How To Play a Way of Shadow Monk in Dungeons and Dragons 5e
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2024
- MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to Kickstarter March 26th, 2024: www.kickstarter.com/projects/... We take a look at the Shadow Monk and discuss their abilities, and what race and feat choices might help bring your monk to life and shed some light on this shadowy subclass.
This episode is Sponsored by the Sunken isles, now live on kickstarter! check it out here. ghostfiregaming.com/sunken-is...
TIME STAMPS
0:00 - Sponsor
0:44 - Intro
1:48 - Why Play A Way Of Shadow Monk
3:42 - Way Of Shadow Monk Features
5:29 - Races
8:14 - Ability Scores
9:52 - Feats
21:23 - Tactics
25:13 - Multiclassing
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Some have pointed out that Eldritch Adept requires the Spellcasting feature, and as such the Monk doesn't qualify for the feat. D&D Beyond does allow the Shadow Monk to select the feat in the character builder, and we personally would allow the Shadow Monk's Shadow Arts feature to qualify. For rules sticklers, an alternative solution which works for some purposes is to take the Fighting Initiate feat to get the Blind Fighting style. Otherwise, it requires taking a short dip into a spellcasting class - a single level of Cleric should do the trick.
yes i agree. surely if you can cast spells, you qualify as a spellcaster, even if you are not a PRIMARY spellcaster
Devil's Sight and Darkness is such a powerful combo that I don't think it's too much to require the monk to take 1 level of cleric or druid in order to get it.
I think a Light Domain or Grave Domain monk would be pretty cool. The Lights Domain could call themselves a master of darkness and light. While shadows and grave just go together.
Besides, the monk can be the backup healer and be that much more useful to the party.
@@TroyKnoell fair enough - but presumably Dnd Beyond have some official word from Jeremy Crawford to allow Shadow Monks to take Eldritch Adept as a feat. A 2 level Grave Cleric dip to get the Path to the Grave Channel Divinity, plus 3 levels of Assassin Rogue and 15 levels of Shadow Monk would make a pretty cool 20th level character!
Take a level of Twilight cleric for max visibility.
@@RexfelisLXIX Nice. I really like the extra proficiency in martial weapons. It will give the monk the ability to use a rapier as a monk weapon.
I always felt that shadow monks where the caster killers, darkness doesn't allow casters to cast any spell that requires them to see a point or a target, silence eliminates any spell that requieres verbal components, they can teleport right into the backline where the caster are and stun them, instantly shutting down their concentration, they also have evasion and at higher levels proficiency in all saving throws.
One of the only subclasses I ever consider taking the Mage Slayer feat 🧙♀️
@@Dezbood
Those are some good points, but I think there's a few things that lean me in favour of the Way of Shadow:
1. As The DD's mentioned in this video, being able to teleport into your enemy's backline is significant, as catching an enemy caster can prove a difficult undertaking. Particularly when casters are typically king of teleportation themselves
2. Again, the DD's mention that the list of spells is superb at taking out a caster. In combat, that's Darkness depriving them of sight (again, this often shuts down teleportation) required to cast spells, or Silence similarly denying them the ability to employ V(erbal) components. Misty Step, Dimension Door, Thunder Step, Blink and Scatter require all require either or Verbal component, so robbing a mage of either is debilitating!
3. Outside of combat, the other spells and abilities are superb for infiltrating and assassinating a mage: Pass Without a Trace, Minor Illusion and Cloak of shadows
I'll concede Open Hand's ability to deny a caster from taking reactions (counterspell, which is only Somatic) is nice, as a WoS's Darkness - which also prevents the mage from seeing and targeting allied spellcasterd with Counterspell - would also prohibit allied spellcasters from being able to see and target the enemy mage in turn.
@@Dezbood
After Rogue and then Sorcerer (thanks to Aberrant Mind!), Monk is a go-to class for me - and I actually think it could use some fixing in places, to the point that I would have argued that Monk was less powerful than the Ranger class pre-Tasha's.
Unarmed Strikes/Martial Arts Die don't scale at all well and don't benefit from the majority of buffing spells/magic items.
Higher levels and capstone are underwhelming from both roleplaying and mechanical perspectives.
With Martial Arts and sub-class abilities, Ki points are in short supply.
When it came to fight the BBEG in my first campaign, my Way of the Drunken Master Monk largely resorted to diversionary tactics and soaking up hits. Very unsatisfying!
Me too, this subclass is the reason I started building a dedicated magekiller character that I hope to use in the near future. I wanted to make a character that closely emulates the Dread Fighter, one of my favorite classes in Fire Emblem.
The most fun I've had at shutting down casters was playing a rogue multiclass with warlock (hexblade), also with the mage slayer feat. You get the darkness/devil's sight combination, the feat gives you a new way to get reaction attacks (which qualify for sneak attack) and also within your own darkness you can get into melee with spellcasters without being vulnerable to spells that require sight, if they try to dispel your darkness you get a reaction attack with advantage because of the darkness, that could crit on a 19 because of hexblade's curse and with sneak attack damage on top. I feel this combination is exceptional at disrupting concentration, mage slayer imposes disadvantage and the nature of the rogue's damage output (few attacks/big damage) makes it probably the best at setting a high Concentration DC. Monks can trigger multiple checks with lots of attacks but generally the damage per attack does not generate high DC's.
