I am a new DM and started my first campaign about 6 months ago and things have generally gone pretty well. However one of my players, who is also new to dnd wanted to play a monk in the beginning, loving the class fantasy etc. They went a way of the astral self monk, flavouring the arms instead as physical manifestations of an ancient evil trapped within her that she was fighting to control and keep trapped. However, the player quickly became unhappy with the lack of damage, limited resources etc, looking to the paladin in the group almost 1 shotting big enemies and still keeping up in damage without smite for example. They quickly changed their character to a warlock and they are much happier but I still couldn't help feeling bad that they abandoned their cool character idea that they were passionate about due to the mechanics feeling lackluster. I had a similar issue with a player wanting to play a werewolf like character, and they initially were playing a bloodhunter, which I then made a homebrew barbarian subclass to fit the theme they wanted, and that seems to be doing well. I tried to do this for the monk and ask the player if they want to bring their old character back, but I just couldn't find a way to make the monk fit their vision with the main class features.
I have come up with some ideas that might improve how the monk plays for my player, but I am concerned around relative balancing of the class, as I know I am very inexperienced. However, looking at what the paladin can do, I just cannot see how the monk can compete.
Below are the list of changes I plan to make. I will try to explain my reasoning but any advice on this would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Level 2- Ki- I plan to either give Ki points equal to your level plus your wisdom modifier, or just twice the monk level. The idea is that I do not think that most of the monk abilities costing ki are so overpowered to limit them to once or twice a day. I see the monk as a consistent dps style, and having more resources allows for this.
Level 5- Ki-empowered strikes- I would add that you can also add your wisdom modifier to the damage rolls made with your monk weapon or unarmed strikes. This is likely far too powerful for this kind of level, so may need to be pushed to level 7 or 10. However, I like using modifiers to bump their damage as it is consistent, scales with the number of hits, and is not doubled if pummelling a stunned target. This also adds to the focus on dex and wisdom.
Level 5- Stunning Strike- I would not change anything currently about this ability other than allowing ranged weapon attacks to cause this effect, given the changes to monks in Tasha's. If I still thought monks were too weak, my next idea was to stay that each failed stunning strike, or ki spent using stunning strike on an already stunned target, deals 1d4 bludgeoning damage.
Level 7- new ability- Mastered forms- When you step of the wind, you gain both the dash and the disengage action, and when you use patient defense, each time a creature misses you with an attack, you can spend 1 ki point to make an unarmed strike against them. This is NOT as a reaction and would allow a monk to put out huge hits on groups of enemies, so long as they can dodge and have the ki to retaliate. The issue I saw with patient defense is that it cost damage during the turn to defend yourself, when monk damage is a little low anyway, this seemed a good way to counteract that and give some wow moments to the monk if they got surrounded (think kung fu movies beating up multiple enemies at once).
Level 10- new ability- Blow conditioning- When you are hit with a melee attack, you can spend 2 ki points to harden the part of the body and reduce the blow. You roll 2 martial arts die and subtract it from the damage roll. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. This is to add to the overall defensive power of a monk, and might be way too much. This would be the first thing to cut.
Level 14- In addition to previous effects, you can spend 8 ki points to cast steel wind strike at 5th level without any components etc. Again this may be overkill but I thought it was very cool and thematic.
Level 20- scrap the current capstone for a barbarian style increase max for wisdom and dex by 4 and current scored by the same. I do not think this is overpowered at 20th level as long as monks still are at a d8 hit die, making them essentially dodge tanks.
Current issues I see- I may have completely overshot on power. Also at the later levels I am concerned with my monk player swimming in too much ki, making it an irrelevant resource. I did toy with a ki burst like mechanic, allowing once per turn to spend ki up to your proficiency bonus to placed a delayed eruption of ki, dealing martial arts die per ki in bludgeoning damage at the end of the turn as long as you hit with 1 attack. This damage wouldn't be able to crit to prevent stupid numbers on stunned targets. The reason I did not include this is I could not work out where to place it to keep it balanced, or how to word or mechanically implement it that felt good. I think this would need to be level 14 onwards to scale late game damage a little better, but then doesn't help with the ki pooling in earlier levels.
Thank you to anyone who has read this far, and I look forward to any feedback given.
A paladin outdamaging a monk before level 5 without smites shouldn't be happening. Before Extra Attacks comes into play with a +3 attack stat, a greatsword paladin is doing 2d6+3 (10 avg) per turn while a staff/spear monk is doing 1d8+3 + 1d4+3 (13 avg). After level 5 with a +4 stat you're looking at [2d6+4] * 2 (22 avg with +4 stat) vs [1d8+4] * 2 + 1d6+4 (24.5 avg). Monk wins before and after EA on baseline damage.
