Monks get a decent amount of hate for being a "Trash" class, but in my opinion, they have some pretty overpowered features, like Stunning Strike, and a strong kit to boot. This thread is here for opinions on if monks are overrated, underrated, or anything in between.
Leavng aside 2024 playtest content, I think the monk is properly rated—that is to say, the weakest 5e class by a significant margin. You mention Stunning strike, and while that is powerful, it’s so powerful that it takes up most of the class’s power budget, leaving all the other features weak both by comparison and objectively. Also, Stunning Strike is procced by a Constitution save; many boss monsters have extremely high CON save bonuses, i.e. +10 or higher, meaning Stunning Strike performs better on paper than in practice.
Leavng aside 2024 playtest content, I think the monk is properly rated—that is to say, the weakest 5e class by a significant margin. You mention Stunning strike, and while that is powerful, it’s so powerful that it takes up most of the class’s power budget, leaving all the other features weak both by comparison and objectively. Also, Stunning Strike is procced by a Constitution save; many boss monsters have extremely high CON save bonuses, i.e. +10 or higher, meaning Stunning Strike performs better on paper than in practice.
Stunning Strike is one of the most broken mechanics in the game. It can be attempted on EVERY single successful melee attack. It does not matter if a monster has a +10 on Con saves (which BTW, are reserved for huge powerful monsters), in a single round, multiple saves can, will have to be made. And based on probability distributions, there is a very high chance a Monk will end the encounter as soon as the Monk is within melee range.
Leavng aside 2024 playtest content, I think the monk is properly rated—that is to say, the weakest 5e class by a significant margin. You mention Stunning strike, and while that is powerful, it’s so powerful that it takes up most of the class’s power budget, leaving all the other features weak both by comparison and objectively. Also, Stunning Strike is procced by a Constitution save; many boss monsters have extremely high CON save bonuses, i.e. +10 or higher, meaning Stunning Strike performs better on paper than in practice.
Stunning Strike is one of the most broken mechanics in the game. It can be attempted on EVERY single successful melee attack. It does not matter if a monster has a +10 on Con saves (which BTW, are reserved for huge powerful monsters), in a single round, multiple saves can, will have to be made. And based on probability distributions, there is a very high chance a Monk will end the encounter as soon as the Monk is within melee range.
Calm down. It’s not broken at all, for the reasons mentioned by Myastan Torinn. Also, the stun only lasts a round and costs Ki, whether to not it is successful. These are excellent balances to the power of Stunning Strike.
Stunning Strike is certainly good, although one of the best moves in the game may be a stretch. The number of times a monk can typically attack at high levels is only outmatched by fighters, because duh. Monks can dish out a lot of damage early in the game, and unarmored movement is really great. Their 14th level feature is insane, giving them advantage on all Saving Throws, and it also lets them reroll any failed saving throw at the cost of a single ki point. They get Evasion, same as Rogues, which is universally agreed to be a great feature. You always ignore resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks at 6th level with Ki empowered strikes, and Slow Fall lets you jump off practically anything and be fine, and Deflect Missiles is situational, but cool as hell and pretty decent. Lastly, Empty Body is situational but good regardless, due to its cost. I can admit that their 13th, 15th, and 20th level features kind of suck. This is just a more in depth explanation of what I originally said. I'm not arguing with you, I just want to give my opinion.
Leavng aside 2024 playtest content, I think the monk is properly rated—that is to say, the weakest 5e class by a significant margin. You mention Stunning strike, and while that is powerful, it’s so powerful that it takes up most of the class’s power budget, leaving all the other features weak both by comparison and objectively. Also, Stunning Strike is procced by a Constitution save; many boss monsters have extremely high CON save bonuses, i.e. +10 or higher, meaning Stunning Strike performs better on paper than in practice.
Stunning Strike is one of the most broken mechanics in the game. It can be attempted on EVERY single successful melee attack. It does not matter if a monster has a +10 on Con saves (which BTW, are reserved for huge powerful monsters), in a single round, multiple saves can, will have to be made. And based on probability distributions, there is a very high chance a Monk will end the encounter as soon as the Monk is within melee range.
Calm down. It’s not broken at all, for the reasons mentioned by Myastan Torinn. Also, the stun only lasts a round and costs Ki, whether to not it is successful. These are excellent balances to the power of Stunning Strike.
