(5e) why does no-one talk about the monk-barian.

[notXanathar]

My one real thing when thinking about this multiclass was really the fact that if you go strength monk you can multiply the rage damage bonus by all those attacks, effectively doubling(or whichever) the efficacy of the core class feature, although I recognise the many problems of multiple ability scores, etc.

[Reevh]

It's not the strongest, but it works OK (standard array):

https://ddb.ac/characters/17253192/9hgZzW

Low AC, but 101 hp with bear totem resistance to damage, plus some extra temp HP when you kill enemies. Damage is 2d8+14+1d6+7 on turns you don't spend ki, or 2d8+14+2d6+14 on turns you do. More if you have magic weapons.

It's not a power build, but it's alright.

[Warlush]

This guy's page helps. He doesn't spend much time worrying about alignment restrictions that don't exist.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...classing-Guide

[Sahe]

I'm currently playing this with a setting specific homebrew race and rolled stats (8+2d4).

I got lucky and got 2 16's and a 15 which brought my stats at the Start with bonuses to 16 16 18 12 13 12

I went Barb 1/Monk 2. We're now level 9 with me being Drunken Master 6/Bear Totem 3. For my ASI I raised Str to 18 I don't ever use any weapons (only fists) and spam Reckless Attack. I do ok damage, have pretty decent HP and an AC of 17. I was only once close to dropping when I got stunned while being trapped in a magic bubble with enemies, but my allies came through and helped.

My damage is ok, my build is hardly optimized, but it's fun. I'm ahead of pure Monk damage, but behind in utility. I'm roughly on par with a normal Barbarian (assuming GWM with Greatsword or Maul) but beed to hit more attacks. Though I can also spread them out more and don't take the penalty. PAM/GWM would probs deal more dmg, but with a 16 str. My stunning strike isn't worth much though.

I intend to go deeper into Barb and no higher than 8 Monk for background reasons.

[Mitsu]

As others have said - its too MAD to work. Monk is generally not really good for multiclassing, though there are some multiclasses that work really nice like

Shadow Monk/2 Trickery Domain Cleric - you can boost others stealth with touch and you can 1/shor rest summon your illusionary copy that not only can serve as distraction/trick etc but also gives you advantage on all your attacks for 1 minute vs any enemy if your illusion is 5 feet from you. This is very

Monk/Light Cleric - Flare is very nice ability to have because monks can be very squishy.

Monk/1 Hexblade (if you have 13 CHA) - a nice combo as Curse gives you big bonuses to your many attacks per turn. Plus access to nice range attack cantrip + short rest slot for some spell like Hex or Shield.

[strangebloke]

I would go ancestral guardian over bear as it would motivate hitting you and would thematically fit as well.

Ah, you're probably right, yeah. And getting extra tankiness here is somewhat dubious anyway.

Ancestral Barbarian is really a weird one in that, against really powerful opponents you're actually better off hitting the boss and then running away, or even shooting them at range.

Actually! New build!

Wood Elf Kensei Monk 5/Ancestral 4/Monk x
Starting stats with point buy and racial modifiers:
12/17/15/8/14/8

your AC starts at 15, which isn't great, but with agile parry and patient defense you can have 17 AC with enemy's attacking with disadvantage. Then at level four you boost DEX and CON and your AC goes up to 18 and your HP is great. Then at level six you switch to Barbarian AC and you go up to 19.

With barbarian levels, there's really nothing stopping you from fighting with STR if you want to do that, but the main goal here is the damage resistance, which even at sixth level will still be really useful for a monk. Level 7 (barb 2) is pretty bad, with Danger sense being kind of redundant, but level 8 (barb 3) is crazy good. Now you can force the boss to attack you. Run in, longsword once, punch once (wouldn't want to reckless attack anyway) and use patient defense. The boss then either attacks the creatures with resistance and (effectively)23 AC, or it faces huge reduction attacking anyone else.

Then at 9 you can take sharpshooter for the lulz and snipe the crap out of your enemies. Or not, your choice. You're ahead of a normal monk on AC at this point and you've got other defensive boons so it isn't like you need to max DEX.

[Misterwhisper]

Ah, you're probably right, yeah. And getting extra tankiness here is somewhat dubious anyway.

Ancestral Barbarian is really a weird one in that, against really powerful opponents you're actually better off hitting the boss and then running away, or even shooting them at range.

Actually! New build!

Wood Elf Kensei Monk 5/Ancestral 4/Monk x
Starting stats with point buy and racial modifiers:
12/17/15/8/14/8

your AC starts at 15, which isn't great, but with agile parry and patient defense you can have 17 AC with enemy's attacking with disadvantage. Then at level four you boost DEX and CON and your AC goes up to 18 and your HP is great. Then at level six you switch to Barbarian AC and you go up to 19.

With barbarian levels, there's really nothing stopping you from fighting with STR if you want to do that, but the main goal here is the damage resistance, which even at sixth level will still be really useful for a monk. Level 7 (barb 2) is pretty bad, with Danger sense being kind of redundant, but level 8 (barb 3) is crazy good. Now you can force the boss to attack you. Run in, longsword once, punch once (wouldn't want to reckless attack anyway) and use patient defense. The boss then either attacks the creatures with resistance and (effectively)23 AC, or it faces huge reduction attacking anyone else.

