D&D 5E My Response to the "Monk Sucks" thread

[Chaosmancer]

Purity of Body, Diamond Soul, and Empty Body is falling off? This is before subclass powers.
Have you read the cleric class, recently?. If high level monk abilities "Fall off"....Cleric abilities must count as a plummet.

Yes Empty Body is 18th level, but if you happen to play in a group that plays in that bracket, this ability is awesome. The monk was a dwarven Long Death monk...played like a Warhammer Trollslayer.

An Invisible monk, that gets 18 a Temp HP per kill, takes half damage from most things, and can stop themselves from dying up to 18 times.....was impressive.

Yeah, most of those abilities are good, but damage-wise a Monk starts falling way far behind at 11th level, and Purity might never come up, leaving you until at least level 14 until you get Diamond Soul, with a lot of abilities that simply are... average at best (Tongue of the Sun and Moon can be cool, but isn't exactly mind-blowing either)

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, most of those abilities are good, but damage-wise a Monk starts falling way far behind at 11th level, and Purity might never come up, leaving you until at least level 14 until you get Diamond Soul, with a lot of abilities that simply are... average at best (Tongue of the Sun and Moon can be cool, but isn't exactly mind-blowing either)

Way behind in damage? I don’t think it’s actually that far behind at level 11. And by then you have enough ki to flurry every turn and stunning strike some while doing it.

Great sword fighter does 36 to 40.
Monk does 38.
TWF does 34.
Great sword Paladin does 33 to 36.
Eldritch blast and hex warlock does 42.

Monk does lower when other classes damage increasing resource abilities are factored in. But monk gets some stuns to compensate.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Didn't we learn the moral of the story of the Flame Tongue....any character with a Flame Tongue becomes your DPR leader....
Give your High Level Monks a Flame Tongue

-The cleric spell list past 7th level spells is a bit lackluster. I've seen more uses of upcasting in 8th level + spell slots for clerics, but that might be table specific.

-Poison and Disease are always relevant concerns....see SARS -COV -2.

- Barring enemies with See Invis/Truesight...Empty Body means not provoking Opportunity Attacks, having Advantage on Attacks, not being a valid target for most spells, and half damage from everything but Force damage.

The Invisible Long Death Monk at 1 HP is doing more damage then the Paladin at 0 HP, and alas is not a valid target for Power Word Kill...by not being seen.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You are making a rather humorous point but it doesn't really change the moral of the story. The moral is that you can make any class feel sucky with a lack of strong magic item support.

And you can make any character awesome with good magic item support.

Which is why all this optimisation talk is nonsense - as DM I can completely change everything with one magic item drop.

 

[Iry]

Due to the extremely high value of Stunning Strike, many monks should not bother with flurry of blows at all.*

Astral Self - Should not flurry.
Four Elements - Should not flurry.
Kensai - Should not flurry.
Living Weapon - Should not flurry.
Shadow - Should not flurry.
Sun Soul - Should not flurry.

Cobalt Soul - Only flurry on weird monsters.
Drunken Master - Only flurry on a high value disengage.
Long Death - Only flurry against mooks.
Tranquility - Only flurry to deliver a large heal or pick up an ally.

Mercy - Strongly benefits from flurry.
Open Hand - Strongly benefits from flurry.
Soul Knife - Strongly benefits from flurry.
* Players should do whatever they think is fun.

 

[FrozenNorth]

And you can make any character awesome with good magic item support.

Which is why all this optimisation talk is nonsense - as DM I can completely change everything with one magic item drop.

...and by virtue of being a multiple attack class, Monks particularly benefit from items that increase their accuracy or damage.

 

[Older Beholder]

I'd been meaning to post on one of the various 'Monk' threads for a while.

I know this is anecdotal, but I always thought the Monk looked uninteresting on paper in 5E, until I saw someone play one in a campaign I was in, (and this is the anecdotal bit):

Our level 6 party were in a fight with a couple of Hill Giants and ogres.
The rest of the party was bogged down fighting one of the Giants, while the Monk chased down the other by himself and took it down single handed. Sure, the rolls went his way, etc... but it really opened my eyes to what a monk was capable of.

Fast forward a couple of years to the present day, I've finally got around to making my first Monk, a Tortle Monk (inspired by the TMNT's) for a new campaign a friend of mine is running and it's been great fun to play.