As a side note it's kinda funny to me (in a non judgemental way) that people seem so eager to break the things about monk that make it a monk. I know and/or agree that monk needs some love and tweaks to keep it competitive or relevant but half the questions or suggestions on this forum are like "how can we incorporate weapons and armor" or "make monk's half caster" or you know, stuff like this.
At 1st level, your practice of martial arts gives you mastery of combat styles that use unarmed strikes. You gain the following benefits when you aren't wielding a shield:
When unarmored, you can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed and weapons attacks that lack the heavy propertie.
You may sacrifice one of your attacks to attempt to grab a creature if this is no more than one size larger than you n and you have a hand free to grab the target.
Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can move it 5 feet to an unoccupied space. You cannot push opponents two sizes larger than you, but you can use the rebound to move 5 feet away without provoking attacks of opportunity.
You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed or your weapon attacks. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table.
On your turn, when you use the Action to Attack, or you use a monk feature that use ki point, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. For example, if you take the Attack action and attack with a quarterstaff, or you cast a spell or a feature that use Ki points, you can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, assuming you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn.
Indeed, it is wrong to make the monk completely compatible with the use of armor, but this should also not be blocked as rigidly as in this edition. At least Martial Arts should be independent of this concept.
This will allow the monk to have many more doors open, and the rest of the classes will be able to take advantage of it as well. Just imagine a barbarian with a great axe or a great sword, still attacking with a kick or a knee as a bonus action.
As for the monk with armor, it could be a subclass like the Mandalorians of star wars. Or a unique subclass of the warforged race that allows them to have upgrades to their armor, and that allows them to move like a monk but via jetpack.
As a side note it's kinda funny to me (in a non judgemental way) that people seem so eager to break the things about monk that make it a monk. I know and/or agree that monk needs some love and tweaks to keep it competitive or relevant but half the questions or suggestions on this forum are like "how can we incorporate weapons and armor" or "make monk's half caster" or you know, stuff like this.
In the end I stopped at this:
Martial Arts
At 1st level, your practice of martial arts gives you mastery of combat styles that use unarmed strikes. You gain the following benefits when you aren't wielding a shield:
When unarmored, you can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed and weapons attacks that lack the heavy propertie.
You may sacrifice one of your attacks to attempt to grab a creature if this is no more than one size larger than you n and you have a hand free to grab the target.
Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can move it 5 feet to an unoccupied space. You cannot push opponents two sizes larger than you, but you can use the rebound to move 5 feet away without provoking attacks of opportunity.
You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed or your weapon attacks. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table.
On your turn, when you use the Action to Attack, or you use a monk feature that use ki point, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. For example, if you take the Attack action and attack with a quarterstaff, or you cast a spell or a feature that use Ki points, you can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, assuming you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn.
Indeed, it is wrong to make the monk completely compatible with the use of armor, but this should also not be blocked as rigidly as in this edition. At least Martial Arts should be independent of this concept.
This will allow the monk to have many more doors open, and the rest of the classes will be able to take advantage of it as well. Just imagine a barbarian with a great axe or a great sword, still attacking with a kick or a knee as a bonus action.
As for the monk with armor, it could be a subclass like the Mandalorians of star wars. Or a unique subclass of the warforged race that allows them to have upgrades to their armor, and that allows them to move like a monk but via jetpack.