The Monk is an unarmed fighter, so use the Fighter template when building them.
A d10 Hit Dice, a Fighting Style (although different and set up to support unarmed fighting), Second Wind, Action Surge, two extra ASIs (so you can max dex and wis early), and two extra Extra Attacks. Then apply the Monk features on top of that.
That probably means ditching the free Bonus Action unarmed strike, and Flurry of Blows (which gets you to four attacks per round. If you're giving them four attacks per Attack action, then giving them free Bonus Action attacks is probably excessive. Maybe 1 BA attack at the cost of 1 Ki/Spirit/Discipline.
Punching things is all that Monks do. I seriously doubt being able to punch things five or six times at level 20 is going to create any problems.
Make Ki equal to Monk level + Dexterity modifier.
Disagree. Special points like this, like Sorcery Points, are set to match level. That's what makes sense IMO. However, I could see a Feat that grants you 2 extra points (just like a Sorcerer can take). 2 Ki/S/D and one or two special abilities (or enhancement to specific Monk abilities). Maybe +2 Ki and +1 or +2 to AC.
That is just a convention, and adding the dex modifier fixes the ki problem Monks actually have at low levels, while really making no difference at level 20 where the difference between 25 and 20 is quite academic. Monks can't afford feats. Even with two extra ASIs they'd still likely be maxing Dex and Wis for AC.
Make saving throws against Monk effects against their Dexterity modifier, not their Wisdom modifier.
Strongly disagree. You've basically made them parallel to a Fighter, the mystical Fighter subclasses that have DC's don't use STR or DEX (or even CON) for their DC. AA, EK, and PW both use INT. Keep the Monk's DC based on WIS, like it already is.
Yes. That's why Battlemaster works, and why Monk doesn't. That's why Battlemaster is the best Fighter subclass.
Step of the Wind doesn't require Ki.
Agnostic about this one. You've basically made Flurry of Blows free at high level. I don't think the Monk needs any breaks with regard to Ki costs.
Again, Monks punch things. If they're supposed to be a glass cannon then they have to actually be a cannon. Flurry of Blows gives them one extra unarmed attack over their normal unarmed strike. We're not seeing Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter/Archery Fighting Style/Hand Crossbow Battlemaster Fighter levels of power here.
They might as well just be a Fighter subclass at that point.
Also, I'm always going to refuse an offer to take Wisdom out of the Monk. At that point, it's a different class; Monks aren't just martial artists. I think a much better way to solve the MAD problem (and a very cool and thematic way, in my opinion) is to make it so that a Monk's hit points scale off of their Wisdom rather than their Constitution.
They could have always been a Fighter subclass.
A Paladin is a Holy fighter.
A Ranger is a Druid fighter.
A Monk is a fist fighter.
That comparison lacks parallelism.
A Paladin is a fighter whose paranormal ability comes from spiritual conviction, and therefore parallels the Cleric.
A Ranger is a fighter whose paranormal ability comes from nature, and therefore parallels the Druid.
A Monk is a fighter whose paranormal ability comes from their inner self. The class comparison that this most parallels is a Sorcerer, whose magic also comes from within themselves (in their heritage).
There has to come a point when you accept that no one complaining about the Monk wants the Monk to be "the Monk" instead of just "the Fighter but a Monk" or "the Barbarian but a Monk".
There has to come a point when you accept that no one person's opinion can be fully representative of an entire group's.
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)
There has to come a point when you accept that no one complaining about the Monk wants the Monk to be "the Monk" instead of just "the Fighter but a Monk" or "the Barbarian but a Monk". Most of those folks don't even play Monks; their opinions on Monks stem entirely from watching some dude on YouTube whine about hypothetical numbers in a featureless void and circumstances that don't account for 90% of any class's options, let alone the one they're so desperate to complain about. Their complaints about "optimization" inexplicably only pertain to the Monk and not any other class. "Multiple ability dependency" isn't a problem for any other class—heck, a subclass with mechanics effectively identical to a Monk's is considered OP in part due to said mechanics. Their issues with d8 hit dice aren't issues with any other class. Their issues with a limited resource aren't an issue even in comparison to classes whose resources are even more limited than the Monk's.
Well yes and no, there are fundamental problems with the core design of the monk and the easies t way for people to fix them is to compare them to other classes. For example some people will say switch to D10 for HP, some others will say allow some armor or shield, some say deflect melee attacks (I like that!), some say free disengage (by free some mean free of ki other free of bonus other say both).
Of course these all come by from comparing with other classes, and that is not bad, because we want some balance, but I agree with you, the Monk needs to have a role and theme and the rules should reflect that.
The core of the issue from reading the comparisons is that the monk need a defense option that does not requires resources and does not requires the bonus action. Like the AC or like the cunning action or like the Rage* of Barbarians, but a thematic defense non the less, that is why I love the deflect attack (melee) so much, because it uses the reaction instead of bonus, no Ki pts and we are familiar with deflect missiles.
