Monks, Grapples, and Shoves

[clearstream]

To me... that idea is a load of rubbish. To me... all game mechanics are is just different ways to roll funny dice. Who the character *is* is what is important, not the decision on which funny dice you roll and which random numbers you add together to change or impact what the character does.

Phew, that's going to save me a lot of expenditure on all these multi-hundred page rule books.



Seriously though, games come alive through contrasts. Tarmogoyf is a great card in part because of the context created by cards such as Grizzly Bears. This is about the ludic effect the rules have on players, which causes them to suspend disbelief in just the right way. Breaking the rules notoriously risks shattering disbelief. Oh well, what our characters are supposed to be able to do doesn't matter because our DM just makes s*** up.

Character abilities are leverage on the game narrative. Validating such levers is one of the central jobs being done by the D&D rules. It means that when our Paladin accomplishes X, it was validated by constraints that make us feel we really achieved something. Not just made s*** up until == win.

 

[Stalker0]

If you play your monk through to 14th level (assume open hand)

Generally I focus on class design from 3rd to 8th. From my games, those are the levels that see the most play (5th to 8th being the most played). So to me the class has to show its stuff within that range. I love me the occasional high level character, but I just don't see it as often.

 

[Stalker0]

Another aspect of fun that gets overlooked is the other players; if you're effectively giving this guy a free feat and letting him use acrobatics instead of athletics, why does he get it and no one else does?

Its a fair point and something that a DM has to decide in the "meta" of his games. If he fine switches the houserules from one game to the next?

In this example, maybe the DM is fine with giving this to monks in general, a permanent house rule. If so that's fine, and addresses the point above. If he's doing this just for the character concept, would he be willing to do it for others in the future?

Ultimately the DM has to roll with the punches, and in most groups, as long as they are reasonable, it usually works out. For example, if the rogue came to me later and said "hey I want to get dex for grapple too!"....that's probably a no. If a player came to me and said "I've got this idea for a rogue wrestler guy"...and his plan was to use it a lot, than I might be on board. And of course if that was the concept, but the second combat starts he does nothing but pull out the bow and sneak attack....well we may need to discuss.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Dessert Nomad]

Saying 'maybe' though, is meaningless. If the rogue player or the eldritch knight player *didn't* want to make grappling characters, then the monk getting a part of a free feat means nothing in the long run. The monk is merely making a character they wish to play and can be somewhat successful at it (moreso than if they tried to make a grappling monk concept using the rules straight as-is.)

I don't consider 'I want to be a standard X, but in addition be really good at Y without having to pay the costs normally associated with it' to be a legitimate "concept" for a character - in general "I just want to do more, and do it better, and not have to give anything up" isn't what I file as 'character concept'. "I want to be a wizard who wears plate also don't want to take a level of fighter or any feats to do it" is a thing someone can ask for, but isn't something I would consider a character concept in the usual sense of the term. A concept to me is about how a characters abilities work narratively, not "I get free grapples without spending a feat or ki points".

The thing is... and I admit it's why a whole bunch of you are going to get hung on the idea...

I doubt I would enjoy your game, because for me part of the fun of playing D&D is the challenge of making an effective character and fighting monsters within the rules of the game. Claiming that someone is 'hung up on the idea' of actually playing a game using rules when that's the central appeal of playing a game to them is using the rules is not reasonable; it's like claiming that someone needs to get over their hangups if you're playing chess and they start moving the bishop horizontally. Painting people as 'hung up' and 'unable to handle' if their interest in the game is actually dealing with the rules is simply unfair to them.

To me... that idea is a load of rubbish. To me... all game mechanics are is just different ways to roll funny dice. Who the character *is* is what is important, not the decision on which funny dice you roll and which random numbers you add together to change or impact what the character does.

I don't understand why you'd play a rules-heavy game centered around classed characters like D&D, but also sometimes run it like a rules-light game. If you want to play a game where you just do whatever and sometimes roll funny dice, why are you bothering with D&D books in the first place? There are rules-lite systems that do this with a lot less overhead than the D&D rules that you're ditching whenever you want to play concepts like "a wizard who also wears plate but doesn't have the drag of multiclassing or using feats" or "Monk who also wants to grapple really good but doesn't want to spend any points on strength and doesn't want to take the grapple feat or use ki points for grappling".

