Complete Guide To Playing The Way of the Astral Self Monk In 5e D&D

Fancy getting all ghost-like? Or being a spectral ninja? Then the D&D Way of the Astral Self monk might be for you. The first of our Monk monastic traditions from our Monk Subclass Guide. Simply because it’s alphabetical, if there was the Way of the Aardvark Monk, then it would be second. Anyway, I digress.

The Way of the Astral Self Monk believes that their physical body is a lie and their true form is the Ki that flows through them. Many Astral Monk’s spectral forms are different from their physical form. You could be a Dragonborn with an astral Bugbear as your true Ki form, for example.

This character build can be quite interesting. Your Astral Self can reflect your flaws or your ideas. Get creative with your Astral form; be the ghost puncher you’ve always wanted to be.

How to Use This Guide

Everything in this guide has an emoji, ranking how useful a given ability or feature is to playing this class effectively.

✅ — An absolutely crucial feature. Often forms the backbone of a class’ look and feel. Will provide some bonus that can’t be found through other means.

🆗 — A solid feature that does its job well. Not game-breaking, and certainly replaceable, but a strong choice that shores up some weakness.

⚠️ — A debatable choice. Could work for a specific build, but otherwise is either a wasted opportunity or is just weaker than other alternatives.

⛔ — Outright bad and detrimental. This weighs down the class and just takes up space on the character sheet. A weakness you will have to accommodate for.

These rankings are meant to help you create an optimized Astral monk subclass build. Remember, DnD isn’t a game where you need to always win to have fun. Weaker but flavorful builds have their place and can make for fulfilling characters.

These rankings are in relation to the Way of the Astral Monk build. If you’re unsure about your Monk build, you can check out our full Monk Guide here.

How To Play An Astral Self Monk

Many of the Astral Monk features use your Wisdom modifier rather than Strength or Dexterity. Bear this in mind when you start your DnD build. You still need a hella lot of Dex for your standard Monk skills, but your Wisdom ability score needs to be equal or at least a close second.

You’re a puncher. Your skills drive you forward and lead the fight. The benefits and features of the Astral Monk are balanced between both offensive and defensive. So, as well as being a great puncher, you get some nice defensive options.

Astral Self Monk Subclass Features

Level One (Monk)

✅ Unarmoured Defense

No armor. No! Your AC is 10 plus your Dex modifier and Wisdom modifier. Get those stats high!

✅ Martial Arts

This is your important offensive way. You get the ability to make unarmed attacks with your hands and feet. The main points of martial arts are:

• Using Dexterity instead of Strength for attack and damage rolls for your unarmed strikes and Monk weapons. Dex is important!
• Starting with D4 damage on your unarmed strikes or Monk weapon. Increases as you level up.
• If you use your action to make an attack, and you can use your bonus action to make an extra unarmed attack if you haven’t already used it. Double attacks! Hell yes!

🧘 Looking for something else? Discover the Way of the Kensei Monk

Level Two (Monk)

✅ Ki

Important as an Astral monk. You get the ability to channel Ki through your body. The amount of Ki points you get matches your level. Starting off with 2 at level two. Then 3 at level three, 10 at level ten. So on and so forth.

These Ki points are used on your monk skills and Astral monk skills. 

A long or short rest brings all your Ki points back. 

With some Ki bonus skills, the target must make a saving throw. To work that out, your Ki DC is 8 plus your proficiency bonus plus your Wisdom modifier. Get that Wisdom Ability score high y’all.

🆗 Flurry of Blows

This is a fightin’ skill. If you spend a Ki point, you get to make two more unarmed strikes as a bonus. That’s a possible three attacks at monk level 2.  

For the record, you CAN’T Attack, bonus attack, and then spend a Ki and get two extra attacks. It’s one or the other. Also, if you’re not careful, this lovely monk ability can and will eat up your Ki points. Fast!

✅ Patient Defense

Use a Ki point, and you can use dodge as a bonus action. Good if your hit points are low.

🆗 Step of the Wind

Spend a Ki point and get the Disengage or Dash action as a bonus action for that turn. Similar to a Rogue’s cunning action. Plus, your jump distance is doubled for the turn. Boing!

🆗 Unarmored Movement

The great thing about monks is that they get faster and faster as they level. Starting with +10 foot at level two right up to +30 foot at level 20. At level nine, you can go full Jesus and walk on water. Well, all liquids. And run up walls. Better than Jesus.

🆗 Dedicated Weapon (Optional)

It’s not really an advantage for Astral monks, but it could be useful.

Every time you have a short or long rest, you can use the power of ki, touch a weapon, and get proficient in it. Stays until you use this feature on a different weapon.

