What is the Monk? The Monk has existed as a class since the early days of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition, back when it was owned by TSR and written in part by Gary Gygax. It was first introduced in a book titled "Blackmoor", then updated in an "Oriental Adventures" book since in the 1980s, people still used the word "oriental" unironically to refer to the so-called Far East (relative to Europe, I suppose). Then in 2nd edition, the Monk got grouped with "Priests," which also included Clerics and Druids. Similar to the 5E Monk, the 2E Monk could not functionally use Armor and had stronger than average Unarmed fighting skills. The 2E Monk had some access to spells, unlike the current base class.
The Monk has never been as popular of a class as those of the Fighter, Thief or Cleric. Partly this is due to the historical MADness of requiring at first 3 high attribute scores (Wisdom, Strength, and Dexterity) as well as their various and arguably arbitrary restrictions like being unable to wear any armor whatsoever, various size restrictions (what size of creature they could one-shot or grapple), and poor hit point average relative to front liners like the Fighter but being forced to be in the front line to be effective. If you are thinking about the 5E Monk while you read this, you can see the clear parallels between the older editions of Monk and the 5E Monk.
While I could find no definitive source as to what inspired the original AD&D Monk (short a third hand account regarding a Remo Williams film where a young Joel Grey dons yellow face to play a martial arts master mentor figure to the protagonist), the main features that tie the 1E and 2E Monk to the 5E Monk remain fairly constant: unarmed fighting techniques, no armor usage, and necessitating a high WIS in addition to one or two more physical attribute scores to be effective.
We should note there that the fantasy superhuman that mostly uses punching/kicking and attains their super-ness via self-perfecting blend of mind/body/spirit is very much NOT a West European cultural construct. If you look at high grossing movies made in Hollywood (the global purveyor of West European pop culture), people who punch, kick, headbutt, etc. as their main form of attack are either genetically enhanced (Capt. America), born with superpowers (Colossus), or got their powers through sheer accident (Thing from FF4 franchise). Are boxers superpowered in Hollywood fiction? No. Are wrestlers superpowered in Hollywood fiction? No.
The only prominent examples you can arguably give for a European superpowered punch/kick + mind/body/spirit perfection theme being well executed in television are "Avatar: the Last Bender" and "Avatar: the Legend of Korra," which are basically part of the same creative franchise. Notice, however, clothing, food, artistic renditions of bodies, etc. for both of those series are much closer to an East Asian cultural aesthetic than a West European cultural aesthetic for the prominent recurring characters (aside from some clear borrowing of aesthetics from indigenous cultures). And notice, also, that the live action version of Avatar the Last Airbender has become a meme of crappitude based both on its cost:profit ratio and general plot/characterization issues.
So where does the superpowered punch/kick + mind/body/spirit paradigm come from? For ease of refence, let's call this the "Holistic PK" model. East Asian pop culture. Whether it be anime, Hong Kong kung fu movies, Bruce Lee movies, or wuxia films, the aesthetic and framing for this paradigm has historically been East Asian.
However, D&D was designed by Gary Gygax based mostly on W.European cultural themes. Which were the primary classes when D&D first came out? Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Wizard. Let's call this these the "Classic Core." These factors are all important to our examination of the Monk class b/c the Holistic PK model is both A) not W.European fantasy in origin and B) is not a Fighter, Cleric, Thief, or Wizard. Therefore, the design team at WotC (which continues to be headed by people who grew up primarily with W.European ideas of what is inspiring fantasy fiction), will generally prioritize the best experience for players who want to play a Fighter, Rogue (name-swapped Thief), Cleric, or Wizard. This means that classes that are not the Classic Core will always be secondary in their design priorities. This is important because the game has mechanics, and class/subclass features must be based on mechanics, not just the imagination (even though the imagination is what brings the game to life for the players). However, because the Classic Core was designed first and is favored by the game devs, non-Classic Core classes become add-ons. This prioritization schema, intentional or not, will almost always prioritize giving nice things to the Classic Core, even at the expense of secondary classes.
If you look at your examples of different themes, we notice a pattern once we take the Classic Core design priority into consideration. The PHB Sorcerer is generally sub-optimal compared to the Wizard, right? Based on DPS, the Ranger is generally sub-optimal compared to the Fighter, correct? So we see that Classic Core is supported by the devs moreso than the non-Classic Core classes.
The problem for the Monk class is that it is both not a Classic Core class and not inspired by W.European cultural milieu. In the West European fantasy tradition, weapons + armor is of prime importance to winning the fight. From a mechanical game design perspective, there must also be a difference between choice wearing armor vs. not wearing armor, as well as using weapons vs. attacking with fists and feet. As such, game design decisions re: optimization potential, feats, magic items, etc. will generally favor the Classic Core (and those classes designed most like the Classic Core) than something like the Monk, because the Holistic PK model is conceptually not W.European and was developed as a supplemental class, not a primary class by Gygax and co. As long as Monk design is treated as being both mechanically and thematically separate from the Classic Core, it will never get much in terms of Nice Things both because the design space for classes will generally favor the Common Core and b/c if you borrow features from Fighter or Rogue and give them to the Monk, the Fighter/Rogue fanbase will yell and holler about it, leading to the devs to backpedal, since the devs care more pleasing the Classic Core's fanbase more than the Holistic PK fanbase.
I can see why you would consider monk's, barbarians sorcerers, bards, warlocks, artificers, druids, etc to all be spinoffs or variants of the "classic core" but I don't think that fact alone, or even coupled with foreign/asian/etc cultural origins would leave them "deprioritized". I also don't think "wizard is better than sorcerer" is very good evidence to bring to this conversation. Is fighter inherently better than barbarian and paladin? I think there's arguments to be made that it isn't. Only beastmaster ranger sucks, the other options can easily contend with rogue.
