Then the monk is no longer ascetic and you've assassinated it's identity.
The ascetic monk died back in AD&D. I would note that I'm specifically talking about magic item support.
The core issue is that a monk should be balanced in both low-magic and high-magic games, and the only way to do that is to make sure they get about the same benefit from magic items as other classes.
Beg to disagree, since 5th Edition specifically moved away from player characters lighting up as Christmas trees when subjected to Detect Magic.
Interestingly, nobody here has actually refuted that. It doesn't matter how often I cite it. Nobody denies it. So what gives?
If you're hell-bent on monks have magic item parity with other classes, then they're always going to be behind because they start behind. Because while they're not dependent on gear, gear is a faster and more reliable way of growing in power. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you cannot rely on magic items closing whatever gaps you think the class has.
Not least of which because you cannot count on specific magic items being available. It is asinine that everyone else here is just ignoring this or pretending it isn't true.
I actually agree with you I think it makes more sense the power comes from the monk but the
"monk is fine and lets force them to only be skirmishers/medicore control "faction don't want you to get any power ups
they dont want dpr increase or defensive increase the only thing they seem to want is to keep monk sub par. so I'm hoping that maybe they can add some more magic items just so we can have something. but actually agree it makes better sense that it comes from the monk inherently
I mean, beyond dropping the Dragonhide Belt into the core pool and making +X unarmed weapons, how much additional magic item support do Monks need compared to Fighters or Barbarians? I know there's a few nice armors, but I want to say about half of them are Heavy (including nearly all the Legendary ones) so that leaves Barbarians in the cold too and makes it more a case of "this is something special Fighters get", and there's already things like the Bracers of Defense or a decent selection of magic cloaks to choose from. At most, they could maybe make it an optional rule or something that you can't use magic armor and a magic cloak at the same time, if you want to be that aggressive about policing parity of magic item options, but I'm not sure the game really needs that kind of active throttling on options; the fact is that Monks do have options available to them. On the weapon end, it says right there in the DMG that the DM can change a magic weapon's type without creating issues, so there's nothing they're truly locked out of there unless it's a class-specific weapon, and there's not many of those (and none exclusive to Fighters that comes to mind).
adding equal access to vanilla increases to unarmed fighting and AC boosts is actually one of the big issues. And the problem is that 5e and many DMs differentiates unarmed fighting from weapons. So DMs might think unarmed boosting items are not supposed to exist. Likewise items for increases in AC. IE, they might turn a +1axe into a +1 sword for players, but are hesitant to create a whole new item type. They likely won't give out bracers of defense instead of a +1shield.
as well as the fact that hoard tables, and most modules don't have/give out many things monk can make good use of, because monks can't use many things. If your DM isnt creative, most campaigns has monk characters looking worse and worse as they level.
I mean, beyond dropping the Dragonhide Belt into the core pool and making +X unarmed weapons, how much additional magic item support do Monks need compared to Fighters or Barbarians? I know there's a few nice armors, but I want to say about half of them are Heavy (including nearly all the Legendary ones) so that leaves Barbarians in the cold too and makes it more a case of "this is something special Fighters get", and there's already things like the Bracers of Defense or a decent selection of magic cloaks to choose from. At most, they could maybe make it an optional rule or something that you can't use magic armor and a magic cloak at the same time, if you want to be that aggressive about policing parity of magic item options, but I'm not sure the game really needs that kind of active throttling on options; the fact is that Monks do have options available to them. On the weapon end, it says right there in the DMG that the DM can change a magic weapon's type without creating issues, so there's nothing they're truly locked out of there unless it's a class-specific weapon, and there's not many of those (and none exclusive to Fighters that comes to mind).
Although true, I think that some complaints are that both a cloak of protection and bracers of defense require attunement while many of the magic armors don’t. So you do have those available but that then reduces access to other attunement items that armor wearers don’t have to worry about.
Personally, the magic item issue isn’t a priority with me. First, like others have said, balancing the class is more important.
The only reason empowered strikes exists as a monk class feature is because of the lack of magic item support for unarmed strikes. If there were sufficient +1/+2/+3 non attunement items for unarmed combat, empowered strikes would be something else entirely. It seems like for the monk they just try to stuff in more features to make up for bad design rather than correct underlying issues.
This is my latest iteration of Monk through level 10. Anything mentioned for levels 11-20 are just to indicate Tier 3 or Tier 4. I'm following the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method with minor changes I hope are more palatable to implement. I believe this resolves the issues with survivability, high level damage, and weapons vs unarmed.
Hit Points & dice: Unchanged Proficiencies: unchanged Weapon proficiency: Simple Weapons + 1 Dedicated Martial Weapon (same restrictions as Tasha's Dedicated Weapon, can be swapped at the end of a Long Rest) Monk Weapons are your Unarmed Strikes, Simple Weapons, and your dedicated weapon.
Starting Equipment: Unchanged
Martial Arts Dice: Same as UA6.
