D&D 5E High Level Monks

I forgot the progression. Thought they went to d12. Woops.

And long death is 2d10 per ki? That's a bit better, but it's still 10d10 on a failed save for 10 ki, instead of 3 ki. Granted, it's only one attack and not a round delay. That round delay, though, still has a damage comparable to just two rounds of flurry, and for 1 ki more you can kill.

Is their assumption that 2 rounds of attacks is enough to take most things out?


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Against enemies that have over 100 or so HP with low con saves, this is a pretty good ability to kill them, overall great value. However against high CR enemies they have either naturally high con saves or legendary resistances to prevent this, Against those creatures it's likely better to overload their save with stunning strike + prone on flurry. I think you are underestimating how good stunning strike and the free riders on flurry of blows are.

The monk isn't a very good nova-er. They excel at battlefield control, able to get in and stun high priority targets. Having this as their level 17 ability isn't really out of line with other classes. It's probably the best among the monk classes, but that's because W4E has some resource management issues, and shadow has many more out of combat abilities.
 

I forgot the progression. Thought they went to d12. Woops.

And long death is 2d10 per ki? That's a bit better, but it's still 10d10 on a failed save for 10 ki, instead of 3 ki. Granted, it's only one attack and not a round delay. That round delay, though, still has a damage comparable to just two rounds of flurry, and for 1 ki more you can kill.

Don't you mean 10d10 on a successful save? On a failed save it's 20d10, vs. Death.

Quivering Palm is better in most ways, but Death Touch does have more immediacy, which means that Quivering Palm has the possibility of wasting ki, if it turns out that the enemy is already dead or neutralized by the time your next action comes up.

Overall Death Monks are still better, but Death Touch is only a so-so ability instead of a great one.
 

Yes, successful save. Failed ability, successful save. Typing on my phone is tough.

I suppose to maximize Quivering palm, you have to have your allies not Attack your target. I'm still concerned how cheap it is. 3 out of 17 ki means I can try it in every fight without hesitation. And making someone waste a legendary save for 3 ki is pretty good. I'd rather take a prone than dead.


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Yes, successful save. Failed ability, successful save. Typing on my phone is tough.

I suppose to maximize Quivering palm, you have to have your allies not Attack your target. I'm still concerned how cheap it is. 3 out of 17 ki means I can try it in every fight without hesitation. And making someone waste a legendary save for 3 ki is pretty good. I'd rather take a prone than dead.

Let's say that you do try to use Quivering Palm in every fight. Now you're spending ki, and you're telling your allies not to attack it, and if it's something that has legendary resistances it's about 70-80% likely to not even need to use those legendary resistances against your ki anyway. E.g. an adult red will succeed on a DC 19 Con save 75% of the time.

So every time you do this, you're spending 3 ki and a round of combat to inflict 55 points of damage and force expenditure of 0.25 legendary actions by the dragon.

Not terrible, but definitely not overpowered. The fighter is probably doing more damage than that on his turn when he Action Surges.

IMO, the best use of Quivering Palm is on opportunity attacks. "You turn your back on me, I make you explode." That's a significantly better deterrent effect than Sentinel's "You turn your back on me, I make you stop moving briefly."
 

Honestly, even as far back as 1E, I never thought of Quivering Palm as something you did purely for the sake of killing an enemy in the midst of combat. It was something you did to force an enemy (or someone else) to stand down, or take some action you demanded. "Have your forces surrender or you die," "Tell me where you've hidden the prince," that kind of thing.
 

Honestly, even as far back as 1E, I never thought of Quivering Palm as something you did purely for the sake of killing an enemy in the midst of combat. It was something you did to force an enemy (or someone else) to stand down, or take some action you demanded. "Have your forces surrender or you die," "Tell me where you've hidden the prince," that kind of thing.

Well, you have to do it to some random flunky first, so your target can see exactly what will happen if they refuse. I suppose that is a reason to use it in combat, since most intelligent species will probably start running once their friend's heart just explodes out of nowhere.
 

So what you are saying is you the monk needs to 2 levels of fighter then they can do it all in one round :p ok that requires level 19 but hey it works
 


Oh, c'mon! We've all seen the movies! We know how to use quivering palm!

Kaine, the Bald Headed- I have struck you, now you will die.

Orc, Chief Warlord of the Orc Fodder Tribe- HA! You hit me, and I feel nothing. I AM ORC!

Kaine- *smiles*

Orc- *clutches stomach ... thin trail of blood escapes from mouth ... looks down at stomach ... falls down dead*

Old School Fist fo the North Star Kensiro is a better example

[video=youtube;weoc5fA4200]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weoc5fA4200[/video]
 

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