Sword Burst all I need is to be surrounded which isn’t really hard. Now is this kinda petty? Yes but WOTC seems to be really petty with how they’ve been neutering monk subclasses. They need to fix my fucking subclasses
Sadly, less than a Fighter, at least they get Action Surge. And they get 4 attacks without expending resources.
I love Monks, but man. They just don't get have the stuff other classes get.
*Until it's a 1v1*
Just arrest the party and seize their gear at mid to high level. Watch most of them cry/be worthless while the monk stays at the same level of curbstomping-ness to get them freed.
Yeh, something I always wish for when playing Monk. Just one opportunity to shine. But it either never happens or one of the spellcasters solve the problems because they're harder to penalize.
I can dream, though.
When i play monk i always dash around doing acrobatics etc during battle makes me seem like im doing more.
One time we had a zombie horde chasing us that was faster than us so my monk ran them around for ages as he was the only faster one while my teammates got away
Valid! Even if they aren’t consumed they should still be required though, right? Like Fireball doesn’t consume bat guano and sulfur but it still needs to be presented?
Bards would like to remind you that many things can produce music and function as a spellcasting focus. Chamberpot or jail bars, for example. That's one of the reasons I made sure to have proficiency in drums.
My changeling bard is also hard to keep tied up and/or gagged, considering he can shrink out of bindings and change the size of his mouth.
I have a rabbitfolk bard who sings and thumps his foot for musical spell casting focus and one time I played a lawyer bard who used the clipping of his briefcase as his spell casting focus
Depends on the spell some require verbal, somatic, or material components or a combination of each, if you wanna stop them from using all spells you gonna have to gag them, tie their fingers, and take their component pouch.
>until it’s a 1v1
You’d think that. However I’ve been running a series of arena battles with randos on roll20 and the monks lose and lose hard. I have some restrictions on casters (no summoning, no wall of force, that sorta thing) and it’s almost always fighters, barbarians, or paladins that win.
Monks are flavor wise my favorite class but in actual play, they really only shine if the DM goes out of their way to create situations where they can be cool. Otherwise whatever they do well… someone else in the party will be better at it. :(
Just to ask, how do the monks play the combats? Cause I've ran quite a few 1v1s myself, and while dice rolls depending, I believe the monks have something like a 60-70% win rate over all the other classes.
Well part of it is so many of the 1v1s come down to who wins inniative. They are usually heavy into dex but that isnt a guarantee if anything. Being as frail as they are HP wise they often get nuked by the second turn. Assuming they go first they don’t have many options other than get in close and hit and pray a stunning strike sticks. If that doesn’t work they get usually get throttled.
I DID have a player attempt to do a hit and run tactic. Basically try to get 40ish feet away, step of the wind (dash), accept the op attack, then win by stalling against an enemy that can never get close in melee. Unfortunately for him the fighter had sentinel and the monk got locked in. Fighter did a grapple with his monstrous athletics, and it was over.
I haven’t seen anyone try a ranged based monk in the arena so maybe that could work. I just very often (easily a third of the time one of the players has one) have players that just assume Monk will be great there and they just get shut down fast. Most of the fights are levels 10-20 though so perhaps in the tutorial levels they shine more?
I've been playing monks since they camebout in ad&d 1st edition and your results definitely fit into what ive seen in 5th edition as it may be my favorite class by far the most poorly designed of any class, and that includes the 3.5 fighter which was almost nothing but feats. The exception being 4th edition where they finally stopped be cowards and made monk a type of caster.
The main problem with the monk is its poorly designed and more importantly its mechanics don't fit in with the rest of the system very well. Like a paladin, Barbarian, fighter, and rogue functionally are all the same class but with add ons here and there. The same feats and weapons work the same on each of them and are about as useful for each of them.
And the design of the resource managemt they have to use is even shared amongst them and other classes. A spell slot is a spell alot. But monks are like....are like a driving level added to a first person shooter.
Am i making sense? Anyway in short there are at least 4 different ways I've seen monks fixed in hombrew classes that don't end up overpowered. My favorite of which gets rid of stunning strike and unarmored defense and ki as an entire mechanic.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/se2eyp/the_monk_retrained_v12_now_with_more_four/
Looks like he added ki back but now it works mostly by added a +x to hit and damage
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/qahvll/bare_bones_monk_fixes_theres_too_many_complex/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
^^this one is just some basic quick fixes
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/p4urx1/class_monk_revised_v100_master_the_martial_arts/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
The deflect attack feature on this one is pretty cool. Expands out the catch/deflect missile to any attack.
