Disagree with this last statement. You have many per turn tactical choices. Unarmed strikes are now viable for shoving and grappling with monk so any attack can become a shove or grapple, bonus action can be used to attack, or dash, or disengage. You can use your action to dodge and then attack as a bonus action still. The monk has arguably some of the most tactical decisions to make turn to turn of any martial without spending resources and get more when they start spending resources.
(Not willing to speak on the math because I have not done the math or the builds yet).
Disagree, grapple & shove are not viable for anyone - there are so many forced movement as part of an attack and knock prone as part of an attack features now and the success rate for Grapple / Shove is so low now that it's really pointless to attempt them. In current 5e Grapple & Shove are WAY more viable than in One D&D and still they are hardly ever used. Grapple & Shove in One D&D are trap options.
Dodging with your action is still doesn't make sense until 11th level and you can swap 2 Attacks with your action + BA dodge for 1 DP for Dodge with your action and 3 attacks as a BA with FoB.
If you use your BA for anything other than attacking you're DPR will drop below that of any other warrior class, sure its an option but its not a good option.
yeah I think a lot of people haven't realized that most of the BA stuff, you should never actually do unless you have no choice. the cost of no using FOB is still large, and gets even larger. They also have a false sense of security with metabolism, the monk is going to still be struggling or limiting Ki use, unless it gets rests a lot more often.
but its better than before, and I guess the big choices will be how to control your Ki use. They are the most resource dependent management heavy class in the game, still. they have no easy option to chill, and lose most functionality at low Ki. I feel like the spike should be higher with such a heavy price. They also can't really take any feats if they want to get 22/26 in a stat, I'll have to think if its actually worth lack of two feats for those two points.
they really are the least versatile class now... 1 feat, that almost has to be nick, no other mastery, no out of combat bonuses, almost every monk build and stats(17dex/16wis/14 con/10/8/8) has to be the same, unless they give up the capstone and MC. Very specific play when you have Ki and health. (FOB+stunning strike). no real choice in BA. No features with options.
as I'm saying this, think I'll ignore the capstone/max stats, just limits creative builds too much, and monk needs to get that from either feats or Mc, since it doesnt have much variation in the chassis.
I would definitely start with 17 dex and 16 wis, taking the Weapon Mastery feat at level 4 to get the Nick mastery.
That allows the Monk to take 2/3 attacks a turn, with a dagger or scimitar, without using their bonus action. As I read the rules it would still allow the Monk to take their bonus action unarmed attack, or flurry of blows. At level 10 that's up to six attacks, and that is pretty good.
Yeah, it gets you the extra attacks, but at a substantial additional cost
You aren't adding your ability score, so the damage increase isn't actually very large -- it replaces one of your unarmed attacks (doing MA die + Dex) with 2d6+Dex. That's 3.5 damage at level 4, dropping to 2.5 at level 5, 1.5 at level 11, 0.5 at level 17.
If you have multiple magic weapons the damage bonus is larger -- but needing three magic weapons instead of one is significant..
Addle is still useful to help others move away from the enemy without provoking opportunity attacks. Also it saves you a DP. Fleet step only lets you dash for free. It will cost DP to disengage using SotW.
Thanks for the correction. I had my SotW/PD backwards.
I would definitely start with 17 dex and 16 wis, taking the Weapon Mastery feat at level 4 to get the Nick mastery.
That allows the Monk to take 2/3 attacks a turn, with a dagger or scimitar, without using their bonus action. As I read the rules it would still allow the Monk to take their bonus action unarmed attack, or flurry of blows. At level 10 that's up to six attacks, and that is pretty good.
Yeah, it gets you the extra attacks, but at a substantial additional cost
You aren't adding your ability score, so the damage increase isn't actually very large -- it replaces one of your unarmed attacks (doing MA die + Dex) with 2d6+Dex. That's 3.5 damage at level 4, dropping to 2.5 at level 5, 1.5 at level 11, 0.5 at level 17.
If you have multiple magic weapons the damage bonus is larger -- but needing three magic weapons instead of one is significant..
It's not terrible, but it's hardly a must-have.
weapon master gives you +1 to dex, which gets you to 18. you have room for only one half feat, if you are going to keep high dex/wis. (lvl 19 one for +2) not sure their is a better one. charger is just a d8, grapple might be a good pick, but has no official boost, possibly more Advantage, but won't always work.
also why is your damage dropping? the nick weapon scales with the martial arts die now? its 2MA+Mod forever. zit should be going up to 6.5 eventually.
Weapon master really isn't that great, I'd take Sentinel on a UA8 monk not Weapon Mastery. Nick is only getting you ~2 extra damage per turn, whereas Sentinel stops enemies escaping, and encourages them to hit you so you can use Deflect Attack, and let's you hit them if they don't it essentially guarantees you get to use your reaction every turn while enhancing your battlefield control.
But the big one is dipping Barbarian since the rewording of Rage let's you add the rage damage to you're monk unarmed strikes.
Rage Damage. When you make an attack with a weapon using Strength or an Unarmed Strike and deal damage to the target, you gain a bonus to the damage that increases as you gain levels as a Barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table.
