Here is my homebrew on how I would run the Monk if the playtest 6 version were to be published as final. The goals of these changes are to preserve the identity of the Monk as stated by WATC in the players handbook…
Whatever their discipline, monks are united in their ability to magically harness the energy that flows in their bodies. Whether channeled as a striking display of combat prowess or a subtler focus of defensive ability and speed, this energy infuses all that a monk does.
… And fix the major pain points when playing a Monk that I have identified as follows.
Monks are locked out of feats and item progression. Because they lack proficiency in a Martial Weapon, Monks are locked out of most good combat feats. Because of how Martial Arts and Unarmored Defence/Movement work Monks get little value from items.
Monks are overly reliant on their Bonus Action to be effective. By my own calculations a straight class no-feats Monk does very similar to damage to a straight class no-feats Fighter. The only difference is the Fighter does all their damage with their Action while, at times, half of the Monk damage is from their Bonus Action. The bespoke Bonus Actions of the Monk hold it back for using subclasses, feats, or multi-classing effectively as most of the time these options manifest power through adding on a Bonus Action.
Stunning Strike is unreliable and game warping when it works. Stunned is a very powerful condition when it can be applied without constraint. Stunning a solo boss monster on the first round, unfun trivialized encounter, stunning a handful of minions protecting the boss, cool as hell. I want to fix this problem without 1) Changing the condition being applied or 2) changing the save from constitution.
The cap-stone isn’t exciting or tied into anything the Monk already does.
These are the changes I would make to address these pain points and why I think they work. In some cases I copied the existing text and will underline the important changes.
2ND LEVEL: MARTIAL DISCIPLINE Your self-discipline and martial training allow you to harness a well of extraordinary energy within yourself. Your access to this energy is represented by a number of Discipline Points. Your Monk level determines the number of points you have, as shown in the Discipline Points column of the Monk table.
Once during your turn, you can spend these points to fuel a Martial Discipline. You start knowing three such Disciplines: Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind. You learn more Martial Disciplines as you gain levels in this class.
When you spend a Discipline Point, it is unavailable until you finish a Short Rest or Long Rest, at the end of which you regain all your expended points.
Some of your features that use Discipline Points require your target to make a saving throw to resist the feature’s effects. The saving throw DC equals 8 plus your Proficiency Bonus plus your Wisdom modifier.
Flurry of Blows. When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to make one extra Unarmed Strike as part of that action.
Patient Defense. You can spend 1 Discipline Point to take the Dodge action as a Bonus Action.
Step of the Wind. When you move on your turn, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to double your move speed and jump distance for the turn, and gain the benefit of the Disengage action for the turn.
Patient Defense is unchanged because it feels appropriate to cost a Discipline Point and a Bonus Action to take the Dodge action. Moving Step of the Wind and Flurry of Blows off the Bonus Action frees them up to be combined with other bonus actions. Flurry plus Martial Arts Bonus Unarmed Strike ends up being the same as before but now doesn’t hurt as much when the bonus action is used for something else. Step of the Wind becomes exceptionally good when combined with bonus action dash and worth the Discipline Point. The “Once during your turn” qualifier to this feature keeps the power per turn in check and leaves the overall power of the feature the same while opening it up to combinations with other features. Note not all effects that use Discipline Points are Martial Disciplines
3RD LEVEL: DEDICATED ARTS
You trained yourself to master a particular weapon with your martial arts. Choose one of the options below as an expression of your dedication. When you gain a level of this class you may change your dedication to a different choice.
Martial Weapon. You choose a kind of Martial Weapon that lacks the Heavy property and gain proficiency in that weapon and can use its Mastery property. That kind of weapon now benefits from your Martial Arts feature’s Dexterous Attacks.
Simple Weapons. You can use your Martial Arts Die in place of the normal weapon damage of Simple Weapons. Simple Weapons are now considered Martial Weapons for you.
Unarmed Strikes. You choose a Weapon Mastery that lacks the Heavy or Light prerequisite and apply it to your unarmed strikes. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can change the Weapon Mastery you chose. Your Unarmed Strikes are now considered Martial Weapons.
I like the idea of a martial artist choosing a weapon as part of graduating into their specialized school of martial arts, that is why this is at 3rd level. The goal here is to keep all Monk styles similarly powerful and unlock Martial Weapon Feats. (I realized a bit late that only one of the options actually granted a martial weapon proficiency, thus the heavy handed final line on Simple Weapons and Unarmed Strikes.) Each option feels powerful and thematic is its own right: Martial Weapon, largest immediate power and widest range of Mastery options; Simple Weapons, scaling damage on daggers with the Nick property for max attacks; Unarmed Strikes; wide range of masteries on what eventually becomes the bulk of your attacks.
5TH LEVEL: STUNNING STRIKE You have learned to manipulate the energy flowing in your enemies. You learn the Stunning Strike Martial Discipline.
Stunning Strike.When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to attempt to stun them. If the target has hit points less than or equal to 5 times your Monk level, they have the Stunned condition until the start of your next turn. For the rest of your turn you may repeat Stunning Strike with each attack, spending a Discipline Point with each attack.
This is a Martial Discipline and thus follows the rules for only one being usable per turn. So this cannot be combined with Flurry of Blows. This ability is such a pain to make fun. Limiting it to weak or weakened enemies seems like the only constraint that lets it be consistent and powerful without randomly trivializing encounters. It works similar to Power Word: Stun now. Maybe this should be Monk level times Wisdom Modifier to encourage investing in Wisdom?
11TH LEVEL: MARTIAL ARTS MASTER
When you use Martial Arts Bonus Unarmed Strike, you can make the attack as part of the Attack action, instead of as a Bonus Action. You can still make this extra attack only once per turn.
Freeing up the last core Monk damage feature from the Bonus Action. Provides a damage boost as long as the Monk has another ability that can use the Bonus Action for damage. Now four attacks on the attack action if the player uses Flurry of Blows.
20TH LEVEL: FLOWING DISCIPLINE
You are no longer restricted to using one Martial Discipline per turn. Each Discipline can still only be used once per turn. (Stunning Strike can still be used on multiple attacks.)
You made it to level 20, are sitting on a lot of Discipline Points, and can now use them all unconstrained. Blow a third of your Points to sprint across the battlefield, stunning 5+ minions along the way and tank all the boss’s attacks with Patient Defense. Continue the rest of combat with 5+ attacks and dodging at the low cost of only 2 Discipline Points per turn.
