A monk of the Way of the Long Death can, starting at eleventh level, expend a ki point to have 1 hit point instead of 0 if you're reduced to 0. Unlike similar abilities, this does not specify you can't use it if you're killed outright. One of these monks can literally go inside the sun and live for a few seconds. This is just generally cool.
There's an order of operations that needs to be figured out, and there's no clear guidance. But we do have a starting point: the half-orc's Relentless Endurance.
Relentless Endurance
When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
So this is important. Relentless Endurance can't trigger if there's enough damage to trigger Instant Death. By its own wording, you check for Instant Death first. If you're not instantly killed, then Relentless Endurance can save your bacon provided it hasn't been triggered since your last Long Rest.
Now, what does the monk feature say?
Mastery of Death
Beginning at 11th level, you can use your familiarity with death to escape its grasp. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to have 1 hit point instead.
There's no check for Instant Death. The feature doesn't care, so I would say it can stave off the effects of such massive damage.
But like, what are you going to do in the sun for those few seconds? It's not like that will allow you to break the game or anything and Moon Druids can do the same but for much longer at level 10. Level 14 Zealot Barbarians can also just ignore death for a minute.
But yeah, if we wan't to discuss the actual ability, it sounds a lot better than it actually is in a practical setting, even if we allow it to work against instant death. Think about it. At the point where you are dropped to zero HP you will most likely have been fighting for at least a few rounds which means that you don't have that many ki points left. Sure, you will be able to cheat death for a few more rounds but your abilities will be seriously hampered since you will probably want to spend your ki points on avoiding death rather than, flurry of blows or step of the wind (or maybe you do which solves everything). Also, since you are still only at 1HP even the lowly Sleep Spell can disable you quite easily. Since you can't spend ki while asleep, you can easily be finished off.
All in all, it's a cool feature but not overly strong to the point of being a problem.
All in all, it's a cool feature but not overly strong to the point of being a problem.
I dont know. If we assume the character is 11th level and is satisfied with not using Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind, Patient Defense, or Stunning Strike (or uses them very sparingly), the character can still get off up to three attacks a round and make full use of its unarmored movement and many of its other features.
Then when they are reduced to low health, no matter how powerful the attack is, the monk can take 11 more hits and remain standing.
As you said, there are some work arounds, but it is difficult to build around because spending the ki point this way does not require the monk touse any action (or RAW even be conscious). Perhaps if they are fighting a hoard of enemies who with multiple different attacks would quickly drain the monk of those ki points in a round it could work. Even so, I am not a fan of the idea that the monk could be facing down a tarrasque and just 'nope' death up to 11 times.
Finally, because ki points recharge on a short rest, the monk could potentially 'nope' death up to 11 times per one or two combat encounters if the DM is forgiving with short rests.
Also, since you are still only at 1HP even the lowly Sleep Spell can disable you quite easily. Since you can't spend ki while asleep, you can easily be finished off.
If it doesn't require an action to use the ki to activate then Sleep probably wouldn't have an effect.
Even so, I am not a fan of the idea that the monk could be facing down a tarrasque and just 'nope' death up to 11 times.
In certain situations it would depend on how you RP this. The ability doesn't say that they resist or negate the effects of anything. It just says they return to 1 hit point. For instance if a tarrasque straight up squashes the monk they'd probably have some broken bones to the point they couldn't move. Yeah they'd be alive at 1 hit point but, that doesn't mean they've healed from all their wounds.
The way a DM I play with RP'd it that way. A monk tried to be tricky with the ability and jump off a dragon thousands of feet in the air. Even with their slow fall feature the damage was well and above their max hit points and they would die from the fall. They used Master of Death to survive but, all their bones were broken from the fall and they just lied there in pool of their own blood until someone could come heal them.