As an aside, depending on your DM, because of the wording on the Mage Slayer Feat, it could be interpreted that your reaction attack happens before the spell is resolved so in that case if you were to reduce that creature to 0hp or otherwise incapacitate them the spell wouldn't happen. The text states that you get the attack WHEN a creature casts a spell within 5ft of you, instead of stating AFTER a creature casts. For comparison reasons Counterspell's casting time states that you can cast it as a reaction WHEN you see a creature within 60ft casting a spell. This might be up to DM interpretation, in my playgroup all 3 DM's (of which I am one of them) agreed on the above interpretation, not only because of the wording but also because it is certainly cooler to have those fringe moments when a mage slayer in the party manages to stop an enemy caster from casting a deadly spell by killing them. Also, if the spell the hypothetical enemy caster was trying to cast was something like teleport, it wouldn't make any sense that the mage slayer killed the caster but the teleport spell resolved, teleporting a dead caster.
I play a Lightfoot Halfling Shadow Monk and the hability to hide at the space of other creatures, using their own shadow to teleport to other areas is just freaking awesome
What is your favored moment from that campagn. Because it sound awersome
I also played a lightfoot halfling and did this! Also halfling + monk is underrated because you're rolling so many damn dice (4 attacks per round!) and negating those nat 1s is clutch
@@esbeng.s.a9761 In the last session I played the BBEG brought an army of enemies and an adult red dragon, before the villain acted and the dragon took flight I used the shadow behind one of my allies to teleport under a minion that was floating, attack the BBEG with my swords and then jumping on top of the dragon. The combat went on with the dragon attacking the other players and after a brunch of tries to stunning strike the dragon (It was Very hard) I was able to make It use its last legendary resistance and kill It using an Arrow of Dragonslaying.
I played a stout halfling shadow monk for 3 years. I took the magic initiate feat and grabbed some warlock spells to really flesh out being a shadowy figure. Eldritch blast, mage hand, and armor of agathys gave me a lot of versatility for role play and combat encounters. Being small enough to hide behind people and dip in and out of their shadows also allows for cool sneak attacks. I particularly enjoyed casting silence in a dim room full of enemies and basically becoming a specter.
@@simsamsammie my DM nerfed Halfling Luck to only be usable once per day, which I was fine with, and it still saved me so many times when I’m rolling countless attacks. At level 14 when I could reroll failed saved, my Luck was always used on combat rolls.
I've always wanted to play a Shadow monk with magic initiate to get light to cast on rocks, to create more shadows to teleport to.
I played a halfling shadow monk and took the magic initiate feat into warlock spells. I took eldritch blast to have a ranged attack option, mage hand to further my shadowy grasp, and Armor of Agathys flavored as a shadowy veil. The spells shadow monks get are nice utility but adding more on top of it made for really fun combat and role play moments. I highly recommend, and your idea for creating shadows with boulders is really clever!
@@zackary2590 A halfling would be great with their size bonuses and luck! I thought about a dragonborn with the acid breath weapon, with a dip in assassin rogue. Maybe poison weapons too.
Aasimar Protector Race, innate light cantrip and later 1 min wings and bonus on hit damage.
I played one as a Sun Soul Monk (pew pew while in the air using sun bolt)
@@LifeWasGood Nice! Having an inate ability to cast light on stuff lets you create and/or redirect shadows without 2 ki for darkness all the time (and saves on a feat, lol).
@@zackary2590 I wonder if multiclassing warlock to get shadow of moil would be worth
Good timing. My wildfire Druid died in my session a couple days ago, and my backup is a shadow monk. You convinced me to do my feats a little differently than I’d planned.
as someone playing a Way off the Shadow monk/ Swashbuckler rogue multiclass I thank you for this vid in tandem with your swashbuckler one!
I'm playing the same, it's perfect
I ran a 6 shadow monk, 3 rogue swashbuckler and 3 gloomstalker ranger. And it was Absolute Nonsense. Used a shortbow and only entered combats when the party threw their torches to the edge of their range. Crazy timee
A fellow Swashbuckler/Shadow Monk, I play mine 3-17. Mine's in Adventurer's League though so no Steady Aim for me, but regardless, it's still great.
I played a shadow Monk up to L 11 and loved it. I think the highlight was sending the party visibly out the gate, then stealthing to the tavern where the baddies were, casting darkness, and setting it on fire, then stealthing out over the wall. Brilliant!!
It’s certainly a niche racial choice, but an Aasimar Shadow Monk who strategically casts Light to create shadows to play with is a fun concept!
When you talked about races for the subclass, I am shocked you two did not mention Ghostwise Halfling. It fits so perfectly with their +2 DEX and +1 WIS, and they can speak telepathically to a person within 30 feet that share a same language. It's too fitting not to notice!
Also shocked that Wood Elf didn't get a mention for similar reasons...plus Elven Accuracy and Longsword profficency (for Dedicated Weapon).
imo Wood Elves as hard to beat for stealthy monk builds (shadow or otherwise).
@@grizzlednerd4521 As someone who plays one for Shadow Monk, I can testify to that, Elven Accuracy is disgusting on that type of character. If you count the Opportunist attack for your reaction, you could get up to 15 attack rolls per round. That's like 75% statically of getting at least 1 nat 20 per round.
@@thewholehorse7140 ...and then add the Slasher feat.
Shadow Monk / warlock multi class here. Theme is a Mage bounty hunter with Devil Sight.
I use a 60ft rope which is wrapped around the monk. On each end of the rope is a small rock. Cast darkness on one of the rocks and you can just fling the rock using the rope from one group of enemies to another, or simply keep it on yourself.
During retreats, cast darkness on the rock and just let it trail behind you, as it's attached it'll move as you do, creating fantastic cover if traversing down corridors. Can do all sorts of tricks.
