Baldur's Gate 3 - Beginner's Guide to the Monk Class

[Music] hey guys welcome back to another video and today we're going to be going over hopefully everything that you need to know about the Monk class in Baldur's Gate 3. the monk is the class that I used on my first real complete playthrough of the game and it was a lot of fun like I wasn't really sure what to expect from the class but I had an absolute blast playing as a monk so today we'll do an overview of the Monk class some of the races and Feats that go well with the class the attribute some of the abilities you might pick up as you level up as a monk a little bit of cross-classing that you can do as well and we'll also talk about some items that can really be beneficial for the monk before we get started make sure to hit that like button it goes towards engagement is a huge help to the channel and helps other people find the video also comment down below what classes have you tried so far and what has been your favorite have you played as the monk or are you getting ready to try it for the first time your comments go toward engagement and really help out the channel and if you don't have anything to say just comment your favorite emoji again I appreciate your engagement alright let's move on and talk about the monk so the monk is a really interesting class in Baldur's Gate 3 that can really do a lot of things depending on the path you want to take them you can be Aang from Avatar The Last Airbender and control the elements you could be like charoot from Rogue one and smack people around with a Quarter Staff you can also basically be an assassin I mean there's a lot of things you can do with the monk build they're capable of filling a lot of different roles the fighter role the Mage roll or the Rogue roll and the unique thing about the Monk Is they harness the unique mystical energy within their body known as Ki and they get key points which enables them to perform specific abilities the important thing to note though about a monk is that if you're playing as a monk you're likely just going to be dealing a lot of damage with just your fists and let me tell you with a monk you can deal some Bonkers damage with just your fists it's also worth noting that your key points regenerate on a short rest what white as conservative with them but you also don't want to be blowing your key points on like a level 2 Goblin because as we're going to show using your key points at opportune times can really enable you to almost One-Shot entire bosses the monk can get stupid broken the monk is also going to make good use of bonus actions because after they land an attack with either a simple weapon or an unarmed attack they can use a bonus action to do one of their key Point moves or to just take another unarmed attack so bonus actions are going to be your friend and that's where you're going to see a lot of the massive damage come from additionally the monk just gets to start with a bonus action doing damage at first level after you do a melee attack with a simple weapon or an unarmed attack you just get to take a bonus action and do an unarmed attack that's really nice the monk is also going to gain access to Flurry of Blows which is going to be what really enables them to deal a lot of damage this is is going to use key points but it's going to enable you to attack twice additionally if you pick the way of the open hand you can use your Flurry of Blows to knock them prone to stagger them or to even push someone back the monk will also gain access to stunning strike which has the potential to well stun your enemy which is super good now I do want to note that everything going forward is going to be suggestions for a monk build remember at the end of the day this is Dungeons and Dragons you need to be making your character not my character so if you have a vision for what your character is going to look like that doesn't necessarily align with some of the things that I say are quote unquote like ideal then that's perfectly fine you can play the game however you want to first off let's talk about the abilities for a monk and what abilities you might find useful the Monk class on its own has three abilities that it really cares about those are going to be strength dexterity and wisdom strength is important because that's going to enable you to deal more damage with your unarmed strikes your strength modifier is going to be added to your damage whenever you punch someone dexterity is a useful ability because one the dexterity modifier is going to be added to your armor class making it harder for you hit especially since monks are not going to be wearing armor two if you choose to play this way you can actually use your dexterity modifier as your attack modifier for unarmed hits wisdom is also an important modifier because your wisdom modifier is also going to be added to your armor class again making it harder for you to get hit we're also going to talk about this a little bit later but there's an item that you can get towards the end of Act 2 that will enable you to add your wisdom modifier to your damage rolls with unarmed attacks I told you the monk can deal some stupid damage unfortunately for the monk the ability that it cares about the least is probably Charisma now personally I like to do a lot of the talking as my player character and I like to let my player character do like the deception the persuasion roll stuff like that that's personally how I like to play so Charisma was more important to me so I did personally put some points into Charisma even though it's kind of a dump stat for the monk if you don't feel it's important that your character does all of the talking then honestly you could probably make up some kind of fun background for your monk like they took a vow of silence and then just give them like an eight in the Charisma Constitution is always as you know semi-important because that's going to contribute to your hit points and then intelligence was honestly kind of a dump stat for me as well now as far as your ability scores go towards the beginning I would do something like what is on the screen right now I know that I said that strength is going to be huge for a monk in that they can deal some wacky damage but then