Monk AC = 10 + Attribute Modifier* + Proficiency Bonus
(* which Attribute Modifier? using standard Monks, you could pick your Dex bonus or Wis bonus .. .maybe changing it after each Short Rest or Long Rest ; but if you're using my Mystical Attribute idea, then it would be your Dex bonus or your Mystical Attribute bonus; and again, you could swap back and forth during a rest)
This has the potential to get you to a 21 AC (as opposed to maxing out at 20), plus it means your AC increases specifically with level, and it means you only have to pick one attribute to focus upon (two when you consider that either way you'd want more CON for hit points). So three attributes (Dex, Wis, Con) that you need to try to maximize, vs 2 (Con, and then either Dex or Wis*).
Thought 2:
Untrained Unarmed Damage: 1 + Str Mod Trained Unarmed Damage (Fighting style or lineage based claws/horns): replace the 1 with a 1d4. If you're a Monk you can also use Dex (or your Mystical Attribute*) instead of Str. Monk Unarmed Damage: you add your Proficiency Bonus (and double it for a Crit).
So your "Martial Arts Die" isn't "1dX". Anything that calls for you to roll your martial arts die (or three rolls of your martial arts die, etc.): each die is replaced by 1d4 + PB.
This doesn't aways reach the same maximum as the Playtest 6 document, but it always produces a noticeably better minimum and average, because the minimum was scale up according to your proficiency bonus.
(This comparison list doesn't include the attribute modifier, since those values should balance out between the two ideas)
Notice that for the PB method, the minimum is often +/- .5 from the standard method's average. Minimum, with this method, you'll be doing approximately the average of the standard method. If you hit 4 times (2 Attacks + Flurry of Blows) with 1d12, you'd do (4 | 26 | 48) damage using Playtest Document 6. With my method: (28-38-40) You'd be giving up the high end of the scale for better consistent damage.
If (using this method) "Self Restoration" also gave you a +1 to attack and damage, and "Perfect Discipline" increased that to +2, then that would close the "maximum" damage gap for the most part.
Interesting thoughts but for thought 1, the AC might get higher at the end game but could be lower in the early game. Starting attributes of +3 in Dex and Wis isn't impossible, which would get you an AC of 16, but with what you have put the maximum would be 15.
I think in Thought 2, it's too much of an over-correction, 4 attacks at level 5, doing 5.5+MOD damage... that could be 10.5, if you land 65% of hits 24.7 average damage a turn at level 5, seems a little on the high side. I think an easier solution would be that flurry of blows adds wisdom in damage to the bonus action attacks. It's more damage, but doesn't apply to all attacks and gives more to wisdom and means keeping that martial arts die.
Consider that most campaigns run from levels 1 to 10, with few going to 15, and even fewer to 20.
Any build that relies on something you might get at level 20 has no value.
The question should be, what can you achieve by level 10?
Any class that can wear heavy armor and a shield can have 20AC with mundane equipment the moment they can scrounge up 1500gp for full plate armor.
Any medium armor class can have 19AC with half plate and a shield.
Assuming some lucrative contracts they could have those at levels 3 or 4.
Monks are the only martial class in the game with no armor proficiencies, and whose features specifically prohibit them from wearing armor if the player wants maximum effectiveness. Even a Wizard, via a dip or feat, can wear armor without it interfering with their casting. In theory, if they wanted to, a Rogue or Warlock could take the Moderately Armored feat for medium armor plus shield proficiency.
So to get equivalent AC to other martials, unless you're good at rolling 18s, Monks need three to four ASIs, which they won't get until level 12 minimum. At tier one, in my opinion, Monks are fairly good, since they have roughly equivalent damage to a two-weapon fighting fighter, with the same AC (16 Dex and Wis versus Scale Mail), more damage if they burn Ki.
The problem arises when other martials are able to boost their defenses with bought equipment, while Monks are still relying on a "once per four level" ASI. Their scaling is slow.
The solution I proposed was to make their AC scale based purely on their dexterity bonus, i.e. AC = 10 + 2(dex modifier). That allows them to get 16AC at level 1 (16 dexterity), 18AC at level 4 (18 dexterity) and 20AC at level 8 (20 dexterity). It could go higher if they have a magical way to increase their dexterity over 20. If they can, good for them.
Their damage is okay in my opinion, at least in tiers one and two. Having a consistent three attacks, with the ability to get four by burning Ki (and not using any of their other bonus actions) means that they're doing 3(d8+5) or 4(d8+5) damage at level 8, which is better than a two-weapon Fighter (not that the two-weapon Fighter is optimum, but it acts as a fair baseline). It's at level 11/12 where other Martials get features like extra extra attack and Improved Divine Smite that increase their raw damage that Monks start to fall behind.
At level 11 giving them an ability like Lifedrinker that adds d6 damage to every hit would probably bring them back up to par.
I think in Thought 2, it's too much of an over-correction, 4 attacks at level 5, doing 5.5+MOD damage... that could be 10.5, if you land 65% of hits 24.7 average damage a turn at level 5, seems a little on the high side.
At 5th level:
RAW: 4 x (1d8) = 32 max, 17 avg .. x .65 = 20.8 max, 11 avg
mine: 4 x (1d4 + 3) = 28 max, 22 avg x .65 = 18.2 max, 14.3 avg
The final totals for your 65% hit rate are within 3hp of damage of each other. The stat mod bonus damage will be the same offset for both, so while it will be higher, it’s not going to change that max will be about two and a half more points of damage for the round using RAW, and average will be about three-ish points more damage for my method.
