I feel like everyone forgets that Monks regain Ki points after a Short or Long Rest. The game rules even suggest to DMs that 2 Short Rests would be taken (Info at the bottom of the Evaluating Encounter Difficulty section), per day of adventuring. This effectively triples a Monk's Ki Points per day.
Agreed. Moreover, the monk is mostly a "fighter" with some magical properties already. The spells the 4 Elements monk has must not be used in every combat.
I feel like everyone forgets that Monks regain Ki points after a Short or Long Rest. The game rules even suggest to DMs that 2 Short Rests would be taken (Info at the bottom of the Evaluating Encounter Difficulty section), per day of adventuring. This effectively triples a Monk's Ki Points per day.
Agreed. Moreover, the monk is mostly a "fighter" with some magical properties already. The spells the 4 Elements monk has must not be used in every combat.
There is a lot of middle ground between that and where the elemental monk sits. It is noticeably less effective than the other subclasses, because it burns through ki too fast.
I feel like everyone forgets that Monks regain Ki points after a Short or Long Rest. The game rules even suggest to DMs that 2 Short Rests would be taken (Info at the bottom of the Evaluating Encounter Difficulty section), per day of adventuring. This effectively triples a Monk's Ki Points per day.
Agreed. Moreover, the monk is mostly a "fighter" with some magical properties already. The spells the 4 Elements monk has must not be used in every combat.
There is a lot of middle ground between that and where the elemental monk sits. It is noticeably less effective than the other subclasses, because it burns through ki too fast.
in my mind, the 4 Elements monk, does not have to use spell every turn. and not even in every combat.
And I agree if one says that it is not the most powerful monk, but in some situation can be more effective than the other two.
I feel like everyone forgets that Monks regain Ki points after a Short or Long Rest. The game rules even suggest to DMs that 2 Short Rests would be taken (Info at the bottom of the Evaluating Encounter Difficulty section), per day of adventuring. This effectively triples a Monk's Ki Points per day.
Agreed. Moreover, the monk is mostly a "fighter" with some magical properties already. The spells the 4 Elements monk has must not be used in every combat.
There is a lot of middle ground between that and where the elemental monk sits. It is noticeably less effective than the other subclasses, because it burns through ki too fast.
My response to that would be don't use the 4 Elements abilities every round of combat. It's the equivalent of a spellcaster unloading all their spells in the first battle then wondering why they have no spells left. D&D has always been a resource management game, if you waste everything straight up you are going to struggle later.
I don't see a Monk as needing to use Ki points every round - majority of what I am seeing in this thread suggest that people do. From what games I've played in or have DM'd, Monks are super effective even when not spending any Ki points.
I feel like everyone forgets that Monks regain Ki points after a Short or Long Rest. The game rules even suggest to DMs that 2 Short Rests would be taken (Info at the bottom of the Evaluating Encounter Difficulty section), per day of adventuring. This effectively triples a Monk's Ki Points per day.
Agreed. Moreover, the monk is mostly a "fighter" with some magical properties already. The spells the 4 Elements monk has must not be used in every combat.
There is a lot of middle ground between that and where the elemental monk sits. It is noticeably less effective than the other subclasses, because it burns through ki too fast.
My response to that would be don't use the 4 Elements abilities every round of combat. It's the equivalent of a spellcaster unloading all their spells in the first battle then wondering why they have no spells left. D&D has always been a resource management game, if you waste everything straight up you are going to struggle later.
I don't see a Monk as needing to use Ki points every round - majority of what I am seeing in this thread suggest that people do. From what games I've played in or have DM'd, Monks are super effective even when not spending any Ki points.
You still don't get it.
I am not suggesting the Monk should be able to throw fire every round. Well, maybe with a cantrip, but that is another thing. What I am saying is that the disciplines cost more than they are worth, individually, and come out about right if they cost 1ki/spell level, instead.
The shadow monk spells cost 2 ki points and they are utility spells And they are awesome. With the same ki points cost, 4 Elements gets Fists of unbroken air which is awesome as well.
Later, the shadow monk gets shadow step and cloak of shadow, which are ki free but they work only in dim light or darkness. Don't get me wrong those are awesome abilities, but some minor spells can make those abilities useless. Then the 4 elements monk can get a variety of spells like, fly, gaseous form, stoneskin or others.
Again, I think that each monk archtype has its abilities and hence its moment to shine. To me, 4 elements has nothing to envy from the other two archtypes
The Shadow Monk is super Ki efficient. I played one from 1-9th level (+4 levels of Warlock).
