D&D 5E (2014) Giving Way of 4 Elements Passive abilities, thoughts?

[Lanliss]

I have been bouncing this idea around for a while, and want to see if you all have any helpful thoughts on the matter. What if there were passive abilities that came with the traditions? Nothing big (early on) but little things like a swim speed with water whip, or advantage on saves vs. Cold damage with the fangs of the fire snake.

By the end, I might push more bender-ish aspects, like increased Constitution for the Wave of rolling Earth, maybe similar to the Barbarian skill but only up to 22?

Any thoughts and/or ideas?

 

[mellored]

Sounds good, they could use a bump. Just don't go overboard.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Sounds hard to balance and highly likely to make those passive abilities the only reason to pick your tradition, since Ki is a shared resource with some pretty potent abilities for the base monk.

I personally think the way to make this monk viable is to
1) Increase the number of traditions learnt.
2) Make more utility traditions available.

At present most of the traditions are offense or defense... which Ki can already be used for.

 

[UnknownDyson]

Hey man, if you're looking to increase the abilities of the Way of the 4 Elements subclass there is an excellent homebrew for the class which was worked on collectively by members of the D&D reddit community. Personally, I feel as though Way of the 4 Elements is really sub-par compared to the other monk paths and they missed a huge opportunity to give it a boost when they released the elemental evil player's companion. This homebrew has commentary on why they are altering attributes of the subclass and gives the Way of 4 Elements access to elemental spells released with Princes of the Apocalypse. You might want to take a look. https://archive.4plebs.org/dl/tg/image/1433/19/1433195829577.pdf

 

[Lanliss]

Hey man, if you're looking to increase the abilities of the Way of the 4 Elements subclass there is an excellent homebrew for the class which was worked on collectively by members of the D&D reddit community. Personally, I feel as though Way of the 4 Elements is really sub-par compared to the other monk paths and they missed a huge opportunity to give it a boost when they released the elemental evil player's companion. This homebrew has commentary on why they are altering attributes of the subclass and gives the Way of 4 Elements access to elemental spells released with Princes of the Apocalypse. You might want to take a look. https://archive.4plebs.org/dl/tg/image/1433/19/1433195829577.pdf

Oh, thanks. I somehow forgot this existed.

 

[cooperjer]

[MENTION=6801369]UnknownDyson[/MENTION], did you get a chance to play this modified class? If so, what level did you play to? I have a concern with Fist of Unbroken Air, Eyes of Fire, Impenetrable Iron Tortoise Shell, and Changing the Tide. Did you get a chance to play with these disciplines?

 

[UnknownDyson]

@UnknownDyson, did you get a chance to play this modified class? If so, what level did you play to? I have a concern with Fist of Unbroken Air, Eyes of Fire, Impenetrable Iron Tortoise Shell, and Changing the Tide. Did you get a chance to play with these disciplines?

I am currently playing an air genasi monk. I'm currently level 3 but I've play tested this subclass before. Fists of Unbroken Air may seem kind of broken but making your unarmed attacks ranged will give you disadvantage if your opponent/target is within 5 feet of you. Spending a ki point to prone them also doesnt grant you advantage because of that. The ability is still nice because it gives you ranged capability with a potential prone. What issues did you have?

Eyes of Fire does seem a little OP but it only lasts a minute, true sight can still be foiled with obscurement from things like smoke and fog. And if you look at it like thermal vision (which, really that's what it is) you can play tricks on the pc because they can only see heat. Or simply not include it, truesight for a minute at 6th level might be too much. There are ways to use this against the PC though.

IImpenetrable Iron Tortoise shell would be fine if it wasn't for the part where it says that the target takes damage not absorbed by the deflect missle feature. You can alter it to make it do flat damage or simply remove it.

One with the Tides is pretty niche, if you're running an aquatic campaign something like this would be pretty powerful but if you were playing a triton monk than you would have all of this sans blindsight perpetually anyway.

What are your thoughts?

 

[cooperjer]

@ UnknownDyson
Concerns with Fist of Unbroken Air: It's not an attack as you describe. The text in your link details it as a Strength save. My primary concern is adding 2X monk level to the damage. I feel the 2d10 damage for 2 ki plus and additional 2d10 for each ki after limited by the max ki spent by level is about right. The bonus damage from the Wisdom modifier may or may not be significant. I would need to run some calcs to compare to similar features/spells.

Concerns with Eyes of Fire: This introduces infravision as a sense type. Infravision is not detailed in the PHB, thus it's now more subjective to my whim and the players cannot read my mind to know if I feel heat transfers well through any substance. I would prefer to link it to an existing sense detailed in the PHB or MM.

Concerns with Impenetrable Iron Tortoise: I would need to check the Deflect Missiles feature to be sure, but as written this discipline allows the monk to deflect magic attacks and boulders or tree trunks. I believe the Deflect Missiles feature allows the monk to deflect a weapon attack that has a projectile that they can fit in their hand. I would prefer to limit to weapon attacks. I'm okay with removing the size limit. I'm also trying to wrap my head around the 30-ft radius. In my game I would prefer this to be smaller. I'm not sure how much smaller, but 30-ft, intuitively, feels too big.

Concerns with Changing the Tide: You made comments about One with Tides; not this 17th level discipline. The text of this discipline mixes attack with save. I would remove the save aspect of the discipline. As written it would allow a monk to move fireball damage to an adjacent creature.

I'm thinking of bringing this into my game. I don't have a monk player now, but the last monk in my game was a Way of the Four Elements monk. The player and I both struggled with making the design work and feel fun but not put the Barbarian to shame in damage absorption or put the Sorcerer to shame in ranged damage output. This design seems to give them some versatility and still allow other classes to shine where the player expects them to.

 

[UnknownDyson]

I was referring to the altered version of Way of the 4 Elements that I linked in this thread. That might be where some of this confusion is. In my opinion the PHB version of Way of the 4 Elements has a lot more problems than the ones you listed.

 

[cooperjer]

[MENTION=6801369]UnknownDyson[/MENTION]

My comments are directly related to the document you linked. I wonder if there are a couple different versions being referenced? Do your version have the same information as the link you provided?