I know that if I wanted to play a game where I just do 'whatever' and end up pretty good at it, I'd play in a system where that's how it works up front, not a version D&D. There's nothing wrong with playing a D&D game where you ignore large chunks of the rules on a whim, but there is something wrong with claiming that people who don't enjoy playing that way have something wrong with them.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't consider 'I want to be a standard X, but in addition be really good at Y without having to pay the costs normally associated with it' to be a legitimate "concept" for a character - in general "I just want to do more, and do it better, and not have to give anything up" isn't what I file as 'character concept'.

There is a bit of a difference here between this and the wizard in full plate. This has an action economy limitation, to do a grapple, the character is giving up something else (aka damage). So if a player is playing a grappling concept, than they are effectively trading 1 aspect (damage) for another (control). If the dm finds that reasonable, allowing the character to be good at it doesn't create a lot of power creep. From my experience with 5e grappling so far, if a player wanted to grapple all of the time as opposed to doing damage, I don't think that would be the least bit overpowering. And if they only used it very sparingly, well then the houserule didn't make much of a difference anyway.

In the wizard example, the wizard would simply have more AC all the time, a consistent power boost. The drawback (disadvantage to stealth) likely won't come up for the wizard that often, so you can argue that this is less a trade off and more a straight power boost.

Further, this is also skewed by your feelings on class balance. I personally feel the monk is a bit weaker in general than say, the paladin. So if a monk is asking me for something that is a small power boost...I'm likely to be inclined. If the paladin did the same I might be a bit stricter, as that concept already comes with a lot of raw power.

 

[clearstream]

There is a bit of a difference here between this and the wizard in full plate. This has an action economy limitation, to do a grapple, the character is giving up something else (aka damage). So if a player is playing a grappling concept, than they are effectively trading 1 aspect (damage) for another (control). If the dm finds that reasonable, allowing the character to be good at it doesn't create a lot of power creep. From my experience with 5e grappling so far, if a player wanted to grapple all of the time as opposed to doing damage, I don't think that would be the least bit overpowering. And if they only used it very sparingly, well then the houserule didn't make much of a difference anyway.

In the wizard example, the wizard would simply have more AC all the time, a consistent power boost. The drawback (disadvantage to stealth) likely won't come up for the wizard that often, so you can argue that this is less a trade off and more a straight power boost.

Further, this is also skewed by your feelings on class balance. I personally feel the monk is a bit weaker in general than say, the paladin. So if a monk is asking me for something that is a small power boost...I'm likely to be inclined. If the paladin did the same I might be a bit stricter, as that concept already comes with a lot of raw power.

Possibly relevant to this conversation, is the version I am trialling of Tavern Brawler. This has been playtested through a couple of iterations.

Tavern Brawler v3
Accustomed to rough-and-tumble fighting using whatever weapons happen to be at hand, you gain the following benefits:
Increase your Strength or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You are proficient with improvised weapons.
You gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with your unarmed strikes.
When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike or an improvised weapon on your turn, you can use a bonus action to attempt to grapple the target.

So here the monk is getting a damage bonus worth having, rather than downgrading their martial arts die!

 

[MarkB]

Possibly relevant to this conversation, is the version I am trialling of Tavern Brawler. This has been playtested through a couple of iterations.

Tavern Brawler v3
Accustomed to rough-and-tumble fighting using whatever weapons happen to be at hand, you gain the following benefits:
Increase your Strength or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You are proficient with improvised weapons.
You gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with your unarmed strikes.
When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike or an improvised weapon on your turn, you can use a bonus action to attempt to grapple the target.

So here the monk is getting a damage bonus worth having, rather than downgrading their martial arts die!

A nice modification. On a related note, I've seen a pretty good take on a Monk improvised-weapons-master subclass. Unfortunately I can't re-print it here, as it's someone else's playtest material, but it essentially revolved around treating improvised weapons as Monk weapons, and incentivising the player to change out their weapon regularly for increased bonuses. It felt very much like a Jackie Chan fighting style, being able to pick up whatever's handy and turn it into an effective weapon.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

For me their offense have never been the problem, its their defense. Unless they have very good stats in dex and wisdom their AC is terrible compared to other martial. And unlike rogues and barbs they don't have ways to halve damage. They have their extra dodge but that burns ki very quickly.