The Shadow Monk, I consistently used 2 Ki points to active 1 power (Pass With Trace, Darkness, or Silence) then the rest went to bonus attacks or Dodge, occasionally using the bonus to Jump in a pirate ship game to get around quickly.... I played a Batman villain as a PC. :) I rarely went through all my powers, but we were also a pretty low combat game.
I honestly will default to Filecat here. I look at look at Monk: The Last Air Bender and said "Wow, that's really cool, but I don't think it's efficient enough for the powers" then I never looked back.
But yeah, you run out of the points quickly in a combat, but with 1-2 short rests... they bump back quickly.
There is the Ring of Spell Storing that allows you to precast spells into it to be used later. Maybe something that lets you put 3 Ki into it that you can recover as an action. Balance it a bit by making it lose 1 stored Ki point every 24 hours without use.
There is the Ring of Spell Storing that allows you to precast spells into it to be used later. Maybe something that lets you put 3 Ki into it that you can recover as an action. Balance it a bit by making it lose 1 stored Ki point every 24 hours without use.
This would be very cool, and would also work for Mystics, with Psi points.
I also like the idea of breaking the rest mechanics with Monks, Sorcerers, and possibly Mystics.
What I mean is, instead of gaining Ki, or Sorcery points, back with a rest, you gain them back with X minutes of uninterrupted rest/meditation.
Monk might get 1 KI per 5 minutes of meditation, for instance. Sorcerers would take longer to get a sorcery points, obviously.
I backed a Kickstarter project that was a book of magic items. One of them was a ring that gives the wearer one additional Ki point.
Hmm. Just one? Does it regain it like other magic items in 5e regain charges, ie at dawn, or when you regain Ki, or something else?
I think I'd rather have it work like charges in a normal magic item, have 5 or so, regain 1d4+1 every dawn, and have special things you can use it for like spending charges to boost your ki abilities, in addition to spending charges to get Ki back.
But I could see a minor magic item that just gives you 3 ki per day, or 1 per short rest.
Speaking of fun rings for monks in 5e, I'm working on a ring that builds up kinetic energy as you hit things, building charges, and you can use the charges to power an attack, or gain extra jump distance, or run faster. It's a coil of copper that wraps around your entire finger, but somehow doesn't interfere with moving your finger. When you take it off it shrinks into a solid copper band that looks more polished and clean the more charges it has, and when you put it on it "unwinds" as you push it onto your finger, and seems to have no beginning or end.
I backed a Kickstarter project that was a book of magic items. One of them was a ring that gives the wearer one additional Ki point.
Hmm. Just one? Does it regain it like other magic items in 5e regain charges, ie at dawn, or when you regain Ki, or something else?
I think I'd rather have it work like charges in a normal magic item, have 5 or so, regain 1d4+1 every dawn, and have special things you can use it for like spending charges to boost your ki abilities, in addition to spending charges to get Ki back.
But I could see a minor magic item that just gives you 3 ki per day, or 1 per short rest.
Speaking of fun rings for monks in 5e, I'm working on a ring that builds up kinetic energy as you hit things, building charges, and you can use the charges to power an attack, or gain extra jump distance, or run faster. It's a coil of copper that wraps around your entire finger, but somehow doesn't interfere with moving your finger. When you take it off it shrinks into a solid copper band that looks more polished and clean the more charges it has, and when you put it on it "unwinds" as you push it onto your finger, and seems to have no beginning or end.
The Ki point is regained after a short or long rest, the same as the rest of a Monk's Ki points. So it gives a small, but consistent, bump in power.
There's another magic item in there for monks that gives 1d4 of lightning damage on a successful open hand attack that works like most magic items in 5e where it has a set number of charges and it regains 1d4 at dawn every day. It's also a great item for a Monk.
It is mainly an issue just before your damage dice upgrades or so I feel. Right after the upgrade I usually do fine and kill the mobs normally or even faster then everyone else ( WotFEM) as you can unload up to 4 attacks or an attack a very small number of spells in one round. As you level and bonuses on enemies get higher it feels like that took less and less effect and I had to sink in more Ki points to get the same result till again my damage upgraded. Not sure how to fix it as there is no easy way that couldn't bust the class.
As far as repeated encounters with out a rest go it feels on par with most classes. You still get 3 attacks between your action and bonus action at no cost as long as you hit.