that's going to be a little bit harder at the beginning of the game since you're gonna have fewer key points and you're going to be a lot easier to kill because you're going to have fewer hit points I would say towards the beginning of the game you're going to want to be focused on survivability in the form of armor class and health and then as you progress through the game and you get better items that do a lot of crazy things again we'll talk about that later in the video there's an NPC in your camp that can let you respect your class for just 100 gold and then at that point I would respect your ability points and maybe focus more on strength now let's talk about race and again you can pick whatever race and be successful as a monk if we had to pick a quote unquote ideal race for a monk you're probably looking at the wood elf or the half wood elf and the only reason for that is because they gain extra movement speed that's going to enable you to move further in combat and get up close and personal with your enemies I personally did not play as a Wood Elf or a half wood elf and I have found good success with my monk if you're interested I went with the half high elf and chose friends as my cantrip once again because I like to do the talking with my player character the races that are maybe not so I ideal for a monk which again you can still do are going to be the gnome the halfling and the dwarf this is once again just because they have reduced movement speed which I don't know if that makes sense because dwarfs are supposed to be natural sprinters and I feel like in a battle you're going to be sprinting damn it Gimli you lied to me again now I'm just envisioning Gimli as a monk and now as far as what background to pick for your character just pick the one honestly that makes sense for the narrative you're trying to tell with your character in my opinion this isn't going to make or break your build if you've come up with a background for your character pick what makes sense if truly all you care about are the skills you're going to gain proficiencies in athletics and acrobatics are nice but again pick what makes sense for the character you want and the play style you're going to be going for in my opinion that's far more important than Min maxing every aspect of the game but I know there are plenty of people that enjoy Min maxing and if that's your thing you really can't go wrong with Athletics or acrobatics now as you level up as a monk or across class should you pick to do that you are going to gain Feats again pick the Feats that matter most to you or that you think sound fun but these are some of the ones that I might recommend if I had to pick one above all else if you're looking for sheer damage output you have to pick Tavern brawler again that might be something you pick a little bit later into the game or once you respect but Tavern brawler is going to take your strength modifier and add it twice to your attack and damage rolls this feat is what's going to really enable you to get those Wild damage numbers with your monk Bobo is another nice feed that's going to increase your movement speed to me it always feels like my monk can never have enough movement speed especially more towards the beginning of the game if you're still using a Quarter Staff or some other kind of simple weapon then Savage attacker is going to enable you to roll your damage dice with Advantage athlete hard to go wrong with the monk that's going to enable you to put a plus one into your strength or dexterity abilities if you fall prone you have to spend fewer movement points to get up and hey you can jump farther I mean it's kind of boring but just a ability Improvement is kinda hard to go wrong with right I mean just buff up one of those three ability scores that we talked about at the beginning or a couple of them because you can invest one point into two now this one I actually played with a decent amount and I really enjoyed it and that's going to be the Sentinel feat and what that's going to do is whenever someone attacks an ally that is within your attack range you actually as your reaction can attack that enemy additionally if you hit anyone with an attack of opportunity that prevents them from moving any further since your character is going to be within melee range a lot and you might be making a lot of attacks of opportunity this is nice for just shutting down enemy movement on the battlefield I don't know I had fun with it and then finally this one's probably not specific the Monk class itself but ritual Caster if you want your player character to be the one that can speak with it or speak to animals then you know you can always go with ritual caster all right now let's get into the nitty-gritty of the three different play styles that you can pick as a monk now if you're interested in just reenacting avatar The Last Airbender you can pick the way of the four elements the way of the four elements is going to enable you to take on a little bit more of a spellcaster role in the party with this style you're going to be able to use your key points to do Elemental abilities I'm gonna enable you to do some really fun things I'm not going to go through every single we'll talk about a few that I really enjoy first off is clinch of the north wind it's literally just hold person which is nice I mean you get to prevent your target from taking actions reactions or moving just make sure you're concentrating it's real nice you could probably forego this if someone in your party has hold person but like I said real fun Embrace of The Inferno is nice you get to shoot three to four rays of fire each one dealing two D6 of fire damage gong of the Summit is one of my personal favorites it's gonna be a radius AOE effect that's going to deal 3d8 Thunder damage the blade of rhyme can be nice for crowd control as well it's going to do 1d10 of piercing to your Target and then an additional 2d6 of cold damage to your Target and then everyone within a 2 meter radius is going to receive two D12 of cold damage as well at earlier levels the fist of four Thunders is nice it's going to deal 2d8 of Thunder damage and push everyone back fist of unbroken air can be a lot of fun one because it deals a lot of damage and two