It's not OP, but it's a lot more effective than the people who try to insist Monk is useless make it out to be. It's clearly something you should use on boss monsters, not mobs, and by the time you're starting to run up against the heavy hitters of late tier 2 and beyond, it's very much worth nova-ing it early. One major advantage is that it's a rider effect on top of an attack roll that basically demands a boss with LR's spend one to counter, otherwise they're left not only vulnerable but also inactive for an entire round. Thus it's far more efficient than the casters tossing their high level spells at the boss to burn LR's, both from action and resource economy. A single Ki point is worth 1 Martial Arts attack. That's what you gain from FoB, and FoB is your go-to use of Ki, ergo any other use should be weighed against one less FoB. And either opening a boss up to all attacks against it at advantage and auto-failing DEX rolls (aka Disintegrate, Fireball, Prismatic Spray, Flame Strike, etc.) or expending a LR for a resource worth a single attack roll is a massive bargain in the player's favor. Really, it's arguably worth skipping FoB to get a few more in. Which is ultimately the point at the end of the day; people complain because trying to constantly use both Stunning Strikes and Flurry of Blows burns through Ki fast, but really that's an either/or situation; you're either against something with low HP you want to just do as much damage as possible, or you're against something where you want to fish to either make it burn through defenses or lose a full round of actions.
One guy is wearing full plate mail and wielding a two-handed hammer. He eventually gets to attack four times in six seconds and occasionally eight times in six seconds. And still have a bonus action.
Another guy has trained his body for speed. He can outrun a horse. He doesn't have to wear armor because his training allows him to simply avoid most attacks. He gets to attack twice with a light weapon and then make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. He occasionally can hit twice with an unarmed strike.
Lore wise it doesn't make sense. But D&D Next playtesters stated that if a monk can do the same damage as a fighter and have all the other monk features then there's no reason to ever play a fighter. And the developers agreed with them. And it's a fair point. But... Monks have the hit points of a priest and are expected to fight in melee like fighters and barbarians. They need three high stats and get the average ASI advancement, while fighters have magical item options to increase their stats and the most ASIs of any class.
The main issue I see is with most of the published content being for levels 1 through 10 to 12, monks never really get their high end abilities. At low levels monks have hardly any Ki points, they haven't gotten their really cool abilities and their damage output is low since they don't get a d8 damage die until level 11. When the monk finally start feeling like the Kung Fu movie monks that they were designed to be, the campaign is over and it's time to roll another character. Their roleplay benefits, such as Tongue of the Sun and Moon, aren't even accessed in most campaigns.
Which is why I believe that 5e monks aren't underrated. And that Wizards of the Coast should have released more than one campaign that takes characters to level 20.
One of the biggest flaws of the monk is just how dependent it is on a single resource. Monks don't get nearly enough ki points for the number of abilities that are tied to burning them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
One guy is wearing full plate mail and wielding a two-handed hammer. He eventually gets to attack four times in six seconds and occasionally eight times in six seconds. And still have a bonus action.
Another guy has trained his body for speed. He can outrun a horse. He doesn't have to wear armor because his training allows him to simply avoid most attacks. He gets to attack twice with a light weapon and then make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. He occasionally can hit twice with an unarmed strike.
By the time you're at the point where your first guy is making four attacks per round on the regular, your second guy has the chops to do the same and is hitting at an average of 1 damage less per damage die, which is essentially nil. On top of that, he's able to make himself resistant to nearly all damage for the length of a typical fight, catch arrows out of the air and throw them back, run up several vertical stories, and has a strong chance to make any saving throw.
Once you stop cherry picking features and presentation, it's not hard to see that while Fighters are slightly better at hitting things in the face, Monks develop a much larger kit of abilities as they have trained themselves for inner discipline, not just moving fast.
I consistently find optimisers misjudge monk because they spend too much time looking at pure damage output, and not at other advantages (a problem I have with lots of internet min-maxers, who I think end up with suboptimal builds undervaluing things like game changers).
- Monks are hard to hit, given an unarmored defense that pairs with their primary attacking stats.
- Stunning Strike is a “must save” for any boss monster and comes at a relatively low cost. A Monk with a burst of Stunning Strikes can burn through some Legendary Resistances with very little investment pet attempt. For just a few Ki, they can do what might take a Wizard a high level spell slot to do—Stunning Strike is the most efficient way to churn through an opponent’s Legendary Resistances, opening up a path for your other party members to start tossing some big spells around without fear of “sorry, legendary resistance.” And, of course, if you do land the stun, that can single handedly decide the entire combat—one turn without a boss or a dangerous secondary monster is debilitating for the NPCs.
