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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9342535" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Ah. Most unfortunate that most people do not short rest nearly that often, then, isn't it? Plus, that's ALL you do with your ki. You literally don't get to do any special monk stuff after the second round of combat. Hope you have only three round combats the vast majority of the time or that's gonna hurt!Except it doesn't, because guess what, short rests get dropped faster than combats get dropped. Most groups get at most one short rest per day. Losing 1/3 of your daily ki points is a huge deal.What? Barbarians can be perfectly cromulent tanks. Even with only mild Dex investment. E.g. Str 16, Dex 14, Con 16 is perfectly achievable at first level and gives 15 AC while nekkid and 17 while wielding a shield (since Barbs can do that, while Monks cannot), putting them only 2 AC behind a Fighter in chainmail + shield + Defensive fighting style. They also have resistance to Bludgeoning, Slashing, and Piercing damage while Raging, so they're already taking half damage from most (early-game) attacks, even if they aren't Bear Totem. Bear Totem just takes it into the stratosphere. If the Barbarian got Fighting Styles (kinda dumb they don't, IMO, but it is what it is), they would be within 1 AC of the best a Fighter can achieve at 1st level. Seeing how more powerful heavy armor is fairly expensive (200 gp for Splint at AC 17, 1500 gp for [full] Plate at AC 18), while the Barbarian won't be able to grow their AC as fast as a Fighter, they'll still be among the higher AC options available, and their bigger health pool and natural resistances make that stretch even further.They're perfectly cromulent tanks.Compare apples to apples.A 6th-level Barbarian has 4 Rages per day. They'd only be running out for two total combats each day on your six-a-day diet. Even if we assume all combats are ONLY three rounds--so the Monk is only having 1 round per combat where they do nothing particularly interesting--the Monk is getting 6 rounds of combat where they do nothing interesting. The Barbarian is getting...six rounds of combat where they do nothing interesting. The two are equivalent; the Barbarian's just got their "nothing special" rounds all happening in two whole combats, while the Monk is having theirs spread out to every single combat.If we do the more realistic thing (albeit not the much more realistic thing), where you have four or even five rounds in some combats, guess what? The Monk now definitely gets several more rounds of combat a day where they do nothing especially interesting, while the Barbarian only chances such a risk if it just so happens that they decide not to rage during a combat that ends up taking a long time, which should only happen about 1/3 of the time.The much more realistic thing, of course, is to recognize that most groups do 4-5 combats per long rest, and 1-2 short rests per long rest (leaning much closer to 1). At which point the Barbarian has a minimum of 80% coverage of fights a day, while the poor Monk may end up literally having to make 12 ki points last them across five combats.</blockquote>

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