I love it :D
Sort of like a Lloyd's Beacon. A safe space...I can't believe I typed that, to quickly fall back to when the Shit hit the fan.
Cool.
Honesty you can just take fighting iniate to get blindsight. Cast darkness on a monk weapon like a knife and throw it. Then Teleport in the center of it and you can see everything in there for the most part
My first ever character was a shadow monk, and I loved playing him. I pretty much never used any of his spellcasting abilities except a few minor illusions after many sessions (I was new to the game and didn't understand the spellcasting at all), but I loved using the teleport. I would play so different now, but I will always love that experience.
We started at level 10 because I was joining an existing group with some old school friends, and I decided I wanted the fasted character I could make. Right off the bat I chose Wood Elf, Mobile, and then put 2 points into Dex. The DM said I could get one magic item so I took Boots of Speed, and that was pretty much all I needed to have a great time. Even without using my spells, I loved moving crazy fast, teleporting, hacking things up with my sword, and never provoking an opportunity attack. I played more like a barbarian or fighter with my aggression and lack of magic use, I just wanted to attack, so at 12th level I took savage attacker, and it was great turning 1s into 7+. I multiclassed 2 levels into rogue to get bonus action dashing without spending Ki, and the campaign ended at level 17 so that's as far as I built him in terms of leveling. However we did use the potion miscibility table, so I ended up with a permanent Haste effect from potions of speed mixed with other things (which I did on purpose after my buddy showed me the table, and since my character had learned alchemist supply expertise from a magic book before the DM allowed me to pursue this research.)
I'm on my first character right now as well, and I picked a wood elf shadow monk as well hahaha. I was inspired from Minato Namikaze
Regarding Darkness. I’m playing a fathomless warlock at the moment with devils sight and the other great use for darkness I have found is ranged members of the party using it as cover. Moving out of the darkness firing off some arrows then ducking back in.
Cast your Darnkess on a monk weapon with the thrown trait. Now you can use it to cover yourself,and to create darkness elsewhere for you to teleport into.
My first 5e character was a halfling shadow monk and when I got the shadow step ability, fights became a "thinking with portals," scenario since my GM allowed me to shadow step from the shadow's of the enemies we were fighting to anywhere I can see with sizable shadows (most of the time being overhead). I added some levels in rogue and really became a death dealing member of the party.
LOVE YOUR VIDEOS, so thought provoking I have been connecting for the last 4 hours (since I got home and watched the video). Keep up the good work Dungeon Dudes - really brightens my day. THANKS ALOT.
CONCEPT:
Gunner, Sharpshooter Monk who uses dedicated weapon, and gets up close and personal (still can flurry of blows, and stunning strike, but gives more damage and versatility) - then multi class rogue (maybe arcane trickster) after around 6th lvl, or wait until the awesome 9th lvl unarmored movement, or go dhampir for spider climb and multi class at 6th lvl.
The party relied on your shadow monk in some of it's Ki moments. I see what you did there. 😉
I played a Wood Elf who started as a Rogue for a level then moved to Monk (shadow). Initially, he spent half his time as an adventurer and the other half as a spy for his people. Add in a Massive F-up and a descent into depression and darkness led him to Monk as a form of Penance. I loved the slow character growth from cold and angry to not as much as he advanced.
Rogue at first level gave me all the skills I wanted, with expertise in Stealth and Perception to tie in with the background and then Monk built on top of that.
Thanks for this great video.
Another race I find a tad bit underrated for monks is the hill dwarf (assuming using Tasha’s) as it effectively gives you a 17 16 16 stat spread without actually having a 16 in con and allows you to have a 10 in another stat if you wish, as well as giving you access to the versatile weapons without sacrificing Darkvision
Plus the extra health per total level from the hill dwarf natural health increase
I would argue is that monks are specialized magic casters as the PHB states: " Monks make careful study of a magical energy that most monastic traditions call ki. This energy is an element of the magic that suffuses the multiverse-specifically, the element that flows through living bodies. Monks harness this power within themselves to create magical effects and exceed their bodies’ physical capabilities, and some of their special attacks can hinder the flow of ki in their opponents." They are just specialized casters! More akin to Sorcerers than Wizards. However you could make the argument they would not be spellcasters until at least level 2 when Ki opens up and they are definitely at level 3 as they can cast minor illusion (which is a spell). This would prevent the variant human from taking it at level 1 but should be able to take the Eldritch Adept at level 4. It is too bad for a monk to be half way decent they require a feat, and I still think they fall off a lot because they can't improve their class with magic items like other classes can. I think that would be a good VOD on good magic items for Monks and a discussion of how DIM and Darkness works.
If the DM agrees with you, you're golden. Unfortunately, Spellcasting is a class feature specifically laid out in the PHB, which means your class must give you that ability. Technically speaking, not all High or Dark elves count as having Spellcasting simply because they have spells granted to them by their racial abilities - those abilities are literally called Cantrip or Drow Magic, and are technically separate from Spellcasting. It's silly, I know, but that's just how the rules are set up. Simply because everyone knows how to perform this one spell once per day doesn't mean everyone knows how magic works. Everyone can use Google or TH-cam, but not everyone is a Programmer, so to speak.
D&D Beyond allows the shadow monk to do it, I imagine, because of a logical oversight someone made when setting up the various logic branches for the data tables. "Oh, they have spells, so they can take this feat." Even the official books print Errata to correct mistakes and re-balance features and rules.
tl;dr - if your class does not explicitly give you the Spellcasting feature, you don't qualify for feats that have Spellcasting as a prerequisite.