I find they suck down healing much more quickly than other martial classes, and unless they are pouring ki into defense they don't have the longevity.

That, and their mobility tends to be a two-edged sword. It's great for engaging enemies quickly, but it makes it easy for the character to get out of position compared to the rest of the party if you're not careful.

I haven't found much trouble with that in my games, especially running a Drunken Master monk, but also with my Shadow Monk, even before level 6. IME, most Monks have AC between Leather and Studded Leather, at level 1, and decent HP. They're defensively comparable to Rogues, but they do it differently.

I also wouldn't classify 1ki on a turn that needs extra defense to be "pouring ki into defense". It's just using the class abilities for what they're for.

Playing a monk in a reckless manner at low levels will end badly, just like with a rogue or most Gish builds. I'm not sure it's fair to call that a weakness of the class.

As for Monk power, their issue is not how well they grapple (and it would be a railroading approach to fixing them if the fix was - grapple better). The issue lies mostly around anaemic damage and bad defenses. They suffer a high degree of contention for their bonus action (do I use it for one unarmed strike, two strikes, or to dodge or dash to avoid being hit back?) One of the few feats that works for them is Mobile (more railroading) and at least one of its effects is inefficient for them to have. Feats like Dual Wield, which could play well for Monks, have direct impediments to their use (the bonus action on TWF). They have a pile of whimsical class features that do very little. They're even stiffed on magic items (well, they could take the arcane caster's staff and use it to hit things with). I think Kensei is an unspoken acknowledgement of some of the Monk's problems.

They're damage simply isn't anemic. As for their defenses, see above.

Contention, as you put it, for their bonus action, is a feature, not a bug. It doesn't need to be fixed. They have several options for their bonus action every turn, with the best option dependent on circumstance and turn by turn strategy. That's good.

Polearm Master works well for Monks, especially now that spears work with it, giving them two options for use with it. Pretty sure the martial arts damage dice overrides the damage of the butt of your spear, but even if not it's worth it potentially just for the reaction.
As does Mobile, as you mention, though I don't see how that's a railroad. So does Mage Slayer (stronger on PCs that can reliably stick to the enemy mage who is trying to escape, and stronger the higher number of attacks you can throw at the enemy mage per turn).
Athlete and many other feats work just as well for them as any other strength or dex based character, and helps get rid of the few remaining impediments to their mobility. The climb speed isn't as useful after level 9, though.
Sentinel is just as good for monks as any other melee combatant.
Most other feats are either hyper specific, or have nothing to do with combat and so are just as useful for monks as for anyone else.

Counterpoint- the Monk (especially the open hand, and also shadow) are great classes and probably the best job at making a "monk" and a "ninja" in the D&D rules.

It's not for everyone, but for certain people ... it's pretty cool. Personally, it's my favorite class in 5e. YMMV.

I'd add Drunken Master to that, and possibly Sun Soul.

Well, mechanically I found the monk in combat surprisingly interesting technically (a lot of niceties around movement and the action economy), but with an eggshells sort of feel. Fast, yes, yet kind of forestalled as skirmishers due to that fragility. Forced to skirmish, to stay alive, yet not always able to achieve it. Stunning Strike helps a lot of course.

Perhaps as a martial class, if they had a d10 for their HD, as a starting point...

Anything more than that would be too much.

I happen to go to 14th simply because, well, a lot of people are just unaware of that ability (proficient in all saves + get to re-roll any failed save is pretty ... nifty), but that said-

i think that monks hold up well at 5th level (because of proficieincy bonus, ASI, extra attack, deflect missiles, stunning strike, slow fall etc.). It's the lower levels (four and under) that they are particularly weak, especially because the combo of d8hp, AC, and d4 damage with martial arts is rough.

Even at 3 level, they're attacking 2-4 times a turn, and can catch arrows. By level 5, yeah, they're awesome.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't consider 'I want to be a standard X, but in addition be really good at Y without having to pay the costs normally associated with it' to be a legitimate "concept" for a character - in general "I just want to do more, and do it better, and not have to give anything up" isn't what I file as 'character concept'.

