Sun soul in my books is one of the worst subclasses. Here are some tweaks i made to help it out.
Radiant sun bolt
When you take the Attack action on your turn and use this special attack as part of it, you can make this special attack once as a bonus action.
Once on each of your turns when you hit a target with this special attack you can spend 1 ki to increase the damage of the attack by one martial arts die plus your dexterity modifier.
Otherwise everything else is the same. The damage and ki cost between this and the published version when you get two bonus attacks with it is the same however having this as one free bonus attack i think makes this feature much more usable.
Searing arc strike
This was a total rewrite. Using all your chi to make burning hands even mildly effective is just awful. This rewrite fits with theme nicely and is much more ki efficient.
Changes
At 6th level, you gain the ability to channel your ki into searing waves of energy. You can spend 1 ki point to cast Scorching Ray. Wisdom is your spellcasting attack modifier and you can add your wisdom modifier to the damage of each ray. For each additional ki point you can increase the spell level by one. The maximum ki you can spend to cast this spell is half your proficiency bonus (rounded down).
Searing Sunburst
If you use 3ki points to increase the damage to 8d6 sounds good at first but creatures that make their saving throw take zero damage? That is just terrible and a big waste of ki. It's an unlimited ability so i get why the damage has to be low but its still too low.
Changes
Each creature in that 20-foot-radius sphere must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 2d6 + your wisdom modifier radiant damage. Creatures that make their saving throw take half damage.
Otherwise everything else about this feature is the same. At least if they take half damage you dont feel like you have wasted your ki on nothing.
Sun Shield
This is one of the most laughable capstones in the game. Essentially the light cantrip and you have to take likely large amounts of damage at this level to do minor damage back. I dont know what the designers were thinking here.
Changes
At 17th level, you become wreathed in a luminous, magical aura. You shed bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. You can extinguish or restore the light as a bonus action.
While this feature is active you can spend 2 ki points as a bonus action (or as a part of the same bonus action used to restore the light) to gain the following benefits for one minute:
You are immune to radiant damage.
You are so bright to look at, that attack rolls against you that require an opponent to see you have disadvantage.
When a creature enters the bright light for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there it takes radiant damage equal to 5 + your wisdom modifier.
You can use this feature once and regain the use after a short or long rest.
This was also a rewrite. Immunity to radiant damage is not a big deal but it does let you searing sunburst yourself with impunity. The rest i think makes sense and is not overpowered in any way.
I like your ideas. I always thought that not having the bonus action attack for free was an oversight since they had the sun bolt “flurry of blows” option for the 1 Ki.
I think your searing arc strike should probably be 2 Ki points. It’s a 2nd level spell instead of 1st and compared to shadow monks shadow magic 2 Ki would fall in line with cost. Also I wonder if the scaling should stay the same as the original. Your version has a max of 3 Ki where the original version gives you the option to cast it higher. Maybe cap at 9 Ki since there are no 10th level spell slots and 10 Ki at 20th level would be equivalent to a 10th level slot. And I don’t know if the WIS modifier additional damage is necessary. If you wanted to do that I would just rewrite the ability as a unique attack and not casting a spell.
I think the rest is pretty good. Not sure if the damage of the 17th level ability is enough. Will think on that one.
I like your revisions and think it addresses the main issue I have with the subclass: It is all over the place in terms of range.
The 3rd level feature works anywhere from 10ft to 30ft away from the enemy. You could use this one within 5ft of an enemy, but the attack would incur disadvantage
The 6th level feature (original) works anywhere from 5ft to 15ft away from the enemy
The 11th level feature works anywhere from 25ft to 120ft away from the enemy. You could use this one within 20ft of the target, but then you are in its AOE effect.
The 17th level feature (original) works within melee combat (where none of your other features will work).
I like your change from Burning Hands to Scorching Ray as it allows you to work in the same range as the Radiant Sun Bolts and Searing Sunburst. I also like the change to a time-limited capstone BUT with the increase in AOE to 30ft.
While there is definitely some play where you can use a Sun Soul Monk in melee and fire off subclass features at enemies far away from your nearby target, but I feel like this subclass would work better as a mid-range to long-range blaster, where you can use your mobility to stay out of an enemy's reach and try to kite them along (which would make it unique among the monk subclasses, with the closest contender being the Longbow Kensei). The only thing you miss out on by playing this way is using Stunning Strike, imo.
I think your revision makes that style of play more realizable.
Edit: I also had a revision to the original 6th level feature which I thought would act as an alternative to Stunning Strike that could be used with Radiant Sun Bolts. I will include it here if anyone is interested
Blinding Bolts
6th-level Way of the Sun Soul feature, which replaces Searing Arc Strike
Starting at 6th level, when you hit another creature with a radiant sun bolt, you can spend 1 ki point to attempt to disrupt the creature’s sight. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of your next turn. A creature with the Sunlight Sensitivity or Sunlight Hypersensitivity trait has disadvantage on this saving throw.
Thanks for the feedback. I have this issue with monks not having enough ki in general so i am biased that abilities that use ki should not cost too much. However you are probably right that the ki cost for searing arc strike should be an extra ki. As written, it caps out at 5 rays or 10d6+25 at 17th level which is quite alot of damage for a monk. Adding the wisdom modifier to damage was my way of increasing the damage without having to spend more ki on higher upcasting.
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Hey all
Sun soul in my books is one of the worst subclasses. Here are some tweaks i made to help it out.
