Celestial Monk now published in homebrew. This is my first homebrew. Enjoy!
The Celestial Monk aspires to ascend to the heavenly realms to become an angelic being. During meditation the Celestial Monk connects with beings from the higher realms to receive guidance on how to live life in accordance with this goal and carry out the will of the heavens.
In order to ascend to the heavenly realms a Celestial Monk will live a life of virtue. A Celestial Monk will always strive for honesty, integrity, kindness and compassion. A Celestial Monk will not stand for lies and will use their abilities to help bring down corruption and protect the innocent from evil.
Weapons of the Angels
Starting at 3rd level when you choose this tradition you gain proficiency in the greatsword and longbow. These are now monk weapons for you.
Holy Fire
You learn the Firebolt cantrip. When you cast this cantrip you can choose to change the damage type to radiant (no action required) and you can add your dexterity modifier to attack and damage rolls.
Power of the Divine
You learn to channel divine energy for increased potency on your attacks. Once on each of your turns when you roll fire or radiant damage you can spend one ki point to increase the damage by one martial marts die plus your dexterity modifier.
Radiant Weapon
Starting at 6th level your monk weapons do an extra 1d4 radiant damage.
Heaven's Blessing
You can spend 1ki point to cast the Invisibility spell on yourself and without any material components. You can do this twice and regain both uses after a long rest.
Celestial Blast
Starting at 11th level, when you use your Power of the Divine feature as a part of your action you can cast Firebolt cantrip as a bonus action.
Angelic Resilience
Your unwavering faith gives you fortitude of mind. You are immune to the Frightened and Charmed conditions.
Solar Wings
As a bonus action at 17th level you can manifest angelic wings and gain a flying speed of 90 feet. The wings last until you dismiss them as a bonus action.
True Vision
You can spend 3ki points to cast True Seeing on yourself and without any material components. You can use this feature twice and regain both uses after a long rest.
Notes: Since monk subclass abilities are generally so dependent on a very limited resource, my thoughts on developing this monk subclass was really to give the monk a feature at each level that was not dependent on ki and give one feature that had a low ki cost but would provide good utility.
Celestial Monk now published in homebrew. This is my first homebrew. Enjoy!
The Celestial Monk aspires to ascend to the heavenly realms to become an angelic being. During meditation the Celestial Monk connects with beings from the higher realms to receive guidance on how to live life in accordance with this goal and carry out the will of the heavens.
In order to ascend to the heavenly realms a Celestial Monk will live a life of virtue. A Celestial Monk will always strive for honesty, integrity, kindness and compassion. A Celestial Monk will not stand for lies and will use their abilities to help bring down corruption and protect the innocent from evil.
Weapons of the Angels
Starting at 3rd level when you choose this tradition you gain proficiency in the greatsword and longbow. These are now monk weapons for you.
Holy Fire
You learn the Firebolt cantrip. When you cast this cantrip you can choose to change the damage type to radiant (no action required) and you can add your dexterity modifier to attack and damage rolls.
Power of the Divine
You learn to channel divine energy for increased potency on your attacks. Once on each of your turns when you roll fire or radiant damage you can spend one ki point to increase the damage by one martial marts die plus your dexterity modifier.
Radiant Weapon
Starting at 6th level your monk weapons do an extra 1d4 radiant damage.
Heaven's Blessing
You can spend 1ki point to cast the Invisibility spell on yourself and without any material components. You can do this twice and regain both uses after a long rest.
Celestial Blast
Starting at 11th level, when you use your Power of the Divine feature as a part of your action you can cast Firebolt cantrip as a bonus action.
Angelic Resilience
Your unwavering faith gives you fortitude of mind. You are immune to the Frightened and Charmed conditions.
Solar Wings
As a bonus action at 17th level you can manifest angelic wings and gain a flying speed of 90 feet. The wings last until you dismiss them as a bonus action.
True Vision
You can spend 3ki points to cast True Seeing on yourself and without any material components. You can use this feature twice and regain both uses after a long rest.
Notes: Since monk subclass abilities are generally so dependent on a very limited resource, my thoughts on developing this monk subclass was really to give the monk a feature at each level that was not dependent on ki and give one feature that had a low ki cost but would provide good utility.
What are your thoughts on
-Playability/fun factor
-design build/mechanics/ki efficiency
-overall theme
-usefullness in combat
Feedback is appreciated.
Thanks!
Weapons of the Angels
At first I thought greatsword was a bit much but I guess it isn’t too much more damage than two handed longsword attacks so I could see this. Not sure on the longbow though. Your Holy Fire covers range.
