Here's an idea I'm toying with, based around the idea that the Way of the Four Elements Monk should work just like any 1/3 caster. I'd like some feedback on how balanced y'all think this is. Roughly, it would work like this:
3rd Level: The monk gains the spell slots and spell progression of the Eldritch Knight. Spells must be chosen from the list of Four Elements Monk Spells, below.
6th Level: Elemental Strikes - the monk can spend one ki point to infuse her unarmed strikes with elemental power. When she does so, until the end of her turn: (1) the damage type is changed to either fire, cold, lightning or thunder; (2) the reach of the monk's attack is increased to 15'; (3) on a hit, the strike does an extra 1d4 damage of the chosen elemental type
11th Level: When the monk uses her action to cast a spell, she may use her bonus action to make an unarmed strike (and may still choose to use the Flurry of Blows ability).
17th Level: The monk may spend 7 ki points to cast Investiture of Flame, Investiture of Ice, Investiture of Stone or Investiture of Wind. [Yes, I know it's a little wonky that the monk gets to case a 6th level spell before earning even 4th level spells on the progression chart, but these spells seem in line with other capstones, and the resource cost is high. I'm also not sure whether the monk should be required to pick one and only one Investiture that they can do]
Monk Spells:
Cantrips
Control Flames
Create Bonfire
Frostbite
Gust
Mold Earth
Shape Water
Thunderclap
Level 1
Absorb Elements
Burning Hands
Create or Destroy Water
Earth Tremor
Fist of Unbroken Air
Ice Knife
Thunderwave
Water Whip*
Level 2
Aganazzar's Scorcher
Dust Devil
Earthbind
Gust of Wind
Maximillian's Earthen Grasp
Pyrotechnics
Shatter
Warding Wind
Level 3
Erupting Earth
Fireball
Fly
Gaseous Form
Tidal Wave
Wall of Water
Water Walk
Level 4
Control Water
Elemental Bane
Stoneskin
Wall of Fire
*These spells work just like the abilities described in the description of the 4 Elements Monk, except they are enhanced by using higher level slots, not ki points.
First, why spell slots? Is there something wrong with using ki? Does this not give their ki enough to do?
Second, they already, effectively, have a cantrip. If you're going to mix up the spells available (I couldn't help but notice Hold Person is gone), then all of those spells should come from the PHB and no outside sources. When other classes get archetypes that grant bonus spells, all of those are found in the PHB. This should be no different. You should also consider naming them something flavorful. After all, all of the elemental spells in the PHB do.
Third, the 6th-level ability lacks a damage type for the fourth element (earth). This should be acid.
First, why spell slots? Is there something wrong with using ki? Does this not give their ki enough to do?
Second, they already, effectively, have a cantrip. If you're going to mix up the spells available (I couldn't help but notice Hold Person is gone), then all of those spells should come from the PHB and no outside sources. When other classes get archetypes that grant bonus spells, all of those are found in the PHB. This should be no different. You should also consider naming them something flavorful. After all, all of the elemental spells in the PHB do.
Third, the 6th-level ability lacks a damage type for the fourth element (earth). This should be acid.
Thanks for looking! I appreciate the feedback. As to your points:
-I added spell slots because the main knock against 4 Elements is that it burns through the Ki pool too quickly and are thus underpowered. No other martial/caster classes have to burn through a pre-existing resource pool to cast their spells. So, spell slots give an additional resource pool. My main question is whether adding spell slots pushes the scale too far the other way?
-As to the spells, leaving out Hold Person was oversight. The others are elemental flavored spells. I agree that if I was building this for publication, I should stick to PHB, but for homebrew purposes, I'm not that worried about it. Also, (I think) all of the spells are from PHB or the Elemental Evil Companion, so they're all free and open to everyone.
-I agree the spells should be given fancy monk names, but this is a rough draft. If it balances properly, I'll work on names.
-Leaving acid out as a damage type was also an oversight. I will add it.
First, why spell slots? Is there something wrong with using ki? Does this not give their ki enough to do?
Second, they already, effectively, have a cantrip. If you're going to mix up the spells available (I couldn't help but notice Hold Person is gone), then all of those spells should come from the PHB and no outside sources. When other classes get archetypes that grant bonus spells, all of those are found in the PHB. This should be no different. You should also consider naming them something flavorful. After all, all of the elemental spells in the PHB do.
Third, the 6th-level ability lacks a damage type for the fourth element (earth). This should be acid.
Thanks for looking! I appreciate the feedback. As to your points:
-I added spell slots because the main knock against 4 Elements is that it burns through the Ki pool too quickly and are thus underpowered. No other martial/caster classes have to burn through a pre-existing resource pool to cast their spells. So, spell slots give an additional resource pool. My main question is whether adding spell slots pushes the scale too far the other way?
-As to the spells, leaving out Hold Person was oversight. The others are elemental flavored spells. I agree that if I was building this for publication, I should stick to PHB, but for homebrew purposes, I'm not that worried about it. Also, (I think) all of the spells are from PHB or the Elemental Evil Companion, so they're all free and open to everyone.
-I agree the spells should be given fancy monk names, but this is a rough draft. If it balances properly, I'll work on names.
-Leaving acid out as a damage type was also an oversight. I will add it.
I think the rationale behind using ki for their elemental spells is because they're a monk first and a spellcaster second. If you're playing a four elements monk expecting to be able to spam spells by expending ki, you're going to be disappointed. By the same token, if you play a monk expending ki like they're rotting fruit that needs to be thrown out, you're going to run out quickly. It's a problem all monk's face, regardless of their chosen archetype.
