Really love the altered self monk subclass haven't had a chance to play it just interested in hearing peoples thoughts and ideas they have about the class and any roleplay stories
I'm assuming you meant Astral Self (as alter self is a spell)?
It's a neat sub-class, personally I really like it; the Astral Arms ability is something you want to use often, as it lets you prioritise Wisdom over Dexterity since you can attack using both while they're active, and dealing force damage means you bypass the resistances on a lot of creatures. Having an extra 5 feet of reach also means you can attack and move away without needing to Disengage, which pairs really well with a Monk's superior movement. There's also the added benefit of using Wisdom for Strength checks and saving throws; it means that using Grapple is an option for you, good for keeping an enemy in place for your slower allies.
And that's just your 3rd-level ability! The 6th-level ability (Visage of the Astral Self) is a bit less exciting but does add some neat and potentially very useful abilities (super darkvision is a huge boost when you need it), and the other two points have some handy out of combat abilities. If your campaign makes it to the higher levels then Body of the Astral Self is great, Deflect Missiles vs. energy can be very strong, and you get a decent damage boost, plus it only costs 2 Ki to activate all three abilities for 10 minutes. Awakened Astral Self at 17th is really good too (+2 AC and three attacks with Flurry of Blows). Overall it's one of the better Monk sub-classes IMO as there is no bad feature, and even the weaker one is still very useful.
The sub-class isn't too strongly themed in terms of how you might roleplay it; it gives you a choice of whether the arms are additional or like a layer over your own arms. You can style them however you like whether radiant and glowy, dark and sinister, or even more closely tied to a particular god or realm such as spectral gears for Mechanus/order and such.
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Really love the altered self monk subclass haven't had a chance to play it just interested in hearing peoples thoughts and ideas they have about the class and any roleplay stories
cheers
I'm assuming you meant Astral Self (as alter self is a spell)?
It's a neat sub-class, personally I really like it; the Astral Arms ability is something you want to use often, as it lets you prioritise Wisdom over Dexterity since you can attack using both while they're active, and dealing force damage means you bypass the resistances on a lot of creatures. Having an extra 5 feet of reach also means you can attack and move away without needing to Disengage, which pairs really well with a Monk's superior movement. There's also the added benefit of using Wisdom for Strength checks and saving throws; it means that using Grapple is an option for you, good for keeping an enemy in place for your slower allies.
And that's just your 3rd-level ability! The 6th-level ability (Visage of the Astral Self) is a bit less exciting but does add some neat and potentially very useful abilities (super darkvision is a huge boost when you need it), and the other two points have some handy out of combat abilities. If your campaign makes it to the higher levels then Body of the Astral Self is great, Deflect Missiles vs. energy can be very strong, and you get a decent damage boost, plus it only costs 2 Ki to activate all three abilities for 10 minutes. Awakened Astral Self at 17th is really good too (+2 AC and three attacks with Flurry of Blows). Overall it's one of the better Monk sub-classes IMO as there is no bad feature, and even the weaker one is still very useful.
The sub-class isn't too strongly themed in terms of how you might roleplay it; it gives you a choice of whether the arms are additional or like a layer over your own arms. You can style them however you like whether radiant and glowy, dark and sinister, or even more closely tied to a particular god or realm such as spectral gears for Mechanus/order and such.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.