Monk 201: The Best Magic Items for Monks – Posts

Do you love to run up walls? Catch arrows and fling them back? Stun your enemies into submission? You might just be a monk. If you have some extra coin and time to shop, you’ll find a variety of magic items that can make you better at what you do best: get to the frontlines and take down enemies with style.

Below are some of our favorite magic items (listed alphabetically) that pair well with burgeoning masters of Ki. And don’t forget, if one of these items catches your eye and you don’t own the book for it, you can always purchase just that item in the D&D Beyond marketplace. Or if you have a friend with a Master-tier subscription, they can share their books with you so that you can outfit your monk with your favorite items.

1. Arcane propulsion arm
2. Barrier tattoo
3. Blood fury tattoo
4. Bracers of defense
5. Cloak of displacement
6. Eldritch claw tattoo
7. Gloves of soul catching
8. Staff of striking
9. Tome of understanding
10. Winged boots

Talk to your Dungeon Master about magic items

Depending on the campaign, your access to magic items might be limited. Your DM will determine which magic items are and are not available in the campaign. Let them know which magic items you are interested in but be open-minded if they are uncomfortable permitting some or any of the magic items you request.

Top 10 magic items for monks

1. Arcane propulsion arm

Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement by a creature missing a hand or an arm)

The arcane propulsion arm from Eberron: Rising from the Last War is an effective weapon for player characters who are missing a hand or arm. It is removable only by you, meaning that you’ll always have a magic weapon on your person that can hit for 1d8 force damage and be used for ranged attacks. The arcane propulsion arm has the thrown property, a normal range of 20 feet, and a long range of 60 feet.

I’m a big fan of the magical tattoos introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, which is why you’ll see three of them on this list. In addition to allowing you to further personalize your character, the barrier tattoo offers a range of Armor Class improvements depending on its rarity.

The blood fury tattoo is the first legendary item for monks on our list — and it packs a punch. The tattoo comes with 10 charges that are regained daily at dawn. Each time you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can use a charge to deal an additional 4d6 necrotic damage. You then heal off of the necrotic damage that you dealt.

Bracers of defense are a classic monk item in D&D fifth edition and for good reason. The monk’s Unarmored Defense and Martial Arts class features don’t allow you to don armor or use a shield. This limits your ability to improve your AC outside of Ability Score Improvements. Bracers of defense are one way to get around these restrictions. They offer +2 AC.

Monks don’t get a huge pool of hit points to help them survive hard-hitting enemies. Although you can spend Ki points to Disengage or Dodge as a bonus action, chances are you want to conserve Ki for Stunning Strike. That’s where a cloak of displacement comes in.

7. Gloves of soul catching

Coming to us from the arcane adventure anthology Candlekeep Mysteries, the gloves of soul catching will make your monk a force to be reckoned with. While you wear the gloves, your Constitution score is 20. (For a rare magic item that buffs your Constitution score, try an amulet of health.)

The staff of striking is a classic monk weapon at the very rare rarity. It grants a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. The staff also has 10 charges. When you hit with a melee weapon attack while using the staff, you can expend up to three of the charges, dealing an additional 1d6 force damage for each charge used. The staff replenishes 1d6+4 charges at dawn.

While any character can benefit from a tome of understanding, few classes are as dependent on multiple ability scores as monks. This tome helps ensure the DC of your monk features like Stunning Strike and your AC are good even at high levels. A tome of understanding contains “intuition and insight exercises” (sudoku, it’s a book of sudoku) and requires 48 hours of study over a period of six days or less. If you manage that, your Wisdom score and its maximum increase by 2.

Break free from the shackles of gravity and meet your flying enemies face to face with a pair of winged boots. You get up to four hours of flight at a time with the boots, though you recover two hours of flying capability every 12 hours you go without using them. What makes these boots ideal for monks is that they provide a flying speed equal to your walking speed. As your movement speed scales with Unarmored Movement, so does your flying speed.

Andrew Strother (@RollPersuasion) is a marketing consultant and tabletop content creator. He’s the host of the podcast Roll for Persuasion, where he interviews creators and entertainers about the nerdy things they love, as well as being the co-creator and a co-star on Second Star to the Right: A Neverland Adventure; a D&D actual-play game set in the magical world of Neverland.