Introduction
Do you want to punch thunder and kick fire, like some sort of incarnation of elemental power? Try the Warrior of the Elements Monk. Absolutely no relation to the Four Elements Monk of decades past, this is a true force of nature unleashing the fury of the Elemental Planes upon the battlefield. Reach out and hit foes with Elemental damage or perhaps launch a ball of energy down the court while freely moving across land, sea, or air. If these abilities appeal to you, try the Warrior of the Elements Monk today.
Our example build is a hero of the elements who needs no introduction. One that fights for harmony with the world and thwarts dangerously short-sighted villains. Be a powerful avatar of the elements and encourage your team to combine their powers for victory against overwhelming odds.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Disclaimer
- Warrior of the Elements Features
- Warrior of the Elements Backgrounds
- Warrior of the Elements Species
- Warrior of the Elements Ability Scores
- Warrior of the Elements Feats
- Warrior of the Elements Weapons
- Warrior of the Elements Armor
- Example Warrior of the Elements Build – By Your Powers Combined
Disclaimer
RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.
- : Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
- : OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
- : Good options. Useful often.
- : Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.
We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.
The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.
Warrior of the Elements Features
- : With no action cost
and a Focus Point cost of 1, Elemental Attunement is cheap enough to use in
almost every encounter.
- : 10 feet of additional reach puts you well outside of other creatures’ reach. It’s not entirely clear if this affects your reach for Opportunity Attacks, but I think it’s intended to do so.
- : Changing damage types allows you to easily avoid damage resistances. The push/pull effects let you break grapples, move enemies into dangerous positions, and position them to be hit with AOE damage. The text also says “toward or away”, but omits the word “directy”, so it appears that you can use this to move enemies off the ground to get easy falling damage.
- : Elementalism is fun to play with, but has essentially no mechanical effect.
- : Fireball radius and you can change the damage type, but less damage and shorter range. You can use Flurry of Blows with Elemental Strikes to push/pull enemies into the area, allowing you to reliably hit large numbers of enemies.
- : Fly 15 feet above your enemies, punch them with your 15-foot reach, haul them into the air, drop them for 1d6 falling damage. Use Flurry of Blows to do this 5 times per turn.
- Elemental Epitome: More additions to Elemental Attunement.
- : Easy, adaptable damage resistance. Changing damage types multiples times mid-combat is rarely useful, but non-spellcaster enemies can rarely deal multiple types of non-weapon damage.
- : This turns Step of the Wind into a way to race past enemies for automatic damage. The damage per target is poor, unfortunately, so this only matters if there is a large number of enemies in a small enough area to hit a bunch of them. And if that’s the case, you should be using Elemental Burst in most cases.
- : An extra 1d12 damage once per turn.
Warrior of the Elements Backgrounds
Monks use Dexterity to hit things and Wisdom determines the save DCs of Monk features,and also adds to their Armor Class. Add a little Constitution to round things out and we’re good. For backgrounds, our priority is Dexterity and Wisdom, because we need to hit things and we have a few save DCs that we want to do well. We could also swing Dexterity and Constitution if we really want a specific feat. Guide, Sailor, Scribe, and Wayfarer all allow for Dexterity and Wisdom. Options that allow for Dexterity and Constitution are Charlatan, Criminal, Guide, and Soldier.
- (PHB): Charlatan and Scribe both grant Skilled, and Wisdom does more for us than Constitution.
- (PHB): Alert helps us go first more often, allowing superior positioning. The only thing holding Criminal back for us is the lack of Wisdom.
- (PHB): It has Wisdom and Dexterity and if you want a bit of actual magic in your Monk, you can’t go wrong with Guide. To really live that Monk lifestyle choose Mending and Goodberry so you never have to buy food or clothes ever.
- (PHB): Dexterity, Wisdom, and a few improvements to our Unarmed attacks from Tavern Brawler. Pretty good choice.
- (PHB): Additional Skills are always a good thing and we can get Dexterity and Wisdom out of the deal too.
- (PHB): We don’t use Weapons and Savage Attacker only works with Weapons.
- (PHB): Free Advantage or Disadvantage a few times per day on a Background that gives us Dexterity and Wisdom. Sounds pretty good to me.
