D&D 5E Barbarian vs Fighter vs Monk

[Warbringer]

Great analysis overall.

Monk has always being an odd fish, but I'd like to see either features or ki focus on some abilities that either reduce/avoid damage, have defensive damage on successful hits against the monk, and some tricky movement stuff that is iconic to the archetype.

 

[Kobold Stew]

This (hugely helpful) analysis has got me thinking:

What if the Monk were a Martial Path? It would mean that a character begins as a regular (Dex-based) fighter for the first two levels, but then eschews weapons and armour for the pure life. Granted, there are a lot of benefits at each level, but many of them are making up for things the fighter would normally have. Thinks like ki and flurry of blows end up being flavour text to explain the increased attacks a fighter gets in any case.

It's still very much an individualist, but my sense is that this comes closer to emulating the old-school AD&D monk.

(This is off the top of my head, but it doesn't seem obviously wrong; obviously it would need tweaking, etc.)

It could look something like this:

Path of the Monk.
3 *Unarmed Strike, *Unarmored Defence, +10' movement, Expertise
7 Slow Fall, *Clear Mind, Undaunted Strike, +10' movement
10 *Purity of Body, *Diamond Body, Step of the Wind, *Improved Unarmed Strikes
15 *Timeless Body, +10' movement, Improved Expertise, Superior Unarmed Strike.
19 Empty Body, *Tongue of Sun and Moon.

* features marked with an asterisk behave as in the current (Aug 2013) test packet.

Expertise: Choose Dexterity, Wisdom, or Constitution. You get an Expertise die with the chosen ability, so that when you make a check… etc.

Slow Fall: You can slow your descent when falling. If you are unencumbered, you take no damage from a fall and may land on your feet, as if you were subject to the spell Feather Fall.

Undaunted Strike: Your unarmed attacks are considered magical.

Step of the Wind: you can move along vertical surfaces and across liquids without penalty.

Improved Expertise: Choose one of Dexterity, Wisdom, or Constitution not selected at level 3. Your Expertise die may be applied to checks with that ability.

Superior Unarmed Strike: Your unarmed attacks now do 1d10 damage.

Empty body: You can make yourself insubstantial, as if you were subject to the spell Etherealness. You must complete a long rest to use this ability again.

 

[gyor]

I'm point out that the monk has a great defensive trick against ranged attacks. Not much help against melee foe.

I think Paladin would have made a better comparison with the Barbarian and Fighter as the Pally is a front line fighter. Heck even the Cleric would have been better.

Lets say you arm the Paladin like the fighter, same race, Paladin using say the spell bless, which gives him an addeds 1d6 to his attacks as long as he constrates a 1d8+4 plus 1d6 radiant damage to each of his two attacks. His first attack would be a smite which adds 2d8 because a fjre giant is not a fiend or undead.

One more level would have given him divine strike, but he's out of luck.

His armour is the same as the fighters, but his defensive abilies only give him the advantage against non ac targeting attacks, or after combat when its safe to use lay on hands to heal (at level 10 that 50 hp he can heal) or if the Paladin cast a spell to protect himself although he'd have to sacrifice bless for anything with consontration.

On the plus side he doesn't have to fear ghouls as much as a barbarian.

Mobility wise his mount makes all the difference, a Barbarian or fighter would be foolish to ride a horse into battle, it'd be giant food. A Paladin's mount is tougher stuff. Even the monk will have a hard time beating the Paladin when it comes mobility except anywhere he can't bring his mount.

I have no idea what that math adds up to honestly ;p but it seems competive with the fighter and Barbarian. It leaves the monk in the dust as well.

The monk needs a boost, seriously.

 

[Quartz]

Wow, great work. Now we have the PHB, can I ask you to extend your analysis on two matters?

Firstly, you've gone for a strength-based barbarian, so how does a Dex-based barbarian, with rapier and shield and (perhaps) no armour compare?

Secondly, you've assumed the fighter is in armour. Many encounters will occur when characters are out of armour. I know this will severely inconvenience the fighter but I'd appreciate your analysis as to how much.

 

[skotothalamos]

That monk needs to be using Stunning Strike to get a free extra round of attacks with advantage, which chains into another Stunning Strike, etc. until he's out of Ki and has to spend a lot of time running up walls and throwing things.

If you can't take damage, you should be using your level 5 ability that keeps the enemy from attacking...

Further, you seem to misunderstand how Monks work. Two-Weapon Fighting rules are not their friends. Since the bonus action from Martial Arts or Flurry of Blows uses the full damage value of the Monk's Unarmed Strike (1d6+5), and TWF loses the damage bonus, and you can only take one bonus action per turn, you really don't want to make those "off-hand" attacks you have listed. A 5th-level Monk attacks 3 times a round at full damage bonus without using a Ki point, and 4 times per round with full damage bonus with a Ki Point. If he spends the Ki point, that 3rd and 4th attack can apply effects from Open Hand Technique (for free), which would be knocking the giant prone and pushing it 15 feet from time to time? coupled with the Monk's high movement, this could keep him out of range of the Giant a lot. Stunning Strike and Open Hand keep the Monk from being hit.

I think Monks will do much better in actual combat situations than they do in Excel.