Look at it another way. It's 1 ki point at 3rd level to use Flurry of Blows for maybe 11 (2d4+6) damage against a single target. Conversely, Fist of Four Thunders (A.K.A. Thunderwave) costs 2 ki points for 13 (3d8) damage per target; likely 3 if you're adjudicating area of effects (DMG 249). That's an average of 39 damage if they all fail and 19 damage if they all pass. Nevermind that it's magic damage of a rarely-resisted type that can also serve as a form of crowd control. That said, there may be a problem with power scaling. I've not seen one played into Tier 3.
First, why spell slots? Is there something wrong with using ki? Does this not give their ki enough to do?
Second, they already, effectively, have a cantrip. If you're going to mix up the spells available (I couldn't help but notice Hold Person is gone), then all of those spells should come from the PHB and no outside sources. When other classes get archetypes that grant bonus spells, all of those are found in the PHB. This should be no different. You should also consider naming them something flavorful. After all, all of the elemental spells in the PHB do.
Third, the 6th-level ability lacks a damage type for the fourth element (earth). This should be acid.
Thanks for looking! I appreciate the feedback. As to your points:
-I added spell slots because the main knock against 4 Elements is that it burns through the Ki pool too quickly and are thus underpowered. No other martial/caster classes have to burn through a pre-existing resource pool to cast their spells. So, spell slots give an additional resource pool. My main question is whether adding spell slots pushes the scale too far the other way?
-As to the spells, leaving out Hold Person was oversight. The others are elemental flavored spells. I agree that if I was building this for publication, I should stick to PHB, but for homebrew purposes, I'm not that worried about it. Also, (I think) all of the spells are from PHB or the Elemental Evil Companion, so they're all free and open to everyone.
-I agree the spells should be given fancy monk names, but this is a rough draft. If it balances properly, I'll work on names.
-Leaving acid out as a damage type was also an oversight. I will add it.
I think the rationale behind using ki for their elemental spells is because they're a monk first and a spellcaster second. If you're playing a four elements monk expecting to be able to spam spells by expending ki, you're going to be disappointed. By the same token, if you play a monk expending ki like they're rotting fruit that needs to be thrown out, you're going to run out quickly. It's a problem all monk's face, regardless of their chosen archetype.
Look at it another way. It's 1 ki point at 3rd level to use Flurry of Blows for maybe 11 (2d4+6) damage against a single target. Conversely, Fist of Four Thunders (A.K.A. Thunderwave) costs 2 ki points for 13 (3d8) damage per target; likely 3 if you're adjudicating area of effects (DMG 249). That's an average of 39 damage if they all fail and 19 damage if they all pass. Nevermind that it's magic damage of a rarely-resisted type that can also serve as a form of crowd control. That said, there may be a problem with power scaling. I've not seen one played into Tier 3.
The majori issue behind this is that we have other examples of martials with spell slots. Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight both have them and prove to be better subclasses for it. Neither of these subclasses force a use of a primary class pool to use the features which makes the 4 elements different. I actually think WotC is slowly coming around to this as they are allowing free use of subclass stuff in the UA recently released.
Monk shouldn't have to use Ki on subclass stuff or at minimum at least get one free use of it before you have to spend ki. It would help with actually using your subclass features.
I would actually suggest something a bit off kilter:
Go with pact slots! You can mirror it from the Profane Soul Bloodhunter:
Interesting suggestion. I'm not sure I like the "you have to cast the spell at a fixed level" thing for the monk, but I'm prepared to be convinced. How come you think pact-style casting is a better fit?
Interesting suggestion. I'm not sure I like the "you have to cast the spell at a fixed level" thing for the monk, but I'm prepared to be convinced. How come you think pact-style casting is a better fit?
It ends up being about the same amount of casts per short rest as the ki based casting did but scales a little better. You can make it so they pick from a curated list. Also they would get cantrips like the other 1/3 casters.
But the best part IMO... It would just be different than the Arcane Trickster and Eldtrich Knight enough to be very interesting.
Interesting suggestion. I'm not sure I like the "you have to cast the spell at a fixed level" thing for the monk, but I'm prepared to be convinced. How come you think pact-style casting is a better fit?
It ends up being about the same amount of casts per short rest as the ki based casting did but scales a little better. You can make it so they pick from a curated list. Also they would get cantrips like the other 1/3 casters.
But the best part IMO... It would just be different than the Arcane Trickster and Eldtrich Knight enough to be very interesting.
Unfortunately, it also thematically fails to gel with Way of the Shadow and Way of the Sun Soul. Both of those can cast spells with ki points.
The simplest solution is probably the best one: reduce the cost of the Elemental Spells by 1.
Interesting suggestion. I'm not sure I like the "you have to cast the spell at a fixed level" thing for the monk, but I'm prepared to be convinced. How come you think pact-style casting is a better fit?
It ends up being about the same amount of casts per short rest as the ki based casting did but scales a little better. You can make it so they pick from a curated list. Also they would get cantrips like the other 1/3 casters.
But the best part IMO... It would just be different than the Arcane Trickster and Eldtrich Knight enough to be very interesting.
Unfortunately, it also thematically fails to gel with Way of the Shadow and Way of the Sun Soul. Both of those can cast spells with ki points.
The simplest solution is probably the best one: reduce the cost of the Elemental Spells by 1.
The more I look at it, the more it seems that the best way to build an element-bending Monk is to actually write new abilities instead of relying on spells. Most spells are far to dependent on the idea that the caster is trying to stay out of melee, which is why most of the powerful ones that aren't evocation spells tend to be concentration. As skirmishers, most Monks will be getting into and out of melee a lot. As such, effective elemental abilities would reflect that fact instead of working around it.
As much as I love the idea of a 1/3 caster monk I think that is better served for an entirely different archetype. My mind goes to this scene from the movie Hero, using the 1/3 caster monk to build a calligraphy master that can cast spells through their art.
For the Four Elements, I agree that keeping their abilities "spell adjacent" and based off of ki is more fitting thematically for the class and when you compare it to other similar monks. It's just a matter of making that work so that the 4 elements monk doesn't feel starved for ki.