Martial Arts Your unarmed strikes have the Light Weapon property. (Relocated Bonus Action Unarmed Strike) Your Unarmed Strikes have the Nick Weapon Mastery. Your Monk Weapons have the Finesse property. (Includes Great club) You may use your Martial Arts dice instead of the Monk Weapon's dice for damage rolls. (same as 5E) You may use WIS instead of STR for your grapple escape DC. (For the simplicity of a single save DC. One could argue for DEX too.)
Weapon Mastery In addition to your Unarmed Strikes having the Nick Mastery, you may choose 1 weapon mastery. You may change these masteries at the end of a long rest. You gain an additional mastery at 6th level that may be applied to your Unarmed Strikes as long as the Mastery meets Prerequisites. (Open Hand will get to ignore prerequisites.) Only 1 Mastery can be used on each attack.
Unarmoured Defense: Unchanged (Most of the defense will be provided by Deflect Attack/Patient Defense. Diamond Soul at levels 7 and 9 clearly makes Monk the best class for Saves.)
Deflect Attack While you are Unarmored and have a hand free, you may use your Reaction to Deflect Attacks. When a creature hits you with an attack roll, you may use your reaction to redirect damage back to the attacker equal to a roll of your martial arts dice plus your Monk level. The attacker may make a DEX save to take half damage. Design Note: This damage redirection occurs before any other damage reduction or resistance is applied. So it does not synergize with Barbarian Rage. The redirected damage does not trigger Rogue Sneak Attack. I imagine Way of Mercy would be able to Deflect Attack for allies within 5 ft.
Level 2
Unarmored Movement: Unchanged column in the Monk Table.
Max Discipline Points = 2*(Monk levels) are recovered at the end of a Long Rest. After a Short Rest, you regain (Monk levels)/2 Points, rounded down. Design note: I am unsure of the rounding. These numbers provide the same number of Points during a 5E "Standard" Adventuring day, so they can be balanced in the same way. For tables with 1 or 2 fights a day, the starting Points are front loaded. Long dungeon crawls have a recovery mechanism while still involving resource management.
Flurry of Blows: You can spend 1 Point to make an Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action. At Level 11? you may spend 2 Points to make 2 Unarmed Strikes as a Bonus Action. At Level 17? you may spend 3 Points to make 3 Unarmed Strikes as a Bonus Action. Note: Decoupled from the Attack Action. The additional strikes mostly resolves the missing Tier 3 and 4 damage. The level can be adjusted.
Step of the Wind: You may spend 1 Ki to be able to dash and disengage as a Bonus Action. You can move along vertical walls and across liquids this turn. Note: The wall/water running replaces the jump improvement. Wall/water running provides Monks with unique utility and identity in and out of combat. There is room in Tier 3 to make wall/water running free.
Patient Defense: You may spend 1 Point and your Bonus Action to gain a special Reaction that can only be used for Deflect Attack. Deflect Attack can only be used once for each attack roll. At Level 11? you may spend 2 Points to gain 2 of these Reactions. At Level 17? you may spend 3 Points to gain 3 of these Reactions. At the start of your turn, you get refunded 1 Point for each of these special Reactions you did not use. (So it is not a waste if you are not targeted/hit.) Design note: A hit & run style would prefer Flurry of Blows, then risking an Opportunity Attack mitigated by a single Deflect Attack. A front line Monk expecting to get hit would prefer Patient Defense. In emergency situations, a Monk could Dodge + Patient Defense sacrificing offense. Dodge + Flurry of Blows is another option for a slightly different offense/defense mix. If the monster moves away from the Monk, the Monk gets an Opportunity Attack.
Level 3 Subclass Ability
Level 4 Feat Slow Fall: unchanged
Level 5: Extra Attack Stunning Strike: Unchanged from UA6 for now, I wanted to focus on other aspects. Stunning Strike is an area where complexity (such as Cunning Strikes) would be welcome.
Level 6 Subclass Ability
You gain an additional weapon mastery. You may be apply this mastery to your Unarmed Strikes as long as Prerequisites are met. You may also switch your Unarmed Strike Nick mastery to another mastery for your Unarmed Strikes (again with prerequisite limits). Open Hand will get to ignore prerequisites. Only 1 Mastery can be used on each attack.
Empowered Strikes: Whenever you deal damage with your Unarmed Strikes, it can deal your choice of Force damage or its normal damage type. Your Unarmed Strikes get a +1 bonus to hit and damage. (on top of martial arts dice increase) The bonus to hit and damage increases to +2 at lvl11 and +3 at lvl17. Design note: This keeps Unarmed Strikes roughly balanced with weapons. The level can be tweaked.
Level 7 Evasion: Unchanged
Diamond Soul (1 of 3) When you make a WIS, INT, or CHA save, add a roll of your Martial Arts dice. Design note: This is slightly better than proficiency by about +1. It also stacks with proficiency (same as Paladin aura). But it scales with Monk Levels, so it is less effective for multiclass. If you think it is too strong, just compare it to the Paladin's aura which affects nearby allies.