Weapon master really isn't that great, I'd take Sentinel on a UA8 monk not Weapon Mastery. Nick is only getting you ~2 extra damage per turn, whereas Sentinel stops enemies escaping, and encourages them to hit you so you can use Deflect Attack, and let's you hit them if they don't it essentially guarantees you get to use your reaction every turn while enhancing your battlefield control.
But the big one is dipping Barbarian since the rewording of Rage let's you add the rage damage to you're monk unarmed strikes.
Rage Damage. When you make an attack with a weapon using Strength or an Unarmed Strike and deal damage to the target, you gain a bonus to the damage that increases as you gain levels as a Barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table.
you cant use deflect attack and sentinel in one turn since both are reactions. If I wanted to achieve those goals, I think grappler is better. they definitely can't escape without using an action, and have disadvantage on other targets.
most melee enemies don't really try to escape, just from op attack. also nick gets you 3.5-6.5 damage per round depending on level. modified by accuracy. If you step into MC you got a number of decent options, I think fighter and barb are the big ones, though if I choose fighter, it would probably be first level and human, so I could pick up an extra fighting style.
rage is decent since monk really wants to be SR often if possible.
I think weapon master would be useful specifically because since Daggers have Nick, you can throw a Dagger as a Stunning Strike before moving into melee range. That is potentially a fight ending move and if they make the save you still get the bonus force damage to make up for the reduced attack damage.
Hm. A significant advantage of the monkarian is that you can dump wisdom; barbarian unarmored defense works just fine for a monk. It does mean your save DCs won't be as high, but having a massive pile of hit points may make up for that...
Hm. A significant advantage of the monkarian is that you can dump wisdom; barbarian unarmored defense works just fine for a monk. It does mean your save DCs won't be as high, but having a massive pile of hit points may make up for that...
On base Monk you only really need the save DC for Stunning Strike, and they've made that now do pretty much guaranteed damage if the target succeeds on the saving throw, so while it's not as good as getting the actual stun, it's still okay for 1 Discipline point, especially since you could be doing other stuff on top of that.
My suspicion is that the intention is that Rage should only apply to Strength melee attacks, and they just worded it strangely for some reason.
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Hm. A significant advantage of the monkarian is that you can dump wisdom; barbarian unarmored defense works just fine for a monk. It does mean your save DCs won't be as high, but having a massive pile of hit points may make up for that...
On base Monk you only really need the save DC for Stunning Strike, and they've made that now do pretty much guaranteed damage if the target succeeds on the saving throw, so while it's not as good as getting the actual stun, it's still okay for 1 Discipline point, especially since you could be doing other stuff on top of that.
My suspicion is that the intention is that Rage should only apply to Strength melee attacks, and they just worded it strangely for some reason.
its possible, but it might be intentional. they could have said unarmed attacks or weapons using strength.
My suspicion is that the intention is that Rage should only apply to Strength melee attacks, and they just worded it strangely for some reason.
Probably. I think it's because they insist on having weapon attacks and unarmed attacks being different classes of thing, so they wind up with clumsy wording when something applies to both.
I agree, overall great updates. I would like to see a new class feature that increases the Monk's number of reactions a round. Extra chances to use Deflect Attack or Opportunity Attacks are of course situational, but adds to the theme that Monk is going for.
Thoughts on new open hand monk after going a little deeper.
Open hand technique - at first glance addle seems better because there is no more saving throw. Previously this feature prevented reactions, now it only stops attacks of opportunity. Preventing reactions is way better so this ends up being ok but not as great as i initially thought. This should prevent reactions. Fighters get push and topple for free but open hand monks have to pay ki for the same stuff. This feels like cunning action vs step of the wind all over again. Your going to use FOB anyways so its still good, but it does not feel special anymore. The good news is you can FOB and topple someone before your attack action and then get advantage with your attack action. This will also increase to three topple/addle/push attempts with an extra FOB at level 10. I am hoping for some bumps to push and topple since you are paying a resource cost. Maybe increase the distance of push and add a movement penalty to a toppled creature for a little extra control.
Wholeness of body - i will take it because its free but overall its meh.
Fleet step - at first glance i thought this was great. Now its gets worse every time i look at it. The obvious use of this is FOB + 1ki for sotw disengage and dash. But do you really need to do that when you already have FOB + addle and 50 feet (or more) of movement at this level? How often are you really going to need that extra 50 feet of movement? and do you really need to run away when deflect attack is so good? I think a healthy monk would use all three FOB to topple or push and instead of spending a ki on sotw i would take the OA (maybe at disadvantage because of topple) and spend the ki on deflect attack. If i got hit i could possibly do more damage to the monster as i take off. I do think addle makes this feature slightly irrelevant. Maybe if you had a bonus action from multiclassing ( hunters mark or hex) then combining the bonus actions would be ok. But overall the monk already has so much movement at this level plus addle i think this feature way over promises and under delivers. You could combine sotw with wholeness of body but who really cares. Moving a team mate with sotw could be useful. Overall this feature seems interesting but very situational.