That is why I think there are so many different ideas of the monk, because the problem is in the core design, ( D8/ Low AC/ Low Ki pts / Bonus action ) because you either attack or you survive, I think it would be cooler to have a free defense and expend resources for attack or utility, like most martial classes.
There has to come a point when you accept that no one complaining about the Monk wants the Monk to be "the Monk" instead of just "the Fighter but a Monk" or "the Barbarian but a Monk". Most of those folks don't even play Monks; their opinions on Monks stem entirely from watching some dude on YouTube whine about hypothetical numbers in a featureless void and circumstances that don't account for 90% of any class's options, let alone the one they're so desperate to complain about. Their complaints about "optimization" inexplicably only pertain to the Monk and not any other class. "Multiple ability dependency" isn't a problem for any other class—heck, a subclass with mechanics effectively identical to a Monk's is considered OP in part due to said mechanics. Their issues with d8 hit dice aren't issues with any other class. Their issues with a limited resource aren't an issue even in comparison to classes whose resources are even more limited than the Monk's.
Well I already played a monk, and concerning this new version, I'd change:
- Make the weapons matter up to a certain level. MA also gets advantage for using weapons, up to when you are a real MA master (MA damage die high), then you can use only your bare hands. So the monk should get 1-2 martial weapons every X levels (starting at 1), and a fighting style at level 1.
- Low HP and low AC, this needs some fix:
1) Increase AC in some another way for unarmored defense instead using Wis, because then you are only allowed to make plain monks, using all their feats to increase Dex and Wis. Boring and not allowing different play styles. Maybe using the proficiency bonus for your monk level (to avoid dip)? Focus the Wis for monk abilities only so the player can choose.
2) Allow to use Str bonus to reduce the damage taken while unarmored. So the Str could have some use for the monk aside the Str checks. This compensates the lower HP die but at the cost of ability score points. This also allows Str based monks, which are made more to resist damage instead evading. This maybe needs some more work to avoid dip, so something Str based on monk level instead. Could be some skill that using 1 Ki point grants this for 1 minute, so the monk level matters.
An interesting combo of prior could be unarmored defense: AC = higher of Dex/Wis bonus + proficiency bonus of your monk level.
- Needs some more Ki points, but only really for lower levels, so it could get about 2 + monk level.
- Deflect attack is good in some cases, but useless in many when receiving multiple attacks as we have only 1 reaction. So another usage for it could be use your reaction to add "something" to your AC until the start of your next turn, instead returning a single one.
That is why I think there are so many different ideas of the monk, because the problem is in the core design, ( D8/ Low AC/ Low Ki pts / Bonus action ) because you either attack or you survive, I think it would be cooler to have a free defense and expend resources for attack or utility, like most martial classes.
I disagree, the reason there are so many different ideas for monk is because there are multiple conflicting visions of the Monk which are evident in this thread.
Some see the monk as "a fist fighter" and want it to be little more than an unarmed Fighter, they want the option to use armour (historical samurai wore armour), d10 hit die, ability to focus on STR and CON rather than DEX and WIS, and lots of unarmed attacks. They want to play the Monk like a Fighter/Barbarian - standing next to enemies in melee and just punching them and getting hit back.
Some see the monk as a mystical being and want it to be completely different from other martial classes, they want it to be required to have good WIS, be unarmoured, and have abilities to enhance mobility and ability to afflict conditions on enemies (more ki, more ways to use monk abilities without spending ki, an for monk abilities to be less situational). They want to play Monk as a versatile strategic martial - running in and out of combat targeting high priority enemies, just generally being able to get to the right place at the right time and with the right feature for that situation.
Some see the monk as a universal unarmed class and want it to be flexible to be played as a wrestler, a tavern brawler, a warrior/fighter, a melee-tank, a dex-based ranger-y skirmisher, a Wis-based half-caster, and more... they want all monk features to be ability score agnostic, ability to grapple with DEX or STR, either to be less MAD or get more ASIs so they can take more feats, and no reliance on ki.
In correction. I want the Monk to be a lot more than an unarmed Fighter, but I want it to be at least as good as a Fighter.
The basic Monk, without expending ki, at level 1 (assuming we use three +1s and the 8/15/15/8/15/8 points buy) has two attacks at +5 to hit doing d6+3 damage, 11HP, and AC16.
A Fighter, with the same stat choices, can have 16/16/16/8/8/8. To give a "similar" effect to the Monk, take scale mail for 16AC, the two-weapon fighting fighting style, and a scimitar and shortsword with the "nick" and "vex" weapon masteries. In this combination the Fighter has two attacks, at +5 to hit, doing d6+3 damage, 13HP, and AC16. The weapon masteries give the Fighter a bit of an advantage.