@@aubriestarks2242 Or they interpreted that Ki is casting and understood is was an oversight by Wizards. They even give an example of 4 element monks as casting spells. Sorry if you can cast spells, your a spell caster. I think when they added new feats and the like they failed to consider monks as a specialized caster much like Warlocks have pact Magic and are also specialized. It is design creep that causes problems for earlier versions. Now the intent is that they didn't want for martial classes to have devil's sight, but that seems silly. Why they didn't give shadow monk the ability straight up is a mystery as RAW you could never shadow step into darkness since you can't see into it. Why did they even include darkness in the ability? Why not just say dim light or shadows? I understand your point but I think it is just sloppy rules since monks are weird hybrids and like most things monk, are often ignored and treated as 2nd class citizens (limited magic items, incredibly weak damage progression, no ways to easily improve defense, and extremely limited resource pool to do their special thing.)
@@everwind5691 I absolutely agree that Monks usually get the short end of the quarterstaff - they and Rangers really don't get much love from the game designers in terms of gear/feats.
Also, yes, Shadow and Four Elements Monks are absolutely Spellcasters - they just don't have the Spellcasting Feature as granted by a class. They cast spells, but they don't really understand the deeper workings of Arcane or Divine magic the way other classes that specialize in spells do - the same way no other class can match them in unarmed combat (even the newer brawler fighting style isn't as good as what Monks can do). Gear and feats that only require "Spellcaster" are fair game - gear and feats that require the Spellcasting or Pact Magic class features are not.
Monks and Barbarians are the only classes, I believe, that gain access to spells without also gaining either Spellcasting or Pact Magic, which is sad for them.
My Aarakocra Shadow Monk with Mobile and an 80-foot flight speed at present thanks you very much for this video. They're SO much fun to play, and I love being the person in the party everyone else relies on to reliably get around the battlefield or chase after retreating foes and Stun them before they can get away.
This has always been one of my favorite subclasses to play. The only drawback I ever saw with all the ones I played was their inability to see through the Darkness, and my DMs have agreed. So we did a small rewrite to the Shadow Arts feature and borrowed part of the Eyes of the Dark of the Shadow Magic Sorcerer and added to it. We made it where as long as the Monk uses ki points to cast Darkness, they can see through that magical darkness. We felt this helped raise the power of the Shadow Monk and fixed a hole in the class we saw. We also added the Shadow Blade spell to the list.
My last shadow monk got some handwraps of lightning. So I would be running and teleporting around with a Chidori.
I will say, Monk/Ranger really is an underrated multiclass, and Shadow Monk/Gloomstalker would seem to work especially well. One trick I've found that really makes it shine is the Stunning Strike/Ensnaring Strike 1-2 punch, where the stunned target auto-fails the strength save and then has to either lose *another* turn to break out of the vines or deal with being restrained
This might be 2 years old but you guys sure do give great advice. Thanks Dudes.
This is good advice thanks. Im personally playing a Sea Elf Shadow Monk in a homebrew aquatic pirate game, and I've had a blast sneaking onto enemy ships with pass without trace, using silence to make it easy to ambush crew members or loot ships, being able to teleport around, and grabbing a Weapon of Blindsight and Sentinel so in a big fight I can just cast Darkness + Sentinel Opportunity to trap a boss unit with me in The Box and their rolling attacks with Disadvantage and I have Advantage.
I’d be wary about Eldritch Adept for a single class Shadow Monk only because it specifically requires to have the Pact Magic or Spellcasting feature. Not just the ability to cast spells. It’s usually not an issue because of like… house rules, but it’s something to keep in mind if it comes up.
Yeah, this is one of those things that is really finnicky, cause of the extremely vague wording of things like this in 5e
Yeah, the "the ability to cast at least one spell" being replaced by "Spellcasting or Pact Magic featre" for Tasha's feats is annoying, I would personally take Eldritch Adept on so much of my characters, not even for the very busted Invocations such as Devil's Sight, but for things like Armor of Shadows ( Mage Armor at will on yourself ) or Eldritch Sight ( Detect Magic at will ) Invocations, especially the first which I take on almost all spellcasters I build.
I came to the comments to say the same thing: RAW Eldritch Adept does is not available to Shadow Monks without multiclassing. It has a prerequisite of spellcasting or pact magic.
I was already typing it out when you posted.
Single Druid or Cleric dip can give some neat abilities and extra weapon proficiencies. Twilight Cleric will give you martial weapons, a bonus to initiative, some thematic spells, and shareable darkvision. Seems like a fair tradeoff for a one level delay in progression.
Maybe just take one level of cleric or druid to get the Spellcasting feature.
Trickter cleric/ shadow monk seems like it could be fun!
I'm playing a Shadow monk with the Shadow Touched feat and being able to turn myself and one other party member invisible is really useful for infiltrations. Even though you double up on the invisibility, it's really hand and it bypasses the prerequisit of being in dim light or darkness in some situations.
Nice that this came out. I'm playing a Wolfkind (Home brew race) Way of the Shadow Monk. I'm only level 3 right now in our sessions, but having knowledge to help when I level up is nice.
I’m playing a stout halfling shadow monk (6lvls) with the rest into arcane trickster, which gives me a good amount of ASI opportunities to get feats and opportunity to do more damage. Using my enemy’s own shadow to teleport is amazing, plus the halfling luck feature is a real lifesaver.
This is a great overview. I am asking pointing the Shadow Monk in our campaign to this video to feed his brain on possibilities for his character. Thanks for the break down and your thoughts.
