple (remember that we use our Dexterity to set the DC, so at level 4, if we started off with a 17 in Dexterity and got it to 18 with the feat, we're looking at a DC 14). We also gain advantage on attacks if we're grappling a target. And finally, we aren't slowed down if we're dragging a grappled creature.

In our ideal scenario, even at level 4, we could grapple one creature with our Attack action and then a second creature with our Bonus Action unarmed strike (and one of these could also damage them if we hit) and then we could drag both of these creatures at our full, enhanced Monk speed. We could even jump off a ledge and then use Slow Fall to protect ourselves from falling damage while they both take the full force of it (though this leaves us without Deflect Attacks to protect us if they survive and want to take revenge).

But even if there aren't any convenient ledges, we're also going to be able to protect our allies by keeping foes away from them. And thanks to the quite excellent Deflect Attacks, we'll be much better at standing up on the front lines.

Now, there are other feats you might consider - Speedy, for example, can boost our Dexterity while increasing our movement speed by even more. But even though the new rules make feats a lot more attractive, I might still push for ASIs simply because Monks benefit so much from having high Dexterity and Wisdom (and Constitution, though no more than anyone else).