Best Feats for Monks 5e

Amazing Feats for Monks

• Crusher: If there was ever a perfect feat for Monks, this is it. Because your unarmed strikes are bludgeoning damage and a good variety of monk weapons, you can almost always trigger this feat. Any subclass is excellent, but I think Way of the Drunken Master fits best since they already offer a lot of battlefield manipulation.
• Ember of the Fire Giant: Seeing as you can boost Wisdom or Constitution, the ASIs in this feat are actually quite solid, even if you can’t boost Dexterity. Also, the survivability boost, AoE, and debuff it provides goes well with the monks playstyle.
• Rune Shaper: Seeing as monks pump Wisdom, this is an awesome feat to stretch the versatility of your martial arts master. Need ranged options? Grab chromatic orb. Need defense? Armor of Agathys. Want to control the battlefield? Entangle or fog cloud. Want some AoE? Burning hands or thunderwave.

Great Feats for Monks

• Agent of Order: Pumping your attack's damage and potentially restraining your target is a great look for the monk, who could follow up the Stasis Strike with extra attacks and their Flurry of Blows with advantage. The ability score increase is an added bonus.
• Fade Away: Being able to turn invisible as a reaction isn't a bad tool for monks, who notoriously struggle with survivability. This also allows you to use your increased speed to great effect as no one will be able to take opportunity attacks on you.
• Fey Touched: Misty step is an amazing spell for a monk, allowing them to traverse the battlefield with ease or get out of dodge if they're hurt. The ASI will obviously go to WIS. The 1st-level spell will more often than not be hunter's mark because it will add a d6 onto every one of your insane amount of melee attacks. Hunter's mark also doesn't really need any upcasting to increase the benefits, nor does it matter if you have a bad spellcasting modifier.
• Gift of the Gem Dragon: Boost Wisdom and get an awesome defensive reaction that can help you avoid hits, reposition enemies, and move around the battlefield.
• Grappler: In the 2024 Player's Handbook, Monks can grapple with their Dexterity, making this feat a worthwhile pick. With it, you can choose the Damage and Grapple options of an Unarmed Strike, and if you successfully grapple your target, gain Advantage on your attacks while they remain grappled.
• Guile of the Cloud Giant: This is a really cool boost for a monk who wants to flit around the battlefield, striking enemies then disappearing before they can react. Unfortunately, there's no Wisdom or Dexterity boost, but this can help your hit points if you have an odd Constitution modifier after character creation.
• Lucky: Lucky is a feat that is useful to any character but martials can make especially good use of it. Monks won't need to spend their rerolls on saving throws as often because of Evasion and Diamond Soul. This means you'll have more to spend making sure your attacks land.
• Mobile: Many people like Mobile on a monk, but monks already have great movement speed and have Step of the Wind to Disengage safely. However, Mobile adds even more movement and helps you save ki points to move anywhere you want during battle.
• Piercer: This works really well for the weapon-focused subclasses or for monks that want to use a short sword as their primary weapon. Way of the Kensei monk is the best subclass for this, as you can use melee and ranged weapons without losing your monk weapon benefits.
• Righteous Heritor: The monk's Deflect Missiles and Slow Fall are both niche ways to mitigate damage, whereas Soothe Pain can be applied every combat. The reaction offered by this feat provides a huge amount of damage mitigation each long rest, for both you and your allies, which monks are all too happy to pick up.
• Scion of the Outer Planes: If your monk has stacked into Wisdom, this can give you a solid defensive buff and some ranged capabilities, both of which are tempting for monks.
• Second Chance: With the Dexterity boost, this can increase your AC and make you harder to hit, something that monks struggle with. Plus, with this ability, Deflect Missiles, and Evasion, you'll have ways to mitigate damage on direct melee attacks, ranged attacks, and area of effects attacks.
• Soul of the Storm Giant: A great way to boost your monk's survivability and Wisdom or Constitution modifier at the same time.
• Strike of the Giants: If you have a respectable Constitution modifier, the Hill Strike ability will be amazing cause all your subsequent attacks have advantage. Unfortunately, the 4th-level hill giant feat isn't particularly good for monks, so if you're looking to build your character around these feats, I'd go for Fire Strike. Also, to meet the requirements of this feat, you'll have to pick up a martial weapon proficiency somehow, like by choosing the Way of the Kensei subclass, or take the giant foundling background.

