There are plenty of examples and criticisms of the Monk being Ki locked. Has anyone tried modifying the Ki cost in their campaign?
A good suggestion I found online was having the basic Ki abilities from Level 2: Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind NOT cost any Ki.
At least that would leave the Monk with abilities as a default which are balanced because they always cost a Bonus action.
It would also allow the Ki to be used only for Stunning Blow and other Features used by the different Monastic Traditions.
Anyone have any idea why the designers decided to limit the Monk using these abilities in the first place? Fighters get a ridiculous number of attacks and fighting styles from level 1. Rogues can use the backstab and the Cunning Action at Level 2. For some reason, they decided to make monks pay for it. What's the logic?
Monks are good enough as they are. No need to make them even better. That's also the logic. And at level 1 monks and fighters have the same number of attacks. In fact, monks match fighters for numbers of attacks for most of the game.
I guess you never saw TreantMonks youtube video on their multiple deficiencies. Rather than put you through the hour long video this is the summary roughly:
Treantmonk's basic theme is monks do four things (defense, offense, maneuverability, and battlefield control). Without focusing on any of those things, they're basically mediocre at them with other classes being better at each (often without even trying that hard to be better and spending no limited resources). But even when they focus on one of those things, other classes do them better when they focus on them. Essentially, they're not the best at anything, and they're not even "good" at many things at once. So they're overall pretty sucky. Here is the break-down on those elements:
1. Monk deals poor damage for melee attackers:
Important Note: Treantmonk uses "Baseline Damage" as a measuring tool. Baseline Damage is based on a Warlock using hex spell, agonizing blast, increases charisma over time and uses eldritch blast. You can agree or disagree with it, but just know it's a fixed-line he can use for comparison for all classes, and his goals in looking at damage is to always be above that baseline.
a. Of all classes in the game which use weapons primarily to deal damage, monks are the worst. Any class can be made to do more damage than the monk if they specialize in doing damage. b. Martial Arts deals about 8.15 points of damage per round at level 1. All martial arts is, is two-weapon fighting. All other classes can do that. Level 1 fighter deals the same damage with two weapon fighting. A level 1 rogue dos 9.5 damage per round by the way. c. Monks struggle to even do the Baseline Damage, and just the Baseline, though any other class built for damage can exceed Baseline Damage pretty easily (yes even a beastmaster ranger). But the monks can only struggle to get to the baseline to level 10. After that, their damage will suffer below the baseline. d. Flurry of Blows: It's too limited a resource to be able to do every attack so it doesn't change their numbers much, and it requires devoting too many resources to Dex which causes stunning strike to suffer. But even if the Monk mysteriously could use flurry of blows all the time, and did crank Dex over Wis, they still would fall below the baseline of damage after level 10. But more likely they will fall below baseline at level 5.
2. Monks are ineffective tanks and have mediocre to poor defense; a. Hit Points: For all classes expected to be in melee, monks are tied for the worst HP. Made worse by the fact they need Dex and Wis, which means their Con won't be as high as some others. b. AC: Every other melee class other than the rogue that wants a higher defense will have a higher, often much higher, AC. The monk can spend some precious resources (which power everything else they do as opposed to drawing from multiple pools) to increase their defense, but other melee classes can also spend their resources to increase their defense as well. Monk's defense won't catch up to other melee classes (other than rogue) until around level 16 without spending resources, and even spending resources they can at best reach the middle of the pack versus other melee classes not spending any resources to get that same AC. c. Saving Throws: Dex will be high, Con will be low, Wisdom will be in the middle. Essentially the same number of strengths and weaknesses as other melee classes. At the level they get evasion - same as rogues. They only get better saves at 14th level, which is very late and by that point some other melee classes that wanted good saves would have them before that point. Paladins get better saves by level 6, gloomstalker rangers bypass wisdom saves at 7, warmages can use their reaction to any save at level 2, fighters get lots of feats and at level 12 they often get a feat for saves like resilient wisdom, and get a save re-roll. So, even at level 14 they're not noteworthy for being able to have better saves.
3. Monks are not all that great at maneuverability (but at least they're decent here); a. Any character on a horse can move faster than a monk at 60', and they get a free disengage or dash and they don't need to use their bonus action to be decent at it. A Paladin at level 5 can summon one. A Wizard can summon one as a ten minute ritual with a speed of 100 and they can give one to the whole party because no resources are spent. b. So many other classes can enhance maneuverability. Longstrider, Misty Step, zephyrs strike, barbarians gain speed, ranger and druid can avoid difficult terrain, conjures and echo knights can teleport without spending resources, a glory paladin can make the entire party more maneuverable, etc.. Their maneuverability is just not unique, and they're not best at it.
