I learned that the last time I posted this it came out glitched for some reason and people couldn't read it so I'm trying it this way:

I was underwhelmed by the amount of versatility and agency with the Monk class, and specifically the power balance of the Way of the Sun Soul as compared to Open Hand or Shadow. I home-brewed a new DBZ inspired version of the subclass called the Anima Sol. I feel that it enhances player agency a bit to better reflect individual concepts of the subclass. I am hoping to get people's feedback as to if you all feel it is balanced. Please let me know what you think. 

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Monks of the Anima Sol believe that meditation can unlock the ability to unleash the indomitable light shed by the soul of every living creature. They learn to channel their life energy into searing bolts, arks, or beams of light as well as other brilliant effects.

Lux Anima (Soul Light)

Starting when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, your Ki fills you with a bright inner light. You learn the Light cantrip, Wisdom is your spell casting ability for this spell.

Because of your radiant Ki, you can empower your attacks with blazing light. Whenever you make an attack using Flurry of Blows, any creature hit must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the beginning of your next turn.

Radiant Sun Bolt Technique

Starting at 3rd level you gain a new attack option that you can use to replace any attacks you make as part of any action or bonus action. This special attack is a ranged spell attack with a range of 30 feet. You are proficient with it, and you add your Wisdom modifier to its attack and damage rolls. Its damage is radiant, and its damage die equals your Martial Arts damage. This spell attack may trigger the additional unarmed strike granted by the Martial Arts Class Feature.

Searing Strike Techniques

At 6th level, you gain the ability to channel your Ki into searing waves of energy or other magical effects. When you gain this class feature, choose two of the following spells: A Grasping Light, Bolstering Light, Radiant Burst, Stunning Brilliance, Burning Hands, Color Spray, Divine Favor, or Faerie Fire. Wisdom is your spell casting ability for spells granted by this class feature. The damage type for Burning Hands changes to radiant and no material components are required to cast Color Spray.

Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 2 Ki points to cast one of your Searing Strike spells as a bonus action.

If your chosen Searing Strike spells can be cast at higher levels, whenever you cast those spells as part of this class feature you can spend additional Ki points to cast your Searing Strike at a higher-level. Each additional Ki point you spend increases the spell's level by 1. The maximum number of Ki points (2 plus any additional points) that you can spend on the spell equals half your monk level.

Searing Sun Techniques

At 11th level, you gain the ability to channel your Ki into devastating energy attacks. When you gain this class feature you learn one of the following techniques: Searing Sunbeam, Searing Sunburst, or Searing Sunwave.

Searing Sunbeam Technique

As an action you may spend 1 Ki point to send a magical beam of light forming a line 60 feet long and 5 feet wide blasting out from you in a direction you choose.

Each creature in the line must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 2d8 radiant damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature doesn't need to make the save if the creature is behind total cover that is opaque.

You can increase the line's damage and length by spending up to 3 additional Ki points. Each additional point of Ki you spend increases the damage by 2d8 and the length of the line by 20 feet.

Searing Sunburst Technique

As an action, you may spend 1 Ki point to create a magical orb of light and hurl it at a point you choose within 150 feet, where it erupts into a sphere of radiant light for a brief but deadly instant.

Each creature in that 5-foot-radius sphere must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 2d8 radiant damage, or half as much on a failed save. A creature doesn't need to make the save if the creature is behind total cover that is opaque.

You can increase the sphere's damage and radius by spending up to 3 additional Ki points. Each additional point of Ki you spend increases the damage by 2d8 and the radius of the sphere by 5 feet.

Searing Sunwave Technique

As an Action you may spend 1 Ki point to throw a mote of light into the air and create a cone of identical motes that shoot forward and then disappear. Each creature in a 30-foot cone must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 1d8 radiant damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature doesn't need to make the save if the creature is behind total cover that is opaque.

You can increase the cone's damage and size by spending up to 3 additional Ki points. Each additional point of Ki you spend increases the damage by 1d8 and the cone by 10 feet.