The rules for Dedicated Weapon are as follows:

• The weapon must be a simple or martial weapon.
• You must be proficient with it.
• It must lack the heavy and special properties.

Astral Self monks tend to be up close and personal with their ghost-puncher abilities. However, sometimes you’re in a combat situation where you’re far away.

If you add a Longbow to an Astral Self monk build, you’ve got the ability to make ranged attacks when necessary. An added bonus.

Level Three (Way of the Astral Self Monk and Monk)

So at level three, you get your first monastic tradition ability. Let’s look at the first for the Astral Self monk.

✅ Arms of the Astral Self

When you land on level three, you get to conjure a portion of your Astral self. And that, my friends, is your Astral Arms.

Spend Ki on your bonus action, and your Astral Arms appear. They could be standard arms, claws, or tentacles. The choice is yours. Firstly, every creature or enemy within 10 feet of you needs to make a Dexterity save or take force damage equal to two rolls of your martial arts die. So before you’ve done any ghost punching, you’re already causing problems for your enemy.

Astral Arms can hover near your arms or surround them, your choice. And they last for 10 minutes or until you die or become incapacitated.

While these handy spectral appendages are hanging around, your monk gets the following benefits:

• Rather than use your Strength modifier on Strength checks and saves, you can use your Wisdom modifier instead.
• The ghost arms can do unarmed strikes.
• The reach of these arms is 5 feet longer than your standard reach.
• Unarmed strikes use your Wisdom modifier rather than your Dexterity or Strength modifier. For these attacks, the damage type is force.

What is force damage DND 5e?

A special type of damage that’s magical. It can hit incorporeal enemies.

How much damage does Arms of the astral self do?

Well, that depends on your Wisdom modifier. So potentially more than your standard damage.

⚠️ Deflect Missiles

I’m on the fence with this feature. The ability to catch a missile and possibly throw it back is cool, but it only works if you reduce the damage to 0. Use your reaction to reduce the damage. You work that out by using 1d10 + your Dexterity modifier + your monk level.

If the damage goes to 0, then you can use a Ki point and throw it back at the attacker. 

🆗 Ki-Fueled Attack (Optional)

This is one of those optional features that sounds similar to your Martial arts bonus attack, but is not quite the same.

The main differences between the two are:

• Martial arts — If you use your action to make an attack, you can use your bonus action to make an extra unarmed attack.
• Ki-Fueled Attack —Your first action doesn’t need to be an attack. You could do something else as an action AND attack unarmed or with your Monk Weapon.

Level Four (Monk)

⚠️ Slow Fall

Reduces falling damage by an amount equal to five times your monk level. Situational. Just be careful near towers, cliffs, and holes.

⚠️ Quickened Healing (Optional)

Heavy on the Ki. Spend Ki and roll your martial arts die. You gain hit points to the number you rolled plus your proficiency. Good if you don’t have time for a short rest and you have Ki points left. But what if you get into a fight?

Level Five (Monk)

✅ Extra Attack

Up your attacks to two. Add your bonus action attacks on top of Flurry of Blows, giving you three or four attacks. I saw Tan (the monk in my party) punch the eye out of Shadow Dragon with many attacks. Truly joyful.

✅ Stunning Strike

A fantastic feature for a monk. When attacking with a melee strike, you can spend a Ki and execute a Stunning Strike. Your target must make a Constitution save or be stunned till the end of your next turn. Advantages on attacks.

Our monk Tan does this a lot. They use Stunning Strike to stun the enemy, and then my Swashbuckler Zarder comes in with a two-weapon attack plus sneak attack damage. Repeat till dead.

🆗 Focused Aim (Optional)

You punch with your spectral fists and darn it, you miss. Focused Aim allows you to spend up to three Ki to push it over the creature’s AC. Each Ki is worth 2 points.

Great if you need that extra push to finish off that enemy.

Level Six (Way of the Astral Monk and Monk)

Visage of the Astral Self

Using a Ki point and as a bonus action, you can summon a Visage of the Astral Self. A ghostly helmet/head? You can also use the same bonus action to summon Arms of the Astral Self. So you don’t have to wait until the next turn to summon each of Astral self features.

Lasting 10 minutes, you gain the following benefits:

✅ Astral Sight (Astral Monk)

Darkvision for 10 minutes. Well, actually better than Darkvision because it can see through magical darkness. Range, up to 120 feet. A perfect bonus.

🆗 Wisdom of the Spirit (Astral Monk)

You get advantage on Wisdom (Insight) and Charisma (Intimidation) checks, which is nice. Good for more RP parts of your campaign. However, unless you’re really lucky with your ability rolls, you’ll dump Charisma. Making half of this ability redundant.

