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.
Make Ki equal to Monk level + Dexterity modifier.
Make saving throws against Monk effects against their Dexterity modifier, not their Wisdom modifier.
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.
Make Ki equal to Monk level + Dexterity modifier.
Make saving throws against Monk effects against their Dexterity modifier, not their Wisdom modifier.
Step of the Wind doesn't require Ki.
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.
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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 wouldn't mind the ki on step of the wind if it did not cost an action of any type. If you could run 40+ feet through a field of enemies while punching 4 of them that would be pretty cool. Especially if you could do something like move through enemy squares. Or have it at default cost a bonus action but no ki, and you could spend the ki so it did not cost the bonus action
But yes, the fundamentals of the class need to be fixed. The big first step is to make them SAD.
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.
Make Ki equal to Monk level + Dexterity modifier.
Make saving throws against Monk effects against their Dexterity modifier, not their Wisdom modifier.
Step of the Wind doesn't require Ki.
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 do the warlock and give players choices. AC is 10+3(+1 every 5 levels)+dex or wisdom, attack rolls are either based on dex or wisdom, save DCs are set by either dex or wisdom. Crap throw strength in as well for those people who want strength monks. Maybe have the option tied to some small perks, wisdom is a soft style with some kind of healing touch, dex is like nerve strike style, strength is beat you down style.
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.
Make Ki equal to Monk level + Dexterity modifier.
Make saving throws against Monk effects against their Dexterity modifier, not their Wisdom modifier.
Step of the Wind doesn't require Ki.
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.
I had never considered that using wisdom to scale hp bonus. Though it would be odd it would also be kinda awesome. If that was something they would consider (which for streamlining rules they might not like an outlier) it would make the d8 hit dice not so painfully mediocre.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Honestly the point about d8 Hit Die is way overblown imo; you're averaging 1 HP less per level if you roll, or exactly that much if you take fixed. It's not actually a massive difference. CON modifier is what makes a notable difference on HP, and- using the wildcard race/background ASI- without taking any dump stats you can get a +1 in CON while still having +3 in both DEX and WIS for 16 AC; if you dump CHA or INT to 8 you can make that a +2. For as much fuss as people make about Monk being MAD, it's not like you can't put together an effective ability spread. You can't go wide on bonus mods, but that's not massively relevant for a purely martial class in the first place, and Monk will still end up in a better position save-wise than Fighter or Barbarian, ultimately.
It's not just physical perfection though, that's the point. It's about physical and spiritual harmony; that's why they're DEX based instead of STR based- they're not spending all their time working out to get ripped, they're drilling in their katas in between sessions of meditation or other mental/spiritual exercises.
Making Monk need both Dex and Wis wouldn't be so bad if they got an extra ASI to keep them both up. Even Rogue got to keep theirs, and they don't even need it to be good anymore!
Physical perfection wouldn't be "tanking hits more often", it'd be "avoiding taking the hits in the first place".
You mean that thing that hit points also represent?
It really doesn't make sense that Monks have the same hit die as Warlocks, especially considering how strictly melee they are.
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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 don't object to the concept in principle, but looking at their feature distribution it's a little tricky to find a good place for it; they have a subclass feature at 6th, Evasion and bottled Short Rest at 7th, the ability to run along water or up walls at 9th, and free condition removal at 10th. If we assume WotC has ASI's being the only feature to come online at a given level as a hard rule, then about the only thing I can see that seems like it won't hurt at least as much as it helps is bumping free condition removal down to 9th for an extra ASI at 10, although that's still far enough back that it's unlikely to please the crowd that basically want Monk to be a Fighter subclass.
Physical perfection wouldn't be "tanking hits more often", it'd be "avoiding taking the hits in the first place".
You mean that thing that hit points also represent?
It really doesn't make sense that Monks have the same hit die as Warlocks, especially considering how strictly melee they are.
From a purely gameplay sense it makes sense in the format of "speedy glass cannons". Naturally, people can find reasons to complain that it doesn't make sense relative to some of the class fluff, but really HP in general doesn't make sense when you look at it as anything but a gameplay component unless you're doing an explicitly anime/super hero-esque setting where repeatedly tanking massive trauma is an overt thing that happens in the setting.
Personally, I think the problem of being MAD is how little you can vary your build.
