Hell is a dark place: a Shadow Monk/Rune Knight Fighter/Land Druid build

The Sun God’s Most Mid Soldier

By Gooie

This Shadow Monk build specializes in nova weapon and spell damage. This is obviously a terrible Druid build since you’re taking 9 Commoner levels, but it’s a great Monk build since you’re taking 9 full-caster levels. That said, this isn’t devoid of synergy: our good at-will makes us be easily able to conserve our spell slots, which is great for rest-casting, and we can keep doing good damage while Conjure Animals is ravaging our enemies.

What this martial build does is firstly help martial’s feat starvation by essentially getting Dual Wielder for free. Secondly, it has great utility with Darkness. Lastly, Stunning Strike + the new Net is a funny and remarkably decent combination for control.

I rate this build low-mid for all of T1 and then mid-high for T2 and onwards (I mean TTB mid-high, which is a low standard). This is not an impressive build, but this is the best I could squeeze out of Monk.

This build falls apart if your DM doesn’t allow Tasha’s optional features.

Character Creation

Specie: Human (Alert). We need MI, so Human it is for the excellent Alert feat.

Background:

• Skills: Stealth and Arcana.

• Tool: Not smith’s since RK gives us that. Note that Monk gives us an artisan’s tools proficiency. Discuss with your team to most effectively cover ground for magic item crafting.

• Feat: Magic Initiate: Wizard (Shield, Blade Ward, Mind Sliver). We’re here primarily for the incredible Shield and Blade Ward giving us +1d4 AC for our entire T1 and T2 is incredibly valuable. You can exchange Mind Sliver for whatever you wish.

Stats: 8 Str/15+2 Dex/14 Con/10 Int/15+1 Wis/8 Cha. Feel free to shift the dump stat spread around a bit.

Fighter 1:

Skills: Perception and Acrobatics.

Fighting Style: Archery. Duh.

Second Wind: We get [2+number of SR’s you’ll take]d10 extra hit dice. It’s not worth it to sacrifice making a BA attack with using this, but if you wouldn’t do so anyway, then this is alright to use in a tough encounter in which using this could prevent someone from having to cast Healing Word on you.

Weapon Mastery: Hand Crossbow, Dagger, Longbow

• Hand Crossbow: for the Light attacks and advantage generation. This is our main weapon for now.

• Dagger: for Nick attacks if we need our BA for something else (such as Second Wind, or activating Rage)

• Longbow: for when we need to emulate Ray of Frost and/or need more range than what Hand Crossbow grants

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver

Lv 1: Shield

Blade Ward: You’ve got nothing else to concentrate on for all of T1-T2, so this just raises your AC by 1d4. Cast this all the time out of combat, but don’t cast this in combat unless you’re somehow unable to do anything else of value.

Mind Sliver: Be a team player and help your caster friends make their save-or-sucks stick.

Shield: We’re pretty much just taking this to be able to craft half-plate enspelled with this. However, even one use of this is much better than no uses of it.

Strategy: Don’t forgo being able to kite just to get within Dagger range; it only comes up when it does naturally.Just do your usual mediocre at-will damage. Remember to use mundane items. Your power drastically increases if you and your party use these effectively. Remember that you can replace the Nick attack with using one of those.

Fighter 1/Monk 1:

We gain literally nothing except a hit die at this level, because we are wearing medium armor.

Fighter 1/Monk 2:

Monk’s Focus: We roughly gain Cunning Action. Flurry of Blows is worth using if you’re in melee anyway and the damage could kill a priority target, and Patient Defense makes you quite durable if that’s necessary. 

Uncanny Metabolism: More FP and HP, which is good. Use this when you enter a tough fight with little to no FP.

Dedicated Weapon: We’ll come back to this.

Fighter 1/Shadow 3:

Deflect Attacks: If you for whatever reason haven’t crafted half-plate enspelled with Shield already, then this is decent. Otherwise, this is niche at best. Use this when you need to conserve your Shields. If you reduce damage to 0 with this, then do expend the FP unless you can’t target a priority target with it.

Ki-Fueled Attack: This will get much better later, but for now this lets you make a BA attack after casting Darkness.

Dedicated Weapon: Hand Crossbow. This now synergizes with Ki-Fueled and therefore now actually does something. 

Shadow Arts: 

• Darkness: To focus on Darkness in general: Darkness can shut down enemies which rely on sight to make attacks like casters and Beholders, making it a great spell. What Shadow Monk in particular can do with this is pre-cast this so that it can move it at the start of its turn in a way that will let it pretty reliably generate adv for us and dadv for our enemies. Don’t cast this in-combat unless the default use of Darkness applies to the fight.

