Fighter/Monk Viability?

[SMac8988]

Hello all, hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

I am currently plotting a character concept from low to high level and was wondering how viable it would be from the start to the end.

I believe the campaign will be start around level 2, so I'll aim to start from there.

The idea is a fighter/monk: 11/9

Thinking battle master/four elements. I dont know a ton about the way of the four elements, but I want to focus on mainly Fire stuff and my DM will hand wave changing typing from one element to fire.

I think human for my race, but not 100% committed to it if a better suggestion comes up.

I believe we would be rolling stats together so I dont have stats to place, but would run.

Dex>wis>con>cha>str>int

The idea is a masked over the top super hero character. Almost a characture of superman/captain America. He would be lawful good and I would inform my DM my attacks are meant to be non lethal unless I say different.

Would this multi class work? Or do anyone have any suggestions for how to make it play better?

[Man_Over_Game]

The Fighter and Monk unfortunately don't have a lot of synergies together. The few available should probably focus on what each subclass option can provide for the other class.

For example, the main features of the Fighter is the weapon proficiencies, the armor proficiencies, the extra attacks, and the low decency on Bonus Actions.

However, the main benefits of the Monk is their unarmed strikes (which require use of specific weapons) and their alternate armor and mobility (which require not wearing armor), but they are bonus action dependent. They also get Extra Attacks at level 5, which do not stack with other classes' Extra Attacks.

Note that only 1/3 of the Fighter's benefits are applicable to the Monk, and even then, it's only due to the Bonus Actions being available each turn.

To use the Monk features, you'd have to only use one armor option, choose not to use the weapon proficiencies provided by being a Fighter, and if you got Extra Attacks from both classes (meaning both classes made it to level 5 or higher), you'd have an entire level's worth of features that is completely wasted.

Additionally, Four Elements Monk is very dependent on Wisdom, which no Fighter benefits from.

To address all of these concerns at once, I'd actually really recommend Ranger as an option. The Ranger effectively sacrifices the Armor proficiencies (which you can't use anyway) for combat-oriented spellcasting. If Ranger isn't a fit, consider Cleric instead. Since using Wisdom is a pretty important requirement for the Four Elements Monk, it's important to find a build that also implements Wisdom to make the most use of your stats.

If you still want to go as a combative caster who uses the elements, consider looking at the Eldritch Knight, which is a very effective Fighter subclass that uses Evocation spells (like fire spells) with few resources lost.

But before considering multiclassing, it's very important to ask yourself *why* it's important. Why can't you just reflavor your Monk to be a highly competent war veteran?

---------

The Four Elements is generally considered a pretty poor subclass. This is due to a few reasons:

• Four Elements abilities are all tied into Ki. If you run out of Ki, you no longer have a subclass
• Ki refreshes on a Short Rest. If your table doesn't use many Short Rests, you will often be out of Ki.
• Four Elements expenses for Ki are quite high, allowing you to only cast a spell 1-2 times per combat. Combined with your other Monk abiltiies, that also cost Ki, you will run out of Ki very quickly.
• Most of the Four Elements abilities require an Action, which you normally could be able to attack 3-4 times with. As a result, sometimes it's just more effecient to just attack and ignore your subclass features.
• The Four Elements abilities all scale with Wisdom and not Dexterity. Considering most Monks use Dexterity, this may mean that your spellcasting as this class will be poor.

So...there's a lot going against it. Additionally, because of the fact that Ki is dependent on Monk levels, it's advisable to not multiclass into something else and lose out on Monk levels (and thus have fewer Ki points to use).

There have been a large number of threads on Four Elements, in regards to their weaknesses as a class and how to address them. There have been a few revised versions that people have made, too, but no changes have been officially made for them. Talk to your DM and see what concerns he may have and how he wishes to address them. Simply allowing the 4E monk to have slightly reduced costs (-1 ki point per listed ability) and to have matching elemental cantrips (Like Firebolt, Ray of Frost, Thunderclap, etc) would address most concerns people have for the subclass (namely that they have no abilities that work with no ki).

[SMac8988]

Monk is the best way for unarmed damage in 5e, which is a big draw for me since I really want a hand to hand fighter and I've never seen a four elements monk played, so I wanted to test them out myself. I've come close in the past to playing a monk several times but my party ended up needing more of a tank role and I have switched.


My idea is to use the unarmed defense, and with the fighter feats get my dex and wis maxed soon as I can. I didn't know Four Elements was super Wis dependent, and will factor that in. Thanks for that. I figured Battle Master would give me the exciting "martial arts moves" like sweeping kicks, and what not.
Going 11 in fighter nets me that 3 attack, and with flurry and action surge that nets me 8 potential attacks a turn, which wasn't the goal but is really cool to think about.