Level 8 Feat
Level 9 Diamond Soul (2 of 3) When you make a STR, DEX, or CON save, add a roll of your Martial Arts dice. Design note: Diamond Soul (3 of 3) is the saving throw reroll and would be somewhere in Tier 3.
Level 10 Feat Design note: This is the simplest way to alleviate MAD and make feats more feasible.
I dropped Self-Restoration/Stillness of Mind/Purity of Body. It is better to make the save via Diamond Soul instead of having a clunky way to end conditions.
This is my latest iteration of Monk through level 10. Anything mentioned for levels 11-20 are just to indicate Tier 3 or Tier 4. I'm following the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method with minor changes I hope are more palatable to implement. I believe this resolves the issues with survivability, high level damage, and weapons vs unarmed.
Hit Points & dice: Unchanged Proficiencies: unchanged Weapon proficiency: Simple Weapons + 1 Dedicated Martial Weapon (same restrictions as Tasha's Dedicated Weapon, can be swapped at the end of a Long Rest) Monk Weapons are your Unarmed Strikes, Simple Weapons, and your dedicated weapon.
Starting Equipment: Unchanged
Martial Arts Dice: Same as UA6.
Martial Arts Your unarmed strikes have the Light Weapon property. (Relocated Bonus Action Unarmed Strike) Your Unarmed Strikes have the Nick Weapon Mastery. Your Monk Weapons have the Finesse property. (Includes Great club) You may use your Martial Arts dice instead of the Monk Weapon's dice for damage rolls. (same as 5E) You may use WIS instead of STR for your grapple escape DC. (For the simplicity of a single save DC. One could argue for DEX too.)
Weapon Mastery In addition to your Unarmed Strikes having the Nick Mastery, you may choose 1 weapon mastery. You may change these masteries at the end of a long rest. You gain an additional mastery at 6th level that may be applied to your Unarmed Strikes as long as the Mastery meets Prerequisites. (Open Hand will get to ignore prerequisites.) Only 1 Mastery can be used on each attack.
Unarmoured Defense: Unchanged (Most of the defense will be provided by Deflect Attack/Patient Defense. Diamond Soul at levels 7 and 9 clearly makes Monk the best class for Saves.)
Deflect Attack While you are Unarmored and have a hand free, you may use your Reaction to Deflect Attacks. When a creature hits you with an attack roll, you may use your reaction to redirect damage back to the attacker equal to a roll of your martial arts dice plus your Monk level. The attacker may make a DEX save to take half damage. Design Note: This damage redirection occurs before any other damage reduction or resistance is applied. So it does not synergize with Barbarian Rage. The redirected damage does not trigger Rogue Sneak Attack. I imagine Way of Mercy would be able to Deflect Attack for allies within 5 ft.
Level 2
Unarmored Movement: Unchanged column in the Monk Table.
Max Discipline Points = 2*(Monk levels) are recovered at the end of a Long Rest. After a Short Rest, you regain (Monk levels)/2 Points, rounded down. Design note: I am unsure of the rounding. These numbers provide the same number of Points during a 5E "Standard" Adventuring day, so they can be balanced in the same way. For tables with 1 or 2 fights a day, the starting Points are front loaded. Long dungeon crawls have a recovery mechanism while still involving resource management.
Flurry of Blows: You can spend 1 Point to make an Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action. At Level 11? you may spend 2 Points to make 2 Unarmed Strikes as a Bonus Action. At Level 17? you may spend 3 Points to make 3 Unarmed Strikes as a Bonus Action. Note: Decoupled from the Attack Action. The additional strikes mostly resolves the missing Tier 3 and 4 damage. The level can be adjusted.
Step of the Wind: You may spend 1 Ki to be able to dash and disengage as a Bonus Action. You can move along vertical walls and across liquids this turn. Note: The wall/water running replaces the jump improvement. Wall/water running provides Monks with unique utility and identity in and out of combat. There is room in Tier 3 to make wall/water running free.
Patient Defense: You may spend 1 Point and your Bonus Action to gain a special Reaction that can only be used for Deflect Attack. Deflect Attack can only be used once for each attack roll. At Level 11? you may spend 2 Points to gain 2 of these Reactions. At Level 17? you may spend 3 Points to gain 3 of these Reactions. At the start of your turn, you get refunded 1 Point for each of these special Reactions you did not use. (So it is not a waste if you are not targeted/hit.) Design note: A hit & run style would prefer Flurry of Blows, then risking an Opportunity Attack mitigated by a single Deflect Attack. A front line Monk expecting to get hit would prefer Patient Defense. In emergency situations, a Monk could Dodge + Patient Defense sacrificing offense. Dodge + Flurry of Blows is another option for a slightly different offense/defense mix. If the monster moves away from the Monk, the Monk gets an Opportunity Attack.
