Monks, Grapples, and Shoves

[MarkB]

For me their offense have never been the problem, its their defense. Unless they have very good stats in dex and wisdom their AC is terrible compared to other martial. And unlike rogues and barbs they don't have ways to halve damage. They have their extra dodge but that burns ki very quickly.

I find they suck down healing much more quickly than other martial classes, and unless they are pouring ki into defense they don't have the longevity.

That, and their mobility tends to be a two-edged sword. It's great for engaging enemies quickly, but it makes it easy for the character to get out of position compared to the rest of the party if you're not careful.

 

[clearstream]

Yeah, it's just making the class marginally more flexible. Monks can already hinder opponents in similar fashion to the effects of Shove and Grapple, especially Open Hand monks. Making them more proficient with Grapple and Shove allows them to do so without a cost in Ki points, but it does so at the expense of them not dealing damage along with those effects.

Roughly, it's giving them a feat (the Tavern Brawler "half-feat" and the Grappler feat do roughly what the OP described). But the question isn't about Monk power (nothing in the OP suggests says that this is a power question), it's do the rules as written mechanically support what the character is doing? (Usual caveats about doing whatever the hell you like apply.)

As for Monk power, their issue is not how well they grapple (and it would be a railroading approach to fixing them if the fix was - grapple better). The issue lies mostly around anaemic damage and bad defenses. They suffer a high degree of contention for their bonus action (do I use it for one unarmed strike, two strikes, or to dodge or dash to avoid being hit back?) One of the few feats that works for them is Mobile (more railroading) and at least one of its effects is inefficient for them to have. Feats like Dual Wield, which could play well for Monks, have direct impediments to their use (the bonus action on TWF). They have a pile of whimsical class features that do very little. They're even stiffed on magic items (well, they could take the arcane caster's staff and use it to hit things with). I think Kensei is an unspoken acknowledgement of some of the Monk's problems.

This is really a bad place to start, if we're thinking about fixing Monks...

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[clearstream]

Counterpoint- the Monk (especially the open hand, and also shadow) are great classes and probably the best job at making a "monk" and a "ninja" in the D&D rules.

If you play your monk through to 14th level (assume open hand), you have the ultimate solo bad-ass that, inter alia, is proficient in all saving throws, speaks all languages, is immune to disease and poison, can deflect missile attacks, can be rid of charm and fright, takes either half or no damage from anything that requires a dex save, won't take falling damage for the first 70 feet, is likely the fastest character, and so on.

It's not for everyone, but for certain people ... it's pretty cool. Personally, it's my favorite class in 5e. YMMV.

Agreed that narratively they're cool: I am speaking here only of the mechanical power.

I like Open Hand, yet found in play that it suffers from the reliance on using Flurry... which of course precludes the other bonus action Ki abilities.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[WaterRabbit]

That, and their mobility tends to be a two-edged sword. It's great for engaging enemies quickly, but it makes it easy for the character to get out of position compared to the rest of the party if you're not careful.

This. Monks too often are used to show the party how the "monster works". They become the "red shirts" of a D&D party.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

And it's important to keep in mind that "fun" in a game is created by constraints: it's the space created by the things you can't do that establishes the fun in the things you can do. (Imagine being able to cast all spells, use all class features and skills, without fail or constraint... fun?)

Another aspect of fun that gets overlooked is the other players; if you're effectively giving this guy a free feat and letting him use acrobatics instead of athletics, why does he get it and no one else does? Maybe I would have rather played a rogue grappler but felt it would be woefully ineffecctive, but with this rule change it would work. Maybe I built my Edlritch Knight around being able to grapple mages, and I'm now overshadowed by this guy who gets one of my feats for free and to ignore needing strength. It can actually be pretty off-putting when what you do is effectively punish other players for trying to follow the rules.

 

[clearstream]

The main issue with Open Hand is the same issue that all short rest classes have (IMO); if your game is getting the right amount of short rests per long rest (a minimum of 1 to 1, ideally 2 to 1), then it works out well. If not, it will seem drastically underpowered.

Mechanically, they aren't a nova class like ... grr... Paladins. But they are amazing skirmishers, fast in and out, with unparalleled ribbon abilities.

Well, mechanically I found the monk in combat surprisingly interesting technically (a lot of niceties around movement and the action economy), but with an eggshells sort of feel. Fast, yes, yet kind of forestalled as skirmishers due to that fragility. Forced to skirmish, to stay alive, yet not always able to achieve it. Stunning Strike helps a lot of course.

Perhaps as a martial class, if they had a d10 for their HD, as a starting point...

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[DEFCON 1]

Another aspect of fun that gets overlooked is the other players; if you're effectively giving this guy a free feat and letting him use acrobatics instead of athletics, why does he get it and no one else does? Maybe I would have rather played a rogue grappler but felt it would be woefully ineffecctive, but with this rule change it would work. Maybe I built my Edlritch Knight around being able to grapple mages, and I'm now overshadowed by this guy who gets one of my feats for free and to ignore needing strength. It can actually be pretty off-putting when what you do is effectively punish other players for trying to follow the rules.

Saying 'maybe' though, is meaningless. If the rogue player or the eldritch knight player *didn't* want to make grappling characters, then the monk getting a part of a free feat means nothing in the long run. The monk is merely making a character they wish to play and can be somewhat successful at it (moreso than if they tried to make a grappling monk concept using the rules straight as-is.)

And if the rogue or knight also wanted to make grappling characters too? Then hopefully the DM would accommodate them by switching some minor rules around for them too. Because why not? There are hundreds of character concepts that can't be made even moderately effectively just by using the rules straight. So why not allow for a change here and a change there... within the precepts of the party for which they are going to appear... so that a person can get into a fairly good place to be effective.

The thing is... and I admit it's why a whole bunch of you are going to get hung on the idea... it just means you as a DM have to treat this party and this game as a bubble. Where you only need to compare a tweaked character's effectiveness ONLY against the other PCs at the table.

Which I know is hard probably for a lot of you to do. Many of you run your games with this idea of "universality" where any house rule or change in your game has to then apply to every other game you run because its a "consistent world" or whatnot. And you're probably thinking "I can't give the monk character this X ability in the campaign we're playing now even if it is balanced, because in the next campaign someone might want to use X in this other combination and that combination WOULD be overpowered! And if I allowed it here, I'd HAVE to allow it then too!"

To me... that idea is a load of rubbish. To me... all game mechanics are is just different ways to roll funny dice. Who the character *is* is what is important, not the decision on which funny dice you roll and which random numbers you add together to change or impact what the character does. And if a player would like to play a concept of a jujitsu type of grappling monk but the funny numbers the book has written down for the monk doesn't allow for this concept to actually work even moderately effectively compared to the rest of the players in the game... then do whatever you can to the funny numbers and dice to build it up. And if next time someone else has the concept of a warrior who uses magic to bind and hold foes... do what you need to do to make the funny dice and numbers work out for that player too, even if the method of changing the funny numbers and dice is different than the changes you made for the monk. Because to me what matters is getting the character to work, not to have a universal set of "rules" that apply across the board to every single game in every single campaign I run. Because those "rules" only really produce a certain small subset of character ideas that can be moderately effective against each other.