Warrior Of Shadow Monk: D&D 2024 Optimisation Guide

Become a ninja, shrouded in darkness and shadowy magic with this heavily updated subclass.

What is the warrior of shadow?

Stealthier and more skilled than an assassin, shadow monks work in darkness, striking when least expected. They are the ninjas of the D&D universe, with the speed and skill that all monks possess, but aided by darkness, shadow and magically enhanced stealth.

If you want to play a teleporting and darkness bringing monk, then this is the subclass for you. And personally, I think they’re one of the best subclasses around with the the fairly major overhaul they’ve had in D&D 2024.

My guide will take you through how these stealthy monks work, as well as ways to optimise them into deadly ninjas.

At a glance

Hit and run melee class ideal for fighting alongside allies
Launch a flurry of attacks at your enemies
Strike from the darkness with stealth and magic
Launch hit and run tactics with shadowy teleportation

What’s changed in D&D 2024?

A lot! This subclass sees huge improvements from the 2014 version including:

Seeing through your own magical darkness.
Darkness can fuel your teleportation instead of focus points.
You can eventually use focus points without needing to be in shadows to use your shadow step.
Cloak of shadows gets big improvements, letting you be invisible and semi-incorporeal. You can also use flurry of blows when using shadow step too.

Related articles

Warrior of shadow features

Shadow arts – Lv3

How it works

Gain darkvision, the minor illusion cantrip and the ability to cast darkness using a focus points. You can see through the darkness you cast and move it at the start of each turn.

Tactics

Minor illusion is great for aiding you in stealth. Use it for distractions while you sneak around.
The more exciting thing here is the darkness spell. Yes it takes an action to cast, but with a 10 minute duration, can theoretically be cast before combat and last the duration.
The really exciting thing here is being able to see through the darkness. This essentially means applying disadvantage to enemy attacks and advantage to your own making this a very powerful spell.
Ordinarily, you might only get a turn or 2 of use out of darkness, but the ability to move your darkness without using any action economy means you can stay permanently shrouded in magical darkness!

Shadow step – Lv6

How it works

You can teleport from a dark area to another dark area with a bonus action. You then get advantage on your next attack that turn.

Tactics

Basically free uses of misty step with the restriction that it can only be used in darkness or dim light.
Great for jumping into attack and moving around the battlefield quickly.
it may be tempting to use this before you attack, but it could also be worth using it for hit and run tactics, teleporting away from enemies. You’ll have to forego the advantage though.

Improved shadow step – Lv11

How it works

Use a focus points to remove the requirements from shadow step that you must teleport into and out of dim light/darkness. You can also make an unarmed strike when you perform shadow step.

Tactics

Obviously a free use of shadow step is better than expending focus points, so worth using shadows still when you can.
Gaining an attack from this means you’ll want to use this more for getting into range of enemies than for getting out of range.
Use your darkness spell and move it to your target to allow you to still accomplish hit and run movements or to simply impose disadvantage on attacks against you.
This could also be used to allow you to teleport into darkness and preserve your focus points.

Cloak of shadows – Lv17

How it works

Use 3 focus points to become invisible, be able to move through occupied spaces and use flurry of blows without expending focus points for a minute. This ends if you end your turn in bright light.

Tactics

This only works in places where you can easily move into shadows and darkness. So avoid using in the bright outdoor sun.
In longer encounters, you may find that despite the high focus points cost, that this costs less overall if you’d have ended up using flurry of blows 3 or more times. Plus you get the added benefits of the other features.

Building a warrior of shadow

Below I’ve gone through suggestions for creating an optimal build for the warrior of shadow monk.

Ability scores

Recommended options

Dexterity: Your most important ability score. You need this for your AC, attacks, stealth and other things too.
Wisdom: Also a crucial ability for all monks. This will also enhance your AC as well as being used for your DC on monk’s focus features like stunning strike.
Constitution: You might be dodging in and out of danger, but you’ll still likely find yourself regularly getting a bruising. Monks are not naturally durable for a melee martial so a good constitution is important.

Options to avoid

Strength: You don’t need this as dexterity is used for your unarmed strikes and monk weapon attacks.
Intelligence: Also of no use to a monk.
Charisma: You can improve this if more important skills are already maximised, but there’s not much room for charisma on monks.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8	10
Dexterity	15	15
Constitution	15	13
Intelligence	8	8
Wisdom	15	14
Charisma	8	12

Skills

Recommended options

Acrobatics: Good for any physical activities and works with your dexterity, unlike athletics.
History: Decent enough knowledge skill.
Insight: Great face skill. Not crucial for a monk, but you might pick up on things that others don’t.
Religion: Decent enough knowledge skill.
Stealth: Essential for a monk. Unless you have a rogue around, you’ll be expected to do all the stealthing (and even if you do have a rogue, you might want to buddy up or sneak as a party).

Options to avoid

Athletics: You’re far better off going for acrobatics.

Species/race

There are a few things to consider when choosing a species for a shadow monk:

Safety first: Monks are not very durable, but do need to get in close and personal with enemies. Anything that helps you to make hit and run attacks or increases your durability is of great use to a shadow monk.
Innate spellcasting: You can’t repeat cast spells so even with a strong wisdom score, innate spellcasting usually isn’t your best option. You’ve also already got spells/spell like abilities with enhancements through class features (like darkness, misty step and minor illusion). These will all compete for uses of other spells.
Damage output: Monks want to be dealing as much damage as possible while disabling their enemies. Species that enhance this are useful for monks.