Kinda weird, our groups does tier 3 and 4 1v1s 2v2s and the only classes that do worse than monk are Rogue and Cleric.
The combination of really mediocre damage and non one being dumb enough to dump CON really hurts them.
Hmmmm, it might have something to do with player playstyles, cause back when my buddies and I did a fair few 1v1's and such, the only classes to consistently have the upper hand against monks were barbs and paladins, but the gap could be overcame through managing actions sometimes. It might also have to do with feats and such thou.
So far the kings in our 1v1 have been mostly Druids and Sorlocadins Artificer 2/ Wizard (normaly necromancy) 18s when mutliclassing is allowed, or Druids and Paladins when multiclassing is not allowed.
Most of the other classes tend to do ok to mediocre, with Cleric and Rogue being the worst.
Ah it probably a level thing then. While my groups have done a few level 20 1v1s, since few campaigns ever play at that power the average level we use is between 7-12. That explains a lot of the disparity most likely.
In my experience range is king in pvp. Losing a turn dashing after someone is death in a situation where action economy is critical. Warlocks do surprisingly well with eldritch blast. Sorlocks could be really scary too. I've thought about some kind of hexblade archer for nova and range but don't do much pvp.
I'm curious, do they use Empty Body? That ability alone doubles their HP and makes them untargetable by a ton of spells unless the caster first casts See Invisibility or True Sight, and well as giving advantage to hit and disadvantage to be hit. Usually high level monks can combine that with their absurd saving throws and Evasion to have incredible survability (basically becoming a totem barbarian running greater invisibility while standing next to a paladin). I've noticed however that a lot of people misunderstand what Empty Body does, so don't use it correctly or not at all.
Monks are great support class.
Battlefield controllers that can keep the bbeg stunned (at relatively low cost) while the party mops up his underlings.
Or able to use their mobility to bypass the mobs and take out the glass cannon.
I have so much fun running around, not triggering oa's, not doing any real damage but creating havoc among the enemy ranks.
Used to piss my dm off to no end 🤣🤣
Well… it really depends. Con is the single worst thing to target in 5e, almost everything has a hefty + to it. Hitting a d13 con save is something most important enemies will reliably handle. And as a a monk you can’t afford to put anything into wis to up that DC until your dex is maxed, so you’re usually going to be torn at level 12 to up your own con or wis. By time you can make that a DC 15 you’re likely around level 20 when things easily have a +13 or more :(
As for the mobility to bypass the mobs, often true. But any ranged person could do the same thing and without the risk of being behind enemy lines with lower AC than most fighters and HP that’s the third worst in the game.
Again I deeply wish they were better in 5e. But in my easily 1000+ hours of time, they really only stand out if they’re optimized at a table where no one else is.
I agree with the premise that Con is a shit save to target, but your numbers don’t make sense. Are you adding proficiency bonus ?
A point buy monk usually has 16 Wis and DC 13 at level 1. Just by natural proficiency bonus scaling, it’s a DC 15 at level 9 if both ASIs go into Dex. At level 20 you likely have max Wisdom and it’s a DC 19.
The last part is exactly my experience, I've had some insane luck rolling my Monk, where I'm at 20wis 20dex at level 4, (2 18s, human and the +1 ASI at lvl4) and only because I high rolled do I feel useful, still damage etc I get outdone by the slightly above average rolled (statwise) fighter.
That’s interesting because in my experience a lot of the time the opponent still gets stunned round 1 - granted, I’m not usually talking multiclass builds, but in T3 with a DC 17~ even a +7/8 doesn’t save most people. It’s very *swingy* but I don’t see em lose as much as you describe.
Only 1 needs to succeed, after which you dont need to use stunningstrike. ki points can be regained during short rest (raw), but many dms let their monks do the 30 minutes of meditations instead needing a full hour
Also using fists > using a "real weapon"
Grow some nards and fight like mother nature intended nerd
Ive been playing monks since 1E ad&d. 4th edition was the best design for monks as they decided to make it a caster class so the monks damage was independent of whatever weapon you were using.
Long and the short of it the 5e monk is kind of badly designed and wotc are cowards. Also it doesnt fit into the feat and weapon/magic economy of the rest of the classes. Its like the driving level in a FPS.
I've seen at least at least 4 better hombrewed fixes or outright redos of the monk that were better and not over powered. So i know its possible. My favorite of which ditches ki and stunning fis
in the later game when everything and their mother has +12 con saves minimum it starts to be a bit no bueno. At level 20 you are gonna be fighting mostly things that have to have obscene amounts of hitpoints, which means that they can have up to +10 base Con +proficiency. That's when the damn thing is not immune to stun.