I like the idea of giving them free uses of their "spell" abilities. I would dip into the new proficiency scaling they're trying out and give them free castings per long rest equal to their proficiency bonus. Probably limiting it to "spells" without a level requirement. These would be cast at base level but could still be pumped using ki. I also like the idea of making each ability cheaper by 1 ki (maybe only the level gated ones), but feel like it's more important to give them some free uses of the abilities first. Perhaps combining both methods? I'll admit that my abysmal opinion of the 4 elements monk is clouding my ability to tell if that would be too good or not.
I like that you addressed the use of martial arts and flurry of blows while casting. I also like the 17th level investiture ability a lot, but I think it would be better to design four new options that work similarly but are not spells and are tailor made to fit your needs (such as covering acid damage).
Just had another thought at the tail end of finishing this post. What about something like the wizard's arcane recovery but for ki?
My Question to some extent is how much of the 4 elements monk have you played? i think Experience is an important part to "fixing" it and not just working off of theory crafted mass assumptions.
Having played one i can tell you that one of the hardest things about them is their amount of ki vs. all the things they have to spend it on. They literally have the most complicated resource management of any monk with over expenditures being possibly devestating. This can be dealt with through two basic ways. lowering the costs, or Giving them more ki to work with. Both of which have potential dangers because they might inadvertently let more power into the class than intended if your looking for a level of balance. Lowering the ki costs should never really go below 1 for anything that has a ki cost really but your automatically allowing anything that cost more than one ki to start with to automatically have a bit of upscaling possible or allow that ki to be spent elsewhere. This is not a bad solution in general and might take minor tweaks to certain powers but in general is a nice straight forward solution allowing for a bit more power usage. The option of increasing ki comes with the question of how much do you increase it? Why do they get more than other monks or do you make this solution something all monks can use? And what effect does this potentially have on the core class while your doing it?
As for their spells. Their spells as is are very monk Thematic in actuality. only a couple are actually long range. most of them are actually fairly short range or utilitarian in nature. Which fits the overall monk Aesthetic of being up close, getting things up close, or having added utility ability. The problem on this side is that you get so few of them. The book allows for the possibility of more powers than what are simply in the core book and kind of encourages it. But at the same time I'm aware that's not practical in some games (such as AL). This also doesn't solve the overall problem that you really only get a tiny handful even of the short list that is in the core book. So there is a potential solution here of giving them more of them in some fashion, whether it's just a few more at certain levels, potentially all of them with or without some caveat about being able to actively use them (such as having to meditate on which ones you can use based upon the original number that you could have while technically knowing all the technique's available to your level as an example). or something in between these two choices.
Having played one decently high and having another low level one in a different game. here are my thoughts on it. lowering things by one point could be useful on some of the powers but might be pushing it on others. But this line is hard to draw because there are two different ways to build a monk to make this Subclass useful. A Dex Based puncher is going to want a different suite of powers than a Wisdom Based power user that is going to want to limit the possibility of their saves being made to some degree. But it's not a bad general idea. What i found that i would really like most of the time is at least 1 more ki and I've been toying with the idea if i can find the time to really test it is the Potential of Additional ki for the 4 Elements monk with my basic idea to that being 1 extra ki per Tier level (Ending up with 4 extra, 5 if you consider level 20 it's own Tier) basically which in some ways is significant and in other ways doesn't seem like much at all. And perhaps the answer is in a mix of both my idea and the idea of lowering the costs as i do feel certain costs are perhaps a little high but perhaps set that way for a more consistent basis of any player created powers that were mixed in rather than the best cost for the powers themselves.
But i also feel that the 4 elements monk should have more powers that they can use in general. They currently get only 5 of these abilities throughout their Career. And while they can certainly trade abilities out at certain levels that still is extremely low for this kind of magical themed ki caster monk. There are 15 abilities total just in the short list in the core book and i think we should get more like half to 2/3rds of these. 8 Would be possible if we just allowed 2 instead of 1 when we add additional ones at higher levels. Which would be roughly half of 15. it would also give them a lot more variety to dip into both the combat ones and the utility abilities that the 4 element monk gets and make them feel a bit more flavorful. But doing just this as a solution does not fix the issue of the strict ki management unfortunately it actually makes it more complicated so i think if your going to do this you need to also combine it in some way with at least one of the potential ways of dealing with the first issue as well.
i think with just these couple of changes people would be quite surprised with just what they get out of the subclass and monks in general from using it on one. The trick would be figuring out at this point what the best level of changes in both is perhaps the best choice.
I think the biggest flaw with the 4-Elements monk is that it gives so few options for Disciplines... both offering so few in the first place, and of that relatively short list a player only ever learns 4 of them, and one mechanically-weak Discipline that mostly exists for Roleplay purposes.
I think, ideally, rather than be a half-caster, a 4-Elements monk should have more class-specific abilities that are designed to play well with the Monk subclass. I think the Elemental Strikes concept is pretty much what I pictured in my head when I first heard of 4-elements monks... it's a fairly straightforward ability that can be quickly used to attack with different elements, but still favors a character that jumps into combat and battles directly.
That said, without massively overhauling the very concept of a 4 Element Monk, I think this theoretical fix is much better than the base class.
that flavor cantrip can actually be switched out. Giving you the ability for 5 different abilities. It's only called out as a must learn at level 3, not that it's something that you permanently have to have. That being said your first chance to actually switch it out isn't until level 6 and you only have 3 chances over a 14 level span to actually switch it.
But even if you give them more abilities there is the issue like I said that it doesn't actually solve the problem of the brutal resource management it takes to play one.
When it comes to elemental strikes however. Those are actually already present to a large extent. The fact that they are there is overshadowed by the fact that there are so few choices and there are some far more interesting choices to ever pick up more than 2 of them at most and many will stop at one. That one likely being Fire Snake because it's the most obvious direct combat piled right on top of basic monk play already.
