The BEST MONK in Baldur's Gate 3 - Honour Mode Build Guide

Really great build guide. All your stuff is fantastic.

I'm nearly done with an Honor run using Lae'zel as a Monk . . . and I think I like the pure Way of the Hand build better than multiclassing into Rouge.

For pure DPS the bonus action from rogue is better . . . but DPS really isn't everything.

The primary use of the Monk is to get to and Stun bosses (which disables their Legendary actions). Once taken out of action you have plenty of time for your whole party to clean up.

The list of benefits from finishing out Monk are substantial:

d8 vs d6 base damage roll
Total immunity to Poison & Disease
Freedom of movement on difficult terrain
Extra Jump distance and Movement allowance
Ki Resonance: 9d6 worth of AOE damage for the cost of only 1 Ki point
Tranquility: Sanctuary at the start of every combat letting you go anywhere on the battlefield without being stopped.
Ki point increase from 34 to 48 per long rest

Monk Way of the Hand is just an awesome class, pure or multiclassed you can't go wrong. Even mixing in Fighter to get action surge for up to 4 stuns in a turn is a great build option also.

Just a heads up. Step of the wind is so good in bg3. Jumping costs 3M. If you bonus action dash as monk you can traverse any battle map. Like there’s no stopping you.

You can also get the permanent strenght potion by havin astarion drink blood from the drow in Moonrise Towers

Apparently, Larian Studios decided it thematically appropriate that the most effective monks study Drunken-Style fighting at tavern brawls.

This video is like a full laser's theory class, without ever doing one demonstration of burning a hole through a wall with a laser..

For the algorithm!

Great build! Always refreshing to see one that doesn't use elixirs. I did something similar but wanted to be less glass cannon so I opted instead to use gloves of dex to raise my dex perma to 18 and then dumped the rest of my points into strength and wisdom (and some constitution). With my wisdom being extremely high (whilst having + 2 from the mirror), I'm much less of a liability in fights although i do slightly less damage.

Whats a hood background for a tav monk?

I maxed out str, dex and wis on my monk, as I was thinking that the tavern brawler bonus was on top of my dex bonus for martial arts; will have to take another look at that. It would have been nice to see your actual damage numbers instead of the zeros from the training dummy.

Would it be worth it to combine high strength and the Tavern Brawler feat with the Gloves of Dexterity so you get the best of both worlds?

I'm glad I found this, I like that monk has something strong like Tavern Brawler but the idea of abusing strength elixirs just strikes me as being out of character for a monk

Monks are ridiculously OPed. By sheer coincidence, I chose Monk for my Honour-run and I couldn't believe just how powerful my Tav became after a while. It wasn't even funny, since a lot of the mid/late game bosses died so quickly that I never got to see their legendary actions. IIRC, I ended up with 18 DEX, 16 CON, 20 WIS and 10 or 12 in CHA (because face of the party). INT is a dump stat as is STR, because as you rightly said, you can spend the entire game hopped up on Hill/Cloud Giant Elixirs. Oh, and this was an Open Hand Monk - not sure how OP the other two sub-classes are.
Some crucial decisions/gear to obtain:
- DEX and WIS should be high, CON should be medium to high (I started out at 13 CON, then increased it to 14 via Tavern Brawler). STR is a dump stat.
- Auntie's Boon into WIS
- Early/Mid game: Buy Graceful Cloth for its +2 DEX and Cat's Grace - makes your Monk even deadlier and turns him into a valid Rogue-replacement.
- First feat: Tavern Brawler - cornerstone of this build, IMO. +1 into CON
- second Feat: Ability Improvement into DEX and/or WIS (I think I went +1 each).
- Don't use Gloves of DEX: You can easily get DEX to 18 "naturally" at this point (or via Graceful Cloth) and using the gloves will block one of your most important gear-slots to increase damage.
- Instead, I was using the Flawed Helldusk Gloves all the way until I rescued Hope and got her gloves. Those things will enhance both your armed and unarmed attacks (plus bleeding bonus for unarmed). IMO they're better than all the Monk-geared gloves you find in the early/mid game. Before those, I was using the Sparkle Hands to obtain Lightning Charges from unarmed hits or the fire-based early-game monk gloves (forgot their name, sorry).
Head-wear: Mid game I was using the Diadem of Arcane Synergy which will improve your armed damage - (very) late game I switched to that Soul-Mask you can steal at Devil's Fee, mostly for its +2 to initiative.
- Make sure to grab the Monk amulet from Grymforge - it's a bit of a no-brainer if you're a Monk. Once you deliver the cursed Monk to his destination, do not accept the curse but fight him. Bit of a shitty move story-wise, but if you defeat him, the amulet will not only stay functional but get an upgrade. If you accept the curse, it'll turn into a piece of jewellery.
- Late Act II/Early Act III: Boots of Uninhibited Kushigo - which make WIS even more important to your damage output.
- Act III "armor": Danthalon's Monk-robe is a bit "meh" and situational. I would suggest to push on to Sorcerous Sundries and get their Monk robe instead (the one with the Iron Man looking chest-piece).
- Leveling up: Run Monk-levels only until you get to level 9. Then visit Withers and grab 6 levels of Monk and 3 levels of Rogue and pick "Thief" as your Rogue sub-class. Getting another Bonus Action does wonders to your damage output.