because you can use it to cheese people off the sides of cliffs which come on it's Baldur's Gate 3. we all love cheese and stuff now fist of unbroken air is a single Target ability if you want to just cheese things you could pick the rush of the Gale Spirits that's going to be an area of effectability that's going to knock everyone back in the area of effect five meters sphere of Elemental balance you get to pick whatever element you want and then deal 3d8 of damage it could also potentially create a surface of that type and then if you really want to immerse yourself in avatar The Last Airbender you could pick katara's favorite ability which is water whip with water whip you can deal 3D 10 of damage and either knock someone prone or pull them towards you if you want to use the way of the four elements I would just make sure that you're right clicking on your enemies examining them and making sure that you know what their Elemental weaknesses are that's going to be key to maximizing your Effectiveness with this class next up let's talk about the way of the Shadows now the way of the Shadows is going to enable your monk to take a roguelike role within your party it's worth noting that if you're wanting to cross-class this monk works really well with a rogue the potentially obvious choice from a rogue class class oh my God that's so hard to say for me the obvious choice for a rogue cross class is going to be the thief you get an extra bonus action which just means you get to use more key points or you get to not do another unarmed attack but if you're all about sneaking around in the shadows and using some of the abilities we're going to talk about I can see good use from the Assassin as well getting to attack someone out of stealth starting combat and then getting your action bonus action back that's pretty nice if that's how you're wanting to instigate your battles so I would personally pick Thief but I can see the Assassin playing well as well as well now as you level up with the way of the Shadows a few of the abilities you're going to gain or cloak of the Shadows that's going to enable you to become invisible while you're obscured I.E not just standing out in the middle of daylight and what's nice is you don't have to spend any key points to do this additionally you're going to get Shadow step which is going to enable you to teleport it's kind of like Misty step but you have to be within an obscure lightly obscured area and it allows you to just easily Traverse the battlefield and what's really nice is it's a bonus action then to use your key points you're going to gain silence which is going to create a silenced area if you're not aware silence is going to prevent people from doing magic X that require spoken language it prevents you from talking to other people if you don't want to talk to shadowheart and it also prevents Thunder damage you can also spin your key points for darkness which is going to create a magical darkness that is going to obscure you nice if you're out in the open and you need to you know cloak yourself you know you can cast out Darkness turn yourself invisible or go ahead and Shadow step yourself somewhere else you can also gain dark vision and you have passed Without a Trace which is going to give you and your entire party a plus 10 to stealth checks if you're looking for a roguelike experience it's kind of hard to go wrong with the way of the Shadows alright let's talk about my favorite monk though and that is going to be the way of the Open Hand which I think I've said a couple of times way of the open Fist and that's because like he's just gonna punch so much stuff so apologies if I said it wrong during this video but the way of the Open Hand can get stupid broken with the amount of damage you're able to do the way of the open hand is just all about your Flurry of Blows and dealing lots and lots of damage with your fisticuffs if you are going to go the way of the open hand I highly recommend you cross-class over into a rogue Thief that extra bonus action is going to enable you to do another Flurry of Blows which can just deal stupid amounts of damage I think there are people that are able to do up to like 400 damage in one turn with this monk I mean you're straight up going to break the game if you are going the way of the open hand then I think Tavern brawler is a non-negotiable feat that you will need it's just going to enable you to deal just so much damage additionally the way of the open hand is what's going to give you the opportunity to use the Flurry of Blows to topple your enemies and make them go prone to stagger them or to push them back if you need a fighter in your party or you just want to deal a lot of damage the way of the open hand you just can't go wrong with it but if you're going this way I highly recommend you go strength whereas the way of the four elements in the way of Shadows I can see an argument for doing more dexterity building however they still benefit from strength and because they're going to be dealing melee damage as well way of the open and strength is just going to be massive finally let's talk about some items that can benefit the monk now this is by no means going to be an exhaustive this because do you know how many items are in Baldur's Gate 3 hint it's a lot so I am just going to pick a few of my favorites I'll also try to tell you roughly where you can get them in the game however I'm not going to give you like a guide on how to get every single one of these because some of these involve spoilers additionally it's worth noting like I said earlier that you get these some of these late in the game so you don't want to base your initial build based on the idea that you're going to get these items remember you can respect for a very cheap amount at any time throughout the game so for example the first item is going to be the gauntlets of Hill giant strength these gauntlets are literally just going to raise your strength stat up to 23. like Bonkers damage right but don't build your initial character with a strength stat of eight thinking that you know 50 hours into the game I'm going to get these gauntlets make your initial build respect later once you get the item but as I said the gauntlets of Hill giant strength