I like all that. Though why ban heavy weapons? A monk with a glaive is pretty classic if you ask me. Or with a kanabo (huge spiked war club, basically a maul). They just need two sets of mechanics for unarmed and for weapons. Unarmed would emulate dual-wielding with several attacks in one action and enhancements that would make sure unarmed fighting stays on par with magic weapons and masteries. While weapons would be used the same way as any other martial class, with fighting styles and masteries.
I like all that. Though why ban heavy weapons? A monk with a glaive is pretty classic if you ask me. Or with a kanabo (huge spiked war club, basically a maul). They just need two sets of mechanics for unarmed and for weapons. Unarmed would emulate dual-wielding with several attacks in one action and enhancements that would make sure unarmed fighting stays on par with magic weapons and masteries. While weapons would be used the same way as any other martial class, with fighting styles and masteries.
I like all that. Though why ban heavy weapons? A monk with a glaive is pretty classic if you ask me. Or with a kanabo (huge spiked war club, basically a maul). They just need two sets of mechanics for unarmed and for weapons. Unarmed would emulate dual-wielding with several attacks in one action and enhancements that would make sure unarmed fighting stays on par with magic weapons and masteries. While weapons would be used the same way as any other martial class, with fighting styles and masteries.
Here is my homebrew on how I would run the Monk if the playtest 6 version were to be published as final. The goals of these changes are to preserve the identity of the Monk as stated by WATC in the players handbook…
Whatever their discipline, monks are united in their ability to magically harness the energy that flows in their bodies. Whether channeled as a striking display of combat prowess or a subtler focus of defensive ability and speed, this energy infuses all that a monk does.
… And fix the major pain points when playing a Monk that I have identified as follows.
Monks are locked out of feats and item progression. Because they lack proficiency in a Martial Weapon, Monks are locked out of most good combat feats. Because of how Martial Arts and Unarmored Defence/Movement work Monks get little value from items.
Monks are overly reliant on their Bonus Action to be effective. By my own calculations a straight class no-feats Monk does very similar to damage to a straight class no-feats Fighter. The only difference is the Fighter does all their damage with their Action while, at times, half of the Monk damage is from their Bonus Action. The bespoke Bonus Actions of the Monk hold it back for using subclasses, feats, or multi-classing effectively as most of the time these options manifest power through adding on a Bonus Action.
Stunning Strike is unreliable and game warping when it works. Stunned is a very powerful condition when it can be applied without constraint. Stunning a solo boss monster on the first round, unfun trivialized encounter, stunning a handful of minions protecting the boss, cool as hell. I want to fix this problem without 1) Changing the condition being applied or 2) changing the save from constitution.
The cap-stone isn’t exciting or tied into anything the Monk already does.
These are the changes I would make to address these pain points and why I think they work. In some cases I copied the existing text and will underline the important changes.
2ND LEVEL: MARTIAL DISCIPLINE Your self-discipline and martial training allow you to harness a well of extraordinary energy within yourself. Your access to this energy is represented by a number of Discipline Points. Your Monk level determines the number of points you have, as shown in the Discipline Points column of the Monk table.
Once during your turn, you can spend these points to fuel a Martial Discipline. You start knowing three such Disciplines: Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind. You learn more Martial Disciplines as you gain levels in this class.
When you spend a Discipline Point, it is unavailable until you finish a Short Rest or Long Rest, at the end of which you regain all your expended points.
Some of your features that use Discipline Points require your target to make a saving throw to resist the feature’s effects. The saving throw DC equals 8 plus your Proficiency Bonus plus your Wisdom modifier.
Flurry of Blows. When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to make one extra Unarmed Strike as part of that action.
Patient Defense. You can spend 1 Discipline Point to take the Dodge action as a Bonus Action.
Step of the Wind. When you move on your turn, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to double your move speed and jump distance for the turn, and gain the benefit of the Disengage action for the turn.
Patient Defense is unchanged because it feels appropriate to cost a Discipline Point and a Bonus Action to take the Dodge action. Moving Step of the Wind and Flurry of Blows off the Bonus Action frees them up to be combined with other bonus actions. Flurry plus Martial Arts Bonus Unarmed Strike ends up being the same as before but now doesn’t hurt as much when the bonus action is used for something else. Step of the Wind becomes exceptionally good when combined with bonus action dash and worth the Discipline Point. The “Once during your turn” qualifier to this feature keeps the power per turn in check and leaves the overall power of the feature the same while opening it up to combinations with other features. Note not all effects that use Discipline Points are Martial Disciplines
3RD LEVEL: DEDICATED ARTS
You trained yourself to master a particular weapon with your martial arts. Choose one of the options below as an expression of your dedication. When you gain a level of this class you may change your dedication to a different choice.
Martial Weapon. You choose a kind of Martial Weapon that lacks the Heavy property and gain proficiency in that weapon and can use its Mastery property. That kind of weapon now benefits from your Martial Arts feature’s Dexterous Attacks.
Simple Weapons. You can use your Martial Arts Die in place of the normal weapon damage of Simple Weapons. Simple Weapons are now considered Martial Weapons for you.
Unarmed Strikes. You choose a Weapon Mastery that lacks the Heavy or Light prerequisite and apply it to your unarmed strikes. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can change the Weapon Mastery you chose. Your Unarmed Strikes are now considered Martial Weapons.
I like the idea of a martial artist choosing a weapon as part of graduating into their specialized school of martial arts, that is why this is at 3rd level. The goal here is to keep all Monk styles similarly powerful and unlock Martial Weapon Feats. (I realized a bit late that only one of the options actually granted a martial weapon proficiency, thus the heavy handed final line on Simple Weapons and Unarmed Strikes.) Each option feels powerful and thematic is its own right: Martial Weapon, largest immediate power and widest range of Mastery options; Simple Weapons, scaling damage on daggers with the Nick property for max attacks; Unarmed Strikes; wide range of masteries on what eventually becomes the bulk of your attacks.
5TH LEVEL: STUNNING STRIKE You have learned to manipulate the energy flowing in your enemies. You learn the Stunning Strike Martial Discipline.
Stunning Strike.When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to attempt to stun them. If the target has hit points less than or equal to 5 times your Monk level, they have the Stunned condition until the start of your next turn. For the rest of your turn you may repeat Stunning Strike with each attack, spending a Discipline Point with each attack.
This is a Martial Discipline and thus follows the rules for only one being usable per turn. So this cannot be combined with Flurry of Blows. This ability is such a pain to make fun. Limiting it to weak or weakened enemies seems like the only constraint that lets it be consistent and powerful without randomly trivializing encounters. It works similar to Power Word: Stun now. Maybe this should be Monk level times Wisdom Modifier to encourage investing in Wisdom?
11TH LEVEL: MARTIAL ARTS MASTER
When you use Martial Arts Bonus Unarmed Strike, you can make the attack as part of the Attack action, instead of as a Bonus Action. You can still make this extra attack only once per turn.