Level 3 Subclass Ability
Level 4 Feat Slow Fall: unchanged
Level 5: Extra Attack Stunning Strike: Unchanged from UA6 for now, I wanted to focus on other aspects. Stunning Strike is an area where complexity (such as Cunning Strikes) would be welcome.
Level 6 Subclass Ability
You gain an additional weapon mastery. You may be apply this mastery to your Unarmed Strikes as long as Prerequisites are met. You may also switch your Unarmed Strike Nick mastery to another mastery for your Unarmed Strikes (again with prerequisite limits). Open Hand will get to ignore prerequisites. Only 1 Mastery can be used on each attack.
Empowered Strikes: Whenever you deal damage with your Unarmed Strikes, it can deal your choice of Force damage or its normal damage type. Your Unarmed Strikes get a +1 bonus to hit and damage. (on top of martial arts dice increase) The bonus to hit and damage increases to +2 at lvl11 and +3 at lvl17. Design note: This keeps Unarmed Strikes roughly balanced with weapons. The level can be tweaked.
Level 7 Evasion: Unchanged
Diamond Soul (1 of 3) When you make a WIS, INT, or CHA save, add a roll of your Martial Arts dice. Design note: This is slightly better than proficiency by about +1. It also stacks with proficiency (same as Paladin aura). But it scales with Monk Levels, so it is less effective for multiclass. If you think it is too strong, just compare it to the Paladin's aura which affects nearby allies.
Level 8 Feat
Level 9 Diamond Soul (2 of 3) When you make a STR, DEX, or CON save, add a roll of your Martial Arts dice. Design note: Diamond Soul (3 of 3) is the saving throw reroll and would be somewhere in Tier 3.
Level 10 Feat Design note: This is the simplest way to alleviate MAD and make feats more feasible.
I dropped Self-Restoration/Stillness of Mind/Purity of Body. It is better to make the save via Diamond Soul instead of having a clunky way to end conditions.
Interesting. Much stronger defense in melee which is what the monk needs.
Just a few things to consider
-is there no disadvantage on attack rolls for patient defense anymore? I was not sure.
-you have FOB as only one bonus attack but open hand and mercy monk depend on FOB being two attacks. I would maybe do FOB combined with the nick unarmed strike to make two attacks on the attack action so its cohesive with sub classes. Otherwise those subclases are waiting untill level 11 to get there two FOB attacks.
-i like the idea of unarmed strikes having the light and nick property but so far all weapons have only one weapon mastery property available to be used at any one time. Fighters can't add two weapon mastery properties to one weapon until 13th level. Maybe the bonus action unarmed strike should just be an "extra attack" provided the monk is not weilding two weapons so it does not stack with nick. Its still the same effect but just worded differently.
If i read this right the monk would get at the highest level:
a) three attacks with the attack action - 1d12+ dex, 1d12, 1d12 + dex. Without two weapon fighting style the nick attack does not get any dex bonus.
b) up to three attacks with FOB bonus action - 1d12+ dex, 1d12+ dex, 1d12 + dex
c) up to three reactions to deflect attack - 1d12+20, 1d12+20, 1d12+20 with each of those having a potential save for half
d) where applicable add +3 to damage for empowered strikes
Is that correct? It would expensive to do but 9 attacks in a round might be a bit much. Maybe consider scaling that back a bit and axe the bonuses to empowered strikes since magic items can be homebrewed. If you really like doing the three reactions then i would keep them to damage reduction only since you would still get 6 attacks on your turn and that would be plenty.
I mean, beyond dropping the Dragonhide Belt into the core pool and making +X unarmed weapons, how much additional magic item support do Monks need compared to Fighters or Barbarians? I know there's a few nice armors, but I want to say about half of them are Heavy (including nearly all the Legendary ones) so that leaves Barbarians in the cold too and makes it more a case of "this is something special Fighters get", and there's already things like the Bracers of Defense or a decent selection of magic cloaks to choose from. At most, they could maybe make it an optional rule or something that you can't use magic armor and a magic cloak at the same time, if you want to be that aggressive about policing parity of magic item options, but I'm not sure the game really needs that kind of active throttling on options; the fact is that Monks do have options available to them. On the weapon end, it says right there in the DMG that the DM can change a magic weapon's type without creating issues, so there's nothing they're truly locked out of there unless it's a class-specific weapon, and there's not many of those (and none exclusive to Fighters that comes to mind).
Although true, I think that some complaints are that both a cloak of protection and bracers of defense require attunement while many of the magic armors don’t. So you do have those available but that then reduces access to other attunement items that armor wearers don’t have to worry about.
Personally, the magic item issue isn’t a priority with me. First, like others have said, balancing the class is more important.
The issue there is that armor is naturally restricted by proficiencies, while anyone can put on a cloak or bracers. So you need to put attunement on those, or it becomes too easy for everyone to start stacking up extra bonuses. And currently the only way to restrict magic items strictly by class is attunement, so there's not really a way to give Monks in particular that bonus without using up the slots.