A low level monk should be using a monk weapon like a staff or spear for their Attack action, and they get a bonus action attack from Martial Arts regardless of whether or not they spend any ki. I feel like you guys weren't doing something right if the monk was doing that poorly, or maybe more lighter attacks just gave you the feel of being weaker when compared to fewer heavier attacks.
Monks will take a hit if you're running 1-2 encounters a day with no short rests, allowing the paladin to use up all their long-rest resources in the same span the monk is using their short-rest resources. If that's the way your campaign is going to work, adding more ki per day isn't a bad solution. But I don't think monk is really in need of much more than that. Baseline damage should be fine and Stunning Strike is very strong when used tactically, especially for an Astral monk who can focus on wisdom for a higher save DC.
Now if the paladin is using PAM or GWM shenanigans, that's certainly going to change the math. But I'd call that a feat problem rather than a class one, and solve it by homebrewing a comparable feat that the monk could make use of.
It may have been that I did not give the party enough encounters per day so the paladin didn't run out of smites and the paladin does use GWM. However I do disagree with looking at the base damage without the class mechanics involved. for example even when I did allow the monk short rests to replenish their ki, many of the points were on stunning strikes and then flurry of blows. Flurry of blows does not increase the damage the monk provides by the same amount as a single smite allows, even if in theory they can be used more often, and stunning strike will increase the parties overall damage more in general than the monk player themselves. For example, the monk would try to stun, fail, try to stun, fail, try to stun, succeed and then do one with flurry of blows, the paladin would then come in, autocrit due to the stun and 1 shot the creature. That is a cool party moment don't get me wrong but I think the monk player felt like they were always setting up cool moments for the rest of the party rather than having a cool moment themselves.
However I do accept that then maybe monk was not the right class for that particular player, as they are still in my campaign which is now at level 11, and really enjoying what their warlock can do.
Thanks for the replies by the way, any advice is appreciated, even if it is that I need to DM longer days with more encounters to allow each player to shine.
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Hi all,
I am a new DM and started my first campaign about 6 months ago and things have generally gone pretty well. However one of my players, who is also new to dnd wanted to play a monk in the beginning, loving the class fantasy etc. They went a way of the astral self monk, flavouring the arms instead as physical manifestations of an ancient evil trapped within her that she was fighting to control and keep trapped. However, the player quickly became unhappy with the lack of damage, limited resources etc, looking to the paladin in the group almost 1 shotting big enemies and still keeping up in damage without smite for example. They quickly changed their character to a warlock and they are much happier but I still couldn't help feeling bad that they abandoned their cool character idea that they were passionate about due to the mechanics feeling lackluster. I had a similar issue with a player wanting to play a werewolf like character, and they initially were playing a bloodhunter, which I then made a homebrew barbarian subclass to fit the theme they wanted, and that seems to be doing well. I tried to do this for the monk and ask the player if they want to bring their old character back, but I just couldn't find a way to make the monk fit their vision with the main class features.
I have come up with some ideas that might improve how the monk plays for my player, but I am concerned around relative balancing of the class, as I know I am very inexperienced. However, looking at what the paladin can do, I just cannot see how the monk can compete.
Below are the list of changes I plan to make. I will try to explain my reasoning but any advice on this would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Level 2- Ki- I plan to either give Ki points equal to your level plus your wisdom modifier, or just twice the monk level. The idea is that I do not think that most of the monk abilities costing ki are so overpowered to limit them to once or twice a day. I see the monk as a consistent dps style, and having more resources allows for this.
Level 5- Ki-empowered strikes- I would add that you can also add your wisdom modifier to the damage rolls made with your monk weapon or unarmed strikes. This is likely far too powerful for this kind of level, so may need to be pushed to level 7 or 10. However, I like using modifiers to bump their damage as it is consistent, scales with the number of hits, and is not doubled if pummelling a stunned target. This also adds to the focus on dex and wisdom.
Level 5- Stunning Strike- I would not change anything currently about this ability other than allowing ranged weapon attacks to cause this effect, given the changes to monks in Tasha's. If I still thought monks were too weak, my next idea was to stay that each failed stunning strike, or ki spent using stunning strike on an already stunned target, deals 1d4 bludgeoning damage.
