D&D (2024) Playtest Packet 6: Monk reactions?

[MostlyHarmless42]

Okay, more detailed thoughts on the base class:

Level 1: Martial arts, unarmored defence, weapon mastery. Martial arts die goes up by one, apparently to keep up with weapon mastery. This does not let it keep up with weapon mastery. Also give the monk's unarmed attack a weapon mastery feature, because otherwise it becomes a significant disadvantage compared to other melee attacks (plus Warrior of Open Hand is severely disadvantaged; more on that later). Unarmoured defence and martial arts are unchanged.

Okay, just let monks use discipline points from level 1, and let them add their wisdom modifier to their di points pool. This is the defining feature of monks and making them wait is akin to making full casters wait until level 2 to cast spells, and then only giving them two spells. Just give monks di points and step of the wind at level 1.

Level 2: Martial discipline (see above), unarmored movement. See above. Adding disengage to step of the wind is great and actually makes it worth spending a di on.

Level 3: Deflect Missiles improvement. A tiny bit better, depending on what you just deflected? Still situational but fun when you can use it. The counterattack feature might actually be worthwhile more frequently.

Level 5: Stunning Strike reduced to one attempt per turn. I think most of us agree with this, but why not give a SECOND option for spending di to go with it, so there is more choice? Most folks spammed Stunning Strike because they had nothing better to do.

Level 6: Empowered Strikes letting unarmored attacks do force damage. So...hmmm. This is a probably a wash, since very few creatures resist magical b/p/s attacks (swarms and demi-liches?), but a similarly few things resist force damage. Definitely makes the monk more effective against demi-liches!

Level 7: Heightened metabolism - so after 7 levels monks go from famine to feast as far as di points go. Just give them more di points to start with and give them something fun here, instead. Like stillness of mind, but make it a bonus action..oh wait, that's now wrapped up with purity of body at level 10 and called "self-restoration."

Level 10: Self-restoration. So this is kind of lame. Disease is no longer a thing, okay, but instead of being immune to poison damage you now can use a bonus action to remove the poisoned condition - that's a huge nerf against some fairly common opponents. On the other hand, being able to remove charm or frightened as a bonus action rather than an action is an improvement, but you have to wait until level 10 to get it. Overall this is at best a wash, but it feels like a nerf. It'll sure feel like a nerf when you are fighting anything that does poison damage!

Level 13: Deflect Energy instead of Tongue of the Sun and Moon. Why not both? Deflect Energy is a modest upgrade, since it will only affect targeted spells, and it's not like Tongue of Sun and Moon was that great in most campaigns.

Level 15: Perfect Discipline: again an ability that seeks to address the fundamental flaw with monks, resource scarcity, but does it at a level where that is much less of an issue. Just fix the fundamental problem at level 1, FFS!

Level 18: Superior Defence: So it costs 1 di less than Empty Body, but you no longer get to be invisible, which feels like a nerf. And you lose the ability to cast astral projection, which was very situational but cool.

Level 20: Defy Death: similar to Mastery of Death, which Way of the Long Death monks get at level 11, except it costs 4 points (or more) instead of 1. This is a terrible capstone (and no capstone at all for Way of the Long Death monks; hello backwards compatibility).

So, overall, I'm super disappointed. The big problem with monks, particularly at low levels, is resource scarcity plus lack of options, and this is barely addressed. Your unarmed damage gets buffed by +1, but those attacks lose out on mastery. Other than that...a few tweaks and a terrible capstone to replace the previous terrible capstone. But step of the wind is improved so that it is no longer "cunning action but much worse."

Agree with all of this. I frankly don't understand where people are coming away from this thinking the monk is "better" than the 2014 version when 95% of it is the same and the few tweaks they did add neither address the actual issues with the class or consider the mechanical implications that other martial classes gaining weapon mastery will have.

1) First, raising the martial arts die by one step is good. But it is not a fair compensation for weapon mastery not applying to unamed stikes, especially when it needed it to be done in the first place. Monks fall behind on damage quite a bit compared to other martials, especially at higher levels if (even more so if Magic items are added to the equation).

2) Unarmed Strikes need to be able to benefit from weapon mastery. It's stupid that this version incentives monks to use weapons over unarmed Strikes. Ideally they should get a base mastert that apllies and then maybe a feature later that let's them spend a di to apply a different mastery on their strike. If I'm reading it correctly Way of the Hand sort of does this, but not enough and that is really something that shouldn't be relegated to a subclass.

