OneD&D's treatment of the Monk has been to strip the class of iconic features while depriving it of new tools that every other martial class has received. One of the most glaring aspects was in subclasses, highlighting the devotion to stripping the class of utility features and fixating largely on damage.
I'm going to take a look at the latest versions of the three subclasses released thus far, and redesign them so that the flavor of the subclasses remain without reducing them in complexity and options. This will be assuming that a better-balancing incarnation of Weapon Mastery will be released that isn't imbalanced in the Monk's hands (literally) and thus denied as a base feature to the class.
Warrior of the Elements
While the original subclass suffered from high point costs, the remake in OneD&D reduces it to a shallow imitation of Ascendant Dragon, lacking choosable Elemental Disciplines and being composed of features inferior to what the other subclass already receives:
The class has to spend Discipline Points to activate a feature to deal fire, cold, lightning, or acid damage with unarmed strikes, when Ascendant Dragon can do so without cost and also has poison damage as a choice.
The target has to fail on a Strength saving throw to move them, when Weapon Mastery is guaranteed to push and Eldritch Blast's invocations likewise require no saving throw.
The wording for the extended Reach of your unarmed strikes gives them a 15-foot range whenever the feature is active, meaning enemies can freely move within that area without threat of AoO.
Environmental Burst is an inferior version of Breath of the Dragon, which only replaces one attack instead of taking an entire action and has no cost-free uses. While this starts at three Martial Arts dice, it has no option to boost its area and damage to four Martial Arts dice like Breath of the Dragon.
Stride of the Elements gives 10-minute flight, but Ascendant Dragon's Wings Unfurled also provides flight, at a lower level, and Monks are less in need of flight due to Acrobatic Movement.
Elemental Epitome gives you resistance to your choice of four elements, except the Ascendant Dragon's Dragon Aspect gives the same, with more choices of elements, and extends that resistance to nearby allies, at a lower level.
Destructive Stride deals very little damage for a 17th-level feature.
So how to make the Elements Monk a unique and useful subclass?
3rd Level: Elemental Disciplines
Like the OneD&D feature, this grants the Elementalism cantrip. But it also gives Elemental Disciplines a la the 5e subclass, with adjusted Discipline costs and increased number of Elemental Disciplines learned to allow more uses of them. Instead of the mechanic that allows upcasting Elemental Disciplines, those that deal damage would have the option to replace their damage die with that of your Martial Arts die. Therefore, an 11th-level Monk casting Fireball would deal 8d10 damage with the spell, instead of 8d6. Each element would also have a utility option among Elemental Disciplines, akin to Shape the Flowing River.
6th Level: Elemental Attunement
Rather than the mediocre Environmental Burst, this would be similar to the OneD&D feature. It would grant elemental strikes with extended reach, of fire/cold/lightning/force elements, and grant the ability to attempt a pushing/pulling blow once per turn. The target makes a Strength saving throw; on a failed save, they take extra elemental damage equal to your Wisdom modifier and are pushed/pulled ten feet; on a successful save, they take no extra damage but are still moved five feet as you choose.
11th Level: Stride of the Elements
When you use your Step of the Wind, enemies you move take your choice of fire/ice/lightning/bludgeoning damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die plus your Wisdom modifier. You also don't spend extra movement when traveling through difficult terrain.
This gives better movement-based damage and a unique benefit to Step of the Wind that isn't identical to another subclass.
17th Level: Elemental Epitome
You can spend an extra Discipline Point when activating Elemental Attunement to gain the following benefits:
You have resistance to fire, cold, lightning, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
You can use Flurry of Blows after the Attack action without expending a Discipline Point, provided all four attacks of your attacks that turn deal each of the elements of Elemental Attunement (fire, cold, lightning, force).
The cost of Elemental Disciplines is reduced by 1 Discipline Point.
This feature thus allows the Elements Monk to use more of their Flurry of Blows and Elemental Disciplines during its duration.
Warrior of Shadows
The Shadow Monk has its options stripped by three-quarters, basing it entirely around Darkness. It also dedicates two features to Shadow Step, even though it remains inferior to what the Archfey Warlock gains from its first feature. Thus, improving the Shadows Monk focuses on restoring its versatility and giving stronger features.
3rd Level: Shadow Arts
You can spend 1 Discipline Point to cast one of the following spells: Darkness, Silence, Blindness/Deafness, or Invisibility. If a spell requires concentration, you have advantage on the checks. You also gain the Minor Illusion cantrip, with Wisdom as your spellcasting ability, and gain Darkvision with a range of 60 feet (or +60 feet).
