Best Feats for Drunken Master Monk 5e
by Prince Phantom
The Drunken Master is about as good at fighting as a wasted alcoholic would realistically be. Every feature we get pushes us toward melee combat, which is exactly where a monk should never be with their D8 hit die and terrible AC, and provides us basically no defensive abilities to offset these disadvantages. Drunken Technique plays like a bandage on a cannonball wound, not even coming close to providing the maneuverability needed to ensure safety from melee attackers, and our 6th level ability only does anything when we are surrounded by opponents, exactly where we should never aim to be, and running counter to the playstyle that Drunken Technique promotes. Drunkard’s Luck is a non feature in every regard and Intoxicated Frenzy forces you to spread out the tiny amount of damage your fists do over many different enemies, assuming you have the ability to actually hit that many enemies in one turn.
This is an easy pick for the second worst monk subclass, only saved by Sun Soul being the worst thing WOTC has ever let see print. Oh right I’m supposed to tell you what feats work with this abomination. Since you picked this subclass I assume you want to see how long you can survive in melee, so I’ll recommend feats geared to that style of play, even if just picking a hand crossbow, Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter would make you a much better character.
Best Feats for Drunken Master Monk 5e
Crusher (Lv 4): This is literally the only feat in the game to empower unarmed strikes. One 5ft push per turn is decent and can help keep enemies inside area of effect spells that are cast by the actually useful members of your party, and the occasional crit to give your team advantage will make you feel like you’re actually contributing something every once in awhile.
Slasher (Lv 4): Since monks can now wield long swords as monk weapons thanks to the new feature in Tasha’s (as long as you have proficiency with long swords), you can take advantage of this pretty average feat to slow an enemy down every turn and make sure they can’t catch up to you. Pray m that you don’t have multiple enemies within range of hitting you, and the occasional crit will actually mean something, which is nice considering that a monk crit normally just means about 2.5 to 4 more damage on average than a normal attack. You can even use this and Crusher since you’ll be attacking with slashing and bludgeoning damage in the same turn.
Fey/Shadow Touched (Lv 8): Both of these are fine selections that provide some spells that actually give us useful things to do. Fey gives Misty Step and Silvery Barbs, both very nice to have, Barbs in particular allowing us to help our friends land their save or suck spells. Shadow gives Invisibility, a spell that pairs quite well with a monk’s typically high stealth score, and Silent Image, a spell that creative players can get a lot of mileage out of. I’d probably take Fey personally, but both are fine selections.
Ritual Caster (Lv 8): This feat gives us utility galore as long as we can expect to get more rituals as the campaign progresses. The biggest problem is that this isn’t a half feat, and Monks are desperate for every ability score improvement they can get since they need high scores in Wisdom, Dexterity, and Constitution.
Resilient Wisdom (Lv 12): How baffling is it that the monk doesn’t get proficiency in Wisdom saves? I get the balance of each class getting one strong save (Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom) and one less useful save (Strength, Intelligence, Charisma), but if there was ever a class that needed more defensive capabilities, it would be the monk. Anyway, take this to fix that.
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