D&D 5E Does anyone have any experience with Monks?

[FormerlyHemlock]

I said:

Ki recharges on a short rest, and if you're careful about where you spend it you can probably have 4 or more ki available for emergencies even at level 6.

Then you said:

This is not my experience for my monk, or any of the other players at my table who played monks. This statement means your monk is only spending 2 ki points between short rests. That's 3-4 encounters on average. And there's just no way. We're spending 2 ki per encounter, on average, depending on the situation. Very rare when I am not spending ki. Either for flurry, dodge, or increasing movement. I'm a shadow monk. The elemental monk in the group? Goes through them a lot faster. It's very rare when we have ki left over by the time we can take another short rest.

That sounds like you're spending freely, not carefully. Spending ki on flurry of blows is a waste for a Shadow Monk, it's a minor increase in damage output with none of the benefits that an Open Hand monk gets. You can get movement from Shadow Jump for free instead of Step of the Wind. Patient Defense can work, but you can get the same effect for free by using Dodge. Finally, you can also just use a bow (or melee kite if you happen to have Mobile feat) and not need Patient Defense/Dodge at all. All of this is circumstantial of course (melee kiting doesn't work all that well if you have idiot PCs in your party who like to charge into melee combat and hammer away), but that's why I phrased it the way I did: "if you're careful you can" conserve ki, not "you will always have ki to blow whenever you feel like it."

My Shadow Monk spends ki primarily on stunning strike (in important fights) and Pass Without Trace (when scouting). Spending on flurry of blows is very rare.

 

[Sacrosanct]

and I still think you're making some false assumptions. For example, my shadow monk has the magic initiate feat with the hex spell. So flurry of blows is very much appropriate. Even if it wasn't, I fail to see how it's a waste.

saying if you're careful you could have 66% of your ki unused is like saying if you're careful as a wizard, you'd keep 66% of your spells unused. Yeah, it could be done, but its not all that fun for most people

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

and I still think you're making some false assumptions. For example, my shadow monk has the magic initiate feat with the hex spell. So flurry of blows is very much appropriate. Even if it wasn't, I fail to see how it's a waste.

saying if you're careful you could have 66% of your ki unused is like saying if you're careful as a wizard, you'd keep 66% of your spells unused. Yeah, it could be done, but its not all that fun for most people

I do play wizards that way too, as much as I can (when I play PCs). You can indeed do it (with appropriate forethought), and it works. YMMV obviously, but "can" doesn't mean "must" and you are free to spend ki freely if you like. To me, a 33% boost in damage is negligible compared to the opportunity cost (a 50% chance at a whole free round of attacks for everybody when it's needed most), but you can play the game any way you find enjoyable. [shrug] Enjoy your magic elf game.

I suspect the big lurking variable here is encounter style, content, and pacing. If the whole campaign were full of invisible Mind Flayer Arcanists paired with Intellect Devourer pets, and high-level drow wizards launching high-level spells at our poor 6th-level selves, I would spend ki freely too, because in that case, every fight is an important fight. On the other hand, if you just go on kobold.com and roll up a random encounter for 10th level characters, and then toss the resulting Hard encounter at my 6th-level party, that is almost certainly not going to be a fight I consider "important" or worth spending ki on. It's cheaper to spend time and terrain than ki and spell points.

P.S. There's a guy I play with who has a PC of much higher level than everyone else due to conversion from AD&D. He's a dual-classed Wizard 9/Cleric 8, and he loves spending his 9th level spell slots to cast superpowered Chromatic Orb at the bad guys. Obviously he has fun doing it, but the tactician in me dies a little every time he does that...

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

P.P.S. Grappling was mentioned recently in the other thread, and I wanted to call out two specifically monk-relevant uses for grappling. I've never needed any of these in practice so if "theorycrafting" makes a difference to you you can take it with a grain of salt, but in any case they both work:

1.) Open Hand Monk. Because your Flurry of Blows also knocks prone, it's more valuable than Flurry from regular monks. You can Grapple someone with your regular attack, then Flurry to knock them prone, then punch them again (with advantage). They are unable to stand up until they spend an action breaking your grapple first (opposed Athletics or Acrobatics check), so they have disadvantage on attacks and everyone within 5' has advantage to attack them. Win-win, and you can do this three times per short rest starting at level 3.

2.) This one is a little more specialized and requires access to both a Spike Stones caster (almost certainly a Druid) and a source of flight (either Winged Boots or a Fly spell). But the payoff is huge. First you Grapple somebody of size Large or less, while the druid casts Spike Stones somewhere nearby. Then you fly back and forth across the spiked area, dragging the victim behind you on the grind... for 2d4 damage per 5' travelled. Grappling halves your movement rate, so use Step of the Wind to boost it back up to your normal 70' or whatever it is (varies by race/Longstrider/monk level/Mobile feat/etc.)... which means that the guy you've grappled will be taking 70 points of damage from you every round, or 105 if you double-Dash that round. If somebody tosses a Haste on on top of that you'd have double movement and quadruple-Dash, so 280 points of damage per round. If you grapple one guy in each hand you'd be doing 560 points of damage per round. I'm not a DPR-oriented guy and this tactic honestly sounds pretty boring and finicky to me, but the magnitude of the damage produced demands respect and thought.

TLDR; Spike Stones lets you convert movement directly into DPR to anyone you have grappled.

 

[mr_outsidevoice]

I enjoy my Monk. He is 5th level, but even at 1st he could make 2 attacks a round without spending Ki. His AC was the second highest. It is the Highest currently unless the War Cleric remembers to use his shield.
Now at 5th level, he gets 3 attacks without Ki

He is a great skirmisher and can back the Barbarian, Fighter, or Cleric.

 

[Paraxis]

Just remember.

Martial Arts: When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action.

Grapple and shove can be substituted for attacks but they are not "unarmed strikes" so don't trigger the bonus action attack.

So level 4 monk uses his attack action to shove, they don't get to make a bonus action unarmed strike. A level 5 monk who has multiattack can shove with one attack and unarmed strike with the other, and that will trigger him getting his bonus action unarmed strike.

 

[TarionzCousin]

His character uses his animal forms for...wackiness. For instance, we just finished a week long down time in a major city. He spent the majority of that time in the form of a pigeon, flying around and pooing on random folks. That and a cat, climbing up on peoples window sills and knocking potted plants off.

Heh. I think this guy has a bright future in your world.

 

[EroGaki]

Heh. I think this guy has a bright future in your world.

Yeah, he's doing his best to be the scourge of civilization.

 

[collin]

Short and sweet: I am playing in a 6-member party, 2 of which are human monks. So far at levels 1-2, they have been the most powerful/durable members of the party, including a human paladin and a human barbarian. Tip: be sure to have a good weapon for low-level fighting.

 

[EroGaki]

Short and sweet: I am playing in a 6-member party, 2 of which are human monks. So far at levels 1-2, they have been the most powerful/durable members of the party, including a human paladin and a human barbarian. Tip: be sure to have a good weapon for low-level fighting.

I would be interested in hearing how they are beating out the barbarian and paladin. Is it lucky rolls?