This gives a more varied and balanced selection of Shadow Arts to choose from, as Darkvision is situational and Pass without Trace is of questionable balance (and thus may be rebalanced in OneD&D).
6th Level: Improved Shadow Arts
This grants the ability to cast Misty Step, with no cost if you start and end in Dim Light/Darkness and 1 Discipline Point otherwise. It also confers added benefits to each of your Shadow Arts: you have Blindsight within the area of your Darkness, you can communicate telepathically and receive responses within the area of your Silence, and you can use a bonus action to see through the eyes of one blinded foe or hear what one deafened foe would have heard.
This grants the Shadow Step feature, along with upgrades to each of the Shadow Arts with utility in and out of combat.
11th Level: Opportunist
You take advantage of any opening an opponent leaves while attacking you or others. You can make an Opportunity Attack against an enemy within five feet of you that misses you with an attack or targets a creature within five feet of you with an attack. In addition, you have Advantage on your Opportunity Attacks, and if they trigger against an enemy under the effect of your Darkness, Silence, or Blindness/Deafness, you can roll three dice instead of two if the Advantage is not cancelled out.
This accents the Shadows Monk's identity as a sneaky, slippery fighter who takes advantage of hindering their foe to strike by surprise.
17th Level: Cloak of Shadows
For a capstone feature, this one works well - the blend of invisibility, incorporeality, and the benefit of cost-free Flurry of Blows work well together for the class. So it would remain unchanged.
Warrior of the Hand
The Hand Monk ends up with two nearly-useless features, and two obscenely-broken features. Other than Addle (which can be matched by just pushing a foe away), the effects Open Hand Technique inflicts are open to martials on every attack without cost, and with greater ease for pushing enemies. Wholeness of Body provides an unremarkable heal, when the base class gets a stronger effective heal on the Patient Defense upgrade. Meanwhile, Fleet Step coupled with the free Step of the Wind option effectively gives the Hand Monk a permanent doubled movement speed, while Quivering Palm can arguably be set up and triggered multiple times per round and its increased point cost punishes players who play longer adventuring days with more battles.
To fix these flaws:
3rd Level: Open Hand Technique
As mentioned, I'm running with the assumption that Weapon Mastery would be better balanced on release. If that is the case, then Open Hand Technique would most likely remain useful as-is if its effects can't be duplicated on every attack by any other martial.
6th Level: Swift Reactions
You can make an additional reaction between your turns, but no more than one per turn.
This gives the Hand Monk greater ability to use reactions, without having a redundant heal.
11th Level:Fleet Movements
When you use one of your base Discipline abilities - Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind, or Patient Defense - you can use another as part of the same Bonus Action.
Gives you flexibility in doing more things at once.
17th Level: Quivering Palm
Reduce the point cost back to three Discipline Points, and add the wrinkle that each round you delay triggering Quivering Palm increases the damage its activation deals by 1d12, up to perhaps 15d12 Force damage. This gives strategic value in not applying and triggering Quivering Palm as rapidly as possible.
OneD&D's treatment of the Monk has been to strip the class of iconic features while depriving it of new tools that every other martial class has received. One of the most glaring aspects was in subclasses, highlighting the devotion to stripping the class of utility features and fixating largely on damage.
I'm going to take a look at the latest versions of the three subclasses released thus far, and redesign them so that the flavor of the subclasses remain without reducing them in complexity and options. This will be assuming that a better-balancing incarnation of Weapon Mastery will be released that isn't imbalanced in the Monk's hands (literally) and thus denied as a base feature to the class.
Warrior of the Elements
While the original subclass suffered from high point costs, the remake in OneD&D reduces it to a shallow imitation of Ascendant Dragon, lacking choosable Elemental Disciplines and being composed of features inferior to what the other subclass already receives:
The class has to spend Discipline Points to activate a feature to deal fire, cold, lightning, or acid damage with unarmed strikes, when Ascendant Dragon can do so without cost and also has poison damage as a choice.
The target has to fail on a Strength saving throw to move them, when Weapon Mastery is guaranteed to push and Eldritch Blast's invocations likewise require no saving throw.
The wording for the extended Reach of your unarmed strikes gives them a 15-foot range whenever the feature is active, meaning enemies can freely move within that area without threat of AoO.
Environmental Burst is an inferior version of Breath of the Dragon, which only replaces one attack instead of taking an entire action and has no cost-free uses. While this starts at three Martial Arts dice, it has no option to boost its area and damage to four Martial Arts dice like Breath of the Dragon.