- Evasion is a really good ability, considering how common Dex saves are and how high a Monk can get their Dex save value.
- They have some useful movement skills that can be great for battle positioning.
Overall, in a straight analysis on a pure damage basis, Monks are not the best, sure. But they can fill a very useful niche in a party with tanking, positioning, and the ability to clear a path through Legendary Resistances. They make a solid flex class in combat with a trick that can easily turn the tide of an entire battle.
All that said, I am rather pleased with most of the new Monk changes in the UA, and am looking forward to seeing the final version. I have a player who changed over to the UA Monk to playtest it, and the class has certainly become both better and more dynamic and interesting to play, now that it is not just “stunning strike every hit.”
I consistently find optimisers misjudge monk because they spend too much time looking at pure damage output, and not at other advantages (a problem I have with lots of internet min-maxers, who I think end up with suboptimal builds undervaluing things like game changers).
- Monks are hard to hit, given an unarmored defense that pairs with their primary attacking stats.
- Stunning Strike is a “must save” for any boss monster and comes at a relatively low cost. A Monk with a burst of Stunning Strikes can burn through some Legendary Resistances with very little investment pet attempt. For just a few Ki, they can do what might take a Wizard a high level spell slot to do—Stunning Strike is the most efficient way to churn through an opponent’s Legendary Resistances, opening up a path for your other party members to start tossing some big spells around without fear of “sorry, legendary resistance.” And, of course, if you do land the stun, that can single handedly decide the entire combat—one turn without a boss or a dangerous secondary monster is debilitating for the NPCs.
- Evasion is a really good ability, considering how common Dex saves are and how high a Monk can get their Dex save value.
- They have some useful movement skills that can be great for battle positioning.
Overall, in a straight analysis on a pure damage basis, Monks are not the best, sure. But they can fill a very useful niche in a party with tanking, positioning, and the ability to clear a path through Legendary Resistances. They make a solid flex class in combat with a trick that can easily turn the tide of an entire battle.
All that said, I am rather pleased with most of the new Monk changes in the UA, and am looking forward to seeing the final version. I have a player who changed over to the UA Monk to playtest it, and the class has certainly become both better and more dynamic and interesting to play, now that it is not just “stunning strike every hit.”
With all due respect, I have already taken this into consideration. Unarmored Defense looks better on paper than works in practice given how MAD (Multiple Ability Dependent) monks are; assuming point buy and Tasha’s Customizing Your Origin rule in play, a monk will start off with 16 AC at best, which is quite low for a melee class, even a skirmisher, who has a d8 hit die and, unless altering the ASIs of a half-elf or hill dwarf, will have a de facto CON score of 14. Stunning Strike I have mostly already discussed above, but while burning through legendary resistances is indeed useful, in my experience a legendary monster reaches 0 hit points before all of its LRs are expended, even with Stunning Strike in play. Additionally, a wizard with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter prepared can burn those resistances just as well as a monk—possibly even better, given how boss monsters generally have lower WIS saves than CON saves.
I do agree, however, that the 2024 PHB monk is a monumental improvement over the current version.
I consistently find optimisers misjudge monk because they spend too much time looking at pure damage output, and not at other advantages (a problem I have with lots of internet min-maxers, who I think end up with suboptimal builds undervaluing things like game changers).
Monks are generalists, which leads to them being evaluated poorly by those trying to specialize as hard as they can.
Once you stop cherry picking features and presentation, it's not hard to see that while Fighters are slightly better at hitting things in the face, Monks develop a much larger kit of abilities as they have trained themselves for inner discipline, not just moving fast.
If you want to stop "cherry picking" then don't do it. You cherry picked something I posted about lore and made it about mechanics. Mechanics that I pointed out don't come into play in most campaigns. Quite the cherry you picked there. Well, 'tis the internet.
