Base Class: Monk
Controlling the chaotic energies of magic inspires monks who seek to keep rogue mages in check. By trapping magical energies, they can starve a spellcaster of their strongest abilities and strike them down without their defenses.
Following this tradition allows a monk to find weak points in a spellcasters defenses and stop them from casting their spells. As wizards and sorcerers gain power, and generally taking that power too far as to subjugate others, monks of this tradition track down these foes and put them down to maintain the balance between arcane practitioners and those without magical talents.
Mage Hunter
When choosing this monastic tradition at 3rd level, you start training to use your ki in suppressing and stopping wild use of arcane and divine magic. By spending a ki point, you are able to cast Detect Magic without providing the material components.
If you hit a creature that has the ability to cast spells with at least two attacks in one turn, you may spend a ki point to force the creature to make a Wisdom saving throw or be unable to cast any spell of 1st-level or higher until the end of its next turn.
Magical Suppression
At 6th level, your ability to control the use of magic around you has expanded. By spending 3 ki points, you are able to cast Counterspell, Dispel Magic, and Nondetection at 3rd-level without providing material components.
Arcane Awareness
At 11th level, your dealings with magic have granted you the ability to sense incoming spells. When you are forced to make a saving throw due to a spell, you do so with advantage.
Archmage Hunter
Also at 11th level, you have improved your ability to shut down a spellcaster. When using your Mage Hunter feature, you are only required to land one attack against a target instead of two on a turn.
Spell Reflection
At 17th level, when you are the target of a spell that is 6th level or lower, you can use your reaction to attempt to deflect the spell. Make a Wisdom saving throw against the caster's spell DC.
On a success, you may spend 4 ki points to avoid the spell's effects and reflect the spell back at the caster. If the spell is a melee or ranged attack, make a spell attack using your Wisdom modifier and proficiency bonus. If the spell requires a saving throw, the target makes a Wisdom saving throw against your ki save DC.
On a failure, the spell targeting you is cast as normal.
Hello everyone! Thank you for all of the feedback that has been provided. I have followed up on my remarks from my previous post that I would be doing a rework of this subclass, and have created a Version 2! Below is a breakdown of the changes that have been made from the previous version:
Arcane Detection - New
The ability to detect magic was moved to a separate feature so that Mage Hunter would not get crowded with additional text that was not relevant.
Mage Hunter - Changed
Removed the need to hit with two attacks per turn and changed it to one attack from martial arts or flurry of blows. The saving throw was changed from Wisdom to Constitution, as the effect of removing the ability to cast spells through an attack felt more in line with a physical ability score rather than mental. Most creatures who cast spells are not proficient in that save and will have a higher chance of failing, giving the monk a more reliable chance of having the feature work. It still improves at 11th level by also affecting cantrip spells.
Arcane Awareness - Changed/Moved
Moved from 11th to 6th level to accommodate the change with Magical Suppression. Changed the bonus to provide a flat bonus to saves instead of advantage, allowing the feature to work in tandem and with more synergy with the Diamond Soul feature from the core class.
Magical Suppression - Moved
Moved from 6th to 11th level with no other changes. As a non-caster subclass, getting the 3rd level spells right after full casters was too much. Moving the feature to 11th level puts it a couple of levels behind half casters and gives more choice with the monk's use of ki.
Archmage Hunter - Removed
Merged with Mage Hunter at 3rd level.
Spell Reflection - Changed
The feature has had its text changed to be more clear, as the previous wording was complicated and hard to parse when using it. The core effect of the feature remains the same but changes the cost of ki points to be equal to the spell being reflected.
Please comment or message me if you have any questions!
Thanks to everyone who has provided comments and feedback over the last year. Thanks to Bill_Poole for making me realize that this and many of my other subclasses were not updated for the new character sheet so I have updated this to work properly here. All features should show up correctly in each section of the character sheet. If not, shoot me a message and I will see what I can do to fix it.
As part of this update, I wanted to look at making some revisions to different features based on both the feedback you have given and my improved understanding of how to homebrew for 5E. I posted a thread over on the homebrew forums posing one question about a change if you have the time to weigh in, or you can reply here as well. Once I've taken some time to look things over, I will update with a version 2.
Thanks so much!
Before I share any of my subclasses publicly I put it on a test character to make sure all the descriptions are working properly, so you should be good! It's been a while since I tested this one so I will do a quick test to make sure.
Edit: I hadn't realized that this subclass was done prior to the character sheet revamp, which leaves a lot of the snippets blank to show tooltips for each class feature while in the actual character sheet. I will edit those, but it requires me to create a new version. I will post updates when I've done so.
I love the idea, and I want to use it, but I've had a recent problem with the skill descriptions not appearing on D&D Beyond's character sheet. Is that the same with the Spell Slayer?
In a standard game with a variety of enemies, yes this could be impractical compared to other monk traditions since it is so focused on countering spells but that is mostly the point of it since the monk class gets so many general bonuses from every level. This tradition would be very powerful for those campaigns that deal with a lot of spellcasters and groups of mages.