Monks ARE caught in a awkward position of being between rogue and fighter. The minds behind the books want to stick to a set of stringent core values behind monk to keep it consistent with an archetype they have in mind; brawler/Kung fu, wisdom, unarmored, fast, furious. The problem with monk is that with its skillset it WANTS to be a second rogue, but they need to let rogue keeps its defining identity (expertise, subterfuge) it also WANTS to be a fighter who can stand toe to toe with the enemy and come out ontop; but how much do we take from the stalwart knight and hand to Jackie Chan before he just becomes a reskinned fighter. They do have to keep game balance in mind and generally more utility equals less durability, but monk's don't have enough unique fleshed out tools to be considered a utility character, giving them too much of what they could be good at would make them rogues, giving them too much damage and durability will make them fighters. Giving them too much of both would make them op.
I can see why you would consider monk's, barbarians sorcerers, bards, warlocks, artificers, druids, etc to all be spinoffs or variants of the "classic core" but I don't think that fact alone, or even coupled with foreign/asian/etc cultural origins would leave them "deprioritized". I also don't think "wizard is better than sorcerer" is very good evidence to bring to this conversation. Is fighter inherently better than barbarian and paladin? I think there's arguments to be made that it isn't. Only beastmaster ranger sucks, the other options can easily contend with rogue.
Before the Tasha's versions, Wizard generally was better than Sorcerer b/c of spell slots alone. Now, I''m not arguing that Fighter is always better than Paladin or Barbarian, b/c the devs have certainly designed the Fighter base class to be the de facto Newbie class: no spells, the bare minimum of features to memorize, also few skills. What Fighter has, though, is flexibility and high damage per round. Having the most ASIs, they can be built for a large variety of roles, as long as those don't involve spellcasting past level 2. At high levels, the Fighter easily bests the Barbarian and Ranger in terms of Damage per round if they equally prioritize high damage feats like Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, or Sharpshooter. That said, I also don't think that high DPR is the be all and end all of what makes an effective class.
While I do agree that Paladins are certainly quite strong, a lot of the heavy lifting there is because they have A) spell slots that complement their heavy armor wearing, big weapon swinging Fighter-like abilities (using mostly Cleric spells) plus they have an always "on" Aura, which is a unique ability that probably came from video game play. Where the Paladin differs from Monk is that it IS part of the W. European fantasy landscape of archetypes and, importantly, it's mostly a combination of Fighter and Cleric. Paladins in 2E, even without the Aura, (or Smite) was still a pretty functional class. If not for the "humans only" and Lawful Good alignment behavior restrictions, it probably would have been a lot more popular.
The PHB Ranger had an awkward identity crisis, too, before Tasha's. It could hold it's own in combat, but b/c the Exploration pillar of the game never got much support from the developers and many of its features were to campaign and DM-dependent, it had a lot of detractors because even if it could kill a bunch of critters with arrows, it had too many features that rarely saw play. Anyway, enough of that.
Comparing the Monk to the Paladin, the Monk has always been clunky in every edition. This isn't just a problem with the 5E version.
Monks ARE caught in a awkward position of being between rogue and fighter. The minds behind the books want to stick to a set of stringent core values behind monk to keep it consistent with an archetype they have in mind; brawler/Kung fu, wisdom, unarmored, fast, furious. The problem with monk is that with its skillset it WANTS to be a second rogue, but they need to let rogue keeps its defining identity (expertise, subterfuge) it also WANTS to be a fighter who can stand toe to toe with the enemy and come out ontop; but how much do we take from the stalwart knight and hand to Jackie Chan before he just becomes a reskinned fighter. They do have to keep game balance in mind and generally more utility equals less durability, but monk's don't have enough unique fleshed out tools to be considered a utility character, giving them too much of what they could be good at would make them rogues, giving them too much damage and durability will make them fighters. Giving them too much of both would make them op.
It sounds here like you're mostly agreeing with me. (Or am I agreeing with you?) The Rogue came first therefore keeping a clear Rogue identity is more important to the devs than strengthening the Monk identity. The Fighter came first, so it needs to stay the sovereign of high DPR. I think we've agreed that both of these are true.
Personally, I think the best solution would be to get rid of the Monk altogether, shuffling its features into Rogue and Fighter. That gets rid of the culturally-based foggy glasses. Create a bit more flexibility so that Fighters branch off between Armored Knight types that use heavy weapons and Light Fast types that strike with one-handed weapons and ranged weapons. The Light Fast types would be like Monks with fewer fancy features than what we see in the PHB Monk that are actually quite kind of niche; Slow Fall, Deflect Missiles, Tongue of Sun and Moon, and Empty Body (for an 18th level ability) are situational or ribbon features, so most of those can be chucked out the window. For the people who want a skills and more skills, design a few Rogue subclasses that are like Shadow Monk and Mercy Monk. Add back in stuff like Slow Fall, Purity of Body, and a weaker version of Diamond Soul.
Personally, I think the best solution would be to get rid of the Monk altogether, shuffling its features into Rogue and Fighter.
There is a class that many people who play the game enjoy and love as it is, valuing the strengths it possesses, and that many players who don't play Monk themselves enjoy having present at their tables.
Your position is that a class you don't enjoy shouldn't exist for anyone. That it isn't good enough that you are free to not play a class you don't enjoy; no, no one should get to.
While I also do not like the Monk (or Artificer for that matter), I totally agree everyone to each their own...and more options are always a plus.
If Wizards would change the monk hit dice to a barbarian hit dice. Maybe give monks dex for any strength skills and grapples it makes more sense.