Sunshroud Technique

At 17th level you learn the Sunshroud technique. You shed daylight in a 20-foot radius, bright light for an additional 20 feet, and dim light for an additional 20 feet. You can extinguish or restore the light as a bonus action. While this light shines you gain resistance to radiant and necrotic damage and if a creature hits you with a melee attack that creature takes radiant damage equal to your Wisdom modifier.

If any of this class feature's area of daylight overlaps with an area of darkness created by a spell of 4th level or lower, the spell that created the darkness is dispelled.

Lux Anima (Soul Light)

 I figured WotC gives out the Light cantrip like Halloween candy so that was no big deal. It also felt right that getting smacked in the face with luminous energy might potentially make someone's vision blurry like Krillin's Solar Flare. With this wording the Monk must spend a Ki to use Flurry of Blows or it doesn't work, then must actually hit, and then the target gets a save so I thought that was at least as balanced as what the Open Hand get. What do you think?

Radiant Sun Bolt Technique

The original wording for this made its use somewhat limited and disjointed with what Monks can do. Most others I have seen overcome those limitations by simply making the Sun Bolts "Monk Weapons." My fear with that is how they would then interact with the Sharpshooter Feat so I kept them as Ranged Spell Attacks and switched the Ability to Wisdom. My hope with this was to actually make the Sun Bolts more viable and allow the Monk to mix them in with regular attacks, but still keep them feeling different. This also serves the function of switching this to a more Wis-based subclass so the player has to consider how best to utilize ASIs/Feats. They are not however Spells, so only have limited interaction with the Spell Sniper Feat. Did I keep this balanced? 

Searing Strike Techniques

Normally, the Sun Soul only gets Burning Hands at this level. My idea with this change was to give the player a degree of agency beyond 3rd level, and make the character "feel" cooler without inherently breaking balance since the character must choose only 2 and obviously cannot cast both in the same turn. All of these spells are 1st level and either straight out of the PHB (Burning Hands, Color Spray, Divine Favor, and Faerie Fire), or re-skins of 1st level PHB spells (Dissonant whispers->A Grasping Light, False Life->Bolstering Light, Thunderwave->Radiant Burst, and Arms of Hadar->Stunning Brilliance). Much like every DBZ character had multiple abilities (Goku knows: Kamehameha, Dragon Fist, and Kaioken; or Krillin knows Kamehameha, Solar Flare, and Destructo Disk). I made sure that none of these spells require an attack roll, so none of them interact with Spell Sniper at all. Are two 1st level spells too many? Are 8 1st level spells to choose from too many choices? Are any of those spells too out of line or OP? What do you think?

Searing Sun Techniques

Normally this would only grant the "Sunburst" ability and the original version had a 0-3 Ki cost which made it potentially resource-free. To balance that WotC made it cantrip style where if you saved you took no damage. The idea of giving up all of those attacks and maybe spending resources to potentially do absolutely nothing as an 11th level feature made me scratch my head a bit. My rework always costs at least 1 Ki, but does 1/2Damage on a failed save. I also reduced the AoE radius and made it scale along with the damage when the character spends additional Ki. This way when the character has spent the same 3 Ki like the original feature it is roughly equivalent to a normal Fireball with a smaller AoE, but the monk can push it to 4 Ki and do a slightly more powerful version at the full AoE. 

I then I applied the same logic to two more 3rd level PHB spells similar to Fireball: Lightning Bolt and Conjure Barrage and they became the "Sunbeam" and "Sunwave" respectively and let the player pick which one they want so the player gets a further sense of agency.

Sunshroud Technique

The original version of this was objectively less useful than the 1st level spell Armor of Agathys and less useful than the Light cantrip. The capstone feature of the original subclass was... I honestly do not understand what it was. I improved it. Did I go too far? Do you think this version is too much?

 Hey

Can you please clarify for me. So you can take the attack action then as a bonus action (provided you have the ki points) can cast those spells of which you selected? 