I guess if people are really feeling that crippled by it, they could try giving Monks Light Armor prof, similar to what they've done with Barbarians. Granted, given that Studded Leather is only 12 + DEX, I'm not sure they're actually getting an appreciable difference; unless you avoid using any Monk feature with a DC the build's still going to want at least +2 in WIS, so that's not really freeing up ability points, and going by the DMG Rare magic items should start cropping up around level 5 and Very Rare around level 11. People keep saying that games that go into 11 and beyond are relatively uncommon, so that means that unless a DM is being very generous with magic items, having non-attuned armor is putting a Monk at maybe 1 additional point of AC in what people have asserted is the "typical" range of play, or nil if the player is putting some focus on WIS.
Looking at these numbers, I'd honestly say they'd be better served swapping out Patient Defense for a reaction to boost AC for 1 turn (yes I mean turn, not round; Shield uses a Long Rest resource), similar to what War Wizards have. It gets people to stop moaning that they're being forced to think critically about action economy and gives them an option to boost AC when they need it and even out the DPR output. Still have to manage Ki, but they're already tinkering with that and again despite the moaning Monks are not so dramatically crippled in DPR that spending a few Ki on mitigation will seriously hurt their performance, particularly if WotC finally makes an unarmed equivalent to the basic magic weapons and they're making the Bonus Action Attack pretty much every round.
Magic armor is restricted to people who wear armor, magic clothes could be restricted to people who don't wear armor. Where's the problem?
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Magic armor is restricted to people who wear armor, magic clothes could be restricted to people who don't wear armor. Where's the problem?
Well, at present there's the issue of things like Nature's Mantle, given that Rangers and Druids both wear armor. If they were doing a new edition it would be easier to carve out a new item classification system that allowed for this kind of demarcation, but in a backwards compatible update there's not really any way to put the genie of magic cloaks back in the bottle. The current generation of cloaks are accessible to everyone, and that's much more intuitive than saying wearing armor makes you incapable of putting certain cloaks on over the armor. I suppose they could always just take the Harrison Bergeron route and make all magic armor above Common require attunement.
Another option is to just let everyone wear armor, but apply penalties due to movement restriction.
Monk magic items are relatively simple to come up with, as well.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Well, in fairness, you did say magic clothes, and cloaks are clothes….
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Monk magic items are relatively simple to come up with, as well.
But the issue people are harping on is attunement slots, and about the only way to keep a magic item locked into a single class is by attunement.
ah, I see.
yeah, that rule went out the window about three sessions into our first 5e game, lol. We still do attunement, but not the locking to a class thing. Very few magic items are limited to a class. But we are a bunch of 1e gamers at heart, so we really like our magic gear, lol
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Well, in fairness, you did say magic clothes, and cloaks are clothes….
I was saying that there should be magic clothes to boost AC specifically for when you're unarmored.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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But the issue people are harping on is attunement slots, and about the only way to keep a magic item locked into a single class is by attunement.
It is in no way important to make the items locked to a single class. All that's needed is a way to get the effect of magic armor (+AC which does not require an attunement slot) that is compatible with unarmored defense, and the effects of a generic magic weapon that is compatible with unarmed attacks. If it also works for other classes doing the same (unarmed fighting style, barbarian unarmored defense, draconic sorcerer natural armor, species with natural weapons, etc)... I don't really care.
The core problem is that 5e decided to 'simplify' by getting rid of (non-stacking) bonus types, instead going with only attunement to control bonus stacking, and thus if you have three items that give +3 to hit and damage with unarmed attacks... you have +9 to hit and damage with unarmed attacks. That means if you print any items that grant bonuses to unarmed attacks or unarmored defense (particularly if they don't cost attunement, but can be problematic even if you do), you need to explicitly state that someone cannot benefit from more than one of these at a time (this is already a problem with foci that grant bonuses to spell attacks and save DC, and needs a fix there too). In 3e or 4e those would all be listed as enhancement bonuses and, per standard bonus stacking rules, would automatically not be cumulative.
Monk magic items are relatively simple to come up with, as well.
But the issue people are harping on is attunement slots, and about the only way to keep a magic item locked into a single class is by attunement.
ah, I see.
yeah, that rule went out the window about three sessions into our first 5e game, lol. We still do attunement, but not the locking to a class thing. Very few magic items are limited to a class. But we are a bunch of 1e gamers at heart, so we really like our magic gear, lol
I mean, it's not super common, and much of the time the item interacts with class-specific features, but my point was that there's no practical way in 5e to make an item that specifically boosts a Monk's AC without calling for attunement.