Stride of the Elements gives 10-minute flight, but Ascendant Dragon's Wings Unfurled also provides flight, at a lower level, and Monks are less in need of flight due to Acrobatic Movement.
Elemental Epitome gives you resistance to your choice of four elements, except the Ascendant Dragon's Dragon Aspect gives the same, with more choices of elements, and extends that resistance to nearby allies, at a lower level.
Destructive Stride deals very little damage for a 17th-level feature.
So how to make the Elements Monk a unique and useful subclass?
First, AD monk has poison because that is a dragon damage type and doesn't fit Elements so I can see that option not being present on the Warrior of the Elements monk. The DP cost is what gives the ability reach and the push and pull options. If the Elemental Attunement only gave you damage type options I would agree with you on not needing a cost. And I don't see this as a "shallow imitation of Ascendant Dragon" as it is actually taking features right from 4 Elements Elemental Discipline's Fangs of the Fire Snake (fire damage and reach), Water Whip/Fist of Unbroken Air (push/pull options. Too bad it didn't include prone like WW/FoUA does)
I agree with you about the Saves for the push/pull, but they were there in the 4E's Water Whip and Fist of Unbroken Air to begin with so probably why they carried over. I would be fine if they were removed.
The reach issue has come up before with reach weapons. If you have a Glaive or Halberd a creature can move within that reach without OA as well.
I agree with you on the Elemental Burst not scaling and I put that in my survey. I can also see this being changed as the free Bonus Action unarmed strike is redundant since it was untethered from the Attack action in UA8.
AD monk's Wings Unfurled only lasts until the end of your turn. So not really Flying but more of a big jump. I much prefer the UA's 10 minute flying.
Elemental Epitome lasts 10 minutes vs 1 minute. The added resistance option of Poison is, again, because it fits dragons breath weapons.
I agree with you the damage is low for 17th level.
3rd Level: Elemental Disciplines
Like the OneD&D feature, this grants the Elementalism cantrip. But it also gives Elemental Disciplines a la the 5e subclass, with adjusted Discipline costs and increased number of Elemental Disciplines learned to allow more uses of them. Instead of the mechanic that allows upcasting Elemental Disciplines, those that deal damage would have the option to replace their damage die with that of your Martial Arts die. Therefore, an 11th-level Monk casting Fireball would deal 8d10 damage with the spell, instead of 8d6. Each element would also have a utility option among Elemental Disciplines, akin to Shape the Flowing River.
I like the idea, but I always thought, and put in 4E monk threads over the years, that I would prefer unique Elemental Discipline options instead of just cast X spell. I made a revised 4E monk thread here that had unique ED's. Although my revision was pretty OP and needed toned down. But the thread is over two years old so I wasn't going to go back and try balancing it better. They did need a DP cost rebalancing and some of the level requirements were too high, imo. And I agree you need to be able to know many more that what 4E gives.
I would have to look at all the ED's to see if there is any issue with upgrading the damage die. Your example of Fireball seems ok, but will it benefit other spells just as well or will some not upgrade as nicely?
6th Level: Elemental Attunement
Rather than the mediocre Environmental Burst, this would be similar to the OneD&D feature. It would grant elemental strikes with extended reach, of fire/cold/lightning/force elements, and grant the ability to attempt a pushing/pulling blow once per turn. The target makes a Strength saving throw; on a failed save, they take extra elemental damage equal to your Wisdom modifier and are pushed/pulled ten feet; on a successful save, they take no extra damage but are still moved five feet as you choose.
Seems a little late to get this feature. I know you get ED's at 3rd, but this seems like too key a feature to wait until 6th.
11th Level: Stride of the Elements
When you use your Step of the Wind, enemies you move take your choice of fire/ice/lightning/bludgeoning damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die plus your Wisdom modifier. You also don't spend extra movement when traveling through difficult terrain.
This gives better movement-based damage and a unique benefit to Step of the Wind that isn't identical to another subclass.
Does this give you the ability to move enemies? Sounds like it, but UA8's upgrade to SotW only allows you to move a willing creature. I would probably keep the Fly/Swim speed options.
17th Level: Elemental Epitome
You can spend an extra Discipline Point when activating Elemental Attunement to gain the following benefits:
You have resistance to fire, cold, lightning, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
You can use Flurry of Blows after the Attack action without expending a Discipline Point, provided all four attacks of your attacks that turn deal each of the elements of Elemental Attunement (fire, cold, lightning, force).