Recommended options

Dragonborn (2024): You don’t get much for AoE damage so the breath weapon is nice (and you can still use flurry of blows and extra attack). Flight is good for hit and run tactics and you get a resistance for extra durability. Darkness creates a 15ft sphere, that means it spreads upwards too, allowing you to fly out of range and remain within the darkness.
Dwarves (2024): Extra hit points will help you stay in combat for longer. Resistance to poison and advantage against the poisoned condition all add up to make you one of the most durable monks around.
Goliath (2024): Take hill’s tumble to knock enemies prone for easy hit and run tactics. Alternatively, go for fire’s burn to land extra damage. Don’t be tempted by stone’s endurance for more durability though, you’ve got deflect attacks for this. Cloud’s jaunt is also pointless as you already have shadow step. Increased move speed is great for a monk and if you want to play a grappler, use large form to grapple even bigger creatures.
Human (2024): Tavern brawler is practically a must for a monk meaning if you want a different origin feat too, you’ll need something like a Human to grab it. An extra skill will help you get sleight of hand so you can fill in for a rogue (and become a proper ninja). Free uses of heroic inspiration are always going to be useful too.

Options to avoid

Elves (2024): Too much focus on spells that you can’t recast. Drow and High Elf feel particularly redundant with darkness and misty step being their big 2 spells.
Tiefling (2024): Too much focus on spells that you can’t recast. Infernal Tieflings also get darkness which is pointless for a shadow monk making them a little extra unuseful.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 as the ability score increases previously tied to your race/species are now linked to your background.

You also get an origin feat linked to your background too.

Primarily, you want to focus on increasing key ability scores (dexterity and wisdom or possibly constitution for a monk) with the associated origin feat being your next priority. As such, I’d suggest the below are your best backgrounds for a warrior of shadow:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves tools
Charlatan	Dexterity, constitution, charisma	Skilled	Deception, sleight of hand	Forgery kit
Farmer	Strength, constitution, wisdom	Tough	Animal handling, nature	Carpenter’s tools
Guide	Dexterity, constitution, wisdom	Magic initiate (druid)	stealth, survival	Cartographer’s tools
Sailor	Strength, dexterity, wisdom	Tavern brawler	Acrobatics, perception	Navigator’s tools
Soldier	Strength, dexterity, constitution	Savage attacker	Athletics, intimidation	One kind of gaming set
Wayfarer	Dexterity, wisdom, charisma	Lucky	Insight, stealth	Thieves’ tools

Sailor is your best option here. With both dexterity and wisdom increases as well as tavern brawler (to be able to hit and push for hit and run tactics), this is the best background for a monk. Wayfarer is a top option too, but tavern brawler is so useful for a monk, it’s hard to recommend anything other than sailor unless you have another way of getting tavern brawler.

Feats

At 1st level, you can grab an origin feat through your background and from level 4, you can pick up a general feat (or another origin feat if you want) instead of an ability score increase.

Below are some feats I’d recommend for a warrior of shadow monk:

Origin feats

Alert – If you’ve not had chance to activate darkness before combat, you’ll want to be going early in combat to ensure you can activate it before enemies can attack you.
Lucky – More ways to be reliable at important rolls is universally beneficial.
Musician – A universally great feat for dishing out heroic inspiration. Great for altruistic monks. Plus you can ensure you have some heroic inspiration available too.
Skilled – If you need to fill in for a rogue as a stealth specialist or scout, you might want something like sleight of hand and perception which you don’t get as standard but monks can be really good at.
Tavern brawler – Makes hit and run tactics much easier by being able to push your opponent away as you deal damage. You can also reroll 1s. Probably your best option for a monk.
Tough – More hit points is very useful for a relatively vulnerable martial class.

General feats

Charger – You can keep pushing your opponent away and then running off for hit and run tactics, or deal some extra damage.
Grappler – Punch and grapple at the same time. Hit grappled creatures harder and move faster while grappling. These are all massively effective for the best, unarmed class in the game. You’ll become the stuff of nightmares by creating darkness, attacking, then dragging your enemies away!
Inspiring leader – Grab the wisdom increase and dish out loads of temporary hit points to allies each rest.
Mage slayer – Best against mages, but having what is practically legendary resistance is also great.
Ritual caster – Grab it for some out of combat utility spells. Find familiar should be a go to for any class from here.
Skill expert – Get really good at a skill. Stealth is really good here.

Weapons

At low levels, a weapon will give you a bit of extra damage, but 1d8 is the best you can do here with a rapier. However, unarmed strikes are far better for a warrior of shadow monk. Here’s why:

You can grapple, push or knock prone in place of an unarmed attack
Grabbing the tavern brawler feat will let you push while damaging for easy hit and run tactics
The grappler feat will let you grapple and deal damage for easy grapple tactics
You don’t have weapon mastery with weapons anyway
Monk features like flurry of blows and empowered strike only work with unarmed strikes

Essentially, damage is strong enough and there are so many other benefits to unarmed strikes for a monk, that it just ends up being your best option. You can read my full guide to unarmed combat to know more about how it works.

For the occassional ranged combat (which you should rarely bother with unless you have no other option) grab a light crossbow until level 5 then switch to a shortbow (so you can use your extra attack).