I am not an outright Caster in my play style, and Ranger has some appeal I will look into. Hunter's Mark can bump my damage to match the Maneuvers, and the tracking stuff would be pretty cool. Thanks for the help!

[Man_Over_Game]

For a simple solution that seems fun AND similar, consider doing something like this:

Barbarian Storm Herald + Drunken Master.

Storm Herald has a lot of the elemental uses that you may be interested in. Drunken Master is interesting as a Monk, as they are not dependent at all on Wisdom (so you could have a minimum Wisdom score and still do well as a Drunken Master). Drunken Master also greatly improves mobility, which is great for your Barbarian auras.
Monk's unarmed strikes do not require you to use Dexterity, they simply add the option to, so you can use Barbarian Rage to hit really hard with your unarmed strikes with Strength and spam your Flurry of Blows, which, according to Drunken Master, makes you more mobile and harder to hit.

Alternatively, Open Hand Monk does a lot of the cool tricks you're describing, like pushing and knocking enemies prone. It's considered to be a better, melee-focused Battle Master Fighter. They are Wisdom dependent for those effects (all Monk saving throws are based on Wisdom, not Dexterity), but that won't be an issue as long as you only take multiclasses/features that also scale with Wisdom/Dexterity. From here, you can get your "elements" by taking a single level into Druid or Cleric. Druid options include Circle of the Land (Mirror Image + Monk is friggin' awesome) or Shephard (for the totems). Cleric options include Nature (for Shillelagh), Tempest (Fog Cloud, Thunderwave, and shocking people when they hit you), or Light (Blinding people when they attempt to attack you).

[Phoenix042]

Since no one else has even really tried to tackle making a viable fighter/monk build with you, I'll take a stab at actually using the classes you wanted and seeing what kind of lemonade we can make out of the VERY sour lemon that is four elements monk.

1st, a few notes about fighter + monk:
While you do lose out on the benefits of proficiencies in heavy armor and martial weapons, the fighter's fighting style, action surge, second wind, and many other features can actually work really well with the monk's base class features.

Lets look at monk 1 / fighter 1 for a sec.

You wear no armor and carry no shield. Lets take a shortsword, spear, or quarterstaff in one hand and grab the dueling fighting style. Lets also take variant human because it's OP and you need all the help you can get. Here's some example stats using point buy:

Str 8, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 10

Your AC is 16, which isn't bad. If you start fighter, your HP is 21, If you started monk its 20 but you have dex and wis saving throws which might be better for you. Since you'll be buffing dex all game, your AC will climb and so will your attack and damage.

You typically make one attack with your shortsword for 1d6 + 5 damage, and another with an unarmed strike for 1d4 + 3.
Lets take both classes to level 2 now. Your friends have an ASI by now, but you have flurry of blows and action surge; you still spend most turns making one shortsword attack and one unarmed strike, but you can make two of each when you need to and still have a ki point left over.

Now lets take fighter to level 6. You get your dex to 20 during this time, pick up some maneuvers, and get an extra attack. Your typical turn now includes two shortsword attacks for 1d6 + 7 damage, and one or two unarmed strikes for 1d4 + 5. You can nova to make six attacks in a round. Your maneuvers can be used to make crits more devastating or to knock people off cliffs or onto the ground. You can trip someone, then make 5 attacks with advantage, which is pretty cool. All this at level 8.

Now lets start taking more monk levels. This is where we run into trouble. Monk level three has four GREAT uses for their Ki points, but only 3 ki points. You can deflect arrows (and maybe gain an extra attack for 1 ki point), flurry for lots of damage (1d6 + 5, twice), dash, dodge, disengage. These are all really strong options that you can all use in the same round that you benefit from all your other fighter and monk features. Great tools to have.

Or, you can completely ignore all of your fighter and monk features, and use a 4 elements discipline. You're a 9th level character who can burn 2/3 of their ki to cast burning hands as a 1st level spell. Your dex is 20, but your wis is still 16, so that burning hands is literally the same as a burning hands cast by a 1st level wizard.

Fangs of the fire snake looks a little bit better. You can spend all your ki points to make your nova round a little deadlier, gaining reach with your flurry attacks and dealing 1d10 extra fire damage with one of them (you only have three ki points; one to activate, one to flurry, one to do 1d10 extra damage). So basically 2 ki points for 1d10 extra fire damage. Or you could save those ki points and do two flurry of blows on each of your next two turns (1d6 + 5 damage each).