How is that an over-correction? It seems more like “the same ballpark of result”, just arrived at with a different mechanical mindset (using PB instead of an increasing die).
Whenever someone mentions using proficiency bonus as a modifier, it always makes me think about multiclass. I guess you can only calculate ac one way, so it’s not like it would stack with anything, but it could make a really nice dip for a wizard or sorcerer for 1 level to get a big and constantly scaling ac boost. So a monk 10 would be as good at it as a wizard9/monk1. That kind of thing.
But really scaling stuff off PB is kind of a pet peeve of mine, mostly for that reason. It can work for a few things, but there’s lots of cases where it just makes for attractive MC dips.
The problem arises when other martials are able to boost their defenses with bought equipment, while Monks are still relying on a "once per four level" ASI. Their scaling is slow.
The solution I proposed was to make their AC scale based purely on their dexterity bonus, i.e. AC = 10 + 2(dex modifier). That allows them to get 16AC at level 1 (16 dexterity), 18AC at level 4 (18 dexterity) and 20AC at level 8 (20 dexterity). It could go higher if they have a magical way to increase their dexterity over 20. If they can, good for them.
If the problem is that class feature progression and equipment progression aren't connected, then this isn't really an issue you can solve by changing class feature progression. You solve it by giving Monks access to equipment that a DM can drop in for equivalent scaling, but currently no such equipment exists. All this tweak would do is remove reliance on Wisdom for AC, but you still need it for Monk abilities and we don't need another mono-DEX class.
This has always been a problem with magic items for Monks in 5e; while other martials are rocking around in +N armour that requirements no attunement, Monks are limited to some combination of bracers of defense, cloak of protection, and/or ring of protection (and dragonhide belt), all of which requirement attunement, and are of higher rarity than equivalent +N armour. So they're basically shut out from having any equivalent magic item progression because even if they get these items around the same time, they'll be sacrificing attunement slots to use them (so weapon progression or other bonuses are lost instead).
And the same problem exists for regular equipment progression; there is nothing in the standard rules that the Monk can wear for an equivalent boost to their fellow martials gaining early access to the best gear. You can't solve that problem with a class feature, because it's not a class scaling issue. This is a general problem with equipment in 5e; there is no level requirement, and if gold is the only limiting factor then DM generosity can greatly skew the balance. I've been of the opinion for a while that they should really just get rid of the different "types" of armour and simply have light, medium and heavy, with magic versions representing higher quality versions. So a lower level could describe their heavy armour as being plate, but maybe it's only basic armour made of iron or low grade steel compared to the noble's high-end meteorite steel, adamantine or whatever?
Meanwhile we need equivalent magic gear for unarmored characters, but tweaked to avoid exploitative stacking (e.g- maybe shouldn't stack with a magical effect such as mage armor, though I'm not sure how exploitative that really is in practice).
The other issue is that the Rogue is far too single-ability score dependent; their new Cunning Strikes use DEX rather than something else like INT which is just silly. They're a mono-ability class that gets an additional ability score increase, meanwhile Monks who need more only get the basic five. If anything it should be Monks that get the bonus one at 10th-level, and Rogues should have something else, because they simply don't need it.
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We have three mono-charisma classes. Another mono-dexterity class won't break the game.
Martials that have a secondary casting ability, like Rangers with wisdom, Paladins with charisma, and Eldritch Knights with intelligence, like to have some casting ability, but they can manage without too much of it. Meanwhile Monk needs wisdom, but has no real way to increase it without sacrificing its martial ability. It's in almost the same place that Pact of the Blade was before the Hexblade was invented, but there isn't a vastly superior option, like Pact of the Tome with the Spell Sniper feat to allow the Warlock to use Eldritch Blast in combat.
The Battlemaster is arguably the best Fighter subclass because its maneuvers are based on its primary combat stat rather than a secondary or tertiary stat.
Looking at it now the Monk would not be too difficult to bring up to par. A scaling Flurry of Blows that increases at cantrip levels gives us higher damage at higher levels, AC based exclusively on dex gives us competitive AC, and setting some of its saves on dexterity, not necessarily all, makes getting Wisdom less vital. We could even drop Stunning Strike to a once/turn ability at that point and not feel we've gutted the class. Make Step of the Wind free to Dash or Disengage, but use ki to do both in one turn.
The solution I proposed was to make their AC scale based purely on their dexterity bonus, i.e. AC = 10 + 2(dex modifier). That allows them to get 16AC at level 1 (16 dexterity), 18AC at level 4 (18 dexterity) and 20AC at level 8 (20 dexterity). It could go higher if they have a magical way to increase their dexterity over 20. If they can, good for them.
Using my method above, combined with my suggestion about Martial Arts Mastery as a replacement for Weapon Mastery for Monks (one draft of it is in the Pugilistic Propositions thread), which included a lot of Martial Arts features from past editions that you pick from sort of like Eldritch Invocations in a vague sort of way ... including "Iron Skin" (which is a +2 AC bonus when unarmored and no shield, which I set to require being 4th level), you'd get:
(to some extent all of my suggestions are sort interworking with each other)
Levels 1-3: PB Bonus +2, Dex Bonus +3 (16 Dex) = 15 AC Level 4: PB Bonus +2, Dex Bonus +4 (ASI to 18 Dex) = 16 AC Level 5: PB Bonus +3, Dex Bonus +4 = 17 AC Level 6: Pick up Iron Skin with your 6th level Martial Art Mastery to get +2, PB Bonus = +3, Dex Bonus +4 = 19 AC Level 8: Iron Skin +2, PB Bonus +3, Dex Bonus +5 (ASI to get 20 Dex) = 20 AC Level 9: Iron Skin +2, PB Bonus +4, Dex Bonus +5 = 21 AC
So, from levels 3-8, you're gaining AC every level. And then another boost (from PB increases) at 9th level, 13th level, and 17th level. Even without Iron Skin, the difference between yours and mine only produces a difference of 1 at 1st and 9th level, and mine keeps going up after that even without adding magic items, etc..