4. Monks are not great at controlling the battlefield (Stunning Strike): a. It uses a Ki point and all their abilities draw from that same pool including their subclasses. It's too limited a resource pool. b. You need to both hit AND the foe needs to miss a Con saving throw. But your save DC on your Stunning Strike isn't great, and you need to increase Wis at the expense of Dex to even make it OK. At level 5 your average DC will be 14 or 15. Your average CR 5 creature has a Con save of +4 (so 50% to 55% chance), but if your party is facing CR 5 creatures at that level there should be many of them to make it a challenge and so stunning one creature isn't very impressive. A challenge for a 5th level party for a single creature is probably about CR 9, and they get an average +9 to their Con saves, which means you fail most of the time (75% to 80%). Even if you blew threw a lot of Ki with a flurry to hit many times, you STILL on average will fail to stun that CR 9 creature (44%). c. Magic on the other hand can target any saving throw if you pick your spells right, so you won't be stuck targeting only Con which can often be a higher save for many foes. Spells can also target multiple enemies, or even offer no save at all. And spellcasters get more times to cast spells than Monks get Ki. Stunning Strike really doesn't get much better at higher levels, while spells get better over time. d. When looking at sample games, stunning strike works roughly 1/3 of the time. Not a good battlefield control record relative to others who do battlefield control. e. Stun isn't even a great battlefield control. Paralyze or incapacitate for example is better, and available to spellcasters earlier to hit multiple targets at lower levels, and last longer on them.
5. Other Monk features don't make up for the deficiencies: a. Spellcasters and/or others can do all these features earlier and better. b. Most of these abilities are highly situational. Some don't even work the way intended (like the charm one - it takes an action, which you won't have when hit with a charm). c. They have sucky higher-level abilities and a terrible capstone./\
Yeah, there are many flaws with that line of thinking which you can easily find online. In short, there are other aspects of the game other than "baseline damage" where the monk excel. For example, their capstone comes at level 14.
But sure, if all you are interested in is doing numbers amounts of damage then I can see why you would want to monk to be even more optimized.
I could see making Patient Defense, Step of the Wind free, Rogues get Cunning Action for free (though they don’t get Dodge and Monks don’t get Hide). But I don’t think that is a dealbreaker. FoB free would be too much, I think.
As much as I like Treant, adjusting a class based on simply a video of someone’s perspective of a class is risky. Theory rarely correlates to a player’s enjoyment of a class and practicality of how things work is much different than theory.
And if fun and practicality are important, the monk works extremely well. It has lots of options in every combat, allows for a flexibility of play style, and actually has very deep strategic potential with movement, abilities and attacks are vying for that same Ki resource pool.
“Stun isn't even a great battlefield control. Paralyze or incapacitate for example is better, and available to spellcasters earlier to hit multiple targets at lower levels, and last longer on them.”
Stun inflicts Incapacitate, and gets almost all of Paralysis (minus autocrit, which is quite good). It also lasts until the end of your next turn, meaning you can reset the timer by stunning striking them again next turn, shutting down a creature for 2 rounds of advantage and failed dex saves for the cost of 2-5 KI, depending on how bulky they are. Stunning strike is arguable the best (pre level 17) ability in the game besides the Paladin’s Aura of Protection and possibly Monk’s Diamond Soul.
As for maneuvering we’ve gone 11 levels in our current campaign and not a single horse was used. Most of the areas would have not even allowed them for combat. The monks movement, however, works basically everywhere. Can a horse run along walls? And as for spells like misty step they require resources (spell slots or once a day feat like Fey Touched). Monks require none of that for their maneuverability
As for maneuvering we’ve gone 11 levels in our current campaign and not a single horse was used. Most of the areas would have not even allowed them for combat. The monks movement, however, works basically everywhere. Can a horse run along walls? And as for spells like misty step they require resources (spell slots or once a day feat like Fey Touched). Monks require none of that for their maneuverability
Yeah, this is one of the reasons why monks are so good. Saying that "well, a horse can run just as fast" is like saying a fighter sucks at dealing damage because a T-Rex (or whatever, can't be arsed to look up stats right now) can do just as much damage.
The monk's incredible maneuverability is also why I wouldn't give them step of the wind for free. It would just be too much.
I didn't post Treantmonk's diatribe in there so much to deflate the Monk class as to show that even adding in the abilities at no Ki cost would not significantly increase the Monk over the damage thresh hold. The only real reason I posted it was for that.
So back to what I wanted the main topic to be, with numbers, statistically, why would having those three abilities being free unbalance the Monk class?
Considering for one that his fists are not a magical weapon until 6th level, there is some limiter in place.
The damage advancement on unarmed strikes is fairly mild compared to other characters who can readily use magical weapons, of which there currently exists what..1, maybe 2 that help monks?: 1st - d4, 5th - d6, 11th - d8, 17th - d10
With no magic items to improve the chance to hit they are working off their own base THACO so are likely to miss more than characters with magical weapons.