Freeing up the last core Monk damage feature from the Bonus Action. Provides a damage boost as long as the Monk has another ability that can use the Bonus Action for damage. Now four attacks on the attack action if the player uses Flurry of Blows.
20TH LEVEL: FLOWING DISCIPLINE
You are no longer restricted to using one Martial Discipline per turn. Each Discipline can still only be used once per turn. (Stunning Strike can still be used on multiple attacks.)
You made it to level 20, are sitting on a lot of Discipline Points, and can now use them all unconstrained. Blow a third of your Points to sprint across the battlefield, stunning 5+ minions along the way and tank all the boss’s attacks with Patient Defense. Continue the rest of combat with 5+ attacks and dodging at the low cost of only 2 Discipline Points per turn.
feat is currently a baseline rule. There is no need to analyze withou feats.
fighter out performs monk, even without feats, though I will say playing without feats is no longer standard. And always was unfairly applied in the case of fighter, who gets two extra feats. This is due to the stat cap, but although this limits their dps increase, it increases their survivability, aka they are still noticeably stronger than the monk. Damage wise the monk is a simple 4attack math, or 4 attacks + MA die in your version (if they dual wield nick). The fighter does 5 attacks, however fighters get a bonus of 1-2 dmg per attac(fighting styles), and they Have action surge once/twice per short rest. most fights last 4 rounds, and the monk is severely limited by Ki and SR, so if the monk has Ki every fight, the fighter has action surge every fight. This basically is equivalent to adding an extra 1-2 attacks per round for the baseline fighter. So essentially the monk is 4.5 attacks per round, the fighter is 6-7 plus 1-2dmg per attack. And fighter subclasses add large damage. Brawler adds PB damage per hit, EK adds the difference in cantrip and regular damage, minimum (4d8 booming), . And BM adds d8, minimum, but realistically d8 and d8 * die amount per SR.
most monk subclasses add low to no overall damage, the least is zero, the most is 2ma dice +mod. This isnt touching brawler BM or EK
I agree that some of the things you described are issues, but
you nerf monk with most of these changes. One issue with the common solution of flurry of blows adds one attack, is monk sub classes that expand on flurry of blows are designed for it to be a BA that has at least two strikes. You essentially nerfed every FOB interaction to only give one effect, open hand, mercy monk suffer for this.
You free up the monk BA, but take away its main uses. Maybe this might help multiclass monk, but you limit Ki use to once per round, so you can't dodge and FOB, dodge uses a BA, so you can't dodge and do an unarmed BA attack. All this does is make dash a better option, where you give up 1 attack instead of two, which is nice for step of the wind, but it isnt helping monks low damage, survivability while being effective, or versatility and combat options.
You also make stunning strike a double cost while at the same time being less effective. You pay with ki per SR (which is basically minus one attack per SR) and you pay in DPR because you can't FOB and stun in the same round. Are you removing the save? Also its weird to make it hp based, monk has Ki issues, and gambling on unknown hp amounts is a bit weird. But on the flip side when it does work (if it has no save in your version) it always works, (unlike sleep which is a roll). And looking at this chart,
this skill will amost never come into play. regular monster or not, its generally only going to work for a similar CR enemy in the final round, in which they weren't going to get another round to attack anyway. The monster would have to be like 5-7 CR lower than the group for this to be effective for shutting down an enemy in round 2 or 3, and usually in that case, they weren't going to get another round of action anyway.
your big change for t3 damage is essentially freeing up monk's BA, but monk does not have any means of increasing damage through BA. I guess they become more survivable at 11 because they can dodge and do 3 attacks, but that still doesn't make them actually a tank. they have low max HP, and recovery, they will still be a worse tank than a fighter, and do less damage. They can't make use of POlearm master due to heavy req, and they could take gwm, but would only benefit on crit.
So at the end of the day, your monk is only really improved over a straight 2014 import in that it gets an unarmed mastery, it can step of the wind with a lower damage penalty. Its worse in terms of FOB synergy, and stun becomes mostly a non factor, 2014 monk without stun isn't grand. It gets a slight boost from nick and MA die on simple weapons, but thats not really much.
I have to agree that some of this seems to fall short in practice. You seem really concerned about opening up monk's bonus action for multiclassing, but monk is one of the worst classes to multiclass out with because you fall behind very quickly in discipline/ki which fuels all of your class features.
Additionally, it's not lack of martial weapons that locks monks out of feats (especially post-Tasha's), it's their MAD nature. They fall behind their expected progression if they don't spend all their ASIs on DEX and WIS.
Finally, a major issue with monk is that its damage output basically plateaus at 11 and every other martial leaves it in the dust from there. If you're making changes, you should address that directly (and it should be a solution that does not require MC).
One issue with the common solution of flurry of blows adds one attack, is monk sub classes that expand on flurry of blows are designed for it to be a BA that has at least two strikes. You essentially nerfed every FOB interaction to only give one effect, open hand, mercy monk suffer for this.
Good point. I forgot about FOB subclass enhancements. Fairly easy fix, anything that modifies to your Flurry of Blows attack also applies to your Bonus Unarmed Strike on the turn you use Flurry of Blows. If you really want to get spicy make them apply to all unarmed strikes the turn you use Flurry of Blows.
As to the rest of your points, my hypothesis is that Monk power is fine and that what holds them back from being fun to build (I think most monk players already have a blast playing a monk) is lack of access to Feats and Items, limitations on using their action economy due to so much power being in their Bonus Action, and the unpredictable impact of Stunning Strike. To support or disprove this hypothesis you must compare Monks to other classes without using Feats or upgrading items. And the math checks out at least versus the Fighter. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W4oUfewP9TEhU2e-oniisV4BkQT4SpgnExw09NqLzc4/edit?usp=sharing (Document is unfinished as I never got around to doing the Rogue and is outdated as it uses the playtest 5 Fighter and Barbarian. Many of the assumptions also favor the Monk more than the fighter. I expect the Barbarian is the actual outlier here. Though if you come to the conclusion that the monk should be comparable to the Barbarian because of the Fighters access to extra Feats then I look forward to reading your proposed improvements. It may be as simple as adding a fighting style and removing the heavy weapon constraint.)
The goal is not to increase Monks power, just get out of its way. I don't need to give them more to do with their bonus action. The fighter doesn't have any built in damage on their bonus action, why should the Monk get half their offensive power from there. I leave it to players to be creative and figure out something to do with that opportunity. Or for sub-classes to exploit that resource without the steep opportunity cost of giving up Flurry of Blows.