• Darkvision: Great.

• Shadowy Figments: Neat.

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion

Lv 1: Shield

Minor Illusion: This is a decent utility spell for letting you make Powerpoint presentations or show wax figures of a person to NPC’s to ask them if they recognize the person. Your imagination is the limit on the shenanigans this gives you. Ask your DM how they run illusions.

Fighter 1/Shadow 4:

Feat: Crossbow Expert. The Light attack is simply too strong to pass up on this build, therefore we’ll both buff it and make Hand Crossbow be good when we get Extra Attack. We can now also start wielding a shield due to us no longer having to have a free hand to load ammo. With this and attack rolls against us often having dadv thanks to our Darkness, we’re actually only barely frailer than the usual caster (assuming we have half-plate enspelled with Shield).

Slow Fall: We get Feather Fall as a cantrip. Annoyingly, just like actual Feather Fall, we’ll still be knocked prone.

Quickened Healing: You should think even harder about whether you should expend FP since you get rewarded for preserving uses

Fighter 1/Shadow 5:

Extra Attack: Ol’ Reliable.

Stunning Strike: This got directly nerfed in that the condition ends at the start of your turn rather than the end of it, but got drastically directly and indirectly buffed with now also applying to ranged attack rolls and Net getting buffed respectively.

Focused Aim: Missing sucks so let’s not do that.

Strategy change: On nova turns, we should make sure that we’re always expending at least 1 FP. The way you do this is as follows: first, just shoot twice and then make the Nick attack. If we use Focused Aim on one or both of those shots, than we’ve already fulfilled the condition and can choose to use a mundane item instead of a Dagger attack. Otherwise, use Stunning Strike on the Dagger attack (or, if that attack is with dadv or a straight roll, your 2nd Hand Crossbow attack) to fulfill the condition.

If you value the stun of Stunning Strike for more than just triggering Ki-Fueled, then use it liberally. This would be a priority target which Darkness doesn’t shut down, doesn’t have too high of a Con, and can fit inside a Net. If the target has Legendary Resistances, then strongly consider whether burning them is worth going fully nova on your limited FP.

From here on, we’re no longer taking Monk levels, but do consider Monk 6 after Rune Knight 4 if you feel like you’re burning FP too fast despite your best efforts, but no more levels than that since Monk becomes a desert afterwards. If you still burn through FP too fast, then that’s just your fault for playing Monk.

Fighter 2/Shadow 5:

Action Surge: We’re a nova martial build, so we’re gonna act the part.

Tactical Mind: Neat. Good for if you were to prevent your team from having Surprise.

Rune Knight 3/Shadow 5:

We take Rune Knight due to it offering the best nova potential out of any Fighter subclass for this build.

Bonus Proficiencies: Neat.

Rune Carver: Cloud Rune, Fire Rune. This is when we can finally start thoroughly abusing Oil to assist our nova damage. Our DC is unfortunately low due to us having merely 12 Con, but that’s alright since Fire Rune is worth using even if we assume that they fail the save, because Oil is truly just that strong, and we just really lack nova options in 2024 martials. Cloud Rune can also both deal and prevent major damage. 

Note that we can use Fire Rune twice on the same attack, but probably shouldn’t.

Giant’s Might: This is only worth using if we can either use this in advance or if we’re out of FP to get Ki-Fueled and have no better use of our BA. Don’t sacrifice an attack for this. 

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5:

 

Feat: Sharpshooter. Gone are the days where we miss our shots due to enemy cover! This helps us conserve FP by letting us hit more shots.

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Druid 1:

 

Druidic: Speak With Animals is good, so it’s nice that we get it for free.

Primal Order: Magician since Warden gives literally nothing.

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Entangle, Goodberry, Healing Word

Guidance: We won’t be really using this since we should be concentrating on Darkness as much as possible, but do use this when you don’t anticipate any fights.

Mold Earth: For if you desperately need cover. We’re running out of options here.

Starry Wisp: This could come up once or twice. Maybe. I really did look for something better.

Speak With Animals: Roleplaying is fun! Get intel basically anywhere. Dungeons are generally filled with spiders and stuff, so use this liberally.

Absorb Elements: These types of damage come in huge bursts, so halving that is a great use of a spell slot.

Entangle: This is Plant Growth lite. Useful if this can shut down a bunch of melee goons.

Goodberry: Turn yesterday’s unspent slots into today’s healing! I will assume that you don’t run the very popular house rule that you can administer this to someone else.

