Warrior of Mystic Brews Monk: D&D 2024 (5.5e) Optimisation Guide

Weave and sway your way through danger with this master of drunken combat techniques and unpredictability from D&D: World of Warcraft.

At a glance

What’s changed?

The warrior of mystic brews is a completely overhauled version of the way of the drunken master monk and has had a significant upgrade (including making themselves actually hard to hit) with changes including:

• Drunken technique: Now triggers with patient defense and grants an unarmed strike. This means you can also dodge as part of this bonus action.
• Mystic brew: Brand new feature with 3 options for a brew you can use to enhance yourself for a while.
• Wizened brewer: Replaces drunkard’s luck which would let you cancel disadvantage at the cost of 2 ki points. This now gives you 3 extra brews to enhance yourself with which are generally better and won’t eat into your focus points.
• Master brewer: A new level 17 feature that lets you use the effects of 2 brews simultaneously.
• Intoxicated frenzy: Is now reliant on using patient defense rather than flurry of blows and isn’t limited by number of attacks while also granting extra movement.

Warrior of mystic brews features

Bonus proficencies (Lv3) – 1/5

A skill proficiency in performance and brewer’s supplies is a minor upgrade. Fortunately, this is just a ribbon feature, especially as performance isn’t particularly good on the charisma-lite monk and brewer’s supplies does very little (except facilitating your later features).

Drunken technique (Lv3) – 4/5

With this, you trade 2 unarmed strikes from flurry of blows for one unarmed strike and the dodge and disengage actions and another 10ft of movement. Dodge is great for resilience and only losing out on one attack for it is very appealing. To clarify this a little, disengage remains active for the turn so although the unarmed strike is made after the bonus action, you can still attack then move meaning you don’t need to stay in reach of enemies.

Tipsy sway (Lv6) – 3/5

Monks are quite fast and the mystic brews monk is a little faster so saving movement standing up from prone isn’t a huge issue anyway. However, redirect attack can be really good, especially when you have heavy-hitting foes attacking you. The main problem is being in range of 2 enemies making this a bit situational. Monks tend to be evasive too so getting swarmed by enemies is usually rare.

This does also compete with deflect attacks for your reaction and doing a similar thing. This has a higher ceiling for damage and affects missed attacks whereas deflect attacks is for hits. Deflect attacks is also easier to land. I think this sounds better than it is in practice with it being quite hard to land unless you stop being so evasive.

Mystic brew (Lv6) – 4/5

I think extending the benefits of these to 8hrs will often make sense unless you know of imminent danger as that only costs a focus point.

Cinnamon dragon is a decent AoE damage dealer with the poisoned condition giving the monk a rare feature for handling crowds. This will sacrifice a couple of attacks which would have dealt similar damage to one target (whereas this will affect multiple targets and cause poisoned) so I think this will often be better. There’s also half damage even on a successful save.

Two resistances is decent from heavenly spirit, but they aren’t among the more common damage types in the game.

Refreshing dip is decent if you’ll be getting healed a lot. That can be a bit circumstantial and depends a lot on your party composition and how healing-heavy it is. There’s a lot of dice, but only one roll per healing.

Personally, I’m more inclined to stick with the cinnamon dragon which I think is the best option, but the others are OK too.

Wizened brewer (Lv11) – 5/5

More brews gives your monk more options. For blue lightning, between tipsy sway and deflect attacks, you should be using plenty of reactions so an unarmed strike as part of that is pretty decent (but does rely on nearby enemies in the case of deflect attack).

Drunkard’s luck is again, a little situational as you can get a steady supply of heroic inspiration, which is great. However, it’s reliant on making saving throws and ability checks. This shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish, just keep on being the lookout and make perception checks, but it’s hard to predict how much this will be replenished mid-combat

I think stumbling monk is the best option though as with this, you can use flurry of blows and patient defense and if you use a focus point for patient defense, can get dodge and another unarmed strike. This means you have a bonus action granting 4 unarmed strikes, extra movement, disengage and dodge for the cost of 2 focus points. That’s one heck of a bonus action and isn’t situational like some other options. This option alone elevates this feature to a 5/5 in my scoring.

Master brewer (Lv17) – 5/5

Double brew effects is really good. I’d probably lean towards cinnamon dragon and stumbling monk as the best 2 options and the ones that will grant the most damage and defense at the same time. There is a case to be made for drunkard’s luck though too.

Intoxicated frenzy (Lv17) – 5/5

The mystic brews monk should be using patient defense a lot as it’s even better for them, especially if they’re using the stumbling monk brew (which you should). This has potential for lots of attacks and monks are already very fast giving you loads of chances to do so. There’s no usage limit for this either so you might as well just keep swaying between enemies and punching them prone. Just be aware that you can only attack a creature once per turn with this feature.