The Monk can use hand axes (which is great for IP Man fans) for the vex weapon mastery, but quarterstaff and spear's flex doesn't really matter since the Monk would be using their weapon two-handed anyway since they don't need a free had for their bonus attack. It depends on whether you think the advantage on your bonus attack is better or worse than the d8 dice on your spear/quarterstaff.
Monk does get the option of being stealthy with 16AC, whereas Fighter has disadvantage on stealth checks until he can afford a breastplate.
I'm willing to agree that at level 1 the Monk and Fighter are on par with each other, but Fighter has a lot more options for hitting people going forwards.
In correction. I want the Monk to be a lot more than an unarmed Fighter, but I want it to be at least as good as a Fighter.
A monk is not a fighter so a Monk should not be as good as a fighter at doing fighter things otherwise there would be no point playing a fighter. Just as a fighter is not a monk so a fighter should not be as good as a monk at doing monk things. The 'problem' is that a large portion of the people in this thread don't believe a monk has monk-things therefore the monk can only be good if it as good as a fighter since the only things it does are fighter-things, and thus they will never be happy because fighters and monks cannot both simultaneously be the best at doing fighter-things.
PS to clarify, by "fighter-things" I mean: being a martial character that attacks many times while standing still either in melee or at ranged while surviving getting hit by the enemy without using resource. Whether you use a sword, a mace, or a fist to do that doesn't really matter, because flavour is free. You could reflabour a mace as brass knuckles and use a standard fighter to be a punchy brawler no problem.
The comparison of a Monk to a Fighter is about balance. Both are in the Warrior category. Comparing them at level 1 in terms of damage (Monk deals slightly more) and survivability (Fighter survives significantly more) is appropriate. Later Level comparisons are more difficult to make.
The comparison of a Monk to a Fighter is about balance. Both are in the Warrior category. Comparing them at level 1 in terms of damage (Monk deals slightly more) and survivability (Fighter survives significantly more) is appropriate. Later Level comparisons are more difficult to make.
It's still silly. Just look at the Barbarian vs Fighter comparison:
Fighter is fundamentally broken! They have low HP (d10 vs d12) and Barbarian is incentivized to invest more in CON because they get Reckless attack which means they don't need as high a STR as Fighter. They have mediocre AC, Barbarian gets Medium armour and shields so can get AC 19 vs a Fighter's AC 20. But most importantly they have NO damage resistance. This means the Barbarian gets to double their hp which is already higher than the Fighter.
Fighter gets hardly any abilities and they are incredibly limited use compared to the Barbarian. A barbarian gets all the bonuses of their rage for a full minute, whereas Fighters only get 1 Second Wind and only 1 Action Surge and then they have nothing to do for the rest of combat. Even at higher levels they only get a couple of uses of Indomitable for a whole day. Whereas the Barbarian gets Advantage on Dex saves at will from level 3. Plus their damage lags behind, Barbarians get just as many attacks as the Fighter until level 11 and they deal more damage on each hit, plus they can have advantage at will - whereas only the Samurai fighter can do that and they get it for 3 rounds per day.
Barbarians deal more damage than Fighters and are more than twice as good at taking hits, Fighter needs to have a d12 hit die at least, and some way to get damage resistances or they just can't survive in melee....
The the problem with trying to use reductio ad absurdum to make a point, is that you actually have to make a valid comparison.
We can easily point to the relevant strengths and weaknesses of Fighter and Barbarian, and show that they do similar things in different ways.
The Monk is presented as a Warrior, therefore it is in a straight comparison with Fighter and Barbarian, and to a lesser extent Paladin and Ranger.
What does it bring to the party?
Is it damage? If you expend resources on Flurry of Blows yes, the Monk can bring some damage. However without Flurry it's not significantly better than dual-wielding Fighter, which is not generally considered an optimized Fighter. Also, Monk is the only Warrior that has no (zip/zero/nada) martial weapon proficiencies. That means it cannot use any of the Warrior feats with martial weapon proficiency as a prerequisite. The Nick property means that you could get two/three attacks without using your bonus action, which I assume can still be Flurry of Blows or your bonus action unarmed attack, but that limits you to a d4 weapon and a maximum of d6 on the other.
However the dedicated martials have the ability to increase damage. Barbarians with Rage. Fighters with even more attacks. Paladins with Smite. Rangers with Hunter's Mark.
Is it mobility? Monks do get decent movement, and by expending resources they can disengage and dash as a bonus action. However it's rare you'll want to do both, and Rogues can do one or the other for free. It's why I regard two levels of Rogue as beneficial for Monk. In combat they can run around like a dervish, but how often do players actually need that? It's generally better to stick together for mutual support and concentration of fire.