A concept I'm excited to play is a bladesinger with the devils sight by feat and using the summon fey spell. One of the options the fey can do as a ba is 5' darkness, that can be put on my bladesinger every round for advantage, and ever better defenses
That moment when you find a channel, binge it, and get caught up to be current with the release. Dope content!
I played in a level 20 one-shot as a Githzerai Shadow Monk. I took most of the same feats you mentioned and then Mage Slayer due to the theme of the one-shot. We also rolled for our stats so I started with an 20 in Dex, an 18 Wis , and 16 Con. The invisible Mage Hand from the gith was pretty useful and so was my one use of detect thoughts.
In a game I was playing in somewhat recently, I was a rogue, and had plans to multiclass into way of shadows monk. It looked like a ton of fun on paper, but sadly we never got far enough for it to be realized since we stopped at level 3 (the level imo almost all games should START at).
Character idea I had floating around for awhile was a Tabaxi Gloomstalker 3/Way of Shadow Monk 6+
Now, normal enemies can't see you in darkness using Darkvision, so you get the benefits being unseen even when Darkness wasn't down. This was before Tasha's and an easy way to pickup Devil's Sight. Now with that feat, it becomes even sillier, I think. If it's already dark: no need for setting up Darkness; if not, you can cast it and pull all the shennanigans mentioned in the video.
briefly played a shadow monk that was a dispater tiefling - they were a spy so had a very rogue like feel and it was fantastic.
I think the blind fighting, fighting style also works with magical darkness for other options to "see" within it
I'm also about to play another shadow monk. doing the aasimar varient instead of human.
but she's a dancer and the reason I picked shadow monk is were also doing the guide go ravenloft dark gifts and I chose the living shadow! so I'll be able to give my attacks reach if I need it sometimes too, etc and thematically fits.
varient aasimar for the dark vision & necrotic/radiant resist. and they have a bard feel bc they're a dancers so +2 to the charisma.
If you take fae touched as a shadow monk, use misty step to cover for the limitations of shadow step and for your bonus spell take Gift of Alacrity, it is a 8 hour duration spell, doesnt block concentration and increases your (or an allies) initiative by an average of 4.5
Think about this combo. Gloom Stalker Ranger, Way of Shadows Monk & Twilight Cleric.
I'm currently playing a changeling shadow monk with levels of rogue to get assassin and play around that sneak attack when I get advantage, I've currently got alert as a feat so I'm always top of the turn order by a long shot and that I'm usually the one who pulls the trigger on engaging combat as I can just shadow step in, stab a guy in the neck and then punch his buddies and then dip out again, the changeling race has made it a lot more fun to RP with as I can just be and look like anything I really choose to. I'm enjoying it thourghly and might pick up the eldritch adept feat to make more use of my darkness... awesome video guys thanks 🤘🤘
I'd say the stalker feat rolls in pretty well here, being able to hide in dim light would be slick once you can teleport to it.
In theory you can teleport into a point within your own darkness: you can’t see points deeper within the darkness as your vision is obscured, however you can teleport into the edge of your own darkness as it’s both a point you can see and is within darkness. As a matter I, you should then have enough movement to navigate the darkness as you need (ideally with the Blind Fighting feature from the Fighting Initiate feat; Eldritch Adept: Devil’s sight would prevent you from being able to see your own darkness and thus would not be able to teleport into it, despite not being able to take it in the first place because of requisites anyway)
I found this video after I had already made a Shadow Monk Drow that multi-classed with Fighter Battle Master. I gave her the Shadow Fist feat, along with unarmed fighting type for fighter. She's amazing!
I run a campaign as a DM where one of my players is a Shadow Monk tiefling that precisely makes that Eldritch Adept + Darkness combo. The cool thing is that, besides that, he has multiclassed leves into Rogue to be an Assassin and that way make a critical hit to surprised enemies. I allow as a DM to consider creatures inside the Darkness area as surprised, so what he does is to cast Darkness so afterwards he can get inside an stab/kick all his way through with critical hits.
I've just recently started a new campaign in which my character's race is a cat (essentially a house cat) that has been modified to provide extra features. I decided to go with the monk class, and planned out the future path as a stealthy type character (seemed appropriate) via the way of the shadow monastic tradition, not necessarily realizing all the ways that its features could be maximized. This was definitely an informative video, and I'll be taking inspiration from it as Pan the Monk kitty rises through the levels.
Great discussion! I had a tiefling monk a year ago for a one shot. Looking forward to chapter one of Fate of Drakkenheim. 🙂
Thank you for making these videos, Dudes :D Good stuff!
This is really funny, I've legit played an Eldritch adept shadow monk in a one shot before this video came out and its REALLY good. While my party had to give Vorskali some space in combat, it was really fun and really effective
Great insight fellas, very much enjoyed watching the shadow monk in practice also. Would love to see a way of open hand build. I've been really enjoying it with mobile and crusher...would love to see what you'd do.
I do think Mage Slayer Feat is a great concept for a Way of Shadows. Silence is great for dealing with casters since the vast majority of spells have a verbal component.
Just started a campaign where I am playing a tiefling monk (dispater) for extra spells and resistance to fire plus flavor. I personally am going a high perception, alert type character and snagged a fighting style for that blind sense fighting rather than dipping into warlock. Such a fun sneaky character
Played an aarakocra shadow monk in a west marches campaign and pretty much blew a bunch of foes out of the park. The mobility and the shadow arts opened up a lot of combat utility and RP potential with the fact that he's able to get to a position to revive someone via a healer's kit or hit the enemy's backline.
