D&D 5E My Response to the "Monk Sucks" thread

[Ancalagon]

The thing is though they're fine at low levels and solid through Lv. 10. It's at 11+ that they start to fall off.

Are they? At level 5 they gain extra attack and stunning fist and more ki. At lower levels with less ki, less attacks and no stunning fist... it's not great.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Are they? At level 5 they gain extra attack and stunning fist and more ki. At lower levels with less ki, less attacks and no stunning fist... it's not great.

At levels 1-4, without any ki they're still effectively dual-wielders, with the benefits of the TWF Fighting Style, without actually needing to dual-wield. And 1-4 is when dual-wielding is actually good.

 

[Shadowdweller]

This is the story of Flametongue.

The first group of adventurers gave the flame tongue to their fighter. They concluded that all other classes sucked at damage other than fighters
The second group of adventurers gave the flame tongue to their Barbarian. They concluded that all other classes sucked at damage other than barbarians.
The third group of adventurers gave the flame tongue to their Paladin. They concluded that all other classes sucked at damage other than Paladins.
The final group of adventurers found flame tongues for everyone but the monk. They concluded the monk sucked at damage.

The Flametongue story reveals 2 things:
1. Monks suck at damage
2. Monks suck at damage because they didn't get access to a powerful magical item

I think 2 is the more accurate and less misleading point. The class doesn't need reworked, magic items need reworked. Of course all that is dependent on a fairly high magic item game. There's no guarantee that's the case especially for levels 1-10.

The proper conclusion here is actually: 3. The DM is a dick.

Because Flame Tongue can be any sword - including a shortsword - which a monk would have been able to use. In point of fact, many of the weapon-based magic items have variants such as maces or shortswords that monks can use. Many more, for example, than a polearm fighter would be able to.

 

[FrogReaver]

At levels 1-4, without any ki they're still effectively dual-wielders, with the benefits of the TWF Fighting Style, without actually needing to dual-wield. And 1-4 is when dual-wielding is actually good.

I Agree they do good damage at those levels - at least when they are in melee (not highly optimized good damage though). In a typical party though they are likely to have one of the higher DPR's at those levels.

Their survivability at low levels is pretty rough though which has tendency to drive players out of melee or to use ki on defensive abilities and either of those instances greatly reduces the monks damage. Couple this with the fact that some DM's tend to like to target higher DPR characters, some like to target the characters that have the lowest defense in melee (especially when it's easy to narratively justify **that one isn't wearing armor!). I'm thinking the monk gets set up in many campaigns to not only have worse survivability at those levels but to be targeted more often.

I think these factors tend to lead to the case where their DPR on paper looks good, but their DPR in practice may come out quite a bit lower.

 

[FrogReaver]

The proper conclusion here is actually: 3. The DM is a dick.

Because Flame Tongue can be any sword - including a shortsword - which a monk would have been able to use. In point of fact, many of the weapon-based magic items have variants such as maces or shortswords that monks can use. Many more, for example, than a polearm fighter would be able to.

You are making a rather humorous point but it doesn't really change the moral of the story. The moral is that you can make any class feel sucky with a lack of strong magic item support.

 

[FrogReaver]

Are they? At level 5 they gain extra attack and stunning fist and more ki. At lower levels with less ki, less attacks and no stunning fist... it's not great.

It's not only that. Using non-flurry of blows ki abilities at those levels means you are only making a single attack on that turn whereas you could be making triple that number if you had flurry of blows instead. That's a huge damage swing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I mean, we can definitely agree on some things here

1: 4 element monk is probably the worse subclass in the game (it's in the same groups as beastmaster and bezerker). It could (and should) be fixed, that is another discussion.

2: Monks are a bit "fixed" - not a lot of build option, and roleplay is a bit narrow - although hey, I had a pirate monk player.

3: Monks are fiddly. They require a lot of judgement and a bit of luck to work well. They are not tanks.

4: Monks DPR is not as high as DPR-optimized build.

I don't think any of these points are disputable yes?

The points of disputes are:

A: The monk does decent DPR, comparable to decent DPR dealers.

B: What the monk gains in control abilities, mobility and other powers is fair and useful compensation for not being a top DPR dealer or top tank.

From my personal experience, from running a campaign with one, then two (!!) monks from level 3-8, the answer to A and B is yes! (The campaign also had a paladin, a cleric of light and a warlock)

I guess it depends on "fiddly" for whether I agree with point #3 or not. They certainly aren't tanks that can tank all day, and they need some tactical thought into using their resources and positioning, not sure that makes them much fiddlier than some other classes though.

I don't think A is disputable, unless someone's idea of decent is the same as high. Until level 11 their damage output is decent. Without the use of Ki.

For B... it depends. A cleverly played Open Hand or Drunken Master who can use their abiities is devasting. A shadow monk's utility can be immense. But again, all of this falls off at level 11.

The real trick is mobility, which comes down to player and DM skill.

 

[FrogReaver]

Just out of curiosity let's look at a monks DPR when he flurries vs when he dodges (in terms of daily DPR). For this example I'm assuming 2 ki bonus action dodges per short rest. He faces 8 rounds of combat per short rest. Assumed 60% chance to hit.

That means at level 2 the 2-dodge monk DPR is 6.975 vs the flurry monk dpr at 8.625
That means at level 4 the 2-dodge monk DPR is 9 DPR vs the flurry monk dpr at 10.95

That's a Damage decrease of about 18% to 19%.

All that said, it's the 2 bonus action dodge version is very close in damage to a greatsword fighter without GWF style. So perhaps my initial evaluation was wrong. Perhaps the monk is fine to spend some ki on bonus action dodge.

 

[Todd Roybark]

The thing is though they're fine at low levels and solid through Lv. 10. It's at 11+ that they start to fall off.

Purity of Body, Diamond Soul, and Empty Body is falling off? This is before subclass powers.
Have you read the cleric class, recently?. If high level monk abilities "Fall off"....Cleric abilities must count as a plummet.

Yes Empty Body is 18th level, but if you happen to play in a group that plays in that bracket, this ability is awesome. The monk was a dwarven Long Death monk...played like a Warhammer Trollslayer.

An Invisible monk, that gets 18 a Temp HP per kill, takes half damage from most things, and can stop themselves from dying up to 18 times.....was impressive.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Purity of Body, Diamond Soul, and Empty Body is falling off? This is before subclass powers.

I mostly meant damage-wise, which is definitely true as they don't really pick up any damage abilities after 11 other than the incrementally scaling Martial Arts die.

Those abilities are OK. Certainly better than what, say, the Ranger gets. But nothing that really jumps out, either.

Have you read the cleric class, recently?. If high level monk abilities "Fall off"....Cleric abilities must count as a plummet.

Clerics are full casters. By virtue of that alone, they're not falling off at all. Just the opposite, in fact.