Strike with elemental power with this completely altered monk subclass.
What is the warrior of the elements?
Tapping into elemental powers, these monks have their attacks empowered, striking with fiery fists and thunderous force. Not only are their unarmed strikes enhanced, but element monks have a greater reach than others, allowing them to strike from relative safety.
Elemental powers aren’t just great for punching harder though. You can harness the elements to fly through the air, glide through water or even launch bursts of elemental power at a distance.
Refreshed from the 2014 version, this monk subclass has been completely overhauled from the way of the four elements monk of the 2014 Player’s Handbook. It’s changed so significantly, it’s almost like a brand new subclass.
My guide below will help you know how to build the ultimate elemental fighting machine.
At a glance
- Hit and run melee class ideal for fighting alongside allies
- Launch a flurry of attacks at your enemies
- Strike at a distance with elemental powers
- Harness the elements to travel quickly through the air and through water
What’s changed in D&D 2024?
Absolutely everything! The whole subclass has changed so you’re no longer a monk with spells and awkward adjustments to focus points to cast them, but an elemental fighting machine. These changes just work much better for the subclass as the trade off for spells never really worked for the monk. You now get;
- Attacks with an extended reach.
- Elemental damage from unarmed strikes.
- The ability to push enemies away from you.
- The spell elementalism.
- A fly and swim speed equal to your move speed.
- Protection from elemental damage.
- A spell-like AoE ability similar to a weak fireball.
Warrior of the elements features
Elemental attunement – Lv3
How it works
Expend a focus points to attune the elements and get the following benefits for 10 minutes:
- Reach: Unarmed strikes have an extra 10ft reach.
- Elemental strikes: Deal a damage type of a chosen element when making unarmed strikes. You can also push your target 10ft.
Tactics
- No action or bonus action is required to activate this ability making it worth having active as often as possible.
- A minimum of 15ft reach is really useful for staying out of arms reach from enemies. Use it to make hit and run tactics much easier.
- Push enemies off ledges, into AoE effects or away from allies. You can do this for every hit. Do this multiple times to push enemies even further. You can combine this with flurry of blows for up to 5 pushes per turn, meaning up to 50ft of pushes!
- You might wonder whether you can grapple with your extended reach. Technically you’re making an unarmed strike with the extended reach so could choose to make a grapple. However, the way the feature is worded indicates that your reach is only extended for the duration of the strike, meaning if you grappled someone from 15ft away, you’d immediately let go of them. However, this article on D&D Beyond suggests you can grapple from 15ft away. I’m not sure how official these articles are, I’m not convinced they necessarily go through the game designers for approval so doubt this is official advice, but I’d suggest discussing with your DM If it’s a tactic you’re considering and see what they think. If you have tavern brawler though, you should be able to combine shoves for extra push distance.
- If your DM is letting you use 2014 races, you could take a Bugbear which has a 10ft reach already giving you a 20ft reach!
Manipulate elements – Lv3
How it works
You know the elementalism spell. It’s got some utility outside of combat, but its effects are mostly quite limited.
Elemental burst – Lv6
How it works
Using 2 focus points, you cause a 20ft sphere of elemental damage. It deals 3 rolls of your martial arts die in damage.
Tactics
- A ranged AoE attack is a great option that monks don’t normally have.
- It’s more powerful than the level 2 spell shatter (with a larger radius and at least the same damage, but grows as you gain levels) but weaker than the level 3 spell fireball. At 2 focus points and with damage scaling a bit with your level, the damage output is solid for the cost.
- Consider using flurry of blows to push enemies into a close group before using this to damage even more enemies at the same time. And remember, you can equal your attack output with your bonus action when using flurry of blows so this doesn’t occupy your attacks too much.
- Its worth noting that this should exceed your damage from standard attacks. For example, at level 6, you’ll deal an average of 17 damage with standard attacks from your action (if they hit). Elemental burst will deal an average of 13.5 damage per target, so you only need to hit 2 targets for it to deal more damage, which shouldn’t be too hard.