The cost of Elemental Disciplines is reduced by 1 Discipline Point.
The addition of BPS resistance seems like it might be a lot, but it might be ok. The FoB seems a bit restrictive. Does it mean your FoB gets 4 attacks? UA8's only goes to 3. Or does that include one of your Attack Action attacks and does it have to be unarmed?
Not too bad a revision. I like some things and think some need work, but overall it would depend on what is done with ED costs and level requirements.
Sorry, don't have time to go through the other two subclasses right now, but will post something later. I do have some comments on them.
So I had a little more time than I thought so here goes:
3rd Level: Shadow Arts
You can spend 1 Discipline Point to cast one of the following spells: Darkness, Silence, Blindness/Deafness, or Invisibility. If a spell requires concentration, you have advantage on the checks. You also gain the Minor Illusion cantrip, with Wisdom as your spellcasting ability, and gain Darkvision with a range of 60 feet (or +60 feet).
This gives a more varied and balanced selection of Shadow Arts to choose from, as Darkvision is situational and Pass without Trace is of questionable balance (and thus may be rebalanced in OneD&D).
I like the spell selections. I put in my survey that Silence and Pass without Trace should return. And I think it should return here, with the assumption that it will be revised in 2024 as it is pretty powerful as is.
6th Level: Improved Shadow Arts
This grants the ability to cast Misty Step, with no cost if you start and end in Dim Light/Darkness and 1 Discipline Point otherwise. It also confers added benefits to each of your Shadow Arts: you have Blindsight within the area of your Darkness, you can communicate telepathically and receive responses within the area of your Silence, and you can use a bonus action to see through the eyes of one blinded foe or hear what one deafened foe would have heard.
This grants the Shadow Step feature, along with upgrades to each of the Shadow Arts with utility in and out of combat.
You talk about stripping monk of features? Shadow Step can't be counterspelled but Misty Step can. And you take it from 60' teleport to 30'. So downgrades on both counts there.
I had also had thoughts on the UA version's Darkness. I like that you can see in your own darkness, it was much needed, and that you could move it. But I did think that you should also be able to change the radius from the spells radius down to 5'. Alternatively, I would have been interesting if instead of casting Darkness you wreathed yourself in shadows that obscured you, maybe even have it give a radius (maybe a weaker version of Cloak of Shadows that then gets upgraded at higher level?), or just Darkness on yourself, that you can fight from. So you would have advantage on your attacks and enemies would have disadvantage to hit you and can't target you with spells that require them to see you. So like Darkness, but without the drawbacks for the party.
The upgrades to Shadow Arts are nice, but I think making the teleport Misty Step is a mistake. Maybe the Invisibility could give a bonus to Hide? Or some other boost?
11th Level: Opportunist
You take advantage of any opening an opponent leaves while attacking you or others. You can make an Opportunity Attack against an enemy within five feet of you that misses you with an attack or targets a creature within five feet of you with an attack. In addition, you have Advantage on your Opportunity Attacks, and if they trigger against an enemy under the effect of your Darkness, Silence, or Blindness/Deafness, you can roll three dice instead of two if the Advantage is not cancelled out.
This accents the Shadows Monk's identity as a sneaky, slippery fighter who takes advantage of hindering their foe to strike by surprise.
I like this feature. Different than the 2014 shadow monk's but still works. Maybe I'm just tired, but your wording threw me off about rolling three dice instead of two. I now see what you mean. Maybe using wording similar to Elven Accuracy would help clarify.
17th Level: Cloak of Shadows
For a capstone feature, this one works well - the blend of invisibility, incorporeality, and the benefit of cost-free Flurry of Blows work well together for the class. So it would remain unchanged.
I agree it's a good capstone.
Warrior of the Hand
The Hand Monk ends up with two nearly-useless features, and two obscenely-broken features. Other than Addle (which can be matched by just pushing a foe away), the effects Open Hand Technique inflicts are open to martials on every attack without cost, and with greater ease for pushing enemies. Wholeness of Body provides an unremarkable heal, when the base class gets a stronger effective heal on the Patient Defense upgrade. Meanwhile, Fleet Step coupled with the free Step of the Wind option effectively gives the Hand Monk a permanent doubled movement speed, while Quivering Palm can arguably be set up and triggered multiple times per round and its increased point cost punishes players who play longer adventuring days with more battles.
I agree with you here. I put similar in my survey about Open hand technique.