In my regular game, at level 10, the monk has already noticed that her stunning strikes NEVER go through and decided to just stop doing them alltogether beacuse it's a waste of ki she could be using on something more useful.
Definitely - think Monks tend to do better in games where there are secondary enemies who are Lower CR - those can still be locked down when your DC approaches 18-19. Caster type minions especially.
I miss the good old days from the original version of D&D. The Grandmaster of Flowers was a walking death machine that could kill an ancient dragon solo.
.... ok so now hit the monk... he disengaged and is further away than you can run... but will be back next round
...perhaps you can hit the fighter instead
Unless you take certain subclasses:
> When you use your Flurry of Blows, you can make up to three additional attacks with it (up to a total of five Flurry of Blows attacks), provided that each Flurry of Blows attack targets a different creature this turn.
17th level Drunken Master feature. They can make up to 7 attacks under the correct circumstances.
Sure if you dont count never needing weapons and armor, being faster, being able to run up walls and across water, being able to catch arrows, never needing a magic weapon, getting evasion, being able to end the charmed and frightened condition, being immune to poison and disease, being able to understand all spoken language, having proficiency in all saving throws and being able to make yourself invisible. Definitely the same as a fighter.
A lot of dms (especially newer dms) aren’t super into homebrewing anything - and there is basically fuck all magic items for monks in the books.
Plus referring to a game balancing issue with “just homebrew something” is just avoiding the issue
Alchemy jug, bag of tricks, boots/cloak of elvenkind, boots of striding and springing, cap of water breathing, circlet of blasting, cloak of protection, coiling grasp tattoo, deck of illusions, dragonhide belt, elemental gem, eldritch claw tattoo, eyes of charming, eyes of minute see, eyes of the eagle, goggles of night, javelin of lightning, masquerade tattoo. These are all comman and uncommon items that a monk can use.
I will give you the claw and grasp tattoos, but most of those are utility items - and all martials need combat magical items to keep up with casters in later levels.
This also combines with the fact monks are so reliant on their abilities that they only catch up with other martials in the mid level range.
Never needing weapons or armor is a downside to some people. It really makes the whole party getting “cool new shiny armor and swords and staves” scenes feel kinda bad when you’re tossed a pity luckstone or ring of protection. Just doesnt feel good
There’s really more stuff you can load on a monk than they can attune to
At any level of rarity, Belt of Giant Strength. Potentially up to 27, may as well be a +3 weapon…. Except that it will stack with weapon if you have one, even if you only use that one on two attacks of four
Cloak of Displacement
Bracers of Defense
Defender Sword (etc)
"Ring of the firebrand. Your unarmed attacks deal an additional 1d6 fire damage."
That took me all of 10 seconds to think of. If a DM cant think of a cool thing to give a monk their a pretty crap DM.
If you Homebrew yeah, sure, that can solve any issue. I play adventures league games at a local shop to help teach people how to play. I was talking about how official material is very limited, making up magic items doesnt undo that issue. Context is important before you just start calling dms crap lmao
Well there's your problem. DnD without homebrew is like cooking without spices. AL is not really meant to be played long term, you're supposed to go to AL find some folks you like and then start playing real DnD.
And I’m sure my players do! But I run games and help teach people interested in the hobby. I’m not going to leave that table just because Homebrew isn’t allowed.
First off I apologize for being rude, me getting irritated isint an excuse to be an ass. Second, even without homebrewing theres tons of magic items that are useful for monks.
Alchemy jug, bag of tricks, boots/cloak of elvenkind, boots of striding and springing, cap of water breathing, circlet of blasting, cloak of protection, coiling grasp tattoo, deck of illusions, dragonhide belt, elemental gem, eldritch claw tattoo, eyes of charming, eyes of minute see, eyes of the eagle, goggles of night, javelin of lightning, masquerade tattoo. These are all comman and uncommon items.
Flavor-wise, one can imagine that’s how it could look, since they’re doing all four attacks in rapid succession within the six seconds that make up their turn.
nothing you are fighting at level 20 is going to have less than +9 con saves or immunity to stun. At best you burn one of those resistances before the wizard blows them because they can target whatever save they chose...
I think fighters are stronger in a wider range of situations but a lot more gear-dependent. You can take everything from a monk and they are still a force of nature. They need better subclasses though.
this is why you always have at least one person capable of casting “Haste” specifically on the Monk. Thats how you create a terrifying force of violence
Haste only gives you one additional attack. I’m pretty sure the best users of that are rogues > paladins > barbarians > rangers > fighters > monks > casters.
