D&D 5E Feats for Monks

[NotAYakk]

Zen Defense
You have learned to harness and focus your Ki energy to the point that can you can defend against attacks with lightning speed. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain 2 Ki points. If you already have Ki points, your total Ki points increases by 2. Spent Ki points are regained after a short or long rest.

• When a creature hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to spend 1 Ki point, allowing you to add a +3 bonus to your AC for that attack and potentially causing the attack to miss you.

So, Ki cost, no weapon requirement, and and works on ranged attacks, in exchange for a smaller bonus that defensive duelist?

Pretty meh for a non-monk.

Make the AC boost last until the end of your next turn? That'd make it a mini-shield at the cost of Ki.

Zen Offense
You have learned to harness and focus your Ki energy to empower your attacks. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain 2 Ki points. If you already have Ki points, your total Ki points increases by 2. Spent Ki points are regained after a short or long rest.

• After you successfully hit a target with a ranged or melee weapon attack, you can spend 1 Ki point to roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the total damage of your attack.

Doesn't work for unarmed attacks as written; there is no weapon damage dice!

Remove "weapon's" and you get what you intend I suspect. I mean, a Rogue using a dagger could reroll a sneak attack die, but that isn't a problem.

In terms of ki-for-damage, this is ok. Normally it is MA die+stat but can miss. And this lets you burn ki-for-damage much faster.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

So, Ki cost, no weapon requirement, and and works on ranged attacks, in exchange for a smaller bonus that defensive duelist?

Pretty meh for a non-monk.

Make the AC boost last until the end of your next turn? That'd make it a mini-shield at the cost of Ki.

I disagree regarding making it similar to the shield spell. As you say yourself, it has benefits that defensive duelist does not. Also, it provides a higher, if not equivalent bonus to defensive duelist until 9th level. Also, it does not carry the minimum Dex requirement that defensive duelist does. However, on a monk it increases their Ki points (which is nothing to sneeze at) and works in conjuntion with Patient Defense. Giving a monk the potential to dodge, get their normal action, and have a mini-shield spell seems too good, even at the cost of 2 Ki points.

Doesn't work for unarmed attacks as written; there is no weapon damage dice!

Remove "weapon's" and you get what you intend I suspect. I mean, a Rogue using a dagger could reroll a sneak attack die, but that isn't a problem.

In terms of ki-for-damage, this is ok. Normally it is MA die+stat but can miss. And this lets you burn ki-for-damage much faster.

Actually, per Jeremy Crawford:

Addressing a nuance in the PH errata: the rule lets melee weapon attacks use unarmed strikes, despite those strikes not being weapons.

We also see similar word in the Monk's Stunning Strike ability, emphasis mine.

Stunning Strike

Starting at 5th Level, you can interfere with the flow of ki in an opponent's body. When you hit another creature with a melee weapon Attack, you can spend 1 ki point to attempt a stunning strike. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be Stunned until the end of your next turn.

And no, you would not be able to roll another sneak attack die, because that is not a weapon die. We see similar wording in the Half-Orc's Savage Attacks ability and the Barbarian's Brutal Critical ability. The benefit of this is that the decision is made after the attack succeeds (similar to Divine Smite), so it give the monk the chance for a consistent damage boost, which can also work in conjunction with the Martial Arts attack or Flurry of Blows.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I have a couple of homebrew feats I use, and a slight change to the Tavern Brawler feat.

With Tavern Brawler, I alter the 3rd bullet point to the following:

• Your unarmed strike uses a d4 for damage, rather than just dealing 1 damage. If your unarmed strike is already deals a d4 damage or greater, you instead gain +1 damage to your unarmed strike.

Then I have the following feats:

Zen Defense
You have learned to harness and focus your Ki energy to the point that can you can defend against attacks with lightning speed. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain 2 Ki points. If you already have Ki points, your total Ki points increases by 2. Spent Ki points are regained after a short or long rest.

• When a creature hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to spend 1 Ki point, allowing you to add a +3 bonus to your AC for that attack and potentially causing the attack to miss you.

Zen Offense
You have learned to harness and focus your Ki energy to empower your attacks. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain 2 Ki points. If you already have Ki points, your total Ki points increases by 2. Spent Ki points are regained after a short or long rest.

• After you successfully hit a target with a ranged or melee weapon attack, you can spend 1 Ki point to roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the total damage of your attack.

IMO the first is too weak, especially for non-monks.

It needs at least one other way to spend the Ki.

 

[Seramus]

Unarmed Fighting Style gives you 1d4 damage per melee attack against a grappled target.

But my money is on Eldritch Invocation. Something nice for every monk with that feat.

 

[NotAYakk]

Your unarmed attacks are melee weapon attacks. That is because "melee weapon attack" is basically all melee attacks that aren't melee spell attacks. The melee weapon attack rules talk about this confusing fact.0

But, despite being melee weapon attacks, they don't deal any weapon damage dice. They are not attacks with a weapon. There is no weapon. And in particular, the monk uses martial arts dice not weapon damage dice for most of their attacks.

"weapon damage die" and "melee weapon attack" are, as far as I can tell, using a different definition of "weapon".

Simply stating "if you hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one additional damage die from the hit" is simple, clear, and (as I noted) would permit you to roll a sneak attack die or a smite damage die, but who cares, those extra dice are rarely bigger than 1d8. The only exception I can think of is a swords bard, who can burn a bardic inspiration at high levels to have a 1d12 damage die, and even that isn't going to break anything.