Is it defense? If they expend a resource they can dodge as a bonus action. However they still have fairly mediocre AC. Sure, at start they can have 16AC, but that will increase slowly. 17AC at level 4, 18AC at level 8, 19AC at level 12. The moment another Warrior can hook themselves up with 750GP for Half Plate they can have 17AC base, or 200GP for Splint. Higher if they take the Defensive fighting style. Magic armors will come up later in the game, but you need specific upgrades to benefit Monks.
Stunning Strike is a good feature, but it targets a save that is usually pretty good on enemies you'd actually want to stun (if they're not immune to stun completely), and now you can only try it once per turn, and it ends at the start of your next turn so you can't benefit from it on your next turn.
As long as the ki holds out (and their bonus actions) Monks can be damaging, mobile, and somewhat defensive, but they cannot do them all at once. Moreover once the ki runs out, and at lower levels it will run out, they become a significantly less capable Fighter.
It's not that Monks can't do Monk things. It's that most of the time the Monk things aren't worth doing.
Stunning Strike is a good feature, but it targets a save that is usually pretty good on enemies you'd actually want to stun (if they're not immune to stun completely)
This tells me you haven't actually played a Monk as there are only 30 monsters in the entire game (other than swarms) that are immune to stun, and of them only 14 are of CR < 18 thus likely to be encountered in a typical campaign. In comparison 174 are immune to petrification and 214 are immune to paralysis.
It's not that Monks can't do Monk things. It's that most of the time the Monk things aren't worth doing.
If that is your conclusion then there is no "fix" and Monk should simply be scrapped entirely. Just play a Barbarian or Fighter instead.
Stunning strike is a common save, though there's plenty of glass cannon monsters like a mage or archmage that are both desirable to stun and not particularly resistant to it, but the key thing that makes stunning strike good is that it doesn't take an action. You just do what you were already going to do (hit the monster), spend a discipline point, and force a save. It's a decent use of a discipline point unless your chance of success is under around 25%, and there aren't that many monsters where that's true.
Another perk of Stunning Strike is that's it's a very low cost way to attempt to make the enemy burn a Legendary Resistance. A stunned boss will lose a full turn of regular, legendary, and lair actions if applicable and be wide open for damage. And the attempt is on top of everything else you do that turn. Honestly, if you assigned that to attack stat DC, it could start to verge on broken in the other direction.
Brokenness is why it's once per turn now. Sure, the 2014 version isn't that crazy at low levels, but at higher levels stun locking bosses becomes a thing.
However the dedicated martials have the ability to increase damage. Barbarians with Rage. Fighters with even more attacks. Paladins with Smite. Rangers with Hunter's Mark.
...and Monks have their bonus unarmed attack and Flurry of Blows.
Just to point out how bothering with the Monk hate-train is completely pointless, because they refuse to acknowledge even the simplest things.
Actually the paragraph right before your quote they specifically mention FoB.
Not saying they are completely correct but they did acknowledge that simplest thing.
Another perk of Stunning Strike is that's it's a very low cost way to attempt to make the enemy burn a Legendary Resistance. A stunned boss will lose a full turn of regular, legendary, and lair actions if applicable and be wide open for damage. And the attempt is on top of everything else you do that turn. Honestly, if you assigned that to attack stat DC, it could start to verge on broken in the other direction.
We are in a game where Wizards of the Coast created the College of Dance Bard, which does at least some of the things Monk does, while being a Full Caster with access to every spell list.
Frankly, we need to stop worrying about Monk being "balanced". They are balanced. That's why they're the weakest class.
I want to make them totally broken, and then, if necessary, we can pull them back from there.
WotC have not been playing fair. The only criteria they appear to care about is damage output (and Stunning Strike) when a Wizard can shut down an entire encounter with one spell. To balance martials and casters we have the choice of nerfing casters, which nobody wants, or breaking martials, which I'm okay with.
Frankly, we need to stop worrying about Monk being "balanced". They are balanced. That's why they're the weakest class.
I want to make them totally broken, and then, if necessary, we can pull them back from there.
WotC have not been playing fair. The only criteria they appear to care about is damage output (and Stunning Strike) when a Wizard can shut down an entire encounter with one spell. To balance martials and casters we have the choice of nerfing casters, which nobody wants, or breaking martials, which I'm okay with.
And here we have the crux of the manner. It's not "Monks are bad in regular play", it's that "optimizers" who go out of their way to exploit game mechanics and elements in pursuit of being "overpowered" can't do so (as easily) with the Monk so they assume Monks are useless.
I sort of agree. Optimizers do tend to look down on monks, but even Treantmonk, in one of his “monks suck” videos does say at a non-optimized table their fine.
And in the playtest release video, Jeremy Crawford acknowledges that monks weren’t keeping up so that’s why they upped the MA die.