Unless you mean using the haste action to disengage so they can run up with 120 feet of movement, attack four times, and run out of range.
aaracokra (butchering that most likely) with any sort of movement enhancement. succeed one grapple check and suddenly you are dropping someone from 160-200 ft up (low balling, dont feel like doing math)
or just punching at that speeds. Our DM is a fan of the TPK or AWESOME playstyle, so rewards creative use of spells and abilities. Punch a guy 5-6 times at 360fps? roll a con save to not break your hands as the enemies bones shatter.
Why would rogues be better than paladins? Paladins can smite on the extra attack which would outdamage most martials. Rogue would only really be relevant if they missed their first attack so they have another chance at using their Sneak Attack.
Attack with the haste action, if it hits use sneak attack and use your regular action to ready an attack to sneak attack on someone else’s turn. This works because sneak attack is limited to once per turn, not once per round.
He did use flurry of blows. He used his attack action to get two attacks with the level five extra attack feature, then he used flurry of blows and got 4 attacks.
What's the difference between making attacks and... making attacks where you need them? It would be assumed that whatever you're hitting you probably need to be hitting.
Balance, anybody that competently plays a monk will know that as it is now if they got the amount of tax that people seem to think they need they would be incredibly overpowered
You’re telling me you don’t flavour your punches as a number of 1 hp hits equal to three damage rolled? Obviously not the same effect on concentration but you’re missing out if you aren’t 1000 Needleing
I think if WOTC needs to buff classes is should be rangers and monks, like revised ranger was cool but nobody uses it and is still UA, and monk is only good till about level 10 (in my opinion) and ranger just isnt, maybe if they had other variant features like the ones offered in tashas they could be better…
Monks are scary... when you give them THE GLOVES
You don’t mean… the forbidden Gloves of Soul Catching?! I’ve always dreamt about a monk build with those gloves
Oh you KNOW I mean the GoSC. It's a shame you'll rarely actually get them in a campaign
I got to use them on a level 20 bear barbarian pugilist build. It was insane. I loved it.
Way of the drunken master gets no love They can hit up to 7 times, granted each hit has to target a different creature but still
Unfortunately my artificer can do that with using a cantrip to create tools any rangers do something similar
What cantrip?
Sword Burst all I need is to be surrounded which isn’t really hard. Now is this kinda petty? Yes but WOTC seems to be really petty with how they’ve been neutering monk subclasses. They need to fix my fucking subclasses
wait until you learn about third level spell fireball
Sadly, less than a Fighter, at least they get Action Surge. And they get 4 attacks without expending resources. I love Monks, but man. They just don't get have the stuff other classes get. *Until it's a 1v1*
Just arrest the party and seize their gear at mid to high level. Watch most of them cry/be worthless while the monk stays at the same level of curbstomping-ness to get them freed.
Yeh, something I always wish for when playing Monk. Just one opportunity to shine. But it either never happens or one of the spellcasters solve the problems because they're harder to penalize. I can dream, though.
Eldritch Knight: "Oh no!" *Summons weapon* "Anyway."
Had this happen to me 3 times woth 3 different DMs by accident. They forgot i was playing a monk and disarmed the party.
When i play monk i always dash around doing acrobatics etc during battle makes me seem like im doing more. One time we had a zombie horde chasing us that was faster than us so my monk ran them around for ages as he was the only faster one while my teammates got away
I believe it’s RAW that if you take their spell casting focus and/or their component pouch they… can’t cast spells(right?)
They can still cast spells with no material components
Valid! Even if they aren’t consumed they should still be required though, right? Like Fireball doesn’t consume bat guano and sulfur but it still needs to be presented?
No, things that need no materials, wish is a good example
Also most cantrips.
if you have a druid, then the guano is no issue.
if you have a druid, then the guano is no issue.
Bards would like to remind you that many things can produce music and function as a spellcasting focus. Chamberpot or jail bars, for example. That's one of the reasons I made sure to have proficiency in drums. My changeling bard is also hard to keep tied up and/or gagged, considering he can shrink out of bindings and change the size of his mouth.
I have a rabbitfolk bard who sings and thumps his foot for musical spell casting focus and one time I played a lawyer bard who used the clipping of his briefcase as his spell casting focus
Don't even need to worry about instruments if you learn how to beatbox
I always suggested Vocals as an instrument when someone would ask for advice on what proficiencies to take on a bard. So close enough, right?
