One D&D Shadow Monk Build Guide – 2025 Update

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Why Shadow Monk?

Shadow Monk Abilities Ranked

Quick Level Up Guide

Best Magic Items For Shadow Monk

Here’s a list of magic items you may want to look for/ask your DM about specifically for this subclass – magic items that literally anybody would want (like the Bag of Holding) won’t be mentioned. For a full tier list ranking of the available magic items, check out the link below!

Common

Walloping Ammunition – B Tier – While not the highest impact magic item around, this is free value if you’re using a bow.

Silvered Weapon – C Tier – Far from a necessity on this build, it’s just a no opportunity cost add on to your weapon.

Uncommon

Wraps of Unarmed Power (+1) – S Tier – A necessity for any Monk.

Boots of Striding and Springing – A Tier – Additional movement speed to ensure you get to your chosen opponent on turn one is definitely useful.

Staff of the Adder – A Tier – While it may not be the best weapon for long, this is pretty solid in the short term.

+1 Weapon – A Tier – If you’re using a weapon, getting an upgraded one is a pretty big priority.

Weapon of Warning – A Tier – A solid weapon that may be better than a +1 weapon.

Bracers of Archery – B Tier – A solid way to give your Monk a better weapon and better damage with it.

Rare

Wraps of Unarmed Power (+2) – S Tier – A necessity for any Monk.

Boots of Speed – A Tier – Likely an upgrade to Boots of Striding and Springing for you, but not a necessity if you already have those.

+2 Weapon – A Tier – You’re always looking for your best possible weapon as a martial character!

Bracers of Defense – B* Tier – It’s going to be hard to beat this item for a Monk, even if it’s in B tier.

Very Rare

Wraps of Unarmed Power (+3) – S Tier – A necessity for any Monk.

Energy Bow – A Tier – Gives you even more options on your ranged attacks.

Oathbow – A Tier – An excellent bow for a Monk.

Manual of Quickness of Action – A Tier – Anything that can increase your Dexterity is going to be good!

Tome of Understanding – A Tier – Anything that can increase your Wisdom is going to be good!

+3 Weapon – A Tier – The best possible weapon beyond some dope magic weapon!

Animated Shield – B Tier – A nice AC boost for you that’s pretty free.

Legendary

Defender – A Tier – A great weapon that can convert into more AC as needed.

Rod of Lordly Might – B Tier – A solid weapon for Monks who normally can’t do better.

The Ultimate One D&D Monk Guide

Level One Build

Species: Goliath (Hill Giant)

Attributes:

	POINT BUY
STRENGTH	8
DEXTERITY	15 (+2 background) = 17
CONSTITUTION	15 (+1 background) = 16
INTELLIGENCE	8
WISDOM	15
CHARISMA	8

Class: Monk

Class Features: Unarmored Defense, Martial Arts

Skill Proficiencies: Acrobatics and Insight

Background: Criminal

Starting Equipment: Spear, 5 Daggers, Artisan’s Tools, Explorer’s Pack, and 11 gp + 50 gp from background

Species: Goliath

A great species for martial characters and you have the excellent benefit from Hill Giant ancestry to knock someone down so you can grapple them afterwards to keep them down.

Attributes

	POINT BUY
STRENGTH	8
DEXTERITY	15 (+2 background) = 17
CONSTITUTION	15 (+1 background) = 16
INTELLIGENCE	8
WISDOM	15
CHARISMA	8

A great stat distribution for any Monk as you need high Dexterity for good damage and AC, high Constitution to stay alive, and a decent Wisdom score as Monks care about that.

Proficiencies: Acrobatics and Insight

This is going to be the standard proficiencies for Monks, especially if you’re taking the Criminal background.

Background: Criminal

The best background for Monks as it gives you good stat distributions, the best feat for Monks in Alert, and solid skill proficiencies with Sleight of Hand and Stealth.

Starting Equipment – Spear, 5 Daggers, Artisan’s Tools, Explorer’s Pack, and 11 gp + 50 gp from background

Standard starting equipment for a Monk, not that you get much to begin with.

Class – Monk

For Monk you get two abilities to work with immediately – Unarmored Defense and Martial Arts.

Unarmored Defense is simple, if you’re not wearing armor your AC is 10 + DEX + WIS which will give you a reasonable AC to work with, but not as high as a martial character would probably like.