I didn't post Treantmonk's diatribe in there so much to deflate the Monk class as to show that even adding in the abilities at no Ki cost would not significantly increase the Monk over the damage thresh hold. The only real reason I posted it was for that.
So back to what I wanted the main topic to be, with numbers, statistically, why would having those three abilities being free unbalance the Monk class?
Considering for one that his fists are not a magical weapon until 6th level, there is some limiter in place.
The damage advancement on unarmed strikes is fairly mild compared to other characters who can readily use magical weapons, of which there currently exists what..1, maybe 2 that help monks?: 1st - d4, 5th - d6, 11th - d8, 17th - d10
With no magic items to improve the chance to hit they are working off their own base THACO so are likely to miss more than characters with magical weapons.
So...what's the real hazard here?
Who says there has to be a hazard? The point is that there is no reason to do it, monks are perfectly good as they are. Saying that other classes can "readily use magical weapons" isn't really an argument since there is literally no rule that says that you have to get magical weapons as a martial class. That aside, monks are proficient in a lot of weapons so there is a slew of them that they can use already. The fact that monks don't need magic weapons as early as level 6 is actually something that speaks for the monks, not against them.
And, of course, there is still the same old issue that there are other aspects of the game than just dealing damage. The question that should really be asked, why do you feel that monks need to be even better at dealing damage?
At level 1 a monk ca attack with a spear for 1d8+DEX Mod then unarmed attack for 1d4+DEX. A fighter at level 1 with sword and dagger can do the same with the fighting style. Giving the monk two Bonus Action attacks for free with no cost seems a little much.
At level 1 a monk ca attack with a spear for 1d8+DEX Mod then unarmed attack for 1d4+DEX. A fighter at level 1 with sword and dagger can do the same with the fighting style. Giving the monk two Bonus Action attacks for free with no cost seems a little much.
And the Fighter has to expend a Feat to do that. which the Monk Doesn't.
The Reality is that the Fighters damage is not significantly higher than the Monks until the highest levels where the Monk gains a lot of other advantages that the Fighter never does to make up for that difference in damage.
Even at Level 1. A monk using just their fists is basically doing the same damage as a Fighter or or the like with a Two Handed weapon. If your looking for mathematical proof of it your looking a 2d6+3 for the Fighter which averages out to about 10 damage. For the monk your looking at 2(1d4+3) for the monk hitting twice for both fits. To make it simpler to understand you can also look at the what the monk is doing as 2d4+6. Which is actually an average damage of 11 at level 1 without using anything fancy. When you start adding in tactics like using a Quarterstaff for the 1d8 the monk is doing even more damage. Many people don't realize this because Level 1 is seen as boring so many games start at level 2 or 3 instead.
I don't think they need to be better at dealing damage. I think they need to be free to use all the options rather than trying to conserve their limited Ki for attacks. I want to run freely with a monk and dodge with a monk as much as I want to punch someone in the face. But with 4 ki points...just not really an option realistically. I'm basically saving all points to punch the big bad in the face. Most of the time I'm maneuvering behind people trying to give advantage to the heavy hitters in the group.
So, why are you so adverse to giving additional options other than flurry of blows to low level characters? Because I'm certainly not arguing that you should flurry of blows every turn. I'm simply showing examples that it would not unbalance the game.
I don't think they need to be better at dealing damage. I think they need to be free to use all the options rather than trying to conserve their limited Ki for attacks. I want to run freely with a monk and dodge with a monk as much as I want to punch someone in the face. But with 4 ki points...just not really an option realistically. I'm basically saving all points to punch the big bad in the face. Most of the time I'm maneuvering behind people trying to give advantage to the heavy hitters in the group.
So, why are you so adverse to giving additional options other than flurry of blows to low level characters? Because I'm certainly not arguing that you should flurry of blows every turn. I'm simply showing examples that it would not unbalance the game.
If they are reserving all of their Ki... Which is one of the most abundant of the resources in the game. Then that is an issue of the player. Not the design of the class. They could easily be spending them on their other abilities. If they are narrowing themselves just to attacks. That does not accurately make a cost effective analysis for the usefulness or appropriateness of adequate ki costs.
Edit: I decided to put in a little cold hard Reality as well. Your clearly over valuing more damage or Stunning strike to want to be able to channel all ki into them. If you didn't you wouldn't feel that you have to save the points for your attacks and would be much more free to use them in other places. Many people hardly ever use ki on stunning strikes and are quite successful. But when you push the need for the Ki to solely be for Stunning Strikes and basically infinite usage Flurry of Blows all your actually arguing for is increased damage in essence. If you felt this wasn't really needed then you would feel that all Ki needs to be saved for attacks. You want to run and jump around and dodge. You can already do that. You can do that even without spending ki. The Ki is just there to give you a few instances of doing that and so much more at the same time.
