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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MostlyHarmless42" data-source="post: 9057434" data-attributes="member: 6845520">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.</blockquote>

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