For a Rogue, nothing really stops you from being very intelligent/very charismatic/very wise/very strong. The only stat you really need is Dexterity, and if you don't multiclass, you don't even need that one that badly. It only governs your AC and Dex saves (unlike Barbarians, your other features work with both Strength and Dexterity). Important? Sure, but you have so many features that help you avoid getting hit entirely, it will work.
Wizards/Sorcerers/Druids/Clerics/Bards also really need only one ability score, and can put the rest of their points however they like. Constitution and Dexterity are common for survival, but it isn't crucial as you should be out of the fight most of the time anyway.
Fighters can choose Dex/Str, and then they're pretty much free to do whatever. Again, Con and Dex are nice for survivability - and are more important than they are for the casters - but if you wear heavy armour you can drop Dex and if you use a ranged build you can drop Con.
Barbarians are restricted to Str, especially in the new playtest. They also need Con quite badly, since they're going to take many hits. Then, unlike the Fighter who has subclasses that utilise Int/Cha, Barbarians have none as such. So they have no reason to take Int. You might see a Barb with good Int as a joke, but it has no in game use whatsoever.
For Rangers/Paladins the situation is similar, being quite restricted to certain ability scores. For ranged Rangers, they can probably drop Con for smth else.
And then there's Monk. No armour allowed, only a d8 and no ranged options. Restricted to melee only (or near-melee with certain subclasses, at 15' away). The Monk MUST take Wis+Dex+Con to be able to be effective. It means your Int/Str/Cha will always be low. Do these stats help you? Not really, but it means all Monks will be the exact same. When was the last time you saw a Monk with even 12 Int, without rolling for stats and rolling well?
The skinny dextrous Monk is just one fantasy. If we look at the Monk as a martial artist, where are the Sumo wrestlers? Can't really use STR and retain good AC. There are many other examples for things we can't do, but that was the first I could think of. Another might be Capoeira. It is a mix of Dance/Martial Arts. So, I'd expect to use Cha to an extent. Guess I'll play Bard then, because they do it much better, but then I'm stuck with a full-caster progression I never really wanted.
Kinda strange that a class that supposedly dedicates themselves to pursuit of physical perfection has less vilality than a ranger or fighter.
Or Barbarian? Why is a d10 hit die sufficient? Surely if the argument is that monk should be a hp-tank because of their physical perfection, then they must have a d12 hit die to keep up with Barbarian and get many more damage resistances / immunities than they do now.
If monk NEEDS to be able to just stand in melee in front of enemies and not die (i.e. not be a skirmisher any more), and if they NEED to be able to be built for STR/Grappling, then the easiest way to do that is to make them a subclass of Barbarian. They still get to be unarmoured, still get fast movement, still get to be melee-focused but are now tanky mctanks a lot, and we can completely ignore Wisdom.
Or if the monk needs extra ASIs, able to ignore Wisdom and have everything base off their DEX then they should be a Fighter subclass. It would be trivially easy to do since Tasha's added the unarmed fighting style.
Though in the current UA the solution is a Bard(Dancer)-Paladin Multiclass for your perfect Monk.
Sumo wrestlers aren't martial artists, they're barely fighters at all - they are entertainers, and would be utterly useless as adventures. Sumo wrestlers is mostly about sheer size, good luck using sheer size dominance against a Dragon as big as a 3 story building. It absolutely should not be possible to make a Sumo wrestler an effective character.
Sumo wrestlers aren't martial artists, they're barely fighters at all - they are entertainers, and would be utterly useless as adventures. Sumo wrestlers is mostly about sheer size, good luck using sheer size dominance against a Dragon as big as a 3 story building. It absolutely should not be possible to make a Sumo wrestler an effective character.
Well, your average priest probably wouldn't be very useful as an adventurer, but that doesn't seem to stop people. Not that I think Monk should be able to fill that role (Barbarian makes the most sense, they're the chunkiest), just that that's a fantasy that shouldn't be denied simply for being fantastical.
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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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Personally, I think the problem of being MAD is how little you can vary your build.
Frankly, that's just how some classes work, particularly MAD ones. I don't see nearly as many people moaning about how you can't vary your Paladin based on stats, even though it's pretty much the exact same situation.
