More of your вЂreal youвЂ™ manifests from the Astral Plane. I would absolutely ask my DM to let me use WhatsApp for this. The sixty-foot whisper can be handy for tactical coordination (or giving endless, useless, off-topic advice to the party face when they are in the depths of a tricky negotiation). Seeing through magical darkness is rare and powerful, although you might not want to know what a Warlock gets up to in magical darkness. Or you can make it so that all creatures within six hundred feet can hear you.

Word of the Spirit: You can direct your voice to one creature within sixty feet and only that creature can hear you.

Insight is fine if you choose proficiency with it at level one.

Monks donвЂ™t get Intimidation as a skill and will almost certainly dump Charisma.

Wisdom of the Spirit: Advantage on Insight and Intimidation checks.

That sobbing noise you hear is Drow orphans as you literally see through basic Drow tricks.

Astral Sight: Impressive darkvision that also sees through magical darkness.You gain three benefits while Visage is active (courtesy of вЂњ TashaвЂ™s Cauldron of Feature BloatвЂќ): The flavor is free! You can determine the appearance of your visage (I picture a Batman mask). YouвЂ™ll spend two ki points and one bonus action to simultaneously active Arms and Visage. You can merge the bonus actions into one, but not the ki cost, unfortunately. More of your Astral Self appears! This is activated and ended in the same ways as your Arms: bonus action and one ki point for ten minutes, stopping with incapacitation, death, or a bad trip. The spectral arms last for ten minutes, so they can reliably last for several back-to-back combat encounters. TheyвЂ™ll plan to always have ki for their spectral arms to manifest. Wise resource managers may not run into this problem. If your Dexterity is low, youвЂ™ll be awful in combat until you can take a short rest to regain ki points and fuel your spectral arms. You will almost certainly run out of magic mushrooms (I mean, ki points) because Monks are notorious for burning through ki. ItвЂ™s close, but I would probably go for Dexterity first. Both/Either: AC, attack rolls*, damage rolls*.Wisdom: Stunning Strikes, Insight, Strength rolls*, and several other features incoming for this subclass.Dexterity: Initiative Evasion, Deflect Missiles, Stealth, Acrobatics.Dexterity is used for many Astral Self and base Monk features. It may seem like you can focus entirely on Wisdom with your Monk, but think twice. If your DM interprets the Unarmed Fighting Style as compatible with your spectral arms, youвЂ™re good to go. The Fighting Style will give you a d8 unarmed strike weapon die. If you start at a low level, consider grabbing the Unarmed Fighting Style from Fighter multiclassing or the new Fighting Initiate feat. This subclass is better off if you play in a game that starts you at a higher level. This reminds me of the problems with the Sun Soul Monk. This means the spectral arms deal suboptimal damage at low levels. The problem gets worse! Your Monk weapons can deal d8 damage with a versatile quarterstaff or spear your Dedicated Weapon feature from TashaвЂ™s enables d10 damage (versatile longsword or similar weapon). What kind of class design is that? Sure, unarmed strikes will deal more damage as a Monk progresses in Martial Arts, but at level three, Monk unarmed strikes deal d4 damage. The Monk relies on unarmed strikes yet starts with a d4. ItвЂ™s really irritating that a Fighter can select Unarmed Fighting for their Fighting Style to get a d6 or d8 for unarmed strikes that they will likely never use. This feature is sabotaged by its own sourcebook. Several problems are present with the Arms of the Astral Self feature.

The extra reach is fantastic for a Monk, feeding nicely into my favorite hit-and-run Monk playstyle. Magic force damage at level three is great against nasty low-CR monsters who would resist your normal unarmed strikes.

You deal force damage with spectral arms can use Wisdom for attack and damage rolls with them. The spectral arms add five feet of reach to your unarmed strikes. Once manifested, your spectral arms allow you to use Wisdom instead of Strength for ability checks and saving throws.В This can be great for grappling (inflicting or escaping) and shoving. Position yourself appropriately on the battlefield to maximize this feature. Each creature of your choice within range will suffer two Martial Arts dice of force damage (2d4 initially, 2d10 eventually) with a Dex save for no damage. When you summon your Arms as a bonus action, the manifestation causes a blast effect. The Arms vanish if you become incapacitated, die (duh), or experience the whiplash of a psychedelic trip (DM discretion). Summoning your arms requires one ki point and a bonus action for ten minutes of manifestation. You will thank me when you reach level six.ДЄt third level, you can summon the Arms of your Astral Self to beat up enemies.

Way of the astral self