Like it or not weapon mastery is the new "fix" to martials and monks being hamstringed but not having proper access to it is an issue, especially when you consider every other martial class will get it on all of their attacks for free endlessly. Giving monks an ability to apply masteries on their unarmed attacks would be similar to but still distinctly different from the fighter. It needs to happen.

3) It is absurd they didn't make it a d10 class. Their AC is often lower than other martials and they are literally the only class with extra attack that doesn't have at least a d10.

4) Step of the wind is improved. I like it. But patient defense is still not going to see use a lot, especially at lower levels where di is in short supply.

5) Related to point 4. Stunning Strike nerf was both required and good to see. However it doesn't address the main complaint I often see from monk players who tend to spam stunning strike: monks don't have much else that is actually worth it to use di on that isn't stunning strike. Letting them use di to apply various masteries to their unarmed strikes would fix this.

6) Heightened metabolism is great and is exactly what warlocks should have for pact magic, though that is a whole tangent. For monks? It's useful, but frankly should be something they get sooner, where di shortage is actually a problem. I get why it may be an issue though because if I'm understanding it correctly the player can also use short rest dice to heal when they use it so I get that it's potent for more than just recovering di.

7) I get that the monk is already sort of feature packed and moving things around would be difficult, but I still feel like Acrobatic movement not coming online until 9th level is a bit...awkward. This literally came up in my game the other way where my monk player had to explain to another player that "all the typical monk s*** doesn't actually work until level 9" after the other player asked why he doesn't just wall run around a monster. Anecdotal I get but it points out the issue with it where what people think monks and do and what they actually do are often not the same.

8) I like deflect Energy, though point out most Energy damage sources are saving throws at higher levels, not attack rolls (tgough to evasion does sort of cover much of them, and 6 levels sooner ironically). This ability isn't as powerful as people might think.

9) The actual subclasses I have little to comment on other than Open Hand Technique should be baseline and just generically applying to Masteries in general, and that while the new Elemental Monk is functional, it feels a bit...boring. personally I wish they'd have made them 1/3 casters instead and given them access to whatever list has the most "elemental" stuff. It would've been nice to be able to cast fly and fluff it as wind based, or enlarge/reduce fluffed as adding stone to your body, etc.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It was a 3 ki cost in the original version as well. And it's a con save (which are notoriously high on enemies) vs monk DC which is notoriously low since the key ability is a difficult one to max out.

And it's a level 17 ability. Power Word Kill is an available spell at this level. Could just make the ability a 1x per some rest increment thing with a resource cost and have it function similarly to PWK.

3 pts was the same cost of a second level spell, and it was a short rest resource. For an instant death effect? That is nothing.

I agree, con save versus the monk DC was hard to beat... which is why when it didn't kill automatically it dealt 10d10 damage. So, let us rephrase the question. If it took you two actions to cast, would a short rest restored auto 10d10 damage spell be balanced?

I don't think it would be. I honestly think that making it so you could choose to end the vibrations on the same turn you impose them would just make this better if you needed it to be, but it needed to be taken down from where it was.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'd rather them just boost the standard array to 17/16/15/12/10/8, and adjust point-buy/rolling methods to compensate.

I tend to use 16/15/14/13/12/10 for my arrays these days. Works very nicely.

 

[TwoSix]

I tend to use 16/15/14/13/12/10 for my arrays these days. Works very nicely.

My ideal array would be 17/16/15/15/10/5. You can get all your important stats near max, you can be strong in one non-class defining stat to give your character some flavor, and you have an obvious weak point for further character definition.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Open Hand really needs something to help it. It's 3rd level abilities require landing a strike with Flurry of Blows to impose a save that may do something. It is too many steps and costs di and makes it really kind of weak.

Like, if you spend 1 ki as an Elemental, you get 10 minutes of: +10 reach, damage swapping, and imposing a save vs pull or push.

1 ki as an open hand you can... maybe end up imposing a save to push 15 ft once, knock prone once, or prevent reactions once.

These things shouldn't cost the same.

 

[mellored]

They can keep up with the damage curve, for a few rounds, anyway. But are much squishier than other melee types and don't offer exceptional utility, so their niche is unclear. Or use their ki for patient defence to keep up with survivability, while falling off on damage.

They can BEAT the damage curve.
They can BEAT the defense curve.
*while ki lasts.

And their niche is that they can run past the entire front line and stun the wizard in the back. They have a much stronger identity than most other classes (i.e. Rangers).

"Their numbers are a little bit low" is probably a valid complaint. But that's not inherent to the class design. Just increasing ki pool by 2 might fix that.