If your DM lets you use water whip as printed (bonus action use), and especially if he lets you call it lava whip or something, then this character gets a LOT stronger, but errata clarifies that water whip was supposed to be an action to cast.

If you use water whip, that can actually be a pretty decent use of your bonus action when you don't want to flurry and at 9th level, it could deal as much as 5d10 damage (nothing to scoff at even at high levels, for a bonus action.

Anyways, by 20th level you can action surge and flurry for a total of 8 attacks, and you could burn a bunch of ki and maneuvers to empower those attacks with extra damage dice. That's a lot of attacks to make, especially if one of your early attacks trips the target, meaning the rest are at advantage. Critting on even one or two unarmed strikes would allow you to use both fangs of the fire snake and a maneuver, doubleing the dice of both.

It has it's pluses and is perfectly playable.

[SMac8988]

Since no one else has even really tried to tackle making a viable fighter/monk build with you, I'll take a stab at actually using the classes you wanted and seeing what kind of lemonade we can make out of the VERY sour lemon that is four elements monk.

1st, a few notes about fighter + monk:
While you do lose out on the benefits of proficiencies in heavy armor and martial weapons, the fighter's fighting style, action surge, second wind, and many other features can actually work really well with the monk's base class features.

Lets look at monk 1 / fighter 1 for a sec.

You wear no armor and carry no shield. Lets take a shortsword, spear, or quarterstaff in one hand and grab the dueling fighting style. Lets also take variant human because it's OP and you need all the help you can get. Here's some example stats using point buy:

Str 8, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 10

Your AC is 16, which isn't bad. If you start fighter, your HP is 21, If you started monk its 20 but you have dex and wis saving throws which might be better for you. Since you'll be buffing dex all game, your AC will climb and so will your attack and damage.

You typically make one attack with your shortsword for 1d6 + 5 damage, and another with an unarmed strike for 1d4 + 3.
Lets take both classes to level 2 now. Your friends have an ASI by now, but you have flurry of blows and action surge; you still spend most turns making one shortsword attack and one unarmed strike, but you can make two of each when you need to and still have a ki point left over.

Now lets take fighter to level 6. You get your dex to 20 during this time, pick up some maneuvers, and get an extra attack. Your typical turn now includes two shortsword attacks for 1d6 + 7 damage, and one or two unarmed strikes for 1d4 + 5. You can nova to make six attacks in a round. Your maneuvers can be used to make crits more devastating or to knock people off cliffs or onto the ground. You can trip someone, then make 5 attacks with advantage, which is pretty cool. All this at level 8.

Now lets start taking more monk levels. This is where we run into trouble. Monk level three has four GREAT uses for their Ki points, but only 3 ki points. You can deflect arrows (and maybe gain an extra attack for 1 ki point), flurry for lots of damage (1d6 + 5, twice), dash, dodge, disengage. These are all really strong options that you can all use in the same round that you benefit from all your other fighter and monk features. Great tools to have.

Or, you can completely ignore all of your fighter and monk features, and use a 4 elements discipline. You're a 9th level character who can burn 2/3 of their ki to cast burning hands as a 1st level spell. Your dex is 20, but your wis is still 16, so that burning hands is literally the same as a burning hands cast by a 1st level wizard.

Fangs of the fire snake looks a little bit better. You can spend all your ki points to make your nova round a little deadlier, gaining reach with your flurry attacks and dealing 1d10 extra fire damage with one of them (you only have three ki points; one to activate, one to flurry, one to do 1d10 extra damage). So basically 2 ki points for 1d10 extra fire damage. Or you could save those ki points and do two flurry of blows on each of your next two turns (1d6 + 5 damage each).

If your DM lets you use water whip as printed (bonus action use), and especially if he lets you call it lava whip or something, then this character gets a LOT stronger, but errata clarifies that water whip was supposed to be an action to cast.

If you use water whip, that can actually be a pretty decent use of your bonus action when you don't want to flurry and at 9th level, it could deal as much as 5d10 damage (nothing to scoff at even at high levels, for a bonus action.

Anyways, by 20th level you can action surge and flurry for a total of 8 attacks, and you could burn a bunch of ki and maneuvers to empower those attacks with extra damage dice. That's a lot of attacks to make, especially if one of your early attacks trips the target, meaning the rest are at advantage. Critting on even one or two unarmed strikes would allow you to use both fangs of the fire snake and a maneuver, doubleing the dice of both.

It has it's pluses and is perfectly playable.

That's basically what I was looking at, was the mix if battle man and elemental strikes for one big attack. While having some fun stuff to do if that moment never comes. It all resets on a short rest, so even if I lose it all its not unrealistic post heavy battle to rest at least a bit.

