D&D 5E How Good/Bad are Monks?

[Flamestrike]

Action Surge (for 2 more d8+3 attacks once per short rest) > Evasion?????

Absolutely! How often are you copping a (dex save for half) per adventuring day anyway? It crops up like once or twice a level, and even then its only a reduction in damage. You already have good dex saves as is (and a great dex score) so youre likely copping half damage anyway. Its not removing nasty status effects.

Action surge is a 1/short rest extra [run or withdraw action for mobility, extra attack action for offense, extra dodge or hide action for defense]. Its one of the best abilities in the game.

Now you can [bonus action step of the wind] + move + [run with your action] 150' along the walls and use your action [via action surge] to punch someone in the face twice at the end of that movement.

It opens up a lot of options on a monk.

4 Superiority dice that at most give 1d8 damage and some kind of minor effect > than 3 more chances to stun opponents?????

Not better than - I said about equal to. The abilities picked were riposte, disarming strike, and precise strike. So you are getting free reaction attacks if your opponent misses, ensuring your stunning fists actually hit in the first place, and automatically disarming (and dealing extra damage to) your opponent. I place 4 superiority dice about equal in value to 3 Ki points.

 

[Flamestrike]

1. Prone sucks if the guy is stunned.....

Only for archers.

And use your last flurry attack to grapple him. Now he's prone, disarmed, stunned and grappled and not going anywhere.

2. BM superiority dice doesn't actually help with DPR.

What? Disarming strike adds +1d8 to damage. Precise strike adds +1d8 to hit. Riposte grants you an extra attack on your opponents turn [possibly allowing you to stun him when its not even your turn in addition to the damage]

The manouvers up your DPR considerably.

Having more KI to keep up stunning and flurrying will do more for DPR than using superiority dice.

 

[FrogReaver]

Absolutely! How often are you copping a (dex save for half) per adventuring day anyway? It crops up like once or twice a level, and even then its only a reduction in damage. You already have good dex saves as is (and a great dex score) so youre likely copping half damage anyway. Its not removing nasty status effects.

Action surge is a 1/short rest extra [run or withdraw action for mobility, extra attack action for offense, extra dodge or hide action for defense]. Its one of the best abilities in the game.

Now you can [bonus action step of the wind] + move + [run with your action] 150' along the walls and use your action [via action surge] to punch someone in the face twice at the end of that movement.

It opens up a lot of options on a monk.



Not better than - I said about equal to. The abilities picked were riposte, disarming strike, and precise strike. So you are getting free reaction attacks if your opponent misses, ensuring your stunning fists actually hit in the first place, and automatically disarming (and dealing extra damage to) your opponent. I place 4 superiority dice about equal in value to 3 Ki points.

Interesting paradigm.... 8 damage per short rest is much better than an ability that can keep you from any damage on some of the most damaging abilities in the game and on an unlucky dex save will likely keep you from falling to 0 hp.

Also thanks for explaining that you really undervalue stunning strike. At least now I know where the issue is.

 

[FrogReaver]

Only for archers.

And use your last flurry attack to grapple him. Now he's prone, disarmed, stunned and grappled and not going anywhere.



What? Disarming strike adds +1d8 to damage. Precise strike adds +1d8 to hit. Riposte grants you an extra attack on your opponents turn [possibly allowing you to stun him when its not even your turn in addition to the damage]

The manouvers up your DPR considerably.



View attachment 74249

1. Why not both? FINITE RESOURCES. You only get soo many uses of everything you want. Makes sense to focus on the better abilities than the inferior ones. Stunning strike is the best ability. Focus on it at least until you have enough resources to typically stun something once a round.

2. If you stunned the opponent on your turn then you won't need to stun him off your turn.

3. THE DPR gained by stunning strike and flurry of blows is equal or better than the DPR gained by superiority dice at least until you can stunning strike and flurry of blows every round together (around level 16 monk)

4. The only thing the battleMaster 3 build is better at is NOVA damage, not DPR. Is it worth sacrificing the number of stuns you have for an increase in NOVA damage? Not with the kind of increase we are talking about IMO. You can double your damage for a turn and burn most of your resources in the process which in turn lowers your DPR the rest of the time. Damage now is better than damage later, but I'm not convinced this one time damage now trait is worth giving up so many more stuns for. IMO it definetely is not.

 

[Flamestrike]

1. Why not both? FINITE RESOURCES. You only get soo many uses of everything you want.

8 Ki per SR

vs.

5 Ki per SR
4 superiority dice per SR
1 Action surge per SR
1 second wind per SR

Youre about even on resources there.