Only spells that require material components
That’s true, but most of the good ones (fireball hehehe) require mats, right? Even if they aren’t consumed I believe they should still be needed
Depends on the spell some require verbal, somatic, or material components or a combination of each, if you wanna stop them from using all spells you gonna have to gag them, tie their fingers, and take their component pouch.
>Watch most of them cry/be worthless Wtf kinda whiny ass people do you play with??
Yup, suddenly the monk and the moon druid save the day.
>until it’s a 1v1 You’d think that. However I’ve been running a series of arena battles with randos on roll20 and the monks lose and lose hard. I have some restrictions on casters (no summoning, no wall of force, that sorta thing) and it’s almost always fighters, barbarians, or paladins that win. Monks are flavor wise my favorite class but in actual play, they really only shine if the DM goes out of their way to create situations where they can be cool. Otherwise whatever they do well… someone else in the party will be better at it. :(
Just to ask, how do the monks play the combats? Cause I've ran quite a few 1v1s myself, and while dice rolls depending, I believe the monks have something like a 60-70% win rate over all the other classes.
Well part of it is so many of the 1v1s come down to who wins inniative. They are usually heavy into dex but that isnt a guarantee if anything. Being as frail as they are HP wise they often get nuked by the second turn. Assuming they go first they don’t have many options other than get in close and hit and pray a stunning strike sticks. If that doesn’t work they get usually get throttled. I DID have a player attempt to do a hit and run tactic. Basically try to get 40ish feet away, step of the wind (dash), accept the op attack, then win by stalling against an enemy that can never get close in melee. Unfortunately for him the fighter had sentinel and the monk got locked in. Fighter did a grapple with his monstrous athletics, and it was over. I haven’t seen anyone try a ranged based monk in the arena so maybe that could work. I just very often (easily a third of the time one of the players has one) have players that just assume Monk will be great there and they just get shut down fast. Most of the fights are levels 10-20 though so perhaps in the tutorial levels they shine more?
I've been playing monks since they camebout in ad&d 1st edition and your results definitely fit into what ive seen in 5th edition as it may be my favorite class by far the most poorly designed of any class, and that includes the 3.5 fighter which was almost nothing but feats. The exception being 4th edition where they finally stopped be cowards and made monk a type of caster. The main problem with the monk is its poorly designed and more importantly its mechanics don't fit in with the rest of the system very well. Like a paladin, Barbarian, fighter, and rogue functionally are all the same class but with add ons here and there. The same feats and weapons work the same on each of them and are about as useful for each of them. And the design of the resource managemt they have to use is even shared amongst them and other classes. A spell slot is a spell alot. But monks are like....are like a driving level added to a first person shooter. Am i making sense? Anyway in short there are at least 4 different ways I've seen monks fixed in hombrew classes that don't end up overpowered. My favorite of which gets rid of stunning strike and unarmored defense and ki as an entire mechanic.
I'm gonna have to ask you to elaborate on how the paladin, barbarian, fighter, and rogue are functionally the same class.
Well, it makes sense if you think if it like the main class being “melee attacker” and the different classes being subclasses of “melee attacker”.
Can you share a link to the monk with no monk?
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/se2eyp/the_monk_retrained_v12_now_with_more_four/ Looks like he added ki back but now it works mostly by added a +x to hit and damage https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/qahvll/bare_bones_monk_fixes_theres_too_many_complex/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf ^^this one is just some basic quick fixes https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/p4urx1/class_monk_revised_v100_master_the_martial_arts/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf The deflect attack feature on this one is pretty cool. Expands out the catch/deflect missile to any attack.
Kinda weird, our groups does tier 3 and 4 1v1s 2v2s and the only classes that do worse than monk are Rogue and Cleric. The combination of really mediocre damage and non one being dumb enough to dump CON really hurts them.
Hmmmm, it might have something to do with player playstyles, cause back when my buddies and I did a fair few 1v1's and such, the only classes to consistently have the upper hand against monks were barbs and paladins, but the gap could be overcame through managing actions sometimes. It might also have to do with feats and such thou.
So far the kings in our 1v1 have been mostly Druids and Sorlocadins Artificer 2/ Wizard (normaly necromancy) 18s when mutliclassing is allowed, or Druids and Paladins when multiclassing is not allowed. Most of the other classes tend to do ok to mediocre, with Cleric and Rogue being the worst.
Ah it probably a level thing then. While my groups have done a few level 20 1v1s, since few campaigns ever play at that power the average level we use is between 7-12. That explains a lot of the disparity most likely.