My suggestion for monk is the removal of ki/discipline point costs for base abilities as the monk levels. Lvl 5 would be patient defense or step of the wind, lvl 10 would be the other one you didn't choose for lvl 5 or maybe flurry of blows, lvl 15 would be the last base ability.
The issues with the monk are not as bad as they're made out to be. What they need most is less reliance on ki/discipline and more damage at later levels. They'd also benefit a ton getting the same ASI schedule as fighters. Some out of combat utility would also go a long way.
Everyone likes to say the monk is the worst class and honestly that's true. But it isn't bad. That said, at lower levels monks are actually fairly good.
Meh.. I've said it before but I think monk's biggest issue is that it's defining utilities are disconnected and require heavy feat investment to fully utilize for an already MAD class that struggles to afford feats on a tight ASI budget
1: mobile or crusher is almost mandatory to take advantage of the speed of unarmored movement for that "hit and run" playstyle.. Monks should just be given mobile by default
2: patient defense is amazing but comes at the cost of a bonus action, hampering the monk's ability to actually deal damage with flurry. I think patient defense should be made a reaction but keep its ki cost. That also avoids the issue of a monk proactively using patient defense only for the DM to avoid attacking the monk and wasting both the bonus action and ki point
3: the temptation to dump all ki points into stunning strike attempts is too great to ignore... rather than spamming stunning strike at will 4 times a turn, it should be a rider effect; "after successfully landing 3 strikes on a single target, they must make a saving throw or be stunned" prevents multiple spam attempts in one round and encourages the monk to flurry.
A slight boost to mid-end game unarmed damage is also welcome
No Amor and no 2 Handed weapons. Then you use a Monk in armor and using a 2 handed weapon in the Art. (Monk keeping a creature at bay using a glaive type weapon.) --You train to hone your mind and body to their peak. So we will give you restrictions. reducing or limiting your ability to do those things.)
Your Martial arts and limited weapon training is not a fighting style so no fighting style feats for you.
Forget about all the artwork. No Martial weapons for you so no weapon-based feats for you.
A level 5 druid using SHILLELAGH is doing more damage with their staff than a Monk. I do not want one level dip in Druid or take magic initiate so I can do better damage with my monk weapon.
Monks need an Identity that is away from Fighter and Rogue to not make it feel it would be better to make is a subclass of one of the 2. that might help develop the class.
I find it funny that you are saying everything but Fighter, Thief/Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric are deprioritized or second-hand. The two classes most often considered the strongest in 5E are Druid and Paladin, neither of which are in your "Core Classes" category.
Monk lags a bit behind in power, but it is not unplayable, nor is it in any way a useless class. Of all of the Martial classes, Monk gets the most out of combat utility (can run along walls and across water), can just choose to stop being charmed or frightened, get straight immunity to poison and disease, can speak to anyone that speaks a language, get proficiency in all saving throws (and the ability to reroll failed saves), and just stop needing to eat or drink entirely. I feel like this debate always gets reduced to damage in combat, but the fact that a level 18 Monk can just run up a 180 ft. cliff for the cost of 1 Ki is always overlooked.
Being able to run up a 180 ft cliff is an incredibly situational ability and almost always useless in most situations. Plus most classes can beat that with a spell or class feature. Damage is what matters because a Monk's main role is to deal damage. Most of the abilities you named are so useless they were removed in one dnd.
To be clear, I'm not against the existence of the Monk class per se. However, my argument is that since the game has its particular history and the developers like to put Monk in a "special" category ("special" being a patronizing term here), it will never receive the major overhaul/updgrade it needs to be even close to a Fighter's combat ability after level 10 nor close to a Fighter's hardiness at lower levels. It is because the Monk will NOT be fixed in OneDnD that I think it would be better if they just scrapped the class altogether and created a Monk-like "branch" to the Fighter class tree and broadened their concept of Rogue.
I find it funny that you are saying everything but Fighter, Thief/Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric are deprioritized or second-hand. The two classes most often considered the strongest in 5E are Druid and Paladin, neither of which are in your "Core Classes" category.
I think the Wizard is widely considered the best class along with Paladin.
Monk lags a bit behind in power, but it is not unplayable, nor is it in any way a useless class. Of all of the Martial classes, Monk gets the most out of combat utility (can run along walls and across water), can just choose to stop being charmed or frightened, get straight immunity to poison and disease, can speak to anyone that speaks a language, get proficiency in all saving throws (and the ability to reroll failed saves), and just stop needing to eat or drink entirely. I feel like this debate always gets reduced to damage in combat, but the fact that a level 18 Monk can just run up a 180 ft. cliff for the cost of 1 Ki is always overlooked.
The Monk can for sure do cool stuff. The problems they have are low damage at later levels compared to other martial classes that can also do cool stuff, reliance on Ki for basically everything they do, no feats that really benefit them while being very reliant on multiple high attribute scores while having the same ASI schedule as a wizard, and almost no official magic items that increase unarmed combat effectiveness. At early levels (1-5) they actually do fairly respectable damage. It falls off when other martial characters start getting magic items and take things like great weapon master or sharp shooter. Even without that, they really start lagging around level 11+. Fighters get 3 attacks, Rangers will have 3rd level spells, Barbarians are just damage machines the second they take great weapon master, Paladins are doing all the crazy paladin stuff and more damage than a monk, even without smiting every turn. Rogue damage at this point is on par with Monk's damage although they have extremely easy access to on demand advantage which puts them well over what a monk can do. Also, rogue damage just keeps going up whereas Monks are basically doing the same damage for the rest of the game.
One DND will do some stuff to address all this. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter are both getting nerfed (at least apparently). That will help flatten out damage numbers. Monks won't be better but they'll be closer to everyone else. I also think Monks will see some buffs in the next UA.