***Edit- this does work well with a grapple build since you can grapple with FOB and use the free dash for extra forced movement. If you have any movement left over you can still move a teammate as well. That could be fun.
Quivering palm - If i read it correctly, you can do flurry of blows or BA unarmed strike first (since they are not tied to the attack action) to set up quivering palm. Then, on the same round activate quivering palm for 10d12 force damage (save for half) as one of your attacks on the attack action. With FOB you would be getting 5 attacks per round at this level, and one of those attacks does 10d12 force damage with save for half. Thats a five ki per round expenditure so you could nova for 3 rounds and on the next fight go back to full ki with level 2 feature uncanny metabolism. I think its fine since its level 17 and monks have always lacked a nova option and it is also balanced out by the high ki cost.
Disagree with this last statement. You have many per turn tactical choices. Unarmed strikes are now viable for shoving and grappling with monk so any attack can become a shove or grapple, bonus action can be used to attack, or dash, or disengage. You can use your action to dodge and then attack as a bonus action still. The monk has arguably some of the most tactical decisions to make turn to turn of any martial without spending resources and get more when they start spending resources.
(Not willing to speak on the math because I have not done the math or the builds yet).
Disagree, grapple & shove are not viable for anyone - there are so many forced movement as part of an attack and knock prone as part of an attack features now and the success rate for Grapple / Shove is so low now that it's really pointless to attempt them. In current 5e Grapple & Shove are WAY more viable than in One D&D and still they are hardly ever used. Grapple & Shove in One D&D are trap options...
grapple and shove should be viable for martial artists. if they won't do that by default, maybe a feat. the old 5e Grapple feat gives advantage to attacking a grappled foe and you could use an action to 'pin' them. but prone + UA grapple already kinda does that without a feat and without the grappler restraining themselves in the process. what could that useless, defeated feat be changed to in 2024? maybe we can answer that by making this into an initial feat for monks who want to grapple (and still useful to others as well). in the spirit of first doing no harm, it can't be less than these two qualifiers: a.) makes grappling easier and b.) provides additional health or avoidance to offset not taking Tough feat. any additional utility or power could go into a level 4 Improved Grappler feat.
to satisfy 'b.)'... how about leaving behind advantage and disadvantage to play up some other mechanisms? specifically, cover. half cover is a default rule for guys-in-the-way, but it's situational and, in my experience, easily forgotten. putting some jerk between you and other punches just sounds like fun movie martial arts, so let's do that. half cover all the time or three-quarters cover some of the time? hard call. you've just delivered yourself into the lap of a motivated and unmitigated damage vector so it's got to be worth it (especially before stunning strike becomes available). huh. does this cause more problem than it fixes? no. no, it's not an all-the-time thing. this is for those moments when mobility is key and the battlefield is crawling. those times when the monk is out by themselves, an easy target. so it has to be at least as effective and cost-effective as step of the wind-ing back to the party. and they did give up Toughness for this. yeah, the big cover it is.
and now going back to satisfy 'a.)'... we could say each unarmed strike that lands damage is also a grapple attempt. mmm, that loses some intentionality. just add Wis mod to grapple attempts? mmm, but that's not useful to the fighters. how about a bonus to grapple if you've done unarmed damage this turn. higher damage, better chance. that would reward tavern brawlers and monks but not lock out other martials. does kinda lock out classes with no extra attack, but they probably have other cool stuff. the jerks. oh, and one bit of utility that shouldn't wait for Improved Grappler: your target attempting to cast a spell should proc an attack of opportunity or something. that should be standard, but at least we can fix it here. additionally the new monk deflect attacks feature should include grappling verbiage, just to add a cherry on top for monks who took this feat.
[Updated, 5e] Grappler feat Martial Feat (Prerequisite: Level 1+) punch and grip. once per turn when your unarmed strike hits a foe and you have at least one empty hand, you may add that damage number as a bonus number to your next attack this turn if it is a grapple or shove. unwitting shield. while grappling an opponent and not restrained, you may choose to use your opponent as cover. a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus you may gain the benefits of three-quarters cover against one spell or attack from an enemy you are not grappling. this bonus is not cumulative with any half cover provided by the same enemy. mage delayer. opponents who attempt to cast a spell with Somatic components while you are grappling them can be interrupted with a Shove reaction or Grapple check.
[Amended, UA8] Monk, Level 3: Deflect Attacks yatta yatta yatta ...if you are grappling an opponent when you deflect an attack, then you may choose the grappled foe to take the full amount of damage instead of you. this damage may not be redirected.
TL;DR? what's the point in being mobile if you don't sometimes range out and away from the cover of your party? and when you do, sometimes you're the only target. maybe you'd like the option to hold the enemy spellcaster up to catch a few arrows while you're out there.
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I actually think Grapple and shove are being underestimated here a little as is the open hand monk abilities. First the grapple and shove abilities with the first level tavern brawler or the 4th level grappler feat allow you to still do the damage on one attempt. Yes it gets to choose which save it uses so its save will always be relatively high, but knocking prone moving 5 feat or, in the case of grapple, being able to use the monks high speed to move the enemy anywhere you want is still good.