My other monk idea would be to find which uses Ki the least and focus on flurry and step of wind.

But 8 attacks, with fire hands and maneuvers seems super fun.

[Man_Over_Game]

For the least amount of Ki usage, you'd be looking at Kensei for a melee-ranged hybrid, or Long Death for a strictly melee choice. Kensei and Battlemaster actually has a lot of synergy together as a versatile combat specialist, since the Kensei gives you a lot of attack benefits that all require your bonus action, and the Battle Master is unique in that it gives you a lot of attack benefits that don't require your bonus action.

[Phoenix042]

I'm going to second the BM / Kensai split, actually. This combo seems like it could be a decent use of the Kensai's features, though it'll hurt to have to choose between a third attack and the sharpen the blade feature.

That character could take a two handed weapon and GWM, actually, and then use precision attack to turn misses into hits. Now you're a super-quick, unarmored martial artist with a really hard hitting glaive or dai-katana or something, all based on dex. And you can whip out a bow when you want to.

That's a cool concept, but not exactly what you were looking for.

You could also flip this a little, go eldritch knight for long enough to get a blade cantrip and some defensive spells, and then go kensai and use a whip with extra damage at 10ft range (using the monk's martial arts die for the whip, plus dueling and dex for a solid + to damage), and maybe also booming blade (if you go spell sniper, you can hit someone with this then run away without provoking attacks of opportunity).

Just a few similar ideas.

[Jamesps]

I like mixing in a level of monk to a fighter build to reduce item dependency.

A monk 1/Fighter X benefits from a weapon but doesn't need it. Doesn't benefit from armor or a shield, and gets a bonus action attack for some minor damage you can tack on.

It's not awesome, but you combine it with Eldritch Knight (who needs to keep a hand free anyways) and you've got a perfectly functional character that can function without weapons or armor. Once you hit 11th in Fighter you can start going up monk to get some extra benefits since post 11 fighter isn't usually worth much.

It's not really a fighter/monk so much as a fighter that is capable of fighting without armor or weapons.

[Damon_Tor]

A while ago someone was asking about optimizing for stunning strikes, how to get the most amount of stun out of your build. I recommended mixing a monk with battlemaster because you can combine Evasive Footwork and Riposte to provoke an opportunity attack that's very likely to miss, and then use that miss to trigger an additional attack (and thus another chance to stun). This tactic depends entirely on your DM's willingness to roleplay a monster without metagaming: he knows what you're trying to do, but unless you're fighting an intelligent creature who has already seen you fight, there's no reason the creature would understand the tactics in question.

[Man_Over_Game]

A while ago someone was asking about optimizing for stunning strikes, how to get the most amount of stun out of your build. I recommended mixing a monk with battlemaster because you can combine Evasive Footwork and Riposte to provoke an opportunity attack that's very likely to miss, and then use that miss to trigger an additional attack (and thus another chance to stun). This tactic depends entirely on your DM's willingness to roleplay a monster without metagaming: he knows what you're trying to do, but unless you're fighting an intelligent creature who has already seen you fight, there's no reason the creature would understand the tactics in question.

There was a lot of controversy in that thread. Your options to maximize on Stunning Strike came down to two things:

1. Max out Wisdom, neglect Dexterity, using a Druid's Shillelagh for high chance stunning strikes
2. Max out Dexterity, neglect Wisdom, spamming Flurry of Blows and Ki to eventually land a Stunning Strike

Option 1 doesn't work with Battle Masters (who use Dexterity and Strength)
Option 2 is Ki expensive.

Option 1 would be the most cost efficient method for a very consistent stun each turn, with Long Death Monk (who uses no Ki and scales with Wisdom and prefers melee combat) using Magic Initiate [Druid] for Shillelagh, maxing Wisdom.

If going Option 2, you need to put a high emphasis on Monk over multiclassing, due to the fact that your Ki allowance is based on your Monk levels, and you'll be burning through it rather quickly with a low Wisdom. A more efficient version of going Option 2 while still having the playstyle of a Battle Master would just be to go Open Hand with no multiclassing.

[CTurbo]

I can see a Monk benefiting from 2-3 levels of Fighter like Second Wind, Action Surge, Battle Master maneuvers, or the Brute's extra damage.
Likewise, I can see a Fighter benefiting from 2-3 levels of Monk, like Unarmed Defense, Martial Arts, ki options, Deflect Missiles, and a variety of Monastic traditions 3rd level abilities.

