D&D 5E 4-Element monks are the only monk archetype that excels against flying enemies

[Asisreo]

Um, yeah, I know how to multiply SR resources and how that relates to a full adventuring day or parts thereof. I'm also fully aware that in some games SR classes get the sticky end for a variety of reasons. I'm a big fan or Warlocks and Monks though, so my games tend to longer adventuring days (6+ encounters) and the suggested 2-1 rest ratio. More or less SR tends to unbalance one set of classes or another.

Then, in general, we're in agreement. The thing is that the groups that do no short rests are usually the same groups that don't do a whole adventuring day. So less short rests, but less combats (or easier combats) which means expending Ki is nothing to fear. What's so bad is that if the team short rests and the fighter didn't second wind or action surge, the warlock didn't use all their spells, the wizard didn't use spells up to half their level, the druid didn't do all their wildshapes, the cleric didn't use channel divinity, and the monk doesn't use all of their Ki points, it all goes away. It's like throwing bullets in the furnace never to be recoverable.

 

[Fenris-77]

Personally, I think a mix of SR and LR characters forces a party to really think hard about how to manage rests, for exactly those reasons. It's never going to perfect from a resource use standpoint though.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Again, if flight is trivialising encounters, you're doing it wrong.

If you keep telling fellow EN World members that they “are playing wrong” or “not playing D&D” then quite frankly you are posting incorrectly.

You certainly, are not being inclusive.

I scoffed as a child when Gary Gygax wrote in Dragon that there was only one way to play the game.

You, Flamestrike, are no Gary Gygax.

I apologize for this sounding harsh. I often, agree with your positions Flamestrike, but this tendency, Flamestrike, of you acting as the only arbiter of what constitutes True D&D, truly bugs me....and you do it frequently.

D&D can be no magic, low magic, medium magic, high magic, or even high technology.

Flying magic is not common in Lankhmar....so is Lankhmar not D&D....despite official products spawning multiple editions, and the fact that the stories inspired the game?
( Rhetorical, no need to answer).

Every gaming table is an island of shared imagination, and is D&D, even if it is not fitting your aesthetic.

Nothing personal...I’m not objecting to you, but the behavior and position you take vis a vis what is D&D.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

There seems to be a lot of rather ugly stuff going on here. If you don't do it my way, it is dumb. It if isn't how I'd do it, you are doing it wrong.

EN World does not support One True Wayism. If your players are happy, you are doing it right. Because folks at the table being happy with their game is ultimately what matters. Abusing folks over the "right" way to play is not acceptable here.

Make sure you haven't lost sight of that as you continue with this discussion. Thanks, all.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Mod Note:

There seems to be a lot of rather ugly stuff going on here. If you don't do it my way, it is dumb. It if isn't how I'd do it, you are doing it wrong.

EN World does not support One True Wayism. If your players are happy, you are doing it right. Because folks at the table being happy with their game is ultimately what matters. Abusign folks over the "right" way to play is not acceptable here.

Make sure you haven't lost sight of that as you continue with this discussion.

It is One True Wayism that really puts me off RPG communities and by association games. The overbearing opinions dressed in definitive statements and shooting down of other's ways of doing things because of that is ugly and unwarranted. This applies equally in real life and on forums.
People are different. They will have different ways of doing things. Enworld is generally very good with contrasting opinions.

 

[Asisreo]

Well, no matter how you play, even if you consider 4-elemonks expensive or flying is easily acquired, you're not losing the best features of a monk. Even if you do end up using almost half your Ki points in a whole day on one round for Cone of Cold, it's assumed you do 6d8 damage across an average of 6 targets totaling 36d8 damage in one turn. I think that's pretty Ki efficient.

And it gives options, options that are hard to get as a monk. Even if you never face a flying enemy in your game, the AoE damage is unprecedented as a monk and the mobility options are nice icing on the cake. Shape of flowing water as impromptu cover and walls is awesome and wall of fire and stone are very effective against groups of grounded enemies.

No longer is the monk limited to one-at-a-time, bruce lee style combat.

 

[Guest 6801328]

If it drained some amount of party resources, it is a good encounter design. Just putting an arbitrary wall across the road can be a good encounter IF it drains some of the party resources for them to get over it.

You have to keep in mind, as the GM, what the party abilities are, the situation the party is in, and what happened both before and after the encounter to determine if it was an actual drain on resources.

An encounter that is just a random wall across a road isn't a good encounter if....

-the party can ignore the wall without expending resources at all (they all have flying boots or its an easy climb and they all have rope and plenty of time)

-the party can ignore the wall without expending resources for that adventuring day (they break camp, use a warlock spell to all get over the wall, short rest, carry on with the hour wasted not making a difference to the story)

In your example...the party is facing 2 goblins behind barricades with caltrops defending the barricades...I don't think that is a trivial encounter. Now..if the entire party of 1st level character could fly without using resources for some reason the barricades and the caltrops become set dressing and the 2 goblins is the only actual "encounter" at that point. While its very easy....its not "nothing".

*edited to expand my thoughts.

Yeah, you kind of jumped into this fight but don't seem aware of how we got here.

1. It started with a reference to Boots of Flying (or "Winged Boots"). Using it for a short combat consumes basically 1/240th of that resource (which recharges), so not much resource consumption.
2. And the point of using a 1st level encounter is to refute the claim that "if it can be trivialized by flight, you're doing it wrong." It should be obvious that a DM shouldn't need to anticipate flight in designing a 1st level encounter, right? And that if flight would trivialize it, that's no more meaningful than if a fireball would trivialize it, right? Either way it's just not something that's going to happen. Likewise for a DM that knows his players don't have access to flight, regardless of level. Q.E.F.D.