Holy Fire Sacred Flame seems more thematic. Although it is a save and not an attack roll so you can’t add DEX. But…
Power of the Divine
This would boost Sacred Flame for better damage. Maybe have it scale with monk levels, like two rolls of your martial arts die at 11th? Not sure. Nice ability either way.
Radiant Weapon
Nice ability. Should add that monk weapons are considered magical for overcoming resistance, like Kensei monk. Otherwise your greatsword would be resisted but the radiant wouldn’t.
Heaven’s Blessing
I would make it proficiency bonus times per long rest. That seems a common usage WotC is gong towards.
Solar Wings
I was going to say make them last 10 minutes instead of basically permanent unless dismissed. But, hey, you’re 17th level. Keep them wings.
I like the other abilities. Not overly powerful but good.
I'm on my phone right now so it's gonna be a slightly disorganized response im afraid. I'll just copy thrikeenwarriors setup hehe.
I understand if this might seem a little overly critical but I promise you it is with the best intentions.
I like the theme. Sort of an agile paladin.. an unarmoured holy warrior with a great sword is a pretty cool image.
Weapons of the Angels
As I said initially I think a Great sword monk is a very striking image, but I do worry that it's slightly too specific. It feels a bit like you had one chactracter in mind when you wrote the subclass rather than the theme.
As thrikeenwarrior already pointed out, you are giving a range option through firebolt, so perhaps drop the longbow and add some other melee weapon options to pick from.
There is a risk of making the subclass too powerful with the greatsword. I tend to think that monk subclasses are generally too weak so I'm absolutely open to the idea if making a more powerful monk, buy giving this subclass access to the great weapon master feat could be a problem.
Holy Fire
Okay so this is probably the biggest issue for me. I agree with thrikeenwarriors idea of simply giving the monk sacred flame being a much more obvious solution.
First of all I would clarify what the Spellcasting stat for the spell is. I assume it's wisdom? Unless the wording is intended to mean that Dex is your Spellcasting modifier and not added on top? Either way I don't think Dex is an appropriate choice when wisdom is available.
The feature itself isn't necessarily overpowered, but it feels to me as if you're trying to give the monk a uniquely powerful cantrip.
Adding Dex to the attack on top of the regular spell attack modifier just seems a bit clumsy to me. In my opinion you should simply replace firebolt with sacred flame and add the monks wisdom bonus to the damage.
Power of the Divine
I think adding this feature and radiant weapon at the same level is an odd choice. I would merge two together to a single more cohesive feature.
I also think it should be your wisdom mod added rather than Dex.
Radiant Weapon
Hmm i absolutely understand the thematic reasons for this feature but it seems a bit plain ? Perhaps the entire attack when using a monk weapon should deal radiant damage ?
I will add that wotc tend to add a 'once per turn" to these sorta effects lately but I'm not particularly fond of that restriction myself.
But yea I'd merge the two features Into something like... Your attacks with monk weapons now deal radiant damage and once per turn you can spend a ki to deal martial arts die + wisdom mod radiant damage. The passive damage doesn't seem necessary and the subclass doesn't really need more damage.
Heaven's Blessing
So if holy fire was my biggest issue from a mechanical perspective, this has me scratching my head from a thematic perspective. What is this honest and kind monk doing with invisibility?
Wouldn't a healing spell or something supportive be fitting?
Celestial Blast
So i actually really like this feature. As is its a little powerful but if you apply the sort of streamlining I suggested for holy fire I think it's more defensible.
Perhaps make it so that it requires an additional ki to use this feature. You are already getting a fairly significant advantage from power of the divine.
I think the wording might be a little odd. It says you can use a bonus action as part of an action? I understand your intention but I would probably reword it.
Perhaps it comes online a little late? Or feels like a very iconic ability, so if you can manage to move it to level 6 somehow that would be neat.
The rest seems fine to me. If you tune down the other features I would also add a damage scaling to power of the divine at 11.
So Yea the theme of a celestial warrior monk is cool but I think it needs a little clean up and some careful nerfing 🙂
I can tell many of the features are very focused on being an effective warrior.. leaving little room for thematic fluff features.
Thanks for taking the time to write some feedback. Sacred flame is more thematic then firebolt for sure. Sacred flame plus wisdom modifier to damage i think works just fine.
The overall damage of this build with two greatsword attacks, flurry of blows and power of the divine is 29-87 per round at oevel 17 costing 2ki points per round. Astral monk is 31-85 at level 17 with higher initial ki cost but evens out after 5 rounds. But.......I forgot about great weapons master. That could make it too strong with the greatsword. (Although i do think monks need a power boost). Maybe have a minimum strength requirement for the greatsword? Find a reason to disallow GWM? or discount flurry of blows while using greatsword? I Will have to think about that.