For information and advice regarding Origin Feats, including those granted by your Background, see the Warrior of the Elements Feats section, below.
Warrior of the Elements Species
(PHB): We’ll be getting flight from Stride of the Elements, so the flight we could potentially gain from Aasimar is a little redundant. The resistance and Darkvision could be useful sometimes, but the save from Necrotic Shroud is Charisma-based, which we will likely dump.
(PHB): We punch thunder and kick fire, but we could have the option to breathe an element as well. Unfortunately, like the Aasimar, the Flight becomes redundant eventually. We could choose Green Dragonborn to have Poison Breath and Poison Resistance, which does not overlap with Elemental Attunement.
(PHB): Instead of a Green Dragonborn, we could be a Dwarf for Poison Resistance and gain additional hit points and longer Darkvision.
(PHB):Of the options available to Elves, Wood Elf offers the most to us. The additional speed is nice, Druidcraft is a fun utility cantrip, Longstrider is even more speed for an hour a day, and Pass Without Trace is a massive bonus to Stealth for up to an hour as well.
(PHB): The Advantage on Int, Wis, and Cha saves is pretty nice to protect us from terrible effects. The cantrips are fun utility options.
(PHB): Some of these giants are elementally themed, for additional damage a few times per day, and Hill’s Tumble is a great way to prone a target without granting a save to avoid it. Large Form grants additional speed and also allows us to Grapple up to a Huge target.
(PHB): Advantage on saves against being Frightened is good. Being able to move through the spaces of larger creatures works well with Patient Defense or Step of the Wind, so that we can zoom across the field in very direct lines without provoking. Lucky is good for everyone. Naturally Stealthy might not seem super useful at first, but we can hide behind an ally and then use our Martial Arts with Reach as a Bonus Action to Unarmed Attack with Advantage while Hidden.
(PHB): An extra skill and an extra Origin Feat can do nice things for us.
(PHB): Adrenaline Rush is redundant with Step of the Wind. Darkvision is good. Relentless Endurance is nice insurance on a relatively frail martial class, but it’s not enough on its own.
(PHB): Chthonic for resistance to Necrotic is nice. If we set the saving throws to Wisdom, we should eventually have it decently high, but we would honestly prefer to punch our problems.
Warrior of the Elements Ability Scores
: Thanks to Martial Arts, we use Dexterity for almost everything that Strength does, except for Strength checks, which are usually Athletics.
: Martial Arts turns this into our almost everything score.
: We use this to not die.
: If we want to use some knowledge skills, we could spare points here.
: Wisdom is half of our AC and also determines the Saving Throw DC for all of our Monk abilities.
: If we want some social skills, we could spare some points here.
| POINT BUY | STANDARD ARRAY | |
|---|---|---|
| STR | 8 | 8 |
| DEX | 15 | 15 |
| CON | 15 | 13 |
| INT | 8 | 10 |
| WIS | 15 | 14 |
| CHA | 8 | 12 |
Warrior of the Elements Feats
Origin Feats from Suggested Backgrounds
- (PHB): More skills are great, but we can just pick Scribe for skills and Wisdom.
- (PHB): Alert and having Dexterity as a primary stat is great for going first often. The skills and tools are also great. Having a Constitution increase instead of a Wisdom increase is the main drawback here.
- (PHB): Dexterity and Wisdom are the stats we want. For Magic Initiate I suggest Mending and Goodberry to never go hungry or have to buy new clothes.
- (PHB): All we do is punch people. The 1d4 part is overwritten by our Martial Arts, but the re-rolls are great and the Push is useful because it has no save. Also one of the Dexterity and Wisdom options.
- (PHB): More skills. Dexterity and Wisdom. Nothing bad here.
- (PHB): Savage Attacker only works with Weapons. We don’t use weapons.
- (PHB): Free Advantage (or Disadvantage on enemy attacks) PB times per day. Pretty good.
General Feats
- (PHB): We will eventually Fly, but having a Climb speed is nice until then. Monks have bonus speed so getting to use Hop Up to lose less of our speed when having to stand up is good. Jumping is ok, too.