The skinny dextrous Monk is just one fantasy. If we look at the Monk as a martial artist, where are the Sumo wrestlers? Can't really use STR and retain good AC. There are many other examples for things we can't do, but that was the first I could think of. Another might be Capoeira. It is a mix of Dance/Martial Arts. So, I'd expect to use Cha to an extent. Guess I'll play Bard then, because they do it much better, but then I'm stuck with a full-caster progression I never really wanted.
Welcome to one of the great unspoken aspects of roleplaying games: a class is defined in part by what they cannot do, alongside what they can. Rogues can't attack more than twice in a turn, Wizards can't heal, Druids and Clerics can't do high end teleportation, Barbarians and Fighters can't run up walls or Disengage as a bonus action, and Monks can't wear armor. To reiterate a point that is often made and subsequently ignored when a Monk doesn't cater to someone's particular image, Monk is not meant to encapsulate the entire width and breadth of unarmed combat. It is specifically meant to play into the trope of a disciplined warrior who is trading raw physical power for spirituality/mental discipline. If you want to be a Sumo, there's the Unarmed Fighting Style for Fighter. Using CHA for making a purely physical attack really doesn't make much sense, and you cannot tell me that you can't visualize a high DEX character as utilizing dancelike moves. Really, given that Monks have a solid defensive kit, you could absolutely just skip CON altogether and go for CHA or INT instead. I used the example I did earlier specifically to highlight that Monks are not so hideously deprived that they can't hit all the points of an "optimal" martial arrangement, I wasn't saying that's the only way you could assign them.
Paladins can be built on either Str or Dex, can be effective with little to no Charisma (depending subclass and use of spell slots on smites, only your Aura suffers. Sad, but not as impactful as dumping Dex for Monks). They have access to heavy armour so they can pretty much ignore Dex completely amd be fine. Especially if they do invest a little into Cha to get the save bonus from their aura. This means they CAN be effective while only building around 2 stats, and can put the third wherever. But yes, Paladins are also very MAD. I didn't say this problem affects only the Monk.
Meanwhile, Fighters definitely DO have ways to utilise Intelligence. In 5e, they have three different subclasses that build on a good Int score. Or at least, something as high as you can allow. Do they attack with Int instead of Str? No. But it means you can play a Fighter with an Int score of >8 and actually use it for something. But for the record, I do think we should have a Fighter subclass that allows interesting use of Int that does NOT rely on magical effects. Just look at the Rogue. They have a subclass that uses Wis without magic and one that uses Cha without magic. They could have made Mastermind use Int somehow, but for some reason being dumb does not stop one from being a mastermind.
Except Wizards can heal now, to a certain extent. And even if you don't count that or say it is not enough, they get a lot more to compensate. Fireball if nothing else, but also access to the biggest spell list, as well as more spells than any other class. Meanwhile, the Monk is only compensated with a few ribbon abilities or situational stuff that might never see use, except for very high levels. If you had to wait until 14th level to get Fireball, nobody would play a Wizard. Yes, Monks get Stunning Strike, which is not only overrated but was also nerfed, and it costs from their much more limited resource pool.
I don't need Cha-based attacks, I want an option that can compliment investing in Cha. Like how Swashbuckler is for Rogues. And for suggesting playing a Fighter for Sumo wrestlers? What's the point when you can't even use weapon mastery on unarmed strikes, and that being a pivotal part of a Fighter right now.
And Monks do not have a solid defensive kit, and that's the problem. Unarmoured Defence is weak without good stats, which takes a lot of time to get (and also, you can't really take feats, because you need those ASI). Spending a Ki point at level 5 to dodge and then the enemy just attacks someone else is extremely frustrating. Evasion can be also found on Rogues, Bards and Rangers, and it isn't enough to really compensate for all you lose. Deflect Missile is too situational. You need to be the target of a ranged weapon attack that hits you. And any feature above level 10 will most likely not see use, so it's irrelevant. Even if Monk got immunity to all damage at level 20, nobody would say Monk is broken. They'd say it is a broken feature on a shitty class.
Yeah, if you think the Rogue's 10 cm long dagger would actually hurt a 3 story tall dragon, a Sumo wrestler can be just as effective.
And homebrew is just completely irrelevant to the topic. The entire Unearthed Arcana forum exists to discuss published official rules in playtest. This is akin to saying "Let them eat cakes".