3rd Level: Open Hand Technique
As mentioned, I'm running with the assumption that Weapon Mastery would be better balanced on release. If that is the case, then Open Hand Technique would most likely remain useful as-is if its effects can't be duplicated on every attack by any other martial.
Not sure if WM will be better balanced. I hope so. I think either Topple and Push should have saves removed or uncouple OHT from Flurry of Blows. Let them use these options on any Unarmed Strike. Or remove Topple and Push options, keep Addle, add one or two unique features, and allow the Grapple or Shove (which include push or prone) options from Unarmed Strikes that anyone can do, not require that you forgo the damage. Basically, you choose two options from Unarmed Strikes. So I guess you could do Damage + Grapple, Damage + Shove, or Grapple + Shove.
6th Level: Swift Reactions
You can make an additional reaction between your turns, but no more than one per turn.
This gives the Hand Monk greater ability to use reactions, without having a redundant heal.
I like this. But I also like the heal, although it needs a boost. I get that the Patient Defense Temp HP upgrade mitigates the need for a heal a little bit. but I think it could still work if it did better healing. I would prefer a bigger one time heal than a few weak heals. Or better yet a bigger heal with the same Wis mod times usage as the UA.
11th Level:Fleet Movements
When you use one of your base Discipline abilities - Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind, or Patient Defense - you can use another as part of the same Bonus Action.
Gives you flexibility in doing more things at once.
I'm not sure about this. So you can FoB and SotW, FoB and PD, or SotW and PD. The UA8 version feature already covers most of this, but yours is more limited as there are other things you can use your BA for. Like your Unarmed Strike, if you don't want to FoB with DP cost. If you have the feat Fey Touched, you can Misty Step and use this UA8 feature. In your version you cannot.
17th Level: Quivering Palm
Reduce the point cost back to three Discipline Points, and add the wrinkle that each round you delay triggering Quivering Palm increases the damage its activation deals by 1d12, up to perhaps 15d12 Force damage. This gives strategic value in not applying and triggering Quivering Palm as rapidly as possible.
I would have to look at this a bit more. I like the idea of the damage scaling up as you wait. But depending on the battle you wait too long the target may die while you hold off. I guess it's good to have the option.
As a monk-fan and HBer, I've also made a "fixed" version of Way of the 4 Elements. The 17th level feature might be a little OP, but honestly the game is so broken by casters at that level it felt justifiable to go a bit OP.
You can spend 1 Discipline Point to cast one of the following spells: Darkness, Silence, Blindness/Deafness, or Invisibility. If a spell requires concentration, you have advantage on the checks. You also gain the Minor Illusion cantrip, with Wisdom as your spellcasting ability, and gain Darkvision with a range of 60 feet (or +60 feet).
This gives a more varied and balanced selection of Shadow Arts to choose from, as Darkvision is situational and Pass without Trace is of questionable balance (and thus may be rebalanced in OneD&D).
I like the spell selections but rather than flat advantage on concentration checks, I'd instead give them: "When you make a concentration saving throw in response to taking damage, you can spend 1 DP to automatically succeed on the save."
6th Level: Improved Shadow Arts
This grants the ability to cast Misty Step, with no cost if you start and end in Dim Light/Darkness and 1 Discipline Point otherwise. It also confers added benefits to each of your Shadow Arts: you have Blindsight within the area of your Darkness, you can communicate telepathically and receive responses within the area of your Silence, and you can use a bonus action to see through the eyes of one blinded foe or hear what one deafened foe would have heard.
This grants the Shadow Step feature, along with upgrades to each of the Shadow Arts with utility in and out of combat.
Sorry but I hate this, Misty Step is a spell with Verbal components this means casting it will break Invisibility, with reveal you from Stealth, and it can be counterspelled, and blocked by all kinds of protective spells. It's also a shorter distance than Shadow Step making it harder to achieve the Dim Light/Darkness. All in all, a major downgrade from the current Shadow Step. Since Shadow Monk can cast Darkness they can see through they could simply cast Darkness on an object they are holding and then (debatably) could Shadow Step at will since they are always in Darkness and when they end the teleportation they will still be in darkness since the darkness moves with them.
11th Level: Opportunist
You take advantage of any opening an opponent leaves while attacking you or others. You can make an Opportunity Attack against an enemy within five feet of you that misses you with an attack or targets a creature within five feet of you with an attack. In addition, you have Advantage on your Opportunity Attacks, and if they trigger against an enemy under the effect of your Darkness, Silence, or Blindness/Deafness, you can roll three dice instead of two if the Advantage is not cancelled out.
