D&D 5E Monks Suck

[doctorbadwolf]

Stunning Strike is amazing on paper but in practice its only useful to burn through the Legendary Resistance of boss monsters. In most circumstance you're better off using Flurry of Blows rather than Stunning Strike. The best target to stuns are usually beefy and have make the save more easily, and anything that can't make the save will usually go down to a good pummelling.

Wait is this your actual experience playing Monks? If so...I mean hell we already knew that we all have very different games. I just am surprised sometimes still by just how different.

I mean, brutes can make the save more easily than squishies, sure, but that doesn't mean they make the save easily. And as a monk, I can stun up to 4 creatures a round if there are enough dangerous squishies around. Not only that, but IME there are plenty of creatures with average con saves or even poor con saves who still aren't going down in a single round, and are very dangerous while they're still up.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

D&D classes are a whole kettle of fish honestly. What even IS a Ranger anyway?

If the Monk is to represent multiple martial arts, I feel like it needs more special moves like Stunning Strike and not just "Punch, Punch a Lot, Stunning Punch' as its move list. If nothing else, they should be able to shove on a hit at low level.

As with many iconic things base classes should be able to do, that got stuck in a subclass.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

D&D classes are a whole kettle of fish honestly. What even IS a Ranger anyway?

1. A bear that tells you that only you can prevent forest fires.

2. A decent pick-up truck for off-roading.

3. The third rhyming word for "Stranger Danger."

4. Something something two scimitars something something shoot stuff with a bow.

 

[Undrave]

Wait is this your actual experience playing Monks? If so...I mean hell we already knew that we all have very different games. I just am surprised sometimes still by just how different.

I mean, brutes can make the save more easily than squishies, sure, but that doesn't mean they make the save easily. And as a monk, I can stun up to 4 creatures a round if there are enough dangerous squishies around. Not only that, but IME there are plenty of creatures with average con saves or even poor con saves who still aren't going down in a single round, and are very dangerous while they're still up.

My experience is that I think I managed to stun a Knight -type enemy ONCE in multiple sessions with my monk. Everything else was either a boss, a brute with high CON or a squishy minion I could drop in one round of Flurry of Blows. The one human caster we faced was using Greater Invisibility to Fireball us and the other Caster was a troglodyte with that stink aura that makes you suck in melee.

My experience is that, outside of my incredible Stealth and teleporting (and the fact my character knows the area we are exploring), I have yet to feel like I contribute more than a pitiful chunk of damage to the party.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My experience is that I think I managed to stun a Knight -type enemy ONCE in multiple sessions with my monk. Everything else was either a boss, a brute with high CON or a squishy minion I could drop in one round of Flurry of Blows. The one human caster we faced was using Greater Invisibility to Fireball us and the other Caster was a troglodyte with that stink aura that makes you suck in melee.

My experience is that, outside of my incredible Stealth and teleporting (and the fact my character knows the area we are exploring), I have yet to feel like I contribute more than a pitiful chunk of damage to the party.

That sounds like bad luck, to me, but it's hard to say. I know that my Drunken Master monk absolutely destroys stuff, and I don't even use Stunning Strike that often. When I do, it's pretty damn clutch.

 

[Dausuul]

(Also not going to watch the video. I'll check back for the summary this evening.)

The monk is a specialist in taking out high-value targets. They have the mobility to reach the target, decent-if-not-stellar DPR, and a devastating debuff (Stunning Strike) which does not require an action and can be added as a rider on any hit. They also have formidable defenses against enemy magic, and Stunning Strike targets a save which is weak for most spellcasting monsters; against magic-heavy opposition, a monk is absolutely lethal.

I see two problems with the monk class as currently designed. First, they lean too heavily on Stunning Strike. It's a great ability, don't get me wrong, but their effectiveness plunges any time they can't use it or when facing high-Con foes. Second, their specialty is too narrow. Rogues are similarly specialized, combat-wise, but they make up for it with an array of noncombat abilities. Monks are decent out of combat, but the base class is not on the level of the rogue. (Some subclasses, like Way of Shadow, go a long way to evening the odds.)

