Level Up (A5E) Monk Buff Suggestion

[tetrasodium]

As much as I like some anime, this gets back into the debate about what a PC is: grounded in reality but with really cool stuff (Jackie Chan, Jet Li, etc.) or mystical, magical, and such (like anime often is).

I don't want to play anime style monks, etc. otherwise I would have stuck with the Street Fighter RPG back in the day. I'm totally onboard with that as a subclass that does that, but the core class should focus more on the broader idea of monk IMO.

Anime includes a lot of wuxia-like stuff, but it's quite a bit more and the d&d monk is a super limited subset of the kinda stuff you regularly see in them.
Here's a couple good bits of history. That sort of anime is often representing the tropes of wuxia, but it can do it in a way that doesn't require blockbuster AAA movie budgts because drawing 20 some minutes of it generally costs the same regardless of the special effects type stuff they add to the wirefu.

Spoiler: what is wuxia

This one starts with referencing novels from the 14th century & the magic used in those books & moves on to a bunch of modern movies with plenty of examples of outright magic in modern live action wuxia movies/tv shows

Spoiler: some history & why people fly

People point art certain anime examples because they are good well known wuxia like examples that are made without the blockbuster movie budgets that go into stuff like this

Spoiler: here's a trailer from modern movie version of a 14th century novel

14th centry seems close enough to king Arthur's 6th century

Some of that kind of stuff fits perfectly in d&d where you already have people doing it using magic spells just like the characters in wuxia. The problem with monk is that it also includes a toolbox of class features based on wuxia that fall flat when the character is working as part of a team like in a healthy d&d game rather than a main character. You might have a character who can do something that other characters can't because they know some magical thing or have some magical item, but it's rare to see a character loaded with so much "actually I ignore that.. no I don't do anything, I just ignore it" unless they are up against normal people who are literally the equivalent of d&d's "commoner" & such because i makes for a bad story. It doesn't need a new kind of magic that's not magic or martial combatant who's not martial to disrupt the world with main characterism where a player picking a class literally redefines magic in the world. If you want to play a mundane fighter... there's a class for that & it even works well with dex & all of the other systems in the game. Monk doesn't need to be so focused on reproducing such a tiny fraction of the genre.

 

[Minigiant]

This would also fit well with some other classes subclass design. Like 1/3 caster rogue with its "If you do not already have mage hand, gain it and improve it in this roguey way." That's something that I think is a really good way of making something feel like a subclass with a real connection to its main class.

Well the rogue doesn't get magic hand by default. Not even class has variable base options at start too.

But it would be perfect for classes like monk and warlock. Like a monk would get FoB and Way of Open Palm lets you knock prone, Way of Mercy lets you heal, Way of Sun turns your unarmed strike to fire damage....

 

[Phoebasss]

Well the rogue doesn't get magic hand by default. Not even class has variable base options at start too.

But it would be perfect for classes like monk and warlock. Like a monk would get FoB and Way of Open Palm lets you knock prone, Way of Mercy lets you heal, Way of Sun turns your unarmed strike to fire damage....

I realized it wasn’t the best example I could’ve picked afterward. Oof. I meant more the “you steal things already using your disgusting human fingers, what if instead you stole things in a subclass appropriate way.”

 

[Horwath]

1. HD buffed from d8 to d10.

2. Martial arts damage die increased from d4->d6->d8->d10 to d6->d8->d10->d12

3. any weapon you are proficient is a "monk" weapon.

4. unarmed defense: pick two out of: dex bonus, wis bonus, proficiency bonus.

5. if you have two free hands and you made your Attack action with only unarmed strikes you can make an extra unarmed attack with your flurry of blows bonus action(3 attacks total).

 

[Undrave]

Sure, I could definitely get behind that idea.

Sort of like spending ki to enter into a "mode": fight, flight, or defense. Once you enter the mode (i.e. Flurry, Step of the Wind, or Patent Defense) you can spend your bonus action to benefit from that mode each round until you change modes (by spending another ki point) or finish a rest or something?

That would be a whole lot better if it cut down on the zany "nobody has any freaking clue what a monk's party role is & it's probably not going to be able to coordinate too well" grab bag randomness from turn to turn. too much of the class's design space is trying to fill the fact that it was originally bad at straddling the fighter & monk tables when those were a thing & got a bunch of random abilities when those classes developed into something of their own beyond those tables. A lot of those things didn't always work well(or really at all) in their day & are just kind of an odd collection.

So what if it was something like this...


FOCUSED STATES (didn't want to call it 'Zen State')
By controlling your breathing, centering your mind and taking a specific stance, you can enter a focused state of mind that allow you to push your skills to greater height. During your turn, you can spend 1 ki points to enter a specific State from the list below. Each state offer a specific benefit and will end at the end of your turn if certain conditions are not met, or if you enter another state. At third level, you know the following three states:

Furious Flurry State
Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can make two unarmed strike as a bonus action. This state ends if you do not use your bonus action to make an attack.

Patient Mountain State
You can take the Dodge action as a bonus action on your turn. This state ends if you do not take the Dodge action or if you move more than 20 feet on your turn.

Unfettered Wind State
You can take the Disengage or Dash action as a bonus action on your turn, and your jump distance is doubled. This state ends if you do not move at least 20 feet on your turn.