The core problem is that 5e decided to 'simplify' by getting rid of (non-stacking) bonus types, instead going with only attunement to control bonus stacking, and thus if you have three items that give +3 to hit and damage with unarmed attacks... you have +9 to hit and damage with unarmed attacks. That means if you print any items that grant bonuses to unarmed attacks or unarmored defense (particularly if they don't cost attunement, but can be problematic even if you do), you need to explicitly state that someone cannot benefit from more than one of these at a time (this is already a problem with foci that grant bonuses to spell attacks and save DC, and needs a fix there too). In 3e or 4e those would all be listed as enhancement bonuses and, per standard bonus stacking rules, would automatically not be cumulative.
Not completely true. You can't benefit from two of the same magic item. Also, there's a sort of lenient equipment slot system in 5e. Even if there are multiple different items that all boost unarmed strikes and that can stack, they wouldn't normally be usable at the same time if they go on the same part of the body. That rule has an explicit option for DM override, but it could be stricter in the new edition without breaking much.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Yes, but without attunement and more in line with magical armor scaling.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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I actually agree with you I think it makes more sense the power comes from the monk but the
"monk is fine and lets force them to only be skirmishers/medicore control "faction don't want you to get any power ups
they dont want dpr increase or defensive increase the only thing they seem to want is to keep monk sub par. so I'm hoping that maybe they can add some more magic items just so we can have something. but actually agree it makes better sense that it comes from the monk inherently
adding equal access to vanilla increases to unarmed fighting and AC boosts is actually one of the big issues. And the problem is that 5e and many DMs differentiates unarmed fighting from weapons. So DMs might think unarmed boosting items are not supposed to exist. Likewise items for increases in AC. IE, they might turn a +1axe into a +1 sword for players, but are hesitant to create a whole new item type. They likely won't give out bracers of defense instead of a +1shield.
as well as the fact that hoard tables, and most modules don't have/give out many things monk can make good use of, because monks can't use many things. If your DM isnt creative, most campaigns has monk characters looking worse and worse as they level.
Although true, I think that some complaints are that both a cloak of protection and bracers of defense require attunement while many of the magic armors don’t. So you do have those available but that then reduces access to other attunement items that armor wearers don’t have to worry about.
Personally, the magic item issue isn’t a priority with me. First, like others have said, balancing the class is more important.
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The only reason empowered strikes exists as a monk class feature is because of the lack of magic item support for unarmed strikes. If there were sufficient +1/+2/+3 non attunement items for unarmed combat, empowered strikes would be something else entirely. It seems like for the monk they just try to stuff in more features to make up for bad design rather than correct underlying issues.
This is my latest iteration of Monk through level 10. Anything mentioned for levels 11-20 are just to indicate Tier 3 or Tier 4. I'm following the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method with minor changes I hope are more palatable to implement. I believe this resolves the issues with survivability, high level damage, and weapons vs unarmed.
Hit Points & dice: Unchanged
Proficiencies: unchanged
Weapon proficiency: Simple Weapons + 1 Dedicated Martial Weapon (same restrictions as Tasha's Dedicated Weapon, can be swapped at the end of a Long Rest)
Monk Weapons are your Unarmed Strikes, Simple Weapons, and your dedicated weapon.
Starting Equipment: Unchanged
Martial Arts Dice: Same as UA6.
Martial Arts
Your unarmed strikes have the Light Weapon property. (Relocated Bonus Action Unarmed Strike)
Your Unarmed Strikes have the Nick Weapon Mastery.
Your Monk Weapons have the Finesse property. (Includes Great club)
You may use your Martial Arts dice instead of the Monk Weapon's dice for damage rolls. (same as 5E)
You may use WIS instead of STR for your grapple escape DC. (For the simplicity of a single save DC. One could argue for DEX too.)
Weapon Mastery
In addition to your Unarmed Strikes having the Nick Mastery, you may choose 1 weapon mastery. You may change these masteries at the end of a long rest.
You gain an additional mastery at 6th level that may be applied to your Unarmed Strikes as long as the Mastery meets Prerequisites. (Open Hand will get to ignore prerequisites.) Only 1 Mastery can be used on each attack.
Unarmoured Defense: Unchanged (Most of the defense will be provided by Deflect Attack/Patient Defense. Diamond Soul at levels 7 and 9 clearly makes Monk the best class for Saves.)
Deflect Attack
While you are Unarmored and have a hand free, you may use your Reaction to Deflect Attacks. When a creature hits you with an attack roll, you may use your reaction to redirect damage back to the attacker equal to a roll of your martial arts dice plus your Monk level. The attacker may make a DEX save to take half damage.
Design Note: This damage redirection occurs before any other damage reduction or resistance is applied. So it does not synergize with Barbarian Rage. The redirected damage does not trigger Rogue Sneak Attack. I imagine Way of Mercy would be able to Deflect Attack for allies within 5 ft.
Level 2
Unarmored Movement: Unchanged column in the Monk Table.
Max Discipline Points = 2*(Monk levels) are recovered at the end of a Long Rest. After a Short Rest, you regain (Monk levels)/2 Points, rounded down.
