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Best Feats For Monks In Baldur's Gate 3

Published

2 days ago

January 5, 2025

Christoph Rediske

Summary

Table of Contents

The Alert feat grants a +5 initiative bonus, crucial for Monks to act early in combat and prevent surprises.
The Athlete feat boosts core skills, movement abilities, and jump distance for Monks seeking agility.
The Ability Score Improvement feat boosts Dexterity by +4 for Monks, ensuring hits and improved attacks.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is based on Dungeons & Dragons rules when it comes to character creation, which means that every player has to choose certain Feats to give their custom character unique powers and abilities. Typically, players will get three opportunities across the game to learn a feat, with Monks learning feats at levels four, eight, and twelve.

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Each Feat is an opportunity to upgrade a character, and some can turn any Monk into a powerhouse capable of dealing upwards of 100 damage per turn. Picking the right Feats can ensure that a character can hold their own against any foe.

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While the three Monk subclasses provide different flavors of combat, the overall workings of the class tend to fall short of other options, which is where the careful choice of different Feats is involved. Monks are limited to damage and support when it comes to party roles, but a few wise choices of Feats can improve their abilities.

1

Tough

Increased Durability In All Situations

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Stats: Gain +2 HP per level up and is applied retroactively

It’s in a Monk’s nature to get up close and personal with the enemy to take advantage of their many skills that only activate when in proximity with hostiles. This naturally has the downside of always putting Monk in the line of fire during combat.

Tough alleviates this weakness a little bit by increasing the number of hit points the Monk gains on every level up. Two additional HP points might not seem like a lot at first glance, but they quickly add up. And since this feat is applied retroactively, there is no downside to picking this up late in a playthrough.

2

Weapon Master

Useful For A Class That Doesnt Use Weapons

Stats: Increase either Dexterity or Strength by +1, and gain Proficiency in four Weapon Types of your choice.

One of the reasons that players might be reluctant to play a Monk is because of the lack of weapons. This class is notorious for their combat talents without weapons, but the fact is that Monks can use Simple Weapons and Shortswords, and this can include others depending on the choice of race. Monks that are Elves, for example, can use short bows and longbows.

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Weapon Master lets the player choose four more Weapon Types, and popular choices are weapons with a long reach. These include javelins or glaives, which are a step up from simple weapons of a similar design, like a spear. Adding distance weapons is also a wise choice if the character doesn’t have extra racial weapon proficiencies.

3

Alert

Ensure A Monk Is Never Surprised

Stats: Grants initiative bonus, prevents characters from being surprised

The Alert Feat is a fantastic feat for any character to take, but it’s undoubtedly a must-have for any Monk. This feat provides a huge +5 bonus on initiative rolls, which works slightly differently in Baldur’s Gate 3.

Initiative, unlike in the tabletop game, uses a single d4, instead of a d20, and adds a player’s dexterity modifier. This means the +5 bonus represents a huge increase in initiative bonus, which almost guarantees that a Monk will be taking action very early in combat.

This Feat pairs very well with any Monk character, who uses Dexterity as their primary ability anyway, meaning the +5 bonus to Initiative will also stack with a Monk’s dex modifier on initiative rolls, which allows them to hit early in combat and secure important kills or objectives. Alert also prevents characters from being surprised, which can be great if a Monk needs to jump to the defense of their party after a particularly sneaky ambush.

4

Skilled

Improve Party Weaknesses

Stats: Become proficient in two skills of choice, so better to get this Feat at lower levels.

Skilled allows players to pick and choose three skills for their character to become proficient in. Not only is this useful for the party Face, which is the character that will be doing all of the dialogue checks, but it’s also useful for exploration and discovery.

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Ideally, players should aim to cover all their bases with their party composition and make sure that the members cover each other’s weaknesses. The Skilled Feat allows a character to fill in the gaps in a party’s proficiencies without having to respec from scratch.

5

Athlete

Improve Core Skills And Movement Abilities

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Stats: Improve core skills and increase jump distance

The Athlete feat provides a +1 bonus to either Strength or Dexterity, either of which are great options for a Monk to increase. If they opt to increase their strength, this will pay off when they can eventually learn the Savage Attacker feat, or the increase to Dexterity will help with initiative rolls, and ensure their unarmed strikes are hitting more frequently.

That’s not all, however, as the Athlete feat uses 50% less movement speed when a character recovers from the Prone condition, and increases their jump distance by a whopping 50%, which allows them to traverse any battlefield with ease, and take out tricky enemies who might be hiding behind cover, or using other enemies as cannon fodder.

6

Ability Score Improvement

Improve A Monk’s Dexterity

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Stats: Improve key skills; one skill by two points, or two skills by one point

Monks use Dexterity as their primary skill, meaning it is critical that players get this stat up as high as they can, as quickly as they can. Baldur’s Gate 3 puts some limits in place when creating a character, and as such, players won’t be able to increase any skills in the character creation process beyond 17. An Ability Score Improvement can bump this number up by two by level four, providing a meaty +4 bonus to attack rolls.