Well yeah, the ability doesn’t work as well if you nerf it against the whole point of it. This kind of ability is so you can do dumb stuff like leaping off of a massive cliff and know you will be fine, albeit at 1 hit point. If you say that the Monk would be disabled to the point of being completely unable to fight if they use this ability for anything beyond a standard attack (a monk with broken legs, what are they going to do?), then there’s no reason to ever use it with the risk you just absolutely cripple yourself beyond anything Healing Word can fix.
Does that DM normally have damage result in broken bones or other crippling injuries? Because just selectively applying it to the monk would be pretty shitty, especially when long death isn't even that impressive to begin with.
Well yeah, the ability doesn’t work as well if you nerf it against the whole point of it. This kind of ability is so you can do dumb stuff like leaping off of a massive cliff and know you will be fine, albeit at 1 hit point. If you say that the Monk would be disabled to the point of being completely unable to fight if they use this ability for anything beyond a standard attack (a monk with broken legs, what are they going to do?), then there’s no reason to ever use it with the risk you just absolutely cripple yourself beyond anything Healing Word can fix.
There's an order of operations that needs to be figured out, and there's no clear guidance. But we do have a starting point: the half-orc's Relentless Endurance.
Relentless Endurance
When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
So this is important. Relentless Endurance can't trigger if there's enough damage to trigger Instant Death. By its own wording, you check for Instant Death first. If you're not instantly killed, then Relentless Endurance can save your bacon provided it hasn't been triggered since your last Long Rest.
Now, what does the monk feature say?
Mastery of Death
Beginning at 11th level, you can use your familiarity with death to escape its grasp. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to have 1 hit point instead.
There's no check for Instant Death. The feature doesn't care, so I would say it can stave off the effects of such massive damage.
I think it's important to keep in mind that there are different kinds of instant death. Some do not check for 0 hitpoints. They just kill you. Some are caused by Damage effects.
The ability for way of long Death only works on the second as does the Half Orc Ability. Various spells that would just outright kill would kill the Monk just like they would a shape changed druid. These ones check for death first as their order of operations before they allow abilities to activate.
However when it comes to instant Death because of damage, It seems that the order might be more along the lines of take the damage, check for abilities that can be activated, Then if abilities have other conditions to be usable check those other conditions first. if they do not then they just work. The Half Orc ability tells us to go and check the instant death condition from massive damage before you can use it. The Long Death Ability does not however so it is usable regardless. And because it sets our hp at a set value then we never check for whether the damage killed us at all. If we checked for instant death first in these conditions however then we would never get to the point of activating long death because it does not have a "when you are dead" condition to it. it only changes the effects of taking the damage.
I know this was from around two months ago, but I want to mention a few things really quick.
Setting aside the rules (since your DM is clearly not obeying the 20d6 max damage) there are still realism based reasons to allow the monk to make this jump.
At least in earth gravity and atmosphere, a skydiver with belly to the earth reaches 95% of terminal velocity after falling around 550 feet. So there’s no difference between jumping off a dragon thousands of feet in the air and jumping from around 550 feet. So if your DM is letting the monk jump from 550 feet, the dragon should be allowed.
Now of course your DM is likely to say that 550 feet means death as well since that seems ridiculously high. I’d actually say it’s not that unreasonable though. For instance cats and squirrels can fall from that height with little to no injury by landing with the proper portion of their body. In fact the jump gets safer with height since they have more time to plan a landing. The monk PC doesn’t have cat physiology (unless they’re a tabaxi), but they explicitly have the slow fall feature which teaches them how to land without injury.
Monks are superhuman anyway, so I don’t see what’s so weird about giving them a power that every random house cat has.
I know this was from around two months ago, but I want to mention a few things really quick.
Setting aside the rules (since your DM is clearly not obeying the 20d6 max damage) there are still realism based reasons to allow the monk to make this jump.
At least in earth gravity and atmosphere, a skydiver with belly to the earth reaches 95% of terminal velocity after falling around 550 feet. So there’s no difference between jumping off a dragon thousands of feet in the air and jumping from around 550 feet. So if your DM is letting the monk jump from 550 feet, the dragon should be allowed.