Meh.. not really a fan of this either. Too complicated and I don't see Shadow Monk as the Protective-Defender type which is what this kind of turns them into. I see Shadow Monk more as the "now-you-see-me-now-you-don't" type character rather than a character that stands right in the middle of the melee hoping to get an extra attack in. I'd rather see something more like what Horizon Walker gets at this level, where you can teleport around between each attack... Maybe something like: "When you take the Attack Action, you can use your Shadow Step ability once as part of that action."
As mentioned, I'm running with the assumption that Weapon Mastery would be better balanced on release. If that is the case, then Open Hand Technique would most likely remain useful as-is if its effects can't be duplicated on every attack by any other martial.
I doubt there will be any change to Weapon Mastery, so instead I'd just borrow the idea from Brawler: "When you make an attack with an unarmed strike, you can choose to a apply one weapon mastery to the attack from: Vex, Topple, Push, Slow, Cleave."
6th Level: Swift Reactions
You can make an additional reaction between your turns, but no more than one per turn.
This gives the Hand Monk greater ability to use reactions, without having a redundant heal.
I really don't see this happening as # of reactions is a basic element of the game design, and this could end up super broken with certain magic items or MC builds.
11th Level:Fleet Movements
When you use one of your base Discipline abilities - Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind, or Patient Defense - you can use another as part of the same Bonus Action.
Gives you flexibility in doing more things at once.
No, just no. Using both Patient Defense and Flurry of Blows would be super broken and would be what everyone does all the time.
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OneD&D's treatment of the Monk has been to strip the class of iconic features while depriving it of new tools that every other martial class has received. One of the most glaring aspects was in subclasses, highlighting the devotion to stripping the class of utility features and fixating largely on damage.
I'm going to take a look at the latest versions of the three subclasses released thus far, and redesign them so that the flavor of the subclasses remain without reducing them in complexity and options. This will be assuming that a better-balancing incarnation of Weapon Mastery will be released that isn't imbalanced in the Monk's hands (literally) and thus denied as a base feature to the class.
Warrior of the Elements
While the original subclass suffered from high point costs, the remake in OneD&D reduces it to a shallow imitation of Ascendant Dragon, lacking choosable Elemental Disciplines and being composed of features inferior to what the other subclass already receives:
So how to make the Elements Monk a unique and useful subclass?
3rd Level: Elemental Disciplines
Like the OneD&D feature, this grants the Elementalism cantrip. But it also gives Elemental Disciplines a la the 5e subclass, with adjusted Discipline costs and increased number of Elemental Disciplines learned to allow more uses of them. Instead of the mechanic that allows upcasting Elemental Disciplines, those that deal damage would have the option to replace their damage die with that of your Martial Arts die. Therefore, an 11th-level Monk casting Fireball would deal 8d10 damage with the spell, instead of 8d6. Each element would also have a utility option among Elemental Disciplines, akin to Shape the Flowing River.
6th Level: Elemental Attunement
Rather than the mediocre Environmental Burst, this would be similar to the OneD&D feature. It would grant elemental strikes with extended reach, of fire/cold/lightning/force elements, and grant the ability to attempt a pushing/pulling blow once per turn. The target makes a Strength saving throw; on a failed save, they take extra elemental damage equal to your Wisdom modifier and are pushed/pulled ten feet; on a successful save, they take no extra damage but are still moved five feet as you choose.
11th Level: Stride of the Elements
When you use your Step of the Wind, enemies you move take your choice of fire/ice/lightning/bludgeoning damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die plus your Wisdom modifier. You also don't spend extra movement when traveling through difficult terrain.
This gives better movement-based damage and a unique benefit to Step of the Wind that isn't identical to another subclass.
17th Level: Elemental Epitome
You can spend an extra Discipline Point when activating Elemental Attunement to gain the following benefits:
This feature thus allows the Elements Monk to use more of their Flurry of Blows and Elemental Disciplines during its duration.
Warrior of Shadows
The Shadow Monk has its options stripped by three-quarters, basing it entirely around Darkness. It also dedicates two features to Shadow Step, even though it remains inferior to what the Archfey Warlock gains from its first feature. Thus, improving the Shadows Monk focuses on restoring its versatility and giving stronger features.
3rd Level: Shadow Arts
You can spend 1 Discipline Point to cast one of the following spells: Darkness, Silence, Blindness/Deafness, or Invisibility. If a spell requires concentration, you have advantage on the checks. You also gain the Minor Illusion cantrip, with Wisdom as your spellcasting ability, and gain Darkvision with a range of 60 feet (or +60 feet).