It's not just physical perfection though, that's the point. It's about physical and spiritual harmony; that's why they're DEX based instead of STR based- they're not spending all their time working out to get ripped, they're drilling in their katas in between sessions of meditation or other mental/spiritual exercises.
And there's also a LOT of physically stressful and punishing stuff they go through. And given that monks study punching things to death, this doesn't go without sparring.
The TL:DR is: Some people want monk to be 20 different things to cover every possible unarmed fighter imaginable. This is impractical since there are just as many possible unarmed warriors as there are armed warriors and we have 5 whole classes for different types of armed warriors. There are 2 possible solutions:
1) Make an unarmed subclass for each of the other warrior classes: Rogue (this is your dirty fighting tavern brawler), Fighter (you boxer type), Barbarian (your wrestler type), Ranger (your wise sage monk type), Paladin (your one-punch divinely touched monk-type).
2) Make 2-3 feats that anyone can take that bring unarmed fighting into a viable strategy for any build.
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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.
Make Ki equal to Monk level + Dexterity modifier.
Make saving throws against Monk effects against their Dexterity modifier, not their Wisdom modifier.
Step of the Wind doesn't require Ki.
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.
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)
I wouldn't mind the ki on step of the wind if it did not cost an action of any type. If you could run 40+ feet through a field of enemies while punching 4 of them that would be pretty cool. Especially if you could do something like move through enemy squares. Or have it at default cost a bonus action but no ki, and you could spend the ki so it did not cost the bonus action
But yes, the fundamentals of the class need to be fixed. The big first step is to make them SAD.
they could do the warlock and give players choices. AC is 10+3(+1 every 5 levels)+dex or wisdom, attack rolls are either based on dex or wisdom, save DCs are set by either dex or wisdom. Crap throw strength in as well for those people who want strength monks. Maybe have the option tied to some small perks, wisdom is a soft style with some kind of healing touch, dex is like nerve strike style, strength is beat you down style.
I had never considered that using wisdom to scale hp bonus. Though it would be odd it would also be kinda awesome. If that was something they would consider (which for streamlining rules they might not like an outlier) it would make the d8 hit dice not so painfully mediocre.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Honestly the point about d8 Hit Die is way overblown imo; you're averaging 1 HP less per level if you roll, or exactly that much if you take fixed. It's not actually a massive difference. CON modifier is what makes a notable difference on HP, and- using the wildcard race/background ASI- without taking any dump stats you can get a +1 in CON while still having +3 in both DEX and WIS for 16 AC; if you dump CHA or INT to 8 you can make that a +2. For as much fuss as people make about Monk being MAD, it's not like you can't put together an effective ability spread. You can't go wide on bonus mods, but that's not massively relevant for a purely martial class in the first place, and Monk will still end up in a better position save-wise than Fighter or Barbarian, ultimately.
Kinda strange that a class that supposedly dedicates themselves to pursuit of physical perfection has less vilality than a ranger or fighter.
It's not just physical perfection though, that's the point. It's about physical and spiritual harmony; that's why they're DEX based instead of STR based- they're not spending all their time working out to get ripped, they're drilling in their katas in between sessions of meditation or other mental/spiritual exercises.
Making Monk need both Dex and Wis wouldn't be so bad if they got an extra ASI to keep them both up. Even Rogue got to keep theirs, and they don't even need it to be good anymore!
You mean that thing that hit points also represent?
It really doesn't make sense that Monks have the same hit die as Warlocks, especially considering how strictly melee they are.
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)
I don't object to the concept in principle, but looking at their feature distribution it's a little tricky to find a good place for it; they have a subclass feature at 6th, Evasion and bottled Short Rest at 7th, the ability to run along water or up walls at 9th, and free condition removal at 10th. If we assume WotC has ASI's being the only feature to come online at a given level as a hard rule, then about the only thing I can see that seems like it won't hurt at least as much as it helps is bumping free condition removal down to 9th for an extra ASI at 10, although that's still far enough back that it's unlikely to please the crowd that basically want Monk to be a Fighter subclass.
From a purely gameplay sense it makes sense in the format of "speedy glass cannons". Naturally, people can find reasons to complain that it doesn't make sense relative to some of the class fluff, but really HP in general doesn't make sense when you look at it as anything but a gameplay component unless you're doing an explicitly anime/super hero-esque setting where repeatedly tanking massive trauma is an overt thing that happens in the setting.