So: a) no, you don't have to wait until you're high level to get there to about the same place as your method. b) this would get you a peak of 23 AC without anything extra beyond burning two of your ASI's (21 AC without Iron Skin). c) if they reword the Defense Fighting Style for both a flat +1 AC and working with the Warrior Group AND/OR any class with Fighting Style feature, then your Background Feat or 12th level Feat could get you another +1 AC. (everyone's Monk AC method would benefit from that) c) My method still benefits from things that would boost your Dex, in addition to all of the rest of the benefits, so not a difference from yours in that regard.
And my method doesn't involve doubling a stat mod, which I think (but am not 100% sure) would be unprecidented.
Their damage is okay in my opinion, at least in tiers one and two. Having a consistent three attacks, with the ability to get four by burning Ki (and not using any of their other bonus actions) means that they're doing 3(d8+5) or 4(d8+5) damage at level 8, which is better than a two-weapon Fighter (not that the two-weapon Fighter is optimum, but it acts as a fair baseline). It's at level 11/12 where other Martials get features like extra extra attack and Improved Divine Smite that increase their raw damage that Monks start to fall behind.
Other Martials and Semi-Martials can still roll low on their damage, giving less total damage than my method. That's probably the main benefit: Monks wont ever do less than half of their maximum damage with their unarmed strikes.
At level 11 giving them an ability like Lifedrinker that adds d6 damage to every hit would probably bring them back up to par.
I agree that Monks should have something like that (or the Cleric and Paladin features, or Gloomstalker and Plane Walker features, that add another die to your damage roll). Which is why I included it in the Martial Arts Masteries (Deft Martial Strike -- spend 2 DP to add another roll of your martial arts damage to the damage dealt).
Whenever someone mentions using proficiency bonus as a modifier, it always makes me think about multiclass. I guess you can only calculate ac one way, so it’s not like it would stack with anything, but it could make a really nice dip for a wizard or sorcerer for 1 level to get a big and constantly scaling ac boost. So a monk 10 would be as good at it as a wizard9/monk1. That kind of thing.
But really scaling stuff off PB is kind of a pet peeve of mine, mostly for that reason. It can work for a few things, but there’s lots of cases where it just makes for attractive MC dips.
Could borrow a mindset from some of the class specific cantrips in the playtests: Only count class levels for that class.
You could do that literally: the PB mod you get for AC only uses the PB value from your number of Monk levels (Monk table, 2nd column, use the row for you Monk level).
Or you can do it mathematically: Normally, PB is: (Character Level / 4, drop fractions) +2 Monk's AC Bonus is: (Monk Level / 4, drop fractions) + 2 Which leads to a final Monk AC Calculation of: 12 + (Monk Level / 4, drop fractions) + (Dex Mod)
If you hit 4 times (2 Attacks + Flurry of Blows) with 1d12, you'd do (4 | 26 | 48) damage using Playtest Document 6. With my method: (28-38-40) You'd be giving up the high end of the scale for better consistent damage.
FYI a level 17 Frenzy Barbarian according to the UA5 deals an average of 66 damage per round.
Also FYI your AC makes very little difference to survivability at high level, a monk's Evasion is far more beneficial to their survivability at level 17+ than a +2 or +3 AC. E.g. at level 17, the increasing AC 18 to AC 23 is only about 25% increase in survivability.
The Barbarian’s damage isn’t relevant. It’s a monk method vs monk method comparison, with the mindset being to use PB instead of other methods to scale damage and AC. It’s not about being stupendously better, it’s about a different mindset. The fact that the AC isn’t terribly far off is actually the goal. (and the trade on much better low end damage vs a bit less high end is close enough)
The problem arises when other martials are able to boost their defenses with bought equipment, while Monks are still relying on a "once per four level" ASI. Their scaling is slow.
The solution I proposed was to make their AC scale based purely on their dexterity bonus, i.e. AC = 10 + 2(dex modifier). That allows them to get 16AC at level 1 (16 dexterity), 18AC at level 4 (18 dexterity) and 20AC at level 8 (20 dexterity). It could go higher if they have a magical way to increase their dexterity over 20. If they can, good for them.
If the problem is that class feature progression and equipment progression aren't connected, then this isn't really an issue you can solve by changing class feature progression. You solve it by giving Monks access to equipment that a DM can drop in for equivalent scaling, but currently no such equipment exists. All this tweak would do is remove reliance on Wisdom for AC, but you still need it for Monk abilities and we don't need another mono-DEX class.
This has always been a problem with magic items for Monks in 5e; while other martials are rocking around in +N armour that requirements no attunement, Monks are limited to some combination of bracers of defense, cloak of protection, and/or ring of protection (and dragonhide belt), all of which requirement attunement, and are of higher rarity than equivalent +N armour. So they're basically shut out from having any equivalent magic item progression because even if they get these items around the same time, they'll be sacrificing attunement slots to use them (so weapon progression or other bonuses are lost instead).