But what I can't see working very well is a more even level split between the two. The Monk class is too ki dependent, and brings a lot of restrictions to the Fighter class.

[djreynolds]

I can see a Monk benefiting from 2-3 levels of Fighter like Second Wind, Action Surge, Battle Master maneuvers, or the Brute's extra damage.
Likewise, I can see a Fighter benefiting from 2-3 levels of Monk, like Unarmed Defense, Martial Arts, ki options, Deflect Missiles, and a variety of Monastic traditions 3rd level abilities.

But what I can't see working very well is a more even level split between the two. The Monk class is too ki dependent, and brings a lot of restrictions to the Fighter class.

100%

Battlemaster is a nice edition, but 3 levels might be the max.

1d10 with any monk weapon is reason enough to stay in monk. Anything that loses out on this, it's just not worth it.

[Malifice]

Fighter and Monk work really well together.

A 3 level dip into BM gets you 4 superiority die, action surge and second wind.

You'll be able to trip, disarm, frighten and other status effects, along with stunning them.

[Citan]

Hello all, hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

I am currently plotting a character concept from low to high level and was wondering how viable it would be from the start to the end.

I believe the campaign will be start around level 2, so I'll aim to start from there.

The idea is a fighter/monk: 11/9

Thinking battle master/four elements. I dont know a ton about the way of the four elements, but I want to focus on mainly Fire stuff and my DM will hand wave changing typing from one element to fire.

I think human for my race, but not 100% committed to it if a better suggestion comes up.

I believe we would be rolling stats together so I dont have stats to place, but would run.

Dex>wis>con>cha>str>int

The idea is a masked over the top super hero character. Almost a characture of superman/captain America. He would be lawful good and I would inform my DM my attacks are meant to be non lethal unless I say different.

Would this multi class work? Or do anyone have any suggestions for how to make it play better?

Hi! The multiclass will certainly work, but I'll have some counter suggestions though.

Before that...

The Fighter and Monk unfortunately don't have a lot of synergies together. The few available should probably focus on what each subclass option can provide for the other class.

For example, the main features of the Fighter is the weapon proficiencies, the armor proficiencies, the extra attacks, and the low decency on Bonus Actions.

However, the main benefits of the Monk is their unarmed strikes (which require use of specific weapons) and their alternate armor and mobility (which require not wearing armor), but they are bonus action dependent. They also get Extra Attacks at level 5, which do not stack with other classes' Extra Attacks.

I have to say that while I agree on the Ranger suggestion that would be easier to synergize with Monk (as well as Light Cleric), I strongly disagree with everything else.

Not only Fighter subclasses can bring much synergy to any kind of Monk, even the basic features from the first few levels (extra ASI -> faster stat bump or feats, Action Surge -> Ki spare or nova turn) are very helpful.
And as I demonstrated several times, 4E subclass is very strong overall, and especially past level 7-8. It's just that people don't like the way it is played, which is legitimate, but a very different thing (opinion & taste =/= facts & analysis).

And one of the main criticisms being the "either strike or cast a spell" is partially addressed by Action Surge.

Now back to OP, staying on the Fighter/Monk idea.
First of all, if you'd really want to play with fire, you'll probably want to grab Fireball from 4E, so you'd push Monk to 11 (or EK to 14 but then you'd have some trouble with stats to make it work).

And if you bring it to 11, Fighter is max 9: considering that Extra Attack at level 5 is completely redondant, you'd have to consider the value of levels 6 to 9 included.
- 6 and 8 are extra feats: pretty nice, but also delays considerably your Monk progression. Not sure that's worth, unless level 7 or 9 is really worth it.
- and level 9 is completely worthless: you could have Diamond Soul instead: sure it costs a ki but it's rechargeable (in addition to proficiency).
- so the balance holder is level 7, which is a subclass: Arcane Archer is obviously out, Champion is mildly interesting (you shouldn't be subjected to that many physical checks since you can avoid many with mobility), EK is plain useless (well, you could make it work with GreenFlameBlade tbh but it's very restrictive and you have some things to use bonus action already), which means are left Battlemaster, Purple Dragon, Cavalier and Samurai.

Samurai "CHA Expertise" is good, especially paired with Monk's level 13 "all languages". But you'd get it as a capstone. And as a capstone, it's pretty uninteresting. And taken alone, it's not worth enough.

Same idea with Purple Dragon, except "worse": those extra skills would come awfully late, and require you to develop affinity with animals. In other words, if "animal love" is fluff, it's useless, if it's an important part of your character you don't want it at character level 16+.

Battlemaster brings another die and two other manoeuvers: again you'd get those very late, so I'd tend to say "if you survived that long without them, you can continue".

