D&D (2024) Monk Playtest

[tetrasodium]

I agree with a lot of what's been said, especially about unarmed strike scaling & stunning strike. Back in 3.x I didn't care when a god wizard type could shut doown monsters or trivialize an encounter for a reason. Specifically those reasons were that I could make a god wizard with a few levels under his belt at the peak of his game fear for his soon to be very short life with something like a zombie climbing out from some debris or even skeleton archers far enough away from the main show to avoid being caught in the thick of things. the same is not true of good ac good HP good damage monks who just mutter "I used all my ki on stunning strike/flurry last fight, lets take a short rest" & get eager agreement from the warlock fighter to repeat it every fight. If monk is supposed to be a controller then it needs to present as one rather than a hybrid controller/striker/offtank.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It seems most people agree on the basic wish list: a bit more damage, a bit more survivability, and a bit more Ki. I will be interested to see how those are accomplished (if WotC agrees).

As a bona fide 5e monk lover, I think most of the complaints about the monk are a little overblown.

That said, I am really looking forward to seeing what changes they will propose. The best thing about the monk, right now, is that it is a genuinely different chassis. It is to the martial classes what the warlock is to the spellcasters; a fundamentally different approach to building a class. And because of that, it's a challenge for a lot of players to make an effective monk- unlike the warlock, there is no easy mode "EB Spam PEW PEW" build, and there are no "Monk Dips" that are popular MC options.

I do not want them to simply increase the hit points to a d10 or the damage dice. Why bother? Instead, they need to continue making the monk more distinctive. People don't want to play the monk because it's like a barbarian or fighter; people who choose the monk choose it precisely because it's not.

The issue with the ki does need a resolution; it's not so much that there are too few points; it's perfectly balanced for short rests. It's that for the class (and all the subclasses) they have made a design mistake. They make almost every ability trigger off of the use of ki, which presents the scarcity problem. I'm genuinely curious to see if they try and resolve this by a fundamental change in the use of ki, or if they just throw up their hands and give the monk more ki.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I agree with a lot of what's been said, especially about unarmed strike scaling & stunning strike. Back in 3.x I didn't care when a god wizard type could shut doown monsters or trivialize an encounter for a reason. Specifically those reasons were that I could make a god wizard with a few levels under his belt at the peak of his game fear for his soon to be very short life with something like a zombie climbing out from some debris or even skeleton archers far enough away from the main show to avoid being caught in the thick of things. the same is not true of good ac good HP good damage monks who just mutter "I used all my ki on stunning strike/flurry last fight, lets take a short rest" & get eager agreement from the warlock fighter to repeat it every fight. If monk is supposed to be a controller then it needs to present as one rather than a hybrid controller/striker/offtank.

I have to admit ... the "3e God Wizards didn't bother me, but those 5e Monks, they are WAY TOO POWERFUL," take ... I am impressed.

From the leadup (3e Wizards ... no big deal) to sticking the landing (we have to do something about those super powerful 5e monks!) every part of this take is pure genius. I am in awe. I am not even kidding.

As a fellow believer in Monk Supremacy (uh ... okay, given the history of the Scarlet Brotherhood .... maybe I need to come up with better phasing) ... I love this take. This isn't just hot. It's not scorching. This is the Galaxy Brained, Carolina Reaper, Snarf Approved TORRID TAEK of the day!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If by unlimited you mean so precious you can't believe it

In seriousness, the problem with the current model is that it uses ki....as does EVERYTHING ELSE THE MONK DOES. So you get back into the classic monk problem, they blow through their ki so quickly to do X that now they can't do Y.

Healing should not be tied to ki, it could be an X per day thing. Or maybe a monk can meditate and after 1 minute, spend healing die. They are still limited, but now can activate that source of healing much more readily than their fellows can.

I you can rest for an hour, you can usually rest for two... So you just have free healing. Otherwise I agree. But it is a good sign, that the designers don't worry about monks regenerating very fast.

 

[tetrasodium]

I have to admit ... the "3e God Wizards didn't bother me, but those 5e Monks, they are WAY TOO POWERFUL," take ... I am impressed.

From the leadup (3e Wizards ... no big deal) to sticking the landing (we have to do something about those super powerful 5e monks!) every part of this take is pure genius. I am in awe. I am not even kidding.

As a fellow believer in Monk Supremacy (uh ... okay, given the history of the Scarlet Brotherhood .... maybe I need to come up with better phasing) ... I love this take. This isn't just hot. It's not scorching. This is the Galaxy Brained, Carolina Reaper, Snarf Approved TORRID TAEK of the day!

"3e wizard" & the 3.x "god wizard" build were very different things that shouldn't be mixed any more than "5e fighter" & "5e GWM GWF PAM Sentinel sporting fighter" should be. Yes a god wizard was a powerful force multiplier, but it was relatively fragile with a focus that left them with mediocre if any damage output & depended on everyone else bringing the force for them to multiply in ways that stun stun stun stun monk does not.

