Three new villainous options are in the air right now, and today the Warrior of Venom Monk proves that being toxic can be oh so satisfying.
Cue up the Britney, because it’s time to get toxic. One of the three new Villainous Options in the latest Unearthed Arcana is extremely venomous in the best way. I’m talking about the new Warrior of Venom for Monks. This new subclass is all about toxic relationships in that it allows you to inflict poison damage and other toxin effects on your enemies. Or allies. I mean it is a Villainous Unearthed Arcana.
And as you’ll see, there are a few things that show WotC is really getting on the ball here. You might hear “Warrior of Venom” and think “oh great, Poison damage? Practically everything’s immune to that.” You’d be melodramatic, but there are a lot of higher CR creatures that are resistant or immune to poison. But hey, don’t worry, the subclass is actually pretty well designed and takes that into account.
Because at the heart of it all, the Warrior of Venom Monk is all about using your Focus to “pollute [your] internal reservoirs of power to become poison incarnate.” Whether that comes from studying forbidden techniques or just ingesting a bunch of highly processed foods laden with microplastics is up to you. I’d go with the former myself.
The Barbarian Path of Lament – aka The Banshee Barbarian
Now this is a subclass that feels suitably Villainous. I think in part because we know Monks do Martial Arts, and there’s a trope of “Poison Martial Arts” that are usually forbidden and only used by the most evil of enemies. You can find it in some of the best examples of the wu xia fantasy genre, like in The Legend of Condor Heroes, where Ouyang Feng (whose Toad Style is so deadly he carries the nickname ‘Western Venom’). And now your Monk can unleash their own poison martial arts.
It all kicks off with your first feature, Envenom Weapon. This is the basic kit of the Warrior of Venom, and it is what you’ll be doing the most. At the start of each of your turns, you can spend 1 Focus Point to envenom a Monk weapon that you’re holding (no action required). It lasts for a minute or until you deal damage to a creature. Whenever you deal damage with a poisoned weapon, you can pick from two different toxin effects, chosen whenever you envenom the weapon.
One effect is dealing increased poison damage via Venom. It’s potent. Whenever you hit the target you deal extra Poison damage equal to two of your Martial Arts dice. I like that this extra damage is very efficient. But don’t sleep on the other effect, which doesn’t add damage, but will still compete with the bonus 2d6-2d12 in big important fights.
The other effect is a Slowing Toxin. This toxin is surprisingly powerful; while it doesn’t deal extra damage, it does debuff your enemy, no save allowed. On hit, your target’s Speed is halved, it can’t take Reactions, and it can do either an Action or a Bonus Action on its turn, but not both. Sure, the debuff only lasts until the start of your next turn, but this is a way to “Slow-lock” enemies, especially if you combine it with say, Stunning Fist, which can let you really shut down even multiple enemies.
At level 3, you also gain Potent Arsenal, aka WotC’s “yeah, yeah we know about the Poison damage” feature. It starts off reading like a ribbon effect: you gain a Poisoner’s Kit and proficiency with it, and can create a Basic Poison in a single day. But the actual boon of this feature is that whenever you would deal Poison damage with a Monk feature or Monk weapon, you can instead change that damage type to Acid, which gets around a lot of the resistance/immunity argument.
Concentrated Toxin Levels
At higher levels, your internal reserves poison becomes even more potent. Starting at 6th level, you gain the Toxic Touch feature. This lets you take a Magic Action to touch a creature and unleash a toxin upon them. Your target makes a Con save. If they fail, they are Poisoned and you get to apply one of three effects: the target is Charmed for 1 minute, the target is Unconscious for 1 minute, or the target can’t knowingly lie for 1 minute.
Level 11 finally brings some of the focus back on how you, a Warrior of Venom can use poison to your own benefit. Toxin Refiner lets you turn poison into something that actually helps you. For one, you gain Immunity to Poison Damage. Two, whenever you would take Poison Damage your Envenom Weapons options gain an extra Martial Arts die of potency (for an extra 3d8 instead of 2d8, as an example), and whenever you ingest poison, you regain hit points equal to one of your Martial Arts dice.
But that’s not all. The other level 11 feature, Toxic Blood, grants you a venomous retaliation. Whenever a creature hits you with a melee attack, they take 1d6 Poison damage (which can also be Acid damage). If you’re Bloodied, this damage equals one of your Martial Arts dice instead.
At level 17, your Warrior of Venom Monk unlocks the capstone ability. Hallucinogenic Breath lets you spend 2 Focus Points to replace one of your Attack Action attacks with a hallucinogenic attack at a single creature within 30 feet of you. Your target has to make a Con save or else take Poison damage and gain the Frightened condition for 1 minute. While Frightened, they can only take the Dash action and can only move away from you. Dealing damage will break this effect though.
I really like this subclass, even if the capstone feature is a little lackluster. I just think that compared to something like the Open Hand Monk’s Quivering Palm, which can outright kill someone by dealing 10d12 damage to them, it doesn’t feel like the ultimate poison technique. I’d like to see something better/more potent. But that’s just me. WotC wants to know what you think – so be sure and take the Villainous Options 2 survey, which opens tomorrow!
Check out the Warrior of Venom Monk and two other Villainous Options at the link below!
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