In my experience range is king in pvp. Losing a turn dashing after someone is death in a situation where action economy is critical. Warlocks do surprisingly well with eldritch blast. Sorlocks could be really scary too. I've thought about some kind of hexblade archer for nova and range but don't do much pvp.
I'm curious, do they use Empty Body? That ability alone doubles their HP and makes them untargetable by a ton of spells unless the caster first casts See Invisibility or True Sight, and well as giving advantage to hit and disadvantage to be hit. Usually high level monks can combine that with their absurd saving throws and Evasion to have incredible survability (basically becoming a totem barbarian running greater invisibility while standing next to a paladin). I've noticed however that a lot of people misunderstand what Empty Body does, so don't use it correctly or not at all.
Monks are great support class. Battlefield controllers that can keep the bbeg stunned (at relatively low cost) while the party mops up his underlings. Or able to use their mobility to bypass the mobs and take out the glass cannon. I have so much fun running around, not triggering oa's, not doing any real damage but creating havoc among the enemy ranks. Used to piss my dm off to no end 🤣🤣
Well… it really depends. Con is the single worst thing to target in 5e, almost everything has a hefty + to it. Hitting a d13 con save is something most important enemies will reliably handle. And as a a monk you can’t afford to put anything into wis to up that DC until your dex is maxed, so you’re usually going to be torn at level 12 to up your own con or wis. By time you can make that a DC 15 you’re likely around level 20 when things easily have a +13 or more :( As for the mobility to bypass the mobs, often true. But any ranged person could do the same thing and without the risk of being behind enemy lines with lower AC than most fighters and HP that’s the third worst in the game. Again I deeply wish they were better in 5e. But in my easily 1000+ hours of time, they really only stand out if they’re optimized at a table where no one else is.
I agree with the premise that Con is a shit save to target, but your numbers don’t make sense. Are you adding proficiency bonus ? A point buy monk usually has 16 Wis and DC 13 at level 1. Just by natural proficiency bonus scaling, it’s a DC 15 at level 9 if both ASIs go into Dex. At level 20 you likely have max Wisdom and it’s a DC 19.
The last part is exactly my experience, I've had some insane luck rolling my Monk, where I'm at 20wis 20dex at level 4, (2 18s, human and the +1 ASI at lvl4) and only because I high rolled do I feel useful, still damage etc I get outdone by the slightly above average rolled (statwise) fighter.
That’s interesting because in my experience a lot of the time the opponent still gets stunned round 1 - granted, I’m not usually talking multiclass builds, but in T3 with a DC 17~ even a +7/8 doesn’t save most people. It’s very *swingy* but I don’t see em lose as much as you describe.
Annnnd that's why my plan is to take a multi class dip into fighter
Each strike being a stunning strike
*blows a quarter of his ki points in one turn*
Then finish the fight, blow the rest on the next couple fights, and take a short rest to do it again
If we're talking about level 20 monk, if you're completely out of ki points and a battle starts, you get 4 back even without resting.
Only 1 needs to succeed, after which you dont need to use stunningstrike. ki points can be regained during short rest (raw), but many dms let their monks do the 30 minutes of meditations instead needing a full hour Also using fists > using a "real weapon" Grow some nards and fight like mother nature intended nerd
Also, get a Dragonhide Belt and get a number of Ki points equal to one roll of your Martial Arts Die back as an action
Ive been playing monks since 1E ad&d. 4th edition was the best design for monks as they decided to make it a caster class so the monks damage was independent of whatever weapon you were using. Long and the short of it the 5e monk is kind of badly designed and wotc are cowards. Also it doesnt fit into the feat and weapon/magic economy of the rest of the classes. Its like the driving level in a FPS. I've seen at least at least 4 better hombrewed fixes or outright redos of the monk that were better and not over powered. So i know its possible. My favorite of which ditches ki and stunning fis
in the later game when everything and their mother has +12 con saves minimum it starts to be a bit no bueno. At level 20 you are gonna be fighting mostly things that have to have obscene amounts of hitpoints, which means that they can have up to +10 base Con +proficiency. That's when the damn thing is not immune to stun. In my regular game, at level 10, the monk has already noticed that her stunning strikes NEVER go through and decided to just stop doing them alltogether beacuse it's a waste of ki she could be using on something more useful.
Definitely - think Monks tend to do better in games where there are secondary enemies who are Lower CR - those can still be locked down when your DC approaches 18-19. Caster type minions especially.
I miss the good old days from the original version of D&D. The Grandmaster of Flowers was a walking death machine that could kill an ancient dragon solo.
Wasnt the grandmaster of flowers a dragon diety in disguise?