The open hand abilities are a step better than most of the mastery properties. Topple targets con save for weapons and dex for monk. Meanwhile, push has a size restriction and only moves 10 feat while the monks moves 15 feat and has no size limit, but to be fair, they do get a save.
As far as the extra uses for bonus actions go. Remember that flurry of blows at level 2, 3 and 4 is 2 attacks and then you can still dodge or dash or anything else you want to do with your action. This is very viable. At 5 yes this becomes less useful as you can just attack twice and then use your bonus action for something else.
Finally, yes the upgraded patient defense and step of the wind are not going to be your default go to option at level 10, but they are an option that have specific scenarios that you may wish to use them. For example if you have the grappler feat and want to get a wizard out of the group of enemies you move in grapple the wizard with your attack action then use your bonus action to dodge, disengage and give yourself and average of 9 temp health that the enemies now need to burn through while keeping the enemy grappled. With any sort of ability that prevents the opponent targeting others extra health and disadvantage to attack you can be really hard to chew through. Damage prevention is better if your attacks weren't going to kill the enemy that turn anyway.
I actually think Grapple and shove are being underestimated here a little as is the open hand monk abilities. First the grapple and shove abilities with the first level tavern brawler or the 4th level grappler feat allow you to still do the damage on one attempt. Yes it gets to choose which save it uses so its save will always be relatively high, but knocking prone moving 5 feat or, in the case of grapple, being able to use the monks high speed to move the enemy anywhere you want is still good.
The open hand abilities are a step better than most of the mastery properties. Topple targets con save for weapons and dex for monk. Meanwhile, push has a size restriction and only moves 10 feat while the monks moves 15 feat and has no size limit, but to be fair, they do get a save.
As far as the extra uses for bonus actions go. Remember that flurry of blows at level 2, 3 and 4 is 2 attacks and then you can still dodge or dash or anything else you want to do with your action. This is very viable. At 5 yes this becomes less useful as you can just attack twice and then use your bonus action for something else.
Finally, yes the upgraded patient defense and step of the wind are not going to be your default go to option at level 10, but they are an option that have specific scenarios that you may wish to use them. For example if you have the grappler feat and want to get a wizard out of the group of enemies you move in grapple the wizard with your attack action then use your bonus action to dodge, disengage and give yourself and average of 9 temp health that the enemies now need to burn through while keeping the enemy grappled. With any sort of ability that prevents the opponent targeting others extra health and disadvantage to attack you can be really hard to chew through. Damage prevention is better if your attacks weren't going to kill the enemy that turn anyway.
the problem with grapple in a conversation about monks is that the monk likely doesn't have tavern brawler. they'll get one feat to start and then mostly ASI. also once the character grapples the target, then the target is incentivized to attack that particular target. especially if they are some skinny guy in pajama pants and un-spilled blood. the monk can grapple and then dodge, but is that really more efficient than attacking twice more since a dead creature is usually less bitey than a live one? monk can grapple and stun, or vice versa... but why? grapple needs something to be worthwhile. it begins to look like grapple is only for stubborn tanky characters and guards with manacles in their other hand.
shove? shove's not so bad. shove something into a hazard, away from allies, prone for fun, etc. what about grapple is underestimated without referencing shove?
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Thoughts on new open hand monk after going a little deeper.
Open hand technique - at first glance addle seems better because there is no more saving throw. Previously this feature prevented reactions, now it only stops attacks of opportunity. Preventing reactions is way better so this ends up being ok but not as great as i initially thought. This should prevent reactions. Fighters get push and topple for free but open hand monks have to pay ki for the same stuff. This feels like cunning action vs step of the wind all over again. Your going to use FOB anyways so its still good, but it does not feel special anymore. The good news is you can FOB and topple someone before your attack action and then get advantage with your attack action. This will also increase to three topple/addle/push attempts with an extra FOB at level 10. I am hoping for some bumps to push and topple since you are paying a resource cost. Maybe increase the distance of push and add a movement penalty to a toppled creature for a little extra control.
Wholeness of body - i will take it because its free but overall its meh.
Fleet step - at first glance i thought this was great. Now its gets worse every time i look at it. The obvious use of this is FOB + 1ki for sotw disengage and dash. But do you really need to do that when you already have FOB + addle and 50 feet (or more) of movement at this level? How often are you really going to need that extra 50 feet of movement? and do you really need to run away when deflect attack is so good? I think a healthy monk would use all three FOB to topple or push and instead of spending a ki on sotw i would take the OA (maybe at disadvantage because of topple) and spend the ki on deflect attack. If i got hit i could possibly do more damage to the monster as i take off. I do think addle makes this feature slightly irrelevant. Maybe if you had a bonus action from multiclassing ( hunters mark or hex) then combining the bonus actions would be ok. But overall the monk already has so much movement at this level plus addle i think this feature way over promises and under delivers. You could combine sotw with wholeness of body but who really cares.
