D&D 5E Monks Suck

[FrogReaver]

In my experience rangers are at their best when they focus on archery, but sure, melee rangers exist. Generally, melee rangers get less out of hunter's mark than ranged rangers do. Melee rangers are probably better off concentrating on something like Zephyr strike. But anyway, this part of the discussion is pretty tangential.



How is the warlock's resource more limited? If the thing they are choosing to concentrate on is Hex, which is a bad idea most of the time, after tier 1, but set that aside since monks also can't do the things warlocks should be doing instead, they can have it up pretty much all the time, because it lasts so long, and their spell slots refresh on short rests.



Challenging fights, almost without exception, have around as many monsters as PCs, or perhaps more; not fewer.



I don't even need two spells per fight to out-control stunning strike. Phantasmal Force / Suggestion / Hypnotic Pattern / Banishment... even Hold Monster --- all of those have a higher expected value in a single casting than stunning strike can be expected to do in a whole encounter.



People keep saying that I'm mono-focused on DPR. Are you not reading my posts?



3 to 6 rounds with how many monsters? Rounds per enemy is 'rounds the fight lasts' divided by 'number of enemies'.



It's not about who understands the game; it's about discussing in good faith with transparency, vs hand-waving and moving goal posts.

A level 8 monk will stun 3-4 times per short rest of dumping ki into stunning.

That’s 9-12 times per day. Hypnotic pattern directed at 4 enemies may incapacitate 3 or so. On average that’s about 6 rounds of incapacitation. (Assuming a 4 round fight).

To come out even you’d need to target 8 to 12 enemies with hypnotic pattern per day. That’s probably around 2-4 casts of it. That’s doable by level 8... but the monk will do more damage than any character that can do that at level 8.

There’s a few more factors to consider in the analysis but this is a starting point.

 

[shadowoflameth]

Agree that monks are fragile compared to Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian. That said to the main concerns. IMHO (ONLY)

• Martial Arts damage die is low at early levels and is useful only on the flurry. At later levels, you can do more damage than anyone else with unarmed strike or with a monk weapon. My suggestion: (Kensei helps with this). Kensei thrown weapons actually become a good option. A lot of monks use weapons at early levels anyway.
• Unarmored Defense is often criticized because of the built in MAD. I found the monk AC low compared to heavy armor but if you focus on Dex because it helps AC Initiative and to hit, I think that with many monks, you don't necessarily need a High Save DC because you get multiple chances for the target to fail. (see ki points though). My suggestion, focus on Dexterity even if it means a low save DC.
• Unarmored Movement is strong for what it is. More speed is better, but it's not a life changer in most encounters in our game. I wouldn't change it.
• Ki is low at lower levels. This makes the MAD more significant initially. by the tame you have 8 ki points, you might have a 20 dex. though and even though this is a real issue for the monk, most builds are going to want their ASIs after 8th to go into Wisdom anyway. My suggestion, if there was a way to get more points. (a feat) I'd take it.

 

[Esker]

I keep seeing people literally make statements that Stunning Strike mostly helps other PCs, as if that somehow makes it less significant.

Who has said that that was a bad thing? Certainly not me.

How on earth are they going to last an hour, though, unless the DM literally just decides they don't want the player to feel like they "wasted" the slot and don't remind them to make concentration saves, or takes it easy on them by not attacking them?

It doesn't really have to last the whole hour, since they can cast it about once per encounter if needed. But if that's the sticking point, feel free to recalculate the baseline assuming the warlock takes war caster. Of course they could just be variant human and take that at 1st level, so in that case they're getting the benefit without giving up anything from the baseline. But I don't want to say that 'variant human' is an assumed part of the baseline.

Starting a conversation with "monks suck" is literally the worst way to accomplish that supposed goal.
You also keep assuming that the counter-argument is about RPing, when it isn't. It's simply that your number crunching doesn't actually represent the reality of playing the game.

Look, the bottom line is that if someone has fun playing monks, more power to them! No one is telling them they are having wrongbadfun. We're just pointing out that the class really ought to be buffed so that the mechanics fit with the play experience, and so that doing CR calculations doesn't result in an unintentionally high chance of TPK because someone happened to be playing a monk.

My dude, people have play reports with 4 Elements Monks where they are the superstar of a session! That's the worst subclass in the game! It pays 1 more ki per ability than it should and it's abilities don't allow it to use it's main class abilities in the same turn! It's just bad. Objectively bad! And yet people have a great time playing it.

That's fine! We can agree that it's objectively bad, and we can also agree that people have fun with it despite that. Where's the problem? I'm just saying the same thing applies to the monk class generally, not just that one subclass.