I backed a Kickstarter project that was a book of magic items. One of them was a ring that gives the wearer one additional Ki point.
Hmm. Just one? Does it regain it like other magic items in 5e regain charges, ie at dawn, or when you regain Ki, or something else?
I think I'd rather have it work like charges in a normal magic item, have 5 or so, regain 1d4+1 every dawn, and have special things you can use it for like spending charges to boost your ki abilities, in addition to spending charges to get Ki back.
But I could see a minor magic item that just gives you 3 ki per day, or 1 per short rest.
Speaking of fun rings for monks in 5e, I'm working on a ring that builds up kinetic energy as you hit things, building charges, and you can use the charges to power an attack, or gain extra jump distance, or run faster. It's a coil of copper that wraps around your entire finger, but somehow doesn't interfere with moving your finger. When you take it off it shrinks into a solid copper band that looks more polished and clean the more charges it has, and when you put it on it "unwinds" as you push it onto your finger, and seems to have no beginning or end.
The Ki point is regained after a short or long rest, the same as the rest of a Monk's Ki points. So it gives a small, but consistent, bump in power.
There's another magic item in there for monks that gives 1d4 of lightning damage on a successful open hand attack that works like most magic items in 5e where it has a set number of charges and it regains 1d4 at dawn every day. It's also a great item for a Monk.
It is mainly an issue just before your damage dice upgrades or so I feel. Right after the upgrade I usually do fine and kill the mobs normally or even faster then everyone else ( WotFEM) as you can unload up to 4 attacks or an attack a very small number of spells in one round. As you level and bonuses on enemies get higher it feels like that took less and less effect and I had to sink in more Ki points to get the same result till again my damage upgraded. Not sure how to fix it as there is no easy way that couldn't bust the class.
As far as repeated encounters with out a rest go it feels on par with most classes. You still get 3 attacks between your action and bonus action at no cost as long as you hit.
Those are good points. I don't think that Open Palm or Shadow monks, or any of the UA monks, really, are in need of any big tweaks. I would like to add a few extra Ki ability choices as you level up, and give a few alternative choices to stunning strike, because I don't like it, and would rather monks be spending ki on fun utility stuff or flurry, not just trying to stun the thing every single round until they run out, and I want to swap the language thing with something that actually feels like a monk/kung fu master/mystic martial artist, but those are all minor things or swaps.
My only issue is with the elemental monk.
I think there are a ton of different ways to fix that subclass, too.
Disciplines built like mystic disciplines, but with costs more appropriate to the monk's Ki totals, where when focused on the stance, your unarmed attacks deal an elemental damage type associated with that Stance, and you get a 1/turn extra benefit with an unarmed strike. You gain the passive benefit, and can only use the 1/turn at-will ability, listed below, when focused on that stance. Lastly, each stance comes with the ability to shape that element, as with the elemental control psuedo-prestidigitation cantrips from Elemental Evil. At level 3, you can only focus on one Stance at a time.
Fire Stance Discipline, the target catches fire and take 1d4 fire starting their next turn, until the spend their movement to put it out
Air Stance has an extra 10ft range, and instead of changing damage type, you can disengage as a reaction after being targeted by an attack.
Lightning Stance has 1d4 extra Lighting Damage to another target within 5ft of the first
Water Stance I don't know, honestly. Bonus to healing?
Ice Stance slows the target, they lose 10ft off their speed?
Earth Stance add your profiency mod to damage, can use reaction to reduce incoming damage by amount equal to unarmed damage die? Ie, your are blocking with a stone arm, essentially? Might come with your speed being reduced by 10ft while in this stance?
And then each one would have stuff like burning hands, and all that, at appropriate ki cost, and you'd have a chart for the max amount of ki you can spend on a Stance power at a given level. The Ki abilities would mostly be stolen from the existing discipline list.
At level 3 You get two disciplines, and the ability to cast Absorb Elements for 1ki/spell level. That should be in line with the shadow monk, who gets 4 really good level 2 spells at level 3, at 2ki each, and a cantrip.
At level 6, you can spend Absorb Elements at 1 level higher than what you spend Ki for, to absorb the element associated with your stance, and you gain an extra Stance.
At Level 11, you gain 1 more Stance. When you cast Absorb Elements, you can spend 1 extra Ki to regain hit points equal to your hit die + your wisdom modifier.