⚠️ Word of the Spirit

You can secretly message a creature or person you can see within 60 feet of you (similar to the Message spell) or shout loudly, and everyone within 600 feet can hear you. Ok, but quite forgettable.

🆗 Ki-Empowered Strikes

Magical fists! Your normal punch attacks get classed as magic weapons. However, Astral Arms does force damage at level three and is already classed as magic damage. So a little redundant for this monk subclass. Still handy if you’ve run out of Ki, though!  

Level Seven (Monk)

✅ Evasion

My Swashbuckler has this. And it really annoys the DM. If you get hit by an AOE spell, roll a Dex save. A pass means no damage, and a fail means half damage—a top skill.

🆗 Stillness of Mind

You can use your action to stop an effect, such as being charmed or frightened. Only works on yourself. Quite situational.

Level Ten (Monk)

🆗 Purity of Body

Your monk is now immune to disease or poison. Delightful! Very handy.

Level Eleven (Way of the Astral Monk)

Body of the Astral Self

You’ve got the ghost arms. You’ve got the spectral helmet. Now you get the body! Two features: one offensive, one defensive. When you’ve got your arms and visage summoned, you can summon the ghost body to arrive. No Ki or action is required. 

🆗 Deflect Energy

When you get hit by acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, or thunder damage, you can use your reaction to deflect it. The damage is reduced by 1d10 + your Wisdom modifier. These damage types come up all the time in Dnd. 

🆗 Empowered Arms

Once per turn, when you hit a creature with your ghostly punch Arms of the Astral Self you can deal extra damage equal to your Martial Arts die. The extra damage is always good.

Level Thirteen (Monk)

⚠️ Tongue of the Sun and Moon

A bit of a situational feature. Touch a person, and you can understand them, no matter the language they speak. It’s ok. Not ghost punching, right?

Level Fourteen (Monk)

✅ Diamond Soul

This is great for all monk subclasses. You get proficiency on all saving throws. And you can spend a Ki to do a reroll if you fail.

Level Fifteen (Monk)

⛔ Timeless Body

Very situational. I feel this just needs a little more. Or to be worked differently. Can’t be aged magically, and you don’t need food or water. 

Level Seventeen (Way of the Astral Monk)

Awakened Astral Self

Your connection is complete. You fully transition into your Astral Self. Whether that’s a Bugbear, Loxodon, or even a Horse-man-thing. Anyway, your true Astral Self appears, and you gain the following benefits. Both are exceptionally great. Ok, it’s 5 Ki, but that’s fine.

✅ Armor of the Spirit

Get a +2 to AC. Glorious!

✅ Astral Barrage

How many times can an Astral monk attack? 

When you use your extra attack, instead of two punches, you get three if you use your magic ghost punch arms/tentacles/claws. Fantastic!

Level Eighteen (Monk)

🆗 Empty Body

Become invisible if you spend 4 Ki points. Great for any build, let alone a monk. 

You can go and visit the other planes if you spend 8 Ki points. Granting you the Astral Projection spell. Not sure why, but ok.

Level Twenty (Monk)

🆗 Perfect Self

If you have zero Ki points when you roll for initiative, you get 4 Ki points. Good, but I mean, if you’re level 20 with only 4 Ki, just run.

The Perfect Astral Self Monk Build

You’re the ghost puncher, the rhythmical ghost puncher. Basically, you’re at the front, supporting the tank. You may even be the tank. Getting the right skills, feats, background, and race can really make a difference to your Astral Self monk build.

Ability Scores

⚠️ Strength

It’s not super important for Monks as they’re Dex heavy. Although they do have Strength saves.

✅ Dexterity

Essential for all monk builds, especially Way of the Astral Self.

🆗 Constitution

Important for every class. You do a lot of up-close combat with punch ghost arms.

⛔ Intelligence

Be wise, not intelligent.

✅ Wisdom

For the Way of the Astral Self, this should be just behind or equal to your Dexterity ability. Simply because the Astral Self uses Wis instead of Dex for a lot of their features.

⛔ Charisma

Not essential at all. You’re not a Bard, right?

Racial Considerations

I’ve picked the top races I believe to make an excellent Astral Monk. Dexterity and Wisdom modifiers are a must with other additional bonuses.

✅ Aarakocra

Starting with a +2 to Dexterity and a +1 to Wisdom plus the ability to fly? Flying ghosty punch monk.

🆗 Halfling – Ghostwise

Starting with a +2 to Dexterity and a +1 to Wisdom makes this perfect for Astral Self monk. Lucky is also nice. 

✅ Elf – Wood Elf

Again, that +2 to Dexterity and a +1 to Wisdom delivers for the Astral monk. Darkvision is great as you don’t need to worry about Visage of the Astral Self with Astral Sight.