Good Feats for Monks

• Baleful Scion: Monks will always appreciate a bit more self-healing, especially when it can be activated in the same action as their attacks.
• Defensive Duelist: This feat isn't terrible if your build already includes a finesse weapon. Your other option for reactions is catching missiles, so it works. However, it does lock you into using shortswords or choosing the Way of the Kensei.
• Elven Accuracy: Similar to fighters, Dex-based Monks can get some good use out of this. However, they will struggle to get consistent advantage rolls.
• Fighting Initiate: Most monks can probably benefit from a few of these, especially Way of the Kensei monks who can use a wider array of weapons. The unarmed Fighting Style does increase damage, but at that point you could just use a weapon like a quarterstaff.
• Fury of the Frost Giant: Seeing as you can boost Wisdom or Constitution, the ASIs in this feat are actually quite solid, even if you can’t boost Dexterity. Also, the resistance to cold damage and reaction are pretty decent to help improve your combat versatility. Monks have some reaction-based abilities, but they aren't common enough that they would interfere with using Frigid Retaliation.
• Gift of the Metallic Dragon: Monks, who are notoriously squishy, will appreciate the AC boost. Cure wounds is also a decent way to heal downed allies or grab some extra hit points out of combat.
• Healer: This isn't a horrible feat for early levels of play, as it allows Monks to heal themselves for 1d18 + Proficiency Bonus as an action. Seeing as the updates in the 2024 Player's Handbook allow the Monk to Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action, this means you can heal and attack in the same turn for as long as you have Hit Dice to spend.
• Observant: Oddly enough, this isn’t terrible for monks. You get additional AC with higher WIS through Unarmored Defense, which also factors into your Ki save DC. Plus, it can serve some purpose in social and exploration scenarios.
• Resilient: Though they don't have to concentrate on spells, monks could do well from picking up Resilient (CON). This can help increase their hit points while also offering them a bonus to resist effects that target CON, like poison, disease, and necromancy.
• Ritual Caster: Not a bad feat to increase your monk's versatility. You will likely already meet the Wisdom requirements and can get access to find familiar which could potentially give you advantage on most of your attacks. Plus, you can expand your repertoire by finding spell scrolls and books during your adventures.
• Tavern Brawler: This provides two pieces of value for Monks. They can reroll 1s on Unarmed Strikes, and they can Damage and Shove simultaneously when they make an Unarmed Strike as part of their Attack action. The damage boost to Unarmed Strikes is made irrelevant by the Monk's Martial Arts feature, and they rarely (if ever) want to use Improvised Weapons.
• Tough: Monks struggle with survivability in combat because of their low hit dice and lack of armor. Also, monks are quite multi-ability dependant (MAD), so they need to focus on DEX and WIS before CON. Tough can bring your hit points up to a reasonable level.

Situationally Useful Feats for Monks

• Athlete: You get an ASI to Dexterity and some minor movement buffs that may make your monk feel more "ninja-like," but nothing amazing.
• Chef: Monks have a lot of bonus actions they would probably rather use. However, it's an excellent fit for Way of Mercy monks and adds a lot of spice to that playstyle.
• Crafter: Being able to fast-craft certain items gives your Monk a bit of extra versatility.
• Divinely Favored: Monks have decent Wisdom, so the spells they pick up can be effective in combat, rather than simply taking support spells. Sacred flame can give you a good offensive ranged option and hex could be incredible with all the attacks you get per turn.
• Durable: Nothing particularly exciting here for a monk.
• Gift of the Chromatic Dragon: This would be awesome for monks except for the fact that unarmed strikes won't activate the bonus damage. It gets slightly better if you use Tasha's Ki-Fueled Attack optional rule, but you'll still have to burn resources to make this feat more effective.
• Gunner: Most monk subclasses don’t stick to ranged damage, making this feat pretty subpar. The only subclass this would work with is the Way of the Kensei, but they’re still pretty melee-focused.
• Keenness of the Stone Giant: While the ASIs are great, monks need their bonus action for Martial Arts or Ki moves and usually want to be in close range, making this feat a bit clunky.
• Magic Initiate: In a similar vein to barbarians, monks don’t benefit as much from this feat, but that doesn’t make it useless. The most significant benefit is picking up hex for an extra 1d6 for all of your attacks or shillelagh for those using weapons.
• Martial Adept: While monks would love having access to the Battle Master's maneuvers, only getting one dice and it being a d6 drastically limits the effectiveness of this feat.
• Polearm Master: While this feat may be flavorful for quarterstaff-wielding monks, the features aren’t particularly optimized for the monk class. This is because monks usually want to keep their bonus attack for unarmed strikes to trigger specific class abilities. Way of the Kinsei monks will want to pick this up if they plan on using polearms as weapons but cannot use a glaive or halberd because they have are heavy weapons.
• Sentinel: If you want to keep your enemies locked down and reduce their mobility, Sentinel comes in handy. Usually characters will Sentinel can get focused on in combat, which the monk's mediocre hit die might struggle with.
• Shadow Touched: This feat is primarily dependent on playstyle. Since monks can’t ever upcast these spells, they turn into one-trick ponies. Way of Shadow can get a little more flexibility out of this, but it’s not a must-have.
• Skill Expert: Being so multi-ability dependent (MAD) makes utility feats difficult to rationalize for monks. That said, Skill Expert allows you to pump either DEX or WIS, while also picking up an expertise in a vital skill, like Stealth or Perception. If you want to have a more well rounded monk out of combat, this isn't the worst pickup.
• Slasher: Monks can use this pretty well, just like fighters. However, I think Kensei monks will find the most use out of it.