And the same problem exists for regular equipment progression; there is nothing in the standard rules that the Monk can wear for an equivalent boost to their fellow martials gaining early access to the best gear. You can't solve that problem with a class feature, because it's not a class scaling issue. This is a general problem with equipment in 5e; there is no level requirement, and if gold is the only limiting factor then DM generosity can greatly skew the balance. I've been of the opinion for a while that they should really just get rid of the different "types" of armour and simply have light, medium and heavy, with magic versions representing higher quality versions. So a lower level could describe their heavy armour as being plate, but maybe it's only basic armour made of iron or low grade steel compared to the noble's high-end meteorite steel, adamantine or whatever?
Meanwhile we need equivalent magic gear for unarmored characters, but tweaked to avoid exploitative stacking (e.g- maybe shouldn't stack with a magical effect such as mage armor, though I'm not sure how exploitative that really is in practice).
The other issue is that the Rogue is far too single-ability score dependent; their new Cunning Strikes use DEX rather than something else like INT which is just silly. They're a mono-ability class that gets an additional ability score increase, meanwhile Monks who need more only get the basic five. If anything it should be Monks that get the bonus one at 10th-level, and Rogues should have something else, because they simply don't need it.
I will say this equipment thing is one thing that needs to be considered when talking about "martial vs caster" balance. Martials can use any weapons, usually meaning magic weapons as well. The best magic weapons should be martial weapons and thus being proficient with martial weapons should be considered more of a feature than it typically is. In the earliest days of DnD there were very few class features and what set the "fighting man" really apart was the fact that they could use any weapon.
The equipment thing is dumb, can we please all just agree that magic items in the official books are really stupidly designed? I mean how many cool magic swords are there compared to mauls, axes, halberd, glaives, etc...? Or the near complete lack of magical bows, and complete lack of magical crossbows. There is a reason the internet is completely full of HB magical items.
This isn't a problem of class design, it is a problem of magic item design. And you can't fix the magic item system, by tweaking class designs.
The equipment thing is dumb, can we please all just agree that magic items in the official books are really stupidly designed? I mean how many cool magic swords are there compared to mauls, axes, halberd, glaives, etc...? Or the near complete lack of magical bows, and complete lack of magical crossbows. There is a reason the internet is completely full of HB magical items.
This isn't a problem of class design, it is a problem of magic item design. And you can't fix the magic item system, by tweaking class designs.
Absolutely. I really hope they steal something like the system in PF2e. You don’t find an item, you find a rune which you can then apply to a weapon or piece of armor. So, not a +1sword, but a rune that give +1 to whichever weapon you put it on. And not a flaming sword, but a rune that applies the flaming property to whatever you put it on. They can be moved from one weapon to another, but not copied. It’s simple and allows real flexibility. And you don’t have the metagame wierdness of a DM giving out useful items and a party somehow only finding weapons that work for them. It’s one of the better things about Pathfinder.
Re: Magic Items: yeah, it's a problem. And not what I'm trying to address here. I've said this elsewhere, in less detail, but:
But DMs definitely need to be more proactive about making changes to magic items to suit the party's needs, and Players need more agency about it. This is one of the few places where I think 3e did a better job than 5e, but reason it did so is exactly the same reason why 5e is better than 3e over all: the 3e system was full of complexity and minutia, including the magic item system. 5e needs a way to separate out the enchantment from the item, make the enchantment able to be applied to other items, which can accept different types of enchantments. Some of the Artificer Infusions sort of work like that (sorta), but scaling them up as they're written would get back into complexity and minutia. A gem socket and/or rune system would be interesting, but pin the mechanism to a particular lore that might not work well in all settings (though, if I'm being honest, that's the system I would want).
Take that, and allow tattoos that work gems into the ink, or runes into the design, and apply weapon runes/gems to unarmed strikes. Or protection tattoos that include more than just armor bonuses. That would give a lot more flexibility than just a barrier tattoo or the eldritch claw tattoo. The drawback of course is that tattoos seem to take up attunement slots. Though that doesn't have to be true. You could instead base attunement on the property and not simply on having a tattoo. People fit a lot of detail and skin coverage into tattoos, it doesn't have to be limited to just 3 for _all_ tattoos.
So also have gems/runes applied to other magic items. Bracers or gauntlets that have a gem socket or space for a rune to be worked into their design, and enhance unarmed strikes. Rings, broaches, belts/sashes (especially belt buckles for holding gems), robes, or vests that do the same for protection garments. Those might not take up attunement slots, depending on the property the gem/rune has.
But, again, that's completely different from what I'm talking about here, which is using PB as the Monk's AC and Damage scaling mechanism.
I will say this equipment thing is one thing that needs to be considered when talking about "martial vs caster" balance. Martials can use any weapons, usually meaning magic weapons as well. The best magic weapons should be martial weapons and thus being proficient with martial weapons should be considered more of a feature than it typically is. In the earliest days of DnD there were very few class features and what set the "fighting man" really apart was the fact that they could use any weapon.
Yeah, it's definitely not helped by casters having arguably superior equivalents to every magic weapon in the game; for example for every +1 weapon, there's a +1 casting focus that grants additional bonuses like ignoring cover (wand of the war mage) or even more powerful effects like those in Tasha's Cauldron. The caster varieties do require attunement, but since a focus applies to pretty much everything they do that's not really much of a cost.
There are some magic items that absolutely favour a Fighter making more attacks; a flame tongue for example is far more powerful on a Fighter with Action Surge than a Barbarian with only two attacks, but does it compensate for a Wizard with a Staff of Defense saving slots and being harder to kill, or a Staff of Power to just churn out damage? Probably not.
Major rebalancing of magic items is required, especially magic items with spells are very good for casters as they both save resources and give access to extra spells. IMO spell items should be a lot more focused, and a lot of them should be for non-casters to gain a little spellcasting rather than for already strong classes to get even stronger.