Quivering palm - this may be broken. If i read it correctly, you can do flurry of blows or BA unarmed strike first (since they are not tied to the attack action) to set up quivering palm. Then, on the same round activate quivering palm for 10d12 force damage (save for half) as one of your attacks on the attack action. With FOB you would be getting 5 attacks per round at this level, and one of those attacks does 10d12 force damage with save for half. Thats a five ki per round expenditure so you could nova for 3 rounds and on the next fight go back to full ki with level 2 feature uncanny metabolism. I think its fine since its level 17 and monks have always lacked a nova option and it is also balanced out by the high ki cost.
yeah, its not broken, I see you got there. its a very ineffecient use of Ki, (4ki over time does 8d12+40, quiver does average 7d12) and will destroy your pool in a few turns. But its nice to have the option to burn for damage, though other subclasses can already burn for damage. Overall the open hand monk only works because they have no mastery option at all, so if you want to topple, this basically it. But a fighter, barbarian, etc. they can do the same thing without thinking about it. Its an OK sub, you take it to gain some of the control other classes have baseline, and for quivering palm.
Addle- is to help you or an ally move out of melee range without spending additional ki.
Fleet Foot- let’s you Dash for free on a turn and use your FoB. Best use will be in fights were enemy spellcasters are far away or have the high ground. You will be able to move ridiculous distance to reach them and still have full DPR. If you are willing to spend the additional DP Fleet Foot could allow you to run up to a hard hitting melee monster, drop full DPR, disengage and run beyond enemy’s normal movement. Also if you willing to spend that extra DP you can run in drop full dpr, grab you squishy friend who should never have gotten themselves stuck in melee range and run them out of there.
I actually think Grapple and shove are being underestimated here a little as is the open hand monk abilities. First the grapple and shove abilities with the first level tavern brawler or the 4th level grappler feat allow you to still do the damage on one attempt. Yes it gets to choose which save it uses so its save will always be relatively high, but knocking prone moving 5 feat or, in the case of grapple, being able to use the monks high speed to move the enemy anywhere you want is still good.
The open hand abilities are a step better than most of the mastery properties. Topple targets con save for weapons and dex for monk. Meanwhile, push has a size restriction and only moves 10 feat while the monks moves 15 feat and has no size limit, but to be fair, they do get a save.
As far as the extra uses for bonus actions go. Remember that flurry of blows at level 2, 3 and 4 is 2 attacks and then you can still dodge or dash or anything else you want to do with your action. This is very viable. At 5 yes this becomes less useful as you can just attack twice and then use your bonus action for something else.
Finally, yes the upgraded patient defense and step of the wind are not going to be your default go to option at level 10, but they are an option that have specific scenarios that you may wish to use them. For example if you have the grappler feat and want to get a wizard out of the group of enemies you move in grapple the wizard with your attack action then use your bonus action to dodge, disengage and give yourself and average of 9 temp health that the enemies now need to burn through while keeping the enemy grappled. With any sort of ability that prevents the opponent targeting others extra health and disadvantage to attack you can be really hard to chew through. Damage prevention is better if your attacks weren't going to kill the enemy that turn anyway.
the problem with grapple in a conversation about monks is that the monk likely doesn't have tavern brawler. they'll get one feat to start and then mostly ASI. also once the character grapples the target, then the target is incentivized to attack that particular target. especially if they are some skinny guy in pajama pants and un-spilled blood. the monk can grapple and then dodge, but is that really more efficient than attacking twice more since a dead creature is usually less bitey than a live one? monk can grapple and stun, or vice versa... but why? grapple needs something to be worthwhile. it begins to look like grapple is only for stubborn tanky characters and guards with manacles in their other hand.
shove? shove's not so bad. shove something into a hazard, away from allies, prone for fun, etc. what about grapple is underestimated without referencing shove?
Tavern brawler is a first level feat. Grappler is the 4th level half feat. Monk has room to take both. One as part of his background the other at 4 to bump their dex to 18. Grapple allows you to move with the target. Shove moves them 5 feet. Grapple can move them 20+ feet if they fail.
So, as someone who doesn't subscribe to the victimization complex over a class no one makes anyone play, let's take a rational look at the changes:
Monk weapons returning was a reasonable return.
Unsurprisingly, rather than balance an unbalanced feature to not make it broken with the Monk but also not broken with other classes (Weapon Mastery), they just cut Monks' access to it. Better that then risk the wrath of power-gamers who want their 6+ Topple checks a turn.
Having a free Dash is largely pointless for Monks, because they already get increased movement speed at Level 2. Same with Disengage, because then you're pushing for a playstyle where the Monk deliberately hinders their own damage output to placate a crowd who thinks they die instantly against any threat.
Giving a full Discipline restore for completely free at the start of Initiative is completely silly, and just panders to the crowd who thinks Monks should get to have five times the resources as everyone else when they don't need more resources. (It's decoupled from Short Rests, probably to pander to the same people who pretend the Short Rest mechanic doesn't exist.)
Ah yes, three levels to give anyone a reaction that protects against any physical damage ever.
