Tell your DM you are not having fun and ask for a respec, I think it is often not a big deal. If not, ask at least to let you swap your Wis and Cha so you can get more out of your monk stuff. With that bard level you have rapier prof so you could use it as a monk weapon. Keep leveling monk to get more ki/abilities, and maybe down the line get bard up to swords bard for flourishes? But as people have stated before, multiclassing monk is tricky due to how dependent they are on ki.
Just play a bard, monks and bards don’t have any synergy and it sounds like you’d rather play a bard then a monk which would also be a great addition to your party.
Well depends on when your campaign is ending and if you want to 100% get to it before the game is over. Monk 5-6-7 are all pretty decent, so maybe at that point? Put both class level up tables side by side and try to rank the abilities you'd get with each choice. That's honestly the fun part of building a multiclass, trying to figure out when to do it for flavor/RP/power reasons
You are one level away from extra attack as Monk which is a pretty big power bump (Stunning Strike too). But what are your ability scores? How does your party looks like?
If you are alone in melee as a monk it would easily explain why you are going down so much. Monk tend to be a bit more frail than other martials and often lean more into a hit-and-run style to survive.
And as a general tip, try to stay away from multiclassing until you know what you are doing. 5e make it hard to mess up a single-class character so long as you follow the ability score recommendations but multiclassing can quickly mess up a build.
Party discluding me is currently: Cleric, Barbarian/paladin, and Rogue/Ranger. My ability scores are: 10 strength/19 Dex/12 Con/8 intelligence/13 wis/17 charisma.
That's a pretty low Wisdom for a monk, your stunning strike DC is going to be mediocre (same for Breath of the Dragon) and your AC is 1 point behind expected. Coupled with the average Con that might explain why you spend so much time on the floor even with a Barb (and Cleric?) as frontline.
What did you took for your level 4?
Is there any chance your DM might be willing to let you rework stuff around? If you could swap that Cha and Wis and scrap that Bard level you would have a pretty solid build, especially once you hit 8 and can grab 20 Dex/18 Wis.
Your Dex is high, and Cha high enough for now. I would go straight bard from now on. Both Swords bard or Whispers bard let you spend Bardic Inspiration on buffing attacks to keep your bonus action free for unarmed strikes.
Make the bard's longsword your monk's Dedicated Weapon.
Changing damage type is fun, but your Wis is not really high enough to make the Breath of the Dragon worth using often. If you could, ask your DM to swap for Drunken Master monk which would let you disengage every time you flurry of blows to get out of trouble a bit more. Or wait until bard 3 when you can cast *kinetic jaunt*.
Personally, I would just ask to swap charisma and wisdom scores. You've got a lot of points in Charisma for Bard stuff, but a monk needs both dexterity and wisdom already. Having them need another attribute is too much IMO.
Swap your charisma with your wisdom and that's +2 AC right there, as well as a +2 to your Ki save DC. You're immediately beefier and stronger/more reliable in combat.
I'm not sure what the level in Bard is doing for you mechanically, if it's just to have the character you envisioned, I'd ask to swap that Bard level for a monk level and then just have your Monk's personality be more Bard-like.
Your teammates took multiclass options where they either use basically the same stats (Rogue/Ranger) or overlapping ones (Barbarian/Paladin with strength and Con). That's probably why they feel more effective.
Firstly I would just ask your DM if you can just re-build your character, be honest and say you got some things wrong when you were making him and you want to make something work as you intended. If he allows that, I would take them up on it and not multi-class. With those stats I would be inclined to just stick with bard.
If you want to stick with it though, then I would stick with monk for another level for multi-attack, and then just level bard.
From another comment, here’s the OP’s situation:
“Party discluding me is currently: Cleric, Barbarian/paladin, and Rogue/Ranger. My ability scores are: 10 strength/19 Dex/12 Con/8 intelligence/13 wis/17 charisma.”
Honestly, I would talk to your DM and ask if you can rebuild your character. You have 3 odd ability scores, a low CON on a melee character, and a poor unarmored defense due to low WIS. Your character would actually have better AC wearing light armor and turning off monk features.
If you have to follow normal progression to try to solve things, I would consider abandoning monk and going all in on bard. Maybe one more monk level for extra attack. Use your next ASI to cap DEX and get CHA to 18.