For a version of the monk which does a good job tackling these issues, I really like the "Way of Mercy" UA. The ability to generate a very nasty AoE debuff, for a single ki point and lasting the entire fight, gives the monk a much-needed alternative to focusing down a single enemy. And Hands of Healing is like a ki-powered healing word, letting you revive a fallen ally mid-combat with minimal loss of damage output*. I want more monk subclasses like this, broadening the monk's specialty rather than reinforcing it.

*Technically you can use HoH without triggering it off Flurry of Blows, but you should pretty much never do that.

 

[NotAYakk]

Again this just means that they are about as squishy as melee rogues.

A melee rogue can bonus action disengage after landing a sneak attack and, at level 7, lose 15% of their damage.

A monk who disengages loses half of their damage. (and still burns a ki).

A swashbuckler rogue doesn't even have to disengage, can run up, stab stab, and walk away.

My base damage starts ahead of the two weapon wielding rogue, the rogue catches up at third, I pull ahead again at fifth, the rogue catches back up at ninth and then loses ground at eleventh. After this no one cares because we're into the spellcaster show that the levels in the teens are.

Base Monk damage is 1d8+1d4+6. Base TWF Rogue damage is 2d6+3 with two chances to land 1d6. At 60% accuracy this is 8.4 vs 11.74 dpr.

Monk can then burn a ki for +3.3 DPR ... catching up.

At level 5, the monk does 2d8+1d6+12. The rogue does 2d6+4+two chances for 3d6. At 60% acccuracy this is 14.7 monk vs 15.42 rogue. Monk can burn 1 ki for +4.5 damage, passing the rogue.

By level 11 the monk deals 3d8+15 and the rogue deals 2d6+5+two chances for 6d6. At 60% accuracy this is 17.1 monk vs 24.8 rogue. Monk can burn ki for +5.7 DPR and ... still not keep up with the rogue.

And the thing is, the Rogue isn't all that good at dealing damage by level 11.

Now we back up and start adding in feat support. A rogue who grabs booming blade gains 2.7 DPR at 5, 11 and 17, and if they disengage and back up and the foe follows, another chunk of damage. Or a rogue who quaffs haste potions to exploit ready sneak attacks, which almost doubles the rogue's damage output.

Monks are barred from this strategy. There are no feats that grant a level 11 monk any additional damage. Haste has a tiny impact on their damage output.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Mechanically, that is. Treantmonk made a good video on the topic, and I happen to agree with him. Indeed, I've used that phrase here in the past several weeks many times. That monks suck.

For those who disagree, and I know many do, I'd love to see a rebuttal to his video that considers the points he makes.


Summary [Edit - I will be adding to this summary over the next couple of hours]

1. Monk deals poor damage for melee attackers;
2. Monks are ineffective tanks and have mediocre to poor defense;
3. Monks are not great at maneuverability;
4. Monks are not great at controlling the battlefield.

Preach it man. I'm not watching 49 minutes on Monks sucking (I mean man what I guarantee you can deliver all the pertinent info in like 8-15 minutes), but I agree with these points.

I want to love Monks, but Monks suck.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not at all! I love Martial classes! But the Monk is a little too supernatural for me to count as fully Martial. He's certainly not mundane like a Fighter or Rogue.

And this to me is a problem with the fighter and rogue - at least a problem past level 10. Essentially at level 1 the fighter moves like an average human and swings a piece of sharpened metal fast and hard. At level 20 they move like an average human and swing a piece of metal really fast and hard. When the wizard's shapeshifting into a dragon or creating a demiplane I want as a fighter to go CuChulain on a nearby mountaintop or Hercules on a river. And as a thief I want to be able to steal the thoughts out of someone's head - or at least their clothes while they are wearing them. And if we are to stick with a "mundane" fighter then I want them to be as lethal with weapons as the most lethal swordsman who ever lived. We're talking one hit kills on anything here.

This isn't saying that "mundane" fighters are a bad thing - simply that after about level 10 the archetype becomes outpaced and fails to have resources to be effective at any pillar except fighting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A swashbuckler rogue doesn't even have to disengage, can run up, stab stab, and walk away.

So can the Drunken Master Monk, who adds Disengage to the benefits of every Flurry of Blows, which is even better than the Swashbuckler version (which only affects creatures you've attacked), but only works when using a resource (Flurry of Blows, thus 1 Ki).