I am about to DM someone wanting to be Astral Self monk - which seems fine. I have two questions:
1. it sounds like, when manifesting the arms EVERY enemy within 10 feet will take damage (2Xmonk die). am i interpreting that correctly?
2. When doing normal attacks a monks gets 1 attack action (2 if over 5th level) and 1 bonus action attack and possibly a second bonus action attack if using Flurry of blows. if the monk now has 2 extra arms, are they getting two additional attacks that do the force damage? so possibly getting 6 attacks in a round after 5th level if using flurry of blows?
if that is not the case, are they simply substituting a normal unarmed attack with a astral unarmed attack (so doing force rather than crushing, and using wisdom rather than dex)?
3. Yes, but crushing is not a damage type. Normal unarmed is bludegoning.
The number of astral arms is not defined, but ordinarily the answer has no way to matter. I've met DMs who want to house rule the astral hands can grapple, which isn't RAW and has strange interactions, because the arms stop existing so quickly, but if you house rule the same way, you also need a house rule on the number of arms. That's the only context I can think of where you need to know how many arms the astral self has.
You're right, I mean, why did they have to add such a glaring weakness to the subclass? I'm fine with them taking away the extra bonus action attacks and the Ki recovery ability since the Ki cost got cut in half and the summon got an Aoe now, but the whole "they vanish early if you are incapacitated" was completely unnecessary. Now the Astral Monk is always at risk of wasting Ki points on every single turn if there's an enemy that can incapacitate you...
You're right, I mean, why did they have to add such a glaring weakness to the subclass? I'm fine with them taking away the extra bonus action attacks and the Ki recovery ability since the Ki cost got cut in half and the summon got an Aoe now, but the whole "they vanish early if you are incapacitated" was completely unnecessary. Now the Astral Monk is always at risk of wasting Ki points on every single turn if there's an enemy that can incapacitate you...
it's in line with most other abilities. Very few actually stay if your incapacitated. And if your always in threat of being incapacitated. It may be time to switch up your play style and/or where your using your Ki because something is clearly not working right. particularly when your getting effects like Reach and eventually deflect energy and even extra AC out of Astral Monks different abilities. This makes your need to engage and take blows from the enemy much less than other monks and less need to disengage.
I know that most self-buffing abilities have the "drop if incapacitated", but if it wasn't part of the UA and there were already some adjustments (whether necessary or not is debatable), then why go overboard with it?
Sure, very few things can inflict the incapacitated status (including paralized, petrified or unconscious), and most tend to be Wisdom saves (and Astral Monks will go full WIS, of course), but if you are using Ki points to summon your Astral Self, I don't like the risk of them going to waste due to bad rolls (let's be real here, even if we have a +11 to saves, there will be entire sessions where luck will just say "I like low numbers, let's see how many we can get today".)
The Astral Arms are unarmed strikes, so they operate the same as your regular unarmed strikes, albeit with some added benefits (like using WIS, having a 10ft reach and dealing force damage), you get an additional extra attack at lvl 17, but that's it.
So... What is the final answer? Are the Arms just a different option for the regular attack? Or are they additional attacks?
They're just an optional "weapon" to make unarmed strikes with; when you do so you can use Wisdom instead of Dexterity (meaning you can prioritise Wisdom at early levels), you get an extra 5 foot reach and deal force damage. Also you can use Wisdom for Strength checks/saves.
Personally I think it's still a good ability; the blast damage is decent (enough to make up for making no bonus attacks, especially if you can get two or three enemies in range), while having reach means you can attack and move away without spending any more Ki points (or risking attacks of opportunity), plus practically nothing resists force damage, and it only costs a single Ki point to activate the ability. Meanwhile being able to use Wisdom for Strength checks means you can Grapple effectively.
My main problem with the sub-class is that the 6th-level feature is really more of an out of combat benefit (aside from the darkvision if you didn't have it already by not going one of the three races that don't get it). It feels kind of like it should have also been a 3rd level feature so that Body of the Astral Self could have come in sooner, and we could have got a different benefit at 11th. But then it's probably about balanced for a Monk sub-class in that WotC is never going to give Monk a Twilight Domain level of broken.
