Hone your body into a tool of destruction with this subclass from Keith Baker’s 3rd party supplement, Exploring Eberron.
Those monks that adhere to the way of the living weapon treat their body as a smith might treat a weapon; sharpening and honing it into the most powerful tool they can. While this means perfecting techniques for using their body in combat as other monks do, it also means adapting their body to become an actual weapon.
Warforged might literally sculpt their body into a more deadly weapon. Kalashtar might blend psychic energy with physical attacks, manifesting claws of shadow as they strike. Changelings will transform to give themselves bone blades or lengthened limbs. While Shifters have developed techniques to utilise the natural weaponry their body affords.
However these powers manifest, monks of the way of the living weapon will use the natural weaponry their bodies afford to perfect their martial prowess.
The Way of the living weapon is a 3rd party subclass designed by Keith Baker (creator of the Eberron setting). It can be found in his supplement Exploring Eberron on DM’s Guild. In my article below, I dive into how good this subclass is, tactics you can use and how to built an optimised living weapon monk.
At a glance
- Hit and run martial specialist
- Higher damage output than most monk subclasses
- Highly versatile with lots of options to choose from
- Potential to be great at landing plenty of conditions on enemies
4/5 – The way of the living weapon is a strong and versatile monk subclass that will deal more damage than most, but can also fit the build you want with different options for features. On top of this, it has some great flavour, helping you make a more interesting character. I’d be happy to include this subclass in my games.
Way of the living weapon features
Fists of bone and steel – Lv3
How it works
Your martial arts damage die is higher for unarmed strikes than for other monks. It starts at d6 at level 3 and increases to a d8 at level 5, d10 at level 11 and a d12 at level 17.
Tactics
- This doesn’t necessarily affect your tactics too much as unarmed strikes remain strong for a monk, but does make them more viable at earlier levels over using a monk weapon.
- It also means that using a monk weapon is less useful, especially once you hit d8 damage.
- For those wanting to use this subclass with the 2024 rules, you might notice that this is the same damage scaling as the 2024 monk gets anyway, making this feature pointless on a 2024 monk. An easy fix here is to upgrade the damage die further. This means a d8 at level 3, d10 at level 5, d12 at level 11 and 2d6 at level 17. Of course, speak to your DM before making any changes like this.
Martial discipline – Lv3
How it works
You adopt a discipline and can choose form one of 4 options that can enhance damage, reach or add extra effects to attacks.
Tactics
- If you go with the forged heart, the adamantine of your unarmed strikes won’t do a huge amount, but according to Xanathar’s Guide, it will always cause critical hits against objects which could occasionally be useful if you want to smash your way through doors or a wall of stone that’s been conjured. It also bypasses some resistances against some monsters (especially constructs).
- I do like the effects of the forged heart as your ki point will always do something. Just be aware of using it against high strength enemies.
- I think my preference though, is the traveler’s blade as it makes hit and run tactics that much easier, allowing you to avoid even getting in melee range of most creatures.
- Weretouched sounds handy for an effect that will always work, but the damage is very small and damage over time can be a pain to track and takes time to deal the effect. You’d need 3 turns just to match the extra damage you get from the forged heart (even if it is a bit more guaranteed). I’d probably avoid this one.
Mutable strike – Lv3
How it works
When you make an unarmed strike, you can choose whether it causes bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage.
Tactics
- Really, this is just for getting round the odd creature that is resistant to one but not all of these. Just adapt your damage type to your target.
Manifest blow – Lv6
How it works
One attack per turn deals an extra d6 damage of a damage type of your choice.
Tactics
- Really, the decision here is just in what damage type to use.
- You’ll bypass anything that’s resistant to non-magical attacks and there’s enough choice here to work around most enemies.
Reflexive adaptation – Lv11
How it works
Manifest blow now causes 2d6 damage and you can use a ki point to roll another d20 for an athletics or acrobatics check with a choice of which roll to take.
Tactics
- You can choose to use this once you’ve rolled for the ability check. You should have a decent idea of how well you’ve done once you’ve rolled anyway so should rarely waste ki points.
- In most cases, you should be able to choose acrobatics over athletics which is definitely your strongest option.
Perfect form – Lv17
How it works
Choose one of the 4 disciplines to enhance your endurance, damage and/or the effects your attacks cause.
Tactics
- Forged heart will generally be better than deflect missiles as its effects last until your next turn and can completely prevent being hit rather than just reducing incoming damage. It’s your best option for a durability feature.
- With 4 attacks if you include flurry of blows, traveler’s blade will potentially cause an extra 4d8 damage (average of 18) while nightmare shroud will cause an extra 24-30 damage if you can get 3 enemies within range. This means the damage from nightmare shroud has higher potential, but traveler’s blade has a chance of causing poisoned on every attack, which is very strong! Personally, I’d go with traveler’s blade as the combined damage and poisoned is very strong.
- Weretouched will get you an extra attack which would average at about 11.5 extra damage on a hit (if you have 20 dexterity). This is the lowest extra damage, but you will make 3 attacks with advantage. That extra accuracy could be enough to justify this option.
- All of these options are strong, though I’d probably favour traveler’s blade, you’ll just want to be aware of the more easily resisted poison damage.
How good is the way of the living weapon subclass?
The way of the living weapon has a bunch of features that just keep adding to your damage output. All combined, they become one of the higher damage monk subclasses.
On top of that though, is a fair amount of versatility. They can work as even better hit and run specialists, more resilient monks, a damage-focused monk or a character that’s landing conditions on enemies a lot. This versatility of options means you can build into the kind of monk you want/your party needs.
All in all, this makes the way of the living weapon not only a strong monk subclass, but it also manages to be well-balanced too. On top of this is some really unique and interesting flavour that’s reminiscent of Keith Baker’s other character options. Personally, I think this is a great subclass and one I’d happily allow in my games.