That's why I said to fix that issue you really need to consider some solution for the ki management issue as well.
I played a 4-elements Monk very early on in 5th edition and agree with you about the resource issue. I was however playing with a Fighter and Warlock in the group, so short rests were pretty common... but spell casting really has that conflict with other uses of Ki and since there were other spell casters in the group I was always reluctant to make sure the elemental schtuff.
I'm not a big fan of the spell slot system for a 4-Elements Monk, as it was mentioned previously, Monk's already have a resource type at their disposal.
The concept of Way of 4-Elements really is left in such a way that additional "spell" types could be added to the game, and could be "taught" to the Monk by a master. Homebrew some other spells that you mentioned in your first post and toss them in there. I like the idea of treating the 4-Element spells the same way you might treat a Wizard's spell book with ability to prepare different ones per long or short rest. A knowledge base of 5-types of "spells" is kind of lame number, so expanding the number of KNOWN vs Prepared could make a huge difference in gameplay.
We ended up heavily home brewing the and re-flavoring some of the Elemental "Spells" slightly (reducing damage) and turning them into concentration spells so that the following round either No Ki was required or there was a 1 Ki point of upkeep to continue the spell. We didn't play this campaign past level 9, so I imagine that some of Upcasting abilities could easily become far too powerful. A couple of example that I remembe:
Fist of Four Thunder's Thunderwave's damage was reduced from a base of 2d8 to the 1 Monk Damage Dice as base but could be maintained to use again each turn with concentration at no additional Ki cost. If you up casted the spell, the damage increased by an additional Monk Die.
Water Whip was changed entirely, to mimic Thorn Whip mechanically for with a damage of 2d8 base Bludgeoning (costing 2-ki points = 2-dice) and the pull effect was greatly reduced. Using the spell was treated as a monk weapon, which could be maintained after being cast the first time. Damage Scaling on the initial cast increased damage by an additional d8 for full duration, although I think we had a HARD limit to how high the "spell" could be cast.
Fangs of the Fire Snake, I think we changed it so that the additional up-cost of Ki for doing more Damage was implemented initially when the "spell" was first cast and the increased damage could only be applied once per turn. [I'm pretty sure it's RAW, but ruled that because it was technically a spell attack not a martial attack, stunning strike could not be applied]
It was a long while back, but we definitely had to add some home brew rules to make the class worth the while.
I played a 4-elements Monk very early on in 5th edition and agree with you about the resource issue. I was however playing with a Fighter and Warlock in the group, so short rests were pretty common... but spell casting really has that conflict with other uses of Ki and since there were other spell casters in the group I was always reluctant to make sure the elemental schtuff.
I'm not a big fan of the spell slot system for a 4-Elements Monk, as it was mentioned previously, Monk's already have a resource type at their disposal.
The concept of Way of 4-Elements really is left in such a way that additional "spell" types could be added to the game, and could be "taught" to the Monk by a master. Homebrew some other spells that you mentioned in your first post and toss them in there. I like the idea of treating the 4-Element spells the same way you might treat a Wizard's spell book with ability to prepare different ones per long or short rest. A knowledge base of 5-types of "spells" is kind of lame number, so expanding the number of KNOWN vs Prepared could make a huge difference in gameplay.
We ended up heavily home brewing the and re-flavoring some of the Elemental "Spells" slightly (reducing damage) and turning them into concentration spells so that the following round either No Ki was required or there was a 1 Ki point of upkeep to continue the spell. We didn't play this campaign past level 9, so I imagine that some of Upcasting abilities could easily become far too powerful. A couple of example that I remembe:
Fist of Four Thunder's Thunderwave's damage was reduced from a base of 2d8 to the 1 Monk Damage Dice as base but could be maintained to use again each turn with concentration at no additional Ki cost. If you up casted the spell, the damage increased by an additional Monk Die.
Water Whip was changed entirely, to mimic Thorn Whip mechanically for with a damage of 2d8 base Bludgeoning (costing 2-ki points = 2-dice) and the pull effect was greatly reduced. Using the spell was treated as a monk weapon, which could be maintained after being cast the first time. Damage Scaling on the initial cast increased damage by an additional d8 for full duration, although I think we had a HARD limit to how high the "spell" could be cast.
Fangs of the Fire Snake, I think we changed it so that the additional up-cost of Ki for doing more Damage was implemented initially when the "spell" was first cast and the increased damage could only be applied once per turn. [I'm pretty sure it's RAW, but ruled that because it was technically a spell attack not a martial attack, stunning strike could not be applied]
It was a long while back, but we definitely had to add some home brew rules to make the class worth the while.
When your worried about casting the spells because there are other casters and they might do the spells better. My advice from playing one is to instead focus either on spells that more affect you to make it so the person doesn't have to worry about getting you in the spell affect. Or to focus on some of the other abilities that aren't spells. Fire Snake, Water Whip, and Unbroken Air are all suprisingly useful in different applications without getting into the spells themselves. And their damage while a little off is actually not that far off of your average damage from your punches by default but also scale well if your willing to spend the extra Ki. Which I don't always recommend quite honestly. Though for Water Whip and Unbroken Air it would be nice to get a bit more hits in anyway. Which something like Ki Fueled Strike would allow you to do if your DM will allow it.