- (PHB): We can Dash as a bonus action, so getting 10 more speed on a Dash is nice. If we Step of the Wind to Disengage at the same time, we can back away from a target and move back in for a Charge attack.
- (PHB): While we can still hit things with our normal bludgeoning damage, we don’t get to use our cool features unless we’re using Elemental Damage, so we’re giving up a lot of the feat’s utility.
- (PHB): We have 15 feet of reach with our Unarmed Attacks, so we can grapple at 15 feet away. We want this entire feat. Punch and Grab a target to have Advantage on all further attacks in the round. Then, to add insult to injury, we can Dash as a bonus action with Fast Wrestler and drop people off cliffs or cheese grater the poor sod across an ally’s Spike Growth.
- (PHB): Monks go fast, but we can go faster if we want. More importantly, because we can Dash as a Bonus Action, we can ignore Difficult Terrain as a Bonus Action. It’s a nice option.
Epic Boons
- (PHB): Decide to hit instead of missing. Good for someone who punches all the time.
- (PHB): This is great if we would rather punch with our Bonus Action than Patient Defense or Step of the Wind.
- (PHB): We just got a feature called Superior Defense that can give us Resistance to everything but Force damage for a minute at the cost of 3 Focus Points. We also have the ability to resist the basic elemental types of Fire, Cold, Lighting, Acid, and Thunder for 10 minutes at the cost of 1 Focus Point. If your campaign is consistently dealing with Necrotic, Psychic, Radiant, or Poison types, you might want to pick this up to guard against one of those all the time instead of having to burn the Focus Points on the 1 minute everything but Force shield.
- (PHB): More hit points to not die. More Healing from most healing sources. Good feat.
- (PHB): We already bypass these resistances by doing Elemental Damage, so the only part we would care about is the bonus on natural 20s, which isn’t very reliable.
- (PHB): A free heal when we hit 0 once per day is nice, and the pool of healing d10s is also nice, but Boon of Fortitude is better for not hitting 0 in the first place.
- (PHB): If you’re just looking for an ability increase that can go anywhere, Proficiency in everything and a single Expertise isn’t a terrible option.
- (PHB): We can already Disengage as a Bonus Action and we don’t necessarily need another 30 feet of movement.
- (PHB): Turning Invisible as a Bonus Action is neat, but it breaks if we do anything useful. The Resistance to nearly everything in the Dark is potentially useful, so long as nobody argues that your Elemental Attunement is throwing off sparks to brighten up the room.
- (PHB): We can see everything.
Warrior of the Elements Weapons
Just punch everything.
Warrior of the Elements Armor
We have Unarmored Defense. But also, wear a Robe and Wizard Hat so everyone thinks you’re an Evoker. It’ll be funny, I promise.
Example Warrior of the Elements Build – By Your Powers Combined
Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart!
Go Planet!
The Planeteers
Who else can fly and control the elements to fight Evil? You weren’t expecting the Avatar were you?
Ability Scores
We care most about Dexterity, but also care about Wisdom. We put the rest of our points into Constitution and then we take a Background that allows us to boost +2 Dexterity and +1 Wisdom. For us that is the Wayfarer.
| POINT BUY | BACKGROUND ADJUSTMENT | LEVEL 20 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| STR | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| DEX | 15 | 17 | 24 |
| CON | 14 | 14 | 14 |
| INT | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| WIS | 15 | 16 | 24 |
| CHA | 8 | 8 | 8 |
Background
We’re going with Wayfarer, because Captain Planet just kinda lives everywhere. Also, 90s cartoon protagonists are made of unnatural luck.
Species
We’ll be going with Human, because the Power is Yours. Also this grants us an additional Origin Feat, Alert, and a bonus skill proficiency, Perception.
Skill and Tool Proficiencies
Wayfarer gets us Insight and Stealth as well as Thieves’ tools. From Monk, we’ll add Acrobatics to perform flying stunts and History to teach the viewers about the History of recycling. Being Human allows us to pick up Perception.
Feats and Ability Score Increases
Background: Lucky – A growing pool of free advantage on attacks or quick dodging helps us feel a lot more like a 90s cartoon superhero.
