D&D (2024) Monk Playtest

[Stalker0]

Or later a fighter can be imprisoned by walls of force. A monk can become etheral and just walk out.

Are tot referring to empty body? That’s astral projection, which is a very slow form of travel (not to mention the 1 hour casting time).

Funny enough, walls of force block ethereal travel.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Are tot referring to empty body? That’s astral projection, which is a very slow form of travel (not to mention the 1 hour casting time).

Funny enough, walls of force block ethereal travel.

Oh, yes. I was somehow misremembering totally everything...

What I actually meant was that the shadow monk can just step out if it shadowy...

 

[renbot]

So here is my short list of the issues with the monk. I do not think the monk is as bad off as people often complain about, but it does need some love.

• Remove or reduce the scaling of unarmed strike damage. This is legacy from 3e and doesn't work in the more bounded accuracy series of 5e. Monk fists should do respectable damage at 1st level, and not crazy damage at 20th. A monk shouldn't need a quarterstaff to be able to compete in combat.
• Stunning fist should be weaker, and the rest of the monk made stronger (right now too much of the monk's power is pushed into this one mechanic).
• Their ki for dodge ability should be some kind of reaction. Forcing the monk to spend precious resources on a defense ability it might not need in a round is an unfun mechanic and it creates too much of a strain on offense versus defense.
• The monk could use some ability to convert their speed into X during a turn. Speed is a very DM dependent thing, in some games the DM makes that high speed almost vital, in other games, its basically a ribbon. It would be nice to have a meatier, more mechanical way to use speed that is more consistently useful for the monk. Or perhaps you combine this with your patient defense concept, to get something like:
  • Speedy Defense (replaces Patient Defense): The monk has learned to channel their incredible speed into evading danger. At the start of the monk's turn, they can forgo their unarmored movement bonus and gain a +1 to AC. The monk is not required to move to gain this bonus. The bonus increases to +2 at 10th level, and +3 at 18th level (aka when you gain +10 feet of speed).
• Better self-healing (as I noted in a previous post).
• Probably should divorce their AC from stats, as it creates too much of a stat dependency on the class right now to be combat competent. All monks just HAVE to have high dex and wis to feel competent.

Wow, I thought my only issue with the Monk was over-reliance on Stunning Strike. But I agree with all of this and hadn't thought of most of it. I actually copied it into my "house rules" Google Drive folder.

Dodge as a reaction just...makes SO much more sense. And why not proficiency bonus to AC instead of a second stat?

So thanks! Now how to sell it to my players for next campaign...

 

[Bill Zebub]

• Their ki for dodge ability should be some kind of reaction. Forcing the monk to spend precious resources on a defense ability it might not need in a round is an unfun mechanic and it creates too much of a strain on offense versus defense.

Yeah this is an excellent point. That’s a huge cost for something that might not even be needed.

As I said upthread, my dream design for the monk would be based on reactions: more of them per round, and more things to spend then on. It’s very martial artsy.

 

[shadowoflameth]

Because monks add their Dex bonus to their martial arts attacks their numbers can be decent, but it does kind of suck that to optimize your damage you have to use a weapon for so many levels.

Easily resolved with a fighting style at 1st. A monk starting with the Unarmed style would use d6 or d8 on unarmed strikes and be able to do a d4 grappling.