Also Ebberon, and potent dragon mark are setting specific, Its not a mainstream supplement. I wouldnt assume its available for balancing a class, and in those cases the balance of everything is different. If everyone has easy access to CME, of course CME being on a class list doesnt matter, but thats nit the default assumption. So, likely people talking about the balance arent assuming ebberon's dragon marks is always an option
This is not really relevant unless Eberron and Mystic Monks are mutually exclusive. Not only will they not be, but official settings themselves do not need to be mutually exclusive. In a given game, you Eberron, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and others exist side-by-side since Planescape is at the core of the planar model. DMs can certainly exclude or explicitly include certain settings and it is not a safe assumption that all materials are available to use, but that is true whether you are talking about setting materials, like Eberron, or setting agnostic publications, like Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.
Needs a ribbon feature at level 3 for flavor purposes. Nothing too powerful, but something that's always an option and speaks to the subclass identity. Maybe spend 1 FP to cast Detect Magic? Something like that.
Arcana training and/or +WIS to Arcana would be cool IMO, or a free cast of Detect Magic - basically something to reinforce the idea that they have a connection to magic.
What I am comparing this to is the last time they tried to make a caster monk - the old Four Elements monk. It had no features at all, except getting to pick a spell when you would normally get a feature. So it ended up with a very small spell list that competed with its base class features. Yet many people still insisted it was fine as a subclass (I did not agree).
This is far and away better than that was, so I'm happy to see it and worried they will claw back most of the good stuff. I'm not really worried about any of the other issues here - if CME breaks things, we should fix CME rather than designing around any chance for optimizers to use it.
3rd LEVEL: Mystic Focus, but it can only be used once per long rest.
6th LEVEL: Mystic Fighting Style, same with this sentence added, “Additionally there is no long a restriction on the number of times you may use your Mystic Focus.”
11th LEVEL: Centered Focus, same with this sentence added, “If you still fail a save to maintain concentration you may use your reaction to spend up to 5 focus points and add the amount you spent to your roll turning a failure into a success.”
17th LEVEL: Mystic Strike. Once on your turn when you hit with an unarmed strike or monk weapon you can expend a spell slot and deal an additional 1d8+1d8 per spell slot level force damage.
I don't hate these, to be sure. But I might also add the ability to have their unarmed strikes count as magical attacks, since they took that away in 2024 in lieu of letting them deal Force damage. This subclass seems like the perfect place to add that back in.
Magical attacks aren’t a thing anymore. That is, 24 monsters no longer have resistance to nonmagical b/p/s damage, they just resist all of it, magic or not. Force is far better.
In official 2024 rules, that is true. But a lot of people are still using 3rd party content or older material where it would be helpful. But yeah, you are correct - there'd be no point in putting that into anything that is "Official 2024 Rules"-based.
Also Ebberon, and potent dragon mark are setting specific, Its not a mainstream supplement. I wouldnt assume its available for balancing a class, and in those cases the balance of everything is different. If everyone has easy access to CME, of course CME being on a class list doesnt matter, but thats nit the default assumption. So, likely people talking about the balance arent assuming ebberon's dragon marks is always an option
This is not really relevant unless Eberron and Mystic Monks are mutually exclusive. Not only will they not be, but official settings themselves do not need to be mutually exclusive. In a given game, you Eberron, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and others exist side-by-side since Planescape is at the core of the planar model. DMs can certainly exclude or explicitly include certain settings and it is not a safe assumption that all materials are available to use, but that is true whether you are talking about setting materials, like Eberron, or setting agnostic publications, like Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.
It's a distinction that has no value.
No one said they need to be mutually exclusive.
The point is, the balance of spell selection for a specific setting which goes out of its way to drastically increase vanilla access to spells, isnt the default assumption, and doesnt justify general balance.
Your arguement was, Eberron allows everyone access to CME, therefore its irrelevant what the default balance of CME access is.
That doesnt make sense. The balance of Ebberon is only relevant in games which contain ebberon, the balance of things outside of ebberon must be made based on the fact tht many people will not be using ebberon.
Also, Everyone in ebberon has access to the spell, which is a large balancing force within Ebberon. People who arent playing with ebberon rules arent going to be molified with content being unbalanced everywhere except ebberon.