What if the Monk could use a Ki point as a reaction to being hit that would deflect the hit/damage to a flanking enemy; no other class can do this, but it would be in line with a monks dodging, movement and catching weapon skills. - Potential?
1) No Ki cost for Patient Defense or Step of the Wind. Spending your Bonus Action is cost enough.
2) Flurry of Blows costs Ki only- no action. This means Monks could have up to 4 attacks right away from level 2 to level 4 (Action attack, Bonus Action Unarmed attack, spend Ki point for 2 Flurry of Blows Unarmed attacks.) Extra Attack at level 5 would up the possible attacks to 5. And I'd go even further by giving Monks 2 Unarmed attacks as a Bonus action at level 11, for a total of 6 possible attacks. This may seem like a lot, but I have 2 reasons why I think it's valid (and worth kind of stepping on the Fighter's toes with all those attacks.) First, it fulfills the fantasy trope of an Unarmed fighter rapidly punching/kicking an opponent, whether it's a western boxing paradigm or more of a martial arts film paradigm. Second, the Monk will be doing less damage per hit than a fighter (usually); and the Monk has fewer HP & lower AC than the Fighter (& other front liners), so it makes sense to offset the "glass" part with a "cannon" part. Flurry of Blows costing Ki means that it is still a limited ability, especially when you factor in all the other class & subclass abilities that Ki is used for (yes, even if Patient Defense & Step of the Wind are Ki free.) Also, it gives the Monk the option to get multiple attacks in, then spend their Bonus Action to either Patient Defense (Miyagi teach Karate for defense only! 😁) or Step of the Wind to fulfill the skirmisher role.
3. Deflect Missiles changes to Deflect Attacks, so it can be used against melee attacks as well. Instead of redirecting the missile, if they reduce the damage to zero, they can spend a Ki to knock the opponent prone (with a Str save to negate). Given the increase in viability, I'd reduce the damage reduction from (1d10+Dex Mod+Monk level) to (Martial Arts die+Dex Mod+half Monk level rounded up).
4) Stunning Strike, limit it to one attempt per turn.
5) I'd change Tongue of the Sun & Moon so that you can spend 1 Ki point to cast either Comprehend Languages or Tongues. Just getting them both for free seems a bit much.
6) Timeless Body. I'd add that you can eliminate one level of Exhaustion by using your action and spending 2 Ki points. So that the feature has a little more mechanical benefit, because it's current form is mostly a ribbon feature.
7) Perfect Self... change it completely. Monk adds +4 to their Wisdom score (to a max of 24). This will help with their AC and stun DC, among other things. Also give them +4 Ki points.
I've seen many other ways to fix Monks, in videos and in forums/chat. There's lots of decent ideas out there. So I'm not gonna say my ideas here are the best, or even necessarily good. They haven't been vetted or playtested. But the main thing is that there ARE ideas out there on how to make the Monk better. I really hope WotC figures something out before 2024 (because their UA7 attempt was really not great.)
I've already pointed the things i think they need most like just making mobility or crusher default; but I'd also like to add that monk unarmed attacks need to be treated as weapons (not just for the sake of overcoming resistances) because 1: weapon mastery is a huge thing in dndone and monks get it; why? but also so they can also benifit from things like "Holy Weapon" and stuff..
The problem with monk is no one WANTS it to be good.
You could provide graphs, numbers, statistics, the whole kit and kaboodle and no one cares.
Monk v Rogue: Cunning Action is resourceless, Step of Wind is resource. Flurry/Stunning Strike costs resource, Sneak attack is free every turn (advantage is a near constant in the game).
Monk v Fighter: Fifth level, Monk gets 3 attacks (4 with resource) against the fighters 2. But the monk loses out on the vast array of weapons that Fighter can use. So a fighter eventually catches up to monk in terms of "amount of attacks" per turn while having the world of official +3 weapons at their disposal. So the monk is rolling (1d8+4) x 4 [after spending resource] while the fighter is rolling (2d6+3+5) x 4, getting nearly completely overshadowed.
Monk v Paladin: Paladin can't miss Smites, and at 11th level Smites become innate. But Flurry if Blows misses, it misses. Resource point gone. Why can't Flurry turn innate at some point? This would also address the Fighter issue.
1) No Ki cost for Patient Defense or Step of the Wind. Spending your Bonus Action is cost enough.
2) Flurry of Blows costs Ki only- no action. This means Monks could have up to 4 attacks right away from level 2 to level 4 (Action attack, Bonus Action Unarmed attack, spend Ki point for 2 Flurry of Blows Unarmed attacks.) Extra Attack at level 5 would up the possible attacks to 5. And I'd go even further by giving Monks 2 Unarmed attacks as a Bonus action at level 11, for a total of 6 possible attacks. This may seem like a lot, but I have 2 reasons why I think it's valid (and worth kind of stepping on the Fighter's toes with all those attacks.) First, it fulfills the fantasy trope of an Unarmed fighter rapidly punching/kicking an opponent, whether it's a western boxing paradigm or more of a martial arts film paradigm. Second, the Monk will be doing less damage per hit than a fighter (usually); and the Monk has fewer HP & lower AC than the Fighter (& other front liners), so it makes sense to offset the "glass" part with a "cannon" part. Flurry of Blows costing Ki means that it is still a limited ability, especially when you factor in all the other class & subclass abilities that Ki is used for (yes, even if Patient Defense & Step of the Wind are Ki free.) Also, it gives the Monk the option to get multiple attacks in, then spend their Bonus Action to either Patient Defense (Miyagi teach Karate for defense only! 😁) or Step of the Wind to fulfill the skirmisher role.
