Warrior Of The Living Weapon Monk: D&D 2024 Optimisation Guide

Use your body as a literal weapon with Keith Baker’s monk subclass from Exploring Eberron, revised for D&D 2024.

Warriors of the living weapon hone their bodies and techniques into weapons in their own right. This typically goes beyond simply having very powerful unarmed strikes as is possessed by most monks. Instead, they hone their bodies literally into weapons. Changelings might form their bodies into weapons through transformed bone while warforged might alter their physical body using steel and stone. Still other species might project psychic weapons from their being as they strike.

It’s worth noting that the 2024 version of the warrior of the living weapon doesn’t specify how these weapons are formed, but the 2014 version does give the examples above. Instead, you have the flexibility to decide how this manifests in a way that suits your character.

Keith Baker, the legendary creator of the Eberron setting, has released a revised version of his 3rd party book, Exploring Eberron. It’s been updated for D&D 2024 and adds extra lore and character options for the Eberron setting and is available on D&D Beyond now. In this article, I’ll take you through the updated living weapon monk subclass from this book including tactics, optimisations, how good the subclass is and what’s changed.

At a glance

Hit and run melee class ideal for fighting alongside allies
Launch a flurry of attacks at your enemies
Adapt your body to your tactics with changeable buffs

4/5 – The warrior of the living weapon is a highly adaptive subclass with some universally great features for a monk. There’s options for crowd control, hit and run tactics, grappling and more making for a really solid monk subclass.

What’s changed in D&D 2024?

Quite a lot has changed for the warrior of the living weapon from the 2014 version, with extra damage largely being removed (especially now the monk class is a higher damage class on its own) but also focus point costs being lowered to access certain capabilities.

Fists of bone and steel removed: The damage increase that was here is now part of the main monk class so this has been removed.
Many changes to martial form/martial discipline: You no longer expend ki (focus) points each time you use these features. Because of this, in many instances, these have had their power levels reduced (there’s no more extra damage). For example, traveler’s blade is just a flat 10ft extra reach instead of 5ft plus possibly extra. Weretouched has been completely changed. Now you get temporary hit points when you kill a creature instead of magic attacks and bleeding. You can also choose which version you’ll use each time you activate the feature rather than being stuck with 1 option.
Manifest blow: No longer a flat damage boost, you can choose an enhancement based on your living weapon option.
Reflexive adaptation: No longer grants extra damage and improved athletics and acrobatics checks. Instead self restoration can now remove blinded, deafened and grappled conditions as well as removing a level of exhaustion on a short rest.
Perfect form: Completely different benefits that are no longer tied to a living weapon type. Instead you can use 3 focus points to gain advantage on flurry of blows attacks, regenerate and increase your AC while in your martial form.

Warrior of the living weapon features

Martial form (Lv3) – 5/5

You’ve got lots of great options here that are well worth the 1 focus point needed. Forged heart will let you make many pushes (considering the number of attacks you get) and the distance you push is better than push mastery. Great for moving enemies into the right positions.

Nightmare shroud is handy for nullifying enemies a bit temporarily. Traveler’s blade makes hit and run tactics much easier and weretouched is great for increased resilience. Just be aware that how often you reduce a creature to 0HP is dependent on who you face. A few high hit points enemies may mean you rarely or never get this benefit, but plenty of minions means it may occur more frequently.

Mutable strikes (Lv3) – 3/5

It’s decent to have changeable damage types, but weapon damage types are rarer to be disentangled from one another. So the benefits may not be as frequent.

Manifest blow (Lv6) – 4/5

Extra damage on an attack each turn is decent, or you’ve got some crowd control with a fairly big emanation that damages and frightens (handily, it won’t hurt your allies). Traveler’s blade essentially gives you the main benefit for the grappler feat (so no wasting an ability score increase on it). It’s rare that monks have an issue with having enough free hands, but maybe this is to allow you to grapple multiple creatures…

I’m less keen on weretouched here. You can either get 1 extra martial arts die in damage without expending focus points through the forged heart, or 3 dice to damage multiple enemies through nightmare shroud (admittedly without getting to make attacks). But this feels like a high cost for the extra damage levels you achieve here.

Reflexive adaptation (Lv11) – 4/5

Adding blinded and grappled to the list of conditions you can just end is quite a big deal as they’re both quite common. You will have to suffer through a turn of them, but not more. Grappled is an interesting one as a lot of creatures will grapple you and then have extra effects they can inflict on the next turn (like eating you) so you become resilient to some of those really nasty effects. It’s maybe not as good as preventing these things altogether, but still quite good.

Perfect form (Lv17) – 5/5

Better AC, healing each turn for free and advantage on flurry of blows attacks (that’s 3 attacks with advantage). This is all really good, requires no extra action economy and the 3 focus points is a great trade off for this.

How good is the warrior of the living weapon subclass?

Living weapon monks are really flexible allowing you to build them with whatever focus you like. they can be hit and run specialists, crowd controllers, grapplers and even do a bit of debuffing. They have features though that are largely useful for any monk build at the same time. Pick the features you want for your build and switch things up as you go if needed, giving a really balanced and fairly strong monk subclass.

It teeters on the edge of getting a 5/5 from me, but I don’t think it’s quite there. It’s definitely close though.

4/5

Building an optimised warrior of the living weapon

Warriors of the living weapon work in much the same ways as other monks and you should find that you follow a very similar approach to your build. Below is a bunch of advice for your build.

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: There’s not much room for charisma on a monk build unfortunately.

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: 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.
History: You lack the intelligence to be good at this.
Religion: You lack the intelligence to be good at this.

Species/race

There are a few things to consider when choosing a species for a warrior of the living weapon:

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 living weapon monk.
Innate spellcasting: You can’t repeat cast spells so even with a strong wisdom score, innate spellcasting usually isn’t your best option unless you want some spells to help with stealth.
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 (unless you take nightmare shroud for manifest blow) 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.
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): 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 hit and run 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. Free uses of heroic inspiration are always going to be useful too.

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 living weapon:

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
Guide	Dexterity, constitution, wisdom	Magic initiate (druid)	stealth, survival	Cartographer’s tools
Sailor	Strength, dexterity, wisdom	Tavern brawler	Acrobatics, perception	Navigator’s tools
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. Push from martial form should combine with the push from tavern brawler too. 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 living weapon 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 – You can combine the shove from your unarmed strike and martial form to push enemies really far.
Tough – More hit points is very useful for a relatively vulnerable martial class.

General feats

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. Just be aware this crosses over in features with the traveler’s blade option form manifest blow, but taking this allows you to take something else.
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 and can help you get advantage on attacks.
Skill expert – Get really good at a skill. Stealth, sleight of hand and perception could be really good here if you need to play the scout.

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. Open hand technique and other monk features will not work with weapon attacks so you’re usually better off just using unarmed strikes.

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 for flying enemies or when fighting enemies at distance. Daggers are your best bet as you’ll get the damage boost for them being a monk weapon but shortbows can be an option when enemies are too far for a dagger.