This is a great improvement, especially to take early on, to ensure a Monk is hitting their target more frequently. When Monks are capable of delivering several attacks per turn, it’s of the utmost importance that these attacks are hitting, making the Ability Score Improvement a feat that is not to be slept on.

7

Lucky

Gain The Power Of Luck To Reshape Battles

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Stats: Turn failures and misses into successes, and grants three Luck points, which can be spent as a reaction

The Lucky feat is unquestionably one of the most powerful feats available in Baldur’s Gate 3, and it can work incredibly well for pretty much any class although Monks in particular will get great value from this feat. It grants 3 Luck points to the player, which they can spend when they opt to, which can be used to provide extremely valuable tactical benefits.

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It allows the player to gain advantage on saving throws, ability checks, or attack rolls, which can turn a Monk missing their Stunning Strike into a critical success, or it can even force enemies to reroll their attack rolls, which can not only be incredibly useful to save a Monk’s skin but can also be used to defend less martially-capable allies like Wizards and Sorcerers.

8

Mage Slayer

Gain the Upper Hand Against Mages

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Stats: Counter spellcasters, but only triggers in melee range.

Among the many strengths of the Monk Class is their ability to counter specific control spells from enemies through their innate class features like Stillness of Mind and Evasion, giving them the upper hand in encounters against these enemies.

Mage Slayer takes this one step further, allowing Monks to completely counter all mages by giving them the option to use a Reaction to counterattack whenever a spell is cast in close range. The Way of Shadow Monk Subclass is best at this, as Pass Without Trace can allow them to sneak up to enemies very easily, though that isn’t a reason not to pick it up for one of the other two subclasses if players find themselves struggling against Wizards.

9

Savage Attacker

Ensure Attacks Hit Harder

Stats: Roll damage dice twice and use the higher number.

The Savage Attacker feat is perhaps most useful on a Monk, more than any other class, due to the sheer number of attacks they can dish out on their turn. This feat allows any character who makes a weapon attack to roll their damage dice twice and use the higher result. This effectively provides Advantage on damage rolls, which adds up to incredible numbers throughout a campaign.

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With Monks, who can make two attacks with one action by level 5, and can deal additional attacks using their bonus action with ease, this feat quickly pays for itself, as the increased damage begins to stack up pretty quickly. Unfortunately, it does require a Monk to utilize a melee weapon for the damage roll to roll twice, but using a bg3 quarterstaff faded 1 Quarterstaff
or some other martial weapon makes this feat incredibly valuable.

10

Mobile

Glide Across The Battlefield With Ease

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Stats: Increases movement speed and prevents reduced speed on difficult terrain while dashing.

The Mobile Feat allows Monks to traverse the battlefield with ease, which is a skill not to be underestimated. This Feat grants a significant increase in movement speed and prevents Monks from being impeded by difficult terrain when dashing. This pairs beautifully with a Monk’s Step of The Wind ability, which allows them to double their movement speed and jump without using a bonus action.

This feat can ensure Monks are placed away from danger. After all, they aren’t the best at tanking hits like a Barbarian or Fighter might be, and place themselves against spellcasters in the backline, or characters providing buffs. This feat brings incredible versatility to a Monk and ensures they aren’t caught with their pants down, so to speak.

11

Resilient

Ideal For Any Melee Fighter

Stats: Increase any ability by +1 choose one and gain Proficiency in that ability’s saving throws.

Monks usually fight in close quarters, which means they need extra Constitution, Dexterity, and better Saving Throws for those abilities. Resilient is the Feat that gives the Monk this extra protection, and it’s better to get at earlier levels to make combat and progression a bit easier.

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Most players will choose Dexterity in this case, but if this build is more about combat, Constitution will give the character some extra hit points, so it’s worth considering. It combines well with other ideal Feats for Monks, like Tavern Brawler and Tough.

12

Tavern Brawler

Increase A Monk’s Unarmed Attack Damage

Stats: Adds Strength modifier to damage rolls and improves Strength or Constitution

Tavern Brawler is almost a prerequisite for playing as a Monk because the bonus gained from this feat is so ridiculously strong that it would be silly not to take it. The Tavern Brawler Feat allows players to dish out additional damage if their attacks meet specific requirements, and one is perfect for a Monk.

Monks with Tavern Brawler can add their Strength modifier to not only their attack rolls but their damage too. When delivering multiple attacks per turn utilizing their Flurry of Blows ability, this can add up. It’s especially great for any players who build their Monk towards a Strength-based character. This feat also provides a nice +1 bonus to either Strength or Constitution scores, which is a nice bonus on top of an already incredible feat.