The invisibility i borrowed from abilities of the Solar and Planetar in the DMG. It was between a healing feature and the invisibility. I wasn't quite sure what to do with the healing feature since mercy monk is already a good healer and in tahsa's monks get the optional healing feature anyways so i took the easy out with this one. But you are correct, a healing feature would be a logical fit.
Yes, i see what you mean about the wording of celestial blast.
No worries! Monk subclasses interest me because I wish they were mechanically more appealing to me.
I'm not sure the greatsword is an issue either, fighters have access to the same after all, and they eventually get more attacks. I still think having a subclass dedicated to one specific weapon is outside something wotc would do, but I guess that depends on what you're trying to achieve.
One thing to keep in mind is that astral self only get that extra attack at lvl 17, up untill then they're pretty weak I'd say. But you're right, imo astral self should've gotten that extra atack much earlier, and the game could certainly stand to have a stronger monk.
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Celestial Monk now published in homebrew. This is my first homebrew. Enjoy!
The Celestial Monk aspires to ascend to the heavenly realms to become an angelic being. During meditation the Celestial Monk connects with beings from the higher realms to receive guidance on how to live life in accordance with this goal and carry out the will of the heavens.
In order to ascend to the heavenly realms a Celestial Monk will live a life of virtue. A Celestial Monk will always strive for honesty, integrity, kindness and compassion. A Celestial Monk will not stand for lies and will use their abilities to help bring down corruption and protect the innocent from evil.
Weapons of the Angels
Starting at 3rd level when you choose this tradition you gain proficiency in the greatsword and longbow. These are now monk weapons for you.
Holy Fire
You learn the Firebolt cantrip. When you cast this cantrip you can choose to change the damage type to radiant (no action required) and you can add your dexterity modifier to attack and damage rolls.
Power of the Divine
You learn to channel divine energy for increased potency on your attacks. Once on each of your turns when you roll fire or radiant damage you can spend one ki point to increase the damage by one martial marts die plus your dexterity modifier.
Radiant Weapon
Starting at 6th level your monk weapons do an extra 1d4 radiant damage.
Heaven's Blessing
You can spend 1ki point to cast the Invisibility spell on yourself and without any material components. You can do this twice and regain both uses after a long rest.
Celestial Blast
Starting at 11th level, when you use your Power of the Divine feature as a part of your action you can cast Firebolt cantrip as a bonus action.
Angelic Resilience
Your unwavering faith gives you fortitude of mind. You are immune to the Frightened and Charmed conditions.
Solar Wings
As a bonus action at 17th level you can manifest angelic wings and gain a flying speed of 90 feet. The wings last until you dismiss them as a bonus action.
True Vision
You can spend 3ki points to cast True Seeing on yourself and without any material components. You can use this feature twice and regain both uses after a long rest.
Notes: Since monk subclass abilities are generally so dependent on a very limited resource, my thoughts on developing this monk subclass was really to give the monk a feature at each level that was not dependent on ki and give one feature that had a low ki cost but would provide good utility.
What are your thoughts on
-Playability/fun factor
-design build/mechanics/ki efficiency
-overall theme
-usefullness in combat
Feedback is appreciated.
Thanks!
Weapons of the Angels
At first I thought greatsword was a bit much but I guess it isn’t too much more damage than two handed longsword attacks so I could see this. Not sure on the longbow though. Your Holy Fire covers range.
Holy Fire
Sacred Flame seems more thematic. Although it is a save and not an attack roll so you can’t add DEX. But…
Power of the Divine
This would boost Sacred Flame for better damage. Maybe have it scale with monk levels, like two rolls of your martial arts die at 11th? Not sure.
Nice ability either way.
Radiant Weapon
Nice ability. Should add that monk weapons are considered magical for overcoming resistance, like Kensei monk. Otherwise your greatsword would be resisted but the radiant wouldn’t.
Heaven’s Blessing
I would make it proficiency bonus times per long rest. That seems a common usage WotC is gong towards.
Solar Wings
I was going to say make them last 10 minutes instead of basically permanent unless dismissed. But, hey, you’re 17th level. Keep them wings.
I like the other abilities. Not overly powerful but good.
Cool and thematic subclass.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I'm on my phone right now so it's gonna be a slightly disorganized response im afraid. I'll just copy thrikeenwarriors setup hehe.
I understand if this might seem a little overly critical but I promise you it is with the best intentions.
I like the theme. Sort of an agile paladin.. an unarmoured holy warrior with a great sword is a pretty cool image.