Healing Word: Pick an ally up from 0 HP if you need their power in the fight.

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Druid 2:

Wild Companion: Always have a Familiar. If you can, then start the day using a Wild Shape to cast FF, then immediately take a SR to get the use back. For more details, see TTB’s Spell Spotlight on FF.

Wild Shape: Ask your DM which of these forms hand use a Hand Crossbow. I will assume that only the Piccolo does, though I would also allow Giant Wolf Spider if I were your DM.

• Giant Lizard: Climb speed, +10 Speed, +60 ft darkvision, ridable by a Small ally of yours. 

• Giant Badger: As above, but a Burrow speed instead of a Climb speed.

• Spider: Web Walker. We’re running out of options.

• Piccolo: Pack Tactics, Climb Speed, and this is very likely to pass for Hand Crossbow usage.

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Entangle, Goodberry, Healing Word, Jump

Jump: This is just really good mobility.

Strategy Change: If your DM rules that Piccolo can use a Hand Crossbow, then it’s worth it to have it as your default form. Only use it out of combat though.

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Wildfire 3:

Summon Wildfire Spirit: To see just how powerful this is, please read This TTB article on Wildfire.

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Entangle, Goodberry, Healing Word, Jump, Cure Wounds, Burning Hands

Lv 2: Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Spike Growth

Cure Wounds: We need to drop Healing Word to make some room, so this is the next best thing, and it’s free.

Burning Hands: Feel free to not write this on your character sheet.

Flaming Sphere: Feel free to not write this on your character sheet.

Scorching Ray: This one’s actually okay against an Oiled up creature that you desperately need dead.

Aid: Turn yesterday’s spell slots into today’s hp! Also great for yo-yoing multiple allies.

Lesser Restoration: Often useless, sometimes crucial.

Locate Object: Find just about anything near you.

Spike Growth: Web’s cousin, and an equally devious control spell. Consider whether the chip damage is superior to the possible Restrain.

We avoid PWT due to us needing to concentrate on Darkness so often, but do consider it if no one else can get it.

Strategy Change: It can be worth it to summon the Wildfire Spirit in-combat, especially if your party heavily uses Oil (as you should). Spike Growth sometimes takes priority over Darkness.

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Wildfire 4:

Feat: Mage Slayer. Failing saves sucks, so let’s not do that. We now also have 20 Dex, so you should start wearing Studded Leather unless any half-plate magic armor you have makes that an inferior option. It’s a marginal increase in power to change this.

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Goodberry, Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Burning Hands

Lv 2: Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Spike Growth

Wild Shape: I found literally nothing of note to add.

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Wildfire 5:

Wild Resurgence: It’s probably not worth it to transfer spell slots into Wild Shapes, but the other way around is very much worth it. 

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Goodberry, Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Burning Hands

Lv 2: Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Spike Growth

Lv 3: Plant Growth, Revivify, Conjure Animals, Sleet Storm

(Do consider dropping Lesser Restoration for Dispel Magic if someone already has the former spell)

Plant Growth: We were gonna grab this anyway, so it’s nice to get it prepared for free. This deletes melee enemies with no save.

Revivify: Also nice as a free prep. Dying sucks, so let’s not do that.

Conjure Animals: Not quite as broken as in 2014, but still puts martials (like you) to shame. This can trigger twice per round: first when you move it towards a creature, and then again when the creature ends its turn within 30 ft of the pack. Make sure to pair this with smart positioning and movement control to make sure it triggers twice. This is super worth dropping concentration on Darkness for.

 

CA tech: wotc doesn’t specify that moving the pack is something that can only happen once per turn. Therefore, you could move half an inch, and then move the pack 30 ft. Do this enough times to make the pack just eviscorate every enemy on the field. This is effectively the damage aoe spell with the largest radius in the game. Whether or not you use this tech, this build still sucks.

Sleet Storm: With this, Plant Growth, and Spike Growth, you have a control spell for almost any occasion. For details on this spell in particular, once again go to TTB. 

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Wildfire 6:

Enhanced Bond: This applies to Goodberry. Welcome back, Lifeberry. This also makes Burning Hands sometimes worth casting thanks to your spirit closing in instead of you and also doing more damage when that happens. Maybe.

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Goodberry, Cure Wounds, Burning Hands

Lv 2: Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Spike Growth

Lv 3: Plant Growth, Revivify, Conjure Animals, Sleet Storm, Dispel Magic

Dispel Magic: Generally decent and versatile, if facing heavy competition for your lv 3 slots.

