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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 8070561" data-attributes="member: 72555">It is always bad to simply add up Rogue damage.  A smart rogue has an offhand weapon to get 2 chances to land sneak attack damage dice (at the risk of not being able to disengage), which is a massive increase in actual damage delivered.  (They also get a small edge from the fact that damage dice > static damage due to crits)Whenever there is such a significant accuracy difference between characters, you should pick a model AC.  Personally I often pick 18, as it is a credible AC to run into at both low and high levels, and using -5/+10 feats is a bad plan at that AC at almost any level.This is a group game.  So redirecting damage to someone else is worse than not taking it yourself.And, as noted, it is really expensive.  You are burning a lot of potential damage in order to not be splattered, and you have to do it preemptively.It is a 2x per day ability on level 5 wizards/bards or 2x per rest abilty on level 5 warlocks.There are multiple possible uses for stunning strike.  One of them is to run in and stun a bunch of weak foes.  The other is to hammer one big foe.I'm noting that stunning strike isn't that effective at a bunch of weak foes.I thought I covered that?  Suppose you are a level 8 monk fighting an Aboleth  (CR 10 legendary foe).  It has a +6 con save and 3 legendary resistances and 17 ACYou have 14 wisdom and +3 proficiency for a DC 13 stun (not great, not crappy).  It needs a 7+ to save, or 70%.Your Dex is 20, so you have a +8 to hit, and hit on a 9+ (60% chance).  You flurry and land 2.4 blows (1 Ki).  You stun each time you hit, and burn 2.4*.3=0.72 legendary resists/turn at the cost of 3.4 Ki, or 0.21 legendary resists/ki.You keep this up for 2 rounds (6.8 Ki), then burn the rest on stunning strike (1.2 more) over the next 1 or 2 rounds.  This is 6 stunning strikes, for 1.8 legendary resists soaked.A pure caster has a saving throw DC of 16 at this point.  A cast of banishment requires a 12+, so 45% chance of passing.  They'll have at least 2 level 4 slots, burning 0.9 legendary resists over 2 turns.The caster can also web (Aboleth has no effective ranged options, and crappy strength)If banish lands, the party gets to set up a readied-action ambush, after cleaning up any "trash" allies of the Aboleth.Sure, but the level 5 fighter has 10.5 healing/short rest while the (open hand) monk has 0.  At 6 the fighter has 11.5 healing/short rest on bonus action, while the open hand monk has 18 per long rest on action.Are we talking a 16 dex/16 wis monk with crappy con?  Then at 6 the monk has 17 AC as does the fighter.If the monk wants HP, they are going to probably lose 2 points of wis for it.The fighter, if human, could have both 20 dex and DW feat for 18 AC at level 6, and 16 dex/DW + leather for 15 AC at level 1 (buying studded using cash-based gear is also an option, for 16 AC; studded, while upgraded armor, is cheap upgraded armor).The issue is that the resources to make a Monk more effective are expensive (attunement, rarer) or absent (feats).I mean, Tavern Brawler could have stated "when  you hit a creature with an unarmed attack, you can make an attack with an improvised weapon".  They it would be as much of a feat tax as PAM/XBE is.Making a good monk feat is hard without it becoming a feat tax.And bracers of defence are great for monks, but they are +2 and attunement.  A ring of protection (+1 AC and saves) is equivalent, and attunement-free magic armor is also in competition.Monks don't use mechanics that overlap much with other classes (other than weapons), so items tend to be either monk only, or useless to the monk.I mean, "Staff of Power" -- if it wasn't caster-only, it would rock for a monk (even without the spells).Baseline, monks are a bit behind other damage dealers.  Adding feats and items, they fall further behind.  Their defence is also a bit behind, and Ki-based defence eats their damage.Possibly they should best be compared to other half-casters (Paladin and Ranger); if you look at spell points, monks basically get what you'd expect a per-short-rest half-caster would get in spell points, but as Ki.  And then if you look at the 4E monk Ki costs, they are similar to spell point costs.Viewed that way, we campared to a sword+board strength-paladin.At level 6, the strength paladin has 18 Str, Plate+Shield (20 AC), 14 charisma (+2 to all save aura), deals 2d8+12 (21) damage at-will, and has 14d8 (63) of smite-damage from spells (can be traded for other spells) per day.The 2H Paladin is 18 AC, deals 4d6+8 (24.67) at-will, and has 14d8 (63) of smite-damage from spells.The PAM Paladin is 18 AC, deals 2d10+1d4+12 (2.1+11+2.5+12=27.6) damage at-will at 1 lower accuracy (unless human), and has 14d8 (63) of smite-damage from spells.The Monk has similar accuracy, 18 dex 14 wis for 16 AC, deals 2d8+1d6+12 damage at-will (24.5), and has 6d6+24 (45) of short-rest flurry damage (can miss, be traded for defence or stuns).Attacking 18 AC normal damage is worth about 1/2 smite-damage (due to misses), so with 2 short rests the monk's flurry damage is only slightly more than the paladins (and has to be spread out over the day).  On lower AC "trash", flurry damage is more useful.A +1 weapon boosts paladin damage output and accuracy (percentage wise) more than the monk.The paladin can cast crazy useful spells like "bless" instead of a 2d8 (9) smite.  The monk can convert 7.5 damage into a stun, or 15 damage into a one-turn dodge.---I mean, the monk is within a "margin of error" of the comparisons.  10% here, 20% here.  But it almost always comes up short in the raw numbers, has little in the way of "going the extra mile".In the hands of a non-optimizer, you probably aren't doing a 16/16 build and carefully using open hand to dash in-out by turning off reactions.  In the hands of an optimizer, the player could play that monk, or the PAM human paladin, deal 86% of a monk's "all out" damage at-will, then turn on mass smites and end boss fights faster than the monk can say "I use stunning strike for the 5th time".</blockquote>

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