Average of 1 damage less per damage die. How'd you even come up with a 1 damage difference? Is it the 1d12 Martial Arts vs a 2d6 weapon? That's not counting the fact that a fighter at that level can have a Belt of Giant Strength which can give them up to a +9 to damage and attacks. They probably have a +3 weapon for a total of +12 damage. And since they don't ever need to put an ASI into their main stat, they can easily grab Great Weapon Master for an extra 10 damage per strike after sacrificing 5 from their +18 to hit, for a total of +13 to hit and +22 damage per hit. And for a Monk to get the same number of attacks a Fighter gets "for free" the Monk has to spend a Ki point each round and give up their bonus action. Granted, if a Monk puts their ASIs into their main stat and finds/reads a couple of books that increase it past 20 they can get up to a +13 to hit. Maybe they can get a +3 tattoo or other item for a total of +16 to hit and +10 damage. But, again, most campaigns don't get to those levels. Now if my math is correct, 22 minus 10 equals 12, not 1....
Once you stop cherry picking features and presentation, it's not hard to see that while Fighters are slightly better at hitting things in the face, Monks develop a much larger kit of abilities as they have trained themselves for inner discipline, not just moving fast.
If you want to stop "cherry picking" then don't do it. You cherry picked something I posted about lore and made it about mechanics. Mechanics that I pointed out don't come into play in most campaigns. Quite the cherry you picked there. Well, 'tis the internet.
Average of 1 damage less per damage die. How'd you even come up with a 1 damage difference? Is it the 1d12 Martial Arts vs a 2d6 weapon? That's not counting the fact that a fighter at that level can have a Belt of Giant Strength which can give them up to a +9 to damage and attacks. They probably have a +3 weapon for a total of +12 damage. And since they don't ever need to put an ASI into their main stat, they can easily grab Great Weapon Master for an extra 10 damage per strike after sacrificing 5 from their +18 to hit, for a total of +13 to hit and +22 damage per hit. And for a Monk to get the same number of attacks a Fighter gets "for free" the Monk has to spend a Ki point each round and give up their bonus action. Granted, if a Monk puts their ASIs into their main stat and finds/reads a couple of books that increase it past 20 they can get up to a +13 to hit. Maybe they can get a +3 tattoo or other item for a total of +16 to hit and +10 damage. But, again, most campaigns don't get to those levels. Now if my math is correct, 22 minus 10 equals 12, not 1....
It’s terribly bad form to add equipment into any discussion of the classes. You cannot assume anything about the fighter’s belt here.
I'm firmly in the "Monk needs help" camp, and I'm beyond happy that the designers have come around to that perspective as well in the latest UA.
Regarding Stunning Strike effectiveness, Critical Role gave us what I feel is a fairly representative dataset for their resident monk Beauregard Lionett, which Reddit took the liberty of analyzing. The short version is that the data didn't look too good for the monk, with a nearly ~70% failure rate across the monk player's attempts, i.e. a boatload of wasted ki. Keep in mind that CR is a more narrative-heavy campaign as opposed to being some kind of dungeon crawl or gauntlet.
\
Even putting aside the mechanical impact, that strikes me as just feeling bad in play, and is another reason I'm so happy with the changes in UA9-PH8.
That’s interesting, though limited in proving that Stunning Strikes in particular is flawed as opposed to potentially saves in general. Do we have numbers on the success rates of other saves, and what equipment modifiers are in play for each instance? I’m not saying CON saves aren’t higher on average, but in order to truly understand what this performance data says, we need points of comparison.
There are other rolls tracked on the source site (https://www.critrolestats.com/) but I don't know if anyone did an analysis as detailed as Beauregard's for other classes. Two things I think are worth noting though:
1) Even if other classes have similarly low success rates for their own Con save abilities, they tend to be able to target other saves. 2014 Monk's kit seems primarily designed around SS.
2) Beau actually has higher stats than normal because CR characters roll their stats; specifically, she started the campaign with Str 10, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 12. Translated to point buy that would put her totals much higher than the standard 27. This allowed her to max out her SS DC sooner without harming her offense in other ways.
I know CON is almost certain to have a higher fail rate, but if we’re seeing others at something in the neighborhood of 60%, then that tells us something different than if other saves are at ~40-50%.
Monks can typically attack three times using their bonus action, and four times if using a single ki point. Say they are a level 12, and an Tabaxi or Bird guy (I'm not spelling their stupid name). Lets say they also have 20 in Dexterity. This would mean on average, they are dishing out 27 damage in one turn, or 36 if using a ki point for flurry of blows. This doesn't seem like a lot, but its nice that they can always incorporate Stunning Strike in there, or if there's a Way of The Open Hand monk, send em back and knock them prone, or other effects. They can let out more damage then a fighter in each strike, but attack less times. They are a somewhat versatile and fun class that can pack a good punch.