Personally, I think the problem of being MAD is how little you can vary your build.
For a Rogue, nothing really stops you from being very intelligent/very charismatic/very wise/very strong. The only stat you really need is Dexterity, and if you don't multiclass, you don't even need that one that badly. It only governs your AC and Dex saves (unlike Barbarians, your other features work with both Strength and Dexterity). Important? Sure, but you have so many features that help you avoid getting hit entirely, it will work.
Wizards/Sorcerers/Druids/Clerics/Bards also really need only one ability score, and can put the rest of their points however they like. Constitution and Dexterity are common for survival, but it isn't crucial as you should be out of the fight most of the time anyway.
Fighters can choose Dex/Str, and then they're pretty much free to do whatever. Again, Con and Dex are nice for survivability - and are more important than they are for the casters - but if you wear heavy armour you can drop Dex and if you use a ranged build you can drop Con.
Barbarians are restricted to Str, especially in the new playtest. They also need Con quite badly, since they're going to take many hits. Then, unlike the Fighter who has subclasses that utilise Int/Cha, Barbarians have none as such. So they have no reason to take Int. You might see a Barb with good Int as a joke, but it has no in game use whatsoever.
For Rangers/Paladins the situation is similar, being quite restricted to certain ability scores. For ranged Rangers, they can probably drop Con for smth else.
And then there's Monk. No armour allowed, only a d8 and no ranged options. Restricted to melee only (or near-melee with certain subclasses, at 15' away). The Monk MUST take Wis+Dex+Con to be able to be effective. It means your Int/Str/Cha will always be low. Do these stats help you? Not really, but it means all Monks will be the exact same. When was the last time you saw a Monk with even 12 Int, without rolling for stats and rolling well?
The skinny dextrous Monk is just one fantasy. If we look at the Monk as a martial artist, where are the Sumo wrestlers? Can't really use STR and retain good AC. There are many other examples for things we can't do, but that was the first I could think of. Another might be Capoeira. It is a mix of Dance/Martial Arts. So, I'd expect to use Cha to an extent. Guess I'll play Bard then, because they do it much better, but then I'm stuck with a full-caster progression I never really wanted.
Varielky
Or Barbarian? Why is a d10 hit die sufficient? Surely if the argument is that monk should be a hp-tank because of their physical perfection, then they must have a d12 hit die to keep up with Barbarian and get many more damage resistances / immunities than they do now.
If monk NEEDS to be able to just stand in melee in front of enemies and not die (i.e. not be a skirmisher any more), and if they NEED to be able to be built for STR/Grappling, then the easiest way to do that is to make them a subclass of Barbarian. They still get to be unarmoured, still get fast movement, still get to be melee-focused but are now tanky mctanks a lot, and we can completely ignore Wisdom.
Or if the monk needs extra ASIs, able to ignore Wisdom and have everything base off their DEX then they should be a Fighter subclass. It would be trivially easy to do since Tasha's added the unarmed fighting style.
Though in the current UA the solution is a Bard(Dancer)-Paladin Multiclass for your perfect Monk.
Sumo wrestlers aren't martial artists, they're barely fighters at all - they are entertainers, and would be utterly useless as adventures. Sumo wrestlers is mostly about sheer size, good luck using sheer size dominance against a Dragon as big as a 3 story building. It absolutely should not be possible to make a Sumo wrestler an effective character.
Well, your average priest probably wouldn't be very useful as an adventurer, but that doesn't seem to stop people. Not that I think Monk should be able to fill that role (Barbarian makes the most sense, they're the chunkiest), just that that's a fantasy that shouldn't be denied simply for being fantastical.
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)
Frankly, that's just how some classes work, particularly MAD ones. I don't see nearly as many people moaning about how you can't vary your Paladin based on stats, even though it's pretty much the exact same situation.
