D&D (2024) Playtest 6 Survey is Open

[Mistwell]

You speak as if everything is set in stone. So maybe it is not the monk that is unbalanced, but the feats? Maybe they get an overhaul. So is weapon mastery?

You can't just buff the monk, because paladin has better feats. Because then in a no-feats game, the monk is too powerful. Which right now he is not. But maybe you get what I mean.

How would a monk be too powerful in a no-feats game if they had access to better weapons and their monk damage could apply to weapons as well as unarmed strike? Even if you did that they would still be badly underpowered relative to the Paladin.

 

[Clint_L]

How would a monk be too powerful in a no-feats game if they had access to better weapons and their monk damage could apply to weapons as well as unarmed strike? Even if you did that they would still be badly underpowered relative to the Paladin.

Yeah, not having access to martial feats is a problem, but it's not the heart of what is wrong with monks. Not even close. What's wrong with monks is at low levels they rarely get to be monks, and at high levels their damage is significantly behind. They are overly dependent on ki/di at low levels, and on their bonus action at all levels. And they benefit less from magic items than any other class.

 

[Ashrym]

How do you have a "no feats game" when backgrounds and humans add feats? I think that's also a question. We can have low feats game at that point but not a no feats game.

I actually think a lot of the conversation being based on damage is ignoring other useful features. I don't think monks need to match damage because they have other useful abilities. It's running out of discipline points that causes issues.

The way unarmed strikes, simple weapons, and weapon mastery interact seems disjointed as presented. As is, I'd probably go with weapon mastery in ranged weapons for vex or slow.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

How would a monk be too powerful in a no-feats game if they had access to better weapons and their monk damage could apply to weapons as well as unarmed strike? Even if you did that they would still be badly underpowered relative to the Paladin.

... I did not say that.
I said the monk needs to be improved.
But I also said you need to take care, because you could make them too powerful if you buff them too much. And you should not balance classes with feats in mind. You need to balance them for both games. Woth feats and without feats.
People argumenting that the paladin is way to good because of feats are mixing two things that should not be mixed.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

(and of course, the best answer is.... make it balanced both ways?)

Yes. Exactly.
Buff the monk. Buff the fighters (so that they don't rely on feats). Create monk feats (besides tavern brawler, which is not bad for a monk).

 

[MockingBird]

How do you have a "no feats game" when backgrounds and humans add feats? I think that's also a question. We can have low feats game at that point but not a no feats game.

Until very recently every game I've ran was a no feats game (not because I banned them, players just didn't want them). I'd roughly guess that background feats wasn't really a thing until, what, Tasha’s. It's probably safe to say the majority of games do include feats but I wouldn't say every table uses them. That will change due to feats being baked into the revision.

 

[Gorck]

How do you have a "no feats game" when backgrounds and humans add feats? I think that's also a question. We can have low feats game at that point but not a no feats game.

Groups don’t need to use the ‘24 Species. They can combine the ‘14 Races with the’24 Classes. Or so I keep hearing…

 

[Mistwell]

... I did not say that.
I said the monk needs to be improved.
But I also said you need to take care, because you could make them too powerful if you buff them too much. And you should not balance classes with feats in mind. You need to balance them for both games. Woth feats and without feats.
People argumenting that the paladin is way to good because of feats are mixing two things that should not be mixed.

Now that feats are mandatory in the background I think that ship has sailed. But I also think the balance levels in this game are so rough anyway that you can account for feat balance and still not dip into overpowered in a no feats game.

Paladin isn't too good, with or without feats. But the monk is not good enough, with or without feats. They are too dependent on a single resource, and their damage is too low, and the nature of the drag on those limited resources forces them in a single path despite other things which look interesting on paper.

One solution is access to better weapons and the ability to apply their special damage to those weapons as well as their unarmed strike and weapon masteries. This allows them to do more damage, choose interesting things to do with weapon masteries, and not rely only on their special resource every round even without feats. With feats it allows them to specialize more in those weapons. But even at their peak with those changes they won't come close to the Paladins level of power. If somehow monk were using feats and Paladin were not, the Paladin would still outpace them easily, and not just in damage but in interesting options they could choose round to round. The gap is that large.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Now that feats are mandatory in the background I think that ship has sailed. But I also think the balance levels in this game are so rough anyway that you can account for feat balance and still not dip into overpowered in a no feats game.

Paladin isn't too good, with or without feats. But the monk is not good enough, with or without feats. They are too dependent on a single resource, and their damage is too low, and the nature of the drag on those limited resources forces them in a single path despite other things which look interesting on paper.

One solution is access to better weapons and the ability to apply their special damage to those weapons as well as their unarmed strike and weapon masteries. This allows them to do more damage, choose interesting things to do with weapon masteries, and not rely only on their special resource every round even without feats. With feats it allows them to specialize more in those weapons. But even at their peak with those changes they won't come close to the Paladins level of power. If somehow monk were using feats and Paladin were not, the Paladin would still outpace them easily, and not just in damage but in interesting options they could choose round to round. The gap is that large.

No it is not in actual play up to level 10. But it seems we have to agree to disagree here.

 

[tetrasodium]

for purposes of discussion... IF the monk needed to be improved because of it's performance in games with or without feats I don't think that the status of feats is the problem there. The monk class tries to opt out of the systems & subsystems used by every other class (ie weapons armor spells multiclassing magic items etc) only to replace them with a totally new parallel cultivation genre equivalent. That equivalent is entirely incapable of hooking into any of the subsystems linked to what the rest of the game uses with the same levels of synergy & can't expect to be compensated with extra power. The solution is for the monk class to be written for d&d rather than expecting d&d to be rewritten for the monk to remain an out of place class designed for some other system.