Last thing, Stunning Strike... It isn't my favorite design, just the best I could come up with the constraints I set myself. I really wanted to turn it into a multi hit combo stun but couldn't get that to work in a way that solved the main problem with the current Stunning Strike; stunning the solo boss monster you are fighting on the first round is not fun for the game. I settled on an effect akin to Power Word: Stun or Banishing Smite with the hope that removing the random chance would allow for more consistency. Maybe the threshold is off, but the monster HP values from the DMG are also way off from the printed material. Most CR1 creatures have ~30hp not 70. And I said, stunning the boss round 1, not fun, stunning 5 of his minions round one, super cool.
P.S. In case it wasn't clear, the intent is for only Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, Step of the Wind, and Stunning Strike to be considered "Martial Disciplines" and subject to the "Once per turn..." restriction. Other uses of Discipline Points from the class or sub-classes would not suffer that restriction. Unless you want them to for your game. Up to you.
One issue with the common solution of flurry of blows adds one attack, is monk sub classes that expand on flurry of blows are designed for it to be a BA that has at least two strikes. You essentially nerfed every FOB interaction to only give one effect, open hand, mercy monk suffer for this.
Good point. I forgot about FOB subclass enhancements. Fairly easy fix, anything that modifies to your Flurry of Blows attack also applies to your Bonus Unarmed Strike on the turn you use Flurry of Blows. If you really want to get spicy make them apply to all unarmed strikes the turn you use Flurry of Blows.
As to the rest of your points, my hypothesis is that Monk power is fine and that what holds them back from being fun to build (I think most monk players already have a blast playing a monk) is lack of access to Feats and Items, limitations on using their action economy due to so much power being in their Bonus Action, and the unpredictable impact of Stunning Strike. To support or disprove this hypothesis you must compare Monks to other classes without using Feats or upgrading items. And the math checks out at least versus the Fighter. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W4oUfewP9TEhU2e-oniisV4BkQT4SpgnExw09NqLzc4/edit?usp=sharing (Document is unfinished as I never got around to doing the Rogue and is outdated as it uses the playtest 5 Fighter and Barbarian. Many of the assumptions also favor the Monk more than the fighter. I expect the Barbarian is the actual outlier here. Though if you come to the conclusion that the monk should be comparable to the Barbarian because of the Fighters access to extra Feats then I look forward to reading your proposed improvements. It may be as simple as adding a fighting style and removing the heavy weapon constraint.)
The goal is not to increase Monks power, just get out of its way. I don't need to give them more to do with their bonus action. The fighter doesn't have any built in damage on their bonus action, why should the Monk get half their offensive power from there. I leave it to players to be creative and figure out something to do with that opportunity. Or for sub-classes to exploit that resource without the steep opportunity cost of giving up Flurry of Blows.
Last thing, Stunning Strike... It isn't my favorite design, just the best I could come up with the constraints I set myself. I really wanted to turn it into a multi hit combo stun but couldn't get that to work in a way that solved the main problem with the current Stunning Strike; stunning the solo boss monster you are fighting on the first round is not fun for the game. I settled on an effect akin to Power Word: Stun or Banishing Smite with the hope that removing the random chance would allow for more consistency. Maybe the threshold is off, but the monster HP values from the DMG are also way off from the printed material. Most CR1 creatures have ~30hp not 70. And I said, stunning the boss round 1, not fun, stunning 5 of his minions round one, super cool.
P.S. In case it wasn't clear, the intent is for only Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, Step of the Wind, and Stunning Strike to be considered "Martial Disciplines" and subject to the "Once per turn..." restriction. Other uses of Discipline Points from the class or sub-classes would not suffer that restriction. Unless you want them to for your game. Up to you.
Feats are a baseline rule now, its in the UA, every player can choose feats. Not counting feats is not giving you a realistic understanding. And it most especially warps fighter who gets two extra feats as features
that aside, your math on fighter is a bit off, they can use two fighting styles at level 1, (more if they are human) this means they can have twf and gwf.
You are also not considering subclasses boost damage differently for different classes. Monk subclasses average lower damage than fighter.
and your EHP doesn't consider HP recovery, which is a huge deal in EHP, and it also looks like you aren't considering magic items, which dramatically benefit shield users in defense.
you also have a reasoning of BA is the same value for all classes, its not. Fighter can BA second wind, monk has no native use for BA in your build other than PD. Feats also are not evenly giving value, and subclasses
you also should have snapshotted level 20, as that is the final power.
Essentially, you are leaving out too many factors in your dps Calc for it to be representative, namely feats and subclass
I agree that monk has a BA issue which is holding it back, but I don't think your monk feels free enough. In play, the only difference is step of the wind is a 3/4attack option, until 11. You also added the limit of stun being mutually exclusive. So overall, this monk does not seem like a straight class monk would feel much more versatile. You can still never use two Ki techs on one turn, pd is still weak until 11. at which it becomes a 3/4attack option.
you still have Ki issues until 10 (if you got 10 rounds per Rest)
and the actual DPS with feats and subclasses is still low. And, yeah, you have to make assumptions to math things out, but not sure about these assumptions, 8 combats per day only seems likely if you are running easy encounters, most modules, and groups run hard encounters, and sometimes deadly encounters. Note that a fighter without any feats is not likely a competitive class. Rogue IMO is low, however their off turn sneak is very strong, so maybe they are balanced with that consideration. But if you looked at paladin, Ranger, sorcerer, wizard, etc, They'd not have trouble breaking these dps projections.
After thinking on this for a while, I think you are right and that the heavy weapon restriction isn’t needed. I thought giving the Monk access to d12/2d6 weapons would be too strong. But I think it could be balanced against restricting the use of Bonus Unarmed Strike while wielding a heavy weapon. Heavy weapons would make using a martial weapon more valuable past level 11 when the other weapons catch up in damage and give wider range of mastery and feat options. Good idea.
One issue with the common solution of flurry of blows adds one attack, is monk sub classes that expand on flurry of blows are designed for it to be a BA that has at least two strikes. You essentially nerfed every FOB interaction to only give one effect, open hand, mercy monk suffer for this.
Your assumption here is that FoB is used literally every round and the party short rests right away when ki is spent.
This is very different from actual play in my experience. Perhaps you should suggest that FoB be free if you're going to assume it is constantly used. But now I understand why you're so hung up on the bonus action, because insisting that you FoB every turn prevents you from doing much else. That just feels like a roundabout solution that would be better tackled head-on though by not requiring FoB to meet baseline and rather it being the on-demand, optional burst damage that it's supposed to be.