Human: Alert – With high Dexterity and PB to Initiative, we can save the day in the nick of time.
At level 4: Grappler – We have 15 feet of reach with our Unarmed Attacks, which means, because Grappling is now a function of Unarmed Attacks, we can grapple people from 15 feet away. So we can attempt a grapple on our first punch in a turn and, if successful, we’ll have free Advantage on every follow up attack. Fast Wrestler is just the cherry on top because we have fast movement as a Monk and can even Dash as a Bonus Action for more speed to drag people absurd distances, including into the air once we gain our Fly speed. +1 Dexterity 17 to 18.
At level 8: Ability Score Improvement – +2 Dexterity 18 to 20. We want to cap off our Dexterity now so that we can start to work on Wisdom next time.
At level 12: Skill Expert – We’ll become proficient in Perception so that we can find things better, which compliments our high Wisdom. We’ll take Expertise in Insight because we have to represent the Power of Heart to really be Captain Planet. +1 Wisdom 16 to 17.
At level 16: Ability Score Improvement – +2 Wisdom 17 to 19. Remember that Wisdom is the key for our Save DCs and also for half of our AC. We’re setting up for the Epic Boon which we’ll be taking to move Wisdom to 20.
At level 18: Boon of Truesight – Now we have that classic Superhero Vision where we can see everything. +1 Wisdom 19 to 20.
Levels
| LEVELS | Feats and Features | Notes and Tactics |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Martial Arts Unarmored Defense Lucky Alert Skills and Tools Acrobatics History Insight Perception Stealth Thieves’ Tools | Martial Arts means that Dexterity takes over for Strength for the use of Unarmed Strikes, Grappling, and Shoving. It also gives us the power to punch people as a Bonus Action. This is a little stronger than fighting with two weapons because we still add our Dexterity Mod to the damage. Unarmored Defense just adds our Wisdom to our Dexterity for AC. Right now that puts us at 16 AC. Lucky lets us gain Advantage and impose Disadvantage a few times each day, growing with our PB. So twice a day for now. Alert helps us, or an ally if we choose to swap Initiative, go first more often. |
| 2 | Monk’s Focus -Flurry of Blows -Patient Defense -Step of the Wind Unarmored Movement Uncanny Metabolism | Focus Points are the fuel that we use to activate many of our Monk powers, but we also gain a few options that are free and can be upgraded with Focus Points. Patient Defense allows us to Disengage as a Bonus Action and allows us to add Dodge by spending a point. Step of the Wind allows us to Dash as a Bonus Action and allows us to add Disengage by spending a point. Flurry of Blows is essentially an upgrade to Martial Arts where we can punch twice during the Bonus Action if we spend a point. Unarmored Movement allows us to move faster if we’re not wearing armor. Uncanny Metabolism gives us a way, once per day, to get all of our Focus Points back while rolling Initiative if we’ve not had time to short rest before a fight breaks out. Great feature to put some fuel back in the tank in an emergency without letting a Monk burn more than their daily total in a single fight. |
| 3 | Deflect Attacks Warrior of the Elements -Elemental Attunement -Manipulate Elements | We can reduce incoming Bludgeoning, Piercing, or Slashing damage as a Reaction, and if we reduce it all the way to 0, we have the option to spend a Focus Point to send the attack at another target. As we take our subclass, we gain quite a good feature right off the bat. For the cost of a Focus Point that we spend as a Free Action when our turn begins, we can gain 15 feet of Reach, elemental damage for Unarmed Attacks, and the ability to push or pull targets whenever we deal this elemental damage. For ten minutes. Long enough to possibly get in two fights. Being a Free Action, this doesn’t collide with anything else we need to do with our Action or Bonus Action. |
| 4 | Feat: Grappler Dexterity +1 (17=>18) Slow Fall | With Grappler, we get to have our cake and eat it too for one Unarmed Strike each turn. Under normal circumstances, we have to choose between Damage and Grapple, but with Grappler, we can do both. Once we’ve gotten a successful Grab we have Advantage against the target. For most Monks this is good, but because we have Reach on our Unarmed Strikes we can also Grapple from that much safer 15 foot distance. Slow Fall is a good safety tool for occasions when we’re falling. We have 17 AC now. |