 

[Undrave]

Some of that kind of stuff fits perfectly in d&d where you already have people doing it using magic spells just like the characters in wuxia. The problem with monk is that it also includes a toolbox of class features based on wuxia that fall flat when the character is working as part of a team like in a healthy d&d game rather than a main character.

As an aside, Journey to the West was actually publishedi n the 16th century and is set, roughly, in the 7th century, as it's a fictionalized account of a famous monk's journey to India.

Another good Chinese legend exemple would Fengshen Yanyi set somewhere around 1050 BC or so.

If you want an interesting fictionel exemple of a Monk, look no further than Thunderbolt Fantasy! Its first season shows us the epic moment where...

Spoiler: Spoiler for Thunderbolt Fantasy season 1 episode 12

The level 10 Swordsman turns out to be a level 20 Monk with a wooden sword as a weapon...

he character is specifically called out as a master of Ki manipulation, turning things like wood and cloth into edged weapons with Ki alone, and even fights off a magical poison in the second season by meditating. His fighting technique is known as the 'Formless Rogue Sword'.

The first season of Thunderbolt Fantasy has a very D&D style plot: "Gather allies, get to the bad guy's hideout, passing through multiple trials, and get McGuffin A before he gets MacGuffin B to assemble MacGuffin C."

 

[tetrasodium]

So what if it was something like this...


FOCUSED STATES (didn't want to call it 'Zen State')
By controlling your breathing, centering your mind and taking a specific stance, you can enter a focused state of mind that allow you to push your skills to greater height. During your turn, you can spend 1 ki points to enter a specific State from the list below. Each state offer a specific benefit and will end at the end of your turn if certain conditions are not met, or if you enter another state. At third level, you know the following three states:

Furious Flurry State
Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can make two unarmed strike as a bonus action. This state ends if you do not use your bonus action to make an attack.

Patient Mountain State
You can take the Dodge action as a bonus action on your turn. This state ends if you do not take the Dodge action or if you move more than 20 feet on your turn.

Unfettered Wind State
You can take the Disengage or Dash action as a bonus action on your turn, and your jump distance is doubled. This state ends if you do not take the if you do not move at least 20 feet on your turn.

Focus state or Martial focus is probably a good name yea. A lot of the time when you see them yelling out nonsense like "hyper dragon word salad nonsense crashing windmill heaven strike" type nonsense it's because the show/book is aimed at a somewhat younger generation & there's a name for that but when you have sheinen shoujo shonen & so many others plus their chinese/korean/etc equivalents there's no reason to aim for a frequently mocked style

The first two look good depending on what else the class winds up with, but on that last one I'd change it to something other than dash like hover speed equal to your move speed or add something like the ending clause in the sanctuary spell "If [you] make an attack or cast a spell
that affects an enemy creature, this spell ends."

edit: as to the thunderbolt fantasy thing you mention in your other post yea, wuxia is filled with extremely d&d friendly stories & such so it's odd when monk keeps chasing after reenacting a 50 year old american tv show written by an american starring an american all those years ago given the popularity of wuxia inspired translated anime series in the US & us pop culture since cartoon network/adult swim & such started airing them.

 

[Undrave]

Focus state or Martial focus is probably a good name yea. A lot of the time when you see them yelling out nonsense like "hyper dragon word salad nonsense crashing windmill heaven strike" type nonsense it's because the show/book is aimed at a somewhat younger generation & there's a name for that but when you have sheinen shoujo shonen & so many others plus their chinese/korean/etc equivalents there's no reason to aim for a frequently mocked style

The first two look good depending on what else the class winds up with, but on that last one I'd change it to something other than dash like hover speed equal to your move speed or add something like the ending clause in the sanctuary spell "If [you] make an attack or cast a spell
that affects an enemy creature, this spell ends."

I'm just copying the existing Ki options. The last one is just Step of the Wind as a continuous thing. I put the condition that you need to move because you don't ACTUALLY need to move to take the Dash or Disengage action (or the Move action for that matter) and I felt it wouldn't work with the feeling of it. You're supposed to be moving every turn, a lot, if you're in that state.

I think the flying or hover thing could just be a state the Four Element Monk gets.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So what if it was something like this...

Sure, something along those lines could work. I'm going to talk to my group about them tomorrow and get their input on it (among other things...).

 

[clearstream]

Three very simple suggestion to make the Monk run more smoothly:

1- Make Unarmored Defense be (your choice of) DEX+Proficiency Bonus or WIS+Proficiency Bonus instead of DEX+WIS.

2- Make Patient Defense not cost any Ki.

3- Don't have them lose EVERYTHING if they wear armor or a shield.

Only other easy thing I could see in the base class is to give it a bit more Ki points.

God knows they need extra ki.

Agreed. I think this comes down to a flat +3 ki at level 2. The reason for a flat add are

• At higher levels, you find in play that monk has enough ki, so we don't want a scaling ki increase
• If you tie it to Wis, it just double-punishes low-Wis monks and thus forces players into narrow array choices
• More ki at low-levels is far more fun!

I also think monks might need something in the action economy. For example, I created a monk feature called Refocus, that works exactly like Action Surge but gives a bonus action rather than an action.

Finally, by my estimation and observation, they need about a +2 flat add to unarmed damage per blow. I built that into my version of Tavern Brawler, but you could argue that is a feat tax and just give it to them in some form.