Fangs of the Fire Snake For clarification is not actually a spell. It's actually an augmentation ability to your basic attacks (kind of like smiting but different). So your still making your attacks. You can still get your Flurry of Blows to function with it as well. But you can also enhance individual hits above and beyond the basic effect that it gives. This is the only one that works like this currently. Since it is just an augment of your basic attacks you can still even stun with it. It's just that you can quickly go through your ki if you do. Though purely by Raw and the way the power expresses itself you can only add a single additional d10 of damage to each hit that you make. But you don't spend the ki if you don't make the hit or you miss for some reason. so your not spending ki on failed attacks. This means that if you did just the two base attacks but you boosted each one through fangs of the fire snake You could spend a total of 3 ki (1 to activate and 1 on each strike assumign both were successful) to do your MA die + modifier +1d10 as fire damage with a reach of 15' for each attack. If you were to attempt to stun on both of those attacks you'd end up having blown 5 Ki in a single turn (6 if you also FoB). 7 if you get high enough level to enhance both your FoB attacks (only available at high level) or to stun with both of them. 9 if you stunned off of your FoB attacks as well as boosted them. The only downside is that because the damage type changes. Something like Crusher will no longer synergize with your attacks. And things might be resistant or immune to fire damage.
If you wanted to make basic elemental attacks Fangs of The Fire Snake is the one that I would consider reskinning first into different elemental types.
I haven’t had a chance to play one, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think all spell casting should be removed.
Abilities like Fangs of the fire snake, elemental attunement, fist of unbroken air, shape the flowing river, and water whip should be abilities you can use proficiency bonus times per rest (not sure if it should be short or long rest). These are something new and not just a fancy name to cast a spell like other casters.
And more abilities like these should be added (again not spell casting). Some might have level prerequisites and maybe they would have a Ki cost, maybe not. Fangs of the fire snake is kind of like an eldritch invocation from warlocks, you can just use it, like improved pact weapon or thirsting blade. but I would be fine tying it to proficiency bonus times like WotC seems to be moving toward. Maybe they can be PB/rest unless you spend x Ki to use it again
I actually prefer it tied to ki cost rather than something like Proficieny bonus. I potentially get more out of it at higher levels even if I get slightly less uses out of it at lower levels. While the Ki cost does have its issues it doesn't necessarily need to be removed completely. That being said if they were all non-spell things and issues with trying to balance upcasting ability on those spells we might have gotten a bit more out of it and a bit lower costs. In Fact it's moves like these that I advocate lowering the costs on the most over most of the spells. But if your willing to take a bit of extra power at all levels from making the spells upcastable even from the point that you get all but what you get at level 3. Reducing the Ki cost on the spells can be done as well.
And Honestly I don't even mind them having spells in the mix. It would be nice if at least half of them were more augmentations or their own elemental based attacks rather than maybe a third of them. But the game is so riddled with Abilities that mimic spell effects to the point that they just label them all as "ability to cast (insert spell name here)" either with limitations or at will. It makes no big difference if the 4 elements monk does it as well since there are lots of ways to create these spell like effects.
What are your thoughts about giving them something like pact magic? I've been thinking about this and it seems to be a strong option. 2 spell slots always at max level with the same progression that they currently have. Regain the spells on a short rest.
3rd level
6th level
11th level
17th level
It removes the problems with ki point economy. It adds to their kit instead of effectively replacing it. They still have their base kit and any new ki point abilities from the subclass. The spells are just cast using these two slots. They'll still be doing predominantly monk things because of the limited slots but when they do cast a spell it'll be effective because of the scaling slots.
While it's not a bad idea. the problem with it is that it basically just drains even more of the subclass out of them. Right now they have the subclass but it's a bit too little and it's somewhat hard to use. So it gets considered trash in a lot of ways. Specially with so many other subclasses that are much easier to use or can just plain be used in a lot more ways. Some of them almost being a little too forgiving on the resource costs and diverse ways to use them in my opinion. But that is what it is and it's not going to change. So taking away more of the 4 Elements monk is going to cause you even more of that feeling that it doesn't work with your core class and you might as well just be a monk.
Right now with the Ki expenditures the 4 elements monk actually copies the Sorcerer to an Extent. Think of Ki kind of like their Sorcery points and imagine if the Sorcerer mostly functioned through those points. And you kind of get how the 4 elements monk functions for it's subclass part. To really give it more flavor we don't really have to redesign it completely because that's actually not a bad flavor and it's very in line with monks. What we need to do is kind of expand it and tweak it so it's a bit easier to use and gives us a bit more to work with when we do use it. So what we need to do is somehow kind of Enhance the Sorcerer part of them without losing the Monk feel to that Sorcerer part of them to get to that powerful and very useful spot. That's why I personally suggested things like Potentially a few more Ki points to make expending that much a little less harsh and perhaps giving a few more Elemental Disciplines to be used with it as well. You keep that flavor and that style. But you make it easier to use so it's not quite as punishing. And I can say from using it. Even those 3 more Elemental Disciplines could give it a lot more when combined with someway to use the Elemental Discipline side a bit more or at least more in conjunction with the core monk class.
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Here's an idea I'm toying with, based around the idea that the Way of the Four Elements Monk should work just like any 1/3 caster. I'd like some feedback on how balanced y'all think this is. Roughly, it would work like this:
3rd Level: The monk gains the spell slots and spell progression of the Eldritch Knight. Spells must be chosen from the list of Four Elements Monk Spells, below.
6th Level: Elemental Strikes - the monk can spend one ki point to infuse her unarmed strikes with elemental power. When she does so, until the end of her turn: (1) the damage type is changed to either fire, cold, lightning or thunder; (2) the reach of the monk's attack is increased to 15'; (3) on a hit, the strike does an extra 1d4 damage of the chosen elemental type
11th Level: When the monk uses her action to cast a spell, she may use her bonus action to make an unarmed strike (and may still choose to use the Flurry of Blows ability).
17th Level: The monk may spend 7 ki points to cast Investiture of Flame, Investiture of Ice, Investiture of Stone or Investiture of Wind. [Yes, I know it's a little wonky that the monk gets to case a 6th level spell before earning even 4th level spells on the progression chart, but these spells seem in line with other capstones, and the resource cost is high. I'm also not sure whether the monk should be required to pick one and only one Investiture that they can do]
Monk Spells:
*These spells work just like the abilities described in the description of the 4 Elements Monk, except they are enhanced by using higher level slots, not ki points.