Now of course your DM is likely to say that 550 feet means death as well since that seems ridiculously high. I’d actually say it’s not that unreasonable though. For instance cats and squirrels can fall from that height with little to no injury by landing with the proper portion of their body. In fact the jump gets safer with height since they have more time to plan a landing. The monk PC doesn’t have cat physiology (unless they’re a tabaxi), but they explicitly have the slow fall feature which teaches them how to land without injury.
Monks are superhuman anyway, so I don’t see what’s so weird about giving them a power that every random house cat has.
I really, really, don’t want to know how you tested this.
I know this was from around two months ago, but I want to mention a few things really quick.
Setting aside the rules (since your DM is clearly not obeying the 20d6 max damage) there are still realism based reasons to allow the monk to make this jump.
At least in earth gravity and atmosphere, a skydiver with belly to the earth reaches 95% of terminal velocity after falling around 550 feet. So there’s no difference between jumping off a dragon thousands of feet in the air and jumping from around 550 feet. So if your DM is letting the monk jump from 550 feet, the dragon should be allowed.
Now of course your DM is likely to say that 550 feet means death as well since that seems ridiculously high. I’d actually say it’s not that unreasonable though. For instance cats and squirrels can fall from that height with little to no injury by landing with the proper portion of their body. In fact the jump gets safer with height since they have more time to plan a landing. The monk PC doesn’t have cat physiology (unless they’re a tabaxi), but they explicitly have the slow fall feature which teaches them how to land without injury.
Monks are superhuman anyway, so I don’t see what’s so weird about giving them a power that every random house cat has.
I really, really, don’t want to know how you tested this.
There's actually footage of squirrels doing things like jumping off of high rises and landing safely. Cats actually have limits to their jump height before they start getting injured. But Squirrels have adapted to effectively become their own parachutes and the positioning of their bodies for falling/gliding through the air to the point that a subspecies known as the Flying Squirrel actually exists in about 50 different Varieties found across at least a couple of different continents. They are really amazing creatures really and suprisingly intelligent problem solvers.
I know this was from around two months ago, but I want to mention a few things really quick.
Setting aside the rules (since your DM is clearly not obeying the 20d6 max damage) there are still realism based reasons to allow the monk to make this jump.
At least in earth gravity and atmosphere, a skydiver with belly to the earth reaches 95% of terminal velocity after falling around 550 feet. So there’s no difference between jumping off a dragon thousands of feet in the air and jumping from around 550 feet. So if your DM is letting the monk jump from 550 feet, the dragon should be allowed.
Now of course your DM is likely to say that 550 feet means death as well since that seems ridiculously high. I’d actually say it’s not that unreasonable though. For instance cats and squirrels can fall from that height with little to no injury by landing with the proper portion of their body. In fact the jump gets safer with height since they have more time to plan a landing. The monk PC doesn’t have cat physiology (unless they’re a tabaxi), but they explicitly have the slow fall feature which teaches them how to land without injury.
Monks are superhuman anyway, so I don’t see what’s so weird about giving them a power that every random house cat has.
I really, really, don’t want to know how you tested this.
There's actually footage of squirrels doing things like jumping off of high rises and landing safely. Cats actually have limits to their jump height before they start getting injured. But Squirrels have adapted to effectively become their own parachutes and the positioning of their bodies for falling/gliding through the air to the point that a subspecies known as the Flying Squirrel actually exists in about 50 different Varieties found across at least a couple of different continents. They are really amazing creatures really and suprisingly intelligent problem solvers.
My comment was made in jest, they are interesting little creatures. Actually about a week ago there was video of a cat jumping from the fifth floor of a burning building in Chicago and surviving. Not quite 500’ but still.
I know this was from around two months ago, but I want to mention a few things really quick.