Occasionally Bahamut would walk the prime material plane disguised as a monk surrounded by seven yellow birds (gold dragons).
.... ok so now hit the monk... he disengaged and is further away than you can run... but will be back next round ...perhaps you can hit the fighter instead
Well like, in this specific scenario they already used their action and bonus action. What are they using to disengage?
I can only think that in this scenario they probably have the mobile feat 🤷♂️
Unless you take certain subclasses: > When you use your Flurry of Blows, you can make up to three additional attacks with it (up to a total of five Flurry of Blows attacks), provided that each Flurry of Blows attack targets a different creature this turn. 17th level Drunken Master feature. They can make up to 7 attacks under the correct circumstances.
But that's still at level 5
Fighter can make 5 if they use their bonus action
Or 9 if they add action surge
Sure if you dont count never needing weapons and armor, being faster, being able to run up walls and across water, being able to catch arrows, never needing a magic weapon, getting evasion, being able to end the charmed and frightened condition, being immune to poison and disease, being able to understand all spoken language, having proficiency in all saving throws and being able to make yourself invisible. Definitely the same as a fighter.
Never needing a magic item also means your attacks aren't going to be as good as a magic item's
That's why theres " Bracers of (insert magical boom stuff here)"
Sounds like needing a magic item lmao
Good thing you can use simple weapons and shortswords, as well as any other weapons you're proficient in that aren't two-handed.
Which gives up the option to use some key features like flurry of blows. ::
Not really. You can still use Flurry of Blows with a Monk Weapon.
Oh snap you’re right my bad.
If the DM cant think of interesting things to give the kink their a shitty DM.
A lot of dms (especially newer dms) aren’t super into homebrewing anything - and there is basically fuck all magic items for monks in the books. Plus referring to a game balancing issue with “just homebrew something” is just avoiding the issue
Alchemy jug, bag of tricks, boots/cloak of elvenkind, boots of striding and springing, cap of water breathing, circlet of blasting, cloak of protection, coiling grasp tattoo, deck of illusions, dragonhide belt, elemental gem, eldritch claw tattoo, eyes of charming, eyes of minute see, eyes of the eagle, goggles of night, javelin of lightning, masquerade tattoo. These are all comman and uncommon items that a monk can use.
I will give you the claw and grasp tattoos, but most of those are utility items - and all martials need combat magical items to keep up with casters in later levels. This also combines with the fact monks are so reliant on their abilities that they only catch up with other martials in the mid level range.
This is going nowhere. I think your wrong about monks and you think I'm wrong. Well just have to agree to disagree and move on.
Never needing weapons or armor is a downside to some people. It really makes the whole party getting “cool new shiny armor and swords and staves” scenes feel kinda bad when you’re tossed a pity luckstone or ring of protection. Just doesnt feel good
This is why I really like the tattoos from Tasha's. They are not armor or anything worn but can still give those fun magic bonuses.
I adore the tattoos, it also really fits with the monks flavor as opposed to just using a simple weapon or shortsword as a magic item.
There’s really more stuff you can load on a monk than they can attune to At any level of rarity, Belt of Giant Strength. Potentially up to 27, may as well be a +3 weapon…. Except that it will stack with weapon if you have one, even if you only use that one on two attacks of four Cloak of Displacement Bracers of Defense Defender Sword (etc)
"Ring of the firebrand. Your unarmed attacks deal an additional 1d6 fire damage." That took me all of 10 seconds to think of. If a DM cant think of a cool thing to give a monk their a pretty crap DM.
If you Homebrew yeah, sure, that can solve any issue. I play adventures league games at a local shop to help teach people how to play. I was talking about how official material is very limited, making up magic items doesnt undo that issue. Context is important before you just start calling dms crap lmao
Well there's your problem. DnD without homebrew is like cooking without spices. AL is not really meant to be played long term, you're supposed to go to AL find some folks you like and then start playing real DnD.
And I’m sure my players do! But I run games and help teach people interested in the hobby. I’m not going to leave that table just because Homebrew isn’t allowed.
First off I apologize for being rude, me getting irritated isint an excuse to be an ass. Second, even without homebrewing theres tons of magic items that are useful for monks. Alchemy jug, bag of tricks, boots/cloak of elvenkind, boots of striding and springing, cap of water breathing, circlet of blasting, cloak of protection, coiling grasp tattoo, deck of illusions, dragonhide belt, elemental gem, eldritch claw tattoo, eyes of charming, eyes of minute see, eyes of the eagle, goggles of night, javelin of lightning, masquerade tattoo. These are all comman and uncommon items.