I have a few thoughts.
First, why spell slots? Is there something wrong with using ki? Does this not give their ki enough to do?
Second, they already, effectively, have a cantrip. If you're going to mix up the spells available (I couldn't help but notice Hold Person is gone), then all of those spells should come from the PHB and no outside sources. When other classes get archetypes that grant bonus spells, all of those are found in the PHB. This should be no different. You should also consider naming them something flavorful. After all, all of the elemental spells in the PHB do.
Third, the 6th-level ability lacks a damage type for the fourth element (earth). This should be acid.
Thanks for looking! I appreciate the feedback. As to your points:
-I added spell slots because the main knock against 4 Elements is that it burns through the Ki pool too quickly and are thus underpowered. No other martial/caster classes have to burn through a pre-existing resource pool to cast their spells. So, spell slots give an additional resource pool. My main question is whether adding spell slots pushes the scale too far the other way?
-As to the spells, leaving out Hold Person was oversight. The others are elemental flavored spells. I agree that if I was building this for publication, I should stick to PHB, but for homebrew purposes, I'm not that worried about it. Also, (I think) all of the spells are from PHB or the Elemental Evil Companion, so they're all free and open to everyone.
-I agree the spells should be given fancy monk names, but this is a rough draft. If it balances properly, I'll work on names.
-Leaving acid out as a damage type was also an oversight. I will add it.
I think the rationale behind using ki for their elemental spells is because they're a monk first and a spellcaster second. If you're playing a four elements monk expecting to be able to spam spells by expending ki, you're going to be disappointed. By the same token, if you play a monk expending ki like they're rotting fruit that needs to be thrown out, you're going to run out quickly. It's a problem all monk's face, regardless of their chosen archetype.
Look at it another way. It's 1 ki point at 3rd level to use Flurry of Blows for maybe 11 (2d4+6) damage against a single target. Conversely, Fist of Four Thunders (A.K.A. Thunderwave) costs 2 ki points for 13 (3d8) damage per target; likely 3 if you're adjudicating area of effects (DMG 249). That's an average of 39 damage if they all fail and 19 damage if they all pass. Nevermind that it's magic damage of a rarely-resisted type that can also serve as a form of crowd control. That said, there may be a problem with power scaling. I've not seen one played into Tier 3.
The majori issue behind this is that we have other examples of martials with spell slots. Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight both have them and prove to be better subclasses for it. Neither of these subclasses force a use of a primary class pool to use the features which makes the 4 elements different. I actually think WotC is slowly coming around to this as they are allowing free use of subclass stuff in the UA recently released.
Monk shouldn't have to use Ki on subclass stuff or at minimum at least get one free use of it before you have to spend ki. It would help with actually using your subclass features.
I would actually suggest something a bit off kilter:
Go with pact slots! You can mirror it from the Profane Soul Bloodhunter:
Interesting suggestion. I'm not sure I like the "you have to cast the spell at a fixed level" thing for the monk, but I'm prepared to be convinced. How come you think pact-style casting is a better fit?
It ends up being about the same amount of casts per short rest as the ki based casting did but scales a little better. You can make it so they pick from a curated list. Also they would get cantrips like the other 1/3 casters.
But the best part IMO... It would just be different than the Arcane Trickster and Eldtrich Knight enough to be very interesting.
Unfortunately, it also thematically fails to gel with Way of the Shadow and Way of the Sun Soul. Both of those can cast spells with ki points.
The simplest solution is probably the best one: reduce the cost of the Elemental Spells by 1.
This is the simplest method for sure.
The more I look at it, the more it seems that the best way to build an element-bending Monk is to actually write new abilities instead of relying on spells. Most spells are far to dependent on the idea that the caster is trying to stay out of melee, which is why most of the powerful ones that aren't evocation spells tend to be concentration. As skirmishers, most Monks will be getting into and out of melee a lot. As such, effective elemental abilities would reflect that fact instead of working around it.
As much as I love the idea of a 1/3 caster monk I think that is better served for an entirely different archetype. My mind goes to this scene from the movie Hero, using the 1/3 caster monk to build a calligraphy master that can cast spells through their art.
For the Four Elements, I agree that keeping their abilities "spell adjacent" and based off of ki is more fitting thematically for the class and when you compare it to other similar monks. It's just a matter of making that work so that the 4 elements monk doesn't feel starved for ki.
I like the idea of giving them free uses of their "spell" abilities. I would dip into the new proficiency scaling they're trying out and give them free castings per long rest equal to their proficiency bonus. Probably limiting it to "spells" without a level requirement. These would be cast at base level but could still be pumped using ki. I also like the idea of making each ability cheaper by 1 ki (maybe only the level gated ones), but feel like it's more important to give them some free uses of the abilities first. Perhaps combining both methods? I'll admit that my abysmal opinion of the 4 elements monk is clouding my ability to tell if that would be too good or not.
I like that you addressed the use of martial arts and flurry of blows while casting. I also like the 17th level investiture ability a lot, but I think it would be better to design four new options that work similarly but are not spells and are tailor made to fit your needs (such as covering acid damage).
Just had another thought at the tail end of finishing this post. What about something like the wizard's arcane recovery but for ki?
My Question to some extent is how much of the 4 elements monk have you played? i think Experience is an important part to "fixing" it and not just working off of theory crafted mass assumptions.
