D&D 5E Monks Suck

[Guest 6801328]

You'd need to homebrew multiple reactions.

I keep homebrewing monk subclasses that do exactly that. It seems to me very flavorful for the monk.

Not that I'm unhappy with monks, but if I'm being greedy I'd love to see:

• +Wis mod to Ki pool
• Extra reactions at higher levels
• Patient Defense as reaction instead of bonus action
• Step of the Wind as free action

 

[Esker]

That's why a good DM makes his Solo creatures Legendaries.

You anticipated my objection to this tack, so let's skip ahead...

And yes, 'legendary saves hurt the Monk because he relies on Stunning' but another way of looking at it is there is no finer way to deplete Legendary resistances than a Monk. The ability to force several LR burns in a single turn is priceless.

Forcing multiple LRs on the monk's turn is unlikely in most cases, especially against legendary creatures. You might, if you're lucky and also use a ki to flurry, get two hits, which means that forcing multiple LRs means they have to fail both saves. Chances are they fail 0 or 1, and you've spent close to half your ki pool to maybe do what a warlock could have done more reliably with half their spell slots.

But the bigger issue is that "forcing LRs" is usually not the right approach, in my experience. Instead, when facing a legendary enemy, you want to do things that don't involve saves. Work around the legendary resistances, rather than trying to burn through them. Because then at least you're getting something done in that precious first round or two. Typically that means a combination of battlefield control via means that either don't offer a save (for example, things that target an area instead of the creature), or have useful effects even on a failed save, and direct damage. Monks don't really provide either of those things.

 

[Esker]

A better title would be "Monks are on the low end of white-room DPR calculations."

It's a stronger claim than that, though. The claim is that, taking all aspects of what characters do put together (damage, not draining healing resources, tanking, buffing, debuffing, control, out-of-combat utility), the total monk package is in a class by itself at the bottom of the heap. Treantmonk hasn't definitively shown this in an integrated way, and it's possible the claim turns out to be wrong once you add up damage and stuns, and that results in single-classed non-Arcane Trickster rogues actually winding up behind monks. But that's why we need analyses and discussion of the sort FrogReaver is trying to engage in. Dismissing quantitative analysis as a matter of principle is not constructive.

 

[Asisreo]

You anticipated my objection to this tack, so let's skip ahead...



Forcing multiple LRs on the monk's turn is unlikely in most cases, especially against legendary creatures. You might, if you're lucky and also use a ki to flurry, get two hits, which means that forcing multiple LRs means they have to fail both saves. Chances are they fail 0 or 1, and you've spent close to half your ki pool to maybe do what a warlock could have done more reliably with half their spell slots.

But the bigger issue is that "forcing LRs" is usually not the right approach, in my experience. Instead, when facing a legendary enemy, you want to do things that don't involve saves. Work around the legendary resistances, rather than trying to burn through them. Because then at least you're getting something done in that precious first round or two. Typically that means a combination of battlefield control via means that either don't offer a save (for example, things that target an area instead of the creature), or have useful effects even on a failed save, and direct damage. Monks don't really provide either of those things.

Here's the thing. This is purely based on my experience so it isn't rigorous evidence but:

Legendary Creatures will tend to have 3 other things outside of high Con saves. Those things are Magic Resistance, high Wis saves, and resistances/immunities to BPS damage. Combined, these 4 things are meant to make forcing game-ending saves much harder to accomplish. Of course, some cheese can be involved using metagame knowledge of a creature's capabilities and also knowing their weak saves, but ultimately, it's difficult for someone to end an encounter using a build that would occur naturally without forum-character builds.

Now, I don't know exactly why people are so keen on using the "legendary monsters make Ki inefficient for bypassing stunning strike."

Well, don't use stunning strike ya foghorn. The fact you're fighting a legendary creature means those Ki points are better served with re-roll saves and patient defense. If the creature is barely ever hitting you, it's better than trying to rush out all your resources. I challenge people to play a higher-level monk (something that would fight those high-con and legendary resistance monsters) and never use stunning strike. Not once. Minimize Flurry of Blows as well. It will give you the understanding that Ki is much, much more efficient to be used defensively than offensively and saving your Ki will be so much easier.

 

[Mistwell]

So can we at least agree that against a solo enemy that the monk is better to have in the party than a fighter?

That's super dependent on the solo, right?

So let's use the most iconic creature in the game. A Red Dragon. It's a solo challenge, adult red dragon is CR 17 creature. What party level would it be appropriate for as a solo challenge? Level 13? 14?

[EDIT - I see this analysis is already being done, which I had not read when I posted this. Feel free to ignore this example as it looks like that part of the discussion is well under way.]

 

[Esker]

Experience is more relevant to whether the mechanics are working, because working is a matter of satisfaction, which is inherently experiential.

That's fine! Nobody can say that someone's experience isn't their experience, and clearly there are people who have an enjoyable experience playing monks! Saying that they are low power doesn't undermine that. But we ought to be able to have both! If it is true that monks are underpowered, then it naturally follows that they could use some buffs. The nature of those buffs definitely needs to take the subjective play experience into account.