While this is a good exercise to take part in, we also must consider what is an acceptable success rate for the Stunning Strike. A straight comparison to other spell casting and CON save features might not be reasonable. Around half of data points in the graph are in an approximate range of 20%-35%. When considering the effect, how it can impact the course of the encounter, and the cost to execute then this range of success might be fair.
One more observation, I would expect the Monk being less successful with Stunning Strike when compared to CON saves of full spellcasters' spells. A full caster would be maximizing their primary ability score to set the spell casting DC while the Monk is using their secondary ability (Wisdom) to set their KI Save DC. A comparison CON saves to the Paladin's DC would probably be a better indication of how successful/power the Monk Ki Save DC is for Stunning Strike.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Monks get a decent amount of hate for being a "Trash" class, but in my opinion, they have some pretty overpowered features, like Stunning Strike, and a strong kit to boot. This thread is here for opinions on if monks are overrated, underrated, or anything in between.
Leavng aside 2024 playtest content, I think the monk is properly rated—that is to say, the weakest 5e class by a significant margin. You mention Stunning strike, and while that is powerful, it’s so powerful that it takes up most of the class’s power budget, leaving all the other features weak both by comparison and objectively. Also, Stunning Strike is procced by a Constitution save; many boss monsters have extremely high CON save bonuses, i.e. +10 or higher, meaning Stunning Strike performs better on paper than in practice.
Stunning Strike is one of the most broken mechanics in the game. It can be attempted on EVERY single successful melee attack. It does not matter if a monster has a +10 on Con saves (which BTW, are reserved for huge powerful monsters), in a single round, multiple saves can, will have to be made. And based on probability distributions, there is a very high chance a Monk will end the encounter as soon as the Monk is within melee range.
Calm down. It’s not broken at all, for the reasons mentioned by Myastan Torinn. Also, the stun only lasts a round and costs Ki, whether to not it is successful. These are excellent balances to the power of Stunning Strike.
Stunning Strike is certainly good, although one of the best moves in the game may be a stretch. The number of times a monk can typically attack at high levels is only outmatched by fighters, because duh. Monks can dish out a lot of damage early in the game, and unarmored movement is really great. Their 14th level feature is insane, giving them advantage on all Saving Throws, and it also lets them reroll any failed saving throw at the cost of a single ki point. They get Evasion, same as Rogues, which is universally agreed to be a great feature. You always ignore resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks at 6th level with Ki empowered strikes, and Slow Fall lets you jump off practically anything and be fine, and Deflect Missiles is situational, but cool as hell and pretty decent. Lastly, Empty Body is situational but good regardless, due to its cost. I can admit that their 13th, 15th, and 20th level features kind of suck. This is just a more in depth explanation of what I originally said. I'm not arguing with you, I just want to give my opinion.
It's not OP, but it's a lot more effective than the people who try to insist Monk is useless make it out to be. It's clearly something you should use on boss monsters, not mobs, and by the time you're starting to run up against the heavy hitters of late tier 2 and beyond, it's very much worth nova-ing it early. One major advantage is that it's a rider effect on top of an attack roll that basically demands a boss with LR's spend one to counter, otherwise they're left not only vulnerable but also inactive for an entire round. Thus it's far more efficient than the casters tossing their high level spells at the boss to burn LR's, both from action and resource economy. A single Ki point is worth 1 Martial Arts attack. That's what you gain from FoB, and FoB is your go-to use of Ki, ergo any other use should be weighed against one less FoB. And either opening a boss up to all attacks against it at advantage and auto-failing DEX rolls (aka Disintegrate, Fireball, Prismatic Spray, Flame Strike, etc.) or expending a LR for a resource worth a single attack roll is a massive bargain in the player's favor. Really, it's arguably worth skipping FoB to get a few more in. Which is ultimately the point at the end of the day; people complain because trying to constantly use both Stunning Strikes and Flurry of Blows burns through Ki fast, but really that's an either/or situation; you're either against something with low HP you want to just do as much damage as possible, or you're against something where you want to fish to either make it burn through defenses or lose a full round of actions.
One guy is wearing full plate mail and wielding a two-handed hammer. He eventually gets to attack four times in six seconds and occasionally eight times in six seconds. And still have a bonus action.