I kept STR as a dump stat for the entire run - even after I had obtained the Drow's +2 STR elixir (gave that to Karlach). Even with the elixir and Mirror of Loss into STR, I didn't find a build that would've worked better than the "STR 8 + daily STR elixir"-one I was using. I used that BG3 character build calculator you can find on the web to play around with the numbers and no other builds worked as well as the elixir-based one. At level 12 and with Hope's gloves, my Flurry of Blows had a max damage of 96 - and you can throw two of those per turn.

As long as your armed damage is about as high as your unarmed one, I'd recommend running a weapon. I was using Cacophony, which is a great Monk weapon IMO. I didn't have Longsword-proficiency, or I would've probably also tried Phalar Aluve which seems like it could fit a Monk very well. Advantages of going armed: You can't apply oils/poisons to your fists and you can't buff them with the Dragonbreath Glaive's spell, either. Other damage enhancing mechanics also will only improve your armed damage, not unarmed. And since you can still use your unarmed attacks while armed, there's no real downside here, at least early to mid game. At around level 10 or 11, unarmed minimum damage will seriously out-pace your armed minimum damage, at which point it's probably a good idea to go fully unarmed.

Why to relay on strength when monks are versatile and can use dex if this stat is higher than str. A bit strange. But what do i know.

Started a monk because of this video. I had no idea Monks hit so hard.

????why if you were doing 8 monk and 4 rouge but the fourth lv. of rouge doesn't give you anything why not make it a level 9 Monk and level 3 Rouge??????

For the stat spread, what do you think about going 15 wisdom and 8 int and then use Khalid Gift to get the even number?

I already knew this game changed SO MUCH from 5e, but I had no idea until I watched this video how many crazy changes they made! Way of the Open Hand in 5e does NOT get that extra damage per attack. That simply doesn't exist. As you noted, Tavern Brawler isn't NEARLY as strong in 5e as it is in BG3...that ALONE is insane! But then Thief just getting a PURE extra Bonus Action at 3?! In 5e it only adds a couple extra options for the ONE bonus action you get.
Maybe I should have done a better job at looking at all of the BG3 changes vs 5e before I started making characters...
Thank you for this video!
Edit: Oh, and Stillness of Mind takes an ACTION in 5e, instead of apparently just being INSTANT (aka...a "Free Action") in BG3!?

Also: the game is utterly FLOODED with prime monk gear. Additionally, I love how you have an automatically higher armor class than most have without armor given the wisdom modifier.

In the first few levels when you don't have Tavern Brawler, just be dex based for the higher AC. You can then respec into strength at level 4 or any time after.

the legendary gloves are also ridiculous on the monk

Finally a build that doesn’t make me use elixirs. Thank you.

idea: Drow monk that abuses darkness spell

I’ve been reading the wiki and I think it might be more worthwhile to go for a 9/3 split on monk since your unarmed strikes damage dice go from d6 to d8 at level 9 monk. As far as I know it’s tied to monk level not overall level.

You’ll be sacrificing a feat but depending on your build and itemisation, it might be more beneficial.

Going strength, you are limping into monk just because you want to save "some gold" on elixirs every long rest. Respec is an option after gear is in your pack.

Dex, con, wis is the standard "meta" with tavern brawler, asi x2, and rogue/fighter subclass. (Adds 2 ranged options which are safer than being melee all the time: throwing and ranged sneak attack). Also not discussed in the video, attacking from shadows, darkness, or cloud of fog to get advantage on sneak attacks (improving damage numbers overall).

Alot of choices you have made are weakening gameplay in this video. (This is a solo playthrough in honor mode?) Waiting for sample gameplay to prove viability. There is many ways to raise stats/roll chances for monk as a main character in the (3) acts. The gear dependent monk needs correct equipment to maximize performance in battle and before in the setup. Many gear can raise stats temporarily or situationally, for example. In honor mode, there is no room for mistakes.

can this work for level 5?