Bad Feats for Monks

• Alert: Being up higher in the Initiative order isn't a big deal for Monks because they don't have any burst damage abilities and don't have the survivability to charge into battle first.
• Cohort of Chaos: Unfortunately, this is too unpredictable to be a efficient use of a feat.
• Crossbow Expert: Sadly, monks cannot use crossbows. The other benefits of this feat might apply better to Way of the Kensei, which would give them a pretty good advantage.
• Dual Wielder: Monks in 5e typically rely on their unarmed strikes and don't gain as much benefit from dual wielding. Their Martial Arts feature also usually outshines the benefits of Dual Wielder.
• Eldritch Adept: Since most monks cannot cast spells, they’re unable to pick this feat. While Way of the Four Elements monks can cast spells, we don’t think any noteworthy invocations would make it worth it over other feats.
• Elemental Adept: This feat doesn't provide any value to monks. Seeing as Way of the Four Elements monks get access to fireball, wall of fire, and burning hands, they may want to pick this up if they are going for a firebender build from Avatar the Last Airbender.
• Fey Teleportation: Both of these stats do nothing for monks. I’d also argue that monks are already mobile enough not to need misty step, so I’d pass on this feat. Grabbing something like Crusher or Mobile would go a long way in damage or mobility, far past just one spell per day from this feat.
• Great Weapon Master: Monks absolutely cannot use this feat without losing out on the entirety of their Martial Arts features. They also can’t equip Heavy weapons outside of taking the Weapon Master feat, but it’s still not worth it. Kensei monks cannot pick Heavy weapons for their kensei weapon, making it a useless option as well.
• Heavily Armored: Monks rely on Dexterity and Wisdom for their Armor Class through Unarmored Defense, so this feat is not useful.
• Heavy Armor Master: Monks don't get proficiency with heavy armor.
• Inspiring Leader: Monks are MAD enough already without having to invest in Charisma. This is a skip.
• Keen Mind: Nothing here for a monk.
• Lightly Armored: Monks don’t have access to light armor, but their kit benefits from a lack of armor anyway. Like barbarians, Unarmored Defense is the better option in most situations.
• Linguist: Druids won't get much out of the languages or Intelligence boost.
• Mage Slayer: While most monks can benefit from this feat, I wouldn't say it's all that. Monks get a lot of reactions to use, and most of them are pretty helpful in most scenarios. If you want tons of options at all times, this is for you.
• Medium Armor Master: Monks don't get proficiency in medium armor.
• Metamagic Adept: Monks cannot gain spellcasting or Pact Magic, so they can’t pick this feat up. They do gain the ability to cast some spells through Way of the Four Elements, but it’s not traditional spellcasting as required by this feat.
• Mounted Combatant: It would be quite the sight to see a mounted monk punching people on horseback. Unfortunately, monks will lose some of their much needed mobility if they fight on a mount in combat. Skip.
• Orcish Fury: Nothing here for a monk.
• Outlands Envoy: One free casting of misty step and an ASI isn't enough to make monks want to take this feat.
• Planar Wanderer: Even with the tailorable damage resistance, this feat just isn't worth it for a monk.
• Poisoner: Monks won’t benefit from this at all, outside of flavor. Also, they can’t wipe poison on their hands
• Revanent Blade: Most monks don't get martial weapon proficiencies, but the Way of the Kensei monk could make good use of this weapon and feat combo.
• Savage Attacker: Skip this feat.
• Sharpshooter: Most monks can ignore this feat, but those who pick up the Way of the Kensei can benefit from this, as they must choose a ranged weapon for one of their kensei weapons.
• Shield Master: Monks lose their Unarmored Defense if they equip a shield, making them (and this feat) terrible for them.
• Skulker: The only monk subclass made for a stealthy playstyle is the Way of Shadow. While they can’t use ranged weapons, they can still benefit from the feat for ultimate stealth. Way of the Kensei monks can also use ranged weapons, but they aren’t always looking for a sneaky playstyle.
• Spell Sniper: Most monks can't cast spells and the Way of Four Element monk doesn't have any spells that require ranged attack rolls.
• Squat Nimbleness: Monks are much better off going with Mobile, even though Squat Nimbleness provides an ASI.
• Telekinetic: Monks don’t get a lot out of this feat. None of the subclasses really benefit from mage hand, and monks already have a use for their bonus actions. The WIS ASI is decent, but there are better feats out there that also provide this.
• Telepathic: Nothing here for a monk.
• Vigor of the Hill Giant: None of the effect really produce enough value to monks to make this feat worthwhile, even with the +1 to Wisdom. Focus on something that will either boost your damage or defense.
• War Caster: Monks can’t cast spells without spending Ki points, so there’s no point in picking up this feat.
• Weapon Master: Gaining a weapon proficiency won't make non-monk weapons work with Martial Arts, which makes this useless.

Other Monk Guides

• Monk 5e Overview
• Monk Races
• Monk Subclasses Overview

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Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Adamantine best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.