3. Deflect Missiles changes to Deflect Attacks, so it can be used against melee attacks as well. Instead of redirecting the missile, if they reduce the damage to zero, they can spend a Ki to knock the opponent prone (with a Str save to negate). Given the increase in viability, I'd reduce the damage reduction from (1d10+Dex Mod+Monk level) to (Martial Arts die+Dex Mod+half Monk level rounded up).
4) Stunning Strike, limit it to one attempt per turn.
5) I'd change Tongue of the Sun & Moon so that you can spend 1 Ki point to cast either Comprehend Languages or Tongues. Just getting them both for free seems a bit much.
6) Timeless Body. I'd add that you can eliminate one level of Exhaustion by using your action and spending 2 Ki points. So that the feature has a little more mechanical benefit, because it's current form is mostly a ribbon feature.
7) Perfect Self... change it completely. Monk adds +4 to their Wisdom score (to a max of 24). This will help with their AC and stun DC, among other things. Also give them +4 Ki points.
I've seen many other ways to fix Monks, in videos and in forums/chat. There's lots of decent ideas out there. So I'm not gonna say my ideas here are the best, or even necessarily good. They haven't been vetted or playtested. But the main thing is that there ARE ideas out there on how to make the Monk better. I really hope WotC figures something out before 2024 (because their UA7 attempt was really not great.)
1) No Ki cost for Patient Defense or Step of the Wind. Spending your Bonus Action is cost enough.
2) Flurry of Blows costs Ki only- no action. This means Monks could have up to 4 attacks right away from level 2 to level 4 (Action attack, Bonus Action Unarmed attack, spend Ki point for 2 Flurry of Blows Unarmed attacks.) Extra Attack at level 5 would up the possible attacks to 5. And I'd go even further by giving Monks 2 Unarmed attacks as a Bonus action at level 11, for a total of 6 possible attacks. This may seem like a lot, but I have 2 reasons why I think it's valid (and worth kind of stepping on the Fighter's toes with all those attacks.) First, it fulfills the fantasy trope of an Unarmed fighter rapidly punching/kicking an opponent, whether it's a western boxing paradigm or more of a martial arts film paradigm. Second, the Monk will be doing less damage per hit than a fighter (usually); and the Monk has fewer HP & lower AC than the Fighter (& other front liners), so it makes sense to offset the "glass" part with a "cannon" part. Flurry of Blows costing Ki means that it is still a limited ability, especially when you factor in all the other class & subclass abilities that Ki is used for (yes, even if Patient Defense & Step of the Wind are Ki free.) Also, it gives the Monk the option to get multiple attacks in, then spend their Bonus Action to either Patient Defense (Miyagi teach Karate for defense only! 😁) or Step of the Wind to fulfill the skirmisher role.
3. Deflect Missiles changes to Deflect Attacks, so it can be used against melee attacks as well. Instead of redirecting the missile, if they reduce the damage to zero, they can spend a Ki to knock the opponent prone (with a Str save to negate). Given the increase in viability, I'd reduce the damage reduction from (1d10+Dex Mod+Monk level) to (Martial Arts die+Dex Mod+half Monk level rounded up).
4) Stunning Strike, limit it to one attempt per turn.
5) I'd change Tongue of the Sun & Moon so that you can spend 1 Ki point to cast either Comprehend Languages or Tongues. Just getting them both for free seems a bit much.
6) Timeless Body. I'd add that you can eliminate one level of Exhaustion by using your action and spending 2 Ki points. So that the feature has a little more mechanical benefit, because it's current form is mostly a ribbon feature.
7) Perfect Self... change it completely. Monk adds +4 to their Wisdom score (to a max of 24). This will help with their AC and stun DC, among other things. Also give them +4 Ki points.
I've seen many other ways to fix Monks, in videos and in forums/chat. There's lots of decent ideas out there. So I'm not gonna say my ideas here are the best, or even necessarily good. They haven't been vetted or playtested. But the main thing is that there ARE ideas out there on how to make the Monk better. I really hope WotC figures something out before 2024 (because their UA7 attempt was really not great.)
This aged pretty well.
Indeed! If Playtest #8 stands as written, the Monk gets some nice things for Christmas, after all! :)
What is the Monk? The Monk has existed as a class since the early days of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition, back when it was owned by TSR and written in part by Gary Gygax. It was first introduced in a book titled "Blackmoor", then updated in an "Oriental Adventures" book since in the 1980s, people still used the word "oriental" unironically to refer to the so-called Far East (relative to Europe, I suppose). Then in 2nd edition, the Monk got grouped with "Priests," which also included Clerics and Druids. Similar to the 5E Monk, the 2E Monk could not functionally use Armor and had stronger than average Unarmed fighting skills. The 2E Monk had some access to spells, unlike the current base class.
The Monk has never been as popular of a class as those of the Fighter, Thief or Cleric. Partly this is due to the historical MADness of requiring at first 3 high attribute scores (Wisdom, Strength, and Dexterity) as well as their various and arguably arbitrary restrictions like being unable to wear any armor whatsoever, various size restrictions (what size of creature they could one-shot or grapple), and poor hit point average relative to front liners like the Fighter but being forced to be in the front line to be effective. If you are thinking about the 5E Monk while you read this, you can see the clear parallels between the older editions of Monk and the 5E Monk.
While I could find no definitive source as to what inspired the original AD&D Monk (short a third hand account regarding a Remo Williams film where a young Joel Grey dons yellow face to play a martial arts master mentor figure to the protagonist), the main features that tie the 1E and 2E Monk to the 5E Monk remain fairly constant: unarmed fighting techniques, no armor usage, and necessitating a high WIS in addition to one or two more physical attribute scores to be effective.