Haven't done Honor mode yet but I just completed Tactician as monk, mostly solo. Here's how I built it.

If you are building as main character, then use 8-16-15-8-17-8. Use Aunty hair to round up WIS to 18. At level 4, take Tavern Brawler to round up Con to 16. You don't need any more feats for majority of the game. Always use Hill/Cloud Giant potion.

Go Monk 6 + Rogue 3 at first. That is the best way to maximize your power early. Then take 2 Warrior for Action Surge. Last level, you can take Rogue 4 to make Wisdom 20 and use Mirror to take it to 22. You don't need level 7 Monk for resistance. You high Wisdom is enough for saving throws.

There's a bow and a shield that adds to your initiative, so you don't need alert. If your race doesn't have shield proficiency from start then you can use it once you take a Warrior level. Also use the 2 medium armors that add your full Dex modifier to AC.

If you want to go unarmored then use the necklace that makes Con 23. Along with high Wisdom, your AC will be very high. Respec to dump the con points elsewhere.

You can also use the last level for Warrior 3 as Champion, if you want to crit a lot; which I did. There are many crit-build items to use. Along with Ilithid powers, I was crit-ing nonstop.

Finally, use a party member to always cast haste or use speed potions. You'll wipe out every encounter in less than 3 turns. Boots of Uninhibited Kushigo is a Must.

How the hell do you survive with 14 AC?

Monk is so OP. You can disable three enemies per turn and its nearly always works. Very few enemies are immune to both stun and topple. You can also deal 100+ damage per turn without haste/potion of speed. AND you can boost your jump by a ridiculous amount to use it to cover incredible distances.

Best monk race is vampire spawn.

The real question is how many monks can a good party have?

It's the drunken tavern brawler monk

Thank you so much for doing this build without the elixirs. It's just a way to cheese the game and personally find it annoying having to continually buy these. It's not immersion breaking but it's close. It feels like MLB steroid era 2.0

Best monk improvements: start as a Karlach (for 2d4 from soul coins), respec at level 9 and start with rogue to recieve proficiency bonuses. Boost wisdom as much as you can - at least 20 but better to have 22. I'd say non of showed equipment is best in slot. Min-maxed TB monk should have at least 30-50 damage per single hit (for Karlach and Astarion it should be ~30-60).

Is it right to assume that you want to switch to unarmed attacks early game at level 4?

When you get Tavern Brawler? Until then use a weapon right

What I like to do is to dump strength to 8 and just play dex monk until level 4. At level 4 I pick tavern brawler and go to the githyanki creche, grab gloves of dex. Then I go to withers, respec. Dump all my dex to 8 and put strength to 18 (because you get 18 with tavern brawler) and yeah... That's pretty much it lol. Later on you can switch gloves for the hill giant gloves which will put your strength to 21? If I remember correctly and respec again dump strength to 8 because gloves put everything into Dex and yeah you have good ac good damage and it's cool. Also it's worth to grab the necklace that gives you free misty step. Very good on monk. With all the additional movement speed monks get from leveling up I can see why the class don't learn misty step. That would honestly be low key too op. I mean monk already is pretty damn strong so yeah.

Drink the elixir and become the drunken Monk :)

I like to roleplay my monk as in the Asterix cartoons - drinking a str potion each day is just me drinking elixir before smashing some romans. When I get the str gloves, it's simply me falling into the couldron and no longer needing the elixir everytime i smash romans.... oh and the romans being the Absolutists

Damn your long winded

Which bonus stats from Ethel, Mirror, and Araj(Stength) would be best to spend on when receiving them??

id recommend if your in honour mode to either respec into this when you become lvl 4 or go high dex from the start and using elixirs

Would the Luminous Gloves be a good equip once you hit monk lvl 6? If you do radiant damage on every hit, you can stack up penalties to hit really fast on enemies. Seems like that would be almost as beneficial as AC boosting items

LOL you say all 3 subclasses are good which is NOT true as 100% of monk builds I have seen ALWAYS use way of the open hand maybe 1% is shadow which in bg3 sucks ass as your hide is broken you can get spotted by a guy NOT facing you that is 100 feet from you even with a +22 to hide

does the prone chance from flurry of blow scale of wisdom?

Has anyone else used the club of hill giant strength on monks? You get 19 strength and still use your flurry of blows for 34-62 damage. .

Not sure if its already been done, but could i request a dex based monk build too?
While this has finally gotten me to put La'zel in my party and first impressions are amazing, I'd love for her to also be my lockpicker.

I always start my monk with one level of rogue for the skills.

Elixir of hill giant strength gives you 21 strength.

Another option (that costs a feat) is to do 9/3 to get the multitarget attack (1 ki cost) :D