The logic of, if its balanced while you are playing Ebberon, its therefore balanced outside of ebberon makes no sense, unless ebberon is intended to be in all content.
As an analogy, if someone can choose to play a version chess That is 3 dimensions, (and its balanced) that doesnt mean that using 3d chess movements in a 2d chess game is balanced,
Also Ebberon, and potent dragon mark are setting specific, Its not a mainstream supplement. I wouldnt assume its available for balancing a class, and in those cases the balance of everything is different. If everyone has easy access to CME, of course CME being on a class list doesnt matter, but thats nit the default assumption. So, likely people talking about the balance arent assuming ebberon's dragon marks is always an option
This is not really relevant unless Eberron and Mystic Monks are mutually exclusive. Not only will they not be, but official settings themselves do not need to be mutually exclusive. In a given game, you Eberron, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and others exist side-by-side since Planescape is at the core of the planar model. DMs can certainly exclude or explicitly include certain settings and it is not a safe assumption that all materials are available to use, but that is true whether you are talking about setting materials, like Eberron, or setting agnostic publications, like Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.
It's a distinction that has no value.
No one said they need to be mutually exclusive.
The point is, the balance of spell selection for a specific setting which goes out of its way to drastically increase vanilla access to spells, isnt the default assumption, and doesnt justify general balance.
Your arguement was, Eberron allows everyone access to CME, therefore its irrelevant what the default balance of CME access is.
No, my argument was that there are better ways cheese access to CME than 19 levels into a class.
That doesnt make sense. The balance of Ebberon is only relevant in games which contain ebberon, the balance of things outside of ebberon must be made based on the fact tht many people will not be using ebberon.
Also, Everyone in ebberon has access to the spell, which is a large balancing force within Ebberon. People who arent playing with ebberon rules arent going to be molified with content being unbalanced everywhere except ebberon.
The logic of, if its balanced while you are playing Ebberon, its therefore balanced outside of ebberon makes no sense, unless ebberon is intended to be in all content.
The default cosmology of D&D is that everything runs through Sigil to everywhere else. A Mark of the Storm character can appear in Toril, Oerth, or Krynn. By default, the requirement of a specific setting is a fake requirement. You can choose to alter the cosmology for your game or restrict certain content, but why should official D&D content be balanced ignoring that default?
Even if your claims about isolating content to a setting were valid, why should officially published content be balanced ignoring that setting?
They don’t want one subclass to be able to do something a whole class will already be able to do better and sooner? That’s a reach.
monk is better at being a martial doing it. A monk has a tone of durability, and needs less resources to do it. Also scorching ray/EB doesnt realy interact with magic items.
they also interact better with attacks with sources of advantage, etc (prone grapplle stun etc).
a monk can make 6 attacks every turn (with nick mastery) and might likely have some magical wraps, and/or a magic weapons
6.5+5+9+2 with advantage wouldnt be uncommon. (stun+grapple chance is a common source) with advantage and crits, one attack is 22.58 damage, thats 135 dpr for the cost of one level 4 spell, and 1-2 ki. the you coudld add about 10 damage to that from the cantrip attack.
specifically, by level 20, that would likely go up to 164(174 cantrip) damage via increasee dex/wis and crit boosting epic boon.
they would have deflect attacks of about 30 damage, 24 AC, resistance to all damage( except force) profociency in all saves, with ability to reroll.
all this with a straight classed monk. You could target the wizard and likely break concentration or just kill them outright, And they would be limited via upcasted scorching rays.
So it would probabky be the best straight class version of this
The level 17 feature of this subclass is a complete nonsense. They obviously did not pay much attention to higher levels. The idea that they made a major design decisio such as the spell list based on a single spell you first get access to at level 19 seems like a far stretch, no mattar how broken it is.