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IMHO is time to take out Wis from the Monk. Rogue can focus only on Dex even for computing it’s DC for Cunning Strike, then why the monk have to use another score? There are too many scores to worry about:
- Dex: as your main for many things.
- Wis: for your defense and monk features.
- Con: as having d8 is not the best for a pure-martial, you’d want some more HP.
This limits too much how can you mold your characters with feats, as you will look for plain ASI +2 in most cases, or will be lower than expected in some or all aspects like AC, attack efficiency, DC for class features, and hit points. Looks like the monk is a class to punish with no reason.
The equipment thing is dumb, can we please all just agree that magic items in the official books are really stupidly designed? I mean how many cool magic swords are there compared to mauls, axes, halberd, glaives, etc...? Or the near complete lack of magical bows, and complete lack of magical crossbows. There is a reason the internet is completely full of HB magical items.
This isn't a problem of class design, it is a problem of magic item design. And you can't fix the magic item system, by tweaking class designs.
A solution is to get the features and then roll the weapon (or armor) type randomly. Indeed I already suggested to add the simple weapon “unarmed equipment” or something like that, which does nothing but applying features to unarmed strike (including DC?), so now is a new weapon type that can be crafted or found.
I will say this equipment thing is one thing that needs to be considered when talking about "martial vs caster" balance. Martials can use any weapons, usually meaning magic weapons as well. The best magic weapons should be martial weapons and thus being proficient with martial weapons should be considered more of a feature than it typically is. In the earliest days of DnD there were very few class features and what set the "fighting man" really apart was the fact that they could use any weapon.
Yeah, it's definitely not helped by casters having arguably superior equivalents to every magic weapon in the game; for example for every +1 weapon, there's a +1 casting focus that grants additional bonuses like ignoring cover (wand of the war mage) or even more powerful effects like those in Tasha's Cauldron. The caster varieties do require attunement, but since a focus applies to pretty much everything they do that's not really much of a cost.
I half-agree. The +X DC items in Tasha's was an absolutely horrible idea, and gave casters a huge boost they didn't need (they are banned at all of my tables). But the rest of the caster-specific magic items largely just give them more of what they can already do rather than giving them new abilities or making their existing abilities stronger - i.e. anyone getting a Staff of Power should already be able to cast multiple 5th-level fireballs in a day. Which means given that in practice adventuring days are way shorter than they "should" be the caster magic items are actually weaker than the martial ones.
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Thought 1:
Monk AC = 10 + Attribute Modifier* + Proficiency Bonus
(* which Attribute Modifier? using standard Monks, you could pick your Dex bonus or Wis bonus .. .maybe changing it after each Short Rest or Long Rest ; but if you're using my Mystical Attribute idea, then it would be your Dex bonus or your Mystical Attribute bonus; and again, you could swap back and forth during a rest)
This has the potential to get you to a 21 AC (as opposed to maxing out at 20), plus it means your AC increases specifically with level, and it means you only have to pick one attribute to focus upon (two when you consider that either way you'd want more CON for hit points). So three attributes (Dex, Wis, Con) that you need to try to maximize, vs 2 (Con, and then either Dex or Wis*).
Thought 2:
Untrained Unarmed Damage: 1 + Str Mod
Trained Unarmed Damage (Fighting style or lineage based claws/horns): replace the 1 with a 1d4. If you're a Monk you can also use Dex (or your Mystical Attribute*) instead of Str.
Monk Unarmed Damage: you add your Proficiency Bonus (and double it for a Crit).
So your "Martial Arts Die" isn't "1dX". Anything that calls for you to roll your martial arts die (or three rolls of your martial arts die, etc.): each die is replaced by 1d4 + PB.
This doesn't aways reach the same maximum as the Playtest 6 document, but it always produces a noticeably better minimum and average, because the minimum was scale up according to your proficiency bonus.
(This comparison list doesn't include the attribute modifier, since those values should balance out between the two ideas)
(parenthesis: min | avg | max )
Levels 1-4: 1d6 (1 | 3.5 | 6) vs 1d4 + 2 ( 3 | 4.5 | 6)
Levels 5-8: 1d8 (1 | 4.5 | 8 ) vs 1d4 + 3 (4 | 5.5 | 7)
Levels 9-10: 1d8 (1 | 4.5 | 8) vs 1d4 + 4 (5 | 6.5 | 8)
Levels 11-12: 1d10 (1 | 5.5 | 10) vs 1d4 + 4 (5 | 6.5 | 8)
Levels 13-16: 1d10 (1 | 5.5 | 10) vs 1d4 + 5 (6 | 7.5 | 9)
Levels 17-20: 1d12 (1 | 6.5 | 12) vs 1d4 + 6 (7 | 8.5 | 10)
Notice that for the PB method, the minimum is often +/- .5 from the standard method's average.
Minimum, with this method, you'll be doing approximately the average of the standard method.
If you hit 4 times (2 Attacks + Flurry of Blows) with 1d12, you'd do (4 | 26 | 48) damage using Playtest Document 6. With my method: (28-38-40)
You'd be giving up the high end of the scale for better consistent damage.
If (using this method) "Self Restoration" also gave you a +1 to attack and damage, and "Perfect Discipline" increased that to +2, then that would close the "maximum" damage gap for the most part.
Interesting thoughts but for thought 1, the AC might get higher at the end game but could be lower in the early game. Starting attributes of +3 in Dex and Wis isn't impossible, which would get you an AC of 16, but with what you have put the maximum would be 15.