This gives a more varied and balanced selection of Shadow Arts to choose from, as Darkvision is situational and Pass without Trace is of questionable balance (and thus may be rebalanced in OneD&D).
6th Level: Improved Shadow Arts
This grants the ability to cast Misty Step, with no cost if you start and end in Dim Light/Darkness and 1 Discipline Point otherwise. It also confers added benefits to each of your Shadow Arts: you have Blindsight within the area of your Darkness, you can communicate telepathically and receive responses within the area of your Silence, and you can use a bonus action to see through the eyes of one blinded foe or hear what one deafened foe would have heard.
This grants the Shadow Step feature, along with upgrades to each of the Shadow Arts with utility in and out of combat.
11th Level: Opportunist
You take advantage of any opening an opponent leaves while attacking you or others. You can make an Opportunity Attack against an enemy within five feet of you that misses you with an attack or targets a creature within five feet of you with an attack. In addition, you have Advantage on your Opportunity Attacks, and if they trigger against an enemy under the effect of your Darkness, Silence, or Blindness/Deafness, you can roll three dice instead of two if the Advantage is not cancelled out.
This accents the Shadows Monk's identity as a sneaky, slippery fighter who takes advantage of hindering their foe to strike by surprise.
17th Level: Cloak of Shadows
For a capstone feature, this one works well - the blend of invisibility, incorporeality, and the benefit of cost-free Flurry of Blows work well together for the class. So it would remain unchanged.
Warrior of the Hand
The Hand Monk ends up with two nearly-useless features, and two obscenely-broken features. Other than Addle (which can be matched by just pushing a foe away), the effects Open Hand Technique inflicts are open to martials on every attack without cost, and with greater ease for pushing enemies. Wholeness of Body provides an unremarkable heal, when the base class gets a stronger effective heal on the Patient Defense upgrade. Meanwhile, Fleet Step coupled with the free Step of the Wind option effectively gives the Hand Monk a permanent doubled movement speed, while Quivering Palm can arguably be set up and triggered multiple times per round and its increased point cost punishes players who play longer adventuring days with more battles.
To fix these flaws:
3rd Level: Open Hand Technique
As mentioned, I'm running with the assumption that Weapon Mastery would be better balanced on release. If that is the case, then Open Hand Technique would most likely remain useful as-is if its effects can't be duplicated on every attack by any other martial.
6th Level: Swift Reactions
You can make an additional reaction between your turns, but no more than one per turn.
This gives the Hand Monk greater ability to use reactions, without having a redundant heal.
11th Level: Fleet Movements
When you use one of your base Discipline abilities - Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind, or Patient Defense - you can use another as part of the same Bonus Action.
Gives you flexibility in doing more things at once.
17th Level: Quivering Palm
Reduce the point cost back to three Discipline Points, and add the wrinkle that each round you delay triggering Quivering Palm increases the damage its activation deals by 1d12, up to perhaps 15d12 Force damage. This gives strategic value in not applying and triggering Quivering Palm as rapidly as possible.
I like the idea, but I always thought, and put in 4E monk threads over the years, that I would prefer unique Elemental Discipline options instead of just cast X spell. I made a revised 4E monk thread here that had unique ED's. Although my revision was pretty OP and needed toned down. But the thread is over two years old so I wasn't going to go back and try balancing it better. They did need a DP cost rebalancing and some of the level requirements were too high, imo. And I agree you need to be able to know many more that what 4E gives.
I would have to look at all the ED's to see if there is any issue with upgrading the damage die. Your example of Fireball seems ok, but will it benefit other spells just as well or will some not upgrade as nicely?
Seems a little late to get this feature. I know you get ED's at 3rd, but this seems like too key a feature to wait until 6th.
Does this give you the ability to move enemies? Sounds like it, but UA8's upgrade to SotW only allows you to move a willing creature. I would probably keep the Fly/Swim speed options.
The addition of BPS resistance seems like it might be a lot, but it might be ok. The FoB seems a bit restrictive. Does it mean your FoB gets 4 attacks? UA8's only goes to 3. Or does that include one of your Attack Action attacks and does it have to be unarmed?
Not too bad a revision. I like some things and think some need work, but overall it would depend on what is done with ED costs and level requirements.
Sorry, don't have time to go through the other two subclasses right now, but will post something later. I do have some comments on them.
So I had a little more time than I thought so here goes:
I like the spell selections. I put in my survey that Silence and Pass without Trace should return. And I think it should return here, with the assumption that it will be revised in 2024 as it is pretty powerful as is.