Thanks for this videos, they are amazing! I would love to see how you build a Genie warlock!
I'm building a Yuan-Ti Pureblood Shadow Monk but taking my first level in Rogue. Planning on using a dagger as my monk weapon for sneak attack!
Re: Party Utility, Two levels of Twilight Cleric lets you create an area of dim light that moves with you, and Guidance, Bless, etc are never going to be not useful.
But leaning into the Spy/Scout idea, I recently sat in with my cousin's group, and had a lot of use out of a Knowledge domain/Shadow Monk build. The level 9 build I used was Variant Human Cleric 6/Monk 3 with MI: Druid (Shillelagh, Magic Stone, Entangle) and the Investigator background.
The level 20 build I specced out was Cleric 13/Monk 7
Starting a deep gnome shadow monk soon and i'm so excited!
Kelly, something you had mentioned was a shadow boys party, which sounds really fun. I am getting ready to run, as soon as I receive the book, The drakkenheim campaign and right now we have a Gloom stalker, a shadow sorcerer, and third person is undecided and with everything that you guys just presented I'm going to suggest a shadow Monk for our third player just to see how much more fun this will be as a pure Shadow party
For all the cool things you can do with darkness and infiltration, pass without trace can help you bring the howl party to an infiltration or grant you a very high chance of gaining surprise. I'm really surprised that you didn't talk about the spell, it's really good, even when the entire party is bad at stealth a floor of 10 is still good enough for most enemies.
Something fun I did with a shadow monk I played: there was a dragon flying overhead, I asked the DM if the dragon’s underbelly was dimly lit, he said yes, then I teleport to the dragon’s underbelly, thanks to lvl 9 unarmored movement I could stick there, and stunned the dragon out of the air.
Building one of these today. Thanks for the advice.
Rocking a half elf fighter 1/ monk 5. With both darkness and blindsight, topped with elven accuracy it's monstrous.
I built (what I thought was) a real nice Shadow Monk/ Gloom Ranger, extra attacks and speed on 1st turn, spellcasting for Eldritch Adept prerequisites, plus Martial weapons for the 'Dedicated weapon' feature from Monk, let's you teleport into the back line of combat and start clerics and wizards with dual longswords (or my favourite, the fighting chain from Grimhollow)
'The Dark Boys' sound like the most pleasant and innocuous name you could give to a pack of Eldritch Pact-Making boogeymen who attack from the shadows.
More like an Emo Post-Punk garage band. The other lovely have would be "Living on the Edge"
I have only played one night with it and it is may first game of DND(started at level 7) . But I picked a shadow monk forest gnome with magic initiate feat (eldrich blast, mage hand, and hex) and it was a blast..... probably going to multi class into warlock for some invocations
I'm currently playing a shadow monk (Was a Kobold, but became a Blue Dragonborn), and I have SO MANY STORIES that I could share, but I don't want to fill up this comment so much that it becomes a novel. So I'll share just one (we were all level 15):
One session our party spent 2-3 hours coming up with some way to infiltrate an airship that was hovering 100ft above the ground. There were 5 other airships about the area, about 2 miles apart of each other, but they were fast moving. As such, we talked about our Cleric/Sorcerer casting Arcane Gate to teleport to the ship only realizing too late that both portals need to be on the ground (or on the deck of the ship which couldn't work). Many other plans were discussed, but the main goal was to find someway to take down the ships. So instead of casting Arcane Gate, he cast Arcane Eye to infiltrate what was keeping it afloat. It was a simple gem encased in a glass cylinder that could be easily opened and removed, but there were many powerful guards around it.
3 hours and 45 minutes into the session, and I realized something. We have a vampire in our party (Grim Hollow), who doesn't need to breathe and can turn into mist. We also had a handy haversack, a potion of flying, and a potion of diminution. So after almost 4 hours I simply started the brief conversation like this:
Me: "Wait... aren't you a vampire?"
Vamp: "Yeah. o_O"
"So you don't need to breathe right?
"Yeahhh..."
"And you can turn into mist right?"
"Where are you going with this?"
"Turn into mist, get in the handy haversack, I'll drink the potion of flying and the potion of diminution since I'm 7ft tall right now and the engine room is only 10ft tall so I need to be smaller. I'll then cast 'Pass Without A Trace' and then use Cloak of Shadows, so I have advantage on that stealth, fly up to the bottom of the ship, walk on the outside of the ships walls because I can do that now, enter into the engine room via the ceiling so not to bump into any orcs, and then find a place to hide. Then you can come out of the bag, transform back into yourself and turn invisible, stealth to the case with advantage and a plus 10, grab the gem, pocket it, turn back into mist, get into my bag, and I'll teleport out." (I rolled a 17, and therefore got a 37 stealth).
Everything went well until she pulled the gem. The moment she pulled the gem, she received lightning damage, and then the ship plummeted. I shadow stepped out the window into the air (still flying since that lasts an hour). She fell with the ship, but turned into mist and took none of the falling damage. We know how to take down the ships now, but we did miss that one crucial detail: 'What will the ship do without an engine?' FALL OF COURSE! XD
In this, I realized that any party with a Shadow Monk should have a certain wondrous magic item, and that's a Portable Hole. 6ft diameter? 10 minutes of oxygen when closed? Weighs nothing? You can have your entire party enter into it, close it, cast Pass Without A Trace, and move past any dangerous encounter or travel great distances with ease. \( ^ 0^)/
I love the playstyle of the monk, and it's great to see you guys talk about one finally! Keep up the good work lol
Great work guys.