 

[Asisreo]

Yeah, you kind of jumped into this fight but don't seem aware of how we got here.

1. It started with a reference to Boots of Flying (or "Winged Boots"). Using it for a short combat consumes basically 1/240th of that resource (which recharges), so not much resource consumption.
2. And the point of using a 1st level encounter is to refute the claim that "if it can be trivialized by flight, you're doing it wrong." It should be obvious that a DM shouldn't need to anticipate flight in designing a 1st level encounter, right? And that if flight would trivialize it, that's no more meaningful than if a fireball would trivialize it, right? Either way it's just not something that's going to happen. Likewise for a DM that knows his players don't have access to flight, regardless of level. Q.E.F.D.

As an example, the second campaign I've ever run in 5e, the party came across a goblin village with high walls. When I wrote the encounter 2 months prior, I expected the PC's to have to negotiate with the goblins, if they made the goblins mad, they'd pelt them from the high walls with their shortbows. I suspected it would be quite the incentive to negotiate and not just attack. Well, I let a player play an Aarockra and it turned out quite different as they didn't even say a word to the goblins as he clobbered them a bit and opened the gate from the inside, effectively turning what I balanced into a one-sided beatdown.

I didn't really mind, though. I stopped allowing Aarockra since then but I don't despise that part, I did feel outsmarted, though.

 

[Guest 6801328]

As an example, the second campaign I've ever run in 5e, the party came across a goblin village with high walls. When I wrote the encounter 2 months prior, I expected the PC's to have to negotiate with the goblins, if they made the goblins mad, they'd pelt them from the high walls with their shortbows. I suspected it would be quite the incentive to negotiate and not just attack. Well, I let a player play an Aarockra and it turned out quite different as they didn't even say a word to the goblins as he clobbered them a bit and opened the gate from the inside, effectively turning what I balanced into a one-sided beatdown.

I didn't really mind, though. I stopped allowing Aarockra since then but I don't despise that part, I did feel outsmarted, though.

I can't say I "mind" when players think up clever solutions to challenges, but I do feel as though I've let them down. The game is most fun when the challenges are the hardest to overcome. My most memorable fights (as a player) are the times I spent most of it thinking we were going to have to roll new characters.

 

[Flamestrike]

Sorry, but that's just dumb.

Would you say the same thing about a level 1 encounter? Let's say you put some goblins with bows behind some barricades that give them cover, and there are caltrops spread on the ground in front of them.

Normally you'd have to advance across the caltrops, deciding whether to do so slowly and carefully, or go quickly and trust your Dex save, then either hop over the barricades, or try to fight them from the other side.

With flight you just fly over the caltrops, fly over the barricades, and kill the goblins. Trivial.

So....is that encounter "doing it wrong"?

This encounter is not being trivialised at all!

In the encounter you posited above, the flying PC has managed to avoid either walking at half speed to close with the Goblins, or avoid a DC 15 Dexterity save to walk at full speed through them (without stopping and taking 1 point of damage). Whoop-de-do. The exact same 'challenge' could be circumvented by a simple Misty step spell, jumping, or a PC with a broom.

What's with us and brooms in this thread by the way?

My point regarding flight and it trivialising encounters, is that if flight is trivialising your encounters, you're designing your encounters wrong.

You shouldnt be afraid of PCs with flight trivialising encounters, any more that you would be afraid of PCs with fireball trivialising encounters. I mean (as long as you're designing your encounters correctly), sometimes flight (or any other special ability or spell of the PCs) will dominate an encounter. That's the whole point of advancing in level and obtaining those new abilities. But you (the DM) should also be factoring in those new abilities into your encounter design, just like you factor in the party composition, party level (vs CR) number of people in the party and so forth into your encounter design.

The tower

I reminded of the old story of a DM who designed a tower adventure for mid level PCs, that was supposed to take a few sessions. Each level of the tower contained fearsome guardians with the top level containing the BBEG. Long story short, the PCs teleported and flew to the top level of the tower, disintegrated their way in and took the BEEG out without dealing with the minions, inside of 30 minutes of play.

The DM was at a loss how to challenge these PCs and the campaign ended.

The issue wasnt the PC's trivialising the encounters; the issue was the DM lacked the experience with PC abilities of that level, and designed his adventure as if they were 1st level PCs. He failed to take into account the abilities possessed by PCs of that level. He failed again, by quitting the campaign, and failing to gain experience DMing PCs of that level.

If I have an entire party of flying PCs (and my last campaign featured just that from mid level to 20th+) and they're trivialising encounters, you're designing your encounters wrong. You should have a mix of encounters, with decent ranged attacks or spells, flying creatures, encounters set in dungeons where flight is nullified etc, in addition to encounters that are deliberately placed to highlight the PC's ability to fly (encounters where the PCs are supposed to win, or gain a dominant tactical advantage over the monsters on account of their ability to fly).

Past CR 5 or so, many monsters fly. Chimera, Wyverns, Dragons, Sphynx, many Demons and Devils etc. If they dont fly, they have spellcasting or similar traits that also make them able to fly, or alternatively not care if you do. (breath weapons etc). For the monsters that dont fly, have them attack in ruins or dungeons where flight isnt an issue.

Flight is a non issue in 5E. I've had 1st level PCs able to fly and it trivialises nothing.