D&D 5E Monks Suck

[Snarf Zagyg]

Hard for me to tell whether the second half of this sentence is sarcastic

¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Here.
Right here.

It's literally dozens of pages of DPR, SS, and mobility discussions.

Everyone is arging about numbers but no one is disagreeing on how monks are played. Except Asisreo.

So two things-

1. If you're framing things as a DPR discussion, other people are going to pipe in with "DPR answers" right? You understand that intuitively I hope. If you go onto a forum to have a debate about the fastest sports car, and you end up arguing about street-legal or not street-legal sports cars, you shouldn't expect people to chime in with, "But I don't want a car that goes fast; I want a sports car that is reliable and has room for my golf clubs."

2. Many people have alluded to, or outright stated, that they use monks in different ways, but that's not really taken up because, again, path dependency. The people that have done so have gotten crowded out in the nearly 1000 comments of DPR.

 

[Asisreo]

But what are those discussions? With whom?

One thing I find fascinating is the degree to which people believe that their experiences are more universal than are warranted; it's not you (or me), this is a general cognitive bias.

Very few people stop to think, "Wait, perhaps my views are skewed? Perhaps my experience cannot be generalized to everyone? Maybe, even when I seek out information, that information is necessarily going to reflect something other than the unvarnished truth, simply because of the nature of sources I select?"

Too abstract? Well, whenever there are statistics released on anything related to D&D from large sample sizes, there are a large contingent of people here who will reflexively disagree with those statistics because that's not how they play. "No one I know would ever play a champion!" "Everyone I know loves more feats!" "I can't go 5 feet without seeing a druid!" And so on.

Information people like gets assimilated, that which they don't like is discarded; man, I wish there was a term for that.

Anyway, I do not doubt what you are saying. Just like you, I can say that no one uses minis, because all of my campaigns, and the people I know, use ToTM.

...and yet, I am reasonably certain that someone out there is buying minis. Because I am familiar with the old saying, "Minis, like cocaine, are god's way of telling you that you have too much money."

TLDR; D&D is nearly 50 years old. 5e has players from 3rd grade through the nursing home, and everything in between. Do not be surprised if everyone is not playing it the same way.

It's the type of scenario rigorous testing would prevent.

If we can find tons of DM's from all circles of the internet and even some that don't even go on forums and have them playtest the game,we can truly determine a mostly unbiased conclusion.

If it turns out 72% of monks use stunning strike every combat encounter when Ki is available, then saying most monks use stunning strike would be true based on a study that can be referred back to.

If 86% of legendary monsters that have appeared in the adventures have high CON and Legendary Resistance, then we can say with a good degree of certainty that most legendary creatures will have good defenses against stunning strike.

However, if only 5% of any given monster in any given campaign above 5th-level are legendary, that might just mean most of the time stunning strike is decent.

 

[FrogReaver]

Except that lots of people in this conversation are engaging in motivated reasoning because, for whatever reason, they have an emotional response to someone criticizing a set of game mechanics. So "likes" isn't really a good measure of the accuracy of a statement.

Likes indicate agreement with the statement. That’s all I was saying. It’s my perception and theirs if the conversation. You can say that’s not your perception. You can even say our perceptions are flawed. But you can’t say those aren’t our perceptions.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's the type of scenario rigorous testing would prevent.

If we can find tons of DM's from all circles of the internet and even some that don't even go on forums and have them playtest the game,we can truly determine a mostly unbiased conclusion.

If it turns out 72% of monks use stunning strike every combat encounter when Ki is available, then saying most monks use stunning strike would be true based on a study that can be referred back to.

If 86% of legendary monsters that have appeared in the adventures have high CON and Legendary Resistance, then we can say with a good degree of certainty that most legendary creatures will have good defenses against stunning strike.

However, if only 5% of any given monster in any given campaign above 5th-level are legendary, that might just mean most of the time stunning strike is decent.

Of course, then we would need to know more.

I would be surprised (shocked, even) if they numbers were uniform across subclasses. My limited and anecdotal experience is that stunning strike is much more attractive to some subclasses as a use of ki than to others (where it is non-existent).

 

[FrogReaver]

It's the type of scenario rigorous testing would prevent.

If we can find tons of DM's from all circles of the internet and even some that don't even go on forums and have them playtest the game,we can truly determine a mostly unbiased conclusion.

If it turns out 72% of monks use stunning strike every combat encounter when Ki is available, then saying most monks use stunning strike would be true based on a study that can be referred back to.

If 86% of legendary monsters that have appeared in the adventures have high CON and Legendary Resistance, then we can say with a good degree of certainty that most legendary creatures will have good defenses against stunning strike.

However, if only 5% of any given monster in any given campaign above 5th-level are legendary, that might just mean most of the time stunning strike is decent.

Doesn’t help either. Nothing to say those monk players do anything tactically sound. Or that monk players in general aren’t generally tactically unsound. Etc. we acknowledge that monk takes more intelligence to play well after all.

 

[Minigiant]

1. If you're framing things as a DPR discussion, other people are going to pipe in with "DPR answers" right? You understand that intuitively I hope. If you go onto a forum to have a debate about the fastest sports car, and you end up arguing about street-legal or not street-legal sports cars, you shouldn't expect people to chime in with, "But I don't want a car that goes fast; I want a sports car that is reliable and has room for my golf clubs."

Yeah, but I am not having a DPR discussion. I am having a role discussion. I'm saying 95% of monks are skirmishers. Not archer. Not tanks. Not defenders. Not brutes. Not controllers. Not healers. Not buffers.

Almost all skirmishers.

And there are tons of "Monks don't suck. They can run up to enemy, flurry of blows unarmed for good damage and stunning strike the boss/solo/bbeg" post in here.

2. Many people have alluded to, or outright stated, that they use monks in different ways, but that's not really taken up because, again, path dependency. The people that have done so have gotten crowded out in the nearly 1000 comments of DPR.

And 100 posts of "But monks are great skirmishers"

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, but I am not having a DPR discussion. I am having a role discussion. I'm saying 95% of monks are skirmishers. Not archer. Not tanks. Not defenders. Not brutes. Not controllers. Not healers. Not buffers.

Almost all skirmishers.

And there are tons of "Monks don't suck. They can run up to enemy, flurry of blows for good damage and stunning strike the boss/solo/bbeg" post in here.


And 100 posts of "But monks are great skirmishers"

Define skirmisher because I’m betting you definition fits every class and playstyle in d&d

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, but I am not having a DPR discussion. I am having a role discussion.

Okay.

The monk's role is to satisfy those people who like monks.

Q.
E.
to the D.

 

[Minigiant]

Define skirmisher because I’m betting you definition fits every class and playstyle in d&d

A lightly armored warrior who attacks enemies at close or melee range and retreats when approached with determined stronger melee opponents.

Commonly found on melee rangers, some dex fighters, thrown weapon users, melee rogues,... and many monks.