No-one is going to take the brawler fighter, because it's terrible outside of a campaign where you aren't allowed to carry weapons.
Agreed. Its features are committed to making unarmed strikes and improvised weapons better, but those things start so far below normal weapons that the boosts only makes them slightly sub-par options. What's the point of a subclass if its whole thing simply deals worse damage than the thing everybody else (including you) can do?
I'd also like to say that, instead of giving improvised weapon-boosting magic items, it'd be cool to give Brawler a feature that gives a boost to non-weapon magic items based on their rarity. For example, slapping somebody around with a Bag of Holding, handbag-style, gets you a +1. Then again, maybe that's a bad idea, if the whole point of the subclass is using a new weapon for every battle.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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)
No-one is going to take the brawler fighter, because it's terrible outside of a campaign where you aren't allowed to carry weapons.
Agreed. Its features are committed to making unarmed strikes and improvised weapons better, but those things start so far below normal weapons that the boosts only makes them slightly sub-par options. What's the point of a subclass if its whole thing simply deals worse damage than the thing everybody else (including you) can do?
I'd also like to say that, instead of giving improvised weapon-boosting magic items, it'd be cool to give Brawler a feature that gives a boost to non-weapon magic items based on their rarity. For example, slapping somebody around with a Bag of Holding, handbag-style, gets you a +1. Then again, maybe that's a bad idea, if the whole point of the subclass is using a new weapon for every battle.
That is what improvised weapons are! Which is why they are fun. Want to smack someone with a frying pan? - brawler Smash Alchemists Fire in someone's face? - brawler Want to strangle them with a bag of holding? - brawler Want to beat someone to death with an immovable rod? - brawler Want to smash a table over someone's head? -brawler Want to knock someone out with an Orb of Scrying? - brawler Want to catch a sea serpent on the end of a grappling hook? - brawler Want to cave someone's head in with your shield? - brawler
Predictable the "monk is fine " group already giving more excuses as to why we cant have good things. also people who actually like monk, brawler not going to cut it. they want be a monk . if you like brawler go for it.
Yes they did. But i will take it. And i am 50% sure that once the next UA comes out for monks they will change topple to something else. Just because its too powerful for monks.😅
Predictable the "monk is fine " group already giving more excuses as to why we cant have good things. also people who actually like monk, brawler not going to cut it. they want be a monk . if you like brawler go for it.
Perhaps you are right, this subclass will allow the monk to be apreciate as an unarmed warrior class that uses technique (DEX) more than brute force.
Looks like Warlock was shifted back to Short Rest dependent Pact Magic slots. Which means WoTC thinks it is ok for some classes to be wholly dependent on Short Rests.
LEVEL 2: MAGICAL CUNNING If all your Pact Magic spell slots are expended, you can perform an esoteric rite for 1 minute, at the end of which you regain half of those spell slots (round up). Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest.
This makes me worried WoTC will not fix Monk's Short Rest dependency. I was hoping each class would gain roughly the same amount of power (eg Channel Divinity) on a Short Rest, so that party composition would not feel so lopsided based on how often Rests occurred.
That is what improvised weapons are! Which is why they are fun.
Fun is fine for a one-shot, but in a campaign the fun will wear off and the being ineffective won't.
Brawler isn't an unarmed focused class, it is just an option, that mostly works well with grapple. unarmed attacks include headbuts, kicks etc. So you can grapple two enemies and still hit them, you can also punch and grab via grappler feat, or unarmed+shove with tavern brawler.
you do realize the lvl 15 feature gives you +5-6 damage per hit, a d12 on any two handed improvised, and allows you to use two masteries at the same time? That is actually quite bonkers. you can throw d12+12 rocks that cleave AND topple. You can make an improvised glaive that does d12+12. (and use pam)
as far as low level, it essentially gives you two more masteries.
also improvised weapons can have the stats of weapons they are similar to. So basically you can create custom weapons and carry them around, like a Vex longsword-alike.
also using weapons improperly = improvised weapon, so like a pommel hit Is an improvised club, which you can give sap vex or slow property.
the biggest problem imo is grappler does the level 10 feature but better, it should probably say you get the grappler feat, or another fest of your choice if you already have it.
that said, I don't think it fits the niche of monk, and I'm hoping they aren't thinking that monk getting a d12 instead of d10 is a great enough to make it viable. After all, This guy with no feats, synergies, or items is doing 4*(d12+12) baseline. And likely 5 hits with a Pam build.
