The Monk Class | Baldur's Gate 3 Guide (D&D)

yeah i'm here to become a monk right here i'm supposed to shave for this too his glasses are starting to get a little ridiculous [Music] [Music] you guys know that game sorry [Music] welcome back for another class guide video in today's video we'll be talking about masters of the energy that flows within the body the monk if you enjoy being a true martial artist and leaving your friends and foes in awe as you exceed your body's physical capabilities the monk might be the class for you i'm going to go over the monk's general class features what racial choices go out with the monk your monk's key which is your inner mystical energy and of course the monastic traditions which is your choice of a subclass as always keep in mind we have not seen the monk in baldur's gate 3 as of yet so some things are subject to change but this video should serve as a solid foundation for understanding what this class is all about if you guys end up enjoying this video please subscribe for the much more models gate 3 content on the way i've already done 10 other class guides there's only one left to do after this video so head into the channel and check those out if you're interested links to my twitter and my discord server will be below join the discord the links right down there we got some great people in there i'd love to have you guys there let's get right into it [Music] monks are masters of the martial arts and have learned how to hone the powers of the mind body and spirit their ability to magically harness the energy that flows within their body an energy that is an element of magic that suffuses the multiverse makes them extremely formidable foes they're striking displays of combat prowess and astonishing feats of defensive agility make them stand out in a party that's if you can keep your eyes on them for on the battlefield they can pretty much go anywhere or be anywhere at any given time monks are parkour masters assassins ninjas and airbenders in combat their unarmed strikes channel uncanny speed and show great feats of strength and as they gain experience their martial training and mastery of ki gives them even more power over their bodies and the bodies of their foes you might think of jackie chan or jet li as your monk's inspiration but don't stop there for you could even be like the jedi knights in star wars or like our favorite teenage mutant ninja turtles or maybe even like batman a monk's role in a party can be the party scout with their amazing agility and ability to maneuver through a variety of environments they can be great skirmishers and dish out quick and deadly damage and they can also be great battlefield controllers now let's talk about what ability scores you'll want to invest into and then we'll get into what racial choices go well with this class dexterity will likely be your primary ability score to invest into your dexterity modifier will help with your armor class and most of the weapons that you use will rely on dexterity including your unarmed strikes which are normally strength for other classes wisdom is important to invest into for your use of the mystic energy that flows within you your key deals with this ability and wisdom will also help with your armor class as a monk using unarmored defense constitution is important for it boosts your hp giving you more survivability and as a melee combatant you will be taking some hits charisma and intelligence will be more of a choice for how you want to role play your monk and strength although you can do a strength monk build it's much more common and makes more sense to go the dexterity route elves make excellent choices for monks for they get a plus two to dexterity and if you choose the sub-race of the wood elf you also gain a plus one to wisdom halflings are a great choice but they also give you that plus two to dexterity if you choose the sub-race of the stout halfling you will gain a plus one to your constitution humans as always can be an excellent choice and if the game does offer the variant human you get to add a plus one to two ability scores of your choice and you also gain your choice of a feat those are the more common obvious racial choices for the monk that give you that boost to dexterity as well as wisdom or constitution you don't have to choose one of the races that i just mentioned and also keep in mind that we have not seen all the races that will be available in baldur's gate 3 as of yet so there could be some other great interesting choices such as the arakokra or the lizard folk or the kenku or maybe just maybe the tortell so you can be your favorite ninja turtle but i wouldn't count on that all right let's go over the monks general class features such as hit points and proficiencies and then we'll get into your monk's key and your subclass choice as a monk you'll have hit dice of 1d8 that means that you'll start the game with a max of 8 hp and from there on out you will roll one 8-sided die upon leveling and add the results to your current hp or if you use the fixed rate hp system you will add 5 hp per level don't forget that your constitution modifier will be added to your base hp upon leveling you will be proficient in no armor which is not a problem for the monk and we'll get into why in a little bit you will have proficiency in all simple weapons as well as short swords simple weapons can include classic monk weapons such as quarter staffs although you will be taking advantage of unarmed strikes on your opponents you can still wield monk weapons and make these unarmed strikes for tools you will get to choose one type of artisan tools or one musical instrument for saving throws you will have proficiency and strength which will help your monk oppose a force that would physically move or bind you and of course you get proficiency and dexterity saving throws which can help with dodging out of harm's way such as from an unexpected trap or even fireballs for skills you choose to from acrobatics athletics history insight religion and stealth all right let's take a look at the monks class chart and see what we gain as we level up max level and baldur's gate 3 will likely be level 10 or around level 10 so we'll stick to levels 1 to 10 for this video at class level 1 you gain a feature called unarmored defense unarmored defense is a way of giving you a solid armor class number when you're not actually