you're going to get in act 3 from the house of hope they're going to raise your strength ability score up to 23 and I will say no more because that involves massive spoilers on how you get it another pair of gloves you can get are the gloves of dexterity you can purchase the gloves of dexartian Act 2 from a jock near jira I butchered that sorry it's the get Yankee quartermaster at the rosamorn monastery these are just going to raise your dexterity ability score to 18. this basically enables you to just have dexterity be a dumpstat and then automatically raise them up to 18. another really nice item you can get are the boots of uninhibited kushigo these you are going to get as loot at the very very end of act two I once again will say no more about how you acquire them because it contains massive story spoilers these boots though are going to enable you to add your wisdom modifier to your damage whenever you're doing unarmed attacks that's why I said earlier wisdom is going to be very beneficial for your monk you can add the wisdom modifier to your armor class and to your damage rolls if you have this item these are probably the best boots for your monk don't be like me and rush through I can't tell you but there's a battle don't rush through looking for the loot because you're going to want to pick up these boots now let's talk about the Big Daddy of them all if you're going the way of the open hand and that's going to be the gloves of Soul catching you are also going to get these in X3 from the House of Hope no more details now you're going to get them again because spoilers but the gloves of Soul catching are going to enable you to do one detent of force damage for your unarmed attacks and then once per turn on an unarmed attack you just get to regain 10 hit points like wild and then if you're like you don't need the healing you can forgo the health bonus and gain advantage on your next attack roll and then by the way we're just gonna give you a plus two to Constitution as well like they're at the end of the game but the gloves of Soul catching are just super broken now I'm giving you a lot of in-game items let's let's back a little bit to like something you can get more early on in the game Nature's snare is a Quarter Staff you can get in act one very early on in Act One mind you and it's a very good beginner's weapon for a monk you can find it in act 1 in the underground passage Beneath The Grove it's in a lock chest so bring along a Starion or whoever's going to be your lock picker and you can find this quarter step and it's going to give you a chance to ensnare anytime you hit someone with it I think as long as they're not a plant ensnaring means that while they are ensnared at the beginning of each of their turns they're going to take 1d6 of piercing damage it's not broken by any means but it's a nice beginner's weapon at the beginning of Act One a nice piece of clothing that you can get for your monk is going to be Bull's strength you're going to get this at Act 2 from quartermaster tally at the last flight in and this clothing is just going to straight up give you plus two to strength and it's going to make it so you can't be pushed well against your will the penultimate item I want to talk about is called cacophony this is a Quarter Staff you can get an actor you can buy it from Lady Esther outside of the rosamorn monastery this thing is going to Grant you 1d8 plus two of bludgeoning damage one V4 of Thunder damage and and Grant you the ability thunderous strike which I believe you can do once per long rest it is a very nice Quarter Staff if you're not going full unarmed at the time now the last item that I want to talk about is going to be probably specific to if you pick the tavern brawler feet and I'm probably going to mispronounce this but nirona this is a trident that you can pick up in act three I'm gonna tell you how to get it right now so skip this if you don't want any spoilers on how to get it at the circus you go up to okabe and you pickpocket him for his ring his ring is what's rigging the wheel against your favor you get the grand prize of the wheel which is he's going to teleport you off into some jungle and then at the end of the jungle in a chest right next to the portal you will find nirola nyrol is going to deal 1d6 of piercing damage one D6 of Thunder damage but here is the massive kicker now roll that can be used as a thrown weapon with Tavern brawler you get to add your strength modifier twice to damage in a track rolls also with Throne weapons so you're gonna deal a stupid amount of damage when you throw nairola at an enemy and then to top it all off nairola comes back to your hand and after you throw it you just immediately get it back so if you finish off an enemy and there's no one near you and say you're out of movement you can throw nyrola at them deal a bunch of damage and get the weapon right inventory I have had so much fun with this weapon also my voice didn't crack there and maybe I should be concerned about that my throat is Gonna Hurt soon and once you get an eye rolling back it's going to be equipped in your hand you can unequip it without using an action alright guys I think that is everything about the monk hopefully that is a complete beginner's guide if you are just getting ready to start playing as a monk I know this is the first of my beginner's guides for classes so if there's anything you think that I missed let me know down in the comments I'm always looking for constructive feedback on what I can do better to help you guys did you enjoy this video or did you find this helpful also let me know down in the comments and if you don't have anything to say just throw your favorite emoji down there remember that your engagement is a massive help to the channel and I appreciate it while you're down there hit the like button and the Subscribe button and the notification Bell so you get notifications new videos like this guys get out there go play the Monk and have fun in Baldur's game we'll talk to you later [Music] thank you

Channel: Gaming Your Own Way

Views: 6,099

Keywords: bg3, baldur's gate 3, baldur's gate, dnd, dungeons and dragons, mind flayers

Id: 41-u53alQNs

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 26 2023