One issue with the common solution of flurry of blows adds one attack, is monk sub classes that expand on flurry of blows are designed for it to be a BA that has at least two strikes. You essentially nerfed every FOB interaction to only give one effect, open hand, mercy monk suffer for this.
Your assumption here is that FoB is used literally every round and the party short rests right away when ki is spent.
This is very different from actual play in my experience. Perhaps you should suggest that FoB be free if you're going to assume it is constantly used. But now I understand why you're so hung up on the bonus action, because insisting that you FoB every turn prevents you from doing much else. That just feels like a roundabout solution that would be better tackled head-on though by not requiring FoB to meet baseline and rather it being the on-demand, optional burst damage that it's supposed to be.
hes actually not assuming they use it every round, I believe. He is using nick with MA dice, and assuming 1 fob per round and SR every 10-11 rounds. So low level, its not happening much, high level they can start using other Ki uses. Its not realistic, but I think he is trying to compare a dps focused monk with other classes.
issue is twofold
1) he assumes no feats, and uses the feat focused class as comparison, and he ignores subclass, assuming all have the same value
2) other classes do the same damage while still being more versatile.
the result is he has a solution that works, if you assume everyone gets the same value from feats, BA and subjobs(they dont). But I'm not sure I love that, even if the dmg is not a factor, because it creates roughly the same playstyle/builds as fighter, except with less options for two attacks. Meanwhile the other classes are generally becoming more unique.
1) he assumes no feats, and uses the feat focused class as comparison, and he ignores subclass, assuming all have the same value
I see your point about excluding Feats from a class that gets 2 extra Feats as its class features. It does undercut to comparison and the conclusion the Monk damage is "fine". It is, however, difficult to include Feats in the comparison and still have an apples to apples comparison and isolate the flaws in the Monk build to the Monk class design and not in the separate field of Feat design. But, given that exclusion I would expect the Monk to more noticeably out perform the Fighter under the build rules.
Sub-classes are included in the calculations; Champion, Open Hand, and Berserker. It is in the rules at the top of the sheet. The large part of why the Barbarian damage is so high in comparison to the other two is from the Berserker damage bump. Excluding that bonus and the Barbarian's damage at each benchmark ends up being very close the the Fighter and Monk. I would estimate that the Open Hand sub-class probably contributes the least to the damage of each class, as its only increase is a chance to inflict the prone condition and thus provide advantage an subsequent attacks that round. But it would be contributing more than a Shadow Monk which doesn't get to use any of its features to improve damage as all of them require a bonus action.
2) other classes do the same damage while still being more versatile.
I'm not sure what you mean here. "Versatile" in terms of what actions they get to take each round, or in terms of build options? The intent of my homebrew was to increase versatility for the Monk in both ways.
the result is he has a solution that works, if you assume everyone gets the same value from feats, BA and subjobs(they dont). But I'm not sure I love that, even if the dmg is not a factor, because it creates roughly the same playstyle/builds as fighter, except with less options for two attacks. Meanwhile the other classes are generally becoming more unique.
I don't assume everyone gets the same value from Feats, Bonus Action, or sub-class. And I wouldn't want them all too give the same value. Some should be better under certain constraints, which would be mostly determined by the player and their particular setting. Some choices can be better than other more frequently, but every choice should have some circumstance where it is the best. Many sub-classes and multiclass options provide Bonus Action options, but when compared to 2 additional attacks on your turn, it is hard to choose anything else. If certain Feats are too good or too weak to present a significant choice then that would be a problem with Feat design.
My goal is to give the Monk more build options while keeping its identity largely intact. If I failed to achieve that then I am open to suggestions and will consider other designs. If you disagree with the goal then I am open to hearing why, but we may just have to agree to disagree.
So my numbers for champion fighter, even without feats is higher than yours. Are you considering nick, multiple fighting styles (background and sub class) and near constant advantage? heroic inspiration, vex, studied attacks, topple. Also, you probably need to include a lvl 20 analysis, as the level 5/11/17 version doesn't align well with fighter's progression which spikes at different levels(thanks to UA reversion classes aren't uniform in progression). As well you are ignoring 3/5ths of the features of t4. In your analysis, for previous teirs, players get to see previous power levels rolled into the next number, but not for the last.
its a lot of choices which end up warping the picture,
lets look at level 20 open hand monk versus lvl 20 champion fighter no feats.
champion basic turn looks like nick d6 vex d6 + 3 greatsword (topple or cleave depending on situation) for simplicity assume always advantage (order can be adjusted) and crit on 18
its action surge turn looks similar but with five greatsword.attacks.
you'll find the champion is averaging 79 dps, assuming 2 action surges per 10 rounds of combat. Note, just adding gwm alone will boost that to around 96
the monk of your version can use nick as well
for four d12 attacks with mod, and one d12 attack without or 4*(d12+6) and d12(nick wo twf) including accuracy, crits, without advantage its 44 dpr. assuming they had advantage all the time 56. note that quivering palm on average with 40% hit rate is 59 damage every other turn. So, basically the range is 51-57 depending on advantage or not advantage. consuming 2 avg ki a round, so they could theoretically do that every turn.
now, I think you are considering feat design to be a separate issue, its not. In UA6 thats like saying spell access is a separate thing from class design. Feats are a baseline feature now, and martials have more feats dedicated to them. Some classes have more feats available than others. The fighting style feat, for example, is now a feature available to only 3 classes. Only classes with martial weapons can access other feats. Bigby's giant shows feats with spellcasting reqs. Feats are, in UA, a part of class design.
that said even without feats, monk is struggling.
Getting to versatility, other martials have gained built in, in class versatility, with things like cunning strikes, tactical mind/shift/secondwind, primal instinct. (Ranger and paladin had a ton via spells and smites, Improved roving and hide in plain sight) And on top of that better mastery, because they get martial weapons including heavy/two handers. which adds reach, push, cleave, topple. (not to mention feats that synergize with these weapons) Meanwhile monk, limited in mastery, no increased class versatility through new/improved features
Your version makes simple weapon mastery viable at least, and reduces the economy clashes of fob/step/patient defense. It also improves feat selection. So its better than UA6 in versatility, but its still far behind the other classes.
As far as how to solve this, it needs new/improved features (because this is how other classes got more versatile). Better feats for monk, and based on my numbers, improved damage scaling from 6-20, particularly t3 and t4.
To be clear, your version is an improvement, but I don't think it gets to where it needs to be, for people to be as excited about monk 2024 as other classes.
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Here is my homebrew on how I would run the Monk if the playtest 6 version were to be published as final. The goals of these changes are to preserve the identity of the Monk as stated by WATC in the players handbook…
… And fix the major pain points when playing a Monk that I have identified as follows.