Looks like Warlock was shifted back to Short Rest dependent Pact Magic slots. Which means WoTC thinks it is ok for some classes to be wholly dependent on Short Rests.
LEVEL 2: MAGICAL CUNNING If all your Pact Magic spell slots are expended, you can perform an esoteric rite for 1 minute, at the end of which you regain half of those spell slots (round up). Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest.
This makes me worried WoTC will not fix Monk's Short Rest dependency. I was hoping each class would gain roughly the same amount of power (eg Channel Divinity) on a Short Rest, so that party composition would not feel so lopsided based on how often Rests occurred.
I don't really want long rest monks, so I am happy with this.
not that monk's ki isnt an issue, but I don't want an LR solution.
That is what improvised weapons are! Which is why they are fun.
Fun is fine for a one-shot, but in a campaign the fun will wear off and the being ineffective won't.
Brawler isn't an unarmed focused class, it is just an option, that mostly works well with grapple. unarmed attacks include headbuts, kicks etc. So you can grapple two enemies and still hit them, you can also punch and grab via grappler feat, or unarmed+shove with tavern brawler.
you do realize the lvl 15 feature gives you +5-6 damage per hit, a d12 on any two handed improvised, and allows you to use two masteries at the same time? That is actually quite bonkers. you can throw d12+12 rocks that cleave AND topple. You can make an improvised glaive that does d12+12. (and use pam)
as far as low level, it essentially gives you two more masteries.
also improvised weapons can have the stats of weapons they are similar to. So basically you can create custom weapons and carry them around, like a Vex longsword-alike.
also using weapons improperly = improvised weapon, so like a pommel hit Is an improvised club, which you can give sap vex or slow property.
the biggest problem imo is grappler does the level 10 feature but better, it should probably say you get the grappler feat, or another fest of your choice if you already have it.
that said, I don't think it fits the niche of monk, and I'm hoping they aren't thinking that monk getting a d12 instead of d10 is a great enough to make it viable. After all, This guy with no feats, synergies, or items is doing 4*(d12+12) baseline. And likely 5 hits with a Pam build.
Yeah but its level 15. They kind of need that at like 7 or 8. I'd say they also need does force damage option or something for dealing with damage resistance but we don't know what monsters are getting in that regard.
that being said i think its a really cool first pass at a brawler subclass.
That is what improvised weapons are! Which is why they are fun.
Fun is fine for a one-shot, but in a campaign the fun will wear off and the being ineffective won't.
Brawler isn't an unarmed focused class, it is just an option, that mostly works well with grapple. unarmed attacks include headbuts, kicks etc. So you can grapple two enemies and still hit them, you can also punch and grab via grappler feat, or unarmed+shove with tavern brawler.
you do realize the lvl 15 feature gives you +5-6 damage per hit, a d12 on any two handed improvised, and allows you to use two masteries at the same time? That is actually quite bonkers. you can throw d12+12 rocks that cleave AND topple. You can make an improvised glaive that does d12+12. (and use pam)
as far as low level, it essentially gives you two more masteries.
also improvised weapons can have the stats of weapons they are similar to. So basically you can create custom weapons and carry them around, like a Vex longsword-alike.
also using weapons improperly = improvised weapon, so like a pommel hit Is an improvised club, which you can give sap vex or slow property.
the biggest problem imo is grappler does the level 10 feature but better, it should probably say you get the grappler feat, or another fest of your choice if you already have it.
that said, I don't think it fits the niche of monk, and I'm hoping they aren't thinking that monk getting a d12 instead of d10 is a great enough to make it viable. After all, This guy with no feats, synergies, or items is doing 4*(d12+12) baseline. And likely 5 hits with a Pam build.