I think that the forest is being lost for the trees a bit with Eberron and CME. As a subclass, mystic monk relies on access to sorcerer spells as it's defining feature. Do those spells make it better at doing monk things? I'd argue they do. The value you find in that as opposed to other subclass features is what's going to determine how good the subclass is. Off the cuff, I'd say there's a lot of value in the sorcerer spell list to monks. Subbing out an attack for a true strike? That's good. Shield's good. Misty Step's good. Blur's good. It opens a fair amount of tactical options for the monk, and that's a good thing. I think I like this in general.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Subbing out an attack for a true strike? That's good. Shield's good. Misty Step's good. Blur's good. It opens a fair amount of tactical options for the monk, and that's a good thing. I think I like this in general.
Just to be clear, all of those are Sorcerer and Wizard spells. Nothing there is exclusive to Sorcerers. Does anything on the Sorcerer's list only help a Monk? Water Walk is thematically cool but a level 9+ Monk can already do that to a limited degree without expending a resource.
To be clear: I don't care. I'm not going to argue wizard spell access is better. Sorcerer is good, so this is good enough.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
To be clear: I don't care. I'm not going to argue wizard spell access is better. Sorcerer is good, so this is good enough.
Okay. Then I misunderstood the point you were making. So, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard probably wouldn't make a significant difference to you? Reasonable.
I dont think divine spells have much that actually helps a monk punch people in the face, and avoid being punched in the face....so those spell lists would be much less helpful in doing monk things. Sorcerer and Wizard are about equal to each other in that regard. Is wizard going to be better? Absolutely. Sorcerer isn't missing out on much, if anything though. That's kind of potayto potahto. Divine magic on the other hand, is not very helpful to the monk in my opinion. That's a big part of why ranger sucks. The difference between sorcerer and wizard spells though is really, not worth getting upset over.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I dont think divine spells have much that actually helps a monk punch people in the face, and avoid being punched in the face....so those spell lists would be much less helpful in doing monk things. Sorcerer and Wizard are about equal to each other in that regard. Is wizard going to be better? Absolutely. Sorcerer isn't missing out on much, if anything though. That's kind of potayto potahto. Divine magic on the other hand, is not very helpful to the monk in my opinion. That's a big part of why ranger sucks. The difference between sorcerer and wizard spells though is really, not worth getting upset over.
I disagree regarding Divine versus Arcane Monk things.
Resistance and Guidance are both thematic cantrips. Run faster? Longstrider (Also a Wizard but not a Sorcerer spell) and Jump. Not get hit? Shield of Faith. Hit better? Bless. Healing (used to be a class ability in earlier editions, now it's a Warrior of Mercy feature): Lots of options.
I feel like there might be a lot of overlap between monk abilities and the divine lists and Sorcerer is about doing non-Monk things.
There are some great spells on the cleric list, but switching to it would mean missing out on shield, which is arguable the most useful spell for a monk.
There are some great spells on the cleric list, but switching to it would mean missing out on shield, which is arguable the most useful spell for a monk.
Interestingly, that may not be true. Monks already have Deflect Attacks, and Shield competes with the Reaction for that. Shield gives a monk an additional defensive option, but since it's not the only option they have, it's less valuable for a monk than it would be for an Eldritch Knight. Arguably, Jump is a more valuable pick, since it gives Monks an early option for enhanced mobility and movement choices and recovering a 1st level slot should be trivial once you hit level 6.
There are some great spells on the cleric list, but switching to it would mean missing out on shield, which is arguable the most useful spell for a monk.
Interestingly, that may not be true. Monks already have Deflect Attacks, and Shield competes with the Reaction for that. Shield gives a monk an additional defensive option, but since it's not the only option they have, it's less valuable for a monk than it would be for an Eldritch Knight. Arguably, Jump is a more valuable pick, since it gives Monks an early option for enhanced mobility and movement choices and recovering a 1st level slot should be trivial once you hit level 6.
It doesn’t compete, it compliments. Hit by less than 5, use reaction to shield. By more than 5, use reaction to deflect.
There are some great spells on the cleric list, but switching to it would mean missing out on shield, which is arguable the most useful spell for a monk.
Interestingly, that may not be true. Monks already have Deflect Attacks, and Shield competes with the Reaction for that. Shield gives a monk an additional defensive option, but since it's not the only option they have, it's less valuable for a monk than it would be for an Eldritch Knight. Arguably, Jump is a more valuable pick, since it gives Monks an early option for enhanced mobility and movement choices and recovering a 1st level slot should be trivial once you hit level 6.