So how many other classes get control abilities that just tack on damage if the target passes its save? Wait, none whatsoever? Colour me surprised. It's just another stupid addition meant to placate people offended that they can't blow every point they have as a Monk on four Stunning Strikes a turn.
And here we have the obligatory "DPR is everything" addition in that Flurry of Blows gets an upgrade to hit three times. Wait, I thought the problem was that Monks have no points ever? Doesn't this just mean Monks are more reliant on the resource they totally have none of for DPR?
The best kind of upgrade is one that exists just to make you a taxi for other party members. Which, again, is using up all of those Zero Points the Monk has.
Self-curing conditions without even a bonus action? How lucky! Of course, this means you can't remove a condition before you do anything the condition will impact, but yanno, zero action/resource management = invariably good~
And the magical "why should I only get one bonus action per turn like everyone else?" option from the Hand subclass. But Quivering Palm still doesn't do literally infinity damage, boo hiss~
You know what all of this lacks? New options. You don't get ways to benefit skills like other classes have gotten, because the Monk Bad crowd only cares about combat optimization. You don't get new combat tricks, because the Monk Bad crowd only wants to have high DPR and one powerful condition. You don't get new Discipline abilities, because the Monk Bad crowd wants minimal options as long as those options are free. And at the end of the day nothing has changed about one of the more common "complaints", and you would think even further tying damage output to using one specific limited bonus action would be something they'd care about, but...nah, lookit free stuff you get from a three-level dip.
Instead of making new toys for people who actually play Monk, you get changes no Monk player ever needed, that revolve entirely around the kind of player who has one or two "Big Fights" then ignores every other gameplay mechanic that exists in the game. Hooray.
You're back and you're STILL complaining about monk, even after you got proven wrong and it got buffed. Sorry but monk is way better now, your not subtle insults won't change that
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yeah I think a lot of people haven't realized that most of the BA stuff, you should never actually do unless you have no choice. the cost of no using FOB is still large, and gets even larger. They also have a false sense of security with metabolism, the monk is going to still be struggling or limiting Ki use, unless it gets rests a lot more often.
but its better than before, and I guess the big choices will be how to control your Ki use. They are the most resource dependent management heavy class in the game, still. they have no easy option to chill, and lose most functionality at low Ki. I feel like the spike should be higher with such a heavy price. They also can't really take any feats if they want to get 22/26 in a stat, I'll have to think if its actually worth lack of two feats for those two points.
they really are the least versatile class now... 1 feat, that almost has to be nick, no other mastery, no out of combat bonuses, almost every monk build and stats(17dex/16wis/14 con/10/8/8) has to be the same, unless they give up the capstone and MC. Very specific play when you have Ki and health. (FOB+stunning strike). no real choice in BA. No features with options.
as I'm saying this, think I'll ignore the capstone/max stats, just limits creative builds too much, and monk needs to get that from either feats or Mc, since it doesnt have much variation in the chassis.
Yeah, it gets you the extra attacks, but at a substantial additional cost
It's not terrible, but it's hardly a must-have.
Thanks for the correction. I had my SotW/PD backwards.
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weapon master gives you +1 to dex, which gets you to 18. you have room for only one half feat, if you are going to keep high dex/wis. (lvl 19 one for +2) not sure their is a better one. charger is just a d8, grapple might be a good pick, but has no official boost, possibly more Advantage, but won't always work.
also why is your damage dropping? the nick weapon scales with the martial arts die now? its 2MA+Mod forever. zit should be going up to 6.5 eventually.
Weapon master really isn't that great, I'd take Sentinel on a UA8 monk not Weapon Mastery. Nick is only getting you ~2 extra damage per turn, whereas Sentinel stops enemies escaping, and encourages them to hit you so you can use Deflect Attack, and let's you hit them if they don't it essentially guarantees you get to use your reaction every turn while enhancing your battlefield control.
But the big one is dipping Barbarian since the rewording of Rage let's you add the rage damage to you're monk unarmed strikes.
Rage Damage. When you make an attack with a weapon using Strength or an Unarmed Strike and deal damage to the target, you gain a bonus to the damage that increases as you gain levels as a Barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table.
you cant use deflect attack and sentinel in one turn since both are reactions. If I wanted to achieve those goals, I think grappler is better. they definitely can't escape without using an action, and have disadvantage on other targets.
most melee enemies don't really try to escape, just from op attack. also nick gets you 3.5-6.5 damage per round depending on level. modified by accuracy. If you step into MC you got a number of decent options, I think fighter and barb are the big ones, though if I choose fighter, it would probably be first level and human, so I could pick up an extra fighting style.
rage is decent since monk really wants to be SR often if possible.
I think weapon master would be useful specifically because since Daggers have Nick, you can throw a Dagger as a Stunning Strike before moving into melee range. That is potentially a fight ending move and if they make the save you still get the bonus force damage to make up for the reduced attack damage.
Hm. A significant advantage of the monkarian is that you can dump wisdom; barbarian unarmored defense works just fine for a monk. It does mean your save DCs won't be as high, but having a massive pile of hit points may make up for that...
