UA Monks Introduces the Kensai and Tranquility Traditions

The Kensei was pretty much exactly how I expected/wanted it to be. With the exception of the bludgeoning damage. A d4 that doesn't scale? I hate d4s, and especially at higher levels it's hardly worth anything. Especially since as a monk, I could just use my bonus action to make an unarmed attack and use monk damage dice for that.

I've never been a fan of pacifist PCs, so the tranquil monk isn't my cup of tea. I understand others may feel differently though.

 

[Valetudo]

But they already do. It's called Sharpshooter.

How so? And the sharpshooter is also a UA class.

 

[hejtmane]

Shadow Monk 5/6 + assassin x. Works much better as a whip ninja.

And lol!

Wait you are flamestrike you should be supporting Bug Bear/spell sniper EK7 + assassin for the flaming whip Ninja and the win

 

[Arial Black]

I do understand the hatred for the d4, but don't forget that even though the d4 is just as easy to drop on the floor and lose as any other die, it is much easier to find a dropped d4 than any other die!

How? Just take your shoes and socks off and walk around barefoot for a few seconds, and you will find that d4!

(Followed by a short, informal walkabout)

 

[Flamestrike]

I do understand the hatred for the d4, but don't forget that even though the d4 is just as easy to drop on the floor and lose as any other die, it is much easier to find a dropped d4 than any other die!

How? Just take your shoes and socks off and walk around barefoot for a few seconds, and you will find that d4!

(Followed by a short, informal walkabout)

The caltrops of the dice world.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I do understand the hatred for the d4, but don't forget that even though the d4 is just as easy to drop on the floor and lose as any other die, it is much easier to find a dropped d4 than any other die!

How? Just take your shoes and socks off and walk around barefoot for a few seconds, and you will find that d4!

(Followed by a short, informal walkabout)

I have a cat. And hardwood floors. Any dropped dice are found within minutes. This literally happened to me about a week ago. I dropped my dice box and thought I picked everyone one up. two minutes later, I hear a dice skittering across the floor as teh cat is playing with it.

"Thanks kitty, you found a dice!" And I go back to what I was doing. Two minutes later I hear the skittering of another dice.


The cat found FIVE dice this way. I am pretty sure that is all that was left. I hope...

 

[Satyrn]

The cat found FIVE dice this way.

I can haz critical hit?

 

[DemoMonkey]

Perhaps the Kensei design intent was to make a Strength based monk more feasible.

With high Strength your non-martial art unarmed attacks will do more damage than they would with high Dex, you can use Strength with the weapon attack, and the +2 AC from holding a Kensei weapon will go part way to compensating for the lower Dex on your AC.

 

[dagger]

(((Mike Mearls))) &#8207 [MENTION=32417]MikeM[/MENTION]earls
Quick UA clarification - kensai weapons are not monk weapons #wotcstaff

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John Appleton ‏@jaa0109
[MENTION=32417]MikeM[/MENTION]earls ....there's 10 pages of discussion on this on GitP. Not making them Monk weapons seems unnecessarily convoluted.

(((Mike Mearls))) &#8207 [MENTION=32417]MikeM[/MENTION]earls
@jaa0109 yeah, a little hacky, hence the playtest #wotcstaff

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Jeremy Crawford
‏@JeremyECrawford Jeremy Crawford
The Martial Arts feature defines what a monk weapon is. Nothing else is a monk weapon unless a feature explicitly says otherwise.

 

[hejtmane]

Perhaps the Kensei design intent was to make a Strength based monk more feasible.

With high Strength your non-martial art unarmed attacks will do more damage than they would with high Dex, you can use Strength with the weapon attack, and the +2 AC from holding a Kensei weapon will go part way to compensating for the lower Dex on your AC.

It fails

 

[Fritzo]

I wanted to rewrite the Path of the Kensei. The intention with this is to take away the unarmed strike given with martial arts and replace it with the pummel ability as from my reading it sounds like that was their intention anyway.

• You gain proficiency with three martial weapons of your choice. A martial weapon is considered a kensei weapon and becomes a monk weapon for you if you’re proficient with it.
• Get rid of the second point about the damage die it's no longer needed.
• If you make a single unarmed strike on your turn as a bonus action while wielding a kensei weapon. You instead pummel the target(s) dealing an additional 1d4 bludeoning damage to each creature you hit with your kensei weapon this turn.
• If you use your flurry of blows and are wielding a kensei weapon, you can use that weapon to defend yourself. You gain a +2 bonus to AC until the start of your next turn while you are not incapacitated and the weapon is in your hand.

I think this would work. A problem is the pummel isn't melee only but i'll let someone else have a go at that.