Setting aside the rules (since your DM is clearly not obeying the 20d6 max damage) there are still realism based reasons to allow the monk to make this jump.
At least in earth gravity and atmosphere, a skydiver with belly to the earth reaches 95% of terminal velocity after falling around 550 feet. So there’s no difference between jumping off a dragon thousands of feet in the air and jumping from around 550 feet. So if your DM is letting the monk jump from 550 feet, the dragon should be allowed.
Now of course your DM is likely to say that 550 feet means death as well since that seems ridiculously high. I’d actually say it’s not that unreasonable though. For instance cats and squirrels can fall from that height with little to no injury by landing with the proper portion of their body. In fact the jump gets safer with height since they have more time to plan a landing. The monk PC doesn’t have cat physiology (unless they’re a tabaxi), but they explicitly have the slow fall feature which teaches them how to land without injury.
Monks are superhuman anyway, so I don’t see what’s so weird about giving them a power that every random house cat has.
I really, really, don’t want to know how you tested this.
There's actually footage of squirrels doing things like jumping off of high rises and landing safely. Cats actually have limits to their jump height before they start getting injured. But Squirrels have adapted to effectively become their own parachutes and the positioning of their bodies for falling/gliding through the air to the point that a subspecies known as the Flying Squirrel actually exists in about 50 different Varieties found across at least a couple of different continents. They are really amazing creatures really and suprisingly intelligent problem solvers.
My comment was made in jest, they are interesting little creatures. Actually about a week ago there was video of a cat jumping from the fifth floor of a burning building in Chicago and surviving. Not quite 500’ but still.
5th floor is nothing compared to some of the jumps squirrels have been filmed making.
And the injuries it potentially did to itself were probably preferable to burning to death.
Query: If a Way of the Long Death Monk got his head cut off by a Vorpal Sword, would he survive?
Conjecture: I would say yes, personally.
Musing: I like to believe that this ability bestows the Monk "Deadpool-like" recovery as long as they have Ki to spend. Since it is called 'Mastery of Death,' I think the Monk's Ki should prevent them from being killed, no matter what it was that caused their death.
Amendment: So after looking into this further, apparently things like Power Word Kill and the Vorpal Sword would still kill a Way of the Long Death Monk.
Recitation:
• Vorpal Sword – "When you attack a creature that has at least one head with this weapon and roll a 20 on the attack roll, you cut off one of the creature's heads. The creature dies if it can't survive without the lost head."
• Power Word Kill – "You utter a word of power that can compel one creature you can see within range to die instantly. If the creature you choose has 100 hit points or fewer, it dies. Otherwise, the spell has no effect."
Conclusion: Since neither specify that it brings the affected creature down to 0 HP, but rather, the creature simply just dies; the WotLD Monk can't spend its Ki point to revert back to 1 HP from 0 HP.
Indignation: This is certainly not as intriguing as my processor first led me to believe.
Yes it is. If you are satisfied to save your ki points for mastery of death and not use stunning strike too much, then long death monk makes an amazing tank. A great mulitclass with this is barbarian bear totem. One of the best tanking multiclasses in the game.
Hour of Reaping is kind of crazy too, since it has no stated limit on uses.
In practice, it ends up being difficult to pull off without scaring your friends too (30ft radius is a big area and it has to be centered on you), unless they have reliably good saves vs fear.
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A monk of the Way of the Long Death can, starting at eleventh level, expend a ki point to have 1 hit point instead of 0 if you're reduced to 0. Unlike similar abilities, this does not specify you can't use it if you're killed outright. One of these monks can literally go inside the sun and live for a few seconds. This is just generally cool.
If you are killed outright wouldn’t that bypass the “reduced to zero hit points”?
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
There's an order of operations that needs to be figured out, and there's no clear guidance. But we do have a starting point: the half-orc's Relentless Endurance.