Wild Shape: 

• Giant Flying Spider: Bulky, flying speed, spider climb, adv against some saves, Web is moderately useful

• Flying Monkey: Move over, Piccolo: we’ve got a new default WS form.

• Parvaz: Notable for having the highest fly speed.

Any other options don’t really matter. Do a crow for mimicry or something.

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Wildfire 7:

Elemental Fury: Primal Strike, obviously. This makes us even better at abusing Oil (or just lets us deal more damage).

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Goodberry, Cure Wounds, Burning Hands

Lv 2: Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Spike Growth

Lv 3: Plant Growth, Revivify, Conjure Animals, Sleet Storm, Dispel Magic

Lv 4: Wall of Fire, Divination

(We’re not taking CWB, because Wall of Fire and CA give it a run for its money in damage and CWB forces you into a very dangerous position: melee. I assume your team doesn’t specialize in rugby shenanigans to make this be untrue due to you delaying Druid so much.)

Wall of Fire: When I think of a spell with does fire damage and can solve encounters with just how much damage it deals, I think of this sooner than Fireball. I’m sure that you’re subscribed to Pack Tactics and therefore have seen his video on Wall of Fire.

Divination: Talking to the gods is pretty good for a ritual, so we’re taking this. One special use of this for us is determining whether we should spend 1 FP to pre-cast Darkness. For other uses, go to Pack Tactics. again.

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Wildfire 8:

Feat: Resilience. Wisdom. Failing saves sucks so let’s not do that.

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Goodberry, Cure Wounds, Burning Hands

Lv 2: Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Spike Growth

Lv 3: Plant Growth, Revivify, Conjure Animals, Sleet Storm, Dispel Magic

Lv 4: Wall of Fire, Divination

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Wildfire 9:

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Goodberry, Cure Wounds, Burning Hands

Lv 2: Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Spike Growth

Lv 3: Plant Growth, Revivify, Conjure Animals, Sleet Storm, Dispel Magic

Lv 4: Wall of Fire, Divination

Lv 5: Wall of Stone, Greater Restoration, Mass Cure Wounds

IMPORTANT OFF-PREPs: Planar Binding, Awaken, Geas

Wall of Stone: Druid doesn’t get Wall of Force, but this comes close. Divide and conquer!

Greater Restoration: Often useless, sometimes truly crucial.

Mass Cure Wounds: Hopefully, you won’t end up in a situation where this means life or death. However, you should prepare for the worst.

Planar Binding: Now you, too, can break the game like a straight Druid could 9 levels ago!

Awaken: Druid doesn’t get much in terms of minion spells, so this is about all we can get.

Geas: This could be useful in combination with Pbind.

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Wildfire 10:

Cauterizing Flames: This is a fairly useful Reaction that doesn’t drain any of our other resources, so this is very nice to have. The damage is generally better than the healing.

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Goodberry, Cure Wounds, Burning Hands

Lv 2: Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Spike Growth

Lv 3: Plant Growth, Revivify, Conjure Animals, Sleet Storm, Dispel Magic

Lv 4: Wall of Fire, Divination

Lv 5: Wall of Stone, Greater Restoration, Mass Cure Wounds

IMPORTANT OFF-PREPs: Planar Binding, Awaken, Geas

Rune Knight 4/Shadow 5/Wildfire 11:

As if this build wasn’t bad enough: due to our awkward levels, we can’t get an Epic Boon, which really sucks.

Spellcasting: 

Cantrips: Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Guidance, Mold Earth, Starry Wisp

Lv 1: Shield, Speak With Animals, Absorb Elements, Goodberry, Cure Wounds, Burning Hands

Lv 2: Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Spike Growth

Lv 3: Plant Growth, Revivify, Conjure Animals, Sleet Storm, Dispel Magic

Lv 4: Wall of Fire, Divination

Lv 5: Wall of Stone, Greater Restoration, Mass Cure Wounds

Lv 6: Heroes’ Feast, Heal

IMPORTANT OFF-PREPs: Planar Binding, Awaken, Geas

Heroes’ Feast: Turn yesterday’s unspent spell slots into today’s host of useful things! 

Heal: The healing/spell level is actually pretty impactful so we’re taking this. Remember the d7 from Enhanced Bond.

Bonus content: Spreadsheet!

This is a simple dpr spreadsheet. That’s it. This build doesn’t deserve damage prevention calcs. The moral of the story is that CA is still broken, just less broken than before.

https://discord.com/channels/833383832785911909/833422411143446558/1403916257320763582