2. If you stunned the opponent on your turn then you won't need to stun him off your turn.

What if you didnt?

3. THE DPR gained by stunning strike and flurry of blows is equal or better than the DPR gained by superiority dice at least until you can stunning strike and flurry of blows every round together (around level 16 monk)

The class has BOTH. It can flurry, action surge, spam stunning fist 4 times, deliver 2 OHM strikes on the stunning fists AND spam 4 superiority dice in a single turn.

It doesnt have to of course. But it can.

4. The only thing the battleMaster 3 build is better at is NOVA damage, not DPR.

Wanna run the numbers on that?

 

[FrogReaver]

8 Ki per SR

vs.

5 Ki per SR
4 superiority dice per SR
1 Action surge per SR
1 second wind per SR

Youre about even on resources there.



What if you didnt?



The class has BOTH. It can flurry, action surge, spam stunning fist 4 times, deliver 2 OHM strikes on the stunning fists AND spam 4 superiority dice in a single turn.

It doesnt have to of course. But it can.



Wanna run the numbers on that?

Yes, but probably not tonight. Monk calculations can get kind of complex and require some assumptions. Makes them not super easy to accomplish. BattleMaster calculations are at least easy. I'll start by comparing with just flurry of blows. Keep in mind it's my position that stunning strike adds more DPR than flurry (especially if you count party DPR)

DPR of Monk 5 BattleMaster 3: (Assuming 8 rounds of combat between short rests and 55% chance to hit)

Round 1: d6+6 * 4 + d6+4 =53*.55 = 29.15 (1ki and action surge spent)
Round 2: d6+6 *2 +d6+4*2 = 34*.55 = 18.7 (1ki)
Round 3: same as round 2 = 18.7
Round 4: same as round 2 = 18.7
Round 5: same as round 2 = 18.7
Round 6: d6+6*2 + d6+4 = 26.5 * .55= 14.575
Round 7: 14.575
Round 8: 14.575

Additional damage from battleMaster: 4d8 = +18

=20.7 DPR

Monk 8
d6+5 * 4 = 34 * .6 = 20.4

DPR = 20.4

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20.7 vs 20.4 and I don't even feel I'm looking at the better DPR ability that the monk actually has...

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Honestly I would deem the ability to cancel fear alone worth much greather than 1.5 hp...... That it can help on even some charm effects is just gravy.

Huh. Why the itch to dispel fear? At your table, do you fight a lot of dragons?

My take on Fear is that while it is useful for players to impose on monsters (because of crowd control, disadvantage on ability checks, disadvantage on attacks), its value is limited when used against the PCs because they have so many ways to mitigate it, from spells like Calm Emotions to simply retreating en masse for a round (possibly shooting all the while, depending on the range) while the fear wears off. Maybe I'm underestimating it--if anyone can suggest a common scenario where Fear is really awful I'd be glad to hear it and use it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Huh. Why the itch to dispel fear? At your table, do you fight a lot of dragons?

My take on Fear is that while it is useful for players to impose on monsters (because of crowd control, disadvantage on ability checks, disadvantage on attacks), its value is limited when used against the PCs because they have so many ways to mitigate it, from spells like Calm Emotions to simply retreating en masse for a round (possibly shooting all the while, depending on the range) while the fear wears off. Maybe I'm underestimating it--if anyone can suggest a common scenario where Fear is really awful I'd be glad to hear it and use it.

I play in smaller parties most the time. 2 or 3 PC parties. Can't always depend on Calm Emotions or other spells for such things.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I play in smaller parties most the time. 2 or 3 PC parties. Can't always depend on Calm Emotions or other spells for such things.

Smaller parties IME have an easier time retreating. One of you picks up the other and zoom, off you go, thanks to Cunning Action/Expeditious Retreat/Mobile. Once the fear wears off you're typically immune for 24 hours or so.

So, I think there are still additional factors I'm missing. Maybe you could tell a couple stories about times when Fear really wrecked you in 5E?

(Also, small parties rock. 2-4 PCs maximum is my preference. Every player gets lots of agency.)

 

[77IM]

Interesting debate! Now I am considering dipping into Battlemaster Fighter for 3 levels (I'm already level 11 so I feel like I have enough ki... I'll be sad to miss out on proficiency in every single saving throw at level 14, though).


Re: Stunning Strike vs. superiority die: Remember that Stunning Strike allows a Constitution saving throw; some of the guys you'd really like to stun have very high Con. A superiority die is just straight up +1d8! That's pretty tempting.