I don't think they need to be better at dealing damage. I think they need to be free to use all the options rather than trying to conserve their limited Ki for attacks.
Well, you can already do that. There is literally nothing that prevents you from running just as much as a paladin, a wizard or a fighter if you play a monk. In fact, since you have a higher movement than most other people you already have an advantage.
I want to run freely with a monk and dodge with a monk as much as I want to punch someone in the face.
Of course you *want* to, but do you really *need* to? No other class can dodge for free and rogues have a special ability that allows them to run a bit more (but still not as far as monks after a certain level). Why do you feel the need for Monks to have the rogue's special ability?
But with 4 ki points...just not really an option realistically. I'm basically saving all points to punch the big bad in the face. Most of the time I'm maneuvering behind people trying to give advantage to the heavy hitters in the group.
So change your playstyle then? Don't save all your ki points for punching the bad guy in the face, use them for something else. This isn't an issue with the class, this is how class is supposed to be. Just like how wizards have limited spell slots and Rogues have a fairly low sneak attack damage.
So, why are you so adverse to giving additional options other than flurry of blows to low level characters?
Low level characters already have those options.
Because I'm certainly not arguing that you should flurry of blows every turn. I'm simply showing examples that it would not unbalance the game.
Well, it would. Or are you also planning on giving wizards more spell slots, Rogues higher sneak attack damage and so on? Or is your plan that monks can only do these things for free at low levels and then after, say level 5 they suddenly forget how?
Here's a reason to stop Comparing Rogues to Monks. Rogues actually get very little to do in combat. The have the typical general options. Some of which are actually non-viable because of the way people tend to build their characters combined with a general lack of focus in certain areas (such as shove and grapple). But they never get multiple attacks without building it into them and even when you do those are lackluster and somewhat resource heavy, And they get cunning Action which is basically abilities they could always do but for slightly better action economy. Certain subclasses might add in like the cast a spell action or give you a single other action not found. But really all most of them get is one or two things moved to a better action economy and that's it. Their Damage my be a high-risk, High Reward style of damage putting all or nothing into singular swings but other than that they are amazingly bland in combat. it's only all the effort we put into things like making sneak attack work that makes it seem like they have a lot of options. But if you really even break most of those attempts down. You realize that they all boil down to either two things. Hiding every round and pretending the enemy forgot about us long enough to pop back out and get our attack or positioning based upon another person to get that damage. We satisfy ourselves with the illusion that means we're really doing a lot in combat and a lot of original stuff in combat, particularly when a couple of our automatic defenses are kicking in regularly like with Evasion and a fair amount of AoE spells. But we really aren't. We just run around in basic combat loops of busy work, if even that.
Even Fighters (the other starter class)do more and more varied stuff with their turns with their Action Surge and their Second Wind to suddenly heal themselves. They are varied by their fighting styles which may switch up their action decisions or give them new ones. Most of their Subclasses bring some kind of unique action or alteration to attacks they are making to the table. Just the Weapons that they have in their hand can switch up how they approach it and they can switch these up much more widely and easily than any rogue can. Fighters are also Most Built to actually take Feats that Vary this up or narrow it down more. But here's the thing. Most of these extra things that they have. With a couple exceptions like certain things from fighting Styles they are all limited usage thanks to basically what is effectively individual resources to them. Fighters have a lot of little individual ability usage counters to keep track of but if you pooled it all together. You'd end up with something fairly similar to a limited ki pool that you would risk using all your uses on attack boosters and leave you without for the others. or potentially use them all up on non-attack boosters and not have them to boost attacks. Just like Ki.
There is also a lot of faults on basing it on Treant Monks Little Diatribe. I want to draw your attention to something. Treant is so hooked on over powered stuff and power levels way higher than the balance of 5e that he sees a CR 9 as the proper threat for level 5 characters. Characters reaching the primary Tier 2 milestone, he feels it is appropriate that they be challenged by what is almost a Tier 3 creature. This is what should effectively be considered a Deadly Encounter. Which basically means that there is Good Potential for 1 or more characters may outright die in this encounter. But he thinks that should be your normal average enemy. This is not going to be the average threat for most games.
That alone should tell you that perhaps his analysis is flawed even if you wish to ignore things like special extreme circumstances that he uses to try and do things like mitigate the impact of the Monks Movement abilities. Because here's the reality. His niche, extreme circumstance of a horse? For as much as he says that it outdoes a monk. It actually outdoes things like a Rogue by even more. Another class that is considered highly mobile. And it's still a flawed comparison because the Monk can still ride a Horse on top of everything that they do. It also costs them less resources in general due to things like Dismounts and such than it does for most other classes. it actually takes particular subclass specific builds to do better. But he's not telling you any of that in his analysis. He's pretending it's just a Monk Problem.