Yeah but its level 15. They kind of need that at like 7 or 8. I'd say they also need does force damage option or something for dealing with damage resistance but we don't know what monsters are getting in that regard.
that being said i think its a really cool first pass at a brawler subclass.
there is no way they could give that power at 7, perhaps they could break up the effect or have it improve (though I'm not sure subclass features usually work that way). It needs some smoothing out though. it ain't perfect
I'd say they also need does force damage option or something for dealing with damage resistance but we don't know what monsters are getting in that regard.
No they don't b/c they are getting magic items that will do that just like regular fighters don't get any feature to overcome damage resistance, they rely on getting a magic weapon.
I'd say they also need does force damage option or something for dealing with damage resistance but we don't know what monsters are getting in that regard.
No they don't b/c they are getting magic items that will do that just like regular fighters don't get any feature to overcome damage resistance, they rely on getting a magic weapon.
"Rogue" is just a theme plus mechanics. From a mechanical standpoint, what do Rogues do? Well, they clearly benefit from having DEX-based skills. Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Acrobatics. What else is included in the Rogue kit? Cunning Action to get a free Disengage, Hide, or Dash with a B.Action. Plus Uncanny Dodge, Sneak Attack, Evasion, (skill) Expertise. These are all things that ninjas do. There is no reason you can't make the current Shadow Monk into a Shadow Rogue with pretty much the same abilities.
The main benefit of splitting current Monks into Fighter and Rogue subclasses is that players get to benefit from more HP and Action Surge (for the harder hitting builds) or from no-cost Dash, Disengage, Hide + Sneak Attack for subterfuge builds. So the people who want the current Monk to do more damage consistently are happier since they benefit from Fighter features while the people who want Monks to be more about sneaking around and learning secrets/stealing stuff (and care less about being tanking or attacking 3+ times per round) would be happier getting rid of the Ki cost built into the current Monk just to do Step of the Wind.
The current Monk has an identity crisis in large part b/c the devs wanted to split the difference by making the Monk a bit like a Rogue and a bit like a Fighter, tacking on this resource management thing called Ki, that NO other primary class uses. It's the MADness and Ki pool that makes Monks harder (not impossible, tho) to multi-class effectively. The people who want a tanky, direct-confrontation Monk would be happier with a more maneuverable Fighter, someone who can wear some armor and relies less on being MAD. The people who like playing assassin peek-a-boo with the Monk will also be happier since they can retain more Ki for Patient Defense and use ranged builds that don't care about a high WIS or a very high CON. If Fighters and Rogues also use Ki (or whatever they want to rename it to), then multiclassing becomes less of a lost opporunity in terms of Ki progression.
the flaw is you have less monk variation, and that the monk char concept doesnt lend itself well to these other classes. I actually play a monk class, like 7% of the dnd population and thats not what I am looking for.
Subclasses are exactly the same as main class with 3-4 features. That would be an inferior product for me. I don't want a fighter with 3 features out of monk.
there is nothing inherent to monks, or even the 5e monk playstyle that is broken. Its totally in the execution and its totally fixable in various ways, less drastic than destroying a class and its subclasses
You don't need to have less subclass variation as long as devs build more subclasses of Monkish Fighter and the Monkish Rogue. Right now you have several subclasses of Monk that are completely half-baked anyway b/c the devs don't understand that their own cultural upbringing prevents them from seeing that "Monk" is really just a variation of Fighter or a variation of Rogue. If we start from the standpoint that some Fighter subclasses will wear less armor, have more mobility, and build their Ki instead of weapon skills, you can easily get something like the 5e Monk, but with more hit points while also being less MAD. If we start from the view that some Rogue subclasses will have access to specific magic abilities inherently and sometimes hit more than once a round, you also get something like the 5e Monk, but with better skill progression and less reliance on being in melee range where that d8 hit dice leads to quick trip to unconsciousness/death. And being less reliant on melee attacks will make building a Rogue Monk easier b/c also less MAD.