Cavalier's however is very interesting, because even if it uses up your reaction, it gives extra AC and more importantly damage resistance. Since you'd never get Empty Body, that's a big deal when you will fight strong creatures.

So.
If you want a dual class Fighter/Monk, on a fire theme, your best bets would be...
- Fighter 2 / Monk 18: Fighter 1 -> Monk 7-11 -> Fighter 2. Not what I'd call a "dual-class" tbh, but this is probably the best build for end-game.
- Battlemaster 3-4 / Monk 16-17: Battlemaster is always nice (Evasive Footwork, Precision, Trip, Goading) and equally short-rest based. Even if only a d6, can still be very nice. Cavalier could be astoundingly good paired with Dodge, but to have a decent number of uses you'd have to build a STR Monk and that is simply to painful.
This is probably the best balance between your original goal and build simplicity.
- Cavalier 8 / Monk 12: less Monk goodness but extra ASIs to grab Mobile and possibly Magic Initiate or Ritual Caster, or maybe some offensive Mage Slayer.

In all three cases, you can once per short rest have the cake and eat it (spell + weapon attacks) or make a crazy nova against either single-target (6 attempts at Stunning Strike) or groups (two Fireball chained).

NOW, all these suggestions were made on the assumption you *definitely wanted Fireball* (which also meant you wanted it as early as possible).

If you are ok with Monk 7-9 max, there are plenty of alternative builds to make.

"Fiery Snake Monk": using ki mainly on Fire Snake, alternatively using some Shatter or Burning Hands. I'd suggest Battlemaster or Champion Fighter 11 / Monk 9 end build then, to enjoy the increased speed and wall running shenanigans, as well as occasional blast.

"Fiery Blaster Tank A": Eldricht Knight 11+ / Monk 7-9: idea is to get a balance as early as possible between Eldricht Strike and blast spells or Hold Person.

"Fiery Armored Tank": Cavalier 11+ / Monk 5+: you'd build this one actually as a STR guy, in armor, unless you start in a class that provides sufficient natural armor. You'd use Ki mainly on Dodge or Dash as bonus action, or occasionally on Hold Person or refluffed Unbroken Air / Water Whip.
Paired with Cavalier abilities you'll make one hell of a sustainable tank.
If you go armored, you lose unarmed attack and speed so no use getting too high in Monk (7 is probably the most).
If you go unarmored, you may be tempted by Cavalier 15 too actually, this would make a short supply of Ki but the extra speed means easier to trigger the free attempt at prone effect.
In that build as with the previous one, you'd obviously have Green Flame Blade in your arsenal.

And now, if you want to make something easier to build and quicker to achieve your core concept (unarmed + fire if I understood well), I'd suggest mixing Light Cleric or Land Druid instead of Fighter.
This means you rely on classic slots for blasting, but you also get access to Fireball (or other nice fire-related spells, although less damaging, if Druid) much easier.
Meaning in turn the pressure on Ki management is lesser, you can keep most of it for Fire Snake and the like.

[Innocent_bystan]

Another option is ignoring martial arts completely: wear plate and use a greatsword. BM3/monk ... You can still spend ki on Stunning Strike and flurry of blows and such. You still get evasion. You can still walk on water and walls, but you won't get extra speed. It's perfectly viable, but you're playing a fighter on a monk chassis.

[Citan]

Another option is ignoring martial arts completely: wear plate and use a greatsword. BM3/monk ... You can still spend ki on Stunning Strike and flurry of blows and such. You still get evasion. You can still walk on water and walls, but you won't get extra speed. It's perfectly viable, but you're playing a fighter on a monk chassis.

Sadly you are mistaken on most accounts.
- Stunning Strike: ok.
- Flurry of Blows: technically ok but you'd lose the decent damage, so it would amount to "use one Ki for two attempts at Stunning Strike", I wouldn't say this is worth compared to using bonus action on something else. ^^
- Walk on Water and Walls: no (remember: "UNARMORED Movement improvement" ^^).

Multiclassing into a Monk while focusing on the non-Unarmored abilities can certainly be done. But I'd argue then other archetypes than 4E would bring more to the table in that regard (with Kensei and Long Death first coming into mind).

[Innocent_bystan]

Sadly you are mistaken on most accounts.

Most accounts is quite the exaggaration, as is the word mistaken.

Flurry of Blows: technically ok but you'd lose the decent damage, so it would amount to "use one Ki for two attempts at Stunning Strike", I wouldn't say this is worth compared to using bonus action on something else. ^^

I'm AFB at the moment and couldn't quite remember the name of all the ki abilities monks get at level 2. But those are all available. That's what I meant with Flurry of blows and such. If you are an open hand monk, those Flurry of blows riders are also nice to have. Even if the actual blows do minimal damage.

