When the Hallow Warden ranger came out, I fell in love with the character concept, but I was disappointed with the mechanics implementation. But, this isn't a hate post about the ranger's mechanics or a ranger rebuild.
I'm looking to take the base Hallow Warden and multiclass it with Monk to live up to the promise of the subclass while avoiding the ranger's pitfalls.
This should be a horrific ambush predator that steals creatures in the night. Since this is a collaborative game, I want to lean into mechanics that benefit the party too, so I'm looking towards options that let this character benefit themselves and others.
I'd love your thoughts on how to make this work.
Build concept:
Premise:
The premise of the build is to work the Hallow Warden ranger's Wrath of the Wild into a monk build, using their Prowling Retribution and Unnerving Aura to react and radiate fear while utilizing monk grappling and movement mechanics.
Prowling Retribution. Immediately after a creature you can see within 5 feet of yourself deals damage to you or one of your allies, you can make an Opportunity Attack against that creature.
Unnerving Aura. When you transform and at the start of each of your subsequent turns, each creature of your choice in a 10-foot Emanation originating from you makes a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, a creature has the Frightened condition until the start of your next turn.
Monk feels like a smart choice here since they get dex based grapples and many chances at a grapple per turn. They also get increased movement speed, bonus action dashes, disengages, and grapples, as well as stunning strike, all of which lend to the ambush nature of the character.
This character dual wields monk weapons with nick fighting (thinking sickle for a hook flavor) for single target damage. They grapple their target when available and use their movement to isolate them so their allies can kill them quickly. They can also use items like manacles or rope to restrain the target.
Leveling:
I'm a little torn on how many Hallow Warden levels to put on this character, but my sense right now is aim for only 4. I'm able to rebuild a character's levels slightly, so my current plan is to start 1:1, then push to ranger 5 for subclass, ASI, and extra attack, then push monk for the rest, swapping ranger 5 for monk 5 between character level 8 and 9 to avoid extra attack duplication. (ranger 5/ monk 3 --> ranger 4/ monk 5)
Monk Subclass:
Shadow fits mechanically and thematically into the build pretty seamlessly and should be the obvious choice, but the unreleased mystic monk would grant access to spells like enlarge reduce to guard the main hole in the grapple-and-move technique -- when a creature is bigger than you.
3rd class:
I think there's an argument for a 1 level barbarian rage dip, or a rebuild using strength & barbarian over monk. I personally haven't explored this space too much.
A fighter action surge dip could be good, but I think that since monk relies on BA damage it isnt worth the level deviation.
Feats:
Grappler is going on this build, both for buffs to grappled movement and for advantage on attacks against the grappled creature.
The headlock feature of Street Justice is tempting to give allies advantage on attacks against them too, not to mention the buff to manacles from the Sturdy Knot feature.
Spells:
I'm a little at a loss here, and I'm hardly focusing on spells for this build. There could be a case for Entangle, or Hunter's mark at earlier levels, but nothing feels noteworthy. If i go for Mystic monk, then there may be something to talk about.
Weak spots:
This build needs to withstand damage, and wont be able to grapple bigger targets. I think the biggest thing with this build will be preying on smaller targets and not biting off more than you can chew.
Let me know your thoughts and additions!