Martial Arts is the classic feature of Monks that are really multiple abilities in one. First, you get to use Dexterity instead of Strength for unarmed attacks. Second, your unarmed strikes or monk weapon get to deal an inherent d6 of damage that will scale up as you gain levels. Finally, you can use your bonus action to make an unarmed strike. Overall an excellent feature that lets Monks deal solid damage.

The Build Level 2 Onward

Level 2-5

Level 2

Class Features: Monk’s Focus, Unarmored Movement, Uncanny Metabolism

Level 2 for Monk brings not one, not two, but three new features!

Monk’s Focus is yet another standout ability of the monk which is extremely similar to the fifth edition, Ki, but with a few updated features. First off you get Flurry of Blows which means you can make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action if you spend a Focus point. Second, you get Patient Defense which lets you Dodge as a bonus action, but if you spend a Focus point, you can Dodge and Disengage as the same bonus action. Finally, you get Step of the Wind which means you can Dash as a bonus action, or if you spend a focus point, Dash and Disengage as the same bonus action. Overall, these abilities are very good, and although they are somewhat limited by your Focus points, they are pretty powerful.

Your next ability is Unarmored Movement which gives you an additional 10 feet of movement speed if you aren’t wearing armor or a shield. Definitely a great ability to help you weave in and out of combat.

Finally, you get Uncanny Metabolism which, once a day, lets you refresh your Focus points and gain some health when you enter a combat. This is a very strong ability and much needed for Monks to not feel like they are useless after the first fight or two.

Level 3

Class: Warrior of Shadow

Class Features: Shadow Arts, Deflect Attacks

Level 3 brings your subclass, Warrior of Shadow, with a new subclass feature as well as a new Monk feature.

You get Shadow Arts to start out with that gives you a bit of magic, Minor Illusion and Darkness to be precise. Furthermore, the Darkness you cast you can see into which is an extremely powerful feature as your attacks will have advantage where all opposing attacks will have disadvantage, an extremely potent ability at level 3 all the way to level 20!

Your classic Monk feature, Deflect Attacks, is much more exciting by comparison. You can trade your reaction to reduce the damage dealt to you by an attack by 1d10 + DEX + your Monk level which will be really high impact in the earlier levels. Then if you reduce this damage to 0, you can spend a Focus point to redirect the attack which is both a great and super thematic ability. Definitely one of the Monks better features as well as a really good use of your reaction.

Level 4

Feat: Grappler (DEX)

Class Features: Slow Fall

Level 4 brings your first feat, and for every Monk, you have to pick up Grappler. Grappler simply does too much for Monks as you can combine a grapple attempt and an unarmed strike, you have an easier time hitting your grappled target, and you get no movement penalties with grappling makes this an incredible feat. Whether you’re particularly interested in grappling or not, it’s simply too good now to not utilize.

Monk also gets a class feature this level with Slow Fall. As the name implies, this ability helps you slow your fall if you have something nearby you can brace against. Realistically this isn’t the best ability, but it is a cool ability and can prevent tragedy in the lower levels.

Level 5

Class Features: Extra Attack, Stunning Strike, Martial Arts Die to 1d8

Easily the most exciting feature for martial characters, level 5 brings your Extra Attack! Being able to get another full attack in is always welcome, even if it feels like Monk has plenty of attacks to go around.

Second, you gain access to the redesigned Stunning Strike! This iteration of Stunning Strike only gives you one attempt per turn to stun them until the beginning of your next turn, but now even if they pass their save, they lose a bunch of speed and your next attack is at advantage! This is still quite a strong ability and getting value out of it no matter what is really nice.

Level 6-10

Level 6

Class Features: Shadow Step, Empowered Strikes, +15 feet Unarmored Movement

Level 6 brings your next subclass ability and your next base class ability!

Shadow Step gives you a solid teleportation option when you’re in dim light or darkness giving you a lot of maneuverability options which is always very welcome on martial characters who may not have the best movement (although Monks already have the best movement out of all the martial classes).

Empowered Strikes is a simple ability to let you ignore all damage resistances with your unarmed strikes which is definitely nice!

Level 7

Class Features: Evasion

A classic and great ability, if you have a DEX saving throw and you pass it from an effect where you’d normally take half-damage, you take no damage, and if you fail, you take only half damage instead of full! This is a great ability you’re going to get a lot of mileage out of it.