Another guy has trained his body for speed. He can outrun a horse. He doesn't have to wear armor because his training allows him to simply avoid most attacks. He gets to attack twice with a light weapon and then make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. He occasionally can hit twice with an unarmed strike.
Lore wise it doesn't make sense. But D&D Next playtesters stated that if a monk can do the same damage as a fighter and have all the other monk features then there's no reason to ever play a fighter. And the developers agreed with them. And it's a fair point. But... Monks have the hit points of a priest and are expected to fight in melee like fighters and barbarians. They need three high stats and get the average ASI advancement, while fighters have magical item options to increase their stats and the most ASIs of any class.
The main issue I see is with most of the published content being for levels 1 through 10 to 12, monks never really get their high end abilities. At low levels monks have hardly any Ki points, they haven't gotten their really cool abilities and their damage output is low since they don't get a d8 damage die until level 11. When the monk finally start feeling like the Kung Fu movie monks that they were designed to be, the campaign is over and it's time to roll another character. Their roleplay benefits, such as Tongue of the Sun and Moon, aren't even accessed in most campaigns.
Which is why I believe that 5e monks aren't underrated. And that Wizards of the Coast should have released more than one campaign that takes characters to level 20.
One of the biggest flaws of the monk is just how dependent it is on a single resource. Monks don't get nearly enough ki points for the number of abilities that are tied to burning them.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
By the time you're at the point where your first guy is making four attacks per round on the regular, your second guy has the chops to do the same and is hitting at an average of 1 damage less per damage die, which is essentially nil. On top of that, he's able to make himself resistant to nearly all damage for the length of a typical fight, catch arrows out of the air and throw them back, run up several vertical stories, and has a strong chance to make any saving throw.
Once you stop cherry picking features and presentation, it's not hard to see that while Fighters are slightly better at hitting things in the face, Monks develop a much larger kit of abilities as they have trained themselves for inner discipline, not just moving fast.
I consistently find optimisers misjudge monk because they spend too much time looking at pure damage output, and not at other advantages (a problem I have with lots of internet min-maxers, who I think end up with suboptimal builds undervaluing things like game changers).
- Monks are hard to hit, given an unarmored defense that pairs with their primary attacking stats.
- Stunning Strike is a “must save” for any boss monster and comes at a relatively low cost. A Monk with a burst of Stunning Strikes can burn through some Legendary Resistances with very little investment pet attempt. For just a few Ki, they can do what might take a Wizard a high level spell slot to do—Stunning Strike is the most efficient way to churn through an opponent’s Legendary Resistances, opening up a path for your other party members to start tossing some big spells around without fear of “sorry, legendary resistance.” And, of course, if you do land the stun, that can single handedly decide the entire combat—one turn without a boss or a dangerous secondary monster is debilitating for the NPCs.
- Evasion is a really good ability, considering how common Dex saves are and how high a Monk can get their Dex save value.
- They have some useful movement skills that can be great for battle positioning.
Overall, in a straight analysis on a pure damage basis, Monks are not the best, sure. But they can fill a very useful niche in a party with tanking, positioning, and the ability to clear a path through Legendary Resistances. They make a solid flex class in combat with a trick that can easily turn the tide of an entire battle.
All that said, I am rather pleased with most of the new Monk changes in the UA, and am looking forward to seeing the final version. I have a player who changed over to the UA Monk to playtest it, and the class has certainly become both better and more dynamic and interesting to play, now that it is not just “stunning strike every hit.”
With all due respect, I have already taken this into consideration. Unarmored Defense looks better on paper than works in practice given how MAD (Multiple Ability Dependent) monks are; assuming point buy and Tasha’s Customizing Your Origin rule in play, a monk will start off with 16 AC at best, which is quite low for a melee class, even a skirmisher, who has a d8 hit die and, unless altering the ASIs of a half-elf or hill dwarf, will have a de facto CON score of 14. Stunning Strike I have mostly already discussed above, but while burning through legendary resistances is indeed useful, in my experience a legendary monster reaches 0 hit points before all of its LRs are expended, even with Stunning Strike in play. Additionally, a wizard with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter prepared can burn those resistances just as well as a monk—possibly even better, given how boss monsters generally have lower WIS saves than CON saves.
I do agree, however, that the 2024 PHB monk is a monumental improvement over the current version.
Monks are generalists, which leads to them being evaluated poorly by those trying to specialize as hard as they can.