One of those 1st level spells, yes. The original Way of the Sun Soul from Xanathar’s (and I think SCAG) worked the same, but you got no choices it was ONLY the Burning Hands spell.

my goal is not to make the subclass more powerful necessarily (except for the capstone at 17th) but to make it more interesting. I just dislike not having any choices beyond 3rd level.

I think having the blinding attack tied together with Flurry of Blows is a bit overpowered... In one round you get like.. 4 attacks and the opportunity to blind the opponent. It feels like it should be closer to the equivalent of Stunning Strike... although to keep it from being redundant (since Stunning Strike would completely replace it in just two levels), I'd say it should last longer... treat it like the blindness/deafness spell and just allow the target to make a savings throw each round to overcome it.

Other than that it all seems to be kind of equivalent to Sun Soul, just with more options. I don't have enough experience to really break down all the different options and see what's over or under powered.

I agree with the fact you want to treat it as the spell. That could work well

Thank you both for the input!! I can totally get behind that. Please just lemme make sure I understood you properly. 

I assume you mean without the "Deafness" half of the spell. 

Do you mean I should have that be a 1 Ki spell that gets cast after Attacks like the others except starting at 3rd level? Did you instead mean that I should have it as one of those 6th level options?

I looked at the spell and it lasts an entire minute without concentration! Also, keep in mind, the Stunning Strike specifies "Melee Weapon Attack" and I was thinking that the 1 round Blindness would be useable with the Sun Bolts as well so simply being able to do it at range might differentiate it from the Stunning Strike. Doing it as a spell (or spell-like ability instead of attached to Flurry) makes sense to me, I just want to make sure I understand what you meant instead of what I read so that I get it right. 

what about like this?  This way it comes several levels after Stunning Strike, costs 1 Ki/use, and only works on the Sun Bolts the way Stunning Strike only works on Melee Weapon Attacks. Does that work? If not, how would you do it as a spell?

Lux Anima (Soul Light)

Starting when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, your Ki fills you with a bright inner light. You learn the Light cantrip, Wisdom is your spell casting ability for this spell.

Radiant Sun Bolt Technique

Starting at 3rd level you gain a new attack option that you can use to replace any attacks you make as part of any action or bonus action. This special attack is a ranged spell attack with a range of 30 feet. You are proficient with it, and you add your Wisdom modifier to its attack and damage rolls. Its damage is radiant, and its damage die equals your Martial Arts damage. This spell attack may trigger the additional unarmed strike granted by the Martial Arts Class Feature. 

Starting at 11th level, because of your radiant Ki, you can empower your Sun Bolts attacks with blazing light. When you hit another creature with a ranged spell attack, you can spend 1 Ki point to attempt a blinding strike. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of your next turn.

Ah yes, I meant without the deafness part. I do like tying it to the Radiant Sunbolt instead of making it part of a normal attack action. It gives you more crowd control options, but still keeps the focus on the ranged energy fighting this class specializes in. I think you've come up with a really creative compromise :)

Hola!  Couple of things.  I'll break it down by ability.

Lux Anima (Soul Light)

As written, it is arguably a little overpowered.  The light cantrip is fine.  I'd say give the Monk a new Reaction:

Flare the Soul.  When the monk is attacked in melee, it flares with light.  It blinds the attacker until the end of its next turn.  The blindness affects the triggering attack.

Radiant Bolt

For the Radiant Bolt, you actually missed the easiest way to handle it.  Change the damage type to radiant, and have it increase the reach of the monk's unarmed strike to 30 feet, and have it unable to use other monk abilities through it.  Like So:

Starting at 3rd level you gain a new attack option that you can use to replace unarmed attacks you make as part of any action or bonus action.  If the target is not adjacent to you, you may make an unarmed strike with a reach of 30 feet.  The damage type becomes radiant.  Any attack replaced with this ability cannot be used with other monk abilities save for flurry of blows.