It doesn’t compete, it compliments. Hit by less than 5, use reaction to shield. By more than 5, use reaction to deflect.
I don't agree with your definition of "monk things" but there is this and also that Deflect Attacks is initially restricted to B/P/S Damage only and Shield is not. You can't use Deflect Attacks against other damage types until 13th level and with Deflect Attacks, the attack has hit; you can mitigate damage, but not any secondary rider effects.
From level 6 onwards, they have the option to cast considerably more spells than eldritch knights or arcane tricksters. On the other hand, the sorcerer spell list is weaker than the wizard one.
It’s not that much weaker, especially in low levels. You need to get up into level 6+ spells to really notice the lack.
For a multi-hitter like the Monk, the lack of Conjure Minor Elementals is a big "miss" on level 4 spells - although for a level 19+ character... hardly ever something you'll experience to miss.
Spirit Shroud is also exclusive to Wizards, Clerics, Paladins, and Warlocks.
Edit: Anyway, beating the dead horse.
The level 17 subclass feature does seem fairly worthless and the niche synergies of using your Attack action to cast spells (even limited in level seems weird). Yes it is very likely just a rip-off of the EK's 18th level version, and honestly that's a bit alarming that they push out UA material with features that are very clearly not thought through. If they had nothing to put in I would honestly respect more to make a placeholder.
But lets try an experiment: What say you if the 17th level feature was: "When using your Flurry of Blows, you may exchange two of the Unarmed Strikes for a casting of one of your level 1 or 2 Sorcerer spells with a casting time of an action"?
This somewhat mirrors what the Warrior of Mercy does with swapping attacks for Hands of Healing.
All in all, I don't particularly see the appeal of adding Sorcerer spells to a Monk's arsenal. Especially when Origin Feat: Magic Initiate can net you anything between Blade Ward/Firebolt/Mind Sliver/Mage Hand/Prestidigitation/Shape Water/Toll the Dead/Guidance/Starry Wisp/Shillelagh and then a selection of 1st level spells for utility like Jump, Longstrider, Sanctuary, Shield of Faith, Faerie Fire, Goodberry.
Tri-casters usually go for a cantrip exchange to spice up their Attack action, and then dump their spell slots into defenses like Shield, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs. Monks can do much the same, but pitting Deflect Attack against using Shield is a nuisance that EK doesn't have to deal with. Similarly the EK can readily use their BA for Misty Step, Jump or Exp. Retreat to gain something new. Monks value their BA much higher than Fighters.
The conversion of FP into Spell Slots is a bit better than one might think in terms of keeping you stocked through an adventuring day in tier 2-3, spending any FP before a Short Rest to replenish your low level slots. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if people would choose to dump their 2nd level slots over to FP when they run out.
The lack of Concentration-benefits before level 11 also makes Concentration spells a bit risky to run. I mean you can often reduce damage through Deflect Attack to the point your Concentration saving throw is DC 10, but with demands to bring DEX and WIS high, you're unlikely to have much additional CON. A lvl 3 bonus to Concentration saves would go a long way here, be it flat or WIS-based. Although I wont put it past me that I would trade one of the Attack action attacks for casting Blade Ward if I happen to drop Concentration. I guess that's the benefit of your BA being worth more.
I find the conflict in the action economy to be hindering my excitement of the subclass. But maybe it's worth considering more for the FP-bank and from level 6+ add a cantrip-upgrade to one of your Attack action attacks (and weave in Blade Ward), and a handful uses of Shield. Seems a bit reductive, but I find it difficult to consider it as much more. Tri-casters doesn't really shine as magic utility, better left for fullcasters.
If they hold Concentration when they’re standing in melee at late 4th tier it’s a miss. Even with their save buffs, that’s iffy. In a white room it’s big DPR; practically speaking it’s dependent on a lot outside your control.
Past level 6 , Shield is basically almost at-will for Mystic Warriors since the cost for recouping the 1st level spell slot is so small. It's basically a Shield Spell option for 2 Focus Points, since it doesn't require an action and you have 7+ FP to work with. It's a great option, but it does still compete with Deflect Attacks for the defensive reaction. If it were ONLY 2 FP per use, then that would be a bit more restrictive, but you do also 4 1st level slots straight off, and the option to turn FP into spell slots means you can bank them past a Short Rest. That's significant.