Proficiency in the Perception skill, advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep. Nice.

🆗 Firbolg

Just something a little different for the Astral Self. If you already have a great Dex roll, the Filborg gets a +2 to Wisdom and +1 Strength. You can cast Detect Magic and Disguise Self. And you have a few more languages at your disposal.

🆗 Human Variant

The classic monk race. Two +1 increases on any ability score, one skill, and a feat. Extra feats and skills can really flesh out your character.

Also possible that your chosen feat adds one to either Dexterity or Wisdom.

✅ Kenku

Kenku are born monks. As well as +2 to Dexterity and a +1 to Wisdom, you have two extra skills from Acrobatics, Deception, Stealth, and Sleight of Hand. Your Mimic ability is interesting and great for roleplaying.

Notable Backgrounds

🆗 Criminal

Thief monk type? Thieves tools and the Stealth and Deception skills.

✅ Urchin

Another good monk background. Not only do you get skills in Sleight of Hand and Stealth, but also tool proficiencies in thieves tools and the disguise kit. Great if you like to get into locked places or prefer your Astral Self monk to be a bit light-fingered.

🧘 Discover another subclass with our Sun Soul Monk guide

Astral Self Monk Skills

Depending on your background and race choices, you can end up with some really useful skills. Contingent on how you want to play the monk.

You get to choose two from Acrobatics, Athletics, History, Insight, Religion, and Stealth.

If your race and background selection doesn’t add any skills, I would highly recommend Stealth and either Acrobatics or Athletics. Insight is good for noticing things and reading between the lines. History and Religion give nice flavors if you can get skills from elsewhere.

Best Feats for Way of the Astral Self

Ability score increases, and feats can flesh out your monk. Getting both your Dex and Wisdom to max is a really good idea. Increasing both of these pushes your monk abilities up—both for standard Monks and Astral Self.

Feats give you little extras that allow your character to get bonuses.

🆗 Alert

You want to punch with your ghost arms before anyone else, right? Then take Alert. You gain +5 to your initiative, and a hidden enemy that attacks doesn’t get advantage.

My Gloomstalker Ranger Wolfgang has this, and thanks to the Gloomstalker ability Dread Ambusher, he gets a silly +12 to initiative.

🆗 Durable

Constitution is important. You get a great hit point mod on a short rest.

✅ Observant

Increase your Wisdom by +1. Perfect for an Astral Self monk. Lip-read a language you know, and you get a lovely +5 on your passive Wisdom (Perception) and passive (Investigation). I’d definitely get this for an Astral Monk. Totally essential.

✅ Skill Expert

You get a +1 to any ability score, proficiency in a skill, and expertise in any skill you have proficiency in, thus doubling it. If your race or background didn’t give you loads of skills, then this is ideal. Plus, you can up your Dex or Wis by one point.

✅ Tough

As an Astral Self Monk, you’re on the front line a fair bit, so the Tough skill is perfect. Your hit point maximum goes up by an amount equal to twice your level, and at every subsequent level it goes up by another 2 points.

Weapons and Armor

Do you have ghost fists? Why are we here? Can Astral Arms wield weapons? Nope, they cannot. Actually, get a longbow. Thanks to your Dedicated Weapon skill, you can attack with one of these from level 2.

Armor? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Multiclassing

Generally, Monks already work exceptionally well as pure Monks, but if you want to have a few healing spells (and thanks to your Wisdom mod), a Cleric wouldn’t be a bad multiclass, especially with your spiritual bonuses of Astral Self.

Magic Items

Do Monks Need Magic Items?

They can add a bit of flavor to a Monk build. And a few bonuses.

✅ Amulet of Health

Brings your Constitution up to 19. Tough Monk.

✅ Braces of Defense

My Monk Rulan had these, and you get a +2 to AC. Bring on the Armor of the Spirit plus a max Dex and Wis of 20. You get a silly 24 AC. Think about that.

🆗 Cloak of Displacement

Send an illusion of yourself nearby. Creatures get disadvantage when trying to hit you. Ghost punch them.

✅ Manual of Bodily Health

A recipe for success! A book that raises your Con by +2.

Final Thoughts

Well, did you enjoy my little DnD Astral Self Monk adventure? They’re a pretty fun Monk subclass to play and have tons of potential. Especially the spectral delight that appears as you bring in skills. Is it a Goliath? A Lion? Or a simple ghostly figure that surrounds you? Your choice completely. 

Astral Monks are good support for the main tanks in your party, and if you build it right, it’s possible that you could even be your party’s main tank. We’d love to hear about your builds. Drop a comment below and let us know how they worked for you.