We should note there that the fantasy superhuman that mostly uses punching/kicking and attains their super-ness via self-perfecting blend of mind/body/spirit is very much NOT a West European cultural construct. If you look at high grossing movies made in Hollywood (the global purveyor of West European pop culture), people who punch, kick, headbutt, etc. as their main form of attack are either genetically enhanced (Capt. America), born with superpowers (Colossus), or got their powers through sheer accident (Thing from FF4 franchise). Are boxers superpowered in Hollywood fiction? No. Are wrestlers superpowered in Hollywood fiction? No.
The only prominent examples you can arguably give for a European superpowered punch/kick + mind/body/spirit perfection theme being well executed in television are "Avatar: the Last Bender" and "Avatar: the Legend of Korra," which are basically part of the same creative franchise. Notice, however, clothing, food, artistic renditions of bodies, etc. for both of those series are much closer to an East Asian cultural aesthetic than a West European cultural aesthetic for the prominent recurring characters (aside from some clear borrowing of aesthetics from indigenous cultures). And notice, also, that the live action version of Avatar the Last Airbender has become a meme of crappitude based both on its cost:profit ratio and general plot/characterization issues.
So where does the superpowered punch/kick + mind/body/spirit paradigm come from? For ease of refence, let's call this the "Holistic PK" model. East Asian pop culture. Whether it be anime, Hong Kong kung fu movies, Bruce Lee movies, or wuxia films, the aesthetic and framing for this paradigm has historically been East Asian.
However, D&D was designed by Gary Gygax based mostly on W.European cultural themes. Which were the primary classes when D&D first came out? Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Wizard. Let's call this these the "Classic Core." These factors are all important to our examination of the Monk class b/c the Holistic PK model is both A) not W.European fantasy in origin and B) is not a Fighter, Cleric, Thief, or Wizard. Therefore, the design team at WotC (which continues to be headed by people who grew up primarily with W.European ideas of what is inspiring fantasy fiction), will generally prioritize the best experience for players who want to play a Fighter, Rogue (name-swapped Thief), Cleric, or Wizard. This means that classes that are not the Classic Core will always be secondary in their design priorities. This is important because the game has mechanics, and class/subclass features must be based on mechanics, not just the imagination (even though the imagination is what brings the game to life for the players). However, because the Classic Core was designed first and is favored by the game devs, non-Classic Core classes become add-ons. This prioritization schema, intentional or not, will almost always prioritize giving nice things to the Classic Core, even at the expense of secondary classes.
If you look at your examples of different themes, we notice a pattern once we take the Classic Core design priority into consideration. The PHB Sorcerer is generally sub-optimal compared to the Wizard, right? Based on DPS, the Ranger is generally sub-optimal compared to the Fighter, correct? So we see that Classic Core is supported by the devs moreso than the non-Classic Core classes.
The problem for the Monk class is that it is both not a Classic Core class and not inspired by W.European cultural milieu. In the West European fantasy tradition, weapons + armor is of prime importance to winning the fight. From a mechanical game design perspective, there must also be a difference between choice wearing armor vs. not wearing armor, as well as using weapons vs. attacking with fists and feet. As such, game design decisions re: optimization potential, feats, magic items, etc. will generally favor the Classic Core (and those classes designed most like the Classic Core) than something like the Monk, because the Holistic PK model is conceptually not W.European and was developed as a supplemental class, not a primary class by Gygax and co. As long as Monk design is treated as being both mechanically and thematically separate from the Classic Core, it will never get much in terms of Nice Things both because the design space for classes will generally favor the Common Core and b/c if you borrow features from Fighter or Rogue and give them to the Monk, the Fighter/Rogue fanbase will yell and holler about it, leading to the devs to backpedal, since the devs care more pleasing the Classic Core's fanbase more than the Holistic PK fanbase.
I can see why you would consider monk's, barbarians sorcerers, bards, warlocks, artificers, druids, etc to all be spinoffs or variants of the "classic core" but I don't think that fact alone, or even coupled with foreign/asian/etc cultural origins would leave them "deprioritized". I also don't think "wizard is better than sorcerer" is very good evidence to bring to this conversation. Is fighter inherently better than barbarian and paladin? I think there's arguments to be made that it isn't. Only beastmaster ranger sucks, the other options can easily contend with rogue.
Monks ARE caught in a awkward position of being between rogue and fighter. The minds behind the books want to stick to a set of stringent core values behind monk to keep it consistent with an archetype they have in mind; brawler/Kung fu, wisdom, unarmored, fast, furious. The problem with monk is that with its skillset it WANTS to be a second rogue, but they need to let rogue keeps its defining identity (expertise, subterfuge) it also WANTS to be a fighter who can stand toe to toe with the enemy and come out ontop; but how much do we take from the stalwart knight and hand to Jackie Chan before he just becomes a reskinned fighter. They do have to keep game balance in mind and generally more utility equals less durability, but monk's don't have enough unique fleshed out tools to be considered a utility character, giving them too much of what they could be good at would make them rogues, giving them too much damage and durability will make them fighters. Giving them too much of both would make them op.
Before the Tasha's versions, Wizard generally was better than Sorcerer b/c of spell slots alone. Now, I''m not arguing that Fighter is always better than Paladin or Barbarian, b/c the devs have certainly designed the Fighter base class to be the de facto Newbie class: no spells, the bare minimum of features to memorize, also few skills. What Fighter has, though, is flexibility and high damage per round. Having the most ASIs, they can be built for a large variety of roles, as long as those don't involve spellcasting past level 2. At high levels, the Fighter easily bests the Barbarian and Ranger in terms of Damage per round if they equally prioritize high damage feats like Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, or Sharpshooter. That said, I also don't think that high DPR is the be all and end all of what makes an effective class.