The Monk's ability to attack with the Bonus Action regardless of what they do with their Action opens up more options for spellcasting than the Arcane Trickster or EK, since they don't have to sacrifice all their attacks to cast spells. A 7th level EK would have to consider carefully whether casting Blur really justifies giving up their entire damage output for one round. A monk can do that and still only give up half their damage output, so they're more open to casting that bit of defensive magic. There should be other interactions as well. Levitate is weird here on account of the strange rules regarding movement. If the monk self-targets, they can "move up or down as down as part of their move," though intuitive and rules-based ideas on how that happens can be interesting. It's more involved with a Monk because they can Dash as a Bonus Action and also have more movement. Presumably, the spell will allow them to freely move up or down up to 20 feet per turn as part of their move.
The delta on things like Magic Weapon is also different because they can do it as a 3 point FP cost, basically. So it's less costly for them than it is for an EK in terms of resources, but it does cost them the BA, which is more important for Monks.
Of course, Enlarge is the obvious combat enhancement here for Monks, giving them +1d4 damage per hit, while allowing them to attack with two attack via Flurry of Blows on the same turn they cast it. If you're running any Mystic Monk with a 10 foot reach option (such as a Bugbear Monk), then Enlarge-Attack-Move Away might be a good option to get your damage enhancement and still be safe from melee reprisals, at least for one turn.
This is not really relevant unless Eberron and Mystic Monks are mutually exclusive. Not only will they not be, but official settings themselves do not need to be mutually exclusive. In a given game, you Eberron, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and others exist side-by-side since Planescape is at the core of the planar model. DMs can certainly exclude or explicitly include certain settings and it is not a safe assumption that all materials are available to use, but that is true whether you are talking about setting materials, like Eberron, or setting agnostic publications, like Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.
It's a distinction that has no value.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
Arcana training and/or +WIS to Arcana would be cool IMO, or a free cast of Detect Magic - basically something to reinforce the idea that they have a connection to magic.
What I am comparing this to is the last time they tried to make a caster monk - the old Four Elements monk. It had no features at all, except getting to pick a spell when you would normally get a feature. So it ended up with a very small spell list that competed with its base class features. Yet many people still insisted it was fine as a subclass (I did not agree).
This is far and away better than that was, so I'm happy to see it and worried they will claw back most of the good stuff. I'm not really worried about any of the other issues here - if CME breaks things, we should fix CME rather than designing around any chance for optimizers to use it.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
In official 2024 rules, that is true. But a lot of people are still using 3rd party content or older material where it would be helpful. But yeah, you are correct - there'd be no point in putting that into anything that is "Official 2024 Rules"-based.
No one said they need to be mutually exclusive.
The point is, the balance of spell selection for a specific setting which goes out of its way to drastically increase vanilla access to spells, isnt the default assumption, and doesnt justify general balance.
Your arguement was, Eberron allows everyone access to CME, therefore its irrelevant what the default balance of CME access is.
That doesnt make sense. The balance of Ebberon is only relevant in games which contain ebberon, the balance of things outside of ebberon must be made based on the fact tht many people will not be using ebberon.
Also, Everyone in ebberon has access to the spell, which is a large balancing force within Ebberon. People who arent playing with ebberon rules arent going to be molified with content being unbalanced everywhere except ebberon.
The logic of, if its balanced while you are playing Ebberon, its therefore balanced outside of ebberon makes no sense, unless ebberon is intended to be in all content.
As an analogy, if someone can choose to play a version chess That is 3 dimensions, (and its balanced) that doesnt mean that using 3d chess movements in a 2d chess game is balanced,
No, my argument was that there are better ways cheese access to CME than 19 levels into a class.
The default cosmology of D&D is that everything runs through Sigil to everywhere else. A Mark of the Storm character can appear in Toril, Oerth, or Krynn. By default, the requirement of a specific setting is a fake requirement. You can choose to alter the cosmology for your game or restrict certain content, but why should official D&D content be balanced ignoring that default?
