D&D 5E Homebrew: AJ's 5e SAD Monk


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Another issue is analysis paralysis: Give the player the ability to choose from ANY spell and they'll scour every book and weight in on every single spell... it'll be a whole ordeal. At least limit it to a single class. Preferably not Wizard, because they get almost everything anyway. I think Bard or Sorcerer would fit the Charisma focus, but Druid or Cleric could also fit the 'Monk who learned in an isolated monastery' schtick of like Shaolin monks and stuff.
Not too worried, honestly. Most players will be able to rattle off three qualifying spells they find cool. If not, they can tell their DM what effects they want their monk to create and ask for advice.

Even a borderline normie will be able to say something like: Magic Missile, Invisibility, Fireball.

And a more experienced one can come up with really cool thematic sets like: Hex, Shadow Blade, Bestow Curse.
skirmish action denial
You mean Stunning Strike? Yeah that's underpowered AF.
Okay, it's a 49 minute video. You haven't earned 49 minutes of my time. If you want to make a point, make a point. I reject your appeal-to-authority fallacy.
Boiling it down... proponents of the vanilla monk continuously cycle between 3 incorrect arguments (plus 1 hilariously bad one) and seamlessly abandon one for the next as they get proven wrong - like 4 different motte-and-bailey's on repeat. The response depends on which incorrect argument you're bringing today:
  1. Monks are good at tanking: No. They have the worst AC and HP of any martial, except bladelocks who more than make up for it with Pact Magic. They also don't have any mechanics for drawing threat or redirecting attacks.
  2. Well Monks are good at damage: No, they're not. Even optimized, they have absolutely the worst DPR of any class.
  3. Actually Monks are good at control: No. Stunning Strike is weak, situational and ki-limited. It targets the strongest save in the game for a 1-round effect and requires two rolls to actually work, with the second being an average 50-55% chance of failure on leveled threats and 75-85% on BB's. Example: as of 3 years ago, Beau in Critical Role attempted hundreds of Stunning Strikes and only succeeded 34.25%. The monk can't grapple either because you have to dump Str to preserve enough Con to be relevant. A bard can wipe the floor with a monk on control, let alone a wizard, cleric or warlock. And - insult to injury - a cleric will have better AC and a warlock will have better DPR.
  4. But a Monk has MOBILITY: So it can be useless everywhere.
  5. You're missing the point that Monks are actually for tanking: Blah blah blah forever and ever.
You have now exhausted my patience for you. If you want more, then go watch the video.
 
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You mean Stunning Strike? Yeah that's underpowered AF.
How to say "I've never seen a competent monk played" without actually saying it.

Yes, CON sucks as a save. But since you can force multiple CON saves in a round, mathematically it's the hardest ability to save against. And you have the mobility to get to foes with lower CON like casters.

It's a strong save-or-suck, giving advantage to allies (and you) attacking as well as denying their action. And we know action economy is very big in 5e. And does all this without requiring Concentration, so there's no way for other foes to break Concentration to give back the action.

Multiple save-or-suck in a round also can drain Legendary Saves faster than any other character. Because it really is a hard enough debuff that they will want to spend it.
 

Multiple save-or-suck in a round also can drain Legendary Saves faster than any other character. Because it really is a hard enough debuff that they will want to spend it.
This is one good point. Let's do the math assuming no modifiers.

A high-level monk can force a Lich to use at least 1LR roughly 80% of the time per turn if flurrying and stunning each time. The odds of using up 2LR is 41.8%. The odds of using up all 3LR is 11.48%. The odds of actually stunning is 1.3%. The monk can keep this pace up a total of 3 turns, 4 if level 20 (taking into account miss chance and not including AO's: 4.25 turns at level 17, 5 turns at level 20). Once that ki is gone, it's providing less than half the value of any other class.

But.... does math... a competently-built high-level fighter will deal an average 88.47 on the first turn and - not factoring in crits - can kill a lich 71.97% of the time on the second turn. Also at least a 2.66% chance of one-shot, more than double the chance of a monk's stun.

The monk has 36.85% the nova DPR of a fighter and 77.72% the hit points. The fighter has a maximum 16% chance of failing to save vs paralyzing touch... the monk has a 45% chance (edit: unless spending ki for a 20.25% chance fail).

The vanilla monk can do some pretty cool things in niche situations, but overall it's weaker compared to other classes - even when burning ki to nova out.

EDIT: Also any lich or archmage or caster BB worth their salt (i.e. not the garbage in the MM) will have much smarter spell selection. Forcecage --> bye bye melee and it's not even concentration.
 
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