These are the changes I would make to address these pain points and why I think they work. In some cases I copied the existing text and will underline the important changes.
2ND LEVEL: MARTIAL DISCIPLINE
Your self-discipline and martial training allow you to harness a well of extraordinary energy within yourself. Your access to this energy is represented by a number of Discipline Points. Your Monk level determines the number of points you have, as shown in the Discipline Points column of the Monk table.
Once during your turn, you can spend these points to fuel a Martial Discipline. You start knowing three such Disciplines: Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind. You learn more Martial Disciplines as you gain levels in this class.
When you spend a Discipline Point, it is unavailable until you finish a Short Rest or Long Rest, at the end of which you regain all your expended points.
Some of your features that use Discipline Points require your target to make a saving throw to resist the feature’s effects. The saving throw DC equals 8 plus your Proficiency Bonus plus your Wisdom modifier.
Flurry of Blows. When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to make one extra Unarmed Strike as part of that action.
Patient Defense. You can spend 1 Discipline Point to take the Dodge action as a Bonus Action.
Step of the Wind. When you move on your turn, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to double your move speed and jump distance for the turn, and gain the benefit of the Disengage action for the turn.
Patient Defense is unchanged because it feels appropriate to cost a Discipline Point and a Bonus Action to take the Dodge action. Moving Step of the Wind and Flurry of Blows off the Bonus Action frees them up to be combined with other bonus actions. Flurry plus Martial Arts Bonus Unarmed Strike ends up being the same as before but now doesn’t hurt as much when the bonus action is used for something else. Step of the Wind becomes exceptionally good when combined with bonus action dash and worth the Discipline Point. The “Once during your turn” qualifier to this feature keeps the power per turn in check and leaves the overall power of the feature the same while opening it up to combinations with other features. Note not all effects that use Discipline Points are Martial Disciplines
3RD LEVEL: DEDICATED ARTS
You trained yourself to master a particular weapon with your martial arts. Choose one of the options below as an expression of your dedication. When you gain a level of this class you may change your dedication to a different choice.
Martial Weapon. You choose a kind of Martial Weapon that lacks the Heavy property and gain proficiency in that weapon and can use its Mastery property. That kind of weapon now benefits from your Martial Arts feature’s Dexterous Attacks.
Simple Weapons. You can use your Martial Arts Die in place of the normal weapon damage of Simple Weapons. Simple Weapons are now considered Martial Weapons for you.
Unarmed Strikes. You choose a Weapon Mastery that lacks the Heavy or Light prerequisite and apply it to your unarmed strikes. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can change the Weapon Mastery you chose. Your Unarmed Strikes are now considered Martial Weapons.
I like the idea of a martial artist choosing a weapon as part of graduating into their specialized school of martial arts, that is why this is at 3rd level. The goal here is to keep all Monk styles similarly powerful and unlock Martial Weapon Feats. (I realized a bit late that only one of the options actually granted a martial weapon proficiency, thus the heavy handed final line on Simple Weapons and Unarmed Strikes.) Each option feels powerful and thematic is its own right: Martial Weapon, largest immediate power and widest range of Mastery options; Simple Weapons, scaling damage on daggers with the Nick property for max attacks; Unarmed Strikes; wide range of masteries on what eventually becomes the bulk of your attacks.
5TH LEVEL: STUNNING STRIKE
You have learned to manipulate the energy flowing in your enemies. You learn the Stunning Strike Martial Discipline.
Stunning Strike. When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to attempt to stun them. If the target has hit points less than or equal to 5 times your Monk level, they have the Stunned condition until the start of your next turn. For the rest of your turn you may repeat Stunning Strike with each attack, spending a Discipline Point with each attack.
This is a Martial Discipline and thus follows the rules for only one being usable per turn. So this cannot be combined with Flurry of Blows. This ability is such a pain to make fun. Limiting it to weak or weakened enemies seems like the only constraint that lets it be consistent and powerful without randomly trivializing encounters. It works similar to Power Word: Stun now. Maybe this should be Monk level times Wisdom Modifier to encourage investing in Wisdom?
11TH LEVEL: MARTIAL ARTS MASTER
When you use Martial Arts Bonus Unarmed Strike, you can make the attack as part of the Attack action, instead of as a Bonus Action. You can still make this extra attack only once per turn.
Freeing up the last core Monk damage feature from the Bonus Action. Provides a damage boost as long as the Monk has another ability that can use the Bonus Action for damage. Now four attacks on the attack action if the player uses Flurry of Blows.
20TH LEVEL: FLOWING DISCIPLINE
You are no longer restricted to using one Martial Discipline per turn. Each Discipline can still only be used once per turn. (Stunning Strike can still be used on multiple attacks.)
You made it to level 20, are sitting on a lot of Discipline Points, and can now use them all unconstrained. Blow a third of your Points to sprint across the battlefield, stunning 5+ minions along the way and tank all the boss’s attacks with Patient Defense. Continue the rest of combat with 5+ attacks and dodging at the low cost of only 2 Discipline Points per turn.
I like all that. Though why ban heavy weapons? A monk with a glaive is pretty classic if you ask me. Or with a kanabo (huge spiked war club, basically a maul). They just need two sets of mechanics for unarmed and for weapons. Unarmed would emulate dual-wielding with several attacks in one action and enhancements that would make sure unarmed fighting stays on par with magic weapons and masteries. While weapons would be used the same way as any other martial class, with fighting styles and masteries.
I like this idea
feat is currently a baseline rule. There is no need to analyze withou feats.
fighter out performs monk, even without feats, though I will say playing without feats is no longer standard. And always was unfairly applied in the case of fighter, who gets two extra feats. This is due to the stat cap, but although this limits their dps increase, it increases their survivability, aka they are still noticeably stronger than the monk. Damage wise the monk is a simple 4attack math, or 4 attacks + MA die in your version (if they dual wield nick). The fighter does 5 attacks, however fighters get a bonus of 1-2 dmg per attac(fighting styles), and they Have action surge once/twice per short rest. most fights last 4 rounds, and the monk is severely limited by Ki and SR, so if the monk has Ki every fight, the fighter has action surge every fight. This basically is equivalent to adding an extra 1-2 attacks per round for the baseline fighter. So essentially the monk is 4.5 attacks per round, the fighter is 6-7 plus 1-2dmg per attack. And fighter subclasses add large damage. Brawler adds PB damage per hit, EK adds the difference in cantrip and regular damage, minimum (4d8 booming), . And BM adds d8, minimum, but realistically d8 and d8 * die amount per SR.
most monk subclasses add low to no overall damage, the least is zero, the most is 2ma dice +mod. This isnt touching brawler BM or EK
I agree that some of the things you described are issues, but
you nerf monk with most of these changes. One issue with the common solution of flurry of blows adds one attack, is monk sub classes that expand on flurry of blows are designed for it to be a BA that has at least two strikes. You essentially nerfed every FOB interaction to only give one effect, open hand, mercy monk suffer for this.