This is a great concept, but might prove to not be very practical. Most encounters don't have mages, and whenever that happens, you'll be losing out on having more consistent perks from other subclasses
This is really cool and very well done! Nice Job!
I disagree for a few reasons. Thinking of this feature as a counterspell machine is approaching it in the wrong manner, the other two spells are strong in their own right and require the same amount of ki to use. A full caster also has loads of other spells to use which have much more utility than strictly using counterspell. If you are using all of your ki strictly for counterspell, it's fighting against Deflect Missiles and Attacks of Opportunity for your reaction. What if the wizard you are punching runs away? You said it yourself as well, you won't be able to use ki for anything else like Mage Hunter, Stunning Strike, Step of the Wind, Patient Defense, Flurry of Blows... etc.
Putting a limit on the uses, let's say once per short rest, does provide some limitations but I think it removes the player's choice if they want to focus on locking down a spellcaster or using their other monk abilities. That's what this subclass is for. And if an enemy spellcaster knows that you are focusing on that, why not bait your counterspells with a cantrip?
Great concept I like it a lot. Magical Suppression is a little too strong for a party that takes short rest. Maybe cap each spells use per long rest to Wis modifier (min 1). At 6th lvl 2 counterspells per short rest is too much. Yes that stops you from using ki for other things, but a monk is martial and can just hit things 3 times a turn. The mage who took counterspell is outclassed and they are a full caster.
I'm glad this works for you! Multiclassing rogue and monk is awesome! If your DM has questions about it send them to me!
THIS! I'm running a mastermind rogue with a focus on assassinating magi and have been wanting to multi into monk for more combat viability w/o using "magic". Now to convince my dm. So good. Thanks
That's a good point I didn't think of. If I were to change it to that, my instinct is to then lower the ki cost. Something to think about!
Because of the power of the ability, my thought was that it should be a risk in spending the ki points - you spend the 4 ki as a reaction, and attempt the save; and if successful, it is reflected. Or you fail the save, and it is not reflected. It would also be more in line with other monk abilities like Stunning Strike, which have you spend the ki before the saving throw is made.
This is just my two cents, though
Before I settled on the current language for the feature I went through maybe 5 or 6 drafts before settling on what it is now because I wanted to make sure I got the wording right. You only spend ki points if your save is successful, which creates a multi step process because I perceived this feature to be very strong.
At a minimum this always costs your reaction for the round. Before determining the rest of the feature, you make the saving throw. Your success or failure then determines the next step.
If you succeed, then you have the option to use ki points.
But if you fail instead, you don't have the option to use ki points.
I hope that helps clarify it! I'm not sure of another way to phrase it, but I am open to suggestions that would be more clear.
For Spell Reflection, the wording makes it seem as if you only need to spend the 4 Ki points if you succeed on the saving throw. That seems a bit odd to me, as the resources you spend to attempt the reflection don't get consumed until you succeed on the reflection. Perhaps rewording it so that the Ki is spent first would clarify it a bit.
Or, if it is meant to be that way, then rewording it in such a way as to make that clear would help as well. Cool idea though!
Thank you! I'm elated that so many people like this subclass, any feedback after playing it would be appreciated as well!
This is pretty interesting. Nice work.
I read somewhere, ages ago, that the original AD&D monk was designed as a melee fighter who could counter spell casters. The idea was that with enhanced mobility (even Dimension Door at higher levels), the monk could get up into the face of a magic-user and pummel him or her, potentially preventing spells from being cast (in the old days, magic user spells could be foiled if they took damage while casting).
I like this Tradition because it hearkens back to that (admittedly off-label) function of the old monk. I am newish to D&D5, so I could be wrong, but I think the specialization aspect prevents it from being OP. Obviously, mileage will vary depending on the DM. My own thought is that this build is what someone would take when they really want wizards to be, like, 25%+ of the mid-tier to boss encounters. More than that and it would drive the GM nuts. Less and the monk player would feel like they never got to use their special powers.
I like it.
I love the concept. I would consider altering spell reflection to cost a number of ki points according to the level of the spell. Consider the "Four Elements" subclass which allows a Monk to cast a spell of level x by expending x+1 ki points.
As for mage hunter, I would consider inverting the effect to restrict the use of cantrips. This is frustrating for casters, as they would either be completely shut down (for low level casters), or be forced to expend limited resources to cast higher level spells. Consider allowing a greater expenditure of ki to restrict higher levels of spells.
Great work all around.
Diamond Soul was taken into consideration when deciding on giving advantage on saves against spells. My intent was that these monks are trained specifically to avoid spells and then move in to take away the caster's ability to use spells with Archmage Hunter. Lowering their reliance on ki to avoid spells also allows them to use Magical Suppression at a higher rate since each use costs 3 ki.
I do like the different ideas to replace the advantage on saves, both yours and Astromancer's, I just am not sure it's where I want the subclass to be if I were to replace them.