At Level 17 You gain another stance. Your Unarmed Strikes ignore resistence, to the the elemental damage type you are focused on, and treat immunity as resistence. Additionally, you can Focus on 1 more Stance, gaining it's passive and 1/turn benefits. Entering a second stance requires 1ki, spent as a bonus action, and remaining focused on both stances requires concentration, as with a spell.
I might also include a Positive Energy Stance, where 1/turn you hit a target and the next ally to hit the target regains 1d4+ your wis mod HP. Damage type:Radiant.
Negative Energy, if anyone wanted one, would be necrotic damage, and 1/turn, the target must make a con save or be poisoned.
I made a magical ring for the monk in my campaign that's basically built on storing kinetic energy (unarmed strikes) and storing it to be used as potential energy (ki)
Ring of Kinesis
+1 to Damage rolls with monk weapons and unarmed strikes
In addition, each time you hit with an unarmed strike the ring gains one charge, up to a maximum of 10 charges. You can use an action to expend 5 of these charges to regain 2 ki points.
Now, for clarification, I gave this to the player based on the fact that she is going to be using a short sword/wakizashi/ninjato (she wanted to be a ninja) as her primary weapon and only using unarmed attacks as the second attack via Martial Arts. This would probably get a lot more powerful for any monk who didn't use a monk weapon for their main attacks. We also haven't tested this yet, so I warned her that I might change it to only work twice before a long rest if it seems like her ki regeneration is getting out of hand (pun not intended, but made me chuckle).
I've also given other players equally powerful starting equipment, and figured each item would "level up" as the players do (going up at 5th level, 11th level, and 17th level), so the bonus to damage will increase as well as granting other abilities. I look to steal from other subclasses for my custom equipment, so I'll probably look to add something from another monk tradition: for example, the party's Life Cleric worships Bahamut, who has always been associated with protecting, so I gave her a talisman that provides +1 to attack bonus and spell saves (like a Rod of The Pact Keeper but for cleric spells) and it gives her access to the Protection domain's Channel Divinity: Radiant Defense (from Unearthed Arcana).
“It is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.” ― Oramis, Eldest by Christopher Paolini.
I backed a Kickstarter project that was a book of magic items. One of them was a ring that gives the wearer one additional Ki point.
Hmm. Just one? Does it regain it like other magic items in 5e regain charges, ie at dawn, or when you regain Ki, or something else?
I think I'd rather have it work like charges in a normal magic item, have 5 or so, regain 1d4+1 every dawn, and have special things you can use it for like spending charges to boost your ki abilities, in addition to spending charges to get Ki back.
But I could see a minor magic item that just gives you 3 ki per day, or 1 per short rest.
Speaking of fun rings for monks in 5e, I'm working on a ring that builds up kinetic energy as you hit things, building charges, and you can use the charges to power an attack, or gain extra jump distance, or run faster. It's a coil of copper that wraps around your entire finger, but somehow doesn't interfere with moving your finger. When you take it off it shrinks into a solid copper band that looks more polished and clean the more charges it has, and when you put it on it "unwinds" as you push it onto your finger, and seems to have no beginning or end.
The Ki point is regained after a short or long rest, the same as the rest of a Monk's Ki points. So it gives a small, but consistent, bump in power.
There's another magic item in there for monks that gives 1d4 of lightning damage on a successful open hand attack that works like most magic items in 5e where it has a set number of charges and it regains 1d4 at dawn every day. It's also a great item for a Monk.
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The ki cost of the spell must be weighted with the fact that monk is a monk. A fighter-like character with base-ability already "magical".
Um, sure? But that doesn't mean the current cost is reasonable?
Look, compare the casting of the elements Monk and Shadow Monk.
It isn't at the same power level. It has nothing comparable to at will bonus action 60ft teleport win adv on next attack afterward.
It gets less casting than the Shadow Monk gets at level 3, and the Shadow Monk doesn't cost as much ki.
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The shadow monk spells cost 2 ki points and they are utility spells And they are awesome. With the same ki points cost, 4 Elements gets Fists of unbroken air which is awesome as well.
Later, the shadow monk gets shadow step and cloak of shadow, which are ki free but they work only in dim light or darkness. Don't get me wrong those are awesome abilities, but some minor spells can make those abilities useless. Then the 4 elements monk can get a variety of spells like, fly, gaseous form, stoneskin or others.
Again, I think that each monk archtype has its abilities and hence its moment to shine. To me, 4 elements has nothing to envy from the other two archtypes
The Shadow Monk is super Ki efficient. I played one from 1-9th level (+4 levels of Warlock).