You free up the monk BA, but take away its main uses. Maybe this might help multiclass monk, but you limit Ki use to once per round, so you can't dodge and FOB, dodge uses a BA, so you can't dodge and do an unarmed BA attack. All this does is make dash a better option, where you give up 1 attack instead of two, which is nice for step of the wind, but it isnt helping monks low damage, survivability while being effective, or versatility and combat options.
You also make stunning strike a double cost while at the same time being less effective. You pay with ki per SR (which is basically minus one attack per SR) and you pay in DPR because you can't FOB and stun in the same round. Are you removing the save? Also its weird to make it hp based, monk has Ki issues, and gambling on unknown hp amounts is a bit weird. But on the flip side when it does work (if it has no save in your version) it always works, (unlike sleep which is a roll). And looking at this chart,
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/2nn6ld/the_monster_quick_stats_by_cr_table/
this skill will amost never come into play. regular monster or not, its generally only going to work for a similar CR enemy in the final round, in which they weren't going to get another round to attack anyway. The monster would have to be like 5-7 CR lower than the group for this to be effective for shutting down an enemy in round 2 or 3, and usually in that case, they weren't going to get another round of action anyway.
your big change for t3 damage is essentially freeing up monk's BA, but monk does not have any means of increasing damage through BA. I guess they become more survivable at 11 because they can dodge and do 3 attacks, but that still doesn't make them actually a tank. they have low max HP, and recovery, they will still be a worse tank than a fighter, and do less damage. They can't make use of POlearm master due to heavy req, and they could take gwm, but would only benefit on crit.
So at the end of the day, your monk is only really improved over a straight 2014 import in that it gets an unarmed mastery, it can step of the wind with a lower damage penalty. Its worse in terms of FOB synergy, and stun becomes mostly a non factor, 2014 monk without stun isn't grand. It gets a slight boost from nick and MA die on simple weapons, but thats not really much.
I have to agree that some of this seems to fall short in practice. You seem really concerned about opening up monk's bonus action for multiclassing, but monk is one of the worst classes to multiclass out with because you fall behind very quickly in discipline/ki which fuels all of your class features.
Additionally, it's not lack of martial weapons that locks monks out of feats (especially post-Tasha's), it's their MAD nature. They fall behind their expected progression if they don't spend all their ASIs on DEX and WIS.
Finally, a major issue with monk is that its damage output basically plateaus at 11 and every other martial leaves it in the dust from there. If you're making changes, you should address that directly (and it should be a solution that does not require MC).
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Good point. I forgot about FOB subclass enhancements. Fairly easy fix, anything that modifies to your Flurry of Blows attack also applies to your Bonus Unarmed Strike on the turn you use Flurry of Blows. If you really want to get spicy make them apply to all unarmed strikes the turn you use Flurry of Blows.
As to the rest of your points, my hypothesis is that Monk power is fine and that what holds them back from being fun to build (I think most monk players already have a blast playing a monk) is lack of access to Feats and Items, limitations on using their action economy due to so much power being in their Bonus Action, and the unpredictable impact of Stunning Strike. To support or disprove this hypothesis you must compare Monks to other classes without using Feats or upgrading items. And the math checks out at least versus the Fighter.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W4oUfewP9TEhU2e-oniisV4BkQT4SpgnExw09NqLzc4/edit?usp=sharing
(Document is unfinished as I never got around to doing the Rogue and is outdated as it uses the playtest 5 Fighter and Barbarian. Many of the assumptions also favor the Monk more than the fighter. I expect the Barbarian is the actual outlier here. Though if you come to the conclusion that the monk should be comparable to the Barbarian because of the Fighters access to extra Feats then I look forward to reading your proposed improvements. It may be as simple as adding a fighting style and removing the heavy weapon constraint.)
The goal is not to increase Monks power, just get out of its way. I don't need to give them more to do with their bonus action. The fighter doesn't have any built in damage on their bonus action, why should the Monk get half their offensive power from there. I leave it to players to be creative and figure out something to do with that opportunity. Or for sub-classes to exploit that resource without the steep opportunity cost of giving up Flurry of Blows.
Last thing, Stunning Strike... It isn't my favorite design, just the best I could come up with the constraints I set myself. I really wanted to turn it into a multi hit combo stun but couldn't get that to work in a way that solved the main problem with the current Stunning Strike; stunning the solo boss monster you are fighting on the first round is not fun for the game. I settled on an effect akin to Power Word: Stun or Banishing Smite with the hope that removing the random chance would allow for more consistency. Maybe the threshold is off, but the monster HP values from the DMG are also way off from the printed material. Most CR1 creatures have ~30hp not 70. And I said, stunning the boss round 1, not fun, stunning 5 of his minions round one, super cool.
P.S. In case it wasn't clear, the intent is for only Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, Step of the Wind, and Stunning Strike to be considered "Martial Disciplines" and subject to the "Once per turn..." restriction. Other uses of Discipline Points from the class or sub-classes would not suffer that restriction. Unless you want them to for your game. Up to you.
Feats are a baseline rule now, its in the UA, every player can choose feats. Not counting feats is not giving you a realistic understanding. And it most especially warps fighter who gets two extra feats as features
that aside, your math on fighter is a bit off, they can use two fighting styles at level 1, (more if they are human) this means they can have twf and gwf.
You are also not considering subclasses boost damage differently for different classes. Monk subclasses average lower damage than fighter.
and your EHP doesn't consider HP recovery, which is a huge deal in EHP, and it also looks like you aren't considering magic items, which dramatically benefit shield users in defense.
you also have a reasoning of BA is the same value for all classes, its not. Fighter can BA second wind, monk has no native use for BA in your build other than PD. Feats also are not evenly giving value, and subclasses
you also should have snapshotted level 20, as that is the final power.
Essentially, you are leaving out too many factors in your dps Calc for it to be representative, namely feats and subclass
I agree that monk has a BA issue which is holding it back, but I don't think your monk feels free enough. In play, the only difference is step of the wind is a 3/4attack option, until 11. You also added the limit of stun being mutually exclusive. So overall, this monk does not seem like a straight class monk would feel much more versatile. You can still never use two Ki techs on one turn, pd is still weak until 11. at which it becomes a 3/4attack option.
you still have Ki issues until 10 (if you got 10 rounds per Rest)
and the actual DPS with feats and subclasses is still low. And, yeah, you have to make assumptions to math things out, but not sure about these assumptions, 8 combats per day only seems likely if you are running easy encounters, most modules, and groups run hard encounters, and sometimes deadly encounters. Note that a fighter without any feats is not likely a competitive class. Rogue IMO is low, however their off turn sneak is very strong, so maybe they are balanced with that consideration. But if you looked at paladin, Ranger, sorcerer, wizard, etc, They'd not have trouble breaking these dps projections.