Searing Strike Techniques

I agree that burning hands was weak for a single ability.  Instead of adding all of the custom spells, Leave it as an action.  Let the monk spend 2 ki to cast guiding bolt (at 3rd level) or Daylight.  That way it has a really good attack.  I'd also consider giving the monk the cantrip Word of Radiance for some up close Radiant Damage.

Searing Sun Techniques

I think that these are all too weak.  Change it to 2 ki, make the damage 4d8 and the target is blinded until the end of its next turn.  Then,  let them pump it.  Give it an extra 1d8 for every ki put into it.  Otherwise, it would almost objectively be better to close to melee instead of using the abilities as presented.

Sunshroud Technique

Again, ironically too weak for a capstone ability.  Give them immunity to radiant damage inherently.  Then as an action, they flair the light of their soul.  This grants Resistance to Necrotic damage, all unarmed attacks deal +2d8 radiant damage,  and any creature striking the monk with a melee attack takes 2d8 radiant damage.  This ability lasts for 1 minute, and cannot be used again until the monk takes a short or long rest.

Well, these are my suggestions.  I agree the original sun soul has a great idea, but terrible mechanics.  Much like the Way of Four Elements.  Hope this helps!

@Transmorpher: thanks!

@Uhdnrt:

The blinding reaction is cool, definitely something to think about.

i would prefer to keep the Sun Bolts as Ranged Spell attacks so it uses Wis instead of Dex. Just feels more right to me for some reason. 

I wanted to stay away from Guiding Bolt because it uses a Spell Attack that would stack with Spell Sniper and I tried to avoid that interaction, and if I were going to give them a cantrip like Word of Radiance I think that would be better at 3rd level, or in addition to Burning Hands or maybe a couple other options? What do you think? I would like to keep the ability for Characters to pick different Techniques so they don’t all feel like their running around with all the same abilities if at all possible. Also, in regulated to Daylight, WotC decided not to give them access to 3rd level spells until 11th level so maybe that would be better at that point as an automatic thing they get in addition to the Searing Sun Techniques? Plus, it feels right to me somehow that something like actually emitting daylight should come more to the end of one’s Path to “Enlightenment” (pun intended, sorry) What are your thoughts?

I like what you did with the Searing Sun Techniques, but do you think not having an option with them cheaper than 2Ki would maybe be too restrictive? Please give me your opinion. If you think minimum 2 is is good I’ll take your word for it.

I LOVE your sunshroud, do you think we can work in the dispelling darkness too? Maybe bring in Daylight here?

It's fine for the 2ki. At level 11 you have 11 ki that returns with a short rest. And these abilities are mostly useful to mop up mobs or as a last ditch hail mary.

And 2 ki, or a second level spell, is about right.

For the capstone, adding in the light functions as daylight cast at 5th level would be perfectly fine.

I'll have to think about the rest.

thank you, I look forward to what you come up with. 

I'd say at level 1, give the light and word of radiance cantrips.  as well as the blasts.

And for the blasts, how about:  You may replace an unarmed strike with a special ranged attack.  This attack uses your proficiency bonus and wisdom modifier. The Range is 30 feet.  If the attack hits, it deals your martial arts die plus your wisdom modifier radiant damage. 

I think that would do it.  It avoids the spell sniper work around neatly. 

And how about at level six you give the Reaction blind and a couple of utility like light effect.  Also, keep in mind at this point Word of Radiance is 2d6 radiant to all creatures within 5 feet.  That's substantial for a damage type that is rare to resist that costs nothing.  And eventually it will be 4d6.

Radiate ki: At level 6, you can spend 1 ki to cast Daylight, Divine Favor, or Blur. 

Coupled with Word of Radiance, that is plenty of utility to give to the Sun Soul.  Coupled with the damage dealing powers we discussed at level 11, and that has the right mix of attack, defense, and utility across all levels.  I think, anyway.

Subclass features couldn’t start before lvl3, so starting at lvl 1 wouldn’t work.

i Was trying to beep things close to the original Sun Soul, just with more options. 

I do like your idea for the capstone, I think i’ll Work with that and see what I come up with. Thank you