 

[ZetaShift]

Said this earlier but I'm very disappointed in this playtest for Monks, since they're practically the same class and even worse in some aspects. But I will try to be positive first as a make a "first reaction" review.

Pros:

• Starting D6 MA Die and ending at a d12. The d12 isn't remarkable, it's moreso that they start at a d6 for their unarmed strikes now. It's only one point extra on average, two if they use their bonus action attack, but whatever. A small buff.
• Weapon Masteries ig? I dunno who plays monk for the weapons besides kensei and the available masteries aren't really that crazy but sure?
• Empowered Strikes cuz force damage and force is the best in the game. Although I don't see the point ever choosing anything besides force and it steps on the Astral Monk's territory......
• Heightened Metabolism helps the Monk last more thru out the day but it really doesn't solve the issue of in-combat usage of ki--- er, I mean dis-a-points. At it comes at level 7 which is nearing the end of most campaigns, so it really doesn't solve the issue of low level monks struggling with ki-- dis-a-points. Uh positive thoughts, moving on.
• Self-Restoration now is a bonus action instead of an action, but that still infringes on their action economy and alot of these charmed or frightened abilities tend to make you do something before you can continue with your actions as normal.
• Deflect Energy? They nuked deflect missile, split it in half and threw the latter half in levels most people don't play at. I mean you can grab Eldritch Blasts now. Well you can only grab one before the other 3 blasts kill you but yay.
• Perfect Discipline isn't the capstone anymore so already better. Although still has the issue of you needing 0 ki(dis-a-points) to gain any resources back.
• Defy Death is cool but super expensive for no reason, which the monk didn't need lol. And it's an odd fantasy shift, esp since this overlaps with the Long Death 11th ability.
• Step of the Wind buff. Should've been like that in the first place, so glad to see it.

Well that's alot of good things right? Onto the negatives.

Cons:

• Death of Monk Weapons. I don't understand the reason, maybe it's their attempt to create niches for weapon monks and unarmed monks but unarmed monks for the most part have nothing besides like "damage" and that isn't remarkable even now.
• Monks still suck at grappling since it requires their strength mod. Literally all they had to do was allow a "Martial Arts" modifier between strength or dex to use for deflect missiles, unarmored defense, etc. So in the very least some monks can be good at grappling if they want to.
• Still a d8 hit die. Middling AC and squishy for no reason so they'll explode at a feather's graze in melee range.
• Dis-a-points are still a problem in early game, especially when many subclass abilities hinge on having dis-a-points to utilize them, like the Open Hand. Waiting until level 7 to gain an out-of-combat recovery tool is terrible.
• Deflect Missiles is a dex saving throw for whatever reason, and the monks are notorious for low DCs so it's not as if most monsters will have an issue overcoming this. Also still costs a dis-a-point? Really?
• OH MY GOD WHAT DID THEY DO TO STUNNING STRIKE???? This was single-handedly the BIGGEST blow to the class. Now I am of the opinion that it needs a rework because the state it was in was unhealthy for the game, the class, the player and the DM. But this was not the rework at all. It still is a sink for their dis-a-points, it still is a CON save, it's once per turn and they only benefit till the START of their next turn? Someone contact the Geneva Conventions cuz this is a WARCRIME.
• 9th level ability lol still bad.
• No more purity of body or poison immunity. Kay.
• Empty Body dead. I didn't like the invisibility, but they could've kept the advantage/disadvantage part of it. Kay.
• (edit) The DPR of the class is still weak, only growing less than 10 points by endgame iirc. Not really the massive dpr buff I expected lol.

Overall this sucked. Honestly I think in the tiers it counts, so t1 and t2(levels 1-10) the class is worse off. Never thought I'd see the day where they'd make a worse iteration of the 5e monk but here we are. Stuff like this makes me appreciate the pf2e monk alot.

 

[mellored]

1) First, raising the martial arts die by one step is good. But it is not a fair compensation for weapon mastery not applying to unamed stikes,

It's exactly the same as a weapon mastery.

Unarmed strike got Flex.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't think that level 7 is nearly as amazing as others do, but that's probably because our group is very liberal with the length of short rests (it's narrative driven) and don't often run a lot of back-to-back encounters.

if that's the case then I'm surprised your monk players are having any problems. Under that model they should be spending ki like candy in every fight, comfortable that it will recover to full for the next one.

 

[TwoSix]

if that's the case then I'm surprised your monk players are having any problems. Under that model they should be spending ki like candy in every fight, comfortable that it will recover to full for the next one.

The fact that monks aren't super great even if you do spend ki points freely is a main part of the problem.