I think in Thought 2, it's too much of an over-correction, 4 attacks at level 5, doing 5.5+MOD damage... that could be 10.5, if you land 65% of hits 24.7 average damage a turn at level 5, seems a little on the high side. I think an easier solution would be that flurry of blows adds wisdom in damage to the bonus action attacks. It's more damage, but doesn't apply to all attacks and gives more to wisdom and means keeping that martial arts die.
Consider that most campaigns run from levels 1 to 10, with few going to 15, and even fewer to 20.
Any build that relies on something you might get at level 20 has no value.
The question should be, what can you achieve by level 10?
Any class that can wear heavy armor and a shield can have 20AC with mundane equipment the moment they can scrounge up 1500gp for full plate armor.
Any medium armor class can have 19AC with half plate and a shield.
Assuming some lucrative contracts they could have those at levels 3 or 4.
Monks are the only martial class in the game with no armor proficiencies, and whose features specifically prohibit them from wearing armor if the player wants maximum effectiveness. Even a Wizard, via a dip or feat, can wear armor without it interfering with their casting. In theory, if they wanted to, a Rogue or Warlock could take the Moderately Armored feat for medium armor plus shield proficiency.
So to get equivalent AC to other martials, unless you're good at rolling 18s, Monks need three to four ASIs, which they won't get until level 12 minimum. At tier one, in my opinion, Monks are fairly good, since they have roughly equivalent damage to a two-weapon fighting fighter, with the same AC (16 Dex and Wis versus Scale Mail), more damage if they burn Ki.
The problem arises when other martials are able to boost their defenses with bought equipment, while Monks are still relying on a "once per four level" ASI. Their scaling is slow.
The solution I proposed was to make their AC scale based purely on their dexterity bonus, i.e. AC = 10 + 2(dex modifier). That allows them to get 16AC at level 1 (16 dexterity), 18AC at level 4 (18 dexterity) and 20AC at level 8 (20 dexterity). It could go higher if they have a magical way to increase their dexterity over 20. If they can, good for them.
Their damage is okay in my opinion, at least in tiers one and two. Having a consistent three attacks, with the ability to get four by burning Ki (and not using any of their other bonus actions) means that they're doing 3(d8+5) or 4(d8+5) damage at level 8, which is better than a two-weapon Fighter (not that the two-weapon Fighter is optimum, but it acts as a fair baseline). It's at level 11/12 where other Martials get features like extra extra attack and Improved Divine Smite that increase their raw damage that Monks start to fall behind.
At level 11 giving them an ability like Lifedrinker that adds d6 damage to every hit would probably bring them back up to par.
You’re right about 2.5 vs 3.5, I had the d6 in mind at one point. I’ll have to fix that.
At 5th level:
RAW: 4 x (1d8) = 32 max, 17 avg .. x .65 = 20.8 max, 11 avg
mine: 4 x (1d4 + 3) = 28 max, 22 avg x .65 = 18.2 max, 14.3 avg
The final totals for your 65% hit rate are within 3hp of damage of each other. The stat mod bonus damage will be the same offset for both, so while it will be higher, it’s not going to change that max will be about two and a half more points of damage for the round using RAW, and average will be about three-ish points more damage for my method.
How is that an over-correction? It seems more like “the same ballpark of result”, just arrived at with a different mechanical mindset (using PB instead of an increasing die).
Whenever someone mentions using proficiency bonus as a modifier, it always makes me think about multiclass. I guess you can only calculate ac one way, so it’s not like it would stack with anything, but it could make a really nice dip for a wizard or sorcerer for 1 level to get a big and constantly scaling ac boost. So a monk 10 would be as good at it as a wizard9/monk1. That kind of thing.
But really scaling stuff off PB is kind of a pet peeve of mine, mostly for that reason. It can work for a few things, but there’s lots of cases where it just makes for attractive MC dips.
If the problem is that class feature progression and equipment progression aren't connected, then this isn't really an issue you can solve by changing class feature progression. You solve it by giving Monks access to equipment that a DM can drop in for equivalent scaling, but currently no such equipment exists. All this tweak would do is remove reliance on Wisdom for AC, but you still need it for Monk abilities and we don't need another mono-DEX class.
This has always been a problem with magic items for Monks in 5e; while other martials are rocking around in +N armour that requirements no attunement, Monks are limited to some combination of bracers of defense, cloak of protection, and/or ring of protection (and dragonhide belt), all of which requirement attunement, and are of higher rarity than equivalent +N armour. So they're basically shut out from having any equivalent magic item progression because even if they get these items around the same time, they'll be sacrificing attunement slots to use them (so weapon progression or other bonuses are lost instead).
And the same problem exists for regular equipment progression; there is nothing in the standard rules that the Monk can wear for an equivalent boost to their fellow martials gaining early access to the best gear. You can't solve that problem with a class feature, because it's not a class scaling issue. This is a general problem with equipment in 5e; there is no level requirement, and if gold is the only limiting factor then DM generosity can greatly skew the balance. I've been of the opinion for a while that they should really just get rid of the different "types" of armour and simply have light, medium and heavy, with magic versions representing higher quality versions. So a lower level could describe their heavy armour as being plate, but maybe it's only basic armour made of iron or low grade steel compared to the noble's high-end meteorite steel, adamantine or whatever?
Meanwhile we need equivalent magic gear for unarmored characters, but tweaked to avoid exploitative stacking (e.g- maybe shouldn't stack with a magical effect such as mage armor, though I'm not sure how exploitative that really is in practice).
The other issue is that the Rogue is far too single-ability score dependent; their new Cunning Strikes use DEX rather than something else like INT which is just silly. They're a mono-ability class that gets an additional ability score increase, meanwhile Monks who need more only get the basic five. If anything it should be Monks that get the bonus one at 10th-level, and Rogues should have something else, because they simply don't need it.