I found the two levels with the weakest features (In my opinion). Namely, the wall/water running ability, and knowing all languages.
Running up walls and across water is really cool, and is really fun to use. It’s a little less effective than expected because you can’t use it to cross lakes or anything, though it’s still very useful. I picked it because all the other levels even close to low-level were either ASIs/Subclass features, or had two features at that level already. You could definitely pick 10th level for this instead, but I think wall running is slightly weaker than full poison immunity + 5 extra movement, and I was trying to give Step of the Wind as early as I reasonably could.
Tongue of the Sun and Moon letting you speak all languages isn’t super useful, especially with how late it comes and that monks don’t get any other social features except from some subclasses.
Step of the Wind is less powerful that Patient Defense (there’s a reason why Rogues and Goblin PCs can dash but not dodge), so I put that one first. Monks already have so many features, it was hard to find an empty level (especially factoring in the optional bonus class features).
I don’t think monks need a buff at all, but if I did, it would either be giving them a third skill or granting free step of the wind at level 13.
There are plenty of examples and criticisms of the Monk being Ki locked. Has anyone tried modifying the Ki cost in their campaign?
A good suggestion I found online was having the basic Ki abilities from Level 2: Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind NOT cost any Ki.
At least that would leave the Monk with abilities as a default which are balanced because they always cost a Bonus action.
It would also allow the Ki to be used only for Stunning Blow and other Features used by the different Monastic Traditions.
Anyone have any idea why the designers decided to limit the Monk using these abilities in the first place? Fighters get a ridiculous number of attacks and fighting styles from level 1. Rogues can use the backstab and the Cunning Action at Level 2. For some reason, they decided to make monks pay for it. What's the logic?
Monks are good enough as they are. No need to make them even better. That's also the logic. And at level 1 monks and fighters have the same number of attacks. In fact, monks match fighters for numbers of attacks for most of the game.
I guess you never saw TreantMonks youtube video on their multiple deficiencies. Rather than put you through the hour long video this is the summary roughly:
Treantmonk's basic theme is monks do four things (defense, offense, maneuverability, and battlefield control). Without focusing on any of those things, they're basically mediocre at them with other classes being better at each (often without even trying that hard to be better and spending no limited resources). But even when they focus on one of those things, other classes do them better when they focus on them. Essentially, they're not the best at anything, and they're not even "good" at many things at once. So they're overall pretty sucky. Here is the break-down on those elements:
1. Monk deals poor damage for melee attackers:
Important Note: Treantmonk uses "Baseline Damage" as a measuring tool. Baseline Damage is based on a Warlock using hex spell, agonizing blast, increases charisma over time and uses eldritch blast. You can agree or disagree with it, but just know it's a fixed-line he can use for comparison for all classes, and his goals in looking at damage is to always be above that baseline.
a. Of all classes in the game which use weapons primarily to deal damage, monks are the worst. Any class can be made to do more damage than the monk if they specialize in doing damage.
b. Martial Arts deals about 8.15 points of damage per round at level 1. All martial arts is, is two-weapon fighting. All other classes can do that. Level 1 fighter deals the same damage with two weapon fighting. A level 1 rogue dos 9.5 damage per round by the way.
c. Monks struggle to even do the Baseline Damage, and just the Baseline, though any other class built for damage can exceed Baseline Damage pretty easily (yes even a beastmaster ranger). But the monks can only struggle to get to the baseline to level 10. After that, their damage will suffer below the baseline.
d. Flurry of Blows: It's too limited a resource to be able to do every attack so it doesn't change their numbers much, and it requires devoting too many resources to Dex which causes stunning strike to suffer. But even if the Monk mysteriously could use flurry of blows all the time, and did crank Dex over Wis, they still would fall below the baseline of damage after level 10. But more likely they will fall below baseline at level 5.
2. Monks are ineffective tanks and have mediocre to poor defense;
a. Hit Points: For all classes expected to be in melee, monks are tied for the worst HP. Made worse by the fact they need Dex and Wis, which means their Con won't be as high as some others.
b. AC: Every other melee class other than the rogue that wants a higher defense will have a higher, often much higher, AC. The monk can spend some precious resources (which power everything else they do as opposed to drawing from multiple pools) to increase their defense, but other melee classes can also spend their resources to increase their defense as well. Monk's defense won't catch up to other melee classes (other than rogue) until around level 16 without spending resources, and even spending resources they can at best reach the middle of the pack versus other melee classes not spending any resources to get that same AC.
c. Saving Throws: Dex will be high, Con will be low, Wisdom will be in the middle. Essentially the same number of strengths and weaknesses as other melee classes. At the level they get evasion - same as rogues. They only get better saves at 14th level, which is very late and by that point some other melee classes that wanted good saves would have them before that point. Paladins get better saves by level 6, gloomstalker rangers bypass wisdom saves at 7, warmages can use their reaction to any save at level 2, fighters get lots of feats and at level 12 they often get a feat for saves like resilient wisdom, and get a save re-roll. So, even at level 14 they're not noteworthy for being able to have better saves.