Stride of the elements – Lv11
How it works
When elemental attunement is active, you gain a fly and swim speed equal to your move speed. Great for getting to wherever your enemies are or accessing difficult to reach areas. At the cost of a single focus point for 10 minutes, this is an easier and better form of temporary flight than most sources (like from being a Dragonborn or Aasimar).
Elemental epitome – Lv17
How it works
When you have elemental attunement active, you have resistance to damage from an element. Step of the wind also adds an extra 20ft of movement.
Tactics
- Adaptable damage resistance is a great way to adapt to damage from many different kinds of enemies.
- I expect step of the wind to be less useful for an elements monk as you’re less likely to need to disengage and dash out of danger, you should be outrunning most enemies at this level anyway, but it could occasionally be useful.
Building a warrior of the elements
You’ll want to be built to maximise on damage and defence. Elements monks are also decent utility options too with flight, swimming and the dexterity and wisdom to operate as scouts and stealth specialists.
Damage type
Elements monks have features that let them choose their damage type and resistances. However, if you don’t know what kinds of damage or resistances an enemy will use, it can be hard to know which of these to apply to yourself.
Fortunately, I’ve done some research into the different damage types used and resisted by monsters.
From the damage types available to you, I’ve listed what proportion of monsters resist/are invulnerable to those damage types:
- Acid 9%
- Cold 26%
- Fire 28%
- Lightning 19%
- Thunder 5%
And below, I’ve listed the proportion of monsters that deal these damage types:
- Acid 14%
- Cold 9%
- Fire 20%
- Lightning 11%
- Thunder 5%
Based on the data, thunder is a great damage type to use as it’s rarely resisted whereas the likes of fireball and cold are commonly resisted so best used only when you know an enemy won’t resist the damage.
Om the flip side, you want your resistances to be commonly used. If you don’t know what kinds of damage your enemy causes (or what spells they’ll use), fire is your best bet, followed by acid.
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 and your elemental burst.
- 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 warrior of the elements:
- 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 an elements 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 spell-like abilities like elemental burst which will 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
- 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 to aid yours and allies’ attacks. 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. 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. It will also allow you to combine 2 shoves (as you need to deal damage with your unarmed strike to benefit from the shove of elemental attunement). An extra skill will help you get sleight of hand so you can fill in for a rogue. Free uses of heroic inspiration are always going to be useful too.
Options to avoid
- Aasimar (2024): Flight becomes pointless after a little while and the other celestial revelation options require being surrounded by enemies which you should be avoiding. This makes an Aasimar a little redundant for an elements monk. Healing and damage resistances are fine, but not enough.
- Dragonborn (2024): Again, flight eventually becomes a little redundant here. Your breath weapon is still useful, but you do also have elemental burst for AoE damage.
- Elves (2024): Too much focus on spells that you can’t recast.
- Tiefling (2024): Too much focus on spells that you can’t recast.
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 the elements:
| 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 further), 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 the elements monk:
Origin feats
- 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 – Shove doesn’t work with the push from elemental attunement unless your unarmed strike deals damage. With tavern brawler, you can do damage and shove allowing you to combine it with the push from elemental attunement giving your attacks a 15ft push each! Plus you can reroll 1s for damage.
- Tough – More hit points is very useful for a relatively vulnerable martial class.
General feats
- Charger – Theres no reason why this wouldn’t work with elemental attunement (it’s still a melee attack). With your extra reach, it’s easy to move in and out of range and get the charging benefit.
- 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 can’t grapple at 15ft distance, but you don’t always need to use your extra reach.
- 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, elemental attunement and other monk features will not work with weapon attacks so you’re far better off just using unarmed strikes.
You can read my full guide to unarmed combat to know more about how it works.
With elemental burst, you barely even need a ranged weapon option (and ranged attacks should be rare for you).
Armor
You shouldn’t wear armor, you have unarmored defense and armor will hamper many of your abilities.
Other class guides
Not sure a warrior of the elements monk is for you. Not to worry. Why not check out one of our other D&D 2024 class and subclass guides.
cold caster from the new heroes of farun book pairs very well with elemental attunement and can help make your stunning strikes more reliable