So this was a step forward. But the problem is in this UA a bunch of classes have made one, two, three steps forward so monks are still behind.
It’s not that monks are bad in play. It’s that they lag behind in certain areas that many of us would like to see addressed.
Edit: for example, Heightened Metabolism is a nice feature. But should be part of Martial Discipline at level 2. It auto-scales as your DP go up. And Tier 1 is where monks need it most. Even if they changed it to only regain DP so multiclassing isn’t affected (1 minute Action Surge refresh).
I would also like to see simple weapons get MA die progression. Even if it’s just on the Monk table and is one die behind Unarmed Strikes. This way a player who want to play a club wielding (tonfa flavored) monk their whole career they can, but unarmed still hits harder (weapons det masteries but I don’t think they make up for all the lost MA die damage)
I don’t think monks need d10 hit die or armor. An AC calculation 13+DEX+WIS would be fine with me (or start at 12) Or just have a base start score on the monk table plus DEX only. start at 13 and work up to 16 at 5, 11, 17
Frankly, we need to stop worrying about Monk being "balanced". They are balanced. That's why they're the weakest class.
I want to make them totally broken, and then, if necessary, we can pull them back from there.
WotC have not been playing fair. The only criteria they appear to care about is damage output (and Stunning Strike) when a Wizard can shut down an entire encounter with one spell. To balance martials and casters we have the choice of nerfing casters, which nobody wants, or breaking martials, which I'm okay with.
And here we have the crux of the manner. It's not "Monks are bad in regular play", it's that "optimizers" who go out of their way to exploit game mechanics and elements in pursuit of being "overpowered" can't do so (as easily) with the Monk so they assume Monks are useless.
I think you are misinterpreting what they meant by balanced. They said they are the weakest class as well. I think they are saying in a vacuum while not comparing them to other classes but some vague hey can they do something in the encounter without breaking it they are balanced. Given his example he isn't even talking about optimizers unless casting hypnotic pattern is some weird rare optimization build instead of just a normal spell people cast.
So yes, sure at a table where no one cares about balance a unbalanced monk can get by fine. But, I've rarely come across a table where everyone is on the same exact page about optimization. And its not like you have to do some crazy treantmonk build to out optimize a monk, you are just taking obvious feats like charger, some kind of weapon feat like heavy weapon, sharpshooter etc. You don't have to quadruple class or anything.
Stunning strike is a common save, though there's plenty of glass cannon monsters like a mage or archmage that are both desirable to stun and not particularly resistant to it, but the key thing that makes stunning strike good is that it doesn't take an action. You just do what you were already going to do (hit the monster), spend a discipline point, and force a save. It's a decent use of a discipline point unless your chance of success is under around 25%, and there aren't that many monsters where that's true.
I guess. But a battlemasters abilities work the same, spells are frequently save with some kind of rider if they succeed. Here your normal thing is hitting for meh damage. Until 7th level you will be really short on the points so even if your odds are 50/50 its a hard sell as you may need it later for something else.
As for the brokeness they fixed mentioned a few posts down, I mean sort of. With the 2014 monk after 3-4 rounds a boss might get stunned, and at least it removed their legendary saves. But the boss is also probably down to like 50 hit points by now anyways. Which I'm willing to go with is a problem at the apparently legion one encounter per day tables. So, yeah sure remove the per attack and make it per turn or something. But at least change it to a wisdom save or something. Especially with the reduced duration where the monk themself wont be benefiting as much from it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Punching things is all that Monks do. I seriously doubt being able to punch things five or six times at level 20 is going to create any problems.
That is just a convention, and adding the dex modifier fixes the ki problem Monks actually have at low levels, while really making no difference at level 20 where the difference between 25 and 20 is quite academic. Monks can't afford feats. Even with two extra ASIs they'd still likely be maxing Dex and Wis for AC.
Yes. That's why Battlemaster works, and why Monk doesn't. That's why Battlemaster is the best Fighter subclass.
Again, Monks punch things. If they're supposed to be a glass cannon then they have to actually be a cannon. Flurry of Blows gives them one extra unarmed attack over their normal unarmed strike. We're not seeing Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter/Archery Fighting Style/Hand Crossbow Battlemaster Fighter levels of power here.
That comparison lacks parallelism.
A Paladin is a fighter whose paranormal ability comes from spiritual conviction, and therefore parallels the Cleric.
A Ranger is a fighter whose paranormal ability comes from nature, and therefore parallels the Druid.
A Monk is a fighter whose paranormal ability comes from their inner self. The class comparison that this most parallels is a Sorcerer, whose magic also comes from within themselves (in their heritage).
There has to come a point when you accept that no one person's opinion can be fully representative of an entire group's.