Design note: I am unsure of the rounding. These numbers provide the same number of Points during a 5E "Standard" Adventuring day, so they can be balanced in the same way. For tables with 1 or 2 fights a day, the starting Points are front loaded. Long dungeon crawls have a recovery mechanism while still involving resource management.
Flurry of Blows: You can spend 1 Point to make an Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action.
At Level 11? you may spend 2 Points to make 2 Unarmed Strikes as a Bonus Action.
At Level 17? you may spend 3 Points to make 3 Unarmed Strikes as a Bonus Action.
Note: Decoupled from the Attack Action. The additional strikes mostly resolves the missing Tier 3 and 4 damage. The level can be adjusted.
Step of the Wind: You may spend 1 Ki to be able to dash and disengage as a Bonus Action. You can move along vertical walls and across liquids this turn.
Note: The wall/water running replaces the jump improvement. Wall/water running provides Monks with unique utility and identity in and out of combat. There is room in Tier 3 to make wall/water running free.
Patient Defense: You may spend 1 Point and your Bonus Action to gain a special Reaction that can only be used for Deflect Attack. Deflect Attack can only be used once for each attack roll.
At Level 11? you may spend 2 Points to gain 2 of these Reactions.
At Level 17? you may spend 3 Points to gain 3 of these Reactions.
At the start of your turn, you get refunded 1 Point for each of these special Reactions you did not use. (So it is not a waste if you are not targeted/hit.)
Design note: A hit & run style would prefer Flurry of Blows, then risking an Opportunity Attack mitigated by a single Deflect Attack. A front line Monk expecting to get hit would prefer Patient Defense. In emergency situations, a Monk could Dodge + Patient Defense sacrificing offense. Dodge + Flurry of Blows is another option for a slightly different offense/defense mix. If the monster moves away from the Monk, the Monk gets an Opportunity Attack.
Level 3 Subclass Ability
Level 4 Feat
Slow Fall: unchanged
Level 5: Extra Attack
Stunning Strike: Unchanged from UA6 for now, I wanted to focus on other aspects. Stunning Strike is an area where complexity (such as Cunning Strikes) would be welcome.
Level 6 Subclass Ability
You gain an additional weapon mastery. You may be apply this mastery to your Unarmed Strikes as long as Prerequisites are met. You may also switch your Unarmed Strike Nick mastery to another mastery for your Unarmed Strikes (again with prerequisite limits). Open Hand will get to ignore prerequisites. Only 1 Mastery can be used on each attack.
Empowered Strikes: Whenever you deal damage with your Unarmed Strikes, it can deal your choice of Force damage or its normal damage type.
Your Unarmed Strikes get a +1 bonus to hit and damage. (on top of martial arts dice increase)
The bonus to hit and damage increases to +2 at lvl11 and +3 at lvl17.
Design note: This keeps Unarmed Strikes roughly balanced with weapons. The level can be tweaked.
Level 7 Evasion: Unchanged
Diamond Soul (1 of 3) When you make a WIS, INT, or CHA save, add a roll of your Martial Arts dice.
Design note: This is slightly better than proficiency by about +1. It also stacks with proficiency (same as Paladin aura). But it scales with Monk Levels, so it is less effective for multiclass. If you think it is too strong, just compare it to the Paladin's aura which affects nearby allies.
Level 8 Feat
Level 9 Diamond Soul (2 of 3) When you make a STR, DEX, or CON save, add a roll of your Martial Arts dice.
Design note: Diamond Soul (3 of 3) is the saving throw reroll and would be somewhere in Tier 3.
Level 10 Feat
Design note: This is the simplest way to alleviate MAD and make feats more feasible.
I dropped Self-Restoration/Stillness of Mind/Purity of Body. It is better to make the save via Diamond Soul instead of having a clunky way to end conditions.
Interesting. Much stronger defense in melee which is what the monk needs.
Just a few things to consider
-is there no disadvantage on attack rolls for patient defense anymore? I was not sure.
-you have FOB as only one bonus attack but open hand and mercy monk depend on FOB being two attacks. I would maybe do FOB combined with the nick unarmed strike to make two attacks on the attack action so its cohesive with sub classes. Otherwise those subclases are waiting untill level 11 to get there two FOB attacks.
-i like the idea of unarmed strikes having the light and nick property but so far all weapons have only one weapon mastery property available to be used at any one time. Fighters can't add two weapon mastery properties to one weapon until 13th level. Maybe the bonus action unarmed strike should just be an "extra attack" provided the monk is not weilding two weapons so it does not stack with nick. Its still the same effect but just worded differently.
If i read this right the monk would get at the highest level:
a) three attacks with the attack action - 1d12+ dex, 1d12, 1d12 + dex. Without two weapon fighting style the nick attack does not get any dex bonus.
b) up to three attacks with FOB bonus action - 1d12+ dex, 1d12+ dex, 1d12 + dex
c) up to three reactions to deflect attack - 1d12+20, 1d12+20, 1d12+20 with each of those having a potential save for half
d) where applicable add +3 to damage for empowered strikes
Is that correct? It would expensive to do but 9 attacks in a round might be a bit much. Maybe consider scaling that back a bit and axe the bonuses to empowered strikes since magic items can be homebrewed. If you really like doing the three reactions then i would keep them to damage reduction only since you would still get 6 attacks on your turn and that would be plenty.