3. Monks are not all that great at maneuverability (but at least they're decent here);
a. Any character on a horse can move faster than a monk at 60', and they get a free disengage or dash and they don't need to use their bonus action to be decent at it. A Paladin at level 5 can summon one. A Wizard can summon one as a ten minute ritual with a speed of 100 and they can give one to the whole party because no resources are spent.
b. So many other classes can enhance maneuverability. Longstrider, Misty Step, zephyrs strike, barbarians gain speed, ranger and druid can avoid difficult terrain, conjures and echo knights can teleport without spending resources, a glory paladin can make the entire party more maneuverable, etc.. Their maneuverability is just not unique, and they're not best at it.
4. Monks are not great at controlling the battlefield (Stunning Strike):
a. It uses a Ki point and all their abilities draw from that same pool including their subclasses. It's too limited a resource pool.
b. You need to both hit AND the foe needs to miss a Con saving throw. But your save DC on your Stunning Strike isn't great, and you need to increase Wis at the expense of Dex to even make it OK. At level 5 your average DC will be 14 or 15. Your average CR 5 creature has a Con save of +4 (so 50% to 55% chance), but if your party is facing CR 5 creatures at that level there should be many of them to make it a challenge and so stunning one creature isn't very impressive. A challenge for a 5th level party for a single creature is probably about CR 9, and they get an average +9 to their Con saves, which means you fail most of the time (75% to 80%). Even if you blew threw a lot of Ki with a flurry to hit many times, you STILL on average will fail to stun that CR 9 creature (44%).
c. Magic on the other hand can target any saving throw if you pick your spells right, so you won't be stuck targeting only Con which can often be a higher save for many foes. Spells can also target multiple enemies, or even offer no save at all. And spellcasters get more times to cast spells than Monks get Ki. Stunning Strike really doesn't get much better at higher levels, while spells get better over time.
d. When looking at sample games, stunning strike works roughly 1/3 of the time. Not a good battlefield control record relative to others who do battlefield control.
e. Stun isn't even a great battlefield control. Paralyze or incapacitate for example is better, and available to spellcasters earlier to hit multiple targets at lower levels, and last longer on them.
5. Other Monk features don't make up for the deficiencies:
a. Spellcasters and/or others can do all these features earlier and better.
b. Most of these abilities are highly situational. Some don't even work the way intended (like the charm one - it takes an action, which you won't have when hit with a charm).
c. They have sucky higher-level abilities and a terrible capstone./\
Yeah, there are many flaws with that line of thinking which you can easily find online. In short, there are other aspects of the game other than "baseline damage" where the monk excel. For example, their capstone comes at level 14.
But sure, if all you are interested in is doing numbers amounts of damage then I can see why you would want to monk to be even more optimized.
I could see making Patient Defense, Step of the Wind free, Rogues get Cunning Action for free (though they don’t get Dodge and Monks don’t get Hide). But I don’t think that is a dealbreaker. FoB free would be too much, I think.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
As much as I like Treant, adjusting a class based on simply a video of someone’s perspective of a class is risky. Theory rarely correlates to a player’s enjoyment of a class and practicality of how things work is much different than theory.
And if fun and practicality are important, the monk works extremely well. It has lots of options in every combat, allows for a flexibility of play style, and actually has very deep strategic potential with movement, abilities and attacks are vying for that same Ki resource pool.
“Stun isn't even a great battlefield control. Paralyze or incapacitate for example is better, and available to spellcasters earlier to hit multiple targets at lower levels, and last longer on them.”
Stun inflicts Incapacitate, and gets almost all of Paralysis (minus autocrit, which is quite good). It also lasts until the end of your next turn, meaning you can reset the timer by stunning striking them again next turn, shutting down a creature for 2 rounds of advantage and failed dex saves for the cost of 2-5 KI, depending on how bulky they are. Stunning strike is arguable the best (pre level 17) ability in the game besides the Paladin’s Aura of Protection and possibly Monk’s Diamond Soul.
As for maneuvering we’ve gone 11 levels in our current campaign and not a single horse was used. Most of the areas would have not even allowed them for combat. The monks movement, however, works basically everywhere. Can a horse run along walls? And as for spells like misty step they require resources (spell slots or once a day feat like Fey Touched). Monks require none of that for their maneuverability
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Yeah, this is one of the reasons why monks are so good. Saying that "well, a horse can run just as fast" is like saying a fighter sucks at dealing damage because a T-Rex (or whatever, can't be arsed to look up stats right now) can do just as much damage.