Radiant sun bolt
When you take the Attack action on your turn and use this special attack as part of it, you can make this special attack once as a bonus action.
Once on each of your turns when you hit a target with this special attack you can spend 1 ki to increase the damage of the attack by one martial arts die plus your dexterity modifier.
Otherwise everything else is the same. The damage and ki cost between this and the published version when you get two bonus attacks with it is the same however having this as one free bonus attack i think makes this feature much more usable.
Searing arc strike
This was a total rewrite. Using all your chi to make burning hands even mildly effective is just awful. This rewrite fits with theme nicely and is much more ki efficient.
Changes
At 6th level, you gain the ability to channel your ki into searing waves of energy. You can spend 1 ki point to cast Scorching Ray. Wisdom is your spellcasting attack modifier and you can add your wisdom modifier to the damage of each ray. For each additional ki point you can increase the spell level by one. The maximum ki you can spend to cast this spell is half your proficiency bonus (rounded down).
Searing Sunburst
If you use 3ki points to increase the damage to 8d6 sounds good at first but creatures that make their saving throw take zero damage? That is just terrible and a big waste of ki. It's an unlimited ability so i get why the damage has to be low but its still too low.
Changes
Each creature in that 20-foot-radius sphere must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 2d6 + your wisdom modifier radiant damage. Creatures that make their saving throw take half damage.
Otherwise everything else about this feature is the same. At least if they take half damage you dont feel like you have wasted your ki on nothing.
Sun Shield
This is one of the most laughable capstones in the game. Essentially the light cantrip and you have to take likely large amounts of damage at this level to do minor damage back. I dont know what the designers were thinking here.
Changes
At 17th level, you become wreathed in a luminous, magical aura. You shed bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. You can extinguish or restore the light as a bonus action.
While this feature is active you can spend 2 ki points as a bonus action (or as a part of the same bonus action used to restore the light) to gain the following benefits for one minute:
You are immune to radiant damage.
You are so bright to look at, that attack rolls against you that require an opponent to see you have disadvantage.
When a creature enters the bright light for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there it takes radiant damage equal to 5 + your wisdom modifier.
You can use this feature once and regain the use after a short or long rest.
This was also a rewrite. Immunity to radiant damage is not a big deal but it does let you searing sunburst yourself with impunity. The rest i think makes sense and is not overpowered in any way.
What do you think?
I like your ideas. I always thought that not having the bonus action attack for free was an oversight since they had the sun bolt “flurry of blows” option for the 1 Ki.
I think your searing arc strike should probably be 2 Ki points. It’s a 2nd level spell instead of 1st and compared to shadow monks shadow magic 2 Ki would fall in line with cost. Also I wonder if the scaling should stay the same as the original. Your version has a max of 3 Ki where the original version gives you the option to cast it higher. Maybe cap at 9 Ki since there are no 10th level spell slots and 10 Ki at 20th level would be equivalent to a 10th level slot.
And I don’t know if the WIS modifier additional damage is necessary. If you wanted to do that I would just rewrite the ability as a unique attack and not casting a spell.
I think the rest is pretty good. Not sure if the damage of the 17th level ability is enough. Will think on that one.
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I like your revisions and think it addresses the main issue I have with the subclass: It is all over the place in terms of range.
The 3rd level feature works anywhere from 10ft to 30ft away from the enemy. You could use this one within 5ft of an enemy, but the attack would incur disadvantage
The 6th level feature (original) works anywhere from 5ft to 15ft away from the enemy
The 11th level feature works anywhere from 25ft to 120ft away from the enemy. You could use this one within 20ft of the target, but then you are in its AOE effect.
The 17th level feature (original) works within melee combat (where none of your other features will work).
I like your change from Burning Hands to Scorching Ray as it allows you to work in the same range as the Radiant Sun Bolts and Searing Sunburst. I also like the change to a time-limited capstone BUT with the increase in AOE to 30ft.
While there is definitely some play where you can use a Sun Soul Monk in melee and fire off subclass features at enemies far away from your nearby target, but I feel like this subclass would work better as a mid-range to long-range blaster, where you can use your mobility to stay out of an enemy's reach and try to kite them along (which would make it unique among the monk subclasses, with the closest contender being the Longbow Kensei). The only thing you miss out on by playing this way is using Stunning Strike, imo.
I think your revision makes that style of play more realizable.
Edit: I also had a revision to the original 6th level feature which I thought would act as an alternative to Stunning Strike that could be used with Radiant Sun Bolts. I will include it here if anyone is interested
Blinding Bolts
6th-level Way of the Sun Soul feature, which replaces Searing Arc Strike
Starting at 6th level, when you hit another creature with a radiant sun bolt, you can spend 1 ki point to attempt to disrupt the creature’s sight. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of your next turn. A creature with the Sunlight Sensitivity or Sunlight Hypersensitivity trait has disadvantage on this saving throw.
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I had been thinking about adding a save or be blinded feature to the radiant sun bolt as well. It makes alot of sense. Great minds think alike!
Thanks for the feedback. I have this issue with monks not having enough ki in general so i am biased that abilities that use ki should not cost too much. However you are probably right that the ki cost for searing arc strike should be an extra ki. As written, it caps out at 5 rays or 10d6+25 at 17th level which is quite alot of damage for a monk. Adding the wisdom modifier to damage was my way of increasing the damage without having to spend more ki on higher upcasting.