Level 7- new ability- Mastered forms- When you step of the wind, you gain both the dash and the disengage action, and when you use patient defense, each time a creature misses you with an attack, you can spend 1 ki point to make an unarmed strike against them. This is NOT as a reaction and would allow a monk to put out huge hits on groups of enemies, so long as they can dodge and have the ki to retaliate. The issue I saw with patient defense is that it cost damage during the turn to defend yourself, when monk damage is a little low anyway, this seemed a good way to counteract that and give some wow moments to the monk if they got surrounded (think kung fu movies beating up multiple enemies at once).
Level 10- new ability- Blow conditioning- When you are hit with a melee attack, you can spend 2 ki points to harden the part of the body and reduce the blow. You roll 2 martial arts die and subtract it from the damage roll. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. This is to add to the overall defensive power of a monk, and might be way too much. This would be the first thing to cut.
Level 14- In addition to previous effects, you can spend 8 ki points to cast steel wind strike at 5th level without any components etc. Again this may be overkill but I thought it was very cool and thematic.
Level 20- scrap the current capstone for a barbarian style increase max for wisdom and dex by 4 and current scored by the same. I do not think this is overpowered at 20th level as long as monks still are at a d8 hit die, making them essentially dodge tanks.
Current issues I see- I may have completely overshot on power. Also at the later levels I am concerned with my monk player swimming in too much ki, making it an irrelevant resource. I did toy with a ki burst like mechanic, allowing once per turn to spend ki up to your proficiency bonus to placed a delayed eruption of ki, dealing martial arts die per ki in bludgeoning damage at the end of the turn as long as you hit with 1 attack. This damage wouldn't be able to crit to prevent stupid numbers on stunned targets. The reason I did not include this is I could not work out where to place it to keep it balanced, or how to word or mechanically implement it that felt good. I think this would need to be level 14 onwards to scale late game damage a little better, but then doesn't help with the ki pooling in earlier levels.
Thank you to anyone who has read this far, and I look forward to any feedback given.
Is your monk using the Astral Monk features like at all? just asking?
They were yes, but only up to level 5 before they chose to swap to warlock which they are enjoying much more.
A paladin outdamaging a monk before level 5 without smites shouldn't be happening. Before Extra Attacks comes into play with a +3 attack stat, a greatsword paladin is doing 2d6+3 (10 avg) per turn while a staff/spear monk is doing 1d8+3 + 1d4+3 (13 avg). After level 5 with a +4 stat you're looking at [2d6+4] * 2 (22 avg with +4 stat) vs [1d8+4] * 2 + 1d6+4 (24.5 avg). Monk wins before and after EA on baseline damage.
A low level monk should be using a monk weapon like a staff or spear for their Attack action, and they get a bonus action attack from Martial Arts regardless of whether or not they spend any ki. I feel like you guys weren't doing something right if the monk was doing that poorly, or maybe more lighter attacks just gave you the feel of being weaker when compared to fewer heavier attacks.
Monks will take a hit if you're running 1-2 encounters a day with no short rests, allowing the paladin to use up all their long-rest resources in the same span the monk is using their short-rest resources. If that's the way your campaign is going to work, adding more ki per day isn't a bad solution. But I don't think monk is really in need of much more than that. Baseline damage should be fine and Stunning Strike is very strong when used tactically, especially for an Astral monk who can focus on wisdom for a higher save DC.
Now if the paladin is using PAM or GWM shenanigans, that's certainly going to change the math. But I'd call that a feat problem rather than a class one, and solve it by homebrewing a comparable feat that the monk could make use of.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
It may have been that I did not give the party enough encounters per day so the paladin didn't run out of smites and the paladin does use GWM. However I do disagree with looking at the base damage without the class mechanics involved. for example even when I did allow the monk short rests to replenish their ki, many of the points were on stunning strikes and then flurry of blows. Flurry of blows does not increase the damage the monk provides by the same amount as a single smite allows, even if in theory they can be used more often, and stunning strike will increase the parties overall damage more in general than the monk player themselves. For example, the monk would try to stun, fail, try to stun, fail, try to stun, succeed and then do one with flurry of blows, the paladin would then come in, autocrit due to the stun and 1 shot the creature. That is a cool party moment don't get me wrong but I think the monk player felt like they were always setting up cool moments for the rest of the party rather than having a cool moment themselves.
However I do accept that then maybe monk was not the right class for that particular player, as they are still in my campaign which is now at level 11, and really enjoying what their warlock can do.
Thanks for the replies by the way, any advice is appreciated, even if it is that I need to DM longer days with more encounters to allow each player to shine.