Walk on Water and Walls: no (remember: "UNARMORED Movement improvement" ^^).

The ability is called unarmored movement, but only the speed increase has the 'no armor'-clause. I'll admit that's a but of a stretch, though

Multiclassing into a Monk while focusing on the non-Unarmored abilities can certainly be done. But I'd argue then other archetypes than 4E would bring more to the table in that regard (with Kensei and Long Death first coming into mind).

On this we agree.

[PeteNutButter]

Late to the thread so, I'll add a few comments as briefly as I can.

-Armored Monks are viable in that they use their ki for bonus action dodge. Coupled with the AC of heavy armor and a shield this can make them borderline unhittable. Being a race with a natural weapon such as lizardfolk, makes flurry still viable even when in heavy armor. It is a very defensive playstyle and misses out on a lot of monk features, and as such is not optimal.

-The level spread described in the OP (Fighter 11/Monk 9) has a lot of problems. For one, most games don't see past the early levels of tier 3, so you'd either leave fighter before 11 or just spend almost whole game, or even the whole game as a plain fighter. Second, Monks are super dependent on ki, making something a Fighter 11/Monk 2 feel kind of underwhelming. You're essentially giving up armor (including shields) for very few benefits. Lastly, Monks are the class most dependent on ASIs so you should end both classes on an ASI if you can.

-I'd recommend a four level dip in fighter on a monk. That nets the fighter subclass, action surge, the fighting style, and most importantly the ASI. All you miss is that 3rd attack by fighter 11, but you'd end up making way more attacks over the course of the adventuring day, as you can flurry so much more frequently. The interesting thing about the dueling FS on monks is until monk level 11 it is functionally only +1 damage, since you can instead versatile a staff/spear for the d8. At Monk 11 though you get 1d8 on your shortsword, which makes the dueling FS actually function as the +2 damage buff that it should be.

To Optimize that, I'd go Monk 5 > Fighter 4 > Monk, Variant Human with the Mobile feat, 16s in dex and wisdom, 14 con. That gives the best shot at getting to play the MC without delay extra attack.

[Malifice]

-Armored Monks are viable in that they use their ki for bonus action dodge. Coupled with the AC of heavy armor and a shield this can make them borderline unhittable. Being a race with a natural weapon such as lizardfolk, makes flurry still viable even when in heavy armor. It is a very defensive playstyle and misses out on a lot of monk features, and as such is not optimal.

You lose martial arts in armor (bonus action attack, increased damage dice, dex instead of str), and a few other class features as well.

Like; you can do it, but why would you?

Like; just 1 flurry or dodge a round, and 1 stunning strike and you're out of Ki fast, and then you're... not doing much of anything.

[PeteNutButter]

You lose martial arts in armor (bonus action attack, increased damage dice, dex instead of str), and a few other class features as well.

Like; you can do it, but why would you?

Like; just 1 flurry or dodge a round, and 1 stunning strike and you're out of Ki fast, and then you're... not doing much of anything.

Like I said, it's not optimal, but can be viable. The best approach would probably be Fighter 1/Monk x. That way you have enough ki to spam dodge. Pick up sentinel and be insanely hard to hit. The math on disadvantage combined with high AC is really really good. Something like a 23 AC (plate + shield + defense + Kensei Boost) has only a 3.9% chance to get hit by +6. You can face tank the big bad enemy with little fear of dying to attacks.

[Citan]

You lose martial arts in armor (bonus action attack, increased damage dice, dex instead of str), and a few other class features as well.

Like; you can do it, but why would you?

Like; just 1 flurry or dodge a round, and 1 stunning strike and you're out of Ki fast, and then you're... not doing much of anything.

I strongly disagree on this.
It of course depends on how much you level up the Monk side, and what you pair it with.

But, for a classic example, pick (Long Death) Monk 6-7 / (Tempest) Cleric: you often keep Spirit Guardians, and you'd hate having concentration broken.
Even just spending ki on bonus action Dodge is invaluable when you managed to really get a crowd into your area of effect (or archers decided you were really too much a pain in the *** for their melee pals). But you could also use it to Dash in order to unleash a decisive Booming Blade (from racial/feat) nova.