On base Monk you only really need the save DC for Stunning Strike, and they've made that now do pretty much guaranteed damage if the target succeeds on the saving throw, so while it's not as good as getting the actual stun, it's still okay for 1 Discipline point, especially since you could be doing other stuff on top of that.
My suspicion is that the intention is that Rage should only apply to Strength melee attacks, and they just worded it strangely for some reason.
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its possible, but it might be intentional. they could have said unarmed attacks or weapons using strength.
Probably. I think it's because they insist on having weapon attacks and unarmed attacks being different classes of thing, so they wind up with clumsy wording when something applies to both.
I agree, overall great updates. I would like to see a new class feature that increases the Monk's number of reactions a round. Extra chances to use Deflect Attack or Opportunity Attacks are of course situational, but adds to the theme that Monk is going for.
Thoughts on new open hand monk after going a little deeper.
Open hand technique - at first glance addle seems better because there is no more saving throw. Previously this feature prevented reactions, now it only stops attacks of opportunity. Preventing reactions is way better so this ends up being ok but not as great as i initially thought. This should prevent reactions. Fighters get push and topple for free but open hand monks have to pay ki for the same stuff. This feels like cunning action vs step of the wind all over again. Your going to use FOB anyways so its still good, but it does not feel special anymore. The good news is you can FOB and topple someone before your attack action and then get advantage with your attack action. This will also increase to three topple/addle/push attempts with an extra FOB at level 10. I am hoping for some bumps to push and topple since you are paying a resource cost. Maybe increase the distance of push and add a movement penalty to a toppled creature for a little extra control.
Wholeness of body - i will take it because its free but overall its meh.
Fleet step - at first glance i thought this was great. Now its gets worse every time i look at it. The obvious use of this is FOB + 1ki for sotw disengage and dash. But do you really need to do that when you already have FOB + addle and 50 feet (or more) of movement at this level? How often are you really going to need that extra 50 feet of movement? and do you really need to run away when deflect attack is so good? I think a healthy monk would use all three FOB to topple or push and instead of spending a ki on sotw i would take the OA (maybe at disadvantage because of topple) and spend the ki on deflect attack. If i got hit i could possibly do more damage to the monster as i take off. I do think addle makes this feature slightly irrelevant. Maybe if you had a bonus action from multiclassing ( hunters mark or hex) then combining the bonus actions would be ok. But overall the monk already has so much movement at this level plus addle i think this feature way over promises and under delivers. You could combine sotw with wholeness of body but who really cares. Moving a team mate with sotw could be useful. Overall this feature seems interesting but very situational.
***Edit- this does work well with a grapple build since you can grapple with FOB and use the free dash for extra forced movement. If you have any movement left over you can still move a teammate as well. That could be fun.
Quivering palm - If i read it correctly, you can do flurry of blows or BA unarmed strike first (since they are not tied to the attack action) to set up quivering palm. Then, on the same round activate quivering palm for 10d12 force damage (save for half) as one of your attacks on the attack action. With FOB you would be getting 5 attacks per round at this level, and one of those attacks does 10d12 force damage with save for half. Thats a five ki per round expenditure so you could nova for 3 rounds and on the next fight go back to full ki with level 2 feature uncanny metabolism. I think its fine since its level 17 and monks have always lacked a nova option and it is also balanced out by the high ki cost.
grapple and shove should be viable for martial artists. if they won't do that by default, maybe a feat. the old 5e Grapple feat gives advantage to attacking a grappled foe and you could use an action to 'pin' them. but prone + UA grapple already kinda does that without a feat and without the grappler restraining themselves in the process. what could that useless, defeated feat be changed to in 2024? maybe we can answer that by making this into an initial feat for monks who want to grapple (and still useful to others as well). in the spirit of first doing no harm, it can't be less than these two qualifiers: a.) makes grappling easier and b.) provides additional health or avoidance to offset not taking Tough feat. any additional utility or power could go into a level 4 Improved Grappler feat.
to satisfy 'b.)'... how about leaving behind advantage and disadvantage to play up some other mechanisms? specifically, cover. half cover is a default rule for guys-in-the-way, but it's situational and, in my experience, easily forgotten. putting some jerk between you and other punches just sounds like fun movie martial arts, so let's do that. half cover all the time or three-quarters cover some of the time? hard call. you've just delivered yourself into the lap of a motivated and unmitigated damage vector so it's got to be worth it (especially before stunning strike becomes available). huh. does this cause more problem than it fixes? no. no, it's not an all-the-time thing. this is for those moments when mobility is key and the battlefield is crawling. those times when the monk is out by themselves, an easy target. so it has to be at least as effective and cost-effective as step of the wind-ing back to the party. and they did give up Toughness for this. yeah, the big cover it is.
and now going back to satisfy 'a.)'... we could say each unarmed strike that lands damage is also a grapple attempt. mmm, that loses some intentionality. just add Wis mod to grapple attempts? mmm, but that's not useful to the fighters. how about a bonus to grapple if you've done unarmed damage this turn. higher damage, better chance. that would reward tavern brawlers and monks but not lock out other martials. does kinda lock out classes with no extra attack, but they probably have other cool stuff. the jerks. oh, and one bit of utility that shouldn't wait for Improved Grappler: your target attempting to cast a spell should proc an attack of opportunity or something. that should be standard, but at least we can fix it here. additionally the new monk deflect attacks feature should include grappling verbiage, just to add a cherry on top for monks who took this feat.