Having played one i can tell you that one of the hardest things about them is their amount of ki vs. all the things they have to spend it on. They literally have the most complicated resource management of any monk with over expenditures being possibly devestating. This can be dealt with through two basic ways. lowering the costs, or Giving them more ki to work with. Both of which have potential dangers because they might inadvertently let more power into the class than intended if your looking for a level of balance. Lowering the ki costs should never really go below 1 for anything that has a ki cost really but your automatically allowing anything that cost more than one ki to start with to automatically have a bit of upscaling possible or allow that ki to be spent elsewhere. This is not a bad solution in general and might take minor tweaks to certain powers but in general is a nice straight forward solution allowing for a bit more power usage. The option of increasing ki comes with the question of how much do you increase it? Why do they get more than other monks or do you make this solution something all monks can use? And what effect does this potentially have on the core class while your doing it?
As for their spells. Their spells as is are very monk Thematic in actuality. only a couple are actually long range. most of them are actually fairly short range or utilitarian in nature. Which fits the overall monk Aesthetic of being up close, getting things up close, or having added utility ability. The problem on this side is that you get so few of them. The book allows for the possibility of more powers than what are simply in the core book and kind of encourages it. But at the same time I'm aware that's not practical in some games (such as AL). This also doesn't solve the overall problem that you really only get a tiny handful even of the short list that is in the core book. So there is a potential solution here of giving them more of them in some fashion, whether it's just a few more at certain levels, potentially all of them with or without some caveat about being able to actively use them (such as having to meditate on which ones you can use based upon the original number that you could have while technically knowing all the technique's available to your level as an example). or something in between these two choices.
Having played one decently high and having another low level one in a different game. here are my thoughts on it. lowering things by one point could be useful on some of the powers but might be pushing it on others. But this line is hard to draw because there are two different ways to build a monk to make this Subclass useful. A Dex Based puncher is going to want a different suite of powers than a Wisdom Based power user that is going to want to limit the possibility of their saves being made to some degree. But it's not a bad general idea. What i found that i would really like most of the time is at least 1 more ki and I've been toying with the idea if i can find the time to really test it is the Potential of Additional ki for the 4 Elements monk with my basic idea to that being 1 extra ki per Tier level (Ending up with 4 extra, 5 if you consider level 20 it's own Tier) basically which in some ways is significant and in other ways doesn't seem like much at all. And perhaps the answer is in a mix of both my idea and the idea of lowering the costs as i do feel certain costs are perhaps a little high but perhaps set that way for a more consistent basis of any player created powers that were mixed in rather than the best cost for the powers themselves.
But i also feel that the 4 elements monk should have more powers that they can use in general. They currently get only 5 of these abilities throughout their Career. And while they can certainly trade abilities out at certain levels that still is extremely low for this kind of magical themed ki caster monk. There are 15 abilities total just in the short list in the core book and i think we should get more like half to 2/3rds of these. 8 Would be possible if we just allowed 2 instead of 1 when we add additional ones at higher levels. Which would be roughly half of 15. it would also give them a lot more variety to dip into both the combat ones and the utility abilities that the 4 element monk gets and make them feel a bit more flavorful. But doing just this as a solution does not fix the issue of the strict ki management unfortunately it actually makes it more complicated so i think if your going to do this you need to also combine it in some way with at least one of the potential ways of dealing with the first issue as well.
i think with just these couple of changes people would be quite surprised with just what they get out of the subclass and monks in general from using it on one. The trick would be figuring out at this point what the best level of changes in both is perhaps the best choice.
I think the biggest flaw with the 4-Elements monk is that it gives so few options for Disciplines... both offering so few in the first place, and of that relatively short list a player only ever learns 4 of them, and one mechanically-weak Discipline that mostly exists for Roleplay purposes.
I think, ideally, rather than be a half-caster, a 4-Elements monk should have more class-specific abilities that are designed to play well with the Monk subclass. I think the Elemental Strikes concept is pretty much what I pictured in my head when I first heard of 4-elements monks... it's a fairly straightforward ability that can be quickly used to attack with different elements, but still favors a character that jumps into combat and battles directly.
That said, without massively overhauling the very concept of a 4 Element Monk, I think this theoretical fix is much better than the base class.
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that flavor cantrip can actually be switched out. Giving you the ability for 5 different abilities. It's only called out as a must learn at level 3, not that it's something that you permanently have to have. That being said your first chance to actually switch it out isn't until level 6 and you only have 3 chances over a 14 level span to actually switch it.
But even if you give them more abilities there is the issue like I said that it doesn't actually solve the problem of the brutal resource management it takes to play one.
When it comes to elemental strikes however. Those are actually already present to a large extent. The fact that they are there is overshadowed by the fact that there are so few choices and there are some far more interesting choices to ever pick up more than 2 of them at most and many will stop at one. That one likely being Fire Snake because it's the most obvious direct combat piled right on top of basic monk play already.
That's why I said to fix that issue you really need to consider some solution for the ki management issue as well.
I played a 4-elements Monk very early on in 5th edition and agree with you about the resource issue. I was however playing with a Fighter and Warlock in the group, so short rests were pretty common... but spell casting really has that conflict with other uses of Ki and since there were other spell casters in the group I was always reluctant to make sure the elemental schtuff.
I'm not a big fan of the spell slot system for a 4-Elements Monk, as it was mentioned previously, Monk's already have a resource type at their disposal.
The concept of Way of 4-Elements really is left in such a way that additional "spell" types could be added to the game, and could be "taught" to the Monk by a master. Homebrew some other spells that you mentioned in your first post and toss them in there. I like the idea of treating the 4-Element spells the same way you might treat a Wizard's spell book with ability to prepare different ones per long or short rest. A knowledge base of 5-types of "spells" is kind of lame number, so expanding the number of KNOWN vs Prepared could make a huge difference in gameplay.
We ended up heavily home brewing the and re-flavoring some of the Elemental "Spells" slightly (reducing damage) and turning them into concentration spells so that the following round either No Ki was required or there was a 1 Ki point of upkeep to continue the spell. We didn't play this campaign past level 9, so I imagine that some of Upcasting abilities could easily become far too powerful. A couple of example that I remembe:
It was a long while back, but we definitely had to add some home brew rules to make the class worth the while.