 

[Psikerlord#]

To be honest I dont think analysis' of this kind are terribly useful. Lots of assumptions have to be made, no magic items, and its all averages in the end. And it only looks at combat. Monks do all sorts of cool things like stunning, and teleporting in shadows and massive jumps/drops and water whip your ass. I appreciate the effort the OP put in, it's an interesting thought exercise, but I think the calculation ought to be regarded only as a very generalised guidepost to what you might see at your table.

 

[darius0]

I'm not suggesting you run another set of scenarios, but fighting one powerful monster should be in the barbarian's wheelhouse. Taking half damage from large hits is going to help more against one big attack per round. If they fought 3 lower level monsters the fighter might look tougher, as he avoids more hits and the -2 per hit is closer to the half per hit of the barbarian if the attack is smaller.

The big damage of the barbarian is also more likely to generate more wasted damage against multiple targets.

Not sure what's going to help the monk tho. He seems pretty far behind.

PS

I would be interested in seeing a multiple weaker foe analysis also.



On the subject of the monk. There might be tactics the monk can use to mitigate damage from a single foe. For example against the fire giant. A monk could pull a bit of a hit and run against a fire giant by flurrying, using "open hand technique" to keep the fire giant from taking reactions until the end of the monks next turn, and then moving out of the fire giant's move range. That is if he lands a flurry hit. The fire giant could only throw a rock on his turn which the monk could use deflect missiles to lower the damage. Next round the monk moves in and flurries again but has to take the possible hit on the fire giants next turn. If the monk survives he could repeat the process.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Just adding something in.

10th level rogue wielding dual shortswords and with a party member in the melee line.

Dex 20 + Studded Leather - AC 17. Reaction to Uncanny Dodge to halve damage. DTPR is roughly equal to the Barbarian.

Attacks: +9/+9 (I'm assuming that's what you meant for Leaf as well - Prof went up to +4 at level 9)
Damage: d6+5 / d6 - w/5d6 Sneak Attack if either hit.
Ignoring crits that's 0.55*(d6+5+d6) + (1-(.45*.45))*(5*3.5)
=.55*12 + 319/400*17.5
= 6.6 +13.96
= 20.56 DPR

Alas poor fighter!

At 5th level vs the Ankylosaurus, Dex 18 (double check your barbarian please! I'm only getting him to Str 19)

AC 16, attacks: +7/+7 (Again, assuming that's what you meant for Leaf - Prof went up at +5? - Using Leaf's probabilities here)
Damage: d6+4 / d6 - w/3d6 Sneak Attack if either hit.
Ignoring crits that's 0.6*(d6+4+d6) + (1-(.4*.4))*(3*3.5)
= .6*11 + .84 * 10.5
= 15.4 DPR

DPR for the rogue, assuming a partner, is ahead of the raging barbarian at this level. (Assuming no flanking partner, the rogue wins in the running away stakes and actually lasts a while).
(DTPR is about 6.2 now you have defensive roll).

I'm also not really trying here. I haven't included anything to do with archetypes, and I'm pretty sure a rogue wins the out of combat race.

 

[Andor]

Looking at the Monk and the Fire Giant, you missed some things in your analysis.

If it's a solo fight, unless the terrain constrains the monk, the Firegiant cannot force him into melee combat. The monk has 50' of movement to the Giants 30'. The monk can use Step of the wind to withdraw, or Open hand technique to knock the giant down and away. If the Fire Giant dashes up to the monk he is hit with a flurry of blows. The first probably knocks him down (+3 dex vs DC 15 save) and the second might knock him away. If it doesn't he has disadvantage on his AoO. Or use Step of the wind. You also didn't factor in the stunlock chance.

At range the Monks Deflect Missiles comes into play improving his defense and the fire giant only has one attack.

Looking at it, between his high movement, ranged defenses and control abilities the Monk is actually a pretty good skirmisher. Of course, in a party that may not be so great, but in a party he'll have support too.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

To be honest I dont think analysis' of this kind are terribly useful. Lots of assumptions have to be made, no magic items, and its all averages in the end. And it only looks at combat. Monks do all sorts of cool things like stunning, and teleporting in shadows and massive jumps/drops and water whip your ass. I appreciate the effort the OP put in, it's an interesting thought exercise, but I think the calculation ought to be regarded only as a very generalised guidepost to what you might see at your table.

Disclaimer: I'm basing this off of my experience with the final playtest rather than the PHB (which I don't have). But that Monk was tightly constrained in terms of Ki points, and short rests being lunch breaks rather than breathers really exacerbates the problem. To wit, at 8th level, I had 4 Ki points and 6 ways to spend them: Flurry, Supreme Flurry, Slow Fall, Step of the Wind, and 2 subclass moves. If you're going off of the 6-8 encounters per day model (which admittedly sounds completely insane to me) that meant about 1 ki point in each fight. And again, this is at 8th level, which is in the range of where a large chunk of campaigns taper out and end. To me, that says that you should generally assume that the monk is not doing a lot of crazy shenanigans and generally has to use his speed to find someone to go toe-to-toe with. And then he needs to hope everything goes according to plan, because if it doesn't, he's made of wet tissue paper.

Edit: Also it has just been pointed out to me that most of these posts and all of the numbers are from August 2013, not from the last week or so. I assume that the final numbers may have changed a bit since then. Whoooops.