4/5
Building a way of the living weapon monk
At their core, the way of the living weapon still follows the same kind of approach as other monks, if with a little nuance (particularly around weapon use).
Below I’ve gone through how you can build an optimised living weapon monk.
Ability scores
Recommended options
Dexterity: Your most important ability score as you’ll need this for attacks and your AC.
Wisdom: Next is wisdom as this will also influence your AC as well as ki abilities and saving throws you impose.
Constitution: Monks are notoriously fragile for frontline martials. Constitution will help compensate a bit for your lack of durability.
Options to avoid
Strength: Monks have no need for strength as attacks are made with dexterity.
Intelligence: You have little need for this.
Charisma: You’re not built for face skills, leave this for bards, paladins and other charisma-centric classes. Monks don’t have the space to focus on charisma.
| 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: Your dexterity should be much better than your strength so take acrobatics and don’t bother with athletics.
History: If you don’t have a wizard in the party, then this is a decent knowledge skill and there may not be anyone better for this than you.
Religion: The same goes for religion.
Stealth: Monks are capable of making backup rogues if you don’t have one in the party, especially with the right background. Stealth is also regularly useful.
Options to avoid
Athletics: Go with acrobatics as you’ll be strong in dexterity and ignore this.
Insight: You won’t have the face skills or the intelligence to really back this up so I wouldn’t bother.
Races
I’d consider a race that enhances the following kinds of features for a living weapon monk:
- Damage: Living weapon monks will want to be dealing as much damage as possible. Anything that can help enhance your damage output will be useful.
- Ability scores: For races that prescribe your ability score increases, I’d prioritise dexterity and wisdom with constitution as a third option.
- Resilience: You’ll also find yourself on the front lines of combat a lot, but without a lot of resilience. Grab traits like damage resistances and other resilience features from your race to help you last in combat.
- Hit and run: To take survivability a step further, anything that can help with hit and run tactics will be useful too. Something like flight could be especially useful as you can dodge in and out of range while flying out of reach of your foes.
Recommended races
The races of D&D 5e have gone through various iterations. Below I’ve recommended races that work well with a living weapon monk using the most recently published version from D&D 5e (2014).
- Aarakocra – Flight is the main thing here. This will keep you much safer when using hit and run tactics.
- Aasimar – A couple of damage resistances will help your resilience while some light healing can help you revive unconscious allies. You can also grab radiant soul for temporary flight which you should use in especially challenging encounters.
- Bugbear – Extra damage when you strike early can work nicely for a high dexterity monk. The extra reach will help you a lot with hit and run tactics and allow you to go for a different martial discipline than traveler’s blade. Stealth proficiency is good for a monk too.
- Gem Dragonborn – Temporary flight for hit and run tactics, a damage resistance of your choice and a breath weapon for some AoE damage (which monks are notoriously poor at).
- Duergar – Some damage and condition resiliences will up your durability and invisibility is really handy for stealth.
- Deep Gnome – Magic resistance will make you much more resilient and advantage on stealth checks work great for a monk.
- Warforged – Some resistances, constitution increase and another ability score of your choice and +1 AC make for an especially resilient living weapon monk.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds are great for adding a bit of flavour to a character and providing some small skill perks, gear and minor abilities.
Generally for a monk, you’ll want to focus on wisdom and dexterity based skills. In fact, monks don’t get many skill options, but most would do well as scouts and backup rogues and a background can help them make up that ground with things like perception, sleight of hand and thieves’ tools proficiency. With that in mind, below are some of the better background options for you:
- Criminal – The important parts here are the stealth and thieves’ tools proficiencies which is enough to make you a decent rogue without investing in feats.
- Urban bounty hunter – Stealth and thieves’ tools are good, but you can get stealth through your class and the face skills aren’t great for a monk. Still a decent option though.
- Urchin – Your best option for a monk that moonlights as a rogue. Sleight of hand, stealth and thieves’ tools proficiency are all crucial here and proficiency with a disguise kit is a handy bonus.
Feats
When taking an ability score increase or using a variant Human, you can gain access to feats, taking one instead of the ability score increase. Just check with your DM that they allow feats.
One of the challenges with a monk is their heavy reliance on getting their ability scores high enough. You’re aiming for 20 in dexterity and wisdom (for that 20 AC) and getting your constitution as high as possible too. Feats will get in the way of this so it’s important to be aware of the trade off here.
- Crusher – Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage, and this will help you with hit and run tactics if you haven’t opted for longer reach in your martial discipline as you’ll be able to push enemies away.
- Lucky – Making 3 rerolls a day is powerful for any class!
- Shadow touched – Invisibility will be beneficial for stealth if you go that route. Another spell is decent. You’ll only get 1 casting per long rest, but your wisdom should be high enough to make you a capable enough caster.
- Skill expert – If you want to be really good at a skill, use this. It’ll also help you bridge the gap between yourself and a rogue and lets you pick up an ability score increase.
- Skilled – If you need to play a backup rogue, this can get you proficiency in things like perception and sleight of hand.
- Tough – More hit points means more resilience which is important for a living weapon monk.
Weapons
You should be using unarmed strikes most of the time. This is especially the case for living weapon monks who lose the benefits of their unarmed strikes when using monk weapons. There’s possibly a case for using a spear for d8 damage at levels 3 and 4, but you’ll lose out on the benefits of martial discipline if you do this.
You’ll need a ranged option and a javelin is probably your best choice here for when you can’t get into melee range (or don’t want to).
Armor
Don’t wear armor. Even if you end up proficient in any kind of armor, monks need to be unarmored to benefit from their other features.
Other class guides
Not sure a way of the living weapon monk is for you. Why not check out one of our other class guides for more inspiration.