I'd say more fun draining than "powerful". 5e sets the stage with the GM already expected to fill an extremely bloated adventuring day and a lot of the tools that once existed to aid them in the past are stripped away. The monk is just "I stun I stun I stun" with nothing to really push them into changing things up. There's none of the "well if I use X spell here I won't be able to use it later" calculus that once was & thanks to this they have plenty of ki to stun stun stun whenever there is a weighty opponent on the field after a certain point.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

"3e wizard" & the 3.x "god wizard" build were very different things that shouldn't be mixed any more than "5e fighter" & "5e GWM GWF PAM Sentinel sporting fighter should be". Yes a god wizard was a powerful force multiplier, but it was relatively fragile with a focus that left them with mediocre if any damage output & depended on everyone else bringing the force for them to multiply in ways that stun stun stun stun monk does not.

I'd say more fun draining than "powerful". 5e sets the stage with the GM already expected to fill an extremely bloated adventuring day and a lot of the tools that once existed to aid them in the past are stripped away. The monk is just "I stun I stun I stun" with nothing to really push them into changing things up. There's none of the "well if I use X spell here I won't be able to use it later" calculus that once was & thanks to this they have plenty of ki to stun stun stun whenever there is a weighty opponent on the field after a certain point.

Again, I truly enjoyed your take!

I do find it difficult to fully understand the whole "spamming stunning strike" point for two reasons. The first is that it seems to run counter to "weak monk" idea that so many advocate. The second is that it's not something that I've seen in my playing experience, and not something I'd choose to do- to me, stunning strike is good, but very situational.*

That said, if you have groups with monks that just spam stunning strike with every hit, then I suppose they would run out of ki pretty quickly ... especially if they aren't concerned about it being a con saving throw, and really only truly useful on low-con, high value monsters (which are not common).

I'm not sure why that's fun draining, though? Some people like one-trick ponies (EB Blasting Warlocks, Champion Fighters, etc.) and others don't. If the player doesn't want to learn to play the monk any other way, that's kind of on the player, right?

*I'm not denying that this is your experience, but it's far from universal. Different tables play differently and all that.

 

[mellored]

Another (better) ki solution.

Ki Pool: You have a number of ki equal to 10-your wisdom score (minimum 1). So a wisdom of 13 would have 3 ki.

Focus Energy: You can spend an action to regain 2 ki. You can spend a bonus action, you can regain 1 ki. You can do both in a turn.

Now that can actually skirmish. Rushing in, unload you ki, then running away and recharge on the next turn.
Or you can bonus flurry on one turn, bonus recharge the next.
Lots of combos are now open.

 

[tetrasodium]

Again, I truly enjoyed your take!

I do find it difficult to fully understand the whole "spamming stunning strike" point for two reasons. The first is that it seems to run counter to "weak monk" idea that so many advocate. The second is that it's not something that I've seen in my playing experience, and not something I'd choose to do- to me, stunning strike is good, but very situational.*

That said, if you have groups with monks that just spam stunning strike with every hit, then I suppose they would run out of ki pretty quickly ... especially if they aren't concerned about it being a con saving throw, and really only truly useful on low-con, high value monsters (which are not common).

I'm not sure why that's fun draining, though? Some people like one-trick ponies (EB Blasting Warlocks, Champion Fighters, etc.) and others don't. If the player doesn't want to learn to play the monk any other way, that's kind of on the player, right?

*I'm not denying that this is your experience, but it's far from universal. Different tables play differently and all that.

They don't need to spam it every hit, just every hit against non-mook types. The trouble ties into bounded accuracy & the bloated adventure days 5e forces on the GM. Because of BA you have two factors

Spoiler: :two factors

• Nobody is "squishy" & players act like it by not bothering to protect the squishies & just going for the most valued targets if there is any variation.
• If the ignored mooks are able to threaten someone who didn't go after the big guy the results look like execution by fiat & trigger the start of an adversarial player vrs gm mindset rather than pushing the rest of the group to do things like focus on mooks

As a GM it leaves a choice between mindnumbing waves of meaningless adam west batman vrs mooks fights & utterly depressing fights that make the table feel like they are bullying a monster. The GM can't use a bunch of competent weighty monsters like level appropriate trolls/dragons/etc to strain those stunning strike ki points because it would look like punches are being pulled or death by fiat & having a bunch of mooks the group just ignores while burning down a weighty solo/bruiser/caster type just makes for a chore of ending the big guyfollowed by a chore of cleaning up mooks who are pretty incapable of amounting to anything.


Edit: I'd add the way movement around the battlefield has been so trivialized to allow ignoring the front line to be done so easily adds a third point to that spoiler

 

[Bill Zebub]

As a bona fide 5e monk lover, I think most of the complaints about the monk are a little overblown.

Yeah, same. The white room analysis that proves monks are weak can make sense, but somehow I have managed to have a blast playing monks anyway. (So far only in Tier I and II, however.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

I do not want them to simply increase the hit points to a d10 or the damage dice. Why bother?

And I very much agree with this, too. If the monk needs buffs, they should be unique, interesting buffs that lead to distinctive playstyle.

They make almost every ability trigger off of the use of ki, which presents the scarcity problem. I'm genuinely curious to see if they try and resolve this by a fundamental change in the use of ki, or if they just throw up their hands and give the monk more ki.

And this. The problem, shared by Sorcerer, is that Ki is used in the base class, but then also in many of the subclasses, which means that in order to use subclass abilities you have to cannibalize from base class. It would be like designing Battlemaster to use Action Surge instead of Expertise dice. (Ok, maybe not QUITE that bad, but same idea.)