Hawk Diesel
Adventurer
So I'm not a fan of the UA's Way of Mercy. Conceptually it is interesting, but mechanically the execution doesn't match with what I would expect from the subclass. So I have a few ideas. They are admittedly a bit rough. I tried to limit Ki usage (monks are already starved for it) and instead thought to try using hit dice as a resource. Additionally, rather than dealing with poison, I thought it more appropriate that the class mechanics reflect more about the transfer of life energy to inflict harm as well as heal. Interested to hear what people think of the ideas presented below:
Way of Mercy
Implements of Mercy
You gain proficiency in the Insight or Medicine skill (your choice), and you gain proficiency with the herbalism kit.
Designer's Note: Mostly the same. I removed the proficiency in the poisoner's kit as it didn't seem to fit for me.
Hands of Weal and Woe
You gain a pool of vitality, and with your touch you can syphon life from a creature to fill this pool or draw from the pool to heal a creature. This pool always begins empty.
Whenever you successfully strike with an unarmed strike, you can add one additional martial arts die to the damage by spending 1 ki point. Doing so changes your unarmed strike damage to necrotic damage. The total damage dealt by this attack is added to your pool of healing.
While you have points in this pool, you can replace one of your attacks to touch a creature (including yourself) and heal them any amount up to the number of points you have in your pool.
The hit points in your pool vanish once you complete a long rest.
Designer's Note: To me, it seemed that the point of this subclass made more sense to suck life energy out from enemies and transfer it to others. It requires ki to fill the pool, but no ki cost to heal from it. So the Ki usage has the double bonus of increased damage, filling the pool, and allowing healing later. Plus with the option to use the ability once an attack is known to be a hit gives this really good efficiency in ki expenditure.
Healer’s Touch
Beginning at level 6, you have learned to draw from your own life force to heal others and even bring them back from the brink of death. As an action, you can touch a creature and sacrifice any number of hit dice you possess, rolling the hit dice and healing the creature by the amount rolled.
Alternatively, if you sacrifice two hit dice, you can cast lesser restoration, or you can sacrifice three hit dice to cast revivify.
Designer's note: The original noxious aura not only seemed a little over powered in my opinion, but also was the greatest conceptual break from the class. I tried to provide a way for additional healing. However, I didn't want to further stress ki points. I wasn't convinced that a per rest ability to heal and revive was the way to go, so I thought hit dice expenditure was a neat compromise. It does break from the traditional design philosophy of 5e, which doesn't really use hit dice as a resource outside of self healing, but if ever there was a time it made sense it seemed this was it.
Improved Healer’s Touch
Beginning at 11th level, you have improved your ability to recover from your healer’s touch. Whenever you complete a long rest, you regain all your hit dice rather than just half your hit dice.
Additionally, you can cast greater restoration by sacrificing 5 hit dice.
Designer's note: I wanted to improve the use of Healer's Touch, as well as expand the resource pool since this subclass's hit dice now serve double duty compared to other character classes.
Hand of Life and Death
You have mastered the ability to manipulating life energy. As an action, you can cast finger of death. If you successfully hit a creature with the spell, you can immediately heal one creature you can see within 60 feet, healing that creature by an amount equal to the damage dealt by the finger of death spell.
Once you have used this ability, you must complete a long rest before you can attempt it again.
Designer's Note: I thought this would be the ultimate expression of sucking out life energy and redistributing it. Since it is a 7th level spell with an additional bonus, it didn't seem right to put a ki point cost to it. Doing so would allow the ability to be used potentially multiple times a day depending on short rests, and probably way too costly with how scarce ki points already are.
Way of Mercy
Monk Level | Feature |
3rd | Implements of Mercy, Hands of Weal and Woe |
6th | Healer’s Touch |
11th | Improved Healer’s Touch |
17th | Hand of Life and Death |
Implements of Mercy
You gain proficiency in the Insight or Medicine skill (your choice), and you gain proficiency with the herbalism kit.
Designer's Note: Mostly the same. I removed the proficiency in the poisoner's kit as it didn't seem to fit for me.
Hands of Weal and Woe
You gain a pool of vitality, and with your touch you can syphon life from a creature to fill this pool or draw from the pool to heal a creature. This pool always begins empty.
Whenever you successfully strike with an unarmed strike, you can add one additional martial arts die to the damage by spending 1 ki point. Doing so changes your unarmed strike damage to necrotic damage. The total damage dealt by this attack is added to your pool of healing.
While you have points in this pool, you can replace one of your attacks to touch a creature (including yourself) and heal them any amount up to the number of points you have in your pool.
The hit points in your pool vanish once you complete a long rest.
Designer's Note: To me, it seemed that the point of this subclass made more sense to suck life energy out from enemies and transfer it to others. It requires ki to fill the pool, but no ki cost to heal from it. So the Ki usage has the double bonus of increased damage, filling the pool, and allowing healing later. Plus with the option to use the ability once an attack is known to be a hit gives this really good efficiency in ki expenditure.
Healer’s Touch
Beginning at level 6, you have learned to draw from your own life force to heal others and even bring them back from the brink of death. As an action, you can touch a creature and sacrifice any number of hit dice you possess, rolling the hit dice and healing the creature by the amount rolled.
Alternatively, if you sacrifice two hit dice, you can cast lesser restoration, or you can sacrifice three hit dice to cast revivify.
Designer's note: The original noxious aura not only seemed a little over powered in my opinion, but also was the greatest conceptual break from the class. I tried to provide a way for additional healing. However, I didn't want to further stress ki points. I wasn't convinced that a per rest ability to heal and revive was the way to go, so I thought hit dice expenditure was a neat compromise. It does break from the traditional design philosophy of 5e, which doesn't really use hit dice as a resource outside of self healing, but if ever there was a time it made sense it seemed this was it.
Improved Healer’s Touch
Beginning at 11th level, you have improved your ability to recover from your healer’s touch. Whenever you complete a long rest, you regain all your hit dice rather than just half your hit dice.
Additionally, you can cast greater restoration by sacrificing 5 hit dice.
Designer's note: I wanted to improve the use of Healer's Touch, as well as expand the resource pool since this subclass's hit dice now serve double duty compared to other character classes.
Hand of Life and Death
You have mastered the ability to manipulating life energy. As an action, you can cast finger of death. If you successfully hit a creature with the spell, you can immediately heal one creature you can see within 60 feet, healing that creature by an amount equal to the damage dealt by the finger of death spell.
Once you have used this ability, you must complete a long rest before you can attempt it again.
Designer's Note: I thought this would be the ultimate expression of sucking out life energy and redistributing it. Since it is a 7th level spell with an additional bonus, it didn't seem right to put a ki point cost to it. Doing so would allow the ability to be used potentially multiple times a day depending on short rests, and probably way too costly with how scarce ki points already are.
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