While I do agree that Paladins are certainly quite strong, a lot of the heavy lifting there is because they have A) spell slots that complement their heavy armor wearing, big weapon swinging Fighter-like abilities (using mostly Cleric spells) plus they have an always "on" Aura, which is a unique ability that probably came from video game play. Where the Paladin differs from Monk is that it IS part of the W. European fantasy landscape of archetypes and, importantly, it's mostly a combination of Fighter and Cleric. Paladins in 2E, even without the Aura, (or Smite) was still a pretty functional class. If not for the "humans only" and Lawful Good alignment behavior restrictions, it probably would have been a lot more popular.
The PHB Ranger had an awkward identity crisis, too, before Tasha's. It could hold it's own in combat, but b/c the Exploration pillar of the game never got much support from the developers and many of its features were to campaign and DM-dependent, it had a lot of detractors because even if it could kill a bunch of critters with arrows, it had too many features that rarely saw play. Anyway, enough of that.
Comparing the Monk to the Paladin, the Monk has always been clunky in every edition. This isn't just a problem with the 5E version.
It sounds here like you're mostly agreeing with me. (Or am I agreeing with you?) The Rogue came first therefore keeping a clear Rogue identity is more important to the devs than strengthening the Monk identity. The Fighter came first, so it needs to stay the sovereign of high DPR. I think we've agreed that both of these are true.
Personally, I think the best solution would be to get rid of the Monk altogether, shuffling its features into Rogue and Fighter. That gets rid of the culturally-based foggy glasses. Create a bit more flexibility so that Fighters branch off between Armored Knight types that use heavy weapons and Light Fast types that strike with one-handed weapons and ranged weapons. The Light Fast types would be like Monks with fewer fancy features than what we see in the PHB Monk that are actually quite kind of niche; Slow Fall, Deflect Missiles, Tongue of Sun and Moon, and Empty Body (for an 18th level ability) are situational or ribbon features, so most of those can be chucked out the window. For the people who want a skills and more skills, design a few Rogue subclasses that are like Shadow Monk and Mercy Monk. Add back in stuff like Slow Fall, Purity of Body, and a weaker version of Diamond Soul.
While I also do not like the Monk (or Artificer for that matter), I totally agree everyone to each their own...and more options are always a plus.
If Wizards would change the monk hit dice to a barbarian hit dice. Maybe give monks dex for any strength skills and grapples it makes more sense.
My suggestion for monk is the removal of ki/discipline point costs for base abilities as the monk levels. Lvl 5 would be patient defense or step of the wind, lvl 10 would be the other one you didn't choose for lvl 5 or maybe flurry of blows, lvl 15 would be the last base ability.
The issues with the monk are not as bad as they're made out to be. What they need most is less reliance on ki/discipline and more damage at later levels. They'd also benefit a ton getting the same ASI schedule as fighters. Some out of combat utility would also go a long way.
Everyone likes to say the monk is the worst class and honestly that's true. But it isn't bad. That said, at lower levels monks are actually fairly good.
Meh.. I've said it before but I think monk's biggest issue is that it's defining utilities are disconnected and require heavy feat investment to fully utilize for an already MAD class that struggles to afford feats on a tight ASI budget
1: mobile or crusher is almost mandatory to take advantage of the speed of unarmored movement for that "hit and run" playstyle.. Monks should just be given mobile by default
2: patient defense is amazing but comes at the cost of a bonus action, hampering the monk's ability to actually deal damage with flurry. I think patient defense should be made a reaction but keep its ki cost. That also avoids the issue of a monk proactively using patient defense only for the DM to avoid attacking the monk and wasting both the bonus action and ki point
3: the temptation to dump all ki points into stunning strike attempts is too great to ignore... rather than spamming stunning strike at will 4 times a turn, it should be a rider effect; "after successfully landing 3 strikes on a single target, they must make a saving throw or be stunned" prevents multiple spam attempts in one round and encourages the monk to flurry.
A slight boost to mid-end game unarmed damage is also welcome
Boom.. monk fixed
No Amor and no 2 Handed weapons. Then you use a Monk in armor and using a 2 handed weapon in the Art. (Monk keeping a creature at bay using a glaive type weapon.) --You train to hone your mind and body to their peak. So we will give you restrictions. reducing or limiting your ability to do those things.)
Your Martial arts and limited weapon training is not a fighting style so no fighting style feats for you.
Forget about all the artwork. No Martial weapons for you so no weapon-based feats for you.
A level 5 druid using SHILLELAGH is doing more damage with their staff than a Monk. I do not want one level dip in Druid or take magic initiate so I can do better damage with my monk weapon.
Monks need an Identity that is away from Fighter and Rogue to not make it feel it would be better to make is a subclass of one of the 2. that might help develop the class.
Being able to run up a 180 ft cliff is an incredibly situational ability and almost always useless in most situations. Plus most classes can beat that with a spell or class feature. Damage is what matters because a Monk's main role is to deal damage. Most of the abilities you named are so useless they were removed in one dnd.
To be clear, I'm not against the existence of the Monk class per se. However, my argument is that since the game has its particular history and the developers like to put Monk in a "special" category ("special" being a patronizing term here), it will never receive the major overhaul/updgrade it needs to be even close to a Fighter's combat ability after level 10 nor close to a Fighter's hardiness at lower levels. It is because the Monk will NOT be fixed in OneDnD that I think it would be better if they just scrapped the class altogether and created a Monk-like "branch" to the Fighter class tree and broadened their concept of Rogue.
I think the Wizard is widely considered the best class along with Paladin.