We may not want to buff monks by just giving them flat damage boosts, and we may not want to buff monks by making all their abilities at-will, etc., or buff their survivability by giving them armor proficiency, or making them viable only if they use weapons, etc., even if we worked out ways to do these things that put them on par with other classes, because clearly people who play monks want the 'equipmentless' playstyle that forces tactical tradeoffs. But buffing them in a way that makes their action economy less clunky, or makes certain abilities have different opportunity costs besides ki expenditure, or sets them up to still be reasonably effective at offense when they prioritize defense or control, and vice-versa, would help, and I don't think it would undermine the experiential aspects that draw people to monks.

But even beyond that, many of the things that are harder to quantify are mechanics. Moving 20ft further per move action at no cost is a mechanic, it impacts fights and exploration challenges, and it’s hard to quantify in a white room because it is very hard to plug into an equation without running a thousand simulated scenarios first. But, when most people who play monks say that they often end up the star of a scene because of their speed, it’s hard to take seriously an analysis with a strongly held conclusion that doesn’t take that into account.

It's absolutely a mechanic! And it should absolutely be factored in! But mobility is only useful in tandem with other strengths. That a character is able to move really fast doesn't do anybody any good in itself, but it might if as a result of their mobility, that character is able to affect enemies, or prevent them from affecting the party, etc. But that's something we can take into account, and quantify, in an analysis. The analysis won't perfectly reflect the in-game reality, but it's important to attempt it and refine it if we want to know whether buffs are called for or would create problems.

 

[Esker]

That's super dependent on the solo, right?

So let's use the most iconic creature in the game. A Red Dragon. It's a solo challenge, adult red dragon is CR 17 creature. What party level would it be appropriate for as a solo challenge? Level 13? 14?

I'd say more like 10, if it's meant to be a "boss fight". It depends somewhat on what else happened before that in the adventuring day, but as a solo encounter, I typically think 2x the "Deadly" threshold is appropriate.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I keep homebrewing monk subclasses that do exactly that. It seems to me very flavorful for the monk.

Not that I'm unhappy with monks, but if I'm being greedy I'd love to see:

• +Wis mod to Ki pool
• Extra reactions at higher levels
• Patient Defense as reaction instead of bonus action
• Step of the Wind as free action

I agree with the first two as being awesome.

I kind of like that Patient Defense idea for a higher level buff to the monk's stuff. I've been toying with the idea of giving them a second bonus action attack at 11th to bump their damage (and making flurry do four attacks instead of two) but I felt like they needed a defensive side to that. I think giving the ability to do a Patient Defense reaction is neat. I'd even let them do it sort of "after being hit"

I'd say the Step of the Wind is too powerful though, it would have to be a subclass ability. A permanent disengage is just bonkers good. Or, I guess maybe make it a 15+ level ability. "You do not provoke opportunity attacks" is crazy though.

It's a stronger claim than that, though. The claim is that, taking all aspects of what characters do put together (damage, not draining healing resources, tanking, buffing, debuffing, control, out-of-combat utility), the total monk package is in a class by itself at the bottom of the heap. Treantmonk hasn't definitively shown this in an integrated way, and it's possible the claim turns out to be wrong once you add up damage and stuns, and that results in single-classed non-Arcane Trickster rogues actually winding up behind monks. But that's why we need analyses and discussion of the sort FrogReaver is trying to engage in. Dismissing quantitative analysis as a matter of principle is not constructive.

See, we don't need a full analysis though to show that the monk "as a whole package" is better than the bottom of the heap.

The analysis so far has taken each aspect of the monk and compared it to the best that the role has to offer. But that ignores the strength here.

Yes, you can say that the monk has less AC than an AC focused Fighter. A monk has less debuff and control that a Wizard. A monk has less damage than a damage focused fighter. However, the "step to the right" is also true.

A monk does more damage than an AC focused fighter. A monk has more AC and hp than a wizard. A monk has more debuff and control than a Damage focused fighter.

This is the part that annoys me about the comparison. Anyone sucks if you take the best builds for each section and compare them all simultaneously. But the truth is a monk isn't speccing into all the damage or all the AC, they do both simultaneously.

 

[FrogReaver]

Legendary resistance and magic resistance have been brought up. Doesn’t that impact a wizard more than a monk? Doesn’t that make a wizard suck worse in those fights than a monk?

So if I was making a competence hierarchy vs solo enemies with legendary resistance and magic resistance I would rank it something like:

Fighter
Monk
Wizard

If I was fighting 8 smaller enemies I would rank something like:

Wizard
Fighter
Monk

If I was fighting 2 enemies without legendary resistance I might rank something like:

Wizard
Monk
Fighter

Anyone disagree?

 

[Esker]

Anyone sucks if you take the best builds for each section and compare them all simultaneously. But the truth is a monk isn't speccing into all the damage or all the AC, they do both simultaneously.

But... that's precisely why we need an integrated analysis?