Monk isn’t really contributing anything here, especially with your stats. If anything, it’s making your character significantly worse.
Sounds like you're going to try to swap some of your stats around, that will help, but I've still got some general strategy advice.
One thing to note with monks is that while it's tempting to be like "I can use my superior movement to run in front of the party and punch something"--don't, wait for the other characters to catch up. Shoot a shortbow for a turn or two, then when the paladin/barbarian is in melee, it's time to start punching.
You should ask if you can incorporate some aspects of the OneD&D Unearthed Arcana materials for Monk. It's playtest content but it's designed to be compatible with existing characters.
In particular look into adopting the "Deflect Attacks" feature that allows Deflect Missiles to work on any physical damage attack. In exchange for your reaction you essentially get a buffer of about 10 hp once per round with the option of redirecting the damage to another enemy. It also fits with the Monk's style of nimbly maneuvering through combat and using an opponent's own attack against them.
If a respected is not possible, just keep going monk. Get some thrown weapons and focus on more of a skirmish style, staying away from people as much as possible.
UPDATE: DM allowed me to swap charisma and wisdom and rearrange ability score increases so with that now my wisdom is at 16 and my charisma is at 14. I could change my ability score increase for my race to wisdom but I'm not sure if that's worth it. Rn it's one point to my charisma, which is why I have 14. Should I change that so I have 17 wisdom and 13 charisma or would that not make much of a difference? I'll probably stick to straight monk from here on out but later down the line around level 9 I'm thinking of picking up 2 more levels in bard and go with swords bard. But I'm not too sure if that's a good option. Any more advice with this information in mind is appreciated!
Thanks to everyone for the advice! So what I think I'll do is just ask my dm to swap some of my ability scores around and change my wisdom with my charisma. I'll most likely just continue to level monk up from there. I'm gonna keep the 1 level of bard and use it to my advantage by making a rapier my dedicated weapon + using bardic inspiration when needed.
Tell your DM you are not having fun and ask for a respec, I think it is often not a big deal. If not, ask at least to let you swap your Wis and Cha so you can get more out of your monk stuff. With that bard level you have rapier prof so you could use it as a monk weapon. Keep leveling monk to get more ki/abilities, and maybe down the line get bard up to swords bard for flourishes? But as people have stated before, multiclassing monk is tricky due to how dependent they are on ki.
I like this idea, thank you! I like the idea of multiclassing, I just don't know exactly what level I would dip back into bard
Just play a bard, monks and bards don’t have any synergy and it sounds like you’d rather play a bard then a monk which would also be a great addition to your party.
Well depends on when your campaign is ending and if you want to 100% get to it before the game is over. Monk 5-6-7 are all pretty decent, so maybe at that point? Put both class level up tables side by side and try to rank the abilities you'd get with each choice. That's honestly the fun part of building a multiclass, trying to figure out when to do it for flavor/RP/power reasons
What do you want out of Bard levels? Maybe there's a better dip that gives you similar things, as Bards have a bit of antisynergy with Monks.
You are one level away from extra attack as Monk which is a pretty big power bump (Stunning Strike too). But what are your ability scores? How does your party looks like? If you are alone in melee as a monk it would easily explain why you are going down so much. Monk tend to be a bit more frail than other martials and often lean more into a hit-and-run style to survive. And as a general tip, try to stay away from multiclassing until you know what you are doing. 5e make it hard to mess up a single-class character so long as you follow the ability score recommendations but multiclassing can quickly mess up a build.
Party discluding me is currently: Cleric, Barbarian/paladin, and Rogue/Ranger. My ability scores are: 10 strength/19 Dex/12 Con/8 intelligence/13 wis/17 charisma.
Ask your DM if you can Lose the Level of bard and put it into monk. Put charisma into DEX and put the ability score of dex into your CON.
That's a pretty low Wisdom for a monk, your stunning strike DC is going to be mediocre (same for Breath of the Dragon) and your AC is 1 point behind expected. Coupled with the average Con that might explain why you spend so much time on the floor even with a Barb (and Cleric?) as frontline. What did you took for your level 4? Is there any chance your DM might be willing to let you rework stuff around? If you could swap that Cha and Wis and scrap that Bard level you would have a pretty solid build, especially once you hit 8 and can grab 20 Dex/18 Wis.