Weapons of the Angels
As I said initially I think a Great sword monk is a very striking image, but I do worry that it's slightly too specific. It feels a bit like you had one chactracter in mind when you wrote the subclass rather than the theme.
As thrikeenwarrior already pointed out, you are giving a range option through firebolt, so perhaps drop the longbow and add some other melee weapon options to pick from.
There is a risk of making the subclass too powerful with the greatsword. I tend to think that monk subclasses are generally too weak so I'm absolutely open to the idea if making a more powerful monk, buy giving this subclass access to the great weapon master feat could be a problem.
Holy Fire
Okay so this is probably the biggest issue for me. I agree with thrikeenwarriors idea of simply giving the monk sacred flame being a much more obvious solution.
First of all I would clarify what the Spellcasting stat for the spell is. I assume it's wisdom? Unless the wording is intended to mean that Dex is your Spellcasting modifier and not added on top? Either way I don't think Dex is an appropriate choice when wisdom is available.
The feature itself isn't necessarily overpowered, but it feels to me as if you're trying to give the monk a uniquely powerful cantrip.
Adding Dex to the attack on top of the regular spell attack modifier just seems a bit clumsy to me. In my opinion you should simply replace firebolt with sacred flame and add the monks wisdom bonus to the damage.
Power of the Divine
I think adding this feature and radiant weapon at the same level is an odd choice. I would merge two together to a single more cohesive feature.
I also think it should be your wisdom mod added rather than Dex.
Radiant Weapon
Hmm i absolutely understand the thematic reasons for this feature but it seems a bit plain ? Perhaps the entire attack when using a monk weapon should deal radiant damage ?
I will add that wotc tend to add a 'once per turn" to these sorta effects lately but I'm not particularly fond of that restriction myself.
But yea I'd merge the two features Into something like... Your attacks with monk weapons now deal radiant damage and once per turn you can spend a ki to deal martial arts die + wisdom mod radiant damage. The passive damage doesn't seem necessary and the subclass doesn't really need more damage.
Heaven's Blessing
So if holy fire was my biggest issue from a mechanical perspective, this has me scratching my head from a thematic perspective. What is this honest and kind monk doing with invisibility?
Wouldn't a healing spell or something supportive be fitting?
Celestial Blast
So i actually really like this feature. As is its a little powerful but if you apply the sort of streamlining I suggested for holy fire I think it's more defensible.
Perhaps make it so that it requires an additional ki to use this feature. You are already getting a fairly significant advantage from power of the divine.
I think the wording might be a little odd. It says you can use a bonus action as part of an action? I understand your intention but I would probably reword it.
Perhaps it comes online a little late? Or feels like a very iconic ability, so if you can manage to move it to level 6 somehow that would be neat.
The rest seems fine to me. If you tune down the other features I would also add a damage scaling to power of the divine at 11.
So Yea the theme of a celestial warrior monk is cool but I think it needs a little clean up and some careful nerfing 🙂
I can tell many of the features are very focused on being an effective warrior.. leaving little room for thematic fluff features.
Thanks. I appreciate the feed back. Sacred flame does make more sense thematically. It might be less damage that firebolt but it works.
Thanks for taking the time to write some feedback. Sacred flame is more thematic then firebolt for sure. Sacred flame plus wisdom modifier to damage i think works just fine.
The overall damage of this build with two greatsword attacks, flurry of blows and power of the divine is 29-87 per round at oevel 17 costing 2ki points per round. Astral monk is 31-85 at level 17 with higher initial ki cost but evens out after 5 rounds. But.......I forgot about great weapons master. That could make it too strong with the greatsword. (Although i do think monks need a power boost). Maybe have a minimum strength requirement for the greatsword? Find a reason to disallow GWM? or discount flurry of blows while using greatsword? I Will have to think about that.
The invisibility i borrowed from abilities of the Solar and Planetar in the DMG. It was between a healing feature and the invisibility. I wasn't quite sure what to do with the healing feature since mercy monk is already a good healer and in tahsa's monks get the optional healing feature anyways so i took the easy out with this one. But you are correct, a healing feature would be a logical fit.
Yes, i see what you mean about the wording of celestial blast.
Thanks!
No worries! Monk subclasses interest me because I wish they were mechanically more appealing to me.
I'm not sure the greatsword is an issue either, fighters have access to the same after all, and they eventually get more attacks. I still think having a subclass dedicated to one specific weapon is outside something wotc would do, but I guess that depends on what you're trying to achieve.
One thing to keep in mind is that astral self only get that extra attack at lvl 17, up untill then they're pretty weak I'd say. But you're right, imo astral self should've gotten that extra atack much earlier, and the game could certainly stand to have a stronger monk.