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)
Well yes and no, there are fundamental problems with the core design of the monk and the easies t way for people to fix them is to compare them to other classes. For example some people will say switch to D10 for HP, some others will say allow some armor or shield, some say deflect melee attacks (I like that!), some say free disengage (by free some mean free of ki other free of bonus other say both).
Of course these all come by from comparing with other classes, and that is not bad, because we want some balance, but I agree with you, the Monk needs to have a role and theme and the rules should reflect that.
The core of the issue from reading the comparisons is that the monk need a defense option that does not requires resources and does not requires the bonus action. Like the AC or like the cunning action or like the Rage* of Barbarians, but a thematic defense non the less, that is why I love the deflect attack (melee) so much, because it uses the reaction instead of bonus, no Ki pts and we are familiar with deflect missiles.
That is why I think there are so many different ideas of the monk, because the problem is in the core design, ( D8/ Low AC/ Low Ki pts / Bonus action ) because you either attack or you survive, I think it would be cooler to have a free defense and expend resources for attack or utility, like most martial classes.
* Rage takes only one bonus/10 rounds.
Well I already played a monk, and concerning this new version, I'd change:
- Make the weapons matter up to a certain level. MA also gets advantage for using weapons, up to when you are a real MA master (MA damage die high), then you can use only your bare hands. So the monk should get 1-2 martial weapons every X levels (starting at 1), and a fighting style at level 1.
- Low HP and low AC, this needs some fix:
1) Increase AC in some another way for unarmored defense instead using Wis, because then you are only allowed to make plain monks, using all their feats to increase Dex and Wis. Boring and not allowing different play styles. Maybe using the proficiency bonus for your monk level (to avoid dip)? Focus the Wis for monk abilities only so the player can choose.
2) Allow to use Str bonus to reduce the damage taken while unarmored. So the Str could have some use for the monk aside the Str checks. This compensates the lower HP die but at the cost of ability score points. This also allows Str based monks, which are made more to resist damage instead evading. This maybe needs some more work to avoid dip, so something Str based on monk level instead. Could be some skill that using 1 Ki point grants this for 1 minute, so the monk level matters.
An interesting combo of prior could be unarmored defense: AC = higher of Dex/Wis bonus + proficiency bonus of your monk level.
- Needs some more Ki points, but only really for lower levels, so it could get about 2 + monk level.
- Deflect attack is good in some cases, but useless in many when receiving multiple attacks as we have only 1 reaction. So another usage for it could be use your reaction to add "something" to your AC until the start of your next turn, instead returning a single one.
I disagree, the reason there are so many different ideas for monk is because there are multiple conflicting visions of the Monk which are evident in this thread.
Some see the monk as "a fist fighter" and want it to be little more than an unarmed Fighter, they want the option to use armour (historical samurai wore armour), d10 hit die, ability to focus on STR and CON rather than DEX and WIS, and lots of unarmed attacks. They want to play the Monk like a Fighter/Barbarian - standing next to enemies in melee and just punching them and getting hit back.
Some see the monk as a mystical being and want it to be completely different from other martial classes, they want it to be required to have good WIS, be unarmoured, and have abilities to enhance mobility and ability to afflict conditions on enemies (more ki, more ways to use monk abilities without spending ki, an for monk abilities to be less situational). They want to play Monk as a versatile strategic martial - running in and out of combat targeting high priority enemies, just generally being able to get to the right place at the right time and with the right feature for that situation.
Some see the monk as a universal unarmed class and want it to be flexible to be played as a wrestler, a tavern brawler, a warrior/fighter, a melee-tank, a dex-based ranger-y skirmisher, a Wis-based half-caster, and more... they want all monk features to be ability score agnostic, ability to grapple with DEX or STR, either to be less MAD or get more ASIs so they can take more feats, and no reliance on ki.
In correction. I want the Monk to be a lot more than an unarmed Fighter, but I want it to be at least as good as a Fighter.
The basic Monk, without expending ki, at level 1 (assuming we use three +1s and the 8/15/15/8/15/8 points buy) has two attacks at +5 to hit doing d6+3 damage, 11HP, and AC16.
A Fighter, with the same stat choices, can have 16/16/16/8/8/8. To give a "similar" effect to the Monk, take scale mail for 16AC, the two-weapon fighting fighting style, and a scimitar and shortsword with the "nick" and "vex" weapon masteries. In this combination the Fighter has two attacks, at +5 to hit, doing d6+3 damage, 13HP, and AC16. The weapon masteries give the Fighter a bit of an advantage.
The Monk can use hand axes (which is great for IP Man fans) for the vex weapon mastery, but quarterstaff and spear's flex doesn't really matter since the Monk would be using their weapon two-handed anyway since they don't need a free had for their bonus attack. It depends on whether you think the advantage on your bonus attack is better or worse than the d8 dice on your spear/quarterstaff.
Monk does get the option of being stealthy with 16AC, whereas Fighter has disadvantage on stealth checks until he can afford a breastplate.