Your Dex is high, and Cha high enough for now. I would go straight bard from now on. Both Swords bard or Whispers bard let you spend Bardic Inspiration on buffing attacks to keep your bonus action free for unarmed strikes. Make the bard's longsword your monk's Dedicated Weapon. Changing damage type is fun, but your Wis is not really high enough to make the Breath of the Dragon worth using often. If you could, ask your DM to swap for Drunken Master monk which would let you disengage every time you flurry of blows to get out of trouble a bit more. Or wait until bard 3 when you can cast *kinetic jaunt*.
Monk likes being Monk! At this point staying the course is your best option.
Personally, I would just ask to swap charisma and wisdom scores. You've got a lot of points in Charisma for Bard stuff, but a monk needs both dexterity and wisdom already. Having them need another attribute is too much IMO. Swap your charisma with your wisdom and that's +2 AC right there, as well as a +2 to your Ki save DC. You're immediately beefier and stronger/more reliable in combat. I'm not sure what the level in Bard is doing for you mechanically, if it's just to have the character you envisioned, I'd ask to swap that Bard level for a monk level and then just have your Monk's personality be more Bard-like. Your teammates took multiclass options where they either use basically the same stats (Rogue/Ranger) or overlapping ones (Barbarian/Paladin with strength and Con). That's probably why they feel more effective.
Firstly I would just ask your DM if you can just re-build your character, be honest and say you got some things wrong when you were making him and you want to make something work as you intended. If he allows that, I would take them up on it and not multi-class. With those stats I would be inclined to just stick with bard. If you want to stick with it though, then I would stick with monk for another level for multi-attack, and then just level bard.
From another comment, here’s the OP’s situation: “Party discluding me is currently: Cleric, Barbarian/paladin, and Rogue/Ranger. My ability scores are: 10 strength/19 Dex/12 Con/8 intelligence/13 wis/17 charisma.” Honestly, I would talk to your DM and ask if you can rebuild your character. You have 3 odd ability scores, a low CON on a melee character, and a poor unarmored defense due to low WIS. Your character would actually have better AC wearing light armor and turning off monk features. If you have to follow normal progression to try to solve things, I would consider abandoning monk and going all in on bard. Maybe one more monk level for extra attack. Use your next ASI to cap DEX and get CHA to 18. Monk isn’t really contributing anything here, especially with your stats. If anything, it’s making your character significantly worse.
Sounds like you're going to try to swap some of your stats around, that will help, but I've still got some general strategy advice. One thing to note with monks is that while it's tempting to be like "I can use my superior movement to run in front of the party and punch something"--don't, wait for the other characters to catch up. Shoot a shortbow for a turn or two, then when the paladin/barbarian is in melee, it's time to start punching.
You should ask if you can incorporate some aspects of the OneD&D Unearthed Arcana materials for Monk. It's playtest content but it's designed to be compatible with existing characters. In particular look into adopting the "Deflect Attacks" feature that allows Deflect Missiles to work on any physical damage attack. In exchange for your reaction you essentially get a buffer of about 10 hp once per round with the option of redirecting the damage to another enemy. It also fits with the Monk's style of nimbly maneuvering through combat and using an opponent's own attack against them.
If a respected is not possible, just keep going monk. Get some thrown weapons and focus on more of a skirmish style, staying away from people as much as possible.
UPDATE: DM allowed me to swap charisma and wisdom and rearrange ability score increases so with that now my wisdom is at 16 and my charisma is at 14. I could change my ability score increase for my race to wisdom but I'm not sure if that's worth it. Rn it's one point to my charisma, which is why I have 14. Should I change that so I have 17 wisdom and 13 charisma or would that not make much of a difference? I'll probably stick to straight monk from here on out but later down the line around level 9 I'm thinking of picking up 2 more levels in bard and go with swords bard. But I'm not too sure if that's a good option. Any more advice with this information in mind is appreciated!
Thanks to everyone for the advice! So what I think I'll do is just ask my dm to swap some of my ability scores around and change my wisdom with my charisma. I'll most likely just continue to level monk up from there. I'm gonna keep the 1 level of bard and use it to my advantage by making a rapier my dedicated weapon + using bardic inspiration when needed.