wearing any armor your armor class will be equal to 10 plus your dexterity and wisdom modifier that's why dexterity and wisdom are both important ability scores to invest into you also cannot be using a shield to take advantage of this feature also at class level 1 you get martial arts this feature gives you several benefits when you're unarmed or using only monk weapons as well as wearing no armor and not using a shield the first benefit is that you'll get to use your dexterity modifier instead of your strength modifier for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed or monk weapon strikes typically when unarmed or using melee weapons such as short swords you would have to use your strength modifier for the attack and damage roles but as a monk you get to use dexterity the second feature of martial arts is that you now roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon if we take a look back at the class chart we can see that this d4 will increase at class level 5 to a d6 and if we get to class level 11 it will increase to a d8 this is a power boost for hitting enemies with unarmed strikes and it also allows monk weapons such as the short swords which traditionally have a d6 for damage to go higher than that depending on what level larian studios lets us get to the third and final feature of martial arts is that when you use the attack action with an unarmed strike or monk weapon you can also make one unarmed strike as a bonus action this basically means you can hit an enemy twice in one turn with the second hit having to be an unarmed strike now onto class level 2 where things start to get really exciting and you gain the ability to harness the mystic energy of ki your access to this energy is represented by a number of key points which will be determined by your class level as we can see on the chart here at monk level 2 you will have two key points and at level 10 you will have 10. you will use your key points to fuel various key features that enhance your monk's abilities some of your key features will require your target to make a saving throw to resist the features effects the saving throw dc is calculated as eight plus your proficiency bonus and wisdom modifier right when you gain your key at level two you will have three such features flurry of blows patient defense and step of the wind flurry of blows is a very popular useful key feature and it will allow you to make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action immediately after you take the attack action on your turn this will cost one key point keep in mind that at class level 5 you also get extra attack with this class so at this point you can potentially make four attacks in one turn that's very monk like patient defense will let you take the dodge action as a bonus action on your turn costing you one key point as well and step of the wind allows you to take the disengage or dash action as a bonus action on your turn and your jump distance is doubled for that turn costing you one key point step of the wind is similar to cunning action with the rogue the rogue and monk are agile classes so therefore you get the opportunity to do agile things in combat without sacrificing your action point like other classes would likely have to those are the three key features that you'll start off with but you'll also gain more as you level up such as deflect missiles and stunning strike we'll talk about both of those features when we reach the corresponding monk level in this video also keep in mind to regain your key points you have to finish a short or long rest back to the class chart you can also see that at class level 2 you gain unarmored movement which also has its own column on the class chart with unarmored movement your speed will increase by 10 feet while you're not wearing armor or using a shield this bonus increases to 15 feet at level 6 and 20 feet at level 10. like i said before the monk can be anywhere they want and get anywhere they want and very quickly at that at class level 9 with unarmored movement you also gain the ability to move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on your turn without falling during the move super cool and super ninja like and with the verticality we are seeing in baldur's gate 3 this should be a great feature you guys are probably catching on that if you want to take advantage of the monk's awesome features you should be wearing no armor not using a shield and also only using the monk specific weapons but who knows in baldur's gate 3 we might be forced to only do that stuff anyways all right on to class level 3 where we get to choose a monastic tradition which is your choice of a subclass i'm only going to focus on the subclasses that are in the player's handbook for this video for larian studios has stated that they're trying to include all of those subclasses way of the open hand monks are masters of martial arts combat whether armed or unarmed right away at class level 3 as a way of the open hand monk you gain one hand technique which allows you to manipulate your enemies key when you harness your own whenever you hit a creature with one of the attacks granted by your flurry of blows key feature that we talked about earlier which is where you get to do two unarmed strikes as a bonus action you can now impose one of the three effects on that target one your target must succeed on a dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone to your target must succeed on a strength saving throw or be pushed up to 15 feet away from you and 3. your target cannot take reactions until the end of your next turn at class level 6 in the subclass you gain wholeness of body which lets you heal yourself as an action you will regain hit points equal to three times your monk level after using this you must take a long rest to gain it back and at class level 11 which may or may not be in the game you will get tranquility which basically makes it less likely that enemies are going to attack you this can be useful against preventing ambushes [Music] monks that follow the way of shadow follow a tradition that values stealth and subterfuge these are your ninjas and shadow dancers and can serve as excellent assassins at class level 3 as a shadow monk you gain shadow arcs which will let you use your key to duplicate the effects of certain spells as an action you can spend two key points to cast darkness