This is what "this isn't 3.5" is about. If you crunch numbers and go "this thing sucks", you're wrong.

'Sucks mechanically'. Treantmonk made that distinction in the first two minutes of the video, and I've made it multiple times in this thread. The title of the video has a clickbait quality to it, yes. He's doing D&D full time now, so I can forgive a bit of clickbait that doesn't actually hurt anyone in the interest of being able to make a living doing what he loves.

Equating optimization to "carrying their weight mechanically" auto-fails your entire argument, and any chance of your position being taken seriously.

You're once again mischaracterizing my statements. I didn't equate optimization to carrying your weight. I said monks don't even carry their weight if you optimize. Adding in optimization makes the disparity worse, but it exists without it.

 

[Mistwell]

Right. Monk detractors dismiss that Stunning Strike is a team buff, ignore anything environmental, and assume weird stuff like first level concentration spells being “basically at-will”.

I don't see anyone ignoring that Stunning Strike is a team buff. The original argument is that Monk's are not as good at applying that effect (or even better effects) as some other classes.

Take a wizard for example. Your monk has multiple attribute dependency more than the wizard, who is free to focus on Intelligence while the Monk needs both Dex and Wisdom. So their DCs for their stunning strike will be lower than the wizards. And they have multiple things competing for those Ki points. Flurry, Defense, most decent Subclass abilities, they're all drawing from that same very limited pool of Ki point along with your Stunning Strike. Your 6th level monk has only 6 Ki points which just won't go nearly as far as the wizards spells. Meanwhile your 6th level wizard has 3 third level spells (not counting arcane recovery), 3 second, 4 first, and 4 cantrips.

A single Hypnotic Pattern is likely to take out more foes, and for a longer period of time by far, than even several stunning strikes. And the DC to make it work is also better for that wizard than the monk. And a 6th level wizard can cast that spell 4 times a day, likely with a DC 16 wisdom save versus a pack of creatures. Your stunning strike is targeting Con, which is often the best save for foes around that level, while the Hypnotic Pattern is targeting Wisdom, which is more often a weaker save for foes around that level. The Pattern lasts up to a minute, while your Stun lasts ONE ROUND. And the Pattern can be cast from 120 feet away, while your monk must actually hit the foe to apply the stun (which itself can be a problem if the foe has a good AC).

So it's not that people are discounting the team buff aspect of a stunning strike - it's that they'd rather a PC like a wizard who can do it so much better.

 

[Undrave]

If I had to summarize this thread, I would identify two general groups (with exceptions in both cases, of course):

People with charts and graphs who say monks suck.

People with experience playing monks who say they are fine.

I'm playing a Monk and I find it unsatisfying. And it's in a party with two other members who enjoy Short Rest (including a Warlock) so we do often enter fights where I have my full Ki points... and I still find them I don't have enough, nor do I have something solid like Eldritch Blast to fall back on.

The Warlock, Fighter, and Rogue (with some subclass exceptions) all require short rests to be fully effective. While many Warlocks are built to EB spam, they (like Monks) are very much short-rest dependent.

The Rogue is the only fully at-will class in the game. The only reason they would want a short rest is to spend some Hit Dice. That's it. Their dependance can be fixed with the very common Potion of Healing.

Frogreaver did that, and contributed something useful to the discussion as a result --- for instance, the that the indirect damage from stunning strike is likely in the ballpark of the direct damage from flurry of blows, and so comparing to an optimal monk should probably assume most ki is used for stun attempts, rather than extra punches.

See, now that's interesting. Both Stunning Strike and Flurry of Blows feed of the same resource (ki points) but one is made obsolete by the other to the point where using it after you gain the second is unoptimal. That feels counter intuitive. It's like if using your 1st level slot spent your 2nd level spell slots at the same time, you'd never use those 1st level slot.

But if you're meant to support your party with Stunning Strike, which is cool... why doesn't the Monk get more support option like that in its base kit?

No, it's just you're measuring the wrong data (DPR).

That's not the Monks thing.

Then what IS the Monk's thing? What's the point of being a fragile Skirmisher if you're not going to inflict damage nor can you offer an array of support options?

Honestly, if I want to play 'the guy who punches' I do it because I want to kick some ass! Lay down the smack down and knock fools out with my bare fists! Not dance around doing mosquito bites worth of damage.

The argument is, "Whatever. When I actually play the game it's still fun, and we still kill stuff. So what's the problem?"

And that means you don't have a problem... so why are you here? No one is telling you that you're wrong for enjoying the monk, nor that we want to take it away from you. A monk can be fun... but it can also be mechanically better than it is, is all.

