D&D 5E Stalker0's Minimalist Monk (aka the "minimal change" version)

[Ancalagon]

Exactly, which means that the Monk has a solid reason to go wisdom....or can ignore it. If the monk doesn't want to focus on Stunning Strike, and would rather spend KI for other places (such as subclass abilities perhaps) and ignore wisdom....that is now an option. Or....they can continue to pump wis for the best stuns. Both are viable, which is exactly the flexibility I am shooting for.

hmmmmmm... is it?

So now (RAW), a monk can increase dex for AC, attack power, initiative, certain skills... and it helps for stun too because you need to land the hit to stun. If the monk invests in stun, they help other skills, stun, but combat not so much.... but still helps a bit, because it does your AC goes up. So most people go dex first, but wisdom clearly is a viable route.

With your proposal, choosing wisdom is now even less viable because the armor bonus is removed. I feel you didn't balance dex and wisdom, you made dex more important....

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Recently, I've been toying with the idea to expand the chassis of the Monk class a bit, with a Class Feature Variant to Martial Arts that lets them trade abilities based off of Unarmed Strike for being better at Improvised Weapons (proficiency with them, damage scales with Martial Arts Dice, can Flurry of Blows with Improvised Weapons instead of Unarmed Strikes, etc), and letting them be better at using Strength instead of Dexterity than the current class does (not sure how, but maybe by allowing them to have Unarmed AC be based off of 10 + STR + WIS?, and similar changes). I like that the class includes the East-Asian Martial Artist niche, but I wish that its theme was expanded a bit to allow for it to include Puglisters, Brawlers, and Boxers/Wrestlers, and similar themes.

I definitely would add your Proficiency Bonus to your Ki Pool, change Dodge to a Reaction, and maybe even let them replace an attack from Flurry of Blows with a Grapple Check (maybe allowing them to Grapple with Acrobatics instead of Athletics, too). Their capstone ability needs a bit of work still, IMO, maybe that would be the place to let them add their Proficiency Bonus to attacks that use their Martial Arts dice?

Nice thread, I hope to see more ideas later on.

 

[Stalker0]

So we are focused on damage, but we could also go the accuracy route, with a modification to Focused Aim.

Focused Aim: Starting at 11th level, you gain a +2 to all attacks, and now gain a +3 attack bonus per Ki spent.

 

[Stalker0]

With your proposal, choosing wisdom is now even less viable because the armor bonus is removed. I feel you didn't balance dex and wisdom, you made dex more important....

Ultimately most classes have a single stat that is very important to them. Wizards Int, Sorcs - Charisma, Melee Fighters - str. The monk is no exception, and has always wanted a strong dex. Now at least they have more flexibility with their second ability if they want to.

 

[Stalker0]

One thought though: patient defense with your changes is partly redundant with deflect missiles, which is a bit kludgey.

I know your stated intent is to change as little as possible, but wouldn't it be cleaner to have both abilities work from the same mechanic, i.e. patient defense as 1d10+Dex+monk level damage reduction or deflect missiles as a type of dodge?

Agreed, I should make a small change to have the abilities work better together. Thank you!

 

[Iry]

Divorce Stunning Strike from Ki. Make it something like Proficiency per combat, or 2+Profiency per short rest.

Gods I miss encounter powers.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Agreed, I should make a small change to have the abilities work better together. Thank you!

My recommendation is to just expand deflect Missiles to deflect attacks.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My recommendation is to just expand deflect Missiles to deflect attacks.

IME Patient Defense gets used a lot, but if you were to change deflect missiles in the following way, it’d get used even more.

Deflect Attacks.

As RAW, except you can decrease the damage of any attack. Delete the ki part, and replace it with;

Any time an attack misses you, or you reduce the damage of an attack to 0, you can spend 1 ki to make an attack as part of the same reaction. If the attack is a ranged attack, you must have a hand free to make this attack.

If you use this ability while benefiting from the Dodge Action, you do not need to spend the ki cost to make the attack.

 

[The Annihilargh]

For the Flurry of Blows, what if we changed the wording to "When you use your bonus action to make an unarmed strike, you can spend 1 ki point to make an additional unarmed strike as a part of the bonus action," or something like that?