When your worried about casting the spells because there are other casters and they might do the spells better. My advice from playing one is to instead focus either on spells that more affect you to make it so the person doesn't have to worry about getting you in the spell affect. Or to focus on some of the other abilities that aren't spells. Fire Snake, Water Whip, and Unbroken Air are all suprisingly useful in different applications without getting into the spells themselves. And their damage while a little off is actually not that far off of your average damage from your punches by default but also scale well if your willing to spend the extra Ki. Which I don't always recommend quite honestly. Though for Water Whip and Unbroken Air it would be nice to get a bit more hits in anyway. Which something like Ki Fueled Strike would allow you to do if your DM will allow it.
Fangs of the Fire Snake For clarification is not actually a spell. It's actually an augmentation ability to your basic attacks (kind of like smiting but different). So your still making your attacks. You can still get your Flurry of Blows to function with it as well. But you can also enhance individual hits above and beyond the basic effect that it gives. This is the only one that works like this currently. Since it is just an augment of your basic attacks you can still even stun with it. It's just that you can quickly go through your ki if you do. Though purely by Raw and the way the power expresses itself you can only add a single additional d10 of damage to each hit that you make. But you don't spend the ki if you don't make the hit or you miss for some reason. so your not spending ki on failed attacks. This means that if you did just the two base attacks but you boosted each one through fangs of the fire snake You could spend a total of 3 ki (1 to activate and 1 on each strike assumign both were successful) to do your MA die + modifier +1d10 as fire damage with a reach of 15' for each attack. If you were to attempt to stun on both of those attacks you'd end up having blown 5 Ki in a single turn (6 if you also FoB). 7 if you get high enough level to enhance both your FoB attacks (only available at high level) or to stun with both of them. 9 if you stunned off of your FoB attacks as well as boosted them. The only downside is that because the damage type changes. Something like Crusher will no longer synergize with your attacks. And things might be resistant or immune to fire damage.
If you wanted to make basic elemental attacks Fangs of The Fire Snake is the one that I would consider reskinning first into different elemental types.
I haven’t had a chance to play one, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think all spell casting should be removed.
Abilities like Fangs of the fire snake, elemental attunement, fist of unbroken air, shape the flowing river, and water whip should be abilities you can use proficiency bonus times per rest (not sure if it should be short or long rest). These are something new and not just a fancy name to cast a spell like other casters.
And more abilities like these should be added (again not spell casting). Some might have level prerequisites and maybe they would have a Ki cost, maybe not. Fangs of the fire snake is kind of like an eldritch invocation from warlocks, you can just use it, like improved pact weapon or thirsting blade. but I would be fine tying it to proficiency bonus times like WotC seems to be moving toward.
Maybe they can be PB/rest unless you spend x Ki to use it again
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I actually prefer it tied to ki cost rather than something like Proficieny bonus. I potentially get more out of it at higher levels even if I get slightly less uses out of it at lower levels. While the Ki cost does have its issues it doesn't necessarily need to be removed completely. That being said if they were all non-spell things and issues with trying to balance upcasting ability on those spells we might have gotten a bit more out of it and a bit lower costs. In Fact it's moves like these that I advocate lowering the costs on the most over most of the spells. But if your willing to take a bit of extra power at all levels from making the spells upcastable even from the point that you get all but what you get at level 3. Reducing the Ki cost on the spells can be done as well.
And Honestly I don't even mind them having spells in the mix. It would be nice if at least half of them were more augmentations or their own elemental based attacks rather than maybe a third of them. But the game is so riddled with Abilities that mimic spell effects to the point that they just label them all as "ability to cast (insert spell name here)" either with limitations or at will. It makes no big difference if the 4 elements monk does it as well since there are lots of ways to create these spell like effects.
What are your thoughts about giving them something like pact magic? I've been thinking about this and it seems to be a strong option. 2 spell slots always at max level with the same progression that they currently have. Regain the spells on a short rest.
It removes the problems with ki point economy. It adds to their kit instead of effectively replacing it. They still have their base kit and any new ki point abilities from the subclass. The spells are just cast using these two slots. They'll still be doing predominantly monk things because of the limited slots but when they do cast a spell it'll be effective because of the scaling slots.
While it's not a bad idea. the problem with it is that it basically just drains even more of the subclass out of them. Right now they have the subclass but it's a bit too little and it's somewhat hard to use. So it gets considered trash in a lot of ways. Specially with so many other subclasses that are much easier to use or can just plain be used in a lot more ways. Some of them almost being a little too forgiving on the resource costs and diverse ways to use them in my opinion. But that is what it is and it's not going to change. So taking away more of the 4 Elements monk is going to cause you even more of that feeling that it doesn't work with your core class and you might as well just be a monk.
Right now with the Ki expenditures the 4 elements monk actually copies the Sorcerer to an Extent. Think of Ki kind of like their Sorcery points and imagine if the Sorcerer mostly functioned through those points. And you kind of get how the 4 elements monk functions for it's subclass part. To really give it more flavor we don't really have to redesign it completely because that's actually not a bad flavor and it's very in line with monks. What we need to do is kind of expand it and tweak it so it's a bit easier to use and gives us a bit more to work with when we do use it. So what we need to do is somehow kind of Enhance the Sorcerer part of them without losing the Monk feel to that Sorcerer part of them to get to that powerful and very useful spot. That's why I personally suggested things like Potentially a few more Ki points to make expending that much a little less harsh and perhaps giving a few more Elemental Disciplines to be used with it as well. You keep that flavor and that style. But you make it easier to use so it's not quite as punishing. And I can say from using it. Even those 3 more Elemental Disciplines could give it a lot more when combined with someway to use the Elemental Discipline side a bit more or at least more in conjunction with the core monk class.