Yep. One thing to note about monks is that they get better the more GWM and SS and other high damage combos are in the party.

Picking a Basic GW fighter and a fire bolt wizard was pretty conservative estimate after all.

And yes, the impact of stun needs factored in beyond it granting advantage. I’ll work out an estimate for that later.

If the Monk was meant to be more support that'd be fine with me and I would love it... but they only have 1 support feature in the base class: Stunning Strike. A Shadow Monk can use Silence in combat, at the cost of the Stunning Strikes but that's about it as far as support go.

In summary, I think the monk is a very poor class chassis that clings to a single ability (stunning strike) for any chance at combat effectiveness or unique "cinematic pizzazz". I do think a stunning strike focused monk is workable in a party where the DM is very generous with short rests. However...that's it....and that does not a good class make. The monk is a badly designed class.... it was in 2nd edition, in 3rd, and now again in 5th. They just can't seem to ever get it right.

Yup. A single build doesn't make a full class. Stunning Strike is the most optimal thing to do with your Ki points, all the time. That's just not conductive to variety.

 

[Esker]

A level 8 monk will stun 3-4 times per short rest of dumping ki into stunning.

That’s 9-12 times per day. Hypnotic pattern directed at 4 enemies may incapacitate 3 or so. On average that’s about 6 rounds of incapacitation.

Why is it 6 only 6 rounds in a 4 round fight? Is that because you're assuming there are two other enemies that come in and use actions to shake the three enemies out of it? It's quite possible IME that hypnotic pattern with three targets failing the save is 12 rounds of incapacitation. I think on average it's more than 6 even though it might sometimes be 6.

But ok, let's say it's 6. Per short rest if the warlock is using both of their slots on Hypnotic Pattern, that's about 12 enemy-rounds of denied turns, vs the monk's 3-4.

Then you credit the monk for the damage (direct and indirect) that they're doing (since HP doesn't provide advantage), and credit the warlock for the damage they're doing, and the monk closes that gap some, but they can't make up 8 enemy-turns worth of denied actions.

Edit: Oops, screwed up the quote formatting there.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's fine! We can agree that it's objectively bad, and we can also agree that people have fun with it despite that. Where's the problem? I'm just saying the same thing applies to the monk class generally, not just that one subclass.

It doesn't apply to the monk class generally, but even if it did it would invalidate this entire argument. Because the worst subclass in the game still doesn't actually suck. It just...isn't overpowered, basically.

'Sucks mechanically'. Treantmonk made that distinction in the first two minutes of the video, and I've made it multiple times in this thread. The title of the video has a clickbait quality to it, yes. He's doing D&D full time now, so I can forgive a bit of clickbait that doesn't actually hurt anyone in the interest of being able to make a living doing what he loves.

LOL no. It's still a bad argument, and I won't excuse the title based on "he needs more monetised clicks so it's okay". What nonsense.

And "sucks mechanically" is still totally false. It has fewer paths to extreme optimization. That's literally the only measure by which it "sucks", and if that is all you need for something to suck, then you're...simply wrong. Sorry.

You're once again mischaracterizing my statements. I didn't equate optimization to carrying your weight. I said monks don't even carry their weight if you optimize. Adding in optimization makes the disparity worse, but it exists without it.

I mean, that isn't what you said, but okay.

 

[Esker]

And "sucks mechanically" is still totally false. It has fewer paths to extreme optimization. That's literally the only measure by which it "sucks", and if that is all you need for something to suck, then you're...simply wrong. Sorry.

It has no paths to extreme optimization, but that isn't even relevant. The point is that it also has no paths to even reaching the level of an "average power" character of another class.

I mean, that isn't what you said, but okay.

Miscommunication is a two-way street, so I'm not going to put misunderstanding what I was trying to say on you. But hopefully now we are on the same page as far as that piece goes.

 

[Mistwell]

At level 5

A gwf does 24.66 damage (with style). 22 damage (without style)
A monk with no ki does 23.5 damage.

It’s not much of a difference.

That doesn't sound right. Let me do some back of the envelope math...

Greatsword does base 7 damage per hit.
Strength +4
Great Weapon Master +10
Great Weapon Fighting is what, +1? They'd probably take Defense anyway but whatever.
Two attacks

So that's 44, right?

 

[Esker]

That doesn't sound right. Let me do some back of the envelope math...

Greatsword does base 7 damage per hit.
Strength +4
Great Weapon Master +10
Great Weapon Fighting is what, +1? They'd probably take Defense anyway but whatever.
Two attacks

So that's 44, right?

He wasn't incorporating the GWM feat; just doing a damage-on-hits analysis assuming the two characters have the same accuracy.