The Shadow Monk, I consistently used 2 Ki points to active 1 power (Pass With Trace, Darkness, or Silence) then the rest went to bonus attacks or Dodge, occasionally using the bonus to Jump in a pirate ship game to get around quickly.... I played a Batman villain as a PC. :) I rarely went through all my powers, but we were also a pretty low combat game.
I honestly will default to Filecat here. I look at look at Monk: The Last Air Bender and said "Wow, that's really cool, but I don't think it's efficient enough for the powers" then I never looked back.
But yeah, you run out of the points quickly in a combat, but with 1-2 short rests... they bump back quickly.
Lol ok man. If you think it's fine as is that is great for you.
Not much help to OP, though.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
There is the Ring of Spell Storing that allows you to precast spells into it to be used later. Maybe something that lets you put 3 Ki into it that you can recover as an action. Balance it a bit by making it lose 1 stored Ki point every 24 hours without use.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
I backed a Kickstarter project that was a book of magic items. One of them was a ring that gives the wearer one additional Ki point.
Professional computer geek
We do bones, motherf***ker!
Professional computer geek
It is mainly an issue just before your damage dice upgrades or so I feel. Right after the upgrade I usually do fine and kill the mobs normally or even faster then everyone else ( WotFEM) as you can unload up to 4 attacks or an attack a very small number of spells in one round. As you level and bonuses on enemies get higher it feels like that took less and less effect and I had to sink in more Ki points to get the same result till again my damage upgraded. Not sure how to fix it as there is no easy way that couldn't bust the class.
As far as repeated encounters with out a rest go it feels on par with most classes. You still get 3 attacks between your action and bonus action at no cost as long as you hit.
And then each one would have stuff like burning hands, and all that, at appropriate ki cost, and you'd have a chart for the max amount of ki you can spend on a Stance power at a given level. The Ki abilities would mostly be stolen from the existing discipline list.
At level 3 You get two disciplines, and the ability to cast Absorb Elements for 1ki/spell level. That should be in line with the shadow monk, who gets 4 really good level 2 spells at level 3, at 2ki each, and a cantrip.
At level 6, you can spend Absorb Elements at 1 level higher than what you spend Ki for, to absorb the element associated with your stance, and you gain an extra Stance.
At Level 11, you gain 1 more Stance. When you cast Absorb Elements, you can spend 1 extra Ki to regain hit points equal to your hit die + your wisdom modifier.
At Level 17 You gain another stance. Your Unarmed Strikes ignore resistence, to the the elemental damage type you are focused on, and treat immunity as resistence. Additionally, you can Focus on 1 more Stance, gaining it's passive and 1/turn benefits. Entering a second stance requires 1ki, spent as a bonus action, and remaining focused on both stances requires concentration, as with a spell.
I might also include a Positive Energy Stance, where 1/turn you hit a target and the next ally to hit the target regains 1d4+ your wis mod HP. Damage type:Radiant.
Negative Energy, if anyone wanted one, would be necrotic damage, and 1/turn, the target must make a con save or be poisoned.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
I made a magical ring for the monk in my campaign that's basically built on storing kinetic energy (unarmed strikes) and storing it to be used as potential energy (ki)
Ring of Kinesis
Now, for clarification, I gave this to the player based on the fact that she is going to be using a short sword/wakizashi/ninjato (she wanted to be a ninja) as her primary weapon and only using unarmed attacks as the second attack via Martial Arts. This would probably get a lot more powerful for any monk who didn't use a monk weapon for their main attacks. We also haven't tested this yet, so I warned her that I might change it to only work twice before a long rest if it seems like her ki regeneration is getting out of hand (pun not intended, but made me chuckle).
I've also given other players equally powerful starting equipment, and figured each item would "level up" as the players do (going up at 5th level, 11th level, and 17th level), so the bonus to damage will increase as well as granting other abilities. I look to steal from other subclasses for my custom equipment, so I'll probably look to add something from another monk tradition: for example, the party's Life Cleric worships Bahamut, who has always been associated with protecting, so I gave her a talisman that provides +1 to attack bonus and spell saves (like a Rod of The Pact Keeper but for cleric spells) and it gives her access to the Protection domain's Channel Divinity: Radiant Defense (from Unearthed Arcana).
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“It is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.” ― Oramis, Eldest by Christopher Paolini.
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