The Monk can for sure do cool stuff. The problems they have are low damage at later levels compared to other martial classes that can also do cool stuff, reliance on Ki for basically everything they do, no feats that really benefit them while being very reliant on multiple high attribute scores while having the same ASI schedule as a wizard, and almost no official magic items that increase unarmed combat effectiveness. At early levels (1-5) they actually do fairly respectable damage. It falls off when other martial characters start getting magic items and take things like great weapon master or sharp shooter. Even without that, they really start lagging around level 11+. Fighters get 3 attacks, Rangers will have 3rd level spells, Barbarians are just damage machines the second they take great weapon master, Paladins are doing all the crazy paladin stuff and more damage than a monk, even without smiting every turn. Rogue damage at this point is on par with Monk's damage although they have extremely easy access to on demand advantage which puts them well over what a monk can do. Also, rogue damage just keeps going up whereas Monks are basically doing the same damage for the rest of the game.
One DND will do some stuff to address all this. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter are both getting nerfed (at least apparently). That will help flatten out damage numbers. Monks won't be better but they'll be closer to everyone else. I also think Monks will see some buffs in the next UA.
What if the Monk could use a Ki point as a reaction to being hit that would deflect the hit/damage to a flanking enemy; no other class can do this, but it would be in line with a monks dodging, movement and catching weapon skills. - Potential?
Monk fixes:
1) No Ki cost for Patient Defense or Step of the Wind. Spending your Bonus Action is cost enough.
2) Flurry of Blows costs Ki only- no action. This means Monks could have up to 4 attacks right away from level 2 to level 4 (Action attack, Bonus Action Unarmed attack, spend Ki point for 2 Flurry of Blows Unarmed attacks.) Extra Attack at level 5 would up the possible attacks to 5. And I'd go even further by giving Monks 2 Unarmed attacks as a Bonus action at level 11, for a total of 6 possible attacks. This may seem like a lot, but I have 2 reasons why I think it's valid (and worth kind of stepping on the Fighter's toes with all those attacks.) First, it fulfills the fantasy trope of an Unarmed fighter rapidly punching/kicking an opponent, whether it's a western boxing paradigm or more of a martial arts film paradigm. Second, the Monk will be doing less damage per hit than a fighter (usually); and the Monk has fewer HP & lower AC than the Fighter (& other front liners), so it makes sense to offset the "glass" part with a "cannon" part. Flurry of Blows costing Ki means that it is still a limited ability, especially when you factor in all the other class & subclass abilities that Ki is used for (yes, even if Patient Defense & Step of the Wind are Ki free.) Also, it gives the Monk the option to get multiple attacks in, then spend their Bonus Action to either Patient Defense (Miyagi teach Karate for defense only! 😁) or Step of the Wind to fulfill the skirmisher role.
3. Deflect Missiles changes to Deflect Attacks, so it can be used against melee attacks as well. Instead of redirecting the missile, if they reduce the damage to zero, they can spend a Ki to knock the opponent prone (with a Str save to negate). Given the increase in viability, I'd reduce the damage reduction from (1d10+Dex Mod+Monk level) to (Martial Arts die+Dex Mod+half Monk level rounded up).
4) Stunning Strike, limit it to one attempt per turn.
5) I'd change Tongue of the Sun & Moon so that you can spend 1 Ki point to cast either Comprehend Languages or Tongues. Just getting them both for free seems a bit much.
6) Timeless Body. I'd add that you can eliminate one level of Exhaustion by using your action and spending 2 Ki points. So that the feature has a little more mechanical benefit, because it's current form is mostly a ribbon feature.
7) Perfect Self... change it completely. Monk adds +4 to their Wisdom score (to a max of 24). This will help with their AC and stun DC, among other things. Also give them +4 Ki points.
I've seen many other ways to fix Monks, in videos and in forums/chat. There's lots of decent ideas out there. So I'm not gonna say my ideas here are the best, or even necessarily good. They haven't been vetted or playtested. But the main thing is that there ARE ideas out there on how to make the Monk better. I really hope WotC figures something out before 2024 (because their UA7 attempt was really not great.)
I've already pointed the things i think they need most like just making mobility or crusher default; but I'd also like to add that monk unarmed attacks need to be treated as weapons (not just for the sake of overcoming resistances) because 1: weapon mastery is a huge thing in dndone and monks get it; why? but also so they can also benifit from things like "Holy Weapon" and stuff..
Yes. Because it just makes sense.
The problem with monk is no one WANTS it to be good.
You could provide graphs, numbers, statistics, the whole kit and kaboodle and no one cares.
Monk v Rogue: Cunning Action is resourceless, Step of Wind is resource. Flurry/Stunning Strike costs resource, Sneak attack is free every turn (advantage is a near constant in the game).
Monk v Fighter: Fifth level, Monk gets 3 attacks (4 with resource) against the fighters 2. But the monk loses out on the vast array of weapons that Fighter can use. So a fighter eventually catches up to monk in terms of "amount of attacks" per turn while having the world of official +3 weapons at their disposal. So the monk is rolling (1d8+4) x 4 [after spending resource] while the fighter is rolling (2d6+3+5) x 4, getting nearly completely overshadowed.
Monk v Paladin: Paladin can't miss Smites, and at 11th level Smites become innate. But Flurry if Blows misses, it misses. Resource point gone. Why can't Flurry turn innate at some point? This would also address the Fighter issue.
This aged pretty well.
Indeed! If Playtest #8 stands as written, the Monk gets some nice things for Christmas, after all! :)
IF they decide to keep most of the suggested changes in this latest UA, then I will be glad to be proven wrong.
The playtest feedback scores for the changes to Monk scored 90% satisfaction among the playtest base, which suggests that they likely won't want to change it much.