Then at 9 you can take sharpshooter for the lulz and snipe the crap out of your enemies. Or not, your choice. You're ahead of a normal monk on AC at this point and you've got other defensive boons so it isn't like you need to max DEX.

You can't have both types of their armor calculations only the first, so you can't gain the barbarian ac calculation.

You could not multi into barbarian with 12 strength.


I love the idea of a barbaric unarmed fighter, but monk has almost no synergy with barbarian.

As a theme, it could be done, but you will not be very effective at it.


If I was going to build an unarmed, unarmored, mauler kind of character, I will just build a Warforged Brute Fighter.
With Brute damage bonus you can do respectable damage.
Or if you wanted to be a little more defensive, take Tavern Brawler on whatever race you want, and fight with a shield and unarmed as a Brute.
Shield is proficient with tavern brawler, you get your shield AC, and you can do respectable damage.

Or

A race with a natural weapon and play a Battlerager barbarian.


None of them are all that optimized, because let's face it, if you do not have PAM/GWM/SS/CBE you are not considered optimized for combat.

[rbstr]

Besides missing the multi-class stats, I think missing out on rage damage is a big mistake. To me rage and advantage on a ton of punches is the biggest benefit of the MC. IMO if a build doesn't make use or at least most of the class features in some way it's missing out.
Similarly, with your MAD, you just aren't going to be good at stunning strike, which I see as a big draw to having more monk levels - so maybe be more barb than monk?


So this isn't something I'm thinking is "optimal" just something I think works pretty well without a ton of waste ad would be fun:
Barb1, Monk 1, Barb 5, Kensei 4, barb X.
Level 2 and the thing is up and running mostly, bonus action punches with rage damage.
Take any barb archetype that isn't asking for (many) bonus actions.
Take an ASI to strength, since you don't want/need PAM.
Extra attack
Monk levels. Take a monk archetype not reliant on wisdom for their level 3 feature. I like that Kensei will get you some extra AC and the ability to upgrade your weapon damage(and versatility) a bit. Long death is a bit appealing, even though it's a small amount of THP (probably 5), since you've got resistances.

I think it works pretty well through the whole leveling process too - it works as soon as you MC and doesn't really wait for some combo to come online.

Several races can make this work as long as you have a choose-two of str/dex/wis bonuses. Just need to start something like 16/14/14/x/13/x.
Mountain Dwarf @ 16/14/16/8/13/9
Human @ 16/14/16/8/13/9
Vhuman kinda needs a +1 to something feat.
Half orc has a bit awkward con or dex score.
IMO you could start with a 14/15 in strength even. A wood elf could do 15/14/15/10/13/8 and hit 16/16 str/con at level 4.

[strangebloke]

You can't have both types of their armor calculations only the first, so you can't gain the barbarian ac calculation.

You could not multi into barbarian with 12 strength.

You're right.

I've never met a DM who kept both those restrictions (and still allowed multiclassing) so I often forget it.

None of them are all that optimized, because let's face it, if you do not have PAM/GWM/SS/CBE you are not considered optimized for combat.

ehhhhh.

A TWF barb keeps pretty good pace even with GWM until after level five. Even then, a barbarian who hyper-specializes in halberds is really just doubling down on the class's strengths and I would argue that "optimized for combat" should include a powerful ranged option.

[Yunru]

None of them are all that optimized, because let's face it, if you do not have PAM/GWM/SS/CBE you are not considered optimized for combat.

Except that Martial Arts renders PAM redundant.

[Misterwhisper]

Except that Martial Arts renders PAM redundant.

Battle rager makes them both redundant.

Taking monk also stops the use of a shield which is limiting

[TripleD]

There is one build that Barbarian/Monk seems to do better than any other class combination. I’ll admit that it’s a novelty build, but it would be so much fun to play.

Race: Go Tortle. The Bonuses are nice and the AC helps make up for the fact that your Unarmored defences will not be high.

Stats: Pump STR and CON. DEX and WIS should be above zero, but we won’t be using our ki on Stunning Fist so this isn’t important.

Classes: Totem Barbarian (Tiger) and Monk (Open Hand). Ideally you would get to level 5 in Barbarian before going Monk the rest of the way.

Strategy:
1. Rage
2. Grapple an enemy. Possibly two if you can. You will have advantage due to raging, grappling counts as an attack for maintaining rage, and the Monk and the Barbarian’s speed bonuses work together nicely to overcome the halving of speed due to grapple.
3. Hopefully maintain the grapple through the rest of the round until your next turn.
4. Use your bonus action and 1 ki to activate “Step of the Wind”.
6. Jump. With +5 bonus to attack, and step of the wind doubling that, you will jump 22 feet into the air.
7. Drop the enemies. They each take 2d10 damage. No save.
8. Hit them while they are prone for further damage.

There are ways to make this even better. If you can get the “Boots of Springing and Striding” then your jump distance is tripled, leaving you with a whopping 66 foot jump! Granted to actually jump that far you will have to give up your action to Dash (50 feet per turn * 0.5 due to Grapple * 2 due to Step of the Wind * 2 due to Dash = 100 feet of movement) but for an extra 4d10 damage per enemy it feel like a decent trade.

You could do this with pure Barbarian or Monk, but combining the Monks mobility with the Barbarians grappling, along with their mutual speed boosts, seems like such a perfect match.

This build is only useful if you are fighting enemies you can actually grapple, and it’s very easy to burn through all your ki, but I’d have to test it “in the field” to see how big of an issue that is.