D&D General me finally making the big monk discussion thread

[TwoSix]

So the beef here is the subclasses aren't transformative enough?

My personal beef is that the main class does too much, not leaving enough room for the subclasses to be more transformative.

Other than Extra Attack, ki points, Unarmored Defense and Movement, Evasion, and ASIs, I'd rather see the Monk class abilities in the form of selectable invocation style abilities.

Edit: I just realized PF1 already did this with their Qinggong Monk archetype.

 

[NotAYakk]

So the beef here is the subclasses aren't transformative enough?

That is one strawman version of one of the beefs.

In the literally 10 minutes I spent skimming over the thread, that is not the only beef here. Nor does it describe any of the individual beefs I saw to any real extent.

So I would say "no, that is not the beef here". I hope that helps.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Once again: We're not talking about a PvP-style alpha strike against an encounter with a single, low-hp target in.

We're talking about contributions to the party over multiple, varied encounters over the course of an adventuring day.

Now the monk can definitely contribute: I do not believe that the monk is a bad class. Their tactical ability to shut down individual casters is very good, particularly if the rest of the party can keep the rest of the encounter from dogpiling them while they're out of position.
Monks have very good synergy, particularly with Paladins and Rogues.

But the contribution is still probably less than the consistent, high, safe, damage output by the optimised Fighter.

On that, we're apparently talking about contributions to the party over multiple combat encounters in a single day. If the class literally called the fighter is not the highest contributing party member when fighting they're the worst; the fighter has (with the arguable exception of the barbarian) comfortably the lowest inherent contribution at both the exploration and social pillars, having only a baseline amount of skills and nothing else.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Four elements monk also has conceptual issues in that element-benders are full-casters, and a half-caster like the monk class cannot meet expectations as a full caster.

I think it could have easily by having an at-will set of elemental stances, access to simple elemental melee weapon attacks when in a stance, and elemental themed boosts to existing ki features when in a stance.

Well, that and make the disciplines cost 1ki/spell level, rather than 1+1ki/level.

 

[Mind of tempest]

So the beef here is the subclasses aren't transformative enough?

hardly the class is far to ridged and built wrong.
it almost works properly but is the details that are broken.
martial arts are far too samey and the subclasses lack more than basic fluff no presence.
those are the basic problems of 5e monk which at least works compared to past editions that did not even work properly.
does this sum it up?

 

[CubicsRube]

Ok if I were to change monks in a way that I think would give them a balanced power boost I would allow flurries and disengage on bonus action as not requiring ki points to spend.

That allows a monk to still be pretty money and saves their ki points for stuns, dodges and subclass abilities.

 

[fearsomepirate]

That is one strawman version of one of the beefs.

In the literally 10 minutes I spent skimming over the thread, that is not the only beef here. Nor does it describe any of the individual beefs I saw to any real extent.

So I would say "no, that is not the beef here". I hope that helps.

I've been told it's neither the mechanics nor the theme/flavor, so I'm having a difficult time figuring out what people even mean.

 

[Minigiant]

I've been told it's neither the mechanics nor the theme/flavor, so I'm having a difficult time figuring out what people even mean.

It's simple.
The Monk's original theme was the "70s martial arts movie/tv Shoalin monk". And it has the mechanics of this theme.

HOWEVER.
This theme is not most popular image of a martial artist. So the mechanics don't match how most D&D players see a monk. And the mechanics are too baked into the "70s martial arts movie/tv Shoalin monk" to branch ou well into anything else.

Think of it as if the Fighter was designed around King Arthur and having a magic sword and 10-12 henchmen was core class features of Fighters.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I like monks as a concept, but I don't permit them in every campaign that I run. If I want a game to be about a variety of competing martial arts schools, I'm going to run a marital arts game specifically—Dragon Fist or Flying Swordsmen (games which don't include a monk class at all, but which have fighters, wizards, shamans, and thieves, all of which can become skilled at a variety of specific martial arts maneuvers).

That said, the last time I ran OD&D (my Mystara/Barrowmaze campaign), I included a monk class, and two players ran monks; and the last time I ran AD&D (The Village of Hommlet adventure), one player legit rolled well enough to qualify to play a monk (although he didn't survive the ghoul-crypts under the Moathouse), and he wasn't even the player who rolled the best stats that game (we also had a paladin in the group).

 

[Greg K]

It's simple.
The Monk's original theme was the "70s martial arts movie/tv Shoalin monk". And it has the mechanics of this theme.

The two big influenes seem to be Kung Fu the television series that you refer to and Chun from the Destroyer novel series. Tim Kask has stated Brian Blume was a fan of the Kung Fu tv series and pushed for the inclusion of a monk class. Gary Gygax on these forums has also said that he was inspired by the seriesKung Fu. However, many years earlier, Gary stated that the monk was inspired by Blume and the Destroyer series of novels.