 

[Undrave]

Your unarmed attacks are melee weapon attacks. That is because "melee weapon attack" is basically all melee attacks that aren't melee spell attacks. The melee weapon attack rules talk about this confusing fact.0

But, despite being melee weapon attacks, they don't deal any weapon damage dice. They are not attacks with a weapon. There is no weapon. And in particular, the monk uses martial arts dice not weapon damage dice for most of their attacks.

To be fair, a standard unarmed attack only deals 1 damage. It doesn't roll a dice for damage so there's no weapon damage dice. Tho its possible your Martial Arts dice argument is sound.

 

[NotAYakk]

My issue with the Ki defences is:
A) on a non-monk at level 4, it is a 2-short-rest usable +3 AC against any attack ability that never scales. Defensive Duelist at this point is an unlimited usage, +3 AC, but only melee attacks. And it will continue to scale.

Most people consider defensive duelist at 4 to be a mediocre feat, not worth taking. It starts to shine at higher modifiers. So this feat compares not that well against an already mediocre feat.

B) On a monk at level 4, the monk has deflect missiles already. With +3 dex that is 1d10+7 damage reduced automatically for 0 Ki cost: this alternative is very, very niche. Against melee attacks, holding a finesse weapon and using defensive duelist is a ki-free +3 AC.

So against defensive duelist, this gives you 2 Ki, charges you 1 Ki when you use it to block a melee attack, and lets you use +3 AC for a Ki against spells.

At 4 nobody would recommend defensive duelist for a monk. And this isn't substantially better. The main "plus" is ... just bank the 2 Ki. But even then, the other feat is also +2 Ki, so if you want Ki you'll probably grab it first.

...

If your goal is feats that tempt people away from ASIs on a monk, they need to be PAM/XBE scale at level 1-4, and GWM/SS at level 5-10 range.

I'm not saying "bonus action extra attack". But compare a 18 strength greatsword vs a 16 strength PAM fighter at level 4:

+7 for 11 damage
+6 for 19 damage (72% more)

or level 5:
+7 for 22 damage
+6 for 27.5 damage (25% more)

that is one dimension, but my point is the scale issue.

Zen Defense
You have learned to harness and focus your Ki energy to the point that can you can defend against attacks with lightning speed. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain 2 Ki points. If you already have Ki points, your total Ki points increases by 2. Spent Ki points are regained after a short or long rest.

• When a creature hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to spend 1 Ki point, allowing you to add a +3 bonus to your AC for that attack, possibly causing it to miss. If the attack still hits, you have resistance to the damage.

there, now it can nullify a near miss, or be used to soak a serious blow. And it is "never wasted", which is nice.

I'm still not sure if it is good enough to tempt someone away from +2 to main stat.

We could also let it apply to dex saving throws?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My issue with the Ki defences is:
A) on a non-monk at level 4, it is a 2-short-rest usable +3 AC against any attack ability that never scales. Defensive Duelist at this point is an unlimited usage, +3 AC, but only melee attacks. And it will continue to scale.

Most people consider defensive duelist at 4 to be a mediocre feat, not worth taking. It starts to shine at higher modifiers. So this feat compares not that well against an already mediocre feat.

B) On a monk at level 4, the monk has deflect missiles already. With +3 dex that is 1d10+7 damage reduced automatically for 0 Ki cost: this alternative is very, very niche. Against melee attacks, holding a finesse weapon and using defensive duelist is a ki-free +3 AC.

So against defensive duelist, this gives you 2 Ki, charges you 1 Ki when you use it to block a melee attack, and lets you use +3 AC for a Ki against spells.

At 4 nobody would recommend defensive duelist for a monk. And this isn't substantially better. The main "plus" is ... just bank the 2 Ki. But even then, the other feat is also +2 Ki, so if you want Ki you'll probably grab it first.

...

If your goal is feats that tempt people away from ASIs on a monk, they need to be PAM/XBE scale at level 1-4, and GWM/SS at level 5-10 range.

I'm not saying "bonus action extra attack". But compare a 18 strength greatsword vs a 16 strength PAM fighter at level 4:

+7 for 11 damage
+6 for 19 damage (72% more)

or level 5:
+7 for 22 damage
+6 for 27.5 damage (25% more)

that is one dimension, but my point is the scale issue.

Zen Defense
You have learned to harness and focus your Ki energy to the point that can you can defend against attacks with lightning speed. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain 2 Ki points. If you already have Ki points, your total Ki points increases by 2. Spent Ki points are regained after a short or long rest.

• When a creature hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to spend 1 Ki point, allowing you to add a +3 bonus to your AC for that attack, possibly causing it to miss. If the attack still hits, you have resistance to the damage.

there, now it can nullify a near miss, or be used to soak a serious blow. And it is "never wasted", which is nice.

I'm still not sure if it is good enough to tempt someone away from +2 to main stat.

We could also let it apply to dex saving throws?

Make it Deflect Arrows, but melee?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Harmful Touch:

You gain 2 ki points. If you make an unarmed attack that causes damage to a creature, you can use a ki point to use a bonus action to cast Inflict Wounds on the creature or 2 ki points to cast it as a 2nd level spell using wisdom as your casting stat. Your ki points are restored after completing a long rest.

 

[jgsugden]

I have obtained plenty of mileage with a variant human monk and the magic initiate feat (warlock, hex, mage hand, prestidigitation).

You can also get a lot out of polearm master for OAs when someone approaches you. Or druid magic initiate for getting shillelagh, guidance, and a 1st level spell.

I'm looking at these new feats and considering what a couple spells could do for my current monk, as well as what an eldritch invocation could do for him. I think gunner might have been interesting had his dex not already been 20, and Crusher is something I am considering.Fey Touched is also great for a monk with Misty Step and a first level spell. Finally, had I not taken Magic Initiate, Tracker might have been interesting.