I'm willing to agree that at level 1 the Monk and Fighter are on par with each other, but Fighter has a lot more options for hitting people going forwards.
A monk is not a fighter so a Monk should not be as good as a fighter at doing fighter things otherwise there would be no point playing a fighter. Just as a fighter is not a monk so a fighter should not be as good as a monk at doing monk things. The 'problem' is that a large portion of the people in this thread don't believe a monk has monk-things therefore the monk can only be good if it as good as a fighter since the only things it does are fighter-things, and thus they will never be happy because fighters and monks cannot both simultaneously be the best at doing fighter-things.
PS to clarify, by "fighter-things" I mean: being a martial character that attacks many times while standing still either in melee or at ranged while surviving getting hit by the enemy without using resource. Whether you use a sword, a mace, or a fist to do that doesn't really matter, because flavour is free. You could reflabour a mace as brass knuckles and use a standard fighter to be a punchy brawler no problem.
The comparison of a Monk to a Fighter is about balance. Both are in the Warrior category. Comparing them at level 1 in terms of damage (Monk deals slightly more) and survivability (Fighter survives significantly more) is appropriate. Later Level comparisons are more difficult to make.
It's still silly. Just look at the Barbarian vs Fighter comparison:
Fighter is fundamentally broken! They have low HP (d10 vs d12) and Barbarian is incentivized to invest more in CON because they get Reckless attack which means they don't need as high a STR as Fighter. They have mediocre AC, Barbarian gets Medium armour and shields so can get AC 19 vs a Fighter's AC 20. But most importantly they have NO damage resistance. This means the Barbarian gets to double their hp which is already higher than the Fighter.
Fighter gets hardly any abilities and they are incredibly limited use compared to the Barbarian. A barbarian gets all the bonuses of their rage for a full minute, whereas Fighters only get 1 Second Wind and only 1 Action Surge and then they have nothing to do for the rest of combat. Even at higher levels they only get a couple of uses of Indomitable for a whole day. Whereas the Barbarian gets Advantage on Dex saves at will from level 3. Plus their damage lags behind, Barbarians get just as many attacks as the Fighter until level 11 and they deal more damage on each hit, plus they can have advantage at will - whereas only the Samurai fighter can do that and they get it for 3 rounds per day.
Barbarians deal more damage than Fighters and are more than twice as good at taking hits, Fighter needs to have a d12 hit die at least, and some way to get damage resistances or they just can't survive in melee....
etc... etc... I think you get the point.
No.
The the problem with trying to use reductio ad absurdum to make a point, is that you actually have to make a valid comparison.
We can easily point to the relevant strengths and weaknesses of Fighter and Barbarian, and show that they do similar things in different ways.
The Monk is presented as a Warrior, therefore it is in a straight comparison with Fighter and Barbarian, and to a lesser extent Paladin and Ranger.
What does it bring to the party?
Is it damage? If you expend resources on Flurry of Blows yes, the Monk can bring some damage. However without Flurry it's not significantly better than dual-wielding Fighter, which is not generally considered an optimized Fighter. Also, Monk is the only Warrior that has no (zip/zero/nada) martial weapon proficiencies. That means it cannot use any of the Warrior feats with martial weapon proficiency as a prerequisite. The Nick property means that you could get two/three attacks without using your bonus action, which I assume can still be Flurry of Blows or your bonus action unarmed attack, but that limits you to a d4 weapon and a maximum of d6 on the other.
However the dedicated martials have the ability to increase damage. Barbarians with Rage. Fighters with even more attacks. Paladins with Smite. Rangers with Hunter's Mark.
Is it mobility? Monks do get decent movement, and by expending resources they can disengage and dash as a bonus action. However it's rare you'll want to do both, and Rogues can do one or the other for free. It's why I regard two levels of Rogue as beneficial for Monk. In combat they can run around like a dervish, but how often do players actually need that? It's generally better to stick together for mutual support and concentration of fire.
Is it defense? If they expend a resource they can dodge as a bonus action. However they still have fairly mediocre AC. Sure, at start they can have 16AC, but that will increase slowly. 17AC at level 4, 18AC at level 8, 19AC at level 12. The moment another Warrior can hook themselves up with 750GP for Half Plate they can have 17AC base, or 200GP for Splint. Higher if they take the Defensive fighting style. Magic armors will come up later in the game, but you need specific upgrades to benefit Monks.
Stunning Strike is a good feature, but it targets a save that is usually pretty good on enemies you'd actually want to stun (if they're not immune to stun completely), and now you can only try it once per turn, and it ends at the start of your next turn so you can't benefit from it on your next turn.
As long as the ki holds out (and their bonus actions) Monks can be damaging, mobile, and somewhat defensive, but they cannot do them all at once. Moreover once the ki runs out, and at lower levels it will run out, they become a significantly less capable Fighter.