Level 8

Feat: Dexterity to 20

Class Features: None

While you would love to take a feat at this point, maxing out your Dexterity is just too good to not do at this point. Max attack, damage, and AC is hard to ignore.

Level 9

Class Features: Unarmored Movement Improvement

Now you can pretend you’re in the Matrix by running up walls and running across water on your turn. This is excellent for travel, less needed for combat, super cool regardless.

Level 10

Class Features: Heightened Focus, Self Restoration, +20 feet Unarmored Movement

You get one and a half abilities with level 10, Heightened Focus and Self Restoration.

Heightened Focus is the half ability as it’s not an ability itself, but upgrades to your base Focus abilities. First, your Flurry of Blows now go up to 3 unarmed attacks which is awesome, your Patient Defense gives you temporary health to help you stay alive even better, and Step of the Wind lets you bring an ally along with you. All great upgrades and very welcome.

Your second ability is Self Restoration which is similar to the old Timeless Body ability from 5e, but also lets you end charmed, frightened, and the poisoned condition on yourself which makes failing those saving throws way less crippling.

Level 11-15

Level 11

Class Features: Improved Shadow Step, Martial Arts Die to 1d10

You get your penultimate subclass ability – Improved Shadow Step.

Shadow Step was already good, but now you don’t even need dim light or darkness to use it and you get a free unarmed strike right after you use it! While the free unarmed strike is nice, that does heavily incentivize you to teleport next to an enemy which you may want to do anyway, but that’s definitely not something you always want to do. That said, this does make Shadow Step the ultimate pursuit ability if you’re far from the enemy you’re trying to bonk.

Level 12

Feat: Inspiring Leader (WIS)

Class Features: None

This was a tough call between increasing Wisdom or increasing Constitution, but Inspiring Leader just wins out by a bit. This feat is just so good as you’re not only giving yourself more health to work with (which increasing Constitution was going to do for you anyway) on top of giving your allies more health as well! That said, if you already have an ally with Inspiring Leader, then you can opt for a different WIS feat like Fey-Touched.

Level 13

Class Features: Deflect Energy

You get an upgrade to Deflect Attacks at this level with Deflect Energy. While this only really works against elemental damage that makes an attack roll, just having more options to deflect is good, even if you’re pretty limited by how often you can use this specific part of Deflect Attacks.

Level 14

Class Features: Disciplined Survivor, +25 feet Unarmored Movement

This is a renaming of the 5e Diamond Soul feature, but it does the same thing. Having proficiency in all saving throws is already excellent, but spending a Focus point to have a reroll on a saving throw is extremely strong. The only shame about this ability is that it doesn’t come earlier as it’s easily one of the strongest Monk features.

Level 15

Class Features: Perfect Focus

Yet another ability to help sustain the Monk’s marginally limited Focus pool by always having 4 Focus points when you roll initiative rather than dealing with 0-3. While 4 is not even one third of your total pool, 4 focus points is a surprising amount for a single combat and will likely be just the right amount for your average encounter.

Level	Class Features/Feats	Notes
1	Martial Arts Unarmored Defense	Martial Arts Die 1d6
2	Monk’s Focus Unarmored Movement Uncanny Metabolism	2 Focus Points
3	Shadow Shadow Arts Deflect Attacks	3 Focus Points
4	Feat: Grappler (DEX) Slow Fall	4 Focus Points
5	Extra Attack Stunning Strike	5 Focus Points Martial Arts Die to 1d8
6	Shadow Step Empowered Strikes	6 Focus Points +15 feet Unarmored Movement
7	Evasion	7 Focus Points
8	Feat: Dexterity to 20	8 Focus Points
9	Unarmored Movement Improvement	9 Focus Points
10	Heightened Focus Self Restoration	10 Focus Points + 20 feet Unarmored Movement
11	Improved Shadow Step	11 Focus Points Martial Arts Die to 1d10
12	Feat: Inspiring Leader (WIS)	12 Focus Points
13	Deflect Energy	13 Focus Points
14	Disciplined Survivor	14 Focus Points + 25 feet Unarmored Movement
15	Perfect Focus	15 Focus Points
16	Feat: Constitution to 18	16 Focus Points
17	Cloak of Shadows	17 Focus Points Martial Arts Die to 1d12
18	Superior Defense	18 Focus Points + 30 feet Unarmored Movement
19	Epic Boon: Epic Boon of Combat Prowess	19 Focus Points
20	Body and Mind	20 Focus Points