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.

 

[hejtmane]

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.

The issue is pummel blows because it does not scale and can only be used once on the same target, the +2ac is worthless because it reduces flurry of blows to garbage with out tavern brawler you be better off using that bonus action and ki point for patient defense or step of the wind then to use flurry of blows for +2ac

You lose out on Damage with Flurry of blows and clearly behind in DPR very quickly compared to the other monks. You can do better Multi classing than you can using this class. Not to mention it is ripe for exploiting with a 3 level dip.

Sorry in the current form it fails on so many levels; I was excited at the initial concept but realized after digging into the details it fails on so many levels

 

[Fritzo]

Read what i wrote again i'll bold the changes to make them more clearer. You still get a flurry of blows that uses the martial arts die. But flurry of blows is better every time with the ac increase. You lose out slightly with the pummel replacement but i thought that was the designers intention anyway.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Read what i wrote again i'll bold the changes to make them more clearer. You still get a flurry of blows that uses the martial arts die. But flurry of blows is better every time with the ac increase. You lose out slightly with the pummel replacement but i thought that was the designers intention anyway.

Why? If the point of the class is a weapon master, why make the weapon extra damage option worse than an unarmed strike? Hence my suggestion earlier to have the pummel damage be equal to the Martial Arts die (but also restrict heavy/2-handed weapons a bit).

Also, this ties the AC boost to Ki expenditure, which I don't think is the intent, either.

 

[Fritzo]

Isn't the 1d4 there to balance some of the damage done with the 1d12 and 2d6 weapons? Your suggestion would work too restricting the weapons with the higher damage dice. Either way something is getting lost. My method still allows players to choose their weapon of choice though and get unarmed strikes at a cost.

Going to read your post to make sure i fully understand your intention.

Ok reading you post i see that it would just make the Monks that take Heavier weapons more MAD that would be more annoying for me. But i guess it'd balance out? Your method would get more damage, Mine would get better ac and dexterity pikes

 

[Azzy]

(((Mike Mearls))) ‏ [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))) ‏ [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.

Not digging this.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Hmm, the Kensai is cool in that I see what they're going for, but it badly needs another pass- from what i can tell the purpose is that as a Kensai, you give up your normal bonus action shenanigans for an aoe feature that's a little lackluster.

I love the direction of being able to use all kinds of martial weapons and stuff though.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I'm more and more convinced that even though Kensei weapons are not intended to be monk weapons, it actually doesn't hurt anything if they are. I think will play this way, mostly ignoring the pummel feature and give feedback when WotC releases their survey.

 

[OB1]

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.

Path of the Kensei - When you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you learn to extend your knowledge of the martial arts beyond the standard array of monk weapons.

I don't know, that sounds like specific beating general to me. I'd rule that this line allows you to make monk martial arts strikes as per the PHB rules, thus giving you several options.

Attack twice with weapon, use pummel to deal auto damage to those you hit
Attack twice with weapon, use bonus to make 1 or 2 (flurry) unarmed strike(s), gain +2 to AC
Attack once with weapon, one with unarmed strike, use bonus to make 1 or (flurry) 2 unarmed strike(s), gain +2 to AC
Attack once with weapon, once with unarmed strike, use bonus to pummel 1 target, gain +2 to AC

 

[lkj]

Mearls also stated on twitter that the Kensai weapons are too good to use with flurry. So that's the logic. Based on his other comments, he seems to be unhappy with the klugey-ness. They probably suspected as much but wanted to see how people would react.

We'll probably get a more elegant solution in the final go.

AD

 

[Chaosmancer]

Hmm, the Kensai is cool in that I see what they're going for, but it badly needs another pass- from what i can tell the purpose is that as a Kensai, you give up your normal bonus action shenanigans for an aoe feature that's a little lackluster.

I love the direction of being able to use all kinds of martial weapons and stuff though.

As far as I can tell, the intent is to make great weapon wielding monks.

The Pummel is not an AOE, it hits at best 2 targets (barring Multiclassing into Fighter and using Action Surge).

What bothers me about it is you have two sets of abilities, you have wielding the big weapon, and you have accuracy buffs.

Let's say the 3rd level stuff gets fixed, what are we left with? Weapon is magic, increase accuracy for 1 attack once per rest, make your weapon super magical (for accuracy and damage) and re-roll a missed attack.

You want to play a super-amazing Heavy Weapon Character: Do you choose Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin or Kensei? All the other classes support big melee weapons better than the Kensei does, so really for most of the game (until level 11) you are a middling weapon wielder with monk abilities.

If the concept is being a great weapon wielder.... play something else would be my first recommendation, because nothing in the Kensei is worth trading the abilities of the other classes for if your goal is to be a big weapon wielding monster.



On the Tranquility monk, it is important to note that the monk has no penalties for getting in combat, other than losing Sanctuary once he actually starts fighting...

*Re-reads sanctuary*

ROFLOL

You can totally play a Jackie Chan character, who runs into a large group of enemies, and keeps asking to not fight, while the enemy keeps getting their blows redirected into each other, showing that violence hurts you more than the person you aimed it at.

That is almost too perfect, crank wisdom for that save DC and allow the orc horde to tear itself apart while trying to kill the guy in the middle.

Then, you can still break sanctuary and be a normal monk, taking down enemies who refuse to listen to reason to protect the innocent. The flavor isn't pure pacifist, but "violence is my last resort" type of character.