So this is important. Relentless Endurance can't trigger if there's enough damage to trigger Instant Death. By its own wording, you check for Instant Death first. If you're not instantly killed, then Relentless Endurance can save your bacon provided it hasn't been triggered since your last Long Rest.
Now, what does the monk feature say?
There's no check for Instant Death. The feature doesn't care, so I would say it can stave off the effects of such massive damage.
But like, what are you going to do in the sun for those few seconds? It's not like that will allow you to break the game or anything and Moon Druids can do the same but for much longer at level 10. Level 14 Zealot Barbarians can also just ignore death for a minute.
But yeah, if we wan't to discuss the actual ability, it sounds a lot better than it actually is in a practical setting, even if we allow it to work against instant death. Think about it. At the point where you are dropped to zero HP you will most likely have been fighting for at least a few rounds which means that you don't have that many ki points left. Sure, you will be able to cheat death for a few more rounds but your abilities will be seriously hampered since you will probably want to spend your ki points on avoiding death rather than, flurry of blows or step of the wind (or maybe you do which solves everything). Also, since you are still only at 1HP even the lowly Sleep Spell can disable you quite easily. Since you can't spend ki while asleep, you can easily be finished off.
All in all, it's a cool feature but not overly strong to the point of being a problem.
I dont know. If we assume the character is 11th level and is satisfied with not using Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind, Patient Defense, or Stunning Strike (or uses them very sparingly), the character can still get off up to three attacks a round and make full use of its unarmored movement and many of its other features.
Then when they are reduced to low health, no matter how powerful the attack is, the monk can take 11 more hits and remain standing.
As you said, there are some work arounds, but it is difficult to build around because spending the ki point this way does not require the monk to use any action (or RAW even be conscious). Perhaps if they are fighting a hoard of enemies who with multiple different attacks would quickly drain the monk of those ki points in a round it could work. Even so, I am not a fan of the idea that the monk could be facing down a tarrasque and just 'nope' death up to 11 times.
Finally, because ki points recharge on a short rest, the monk could potentially 'nope' death up to 11 times per one or two combat encounters if the DM is forgiving with short rests.
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If it doesn't require an action to use the ki to activate then Sleep probably wouldn't have an effect.
In certain situations it would depend on how you RP this. The ability doesn't say that they resist or negate the effects of anything. It just says they return to 1 hit point. For instance if a tarrasque straight up squashes the monk they'd probably have some broken bones to the point they couldn't move. Yeah they'd be alive at 1 hit point but, that doesn't mean they've healed from all their wounds.
The way a DM I play with RP'd it that way. A monk tried to be tricky with the ability and jump off a dragon thousands of feet in the air. Even with their slow fall feature the damage was well and above their max hit points and they would die from the fall. They used Master of Death to survive but, all their bones were broken from the fall and they just lied there in pool of their own blood until someone could come heal them.
Well yeah, the ability doesn’t work as well if you nerf it against the whole point of it. This kind of ability is so you can do dumb stuff like leaping off of a massive cliff and know you will be fine, albeit at 1 hit point. If you say that the Monk would be disabled to the point of being completely unable to fight if they use this ability for anything beyond a standard attack (a monk with broken legs, what are they going to do?), then there’s no reason to ever use it with the risk you just absolutely cripple yourself beyond anything Healing Word can fix.
Does that DM normally have damage result in broken bones or other crippling injuries? Because just selectively applying it to the monk would be pretty shitty, especially when long death isn't even that impressive to begin with.
I thought Slow Fall was for jumping off cliffs.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
I think it's important to keep in mind that there are different kinds of instant death. Some do not check for 0 hitpoints. They just kill you. Some are caused by Damage effects.
The ability for way of long Death only works on the second as does the Half Orc Ability. Various spells that would just outright kill would kill the Monk just like they would a shape changed druid. These ones check for death first as their order of operations before they allow abilities to activate.