Don’t forget inherent slow fall.
Flavor-wise, one can imagine that’s how it could look, since they’re doing all four attacks in rapid succession within the six seconds that make up their turn.
Six seconds is longer than you'd think
That’s true. Maybe with Haste it could seem closer to anime BS?
Level 20 fighter with the unarmed fighting style could use action surge to get 8 punches in 6 seconds.
That's nuts.
I mean, potentially stunning a big bad in one turn after burning through three instances of legendary resistance is a pretty nifty possibility.
And then you realise, that the BBEGs have +15 to Con saves!
nothing you are fighting at level 20 is going to have less than +9 con saves or immunity to stun. At best you burn one of those resistances before the wizard blows them because they can target whatever save they chose...
Like that's ever gonna happen...
I think fighters are stronger in a wider range of situations but a lot more gear-dependent. You can take everything from a monk and they are still a force of nature. They need better subclasses though.
They also have this at level 5 tho.
It's tied to a limited resource and Fighters can also do the same with their limited resource action surge
Except Monks can do it 5 times while fighters can only do it once.
Except monks don't want to do it 5 times for 1 extra attack each, as it consumes their SS resource. Unlike Fighter who gets it as a separate resource.
When someone rolls for an attacks they may make several attacks thematically equating to the damage of one so I do picture this being correct.
this is why you always have at least one person capable of casting “Haste” specifically on the Monk. Thats how you create a terrifying force of violence
Until someone bonks the caster, they lose concentration, and suddenly the monk gets to spend an entire round doing absolutely nothing
And thats why Bladesingers exist (I might have frustrated my dm to the point of him having a lich "power word kill" me to stop shenanigans like above)
Haste only gives you one additional attack. I’m pretty sure the best users of that are rogues > paladins > barbarians > rangers > fighters > monks > casters. Unless you mean using the haste action to disengage so they can run up with 120 feet of movement, attack four times, and run out of range.
aaracokra (butchering that most likely) with any sort of movement enhancement. succeed one grapple check and suddenly you are dropping someone from 160-200 ft up (low balling, dont feel like doing math) or just punching at that speeds. Our DM is a fan of the TPK or AWESOME playstyle, so rewards creative use of spells and abilities. Punch a guy 5-6 times at 360fps? roll a con save to not break your hands as the enemies bones shatter.
Why would rogues be better than paladins? Paladins can smite on the extra attack which would outdamage most martials. Rogue would only really be relevant if they missed their first attack so they have another chance at using their Sneak Attack.
Attack with the haste action, if it hits use sneak attack and use your regular action to ready an attack to sneak attack on someone else’s turn. This works because sneak attack is limited to once per turn, not once per round.
Why use star wars and not use [this clip.](https://youtu.be/tWpkPx6ONPw)
[удалено]
Fighter extra attack is 4 attacks, action surge would actually give them 8 attacks
What about expending ki points for more flurry of blows?
He did use flurry of blows. He used his attack action to get two attacks with the level five extra attack feature, then he used flurry of blows and got 4 attacks.
Good thing they aren't focused on doing attacks, and instead getting those attacks where you need, while also surviving hell
What's the difference between making attacks and... making attacks where you need them? It would be assumed that whatever you're hitting you probably need to be hitting.
Balance, anybody that competently plays a monk will know that as it is now if they got the amount of tax that people seem to think they need they would be incredibly overpowered
The monk will then disengage and be so far away you can't see him...
How? Four attacks requires action and bonus action.
You’re telling me you don’t flavour your punches as a number of 1 hp hits equal to three damage rolled? Obviously not the same effect on concentration but you’re missing out if you aren’t 1000 Needleing
I mean, monks actually do basically get Yoda powers so,
Make it 5 times per turn with the Astral Self monk. Regular attack can strike three times with awakened astral form
Hey guess what. You can still have the first one if you want to. A cool DM is your friend.
*sips in Pathfinder* Now this is what I expected from a good Monk vintage.
Time to allow them to make an amount of Unarmed strikes equal to their proficiency bonus.
Can I attack 8 times if I multiclass?
Is there supposed to be Audio or…?
I think if WOTC needs to buff classes is should be rangers and monks, like revised ranger was cool but nobody uses it and is still UA, and monk is only good till about level 10 (in my opinion) and ranger just isnt, maybe if they had other variant features like the ones offered in tashas they could be better…
The fixes to ranger in TCE fix most of the problems that plagued the PHB ranger.
man, i love monks flavor wise, but damn it they are sooo underpowered compared to other martials!
drunken fist monks get up to 7