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I am about to DM someone wanting to be Astral Self monk - which seems fine. I have two questions:
1. it sounds like, when manifesting the arms EVERY enemy within 10 feet will take damage (2Xmonk die). am i interpreting that correctly?
2. When doing normal attacks a monks gets 1 attack action (2 if over 5th level) and 1 bonus action attack and possibly a second bonus action attack if using Flurry of blows. if the monk now has 2 extra arms, are they getting two additional attacks that do the force damage? so possibly getting 6 attacks in a round after 5th level if using flurry of blows?
if that is not the case, are they simply substituting a normal unarmed attack with a astral unarmed attack (so doing force rather than crushing, and using wisdom rather than dex)?
Thanks
1. Yes.
2. No.
3. Yes, but crushing is not a damage type. Normal unarmed is bludegoning.
The number of astral arms is not defined, but ordinarily the answer has no way to matter. I've met DMs who want to house rule the astral hands can grapple, which isn't RAW and has strange interactions, because the arms stop existing so quickly, but if you house rule the same way, you also need a house rule on the number of arms. That's the only context I can think of where you need to know how many arms the astral self has.
Astral Self monk a totally cool idea ruined by people complaining about it being too good so it got nerfed into uselessness. Way to go UA people.
Thanks for the insight. I appreciate it.
You're right, I mean, why did they have to add such a glaring weakness to the subclass? I'm fine with them taking away the extra bonus action attacks and the Ki recovery ability since the Ki cost got cut in half and the summon got an Aoe now, but the whole "they vanish early if you are incapacitated" was completely unnecessary. Now the Astral Monk is always at risk of wasting Ki points on every single turn if there's an enemy that can incapacitate you...
it's in line with most other abilities. Very few actually stay if your incapacitated. And if your always in threat of being incapacitated. It may be time to switch up your play style and/or where your using your Ki because something is clearly not working right. particularly when your getting effects like Reach and eventually deflect energy and even extra AC out of Astral Monks different abilities. This makes your need to engage and take blows from the enemy much less than other monks and less need to disengage.
I know that most self-buffing abilities have the "drop if incapacitated", but if it wasn't part of the UA and there were already some adjustments (whether necessary or not is debatable), then why go overboard with it?
Sure, very few things can inflict the incapacitated status (including paralized, petrified or unconscious), and most tend to be Wisdom saves (and Astral Monks will go full WIS, of course), but if you are using Ki points to summon your Astral Self, I don't like the risk of them going to waste due to bad rolls (let's be real here, even if we have a +11 to saves, there will be entire sessions where luck will just say "I like low numbers, let's see how many we can get today".)
I don't like how it's basically a 1 time boost to damage until level 11. Most campaigns don't go much higher than that.
So... What is the final answer? Are the Arms just a different option for the regular attack? Or are they additional attacks?
The Astral Arms are unarmed strikes, so they operate the same as your regular unarmed strikes, albeit with some added benefits (like using WIS, having a 10ft reach and dealing force damage), you get an additional extra attack at lvl 17, but that's it.
Yup, astral monk is a cool concept but its not really useful outside its a bit more SAD.
They're just an optional "weapon" to make unarmed strikes with; when you do so you can use Wisdom instead of Dexterity (meaning you can prioritise Wisdom at early levels), you get an extra 5 foot reach and deal force damage. Also you can use Wisdom for Strength checks/saves.
Personally I think it's still a good ability; the blast damage is decent (enough to make up for making no bonus attacks, especially if you can get two or three enemies in range), while having reach means you can attack and move away without spending any more Ki points (or risking attacks of opportunity), plus practically nothing resists force damage, and it only costs a single Ki point to activate the ability. Meanwhile being able to use Wisdom for Strength checks means you can Grapple effectively.
My main problem with the sub-class is that the 6th-level feature is really more of an out of combat benefit (aside from the darkvision if you didn't have it already by not going one of the three races that don't get it). It feels kind of like it should have also been a 3rd level feature so that Body of the Astral Self could have come in sooner, and we could have got a different benefit at 11th. But then it's probably about balanced for a Monk sub-class in that WotC is never going to give Monk a Twilight Domain level of broken.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.