I am currently playing a Drow Shadow Monk in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Drow lets me cast Darkness and Faerie Fire as a racial, 120 darkvision and the disadvantage for being in direct sunlight doesnt factor in much as bright light in general is something you try to avoid as a shadow monk anyway.
When they mentioned the prospect of multi classing fighter it brought the idea of 3lvls that way you could go echo knight for that 5TH atk as well as an extra body on the field to help deviate the aggro off of the monk
For the Candlekeep campaign, I played a Tabaxi Shadow Monk with only 1 lvl of Twilight Cleric. I only took 1 lvl to gain spellcaster feat so that I could take Eldritch Adept (Devil's Sight). Later, I took the Mobile feat. So with Feline Agility, Monk movement Shenanigans, and Mobile I was moving up to each lower enemy and stun one before moving to the next not to mention the shadow stepping.
Am playing a shadow monk / hexblade 2 up to a planned lvl10. Have found the extra utility of the warlock to be great, if we are against a single enemey I have hex to play with plus shield if I need it. Eldrich blast is a great ranged attack opption in the event I can;t make it into melee. With devils sight and darkness I can cast it on myself, skirmishing around the edges of combat that much move effectively.
I have been binge watching all your videos since I found this channel. Subscribed.
P.S. That beanie is pretty Gorge.
In my game we allow everyone to take a feat starting out on top of whatever what might get a feat like the human variant character gains. I agree with what was said in another episode Fifth edition is very restrictive when it comes to feats
It seems to me that the Shadow Step/Advantage thing seems to lend itself to multiclassing with a Rogue. Shadow Monk and Assassin sound like a scary combo.
It is but if you want the gravy of both classes, the level spread becomes really tricky. I’ve been looking at a monk/rogue combo all week
@@seandonnellan5980 True. I favor Monk to 7th lvl to get Evasion and Still Mind, then Rogue. At M 7, R 2 you get Cunning Action, with 3 bonus actions you can do without burning your precious KI pts : Dash up to your speed, Hide, or Withdraw. At R3, you have to decide which Rogue subclass- I like Assassin ( deadlier to single targets susceptible to poison ) &/ or Phantom ( slightly better skillset plus Wail from the Grave on secondary targets ).
I think a good race option could also be the hobgoblin, as it could still have the flavor of being an Iron shadow hobgoblin.
I have a game where I do this. It's a cool in-universe archetype and the newer Hobgoblin stuff provides good utility to work alongside teammates
All i can think of is Gajeel from Fairy Tail with that description.
while I actually quite like devil sight for my shadow monk I actually went a different rout. i focused on the 6th level ability. my character is a master infiltrator. so in place of devil sight I actually took the Ghostly Gaze invocation to allow me to go through walls with shadowstep assuming of course dim light or darkness is around
while its only a minute of Seeing through walls it actually works wonders in certain situations
another option instead of darkness and elritch adept devil sight, you can take martial training to pick up the fighting style blindsight and then you can fight in darkness, but also in fogcloud, cloudkill (if you get immunity to poison) incendiary cloud (if you get immunity to fire), invisible creatures, etc...
A future that I actually really enjoy using is casting silence. One time, I was scouting and saw small group of enemies. I then casted silence on the and made sure to deal with them quickly. I never felt like an assassin more than during that moment
I'm looking forward to trying a Leonin Shadow Monk. Claws let me get Slasher with unarmed damage for party support, as well as dark vision and the roar. One level of Fighter for Blindfighting, although a level of spellcaster for warlock vision does sound pretty nice
I'm playing a shadow monk in my current ravenloft game and I found your video looking for multi class ideas.
Way of Shadow Monk + Mark of Shadow Elf / Warlock (Archfey) multi class is thematically awesome and makes for a super-stealthy monk which plays more like a rogue assassin. Love it.
Great build concept.A Hexblade or Fiend Warlock might be better for a combat- heavy build. Take the Devils Sight Invocation + Agonizing Blast first. Anything that makes you levitate, spiderclimb,or fly will really help you stay away from creatures with Blindsense or Scent abilties while you're concealed inside your Darkness . True Seeing, Daylight, Dispel Magic can ruin your advantage, though..
I recently played a level 7 shadow monk/level 3 soul knife rogue and I have to say it was the MOST fun I've had playing a character in aaages! My main character is a druid, and while I love her, monks are just awesome! I like that the shadow monk class let's them use a few spells as well, since it's usually a fairly magicless class. Can't wait to play it again 😄👍🥷....... and I just wanted to add that I based my monk off the ninja turtles too 😂
I built a Rogue Shadow Monk Kobold pack tactics giving advantage on all your attacks is nice
Tabaxi Shadow Monk with 2 level hex blade dip was the old way. Standard array 8/17/14/10/13/13. take devil's sight and mage armor invocations, hex and shield spells. Use concentration on darkness or hex, and hexblade's curse combined with monk attacks adds up tons, too.
In a campaign imma player in, we have a Kensei Monk/Inquisitive Rogue Shadar-Kai with the Mobile Feat, and he's an absolute Menace.
LVL8 with 55 movement speed, mofo can move across the battlefield wherever he needs to, usually plsying as a "multi-support" character to aid Martials with Flanking or passing off potions to wounded allies.
But when the chips are down, he uses his Racial Teleport to maneuver in ways to "get the jump" on foes and gets sneak attack like he's hidden, or uses Inquisitive Fighting with Expertise in Insight to get that Sneak Attack on 1v1 fights. He specializes in "Priority Kills" if there's a big boss or a ranged fighter/caster that needs to be taken out.
