D&D (2024) Monks Are Not Tanks And Shouldn’t Be
So I don't think its the intention for people to make the monk as tanky as a fighter or barb. Just narrow the gap a bit. Even if a monk was at a d10 hitpoints it still wouldn't have the damage reduction (barb) or self-healing (fighter) so its tankiness would still be a good bit less.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
So is the Rogue, and the Cleric, both of whom have d8 hit dice.
Monks are not supposed to be able to soak up damage; they’re supposed to be good at avoiding damage. Better AC would be the more fitting way to improve their survivability. Give them an Improved Unarmored Defense feature that increases their unarmored AC at certain levels to help compensate for the lack of magic armor.
One thing I added to my game was stance.
The default monk is Wind Style.
Fire Style loses Patient Defence but can FOB for 3 unarmed styles
Earth Style loses Step in the Wind but can PD for free if they move less than 10 feet.
Water Style can Deflect Missiles for Free.
Metal Style gets resistance to damage when using PD.
Stances can be collected at monasteries and switched. You can take a feat to keep 2 extra stances.
Ime it absolutely is and they start getting prickly if the PC who literally has no needs in an edition that tries hard to ensure PCs never need anything from the GM aren't given bracers of defense and cloaks of protection by level 5 or so.
CreamCloud0
One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
i think the monk needs more capacity to disengage from immediate melee without using step of the wind/spending ki.
i'd love if they had the ability as a free action to expend 10ft of their movement to not provoke opportunity attacks for the first 10ft of the rest of their move action.
SotW disengage would still be valuable for covering their whole move action from opportunity attacks and not cutting into their maneuverability but this would really gel into their skirmisher playstyle without turning them into a full tank or burning through ki at a rate of knots, using their increased movespeed as an additional resource to spend in a way that isn't just moving.
i'd love if they had the ability as a free action to expend 10ft of their movement to not provoke opportunity attacks for the first 10ft of the rest of their move action.
SotW disengage would still be valuable for covering their whole move action from opportunity attacks and not cutting into their maneuverability but this would really gel into their skirmisher playstyle without turning them into a full tank or burning through ki at a rate of knots, using their increased movespeed as an additional resource to spend in a way that isn't just moving.
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Snarf Zagyg
Notorious Liquefactionist
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
What I’m doing in my esoteric master of arms rewrite of the monk is combine Unarmored defense, patient defense, and deflect [attacks] into one feature, along with martial arts and flurry of blows, and Unarmored movement and step of the wind.
Each of those upgrade at 11, and at level 15.
Along with changing deflect missiles to deflect attacks, with a level 6 upgrade to “you can deflect spell attacks too now”, the class is hard to hit for sure.
Kobold Avenger
Legend
Rangers aren't supposed to be Tanks either, but they have d10 Hit Die, so I think there's an argument for Monks having d10 Hit Die and not being Tanks.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
I won't speak for anyone other than myself; different people have different visions of what Monks in D&D (and indeed, D&D as a whole) is or should be. But when I think "D&D Monk," my imagination goes in one of two directions:
Either this:
or this:
View attachment 1688744925686.png
Not sure what that says about me as a gamer.
Either this:
or this:
View attachment 1688744925686.png
Not sure what that says about me as a gamer.