[Updated, 5e] Grappler feat
Martial Feat (Prerequisite: Level 1+)
punch and grip. once per turn when your unarmed strike hits a foe and you have at least one empty hand, you may add that damage number as a bonus number to your next attack this turn if it is a grapple or shove.
unwitting shield. while grappling an opponent and not restrained, you may choose to use your opponent as cover. a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus you may gain the benefits of three-quarters cover against one spell or attack from an enemy you are not grappling. this bonus is not cumulative with any half cover provided by the same enemy.
mage delayer. opponents who attempt to cast a spell with Somatic components while you are grappling them can be interrupted with a Shove reaction or Grapple check.
[Amended, UA8] Monk, Level 3: Deflect Attacks
yatta yatta yatta
...if you are grappling an opponent when you deflect an attack, then you may choose the grappled foe to take the full amount of damage instead of you. this damage may not be redirected.
TL;DR? what's the point in being mobile if you don't sometimes range out and away from the cover of your party? and when you do, sometimes you're the only target. maybe you'd like the option to hold the enemy spellcaster up to catch a few arrows while you're out there.
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I actually think Grapple and shove are being underestimated here a little as is the open hand monk abilities. First the grapple and shove abilities with the first level tavern brawler or the 4th level grappler feat allow you to still do the damage on one attempt. Yes it gets to choose which save it uses so its save will always be relatively high, but knocking prone moving 5 feat or, in the case of grapple, being able to use the monks high speed to move the enemy anywhere you want is still good.
The open hand abilities are a step better than most of the mastery properties. Topple targets con save for weapons and dex for monk. Meanwhile, push has a size restriction and only moves 10 feat while the monks moves 15 feat and has no size limit, but to be fair, they do get a save.
As far as the extra uses for bonus actions go. Remember that flurry of blows at level 2, 3 and 4 is 2 attacks and then you can still dodge or dash or anything else you want to do with your action. This is very viable. At 5 yes this becomes less useful as you can just attack twice and then use your bonus action for something else.
Finally, yes the upgraded patient defense and step of the wind are not going to be your default go to option at level 10, but they are an option that have specific scenarios that you may wish to use them. For example if you have the grappler feat and want to get a wizard out of the group of enemies you move in grapple the wizard with your attack action then use your bonus action to dodge, disengage and give yourself and average of 9 temp health that the enemies now need to burn through while keeping the enemy grappled. With any sort of ability that prevents the opponent targeting others extra health and disadvantage to attack you can be really hard to chew through. Damage prevention is better if your attacks weren't going to kill the enemy that turn anyway.
the problem with grapple in a conversation about monks is that the monk likely doesn't have tavern brawler. they'll get one feat to start and then mostly ASI. also once the character grapples the target, then the target is incentivized to attack that particular target. especially if they are some skinny guy in pajama pants and un-spilled blood. the monk can grapple and then dodge, but is that really more efficient than attacking twice more since a dead creature is usually less bitey than a live one? monk can grapple and stun, or vice versa... but why? grapple needs something to be worthwhile. it begins to look like grapple is only for stubborn tanky characters and guards with manacles in their other hand.
shove? shove's not so bad. shove something into a hazard, away from allies, prone for fun, etc. what about grapple is underestimated without referencing shove?
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yeah, its not broken, I see you got there. its a very ineffecient use of Ki, (4ki over time does 8d12+40, quiver does average 7d12) and will destroy your pool in a few turns. But its nice to have the option to burn for damage, though other subclasses can already burn for damage. Overall the open hand monk only works because they have no mastery option at all, so if you want to topple, this basically it. But a fighter, barbarian, etc. they can do the same thing without thinking about it. Its an OK sub, you take it to gain some of the control other classes have baseline, and for quivering palm.
Addle- is to help you or an ally move out of melee range without spending additional ki.
Fleet Foot- let’s you Dash for free on a turn and use your FoB. Best use will be in fights were enemy spellcasters are far away or have the high ground. You will be able to move ridiculous distance to reach them and still have full DPR. If you are willing to spend the additional DP Fleet Foot could allow you to run up to a hard hitting melee monster, drop full DPR, disengage and run beyond enemy’s normal movement. Also if you willing to spend that extra DP you can run in drop full dpr, grab you squishy friend who should never have gotten themselves stuck in melee range and run them out of there.
Are they great? No, but they do have uses.
Tavern brawler is a first level feat. Grappler is the 4th level half feat. Monk has room to take both. One as part of his background the other at 4 to bump their dex to 18. Grapple allows you to move with the target. Shove moves them 5 feet. Grapple can move them 20+ feet if they fail.
You're back and you're STILL complaining about monk, even after you got proven wrong and it got buffed. Sorry but monk is way better now, your not subtle insults won't change that