Even Fighter / Monk: pick Kensei|Long Death to pair with Fighter: the latter has very little use for his bonus action, even with archetypes taken into account (mainly EK's War Magic which is of very little interest usually). And one makes all your attacks magic (so no stress on getting a magic weapon) while the other gives good THP. You could even argue that grabbing Monk 11 over 3rd Attack is a valid choice.
Monk's Ki makes up for the usual weaknesses of a melee Fighter (mobility and limited way in defense). Even without the extra movement.

[Innocent_bystan]

You lose martial arts in armor (bonus action attack, increased damage dice, dex instead of str), and a few other class features as well.

Like; you can do it, but why would you?

Like; just 1 flurry or dodge a round, and 1 stunning strike and you're out of Ki fast, and then you're... not doing much of anything.

Because you aren't losing all that much.

The martial arts damage die is easily replaced by your weapon damage die, potentially with a +2 from dueling fighting style. You do lose out on the bonus action attacks, which is a shame.

You don't get to attack with Dex, but you need a high Strength for that armor, so attack with that.

You don't get the improved movement speed but you don't need it because you can tank the damage.

What do you gain: more AC, especially in the early levels. I like the defense fighting style instead of dueling. That leaves you with an AC of 19 in plate without shield. Monks need 3 ASI's to get that kind of number.

I'd argue that the increased AC saves you a couple of ki points, because you don't need to Dodge of Disengage. Which leaves you with more to do fun stuff with.

Additionally, you can profit from a lot of gear a monk has no use for.

[djreynolds]

It's tough, because I like the idea of 3 levels of battlemaster on any class.

Here's the dilemma, since your going 20, a monk's 14th level diamond soul has to be important. Buts far away.

Now you will have a high dex and wisdom, and evasion at 7th monk.

I could see you beginning as fighter, and then taking monk to at least 5th level, and just sprinkle in fighter as you go.

Though faraway, diamond soul has to be in your plans at 14th, and 1d10 damage at 17th.

I think the fighter or dip of any class is in the 3 to 6 level area.

[Jamesps]

It's tough, because I like the idea of 3 levels of battlemaster on any class.

Here's the dilemma, since your going 20, a monk's 14th level diamond soul has to be important. Buts far away.

Now you will have a high dex and wisdom, and evasion at 7th monk.

I could see you beginning as fighter, and then taking monk to at least 5th level, and just sprinkle in fighter as you go.

Though faraway, diamond soul has to be in your plans at 14th, and 1d10 damage at 17th.

I think the fighter or dip of any class is in the 3 to 6 level area.

Diamond soul is ridiculously good.

1d10 damage is pretty meh. It's an average of +1 damage per attack. That's not quite as good as a single sneak attack dice.

[SMac8988]

Sorry been a day or so to respond. Hectic life.

Understanding that the game is going to start low level, I assume 2 or 3.

Would it be a good idea to start fighter 1/monk 1, or Fighter 2/monk 1. At the start and level as I go. Focusing more on Monk in the early levels. Fighter three is needed pretty fast for the concept but then go mainly monk for a bit.

The main reason for 11 fighter was that 3rd attack, but with the idea suggested above of Magic Initiate from human variant which I Didnt think about that. I can go warlock; see if I can switch Eldridge for firebolt, for the theme, green flame and hex. Which will get me the damage output in a cool way.

So now in aiming more monk 14, fight 6, mainly for the Asi and HP bump.

Looking at maxing dex/wis, con 14 or 16. Mobility, magic initiate, tough for feats.

Thanks everyone for all the advice!!!

[djreynolds]

You could skip fighter and grab 3 levels of ranger hunter.
Get horde breaker or colossus slayer
Hunters mark, good for 1 hour
A monk at 5th level, has 2 attacks and 1 ba attack and if wanted FOB.
Imo, so very humbly, just grab 3 of ranger or fighter.

[CTurbo]

I would rather have 3 levels of Ranger too. Horde Breaker is excellent for Monks and really fits the play style. Monks can really take advantage of Favored Enemy extra damage and also Hunter's Mark.

Gloom Stalker is great too especially for Shadow Monks.

[SMac8988]

You could skip fighter and grab 3 levels of ranger hunter.
Get horde breaker or colossus slayer
Hunters mark, good for 1 hour
A monk at 5th level, has 2 attacks and 1 ba attack and if wanted FOB.
Imo, so very humbly, just grab 3 of ranger or fighter.

The flavor of Ranger doesnt fit the character horrible well. And doesnt have the martial arts feel. It has some serious benefits, may consider 3 of each and 14 monk.

[Innocent_bystan]

What flavor? Just ignore all nature related abilities and spells. Or, even better, re-fluff them to fire-related abilities.
For instance, you could ask your DM to change the damage die of Hunter's Mark to fire. Instant flaming fist superhero.