| 5 | Extra Attack Stunning Strike | Punch twice (as an Action). Ignore that we’ve already been punching twice (by spending a Focus Point as a Bonus Action). With Stunning Strike, the target has to make a Save or be Stunned on a failure. On a success, the target is instead slowed to half-speed and the next attack against the target has Advantage. This is very good. |
| 6 | Empowered Strikes Elemental Burst | We gain Force damage as an option for our Unarmed Strikes. This is nice whenever we need Force, but remember that our ability to push and pull depends on using the other Elemental damage types. For 2 Focus Points we can toss a variable damage type fireball with damage equal to three martial arts dice. This will be useful from time to time as we need to deal with large crowds of weaker enemies. If you can hit three or more enemies, you should almost certainly use Elemental Burst. If you’re going to hit fewer than three, it may be more efficient to spend those points on something else. |
| 7 | Evasion | We’re better at Dexterity Saves.Getting out of close scrapes is just one of those things that 90s Superheros do every day. |
| 8 | Feat: Ability Score Improvement Dexterity +2 (18=>20) | We’re capping off Dexterity here because it allows us to begin improving Wisdom with our next Feat. This also pushes our AC to 18. |
| 9 | Acrobatic Movement | We can run on walls and water, but we cannot stand on them. Cartoon physics for a Cartoon Hero like Captain Planet. |
| 10 | Heightened Focus -Flurry of Blows -Patient Defense -Step of the Wind Self-Restoration | Our primary Focus Point powers gain upgrades. More punches with Flurry of Blows. Temporary Hit Points with Patient Defense for that Superheroic Durability. The ability to Superhero carry someone to safety with Step of the Wind. Remove Charmed, Frightened, or Poisoned at the end of our turn. Great conditions to remove. We also no longer receive penalties for not eating. Still need to sleep though. |
| 11 | Stride of the Elements | Now we can fly (and swim). Thanks to Grappler or Heightened Focus, we can carry creatures to safety through the sky like a real Superhero. |
| 12 | Feat: Skill Expert Investigation Proficiency Insight Expertise Wisdom +1 (16=>17) | We can’t protect the environment if we can’t find the eco-villains, so we pick up Investigation to gather evidence of pollution. We already have all the other elements, now Expertise in Insight is our power of Heart. |
| 13 | Deflect Energy | We can now use Deflect Attacks on all damage types. Nice upgrade. |
| 14 | Disciplined Survivor | Proficiency in every saving throw sounds Superheroic to me. We can also reroll failed saves for a Focus Point. |
| 15 | Perfect Focus | We can no longer start any combat with less than 4 Focus Points. Conveniently, it still only costs 1 Focus Point to be Elementally Attuned for ten minutes, so we can always Fly in combat. Superheroing 24/7. |
| 16 | Feat: Ability Score Improvement Wisdom +2 (17=>19) | We’re just lining Wisdom up to be increased to 20 by our Epic Boon. Our AC is 19 now. |
| 17 | Elemental Epitome | While in Elemental Attunement: We gain Resistance that we can alter at the start of each turn. We can deal damage to a creature that we move adjacent to during Step of the Wind. We do extra damage once per turn with an Unarmed Strike. And because this is all part of that 1 Focus Point free action Elemental Attunement, we’ll be able to use this in every fight in the war against pollution. |
| 18 | Superior Defense | If being Resistant to just one Element isn’t enough, we can become Resistant to everything but Force for a minute at the cost of 3 Focus Points. This is truly Superheroic resilience. |
| 19 | Epic Boon: Boon of Truesight Wisdom +1 (19=>20) | Pushing our Wisdom to 20 for 20 AC and also gaining 60 Feet of Truesight to see everything all the time. No pollution can hide from Captain Planet! |
| 20 | Body and Mind Dexterity +4 (20=>24) Wisdom +4 (20=>24) | So our AC was 20 and now it’s 24 as our Dexterity and Wisdom have both jumped by 4 points. Our attack bonus is now +17 and our saving throw DC for Focus Point abilities and Unarmed Strike effects is 21. Go Planet! |