Not have to give anything up? Have you tried to play a grappling monk? We have a ruleset entirely set up to use an ability score that monks almost never use because its entirely opposite from the ability score for which the game has assigned to the monk as its primary ability. If you "follow the rules" as they are currently written, you can get the style of character you wish to play, but that character will be noticeably WORSE than if you just played a bog-standard monk. So allowing this one character to use DEX (Acrobatics) to grapple rather than STR (Athletics) is yes, "getting something for free"... but that's only because the cost of it is so exorbinate that no one was ever going to pay for it in the first place. And guess what? The monk who is now grappling with DEX is still going to to be overshadowed in many ways by the fighter player who takes Great Weapon Master and all the other "real rules" to make their character. So getting stuff "for free" does not actually mean all that much when all it does is just keep the character viable.

I doubt I would enjoy your game, because for me part of the fun of playing D&D is the challenge of making an effective character and fighting monsters within the rules of the game. Claiming that someone is 'hung up on the idea' of actually playing a game using rules when that's the central appeal of playing a game to them is using the rules is not reasonable; it's like claiming that someone needs to get over their hangups if you're playing chess and they start moving the bishop horizontally. Painting people as 'hung up' and 'unable to handle' if their interest in the game is actually dealing with the rules is simply unfair to them.

See... I believe this is a false argument. Here's why:

When the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide or Xanathar's Guide came out, did you or anyone else in your game make a character that used any part of those rules? If so... then you are doing exactly what I am, only you believe you are not.

The rules of D&D for the longest time were what was in the Player's Handbook. Those were the rules you were using. You wanted to play "by the rules"... and you did. Which is great! You got what you wanted. But then SCAG came out and introduced the Bladesinger. So now... a character concept that up until that point was not very well realized-- the wizard who can also use a blade somewhat effectively-- could now be played because someone decided to change the rules.

Was that someone Wizards of the Coast? Sure. But it doesn't change the fact that the rules of your game were broken, and you now had wizard players "getting something for free" that they hadn't gotten before. Before, a wizard would have had to take a level of fighter and push some of their spellcasting back. But now they didn't have to. Someone broken the rules of the Player's Handbook so that a person could play this specialized character concept more effectivdly now than they could before this subclass was released.

But I'm pretty sure you didn't see this as something "wrong" right? Since they were the designers of the original rules, they could break them all they wanted, but you could tell yourself that they weren't. They weren't breaking the rules, they were "expanding" them.

Nope, sorry... they were breaking their own rules for their player's benefit. Just as much as every single one of the rest of us are... every time we create a new subclass, or let an Arcana domain cleric use INT as their primary ability score, or let a rogue Sneak Attack with a club. All to help fill in gaps in the rules which do not currently get covered, and whose actions result in no appreciable difference in the game other than the player thinking they get to play this cool concept idea.

That rogue player wanted to play a "thug" type of character and wanted to be able to blackjack people over the head. So you the DM let them "get something for free" by letting them use Sneak Attack with clubs and maces... resulting in this rogue still doing less damage than the bog-standard rogue who uses a rapier. Boy, you're a monster, letting this rogue get away with something like that. What are the other players in the group going to think?

I don't understand why you'd play a rules-heavy game centered around classed characters like D&D, but also sometimes run it like a rules-light game. If you want to play a game where you just do whatever and sometimes roll funny dice, why are you bothering with D&D books in the first place?

Simple. I know the rules of D&D backwards and forwards, my players enjoy both the rules of D&D and the "essence" and "story" of the game and world of D&D, and there is a LOT of variation in the rules to make lots of different types of characters.

But the rules do not let you make ALL the types of characters. They aren't that comprehensive. Which is why I feel perfectly fine in giving players what they mostly want by tweaking the rules and abilities so that they can get closer to what they want while remaining relatively on par with the rest of the members of the group.

Could I play all my games using FATE? Sure, if I wanted to. But that's the thing... I don't find any reason to switch games purely in order to keep the rules of any game "pure". "Rules purity" in any RPG I think is dumb. Why hamstring myself by avoiding playing certain games just because of this ludicrous idea that changing/adapting the rules of any game shouldn't be done?

"Why play D&D if you're only going to change the rules?"

Why NOT play D&D if I'm going to change the rules? If changing the rules is good enough for WotC every time they release a new sourcebook, it's good enough for me!