Even if your claims about isolating content to a setting were valid, why should officially published content be balanced ignoring that setting?
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
The level 17 feature of this subclass is a complete nonsense. They obviously did not pay much attention to higher levels. The idea that they made a major design decisio such as the spell list based on a single spell you first get access to at level 19 seems like a far stretch, no mattar how broken it is.
I think that the forest is being lost for the trees a bit with Eberron and CME. As a subclass, mystic monk relies on access to sorcerer spells as it's defining feature. Do those spells make it better at doing monk things? I'd argue they do. The value you find in that as opposed to other subclass features is what's going to determine how good the subclass is. Off the cuff, I'd say there's a lot of value in the sorcerer spell list to monks. Subbing out an attack for a true strike? That's good. Shield's good. Misty Step's good. Blur's good. It opens a fair amount of tactical options for the monk, and that's a good thing. I think I like this in general.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Just to be clear, all of those are Sorcerer and Wizard spells. Nothing there is exclusive to Sorcerers. Does anything on the Sorcerer's list only help a Monk? Water Walk is thematically cool but a level 9+ Monk can already do that to a limited degree without expending a resource.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
To be clear: I don't care. I'm not going to argue wizard spell access is better. Sorcerer is good, so this is good enough.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Okay. Then I misunderstood the point you were making. So, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard probably wouldn't make a significant difference to you? Reasonable.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
Yes and no.
I dont think divine spells have much that actually helps a monk punch people in the face, and avoid being punched in the face....so those spell lists would be much less helpful in doing monk things. Sorcerer and Wizard are about equal to each other in that regard. Is wizard going to be better? Absolutely. Sorcerer isn't missing out on much, if anything though. That's kind of potayto potahto. Divine magic on the other hand, is not very helpful to the monk in my opinion. That's a big part of why ranger sucks. The difference between sorcerer and wizard spells though is really, not worth getting upset over.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I disagree regarding Divine versus Arcane Monk things.
Resistance and Guidance are both thematic cantrips. Run faster? Longstrider (Also a Wizard but not a Sorcerer spell) and Jump. Not get hit? Shield of Faith. Hit better? Bless. Healing (used to be a class ability in earlier editions, now it's a Warrior of Mercy feature): Lots of options.
I feel like there might be a lot of overlap between monk abilities and the divine lists and Sorcerer is about doing non-Monk things.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
There are some great spells on the cleric list, but switching to it would mean missing out on shield, which is arguable the most useful spell for a monk.
Interestingly, that may not be true. Monks already have Deflect Attacks, and Shield competes with the Reaction for that. Shield gives a monk an additional defensive option, but since it's not the only option they have, it's less valuable for a monk than it would be for an Eldritch Knight. Arguably, Jump is a more valuable pick, since it gives Monks an early option for enhanced mobility and movement choices and recovering a 1st level slot should be trivial once you hit level 6.
It doesn’t compete, it compliments. Hit by less than 5, use reaction to shield. By more than 5, use reaction to deflect.
I don't agree with your definition of "monk things" but there is this and also that Deflect Attacks is initially restricted to B/P/S Damage only and Shield is not. You can't use Deflect Attacks against other damage types until 13th level and with Deflect Attacks, the attack has hit; you can mitigate damage, but not any secondary rider effects.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
For a multi-hitter like the Monk, the lack of Conjure Minor Elementals is a big "miss" on level 4 spells - although for a level 19+ character... hardly ever something you'll experience to miss.
Spirit Shroud is also exclusive to Wizards, Clerics, Paladins, and Warlocks.
Edit: Anyway, beating the dead horse.
The level 17 subclass feature does seem fairly worthless and the niche synergies of using your Attack action to cast spells (even limited in level seems weird). Yes it is very likely just a rip-off of the EK's 18th level version, and honestly that's a bit alarming that they push out UA material with features that are very clearly not thought through. If they had nothing to put in I would honestly respect more to make a placeholder.
But lets try an experiment: What say you if the 17th level feature was: "When using your Flurry of Blows, you may exchange two of the Unarmed Strikes for a casting of one of your level 1 or 2 Sorcerer spells with a casting time of an action"?