After 70+ pages of arguments, debates and ideas being shared by a relatively small number of people if we can’t come to a consensus about how to fix the Monk I’m betting WotC won’t come to one either. We can’t agree on what a Monk should be and what play style they are suppose to represent, so how can WotC fix the Monk In a meaningful way to satisfy the vast majority. If these same arguments, debates and ideas were presented to a larger portion of the community we would just inspire more arguments, debates, and ideas instead of finding a happy middle ground.
Of course not. Game design cannot be done with hundreds of different viewpoints from hundreds of different people whom mostly don't know each other IRL. This is why political and economic negotiations are almost always done face-to-face (and with fewer # of people). Crowd-sourcing critique or bug hunting of something is often OK, but the creative process needed to actually build something new cannot be done by a bunch of widely dispersed people. The communication barriers are too high (can't see body language, no pre-established relationships or kinships) and there is too flimsy a common interest since nobody here is actually going to starve or get evicted for not finding an agreement on this hobbyist issue.
Really, the best we can hope for is that some of the ideas to improve the Monk either get picked up by someone on the dev team who bother to read this thread or realizes that culturally-based myopia is part of what prevents the Monk from being treated with equal respect to other martials classes and thereby rethink how they approach Monk design in future. That is all.
Based on what crawford said in the UA 7 video it sounds like perfect discipline (When you roll Initiative, you regain 4 expended Discipline Points if you have none remaining) is going to be moved to a much lower level. It wont initially restore as many ki points but it will scale.
This use to be the monk capstone, now going down to likely a 5th level or lower feature.
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Agreed. Its features are committed to making unarmed strikes and improvised weapons better, but those things start so far below normal weapons that the boosts only makes them slightly sub-par options. What's the point of a subclass if its whole thing simply deals worse damage than the thing everybody else (including you) can do?
I'd also like to say that, instead of giving improvised weapon-boosting magic items, it'd be cool to give Brawler a feature that gives a boost to non-weapon magic items based on their rarity. For example, slapping somebody around with a Bag of Holding, handbag-style, gets you a +1. Then again, maybe that's a bad idea, if the whole point of the subclass is using a new weapon for every battle.
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)
Just Reading over UA.......
quaterstaff now has the topple weapon mastery.
Excellent.
Lol, they completely cancelled FLEX.
That is what improvised weapons are! Which is why they are fun.
Want to smack someone with a frying pan? - brawler
Smash Alchemists Fire in someone's face? - brawler
Want to strangle them with a bag of holding? - brawler
Want to beat someone to death with an immovable rod? - brawler
Want to smash a table over someone's head? -brawler
Want to knock someone out with an Orb of Scrying? - brawler
Want to catch a sea serpent on the end of a grappling hook? - brawler
Want to cave someone's head in with your shield? - brawler
Predictable the "monk is fine " group already giving more excuses as to why we cant have good things. also people who actually like monk, brawler not going to cut it. they want be a monk . if you like brawler go for it.
Yes they did. But i will take it. And i am 50% sure that once the next UA comes out for monks they will change topple to something else. Just because its too powerful for monks.😅
Fun is fine for a one-shot, but in a campaign the fun will wear off and the being ineffective won't.
Perhaps you are right, this subclass will allow the monk to be apreciate as an unarmed warrior class that uses technique (DEX) more than brute force.
How is:
1d6 (enemy grappled) + [Adv]1d6+STR (One handed improvised weapon with Light Property with Vex) + [Adv] 1d8+STR (Two handed improvised weapon with Topple) + Proned enemy + [Adv]1d8+STR (Two handed improvised weapon with Cleave) + 1d8 (Cleave) + Grappled enemy (BA) + [Adv] 1d6+STR (Scimitar with Nick)
Expected Damage : 38.1 (and your target has disadvantage on all attack rolls and can't move)
in 1 turn at level 11 ineffective?
(It's way better than Monk's 27.3-30.9 DPR at the same level)
The new Lifedrinker invocation gives the warlock 3 attacks on the attack action at level 11. Pretty sweet. I wish the monk had that......
Looks like Warlock was shifted back to Short Rest dependent Pact Magic slots. Which means WoTC thinks it is ok for some classes to be wholly dependent on Short Rests.