How good is the warrior of mystic brews?

The warrior of mystic brews is quite good at low to mid levels, but gets really good at level 11 and ridiculously good at level 17. Both master brewer and intoxicated frenzy are extremely strong features and make for an incredible capstone to the subclass! Even without this, the subclass is pretty strong with loads of dodging and maintaining decent damage levels which even includes an AoE option.

Not only that, but it feels incredibly fun too, which is a big improvement on the old drunken master subclass from 5e 2014 which had the right thematic feel, but disappointing execution. My only issue with the subclass is some of the brews are definitely better than others and I can only see myself choosing 2 or 3 of the 6 options available. Despite this, I think this is a really strong monk subclass, even if I think it gets a little overpowered at level 17.

5/5

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Building a warrior of mystic brews

As with other monks, the warrior of mystic brews is an evasive melee specialist and your build shouldn’t really deviate from that.

While this is a subclass from D&D: World of Warcraft, it isn’t exclusive to that setting. In fact the original drunken master monk from 5e 2014 was released for all settings in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. As such, I’ve taken options I think work well from all 5.5e books. I’ll also add new character options from the WoW book once those become available.

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 getting a bruising. Monks are not naturally durable for a melee martial so a decent 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: There’s not much room for charisma on monks, even with performance proficiency.

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.
• Insight: Great face skill. Not crucial for a monk, but you might pick up on things that others don’t.
• Stealth: Monks make great stealth options.

Species/race

There are a few things to consider when choosing a species for a warrior of mystic brews:

• Safety first: Monks are not very durable, but do need to get into melee range. Anything that helps increase your durability is of great use to a mystic brews monk.
• Damage output: Monks want to be dealing as much damage as possible while disabling their enemies. Species that enhance this are useful for monks.
• Unarmed attacks: Monks are big on unarmed strikes. Some species can enhance these making them a good option for a monk.

Recommended options

• Dhampir (RHW): Some enhanced unarmed strikes can help you self heal and necrotic resistance makes you tougher.
• Dragonborn: The breath weapon is handy as you can mingle it with your attacks. Flight is good for hit and run tactics and you get a resistance for extra durability.
• Dwarves: 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: I’d, go for fire’s burn to land extra damage. Don’t be tempted by stone’s endurance for the extra durability, you’ve got deflect attacks for this. Increased move speed is great for a constantly dashing monk and if you want to play a grappler, use large form to grapple even bigger creatures.
• Human: 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 or perception so you can fill in for a rogue. Free uses of heroic inspiration are always going to be useful too.
• Lupin (RHW): Shove on an unarmed strike each turn can make hit and run tactics easier by moving enemies so they’re out of reach. Howl is a great debuff and there’s a nice skill to use too.
• Warforged (FotA): Increased AC and poison resilience is great for durability. An extra skill and tool proficiency will help you fill in for a rogue.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 as they grant ability score increases and an origin feat.

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 mystic brews:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Cosmic dawn experiment (AU)	Strength, dexterity, constitution	Transmuted anatomy	Athletics, survival	One kind of artisan’s tools
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 one of your best options here with both dexterity and wisdom increases as well as tavern brawler (to be able to hit and push).

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 mystic brews monk:

Origin feats

• Arcane omens (AU) – Great for helping out with ability checks and saving throws.
• Familiar friend (AU) – Get an enhanced familiar which can be useful for all sorts of utility.
• 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 – You don’t need the damage die increase for unarmed strikes, but pushing as part of an unarmed strike is basically a weapon mastery, plus you get to reroll ones for damage.
• Tough – More hit points is very useful for a relatively vulnerable martial class.

General feats

• Bloodlust – Some decent mid-combat healing that doesn’t eat into your action economy plus better healing through your hit point dice.
• 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.
• 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.
• Shadow touched – Invisibility is great on a scout class and another spell can be handy too. You’ll only get one casting per long rest of each, but at least you have a decent spellcasting ability.
• Spell resistant – Some great resilience with a damage resistance and some improved saving throws against magic.
• Skill expert – Get really good at a skill. Stealth is really good here.
• Speedy – Faster movement is useful for a class that values maneuverability.
• Warlike familiar (AU) – You’ll need the familiar friend origin feat for this, but a strong option for extra damage output and a bit of a meat shield as well as some protection for you.

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. There are monk features that only work with unarmed strikes too and I’d be inclined to stick with that and specialise in things like grapples and shoves through feats.

You can read my full guide to unarmed combat to know more about how it works.

You may want to have something for ranged damage. Handaxes and javelins count as monk weapons and can be thrown making them a good option for this.

Armor

You shouldn’t wear armor, you have unarmored defense and armor will hamper many of your abilities.

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