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We have three mono-charisma classes. Another mono-dexterity class won't break the game.
Martials that have a secondary casting ability, like Rangers with wisdom, Paladins with charisma, and Eldritch Knights with intelligence, like to have some casting ability, but they can manage without too much of it. Meanwhile Monk needs wisdom, but has no real way to increase it without sacrificing its martial ability. It's in almost the same place that Pact of the Blade was before the Hexblade was invented, but there isn't a vastly superior option, like Pact of the Tome with the Spell Sniper feat to allow the Warlock to use Eldritch Blast in combat.
The Battlemaster is arguably the best Fighter subclass because its maneuvers are based on its primary combat stat rather than a secondary or tertiary stat.
Looking at it now the Monk would not be too difficult to bring up to par. A scaling Flurry of Blows that increases at cantrip levels gives us higher damage at higher levels, AC based exclusively on dex gives us competitive AC, and setting some of its saves on dexterity, not necessarily all, makes getting Wisdom less vital. We could even drop Stunning Strike to a once/turn ability at that point and not feel we've gutted the class. Make Step of the Wind free to Dash or Disengage, but use ki to do both in one turn.
Using my method above, combined with my suggestion about Martial Arts Mastery as a replacement for Weapon Mastery for Monks (one draft of it is in the Pugilistic Propositions thread), which included a lot of Martial Arts features from past editions that you pick from sort of like Eldritch Invocations in a vague sort of way ... including "Iron Skin" (which is a +2 AC bonus when unarmored and no shield, which I set to require being 4th level), you'd get:
(to some extent all of my suggestions are sort interworking with each other)
Levels 1-3: PB Bonus +2, Dex Bonus +3 (16 Dex) = 15 AC
Level 4: PB Bonus +2, Dex Bonus +4 (ASI to 18 Dex) = 16 AC
Level 5: PB Bonus +3, Dex Bonus +4 = 17 AC
Level 6: Pick up Iron Skin with your 6th level Martial Art Mastery to get +2, PB Bonus = +3, Dex Bonus +4 = 19 AC
Level 8: Iron Skin +2, PB Bonus +3, Dex Bonus +5 (ASI to get 20 Dex) = 20 AC
Level 9: Iron Skin +2, PB Bonus +4, Dex Bonus +5 = 21 AC
So, from levels 3-8, you're gaining AC every level. And then another boost (from PB increases) at 9th level, 13th level, and 17th level.
Even without Iron Skin, the difference between yours and mine only produces a difference of 1 at 1st and 9th level, and mine keeps going up after that even without adding magic items, etc..
So:
a) no, you don't have to wait until you're high level to get there to about the same place as your method.
b) this would get you a peak of 23 AC without anything extra beyond burning two of your ASI's (21 AC without Iron Skin).
c) if they reword the Defense Fighting Style for both a flat +1 AC and working with the Warrior Group AND/OR any class with Fighting Style feature, then your Background Feat or 12th level Feat could get you another +1 AC. (everyone's Monk AC method would benefit from that)
c) My method still benefits from things that would boost your Dex, in addition to all of the rest of the benefits, so not a difference from yours in that regard.
And my method doesn't involve doubling a stat mod, which I think (but am not 100% sure) would be unprecidented.
Other Martials and Semi-Martials can still roll low on their damage, giving less total damage than my method.
That's probably the main benefit: Monks wont ever do less than half of their maximum damage with their unarmed strikes.
I agree that Monks should have something like that (or the Cleric and Paladin features, or Gloomstalker and Plane Walker features, that add another die to your damage roll). Which is why I included it in the Martial Arts Masteries (Deft Martial Strike -- spend 2 DP to add another roll of your martial arts damage to the damage dealt).
Could borrow a mindset from some of the class specific cantrips in the playtests: Only count class levels for that class.
You could do that literally: the PB mod you get for AC only uses the PB value from your number of Monk levels (Monk table, 2nd column, use the row for you Monk level).
Or you can do it mathematically:
Normally, PB is: (Character Level / 4, drop fractions) +2
Monk's AC Bonus is: (Monk Level / 4, drop fractions) + 2
Which leads to a final Monk AC Calculation of: 12 + (Monk Level / 4, drop fractions) + (Dex Mod)
FYI a level 17 Frenzy Barbarian according to the UA5 deals an average of 66 damage per round.
Also FYI your AC makes very little difference to survivability at high level, a monk's Evasion is far more beneficial to their survivability at level 17+ than a +2 or +3 AC. E.g. at level 17, the increasing AC 18 to AC 23 is only about 25% increase in survivability.
The Barbarian’s damage isn’t relevant. It’s a monk method vs monk method comparison, with the mindset being to use PB instead of other methods to scale damage and AC. It’s not about being stupendously better, it’s about a different mindset. The fact that the AC isn’t terribly far off is actually the goal. (and the trade on much better low end damage vs a bit less high end is close enough)
I will say this equipment thing is one thing that needs to be considered when talking about "martial vs caster" balance. Martials can use any weapons, usually meaning magic weapons as well. The best magic weapons should be martial weapons and thus being proficient with martial weapons should be considered more of a feature than it typically is. In the earliest days of DnD there were very few class features and what set the "fighting man" really apart was the fact that they could use any weapon.
The equipment thing is dumb, can we please all just agree that magic items in the official books are really stupidly designed? I mean how many cool magic swords are there compared to mauls, axes, halberd, glaives, etc...? Or the near complete lack of magical bows, and complete lack of magical crossbows. There is a reason the internet is completely full of HB magical items.