dark vision pass without a trace or silence you also gain the minor illusion can trap so basically if you have the key points to spend you get access to these stealthy assassin type spells at class level 6 you get shadow step where you gain the ability to step from one shadow into another when you are in dim lighting or darkness you can use a bonus action to teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see that is also in dim lighting or darkness you will then have advantage on the first melee attack you make before the end of your turn really cool and good feature and at class level 11 if we gain access to it you will gain cloak of shadows which is where you become one with the shadows when in an area of dim lighting or darkness you can use an action to become invisible this will last until you make an attack cast a spell or enter an area of bright light this is also a really good feature [Music] as a way of the four elements monk you follow a monastic tradition that teaches you to harness the elements with this subclass choice you're going to gain the ability to spend key points to cast a limited amount of elemental spells think of the last airbender if you're familiar with that there's a lot to talk about with this one so i'm just going to leave it at that for this video just know that if you want to be a martial artist and ninja guy that can also bend nature to their will this might be the subclass for you so that's it for the subclasses that are available in the player's handbook but if larry in studios decides to include other source material we might see subclasses such as the way of the drunken master the way of the kensai or the way of the sun soul all right now let's talk about the remaining class features that you'll gain on your journey to level 10. at class level 3 we got to choose our subclass but we also gain a feature called deflect missiles this feature will allow you to use a reaction to deflect or catch the missile when you're hit by a ranged weapon attack when you do so the damage that you take from the attack is reduced by 1d10 plus your dexterity modifier plus your monk level another cool part to this is that if you reduce the damage of this ranged missile to zero you can catch the missile and spend a key point to make a ranged attack with the weapon or piece of ammunition that you just caught as a part of the same reaction this might be a really cool feature to witness happen in a video game at class levels 4 and 8 you of course get an ability score improvement where you can add two points to an ability score of your choice or add one point to two different abilities or you can forego this option and choose to take a feat at class level four you also gain slow fall for slow fall you can use your reaction when you fall to reduce falling damage you take to an amount equal to 5 times your monk level monks are graceful at class level 5 you gain extra attack where you can now attack twice instead of once whenever you take the attack action on your turn accompany that with flurry of blows and like i said before you can hit an enemy four times on one turn twice with the extra attack using your action point and twice with the flurry of blows using your bonus action also at class level 5 you gain stunning strike which is an excellent monk feature when you hit another creature with a melee weapon attack which includes an unarmed strike you can spend one key point to attempt a stunning strike the target must succeed on a constitution saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn yes your next turn i said that means that you and your party will all get to take a turn on this target with advantage when you or anyone has advantage they get to roll two d20s for their attack roll and take the higher result this gives whoever has advantage a much higher chance of landing their strike on a target there's also no limit on how many times you as a monk can attempt stunning strike in one turn of course it costs one key point every time you try but if you're fighting a boss or some enemy that is really dangerous then it might be worth attempting stunning strike multiple times until it lands and then you and your party can do work at class level six you gain key empowered strikes which makes it so that your unarmed strikes count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks and damage so normally unarmed strikes deal bludgeoning damage and some enemies will be resistant to that type of damage but not anymore at class level 7 you gain evasion which lets you dodge out of the way of certain area effects such as a fireball spell typically in cases like this your character would make a dexterity saving throw against the fireball if you succeed you would only take half the damage but now you completely dodge out of the way and take no damage also at class level 7 you gain stillness of mind stillness of mind lets you use your action to end one effect on yourself that is causing you to be charmed or frightened monks really do have that brain power and at class level 10 which will likely be max level or at least close to max level in baldur's gate 3 you will gain purity of body this makes you immune to disease and poison the monk is a really cool class and i can't wait to see how larian studios implements them into the game i already know that many of you will become the way of the shadow monks and be deadly ninjas and i got respect for that thanks so much for watching if you guys enjoyed the video please like comment and subscribe i really appreciate it's a huge help to my videos i do all sorts of content on this channel ranging from comedy videos to live streams to game reviews to game tutorials and much more i'd love to have some of you guys back for a future video like i said i've already done 10 other class guides so head into the channel and find the class that's right for you join the discord and until next time

Channel: WolfheartFPS

Views: 59,135

Keywords: Baldur's Gate 3, Baldur's Gate 3 Monk, monk, monk class, monk class guide, monk bg3, bg3, baldur's gate 3 classes, classes, monk subclasses, beginner's guide monk, monk build, baldurs, gate, balder's gate 3, baulder's gate 3, dungeons and dragons, races, way of the open hand, way of shadow, way of the four elements, wolfheartfps, larian studios

Id: zqJn3Z_I-D0

Length: 19min 17sec (1157 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020