LEVEL 2: MAGICAL CUNNING If all your Pact Magic spell slots are expended, you can perform an esoteric rite for 1 minute, at the end of which you regain half of those spell slots (round up). Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest.
This makes me worried WoTC will not fix Monk's Short Rest dependency. I was hoping each class would gain roughly the same amount of power (eg Channel Divinity) on a Short Rest, so that party composition would not feel so lopsided based on how often Rests occurred.
Brawler isn't an unarmed focused class, it is just an option, that mostly works well with grapple. unarmed attacks include headbuts, kicks etc. So you can grapple two enemies and still hit them, you can also punch and grab via grappler feat, or unarmed+shove with tavern brawler.
you do realize the lvl 15 feature gives you +5-6 damage per hit, a d12 on any two handed improvised, and allows you to use two masteries at the same time? That is actually quite bonkers. you can throw d12+12 rocks that cleave AND topple. You can make an improvised glaive that does d12+12. (and use pam)
as far as low level, it essentially gives you two more masteries.
also improvised weapons can have the stats of weapons they are similar to. So basically you can create custom weapons and carry them around, like a Vex longsword-alike.
also using weapons improperly = improvised weapon, so like a pommel hit Is an improvised club, which you can give sap vex or slow property.
the biggest problem imo is grappler does the level 10 feature but better, it should probably say you get the grappler feat, or another fest of your choice if you already have it.
that said, I don't think it fits the niche of monk, and I'm hoping they aren't thinking that monk getting a d12 instead of d10 is a great enough to make it viable. After all, This guy with no feats, synergies, or items is doing 4*(d12+12) baseline. And likely 5 hits with a Pam build.
I don't really want long rest monks, so I am happy with this.
not that monk's ki isnt an issue, but I don't want an LR solution.
Yeah but its level 15. They kind of need that at like 7 or 8. I'd say they also need does force damage option or something for dealing with damage resistance but we don't know what monsters are getting in that regard.
that being said i think its a really cool first pass at a brawler subclass.
there is no way they could give that power at 7, perhaps they could break up the effect or have it improve (though I'm not sure subclass features usually work that way). It needs some smoothing out though. it ain't perfect
We will see, when they come out what it handles.
You don't need to have less subclass variation as long as devs build more subclasses of Monkish Fighter and the Monkish Rogue. Right now you have several subclasses of Monk that are completely half-baked anyway b/c the devs don't understand that their own cultural upbringing prevents them from seeing that "Monk" is really just a variation of Fighter or a variation of Rogue. If we start from the standpoint that some Fighter subclasses will wear less armor, have more mobility, and build their Ki instead of weapon skills, you can easily get something like the 5e Monk, but with more hit points while also being less MAD. If we start from the view that some Rogue subclasses will have access to specific magic abilities inherently and sometimes hit more than once a round, you also get something like the 5e Monk, but with better skill progression and less reliance on being in melee range where that d8 hit dice leads to quick trip to unconsciousness/death. And being less reliant on melee attacks will make building a Rogue Monk easier b/c also less MAD.
Of course not. Game design cannot be done with hundreds of different viewpoints from hundreds of different people whom mostly don't know each other IRL. This is why political and economic negotiations are almost always done face-to-face (and with fewer # of people). Crowd-sourcing critique or bug hunting of something is often OK, but the creative process needed to actually build something new cannot be done by a bunch of widely dispersed people. The communication barriers are too high (can't see body language, no pre-established relationships or kinships) and there is too flimsy a common interest since nobody here is actually going to starve or get evicted for not finding an agreement on this hobbyist issue.
Really, the best we can hope for is that some of the ideas to improve the Monk either get picked up by someone on the dev team who bother to read this thread or realizes that culturally-based myopia is part of what prevents the Monk from being treated with equal respect to other martials classes and thereby rethink how they approach Monk design in future. That is all.
Based on what crawford said in the UA 7 video it sounds like perfect discipline (When you roll Initiative, you regain 4 expended Discipline Points if you have none remaining) is going to be moved to a much lower level. It wont initially restore as many ki points but it will scale.
This use to be the monk capstone, now going down to likely a 5th level or lower feature.