This somewhat mirrors what the Warrior of Mercy does with swapping attacks for Hands of Healing.
All in all, I don't particularly see the appeal of adding Sorcerer spells to a Monk's arsenal. Especially when Origin Feat: Magic Initiate can net you anything between Blade Ward/Firebolt/Mind Sliver/Mage Hand/Prestidigitation/Shape Water/Toll the Dead/Guidance/Starry Wisp/Shillelagh and then a selection of 1st level spells for utility like Jump, Longstrider, Sanctuary, Shield of Faith, Faerie Fire, Goodberry.
Tri-casters usually go for a cantrip exchange to spice up their Attack action, and then dump their spell slots into defenses like Shield, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs. Monks can do much the same, but pitting Deflect Attack against using Shield is a nuisance that EK doesn't have to deal with. Similarly the EK can readily use their BA for Misty Step, Jump or Exp. Retreat to gain something new. Monks value their BA much higher than Fighters.
The conversion of FP into Spell Slots is a bit better than one might think in terms of keeping you stocked through an adventuring day in tier 2-3, spending any FP before a Short Rest to replenish your low level slots. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if people would choose to dump their 2nd level slots over to FP when they run out.
The lack of Concentration-benefits before level 11 also makes Concentration spells a bit risky to run. I mean you can often reduce damage through Deflect Attack to the point your Concentration saving throw is DC 10, but with demands to bring DEX and WIS high, you're unlikely to have much additional CON. A lvl 3 bonus to Concentration saves would go a long way here, be it flat or WIS-based.
Although I wont put it past me that I would trade one of the Attack action attacks for casting Blade Ward if I happen to drop Concentration. I guess that's the benefit of your BA being worth more.
I find the conflict in the action economy to be hindering my excitement of the subclass. But maybe it's worth considering more for the FP-bank and from level 6+ add a cantrip-upgrade to one of your Attack action attacks (and weave in Blade Ward), and a handful uses of Shield. Seems a bit reductive, but I find it difficult to consider it as much more. Tri-casters doesn't really shine as magic utility, better left for fullcasters.
If they hold Concentration when they’re standing in melee at late 4th tier it’s a miss. Even with their save buffs, that’s iffy. In a white room it’s big DPR; practically speaking it’s dependent on a lot outside your control.
Very true.
Past level 6 , Shield is basically almost at-will for Mystic Warriors since the cost for recouping the 1st level spell slot is so small. It's basically a Shield Spell option for 2 Focus Points, since it doesn't require an action and you have 7+ FP to work with. It's a great option, but it does still compete with Deflect Attacks for the defensive reaction. If it were ONLY 2 FP per use, then that would be a bit more restrictive, but you do also 4 1st level slots straight off, and the option to turn FP into spell slots means you can bank them past a Short Rest. That's significant.
The Monk's ability to attack with the Bonus Action regardless of what they do with their Action opens up more options for spellcasting than the Arcane Trickster or EK, since they don't have to sacrifice all their attacks to cast spells. A 7th level EK would have to consider carefully whether casting Blur really justifies giving up their entire damage output for one round. A monk can do that and still only give up half their damage output, so they're more open to casting that bit of defensive magic. There should be other interactions as well. Levitate is weird here on account of the strange rules regarding movement. If the monk self-targets, they can "move up or down as down as part of their move," though intuitive and rules-based ideas on how that happens can be interesting. It's more involved with a Monk because they can Dash as a Bonus Action and also have more movement. Presumably, the spell will allow them to freely move up or down up to 20 feet per turn as part of their move.
The delta on things like Magic Weapon is also different because they can do it as a 3 point FP cost, basically. So it's less costly for them than it is for an EK in terms of resources, but it does cost them the BA, which is more important for Monks.
Of course, Enlarge is the obvious combat enhancement here for Monks, giving them +1d4 damage per hit, while allowing them to attack with two attack via Flurry of Blows on the same turn they cast it. If you're running any Mystic Monk with a 10 foot reach option (such as a Bugbear Monk), then Enlarge-Attack-Move Away might be a good option to get your damage enhancement and still be safe from melee reprisals, at least for one turn.