And he only got more powerful/badass when we started using the UA Monk.
Shadow Monk 14, Swashbuckler Rogue 3, Gloomstaker Ranger 3 Half-Elf with Elven Accuracy; one of the funnest characters I ever played with.
This build is very close to one that I made. I have a dragonborn (updated to metalic from Fizband's Treasury of Dragons and is silver) that started off Rogue for the number of skills available, but eventually is planned to go 14 Way of Shadow Monk, 3 Arcane Trickster Rogue, and 3 Gloomstalker Ranger. This grants vision in the dark from the ranger class as well as a ton of utility abilities and spells. The sneak attack on top of Dread Ambush and possibly even Zephyr Strike (if cast pre combat) can do quite a bit of damage in the first round.
Come for experts providing insights into playing a Shadow Monk, stay for Kelly's sweet Beetlejuice shirt.
My 1st ever pc was a kenku shadow monk called 'Talion shadow', it was a tomb of annihilation campaign and he was incredible at flat out skipping some of the puzzles due to his abilities. However my whole group was very new to dnd so I had no idea what feats even were aswell as never using anything besides shadow step meaning I never did get to use talion to his fullest potential
I've recently had him in a new campaign where I had plenty of plans on what I could do with him... but he died after 4 sessions cause the boss got a lucky crit and basically 1 shot him
Now im waiting for a new chance to have talions grand return
Multi class 3 levels into gloomstalker ranger, pick up the blind fighting fighting style, and watch yourself become invincible.
hmm why would need blind fighting if you have umbral sight from Gloom Stalker? or does it not work for magical darkness? I can't remember.
@@bladehoth it only gives you dark vision, which doesn’t allow you to see through magical darkness.
@@harrisonrothacher2250 thanks!
Wood elf shadow monk was my first character ever :) Took 'im all the way to lvl 20, super fun. Plus he died a bunch in barovia so had freezing cold skin and a scarred arm that would light up haha.
My build was just mobile feat + max dex/wis. The key was I got a helm of brilliance, adding d6 fire to every attack, a staff of striking, and like a cloak of displacement.
My DM put us against Tiamat and we won lol
I like the video. I think there's a lot more to be said on multiclassing and thematic races, now that you've addressed the very real issue of level 1 Eldritch adept in your pined comment. Racially, I think a Dhampir would be very thematic, would go well with your plans for a decent Con, and would provide spiderclimb. As to Multiclassing I think the character would very much benefit, and this is the only way I'd play it to be honest, from taking the 1st two levels as (in either order depending on eldritch adept, which until level 3 is good for fiendish vigor for HP buff to insure survivability) Fighter 1 (unarmed fighting style for 1d8 blows addsa lot of damage in aggregate, then Arcana cleric 1 Gives many benefits: Chill touch ( ranged attack roll with debuffs now you have RANGE, mind sliver ( defuff save option) bless ( for when you lack darkness, healing (always good), and BANE to land stunning strikes later...then go shadow monk... much more well rounded, pays dividends, IMHO. Thoughts?? Thanks
been turned off on the monk for the subclasses and shortcomings, but yeah i can play this, sounds fun!
Shadow Monk/ Echo Knight and flavor your echoes as shadow clones. You could even take 2 levels of Cleric Trickery Domain in order to get an additional clone that is more functional than echoes. Plus the fighter dip gives you either Blindfighting or Unarmed styles. Unarmed is great if you dont plan on getting 10 levels in monk because your unarmed strikes become a d8 right away.
Currently triple classed as a bugbear gloom stalker 3 way of Shadow 6 assassin 3, planning to continue to level in rogue. The combination of hunters Mark, invisibility in darkness, Shadow step and sneak attack is wildly broken, especially with the extra attack round one. Using devils sight in a party that uses darkness and it's a busted build.
A feat that I used on my shadow monk that paid off was Sentinel. I would get to the back door of the room often with shadow step and would stop enemy from fleeing/raising the alarm or go after the casters in back and lock them down for the melee to catch up. Between Sentinel and Stunning Strike I could limit enemy movement fairly well. Damage was meh but definitely added value
I’m giving a Harengon shadow monk a go. Looking forward to seeing how he plays out!
I’m playing a goblin shadow monk right now. My plan is to start multiclassing into fighter once he’s at level 7 and take blind fighting so he can fight people inside his own darkness. Then put two more levels in to get echo knight
Consider gloomstalker ranger instead for all the sneaky shenanigans, and less MAD.
I love there how to play videos, I'd love to see more of these
personally I think that a shadow monk needs the feats of eldricht adept (devil sight) or fighting initiate (blind fight) both of them allows you to fight inside of your magical darkness, I think that you should pick the stealth proficient due to the pass without trace spell.
The multiclassing for my game is homebrew, but I play a warforged twilight cleric shadow monk, named Dead Silent (or Zxan (Zexan, like Texan), Abyssal for: the sound of a last breath). I love the idea of a stealthy lump of metal, when metal is renown for not being sneaky.
Blasting with Guiding Bolt, then teleporting behind the line of sight of the enemy, I like that.
Dead Silent is also cursed with lycanthropy. Adding to the fear factor that can come with a Shadow Monk.
As a player who after six years of playing dnd, played atleast 50% of my games as a shadow monk, I never thought of darkness as useful, just because of the "magical darkness" thing. This devil sight thing is the most broken op class changing thing i've ever heard. Although for race id go dhampir for spider climb and use the living shadow feat for flavour.