The monk's incredible maneuverability is also why I wouldn't give them step of the wind for free. It would just be too much.
I didn't post Treantmonk's diatribe in there so much to deflate the Monk class as to show that even adding in the abilities at no Ki cost would not significantly increase the Monk over the damage thresh hold. The only real reason I posted it was for that.
So back to what I wanted the main topic to be, with numbers, statistically, why would having those three abilities being free unbalance the Monk class?
Considering for one that his fists are not a magical weapon until 6th level, there is some limiter in place.
The damage advancement on unarmed strikes is fairly mild compared to other characters who can readily use magical weapons, of which there currently exists what..1, maybe 2 that help monks?: 1st - d4, 5th - d6, 11th - d8, 17th - d10
With no magic items to improve the chance to hit they are working off their own base THACO so are likely to miss more than characters with magical weapons.
So...what's the real hazard here?
Who says there has to be a hazard? The point is that there is no reason to do it, monks are perfectly good as they are. Saying that other classes can "readily use magical weapons" isn't really an argument since there is literally no rule that says that you have to get magical weapons as a martial class. That aside, monks are proficient in a lot of weapons so there is a slew of them that they can use already. The fact that monks don't need magic weapons as early as level 6 is actually something that speaks for the monks, not against them.
And, of course, there is still the same old issue that there are other aspects of the game than just dealing damage. The question that should really be asked, why do you feel that monks need to be even better at dealing damage?
At level 1 a monk ca attack with a spear for 1d8+DEX Mod then unarmed attack for 1d4+DEX. A fighter at level 1 with sword and dagger can do the same with the fighting style. Giving the monk two Bonus Action attacks for free with no cost seems a little much.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
And the Fighter has to expend a Feat to do that. which the Monk Doesn't.
The Reality is that the Fighters damage is not significantly higher than the Monks until the highest levels where the Monk gains a lot of other advantages that the Fighter never does to make up for that difference in damage.
Even at Level 1. A monk using just their fists is basically doing the same damage as a Fighter or or the like with a Two Handed weapon. If your looking for mathematical proof of it your looking a 2d6+3 for the Fighter which averages out to about 10 damage. For the monk your looking at 2(1d4+3) for the monk hitting twice for both fits. To make it simpler to understand you can also look at the what the monk is doing as 2d4+6. Which is actually an average damage of 11 at level 1 without using anything fancy. When you start adding in tactics like using a Quarterstaff for the 1d8 the monk is doing even more damage. Many people don't realize this because Level 1 is seen as boring so many games start at level 2 or 3 instead.
I don't think they need to be better at dealing damage. I think they need to be free to use all the options rather than trying to conserve their limited Ki for attacks. I want to run freely with a monk and dodge with a monk as much as I want to punch someone in the face. But with 4 ki points...just not really an option realistically. I'm basically saving all points to punch the big bad in the face. Most of the time I'm maneuvering behind people trying to give advantage to the heavy hitters in the group.
So, why are you so adverse to giving additional options other than flurry of blows to low level characters? Because I'm certainly not arguing that you should flurry of blows every turn. I'm simply showing examples that it would not unbalance the game.
If they are reserving all of their Ki... Which is one of the most abundant of the resources in the game. Then that is an issue of the player. Not the design of the class. They could easily be spending them on their other abilities. If they are narrowing themselves just to attacks. That does not accurately make a cost effective analysis for the usefulness or appropriateness of adequate ki costs.
Edit: I decided to put in a little cold hard Reality as well. Your clearly over valuing more damage or Stunning strike to want to be able to channel all ki into them. If you didn't you wouldn't feel that you have to save the points for your attacks and would be much more free to use them in other places. Many people hardly ever use ki on stunning strikes and are quite successful. But when you push the need for the Ki to solely be for Stunning Strikes and basically infinite usage Flurry of Blows all your actually arguing for is increased damage in essence. If you felt this wasn't really needed then you would feel that all Ki needs to be saved for attacks. You want to run and jump around and dodge. You can already do that. You can do that even without spending ki. The Ki is just there to give you a few instances of doing that and so much more at the same time.
If you are insistent on making those abilities free, you should make them start normal but become free at later levels. For example:
Lv 9: Step of the Wind Free
Lv 13. Patient Defense Free
What's the logic behind those specific levels? How'd you make that determination?
Well, you can already do that. There is literally nothing that prevents you from running just as much as a paladin, a wizard or a fighter if you play a monk. In fact, since you have a higher movement than most other people you already have an advantage.
Of course you *want* to, but do you really *need* to? No other class can dodge for free and rogues have a special ability that allows them to run a bit more (but still not as far as monks after a certain level). Why do you feel the need for Monks to have the rogue's special ability?