You talk about stripping monk of features? Shadow Step can't be counterspelled but Misty Step can. And you take it from 60' teleport to 30'. So downgrades on both counts there.
I had also had thoughts on the UA version's Darkness. I like that you can see in your own darkness, it was much needed, and that you could move it. But I did think that you should also be able to change the radius from the spells radius down to 5'. Alternatively, I would have been interesting if instead of casting Darkness you wreathed yourself in shadows that obscured you, maybe even have it give a radius (maybe a weaker version of Cloak of Shadows that then gets upgraded at higher level?), or just Darkness on yourself, that you can fight from. So you would have advantage on your attacks and enemies would have disadvantage to hit you and can't target you with spells that require them to see you. So like Darkness, but without the drawbacks for the party.
The upgrades to Shadow Arts are nice, but I think making the teleport Misty Step is a mistake. Maybe the Invisibility could give a bonus to Hide? Or some other boost?
I like this feature. Different than the 2014 shadow monk's but still works. Maybe I'm just tired, but your wording threw me off about rolling three dice instead of two. I now see what you mean. Maybe using wording similar to Elven Accuracy would help clarify.
I agree it's a good capstone.
I agree with you here. I put similar in my survey about Open hand technique.
Not sure if WM will be better balanced. I hope so. I think either Topple and Push should have saves removed or uncouple OHT from Flurry of Blows. Let them use these options on any Unarmed Strike. Or remove Topple and Push options, keep Addle, add one or two unique features, and allow the Grapple or Shove (which include push or prone) options from Unarmed Strikes that anyone can do, not require that you forgo the damage. Basically, you choose two options from Unarmed Strikes. So I guess you could do Damage + Grapple, Damage + Shove, or Grapple + Shove.
I like this. But I also like the heal, although it needs a boost. I get that the Patient Defense Temp HP upgrade mitigates the need for a heal a little bit. but I think it could still work if it did better healing. I would prefer a bigger one time heal than a few weak heals. Or better yet a bigger heal with the same Wis mod times usage as the UA.
I'm not sure about this. So you can FoB and SotW, FoB and PD, or SotW and PD. The UA8 version feature already covers most of this, but yours is more limited as there are other things you can use your BA for. Like your Unarmed Strike, if you don't want to FoB with DP cost. If you have the feat Fey Touched, you can Misty Step and use this UA8 feature. In your version you cannot.
I would have to look at this a bit more. I like the idea of the damage scaling up as you wait. But depending on the battle you wait too long the target may die while you hold off. I guess it's good to have the option.
As a monk-fan and HBer, I've also made a "fixed" version of Way of the 4 Elements. The 17th level feature might be a little OP, but honestly the game is so broken by casters at that level it felt justifiable to go a bit OP.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/1005611-elemental-bender
I like the spell selections but rather than flat advantage on concentration checks, I'd instead give them: "When you make a concentration saving throw in response to taking damage, you can spend 1 DP to automatically succeed on the save."
Sorry but I hate this, Misty Step is a spell with Verbal components this means casting it will break Invisibility, with reveal you from Stealth, and it can be counterspelled, and blocked by all kinds of protective spells. It's also a shorter distance than Shadow Step making it harder to achieve the Dim Light/Darkness. All in all, a major downgrade from the current Shadow Step. Since Shadow Monk can cast Darkness they can see through they could simply cast Darkness on an object they are holding and then (debatably) could Shadow Step at will since they are always in Darkness and when they end the teleportation they will still be in darkness since the darkness moves with them.
Meh.. not really a fan of this either. Too complicated and I don't see Shadow Monk as the Protective-Defender type which is what this kind of turns them into. I see Shadow Monk more as the "now-you-see-me-now-you-don't" type character rather than a character that stands right in the middle of the melee hoping to get an extra attack in. I'd rather see something more like what Horizon Walker gets at this level, where you can teleport around between each attack... Maybe something like: "When you take the Attack Action, you can use your Shadow Step ability once as part of that action."
I doubt there will be any change to Weapon Mastery, so instead I'd just borrow the idea from Brawler: "When you make an attack with an unarmed strike, you can choose to a apply one weapon mastery to the attack from: Vex, Topple, Push, Slow, Cleave."
I really don't see this happening as # of reactions is a basic element of the game design, and this could end up super broken with certain magic items or MC builds.
No, just no. Using both Patient Defense and Flurry of Blows would be super broken and would be what everyone does all the time.