This isn't a problem of class design, it is a problem of magic item design. And you can't fix the magic item system, by tweaking class designs.
Absolutely.
I really hope they steal something like the system in PF2e. You don’t find an item, you find a rune which you can then apply to a weapon or piece of armor. So, not a +1sword, but a rune that give +1 to whichever weapon you put it on. And not a flaming sword, but a rune that applies the flaming property to whatever you put it on. They can be moved from one weapon to another, but not copied. It’s simple and allows real flexibility. And you don’t have the metagame wierdness of a DM giving out useful items and a party somehow only finding weapons that work for them. It’s one of the better things about Pathfinder.
If I change the damage to 1d6 instead of 1d4:
(parenthesis: min | avg | max )
Levels 1-4: 1d6 (1 | 3.5 | 6) vs 1d6 + 2 ( 3 | 5.5 | 8)
Levels 5-8: 1d8 (1 | 4.5 | 8 ) vs 1d6 + 3 (4 | 6.5 | 9)
Levels 9-10: 1d8 (1 | 4.5 | 8) vs 1d6 + 4 (5 | 7.5 | 10)
Levels 11-12: 1d10 (1 | 5.5 | 10) vs 1d6 + 4 (5 | 7.5 | 10)
Levels 13-16: 1d10 (1 | 5.5 | 10) vs 1d6 + 5 (6 | 8.5 | 11)
Levels 17-20: 1d12 (1 | 6.5 | 12) vs 1d6 + 6 (7 | 9.5 | 12)
Tier-1 damage is significantly better, but the maximum damage eventually evens out.
Re: Magic Items: yeah, it's a problem. And not what I'm trying to address here. I've said this elsewhere, in less detail, but:
But DMs definitely need to be more proactive about making changes to magic items to suit the party's needs, and Players need more agency about it. This is one of the few places where I think 3e did a better job than 5e, but reason it did so is exactly the same reason why 5e is better than 3e over all: the 3e system was full of complexity and minutia, including the magic item system. 5e needs a way to separate out the enchantment from the item, make the enchantment able to be applied to other items, which can accept different types of enchantments. Some of the Artificer Infusions sort of work like that (sorta), but scaling them up as they're written would get back into complexity and minutia. A gem socket and/or rune system would be interesting, but pin the mechanism to a particular lore that might not work well in all settings (though, if I'm being honest, that's the system I would want).
Take that, and allow tattoos that work gems into the ink, or runes into the design, and apply weapon runes/gems to unarmed strikes. Or protection tattoos that include more than just armor bonuses. That would give a lot more flexibility than just a barrier tattoo or the eldritch claw tattoo. The drawback of course is that tattoos seem to take up attunement slots. Though that doesn't have to be true. You could instead base attunement on the property and not simply on having a tattoo. People fit a lot of detail and skin coverage into tattoos, it doesn't have to be limited to just 3 for _all_ tattoos.
So also have gems/runes applied to other magic items. Bracers or gauntlets that have a gem socket or space for a rune to be worked into their design, and enhance unarmed strikes. Rings, broaches, belts/sashes (especially belt buckles for holding gems), robes, or vests that do the same for protection garments. Those might not take up attunement slots, depending on the property the gem/rune has.
But, again, that's completely different from what I'm talking about here, which is using PB as the Monk's AC and Damage scaling mechanism.
Yeah, it's definitely not helped by casters having arguably superior equivalents to every magic weapon in the game; for example for every +1 weapon, there's a +1 casting focus that grants additional bonuses like ignoring cover (wand of the war mage) or even more powerful effects like those in Tasha's Cauldron. The caster varieties do require attunement, but since a focus applies to pretty much everything they do that's not really much of a cost.
There are some magic items that absolutely favour a Fighter making more attacks; a flame tongue for example is far more powerful on a Fighter with Action Surge than a Barbarian with only two attacks, but does it compensate for a Wizard with a Staff of Defense saving slots and being harder to kill, or a Staff of Power to just churn out damage? Probably not.
Major rebalancing of magic items is required, especially magic items with spells are very good for casters as they both save resources and give access to extra spells. IMO spell items should be a lot more focused, and a lot of them should be for non-casters to gain a little spellcasting rather than for already strong classes to get even stronger.
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IMHO is time to take out Wis from the Monk. Rogue can focus only on Dex even for computing it’s DC for Cunning Strike, then why the monk have to use another score? There are too many scores to worry about:
- Dex: as your main for many things.
- Wis: for your defense and monk features.
- Con: as having d8 is not the best for a pure-martial, you’d want some more HP.
This limits too much how can you mold your characters with feats, as you will look for plain ASI +2 in most cases, or will be lower than expected in some or all aspects like AC, attack efficiency, DC for class features, and hit points. Looks like the monk is a class to punish with no reason.
A solution is to get the features and then roll the weapon (or armor) type randomly. Indeed I already suggested to add the simple weapon “unarmed equipment” or something like that, which does nothing but applying features to unarmed strike (including DC?), so now is a new weapon type that can be crafted or found.
I half-agree. The +X DC items in Tasha's was an absolutely horrible idea, and gave casters a huge boost they didn't need (they are banned at all of my tables). But the rest of the caster-specific magic items largely just give them more of what they can already do rather than giving them new abilities or making their existing abilities stronger - i.e. anyone getting a Staff of Power should already be able to cast multiple 5th-level fireballs in a day. Which means given that in practice adventuring days are way shorter than they "should" be the caster magic items are actually weaker than the martial ones.