So change your playstyle then? Don't save all your ki points for punching the bad guy in the face, use them for something else. This isn't an issue with the class, this is how class is supposed to be. Just like how wizards have limited spell slots and Rogues have a fairly low sneak attack damage.
Low level characters already have those options.
Well, it would. Or are you also planning on giving wizards more spell slots, Rogues higher sneak attack damage and so on? Or is your plan that monks can only do these things for free at low levels and then after, say level 5 they suddenly forget how?
Here's a reason to stop Comparing Rogues to Monks. Rogues actually get very little to do in combat. The have the typical general options. Some of which are actually non-viable because of the way people tend to build their characters combined with a general lack of focus in certain areas (such as shove and grapple). But they never get multiple attacks without building it into them and even when you do those are lackluster and somewhat resource heavy, And they get cunning Action which is basically abilities they could always do but for slightly better action economy. Certain subclasses might add in like the cast a spell action or give you a single other action not found. But really all most of them get is one or two things moved to a better action economy and that's it. Their Damage my be a high-risk, High Reward style of damage putting all or nothing into singular swings but other than that they are amazingly bland in combat. it's only all the effort we put into things like making sneak attack work that makes it seem like they have a lot of options. But if you really even break most of those attempts down. You realize that they all boil down to either two things. Hiding every round and pretending the enemy forgot about us long enough to pop back out and get our attack or positioning based upon another person to get that damage. We satisfy ourselves with the illusion that means we're really doing a lot in combat and a lot of original stuff in combat, particularly when a couple of our automatic defenses are kicking in regularly like with Evasion and a fair amount of AoE spells. But we really aren't. We just run around in basic combat loops of busy work, if even that.
Even Fighters (the other starter class)do more and more varied stuff with their turns with their Action Surge and their Second Wind to suddenly heal themselves. They are varied by their fighting styles which may switch up their action decisions or give them new ones. Most of their Subclasses bring some kind of unique action or alteration to attacks they are making to the table. Just the Weapons that they have in their hand can switch up how they approach it and they can switch these up much more widely and easily than any rogue can. Fighters are also Most Built to actually take Feats that Vary this up or narrow it down more. But here's the thing. Most of these extra things that they have. With a couple exceptions like certain things from fighting Styles they are all limited usage thanks to basically what is effectively individual resources to them. Fighters have a lot of little individual ability usage counters to keep track of but if you pooled it all together. You'd end up with something fairly similar to a limited ki pool that you would risk using all your uses on attack boosters and leave you without for the others. or potentially use them all up on non-attack boosters and not have them to boost attacks. Just like Ki.
There is also a lot of faults on basing it on Treant Monks Little Diatribe. I want to draw your attention to something. Treant is so hooked on over powered stuff and power levels way higher than the balance of 5e that he sees a CR 9 as the proper threat for level 5 characters. Characters reaching the primary Tier 2 milestone, he feels it is appropriate that they be challenged by what is almost a Tier 3 creature. This is what should effectively be considered a Deadly Encounter. Which basically means that there is Good Potential for 1 or more characters may outright die in this encounter. But he thinks that should be your normal average enemy. This is not going to be the average threat for most games.
That alone should tell you that perhaps his analysis is flawed even if you wish to ignore things like special extreme circumstances that he uses to try and do things like mitigate the impact of the Monks Movement abilities. Because here's the reality. His niche, extreme circumstance of a horse? For as much as he says that it outdoes a monk. It actually outdoes things like a Rogue by even more. Another class that is considered highly mobile. And it's still a flawed comparison because the Monk can still ride a Horse on top of everything that they do. It also costs them less resources in general due to things like Dismounts and such than it does for most other classes. it actually takes particular subclass specific builds to do better. But he's not telling you any of that in his analysis. He's pretending it's just a Monk Problem.
I found the two levels with the weakest features (In my opinion). Namely, the wall/water running ability, and knowing all languages.
Running up walls and across water is really cool, and is really fun to use. It’s a little less effective than expected because you can’t use it to cross lakes or anything, though it’s still very useful. I picked it because all the other levels even close to low-level were either ASIs/Subclass features, or had two features at that level already. You could definitely pick 10th level for this instead, but I think wall running is slightly weaker than full poison immunity + 5 extra movement, and I was trying to give Step of the Wind as early as I reasonably could.
Tongue of the Sun and Moon letting you speak all languages isn’t super useful, especially with how late it comes and that monks don’t get any other social features except from some subclasses.
Step of the Wind is less powerful that Patient Defense (there’s a reason why Rogues and Goblin PCs can dash but not dodge), so I put that one first. Monks already have so many features, it was hard to find an empty level (especially factoring in the optional bonus class features).
I don’t think monks need a buff at all, but if I did, it would either be giving them a third skill or granting free step of the wind at level 13.