(That said, they do need a tune-up.)
If you want to stop "cherry picking" then don't do it. You cherry picked something I posted about lore and made it about mechanics. Mechanics that I pointed out don't come into play in most campaigns. Quite the cherry you picked there. Well, 'tis the internet.
Average of 1 damage less per damage die. How'd you even come up with a 1 damage difference? Is it the 1d12 Martial Arts vs a 2d6 weapon? That's not counting the fact that a fighter at that level can have a Belt of Giant Strength which can give them up to a +9 to damage and attacks. They probably have a +3 weapon for a total of +12 damage. And since they don't ever need to put an ASI into their main stat, they can easily grab Great Weapon Master for an extra 10 damage per strike after sacrificing 5 from their +18 to hit, for a total of +13 to hit and +22 damage per hit. And for a Monk to get the same number of attacks a Fighter gets "for free" the Monk has to spend a Ki point each round and give up their bonus action. Granted, if a Monk puts their ASIs into their main stat and finds/reads a couple of books that increase it past 20 they can get up to a +13 to hit. Maybe they can get a +3 tattoo or other item for a total of +16 to hit and +10 damage. But, again, most campaigns don't get to those levels. Now if my math is correct, 22 minus 10 equals 12, not 1....
It’s terribly bad form to add equipment into any discussion of the classes. You cannot assume anything about the fighter’s belt here.
I'm firmly in the "Monk needs help" camp, and I'm beyond happy that the designers have come around to that perspective as well in the latest UA.
Regarding Stunning Strike effectiveness, Critical Role gave us what I feel is a fairly representative dataset for their resident monk Beauregard Lionett, which Reddit took the liberty of analyzing. The short version is that the data didn't look too good for the monk, with a nearly ~70% failure rate across the monk player's attempts, i.e. a boatload of wasted ki. Keep in mind that CR is a more narrative-heavy campaign as opposed to being some kind of dungeon crawl or gauntlet.
Even putting aside the mechanical impact, that strikes me as just feeling bad in play, and is another reason I'm so happy with the changes in UA9-PH8.
That’s interesting, though limited in proving that Stunning Strikes in particular is flawed as opposed to potentially saves in general. Do we have numbers on the success rates of other saves, and what equipment modifiers are in play for each instance? I’m not saying CON saves aren’t higher on average, but in order to truly understand what this performance data says, we need points of comparison.
There are other rolls tracked on the source site (https://www.critrolestats.com/) but I don't know if anyone did an analysis as detailed as Beauregard's for other classes. Two things I think are worth noting though:
1) Even if other classes have similarly low success rates for their own Con save abilities, they tend to be able to target other saves. 2014 Monk's kit seems primarily designed around SS.
2) Beau actually has higher stats than normal because CR characters roll their stats; specifically, she started the campaign with Str 10, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 12. Translated to point buy that would put her totals much higher than the standard 27. This allowed her to max out her SS DC sooner without harming her offense in other ways.
I know CON is almost certain to have a higher fail rate, but if we’re seeing others at something in the neighborhood of 60%, then that tells us something different than if other saves are at ~40-50%.
Monks can typically attack three times using their bonus action, and four times if using a single ki point. Say they are a level 12, and an Tabaxi or Bird guy (I'm not spelling their stupid name). Lets say they also have 20 in Dexterity. This would mean on average, they are dishing out 27 damage in one turn, or 36 if using a ki point for flurry of blows. This doesn't seem like a lot, but its nice that they can always incorporate Stunning Strike in there, or if there's a Way of The Open Hand monk, send em back and knock them prone, or other effects. They can let out more damage then a fighter in each strike, but attack less times. They are a somewhat versatile and fun class that can pack a good punch.
While this is a good exercise to take part in, we also must consider what is an acceptable success rate for the Stunning Strike. A straight comparison to other spell casting and CON save features might not be reasonable. Around half of data points in the graph are in an approximate range of 20%-35%. When considering the effect, how it can impact the course of the encounter, and the cost to execute then this range of success might be fair.
One more observation, I would expect the Monk being less successful with Stunning Strike when compared to CON saves of full spellcasters' spells. A full caster would be maximizing their primary ability score to set the spell casting DC while the Monk is using their secondary ability (Wisdom) to set their KI Save DC. A comparison CON saves to the Paladin's DC would probably be a better indication of how successful/power the Monk Ki Save DC is for Stunning Strike.