The issue there is that armor is naturally restricted by proficiencies, while anyone can put on a cloak or bracers. So you need to put attunement on those, or it becomes too easy for everyone to start stacking up extra bonuses. And currently the only way to restrict magic items strictly by class is attunement, so there's not really a way to give Monks in particular that bonus without using up the slots.
I guess if people are really feeling that crippled by it, they could try giving Monks Light Armor prof, similar to what they've done with Barbarians. Granted, given that Studded Leather is only 12 + DEX, I'm not sure they're actually getting an appreciable difference; unless you avoid using any Monk feature with a DC the build's still going to want at least +2 in WIS, so that's not really freeing up ability points, and going by the DMG Rare magic items should start cropping up around level 5 and Very Rare around level 11. People keep saying that games that go into 11 and beyond are relatively uncommon, so that means that unless a DM is being very generous with magic items, having non-attuned armor is putting a Monk at maybe 1 additional point of AC in what people have asserted is the "typical" range of play, or nil if the player is putting some focus on WIS.
Looking at these numbers, I'd honestly say they'd be better served swapping out Patient Defense for a reaction to boost AC for 1 turn (yes I mean turn, not round; Shield uses a Long Rest resource), similar to what War Wizards have. It gets people to stop moaning that they're being forced to think critically about action economy and gives them an option to boost AC when they need it and even out the DPR output. Still have to manage Ki, but they're already tinkering with that and again despite the moaning Monks are not so dramatically crippled in DPR that spending a few Ki on mitigation will seriously hurt their performance, particularly if WotC finally makes an unarmed equivalent to the basic magic weapons and they're making the Bonus Action Attack pretty much every round.
Magic armor is restricted to people who wear armor, magic clothes could be restricted to people who don't wear armor. Where's the problem?
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
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Well, at present there's the issue of things like Nature's Mantle, given that Rangers and Druids both wear armor. If they were doing a new edition it would be easier to carve out a new item classification system that allowed for this kind of demarcation, but in a backwards compatible update there's not really any way to put the genie of magic cloaks back in the bottle. The current generation of cloaks are accessible to everyone, and that's much more intuitive than saying wearing armor makes you incapable of putting certain cloaks on over the armor. I suppose they could always just take the Harrison Bergeron route and make all magic armor above Common require attunement.
Another option is to just let everyone wear armor, but apply penalties due to movement restriction.
Monk magic items are relatively simple to come up with, as well.
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Who said anything about cloaks?
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Well, in fairness, you did say magic clothes, and cloaks are clothes….
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But the issue people are harping on is attunement slots, and about the only way to keep a magic item locked into a single class is by attunement.
ah, I see.
yeah, that rule went out the window about three sessions into our first 5e game, lol. We still do attunement, but not the locking to a class thing. Very few magic items are limited to a class. But we are a bunch of 1e gamers at heart, so we really like our magic gear, lol
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I was saying that there should be magic clothes to boost AC specifically for when you're unarmored.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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It is in no way important to make the items locked to a single class. All that's needed is a way to get the effect of magic armor (+AC which does not require an attunement slot) that is compatible with unarmored defense, and the effects of a generic magic weapon that is compatible with unarmed attacks. If it also works for other classes doing the same (unarmed fighting style, barbarian unarmored defense, draconic sorcerer natural armor, species with natural weapons, etc)... I don't really care.
The core problem is that 5e decided to 'simplify' by getting rid of (non-stacking) bonus types, instead going with only attunement to control bonus stacking, and thus if you have three items that give +3 to hit and damage with unarmed attacks... you have +9 to hit and damage with unarmed attacks. That means if you print any items that grant bonuses to unarmed attacks or unarmored defense (particularly if they don't cost attunement, but can be problematic even if you do), you need to explicitly state that someone cannot benefit from more than one of these at a time (this is already a problem with foci that grant bonuses to spell attacks and save DC, and needs a fix there too). In 3e or 4e those would all be listed as enhancement bonuses and, per standard bonus stacking rules, would automatically not be cumulative.
You mean like Bracers of Defense?
I mean, it's not super common, and much of the time the item interacts with class-specific features, but my point was that there's no practical way in 5e to make an item that specifically boosts a Monk's AC without calling for attunement.
Not completely true. You can't benefit from two of the same magic item. Also, there's a sort of lenient equipment slot system in 5e. Even if there are multiple different items that all boost unarmed strikes and that can stack, they wouldn't normally be usable at the same time if they go on the same part of the body. That rule has an explicit option for DM override, but it could be stricter in the new edition without breaking much.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
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Yes, but without attunement and more in line with magical armor scaling.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)