After thinking on this for a while, I think you are right and that the heavy weapon restriction isn’t needed. I thought giving the Monk access to d12/2d6 weapons would be too strong. But I think it could be balanced against restricting the use of Bonus Unarmed Strike while wielding a heavy weapon. Heavy weapons would make using a martial weapon more valuable past level 11 when the other weapons catch up in damage and give wider range of mastery and feat options. Good idea.
Your assumption here is that FoB is used literally every round and the party short rests right away when ki is spent.
This is very different from actual play in my experience. Perhaps you should suggest that FoB be free if you're going to assume it is constantly used. But now I understand why you're so hung up on the bonus action, because insisting that you FoB every turn prevents you from doing much else. That just feels like a roundabout solution that would be better tackled head-on though by not requiring FoB to meet baseline and rather it being the on-demand, optional burst damage that it's supposed to be.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
hes actually not assuming they use it every round, I believe. He is using nick with MA dice, and assuming 1 fob per round and SR every 10-11 rounds. So low level, its not happening much, high level they can start using other Ki uses. Its not realistic, but I think he is trying to compare a dps focused monk with other classes.
issue is twofold
1) he assumes no feats, and uses the feat focused class as comparison, and he ignores subclass, assuming all have the same value
2) other classes do the same damage while still being more versatile.
the result is he has a solution that works, if you assume everyone gets the same value from feats, BA and subjobs(they dont). But I'm not sure I love that, even if the dmg is not a factor, because it creates roughly the same playstyle/builds as fighter, except with less options for two attacks. Meanwhile the other classes are generally becoming more unique.
I see your point about excluding Feats from a class that gets 2 extra Feats as its class features. It does undercut to comparison and the conclusion the Monk damage is "fine". It is, however, difficult to include Feats in the comparison and still have an apples to apples comparison and isolate the flaws in the Monk build to the Monk class design and not in the separate field of Feat design. But, given that exclusion I would expect the Monk to more noticeably out perform the Fighter under the build rules.
Sub-classes are included in the calculations; Champion, Open Hand, and Berserker. It is in the rules at the top of the sheet. The large part of why the Barbarian damage is so high in comparison to the other two is from the Berserker damage bump. Excluding that bonus and the Barbarian's damage at each benchmark ends up being very close the the Fighter and Monk. I would estimate that the Open Hand sub-class probably contributes the least to the damage of each class, as its only increase is a chance to inflict the prone condition and thus provide advantage an subsequent attacks that round. But it would be contributing more than a Shadow Monk which doesn't get to use any of its features to improve damage as all of them require a bonus action.
I'm not sure what you mean here. "Versatile" in terms of what actions they get to take each round, or in terms of build options? The intent of my homebrew was to increase versatility for the Monk in both ways.
I don't assume everyone gets the same value from Feats, Bonus Action, or sub-class. And I wouldn't want them all too give the same value. Some should be better under certain constraints, which would be mostly determined by the player and their particular setting. Some choices can be better than other more frequently, but every choice should have some circumstance where it is the best. Many sub-classes and multiclass options provide Bonus Action options, but when compared to 2 additional attacks on your turn, it is hard to choose anything else. If certain Feats are too good or too weak to present a significant choice then that would be a problem with Feat design.
My goal is to give the Monk more build options while keeping its identity largely intact. If I failed to achieve that then I am open to suggestions and will consider other designs. If you disagree with the goal then I am open to hearing why, but we may just have to agree to disagree.
So my numbers for champion fighter, even without feats is higher than yours. Are you considering nick, multiple fighting styles (background and sub class) and near constant advantage? heroic inspiration, vex, studied attacks, topple. Also, you probably need to include a lvl 20 analysis, as the level 5/11/17 version doesn't align well with fighter's progression which spikes at different levels(thanks to UA reversion classes aren't uniform in progression). As well you are ignoring 3/5ths of the features of t4. In your analysis, for previous teirs, players get to see previous power levels rolled into the next number, but not for the last.
its a lot of choices which end up warping the picture,
lets look at level 20 open hand monk versus lvl 20 champion fighter no feats.
champion basic turn looks like nick d6 vex d6 + 3 greatsword (topple or cleave depending on situation) for simplicity assume always advantage (order can be adjusted) and crit on 18
its action surge turn looks similar but with five greatsword.attacks.
you'll find the champion is averaging 79 dps, assuming 2 action surges per 10 rounds of combat. Note, just adding gwm alone will boost that to around 96
the monk of your version can use nick as well
for four d12 attacks with mod, and one d12 attack without or 4*(d12+6) and d12(nick wo twf) including accuracy, crits, without advantage its 44 dpr. assuming they had advantage all the time 56. note that quivering palm on average with 40% hit rate is 59 damage every other turn. So, basically the range is 51-57 depending on advantage or not advantage. consuming 2 avg ki a round, so they could theoretically do that every turn.
now, I think you are considering feat design to be a separate issue, its not. In UA6 thats like saying spell access is a separate thing from class design. Feats are a baseline feature now, and martials have more feats dedicated to them. Some classes have more feats available than others. The fighting style feat, for example, is now a feature available to only 3 classes. Only classes with martial weapons can access other feats. Bigby's giant shows feats with spellcasting reqs. Feats are, in UA, a part of class design.
that said even without feats, monk is struggling.
Getting to versatility, other martials have gained built in, in class versatility, with things like cunning strikes, tactical mind/shift/secondwind, primal instinct. (Ranger and paladin had a ton via spells and smites, Improved roving and hide in plain sight) And on top of that better mastery, because they get martial weapons including heavy/two handers. which adds reach, push, cleave, topple. (not to mention feats that synergize with these weapons) Meanwhile monk, limited in mastery, no increased class versatility through new/improved features
Your version makes simple weapon mastery viable at least, and reduces the economy clashes of fob/step/patient defense. It also improves feat selection. So its better than UA6 in versatility, but its still far behind the other classes.
As far as how to solve this, it needs new/improved features (because this is how other classes got more versatile). Better feats for monk, and based on my numbers, improved damage scaling from 6-20, particularly t3 and t4.
To be clear, your version is an improvement, but I don't think it gets to where it needs to be, for people to be as excited about monk 2024 as other classes.