However when it comes to instant Death because of damage, It seems that the order might be more along the lines of take the damage, check for abilities that can be activated, Then if abilities have other conditions to be usable check those other conditions first. if they do not then they just work. The Half Orc ability tells us to go and check the instant death condition from massive damage before you can use it. The Long Death Ability does not however so it is usable regardless. And because it sets our hp at a set value then we never check for whether the damage killed us at all. If we checked for instant death first in these conditions however then we would never get to the point of activating long death because it does not have a "when you are dead" condition to it. it only changes the effects of taking the damage.
I know this was from around two months ago, but I want to mention a few things really quick.
Setting aside the rules (since your DM is clearly not obeying the 20d6 max damage) there are still realism based reasons to allow the monk to make this jump.
At least in earth gravity and atmosphere, a skydiver with belly to the earth reaches 95% of terminal velocity after falling around 550 feet. So there’s no difference between jumping off a dragon thousands of feet in the air and jumping from around 550 feet. So if your DM is letting the monk jump from 550 feet, the dragon should be allowed.
Now of course your DM is likely to say that 550 feet means death as well since that seems ridiculously high. I’d actually say it’s not that unreasonable though. For instance cats and squirrels can fall from that height with little to no injury by landing with the proper portion of their body. In fact the jump gets safer with height since they have more time to plan a landing. The monk PC doesn’t have cat physiology (unless they’re a tabaxi), but they explicitly have the slow fall feature which teaches them how to land without injury.
Monks are superhuman anyway, so I don’t see what’s so weird about giving them a power that every random house cat has.
I really, really, don’t want to know how you tested this.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
There's actually footage of squirrels doing things like jumping off of high rises and landing safely. Cats actually have limits to their jump height before they start getting injured. But Squirrels have adapted to effectively become their own parachutes and the positioning of their bodies for falling/gliding through the air to the point that a subspecies known as the Flying Squirrel actually exists in about 50 different Varieties found across at least a couple of different continents. They are really amazing creatures really and suprisingly intelligent problem solvers.
I cast commune with google lol 😂
My comment was made in jest, they are interesting little creatures. Actually about a week ago there was video of a cat jumping from the fifth floor of a burning building in Chicago and surviving. Not quite 500’ but still.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
5th floor is nothing compared to some of the jumps squirrels have been filmed making.
And the injuries it potentially did to itself were probably preferable to burning to death.
Query: If a Way of the Long Death Monk got his head cut off by a Vorpal Sword, would he survive?
Conjecture: I would say yes, personally.
Musing: I like to believe that this ability bestows the Monk "Deadpool-like" recovery as long as they have Ki to spend. Since it is called 'Mastery of Death,' I think the Monk's Ki should prevent them from being killed, no matter what it was that caused their death.
_______________________________________________________
Amendment: So after looking into this further, apparently things like Power Word Kill and the Vorpal Sword would still kill a Way of the Long Death Monk.
Recitation:
• Vorpal Sword – "When you attack a creature that has at least one head with this weapon and roll a 20 on the attack roll, you cut off one of the creature's heads. The creature dies if it can't survive without the lost head."
• Power Word Kill – "You utter a word of power that can compel one creature you can see within range to die instantly. If the creature you choose has 100 hit points or fewer, it dies. Otherwise, the spell has no effect."
Conclusion: Since neither specify that it brings the affected creature down to 0 HP, but rather, the creature simply just dies; the WotLD Monk can't spend its Ki point to revert back to 1 HP from 0 HP.
Indignation: This is certainly not as intriguing as my processor first led me to believe.
Yes it is. If you are satisfied to save your ki points for mastery of death and not use stunning strike too much, then long death monk makes an amazing tank. A great mulitclass with this is barbarian bear totem. One of the best tanking multiclasses in the game.
Hour of Reaping is kind of crazy too, since it has no stated limit on uses.
In practice, it ends up being difficult to pull off without scaring your friends too (30ft radius is a big area and it has to be centered on you), unless they have reliably good saves vs fear.