Welcome to one of the great unspoken aspects of roleplaying games: a class is defined in part by what they cannot do, alongside what they can. Rogues can't attack more than twice in a turn, Wizards can't heal, Druids and Clerics can't do high end teleportation, Barbarians and Fighters can't run up walls or Disengage as a bonus action, and Monks can't wear armor. To reiterate a point that is often made and subsequently ignored when a Monk doesn't cater to someone's particular image, Monk is not meant to encapsulate the entire width and breadth of unarmed combat. It is specifically meant to play into the trope of a disciplined warrior who is trading raw physical power for spirituality/mental discipline. If you want to be a Sumo, there's the Unarmed Fighting Style for Fighter. Using CHA for making a purely physical attack really doesn't make much sense, and you cannot tell me that you can't visualize a high DEX character as utilizing dancelike moves. Really, given that Monks have a solid defensive kit, you could absolutely just skip CON altogether and go for CHA or INT instead. I used the example I did earlier specifically to highlight that Monks are not so hideously deprived that they can't hit all the points of an "optimal" martial arrangement, I wasn't saying that's the only way you could assign them.
Paladins can be built on either Str or Dex, can be effective with little to no Charisma (depending subclass and use of spell slots on smites, only your Aura suffers. Sad, but not as impactful as dumping Dex for Monks). They have access to heavy armour so they can pretty much ignore Dex completely amd be fine. Especially if they do invest a little into Cha to get the save bonus from their aura. This means they CAN be effective while only building around 2 stats, and can put the third wherever. But yes, Paladins are also very MAD. I didn't say this problem affects only the Monk.
Meanwhile, Fighters definitely DO have ways to utilise Intelligence. In 5e, they have three different subclasses that build on a good Int score. Or at least, something as high as you can allow. Do they attack with Int instead of Str? No. But it means you can play a Fighter with an Int score of >8 and actually use it for something. But for the record, I do think we should have a Fighter subclass that allows interesting use of Int that does NOT rely on magical effects. Just look at the Rogue. They have a subclass that uses Wis without magic and one that uses Cha without magic. They could have made Mastermind use Int somehow, but for some reason being dumb does not stop one from being a mastermind.
Except Wizards can heal now, to a certain extent. And even if you don't count that or say it is not enough, they get a lot more to compensate. Fireball if nothing else, but also access to the biggest spell list, as well as more spells than any other class. Meanwhile, the Monk is only compensated with a few ribbon abilities or situational stuff that might never see use, except for very high levels. If you had to wait until 14th level to get Fireball, nobody would play a Wizard. Yes, Monks get Stunning Strike, which is not only overrated but was also nerfed, and it costs from their much more limited resource pool.
I don't need Cha-based attacks, I want an option that can compliment investing in Cha. Like how Swashbuckler is for Rogues. And for suggesting playing a Fighter for Sumo wrestlers? What's the point when you can't even use weapon mastery on unarmed strikes, and that being a pivotal part of a Fighter right now.
And Monks do not have a solid defensive kit, and that's the problem. Unarmoured Defence is weak without good stats, which takes a lot of time to get (and also, you can't really take feats, because you need those ASI). Spending a Ki point at level 5 to dodge and then the enemy just attacks someone else is extremely frustrating. Evasion can be also found on Rogues, Bards and Rangers, and it isn't enough to really compensate for all you lose. Deflect Missile is too situational. You need to be the target of a ranged weapon attack that hits you. And any feature above level 10 will most likely not see use, so it's irrelevant. Even if Monk got immunity to all damage at level 20, nobody would say Monk is broken. They'd say it is a broken feature on a shitty class.
Yeah, if you think the Rogue's 10 cm long dagger would actually hurt a 3 story tall dragon, a Sumo wrestler can be just as effective.
And homebrew is just completely irrelevant to the topic. The entire Unearthed Arcana forum exists to discuss published official rules in playtest. This is akin to saying "Let them eat cakes".
Varielky
And there's also a LOT of physically stressful and punishing stuff they go through. And given that monks study punching things to death, this doesn't go without sparring.
And the monk's Unarmored Defense also fails to achieve that...
The TL:DR is: Some people want monk to be 20 different things to cover every possible unarmed fighter imaginable. This is impractical since there are just as many possible unarmed warriors as there are armed warriors and we have 5 whole classes for different types of armed warriors. There are 2 possible solutions:
1) Make an unarmed subclass for each of the other warrior classes: Rogue (this is your dirty fighting tavern brawler), Fighter (you boxer type), Barbarian (your wrestler type), Ranger (your wise sage monk type), Paladin (your one-punch divinely touched monk-type).
2) Make 2-3 feats that anyone can take that bring unarmed fighting into a viable strategy for any build.