D&D 5E 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part VII: Monks)

[DeviousQuail]

I do appreciate how straight forward it is. And unlike most monks it can actually afford to snag a feat. The loss of AC can be made up from Agile Parry or just hanging out at range.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I didn't really have much preference for any of the options in the final five. I'm mostly just glad to see another non-PHB option, though Shadow would have been more or less acceptable. Sun Soul and Drunken Master, on the other hand...nah, not into that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I do appreciate how straight forward it is. And unlike most monks it can actually afford to snag a feat. The loss of AC can be made up from Agile Parry or just hanging out at range.

Makes an excellent zen archer, and tbh is just as quintessentially a Monk as the Open Hand is.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Makes an excellent zen archer, and tbh is just as quintessentially a Monk as the Open Hand is.

It makes a monk that can use a longbow, with some flavorless non-scaling damage bonuses.

I guess we can call that "zen archery"..I would not call it excellent.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It makes a monk that can use a longbow, with some flavorless non-scaling damage bonuses.

Deft Strike works for melee and ranged weapon attacks. The Kensei archer gets at-will damage buffs, one of which very much is scaling, and has a reduced need to use it’s ki for damage output.

I guess we can call that "zen archery"..I would not call it excellent.

Okay.

 

[Tonguez]

I’m happy that my favourite Monk came second and my favourite fighter came first

 

[Gammadoodler]

Deft Strike works for melee and ranged weapon attacks. The Kensei archer gets at-will damage buffs, one of which very much is scaling, and has a reduced need to use it’s ki for damage output.

Okay.

I did misread the deft strikes bit. Read it as weapon damage die rather than martial arts die. So it does scale, but I was giving it more credit than it deserved for half the level range.

After re-thinking it, deft strikes does eventually give access to a sizable pool of per short rest damage adds (though it only pulls even with battlemasters at level 8, is more restrictive to use, comes with zero rider effects, and competes with other monk abilities).

I'm still not fond of it, but it's better than I thought.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Makes an excellent zen archer, and tbh is just as quintessentially a Monk as the Open Hand is.

Yep. Plus I liked the Kensei in 1E (as a Fighter though) and I am happy with the Monk (as a martial) version in 5E. Could it be a bit better, maybe, but it is fun to play and fairly well balanced IMO.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yep. Plus I liked the Kensei in 1E (as a Fighter though) and I am happy with the Monk (as a martial) version in 5E. Could it be a bit better, maybe, but it is fun to play and fairly well balanced IMO.

Yeah IMO it fits monk more than fighter, and I have seen it used a lot to make monk characters that are part of non East Asian esoteric warrior traditions, from occultist swordmasters inspired by Thibault and other eccentric European sword manual writers, to a really cool African philosophy inspired swashbuckler, a North African inspired Dervish, and a couple different Sikh inspired characters.


Speaking of scimitars, one character I played wanted to weird a scimitar and a long knife, but since dual wielding uses your BA I dropped the dagger. I hope that in the upcoming playtest version of the monk, that character could dual wield and use flurry of blows.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I hope that in the upcoming playtest version of the monk, that character could dual wield and use flurry of blows.

I hadn't considered Monks getting 3-4 attacks at lv1 with the TWF change. Then add Hunter's Mark and Hex on top of each of those hits if you want to get absurd...

They're going to have to revise with a bit heavier hand than they've shown so far.