It's not that Monks can't do Monk things. It's that most of the time the Monk things aren't worth doing.
This tells me you haven't actually played a Monk as there are only 30 monsters in the entire game (other than swarms) that are immune to stun, and of them only 14 are of CR < 18 thus likely to be encountered in a typical campaign. In comparison 174 are immune to petrification and 214 are immune to paralysis.
If that is your conclusion then there is no "fix" and Monk should simply be scrapped entirely. Just play a Barbarian or Fighter instead.
Stunning strike is a common save, though there's plenty of glass cannon monsters like a mage or archmage that are both desirable to stun and not particularly resistant to it, but the key thing that makes stunning strike good is that it doesn't take an action. You just do what you were already going to do (hit the monster), spend a discipline point, and force a save. It's a decent use of a discipline point unless your chance of success is under around 25%, and there aren't that many monsters where that's true.
Another perk of Stunning Strike is that's it's a very low cost way to attempt to make the enemy burn a Legendary Resistance. A stunned boss will lose a full turn of regular, legendary, and lair actions if applicable and be wide open for damage. And the attempt is on top of everything else you do that turn. Honestly, if you assigned that to attack stat DC, it could start to verge on broken in the other direction.
Brokenness is why it's once per turn now. Sure, the 2014 version isn't that crazy at low levels, but at higher levels stun locking bosses becomes a thing.
Actually the paragraph right before your quote they specifically mention FoB.
Not saying they are completely correct but they did acknowledge that simplest thing.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
We are in a game where Wizards of the Coast created the College of Dance Bard, which does at least some of the things Monk does, while being a Full Caster with access to every spell list.
Frankly, we need to stop worrying about Monk being "balanced". They are balanced. That's why they're the weakest class.
I want to make them totally broken, and then, if necessary, we can pull them back from there.
WotC have not been playing fair. The only criteria they appear to care about is damage output (and Stunning Strike) when a Wizard can shut down an entire encounter with one spell. To balance martials and casters we have the choice of nerfing casters, which nobody wants, or breaking martials, which I'm okay with.
I sort of agree. Optimizers do tend to look down on monks, but even Treantmonk, in one of his “monks suck” videos does say at a non-optimized table their fine.
And in the playtest release video, Jeremy Crawford acknowledges that monks weren’t keeping up so that’s why they upped the MA die.
So this was a step forward. But the problem is in this UA a bunch of classes have made one, two, three steps forward so monks are still behind.
It’s not that monks are bad in play. It’s that they lag behind in certain areas that many of us would like to see addressed.
Edit: for example, Heightened Metabolism is a nice feature. But should be part of Martial Discipline at level 2. It auto-scales as your DP go up. And Tier 1 is where monks need it most. Even if they changed it to only regain DP so multiclassing isn’t affected (1 minute Action Surge refresh).
I would also like to see simple weapons get MA die progression. Even if it’s just on the Monk table and is one die behind Unarmed Strikes. This way a player who want to play a club wielding (tonfa flavored) monk their whole career they can, but unarmed still hits harder (weapons det masteries but I don’t think they make up for all the lost MA die damage)
I don’t think monks need d10 hit die or armor. An AC calculation 13+DEX+WIS would be fine with me (or start at 12) Or just have a base start score on the monk table plus DEX only. start at 13 and work up to 16 at 5, 11, 17
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I think you are misinterpreting what they meant by balanced. They said they are the weakest class as well. I think they are saying in a vacuum while not comparing them to other classes but some vague hey can they do something in the encounter without breaking it they are balanced. Given his example he isn't even talking about optimizers unless casting hypnotic pattern is some weird rare optimization build instead of just a normal spell people cast.
So yes, sure at a table where no one cares about balance a unbalanced monk can get by fine. But, I've rarely come across a table where everyone is on the same exact page about optimization. And its not like you have to do some crazy treantmonk build to out optimize a monk, you are just taking obvious feats like charger, some kind of weapon feat like heavy weapon, sharpshooter etc. You don't have to quadruple class or anything.
I guess. But a battlemasters abilities work the same, spells are frequently save with some kind of rider if they succeed. Here your normal thing is hitting for meh damage. Until 7th level you will be really short on the points so even if your odds are 50/50 its a hard sell as you may need it later for something else.
As for the brokeness they fixed mentioned a few posts down, I mean sort of. With the 2014 monk after 3-4 rounds a boss might get stunned, and at least it removed their legendary saves. But the boss is also probably down to like 50 hit points by now anyways. Which I'm willing to go with is a problem at the apparently legion one encounter per day tables. So, yeah sure remove the per attack and make it per turn or something. But at least change it to a wisdom save or something. Especially with the reduced duration where the monk themself wont be benefiting as much from it.