Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ECMO3" data-source="post: 9347625" data-attributes="member: 7030563">In practice it is true because in practice you are typically taking ASIs over feats (with the possible exception of level 4.Playing either a Variant Human or a Mountain Dwarf on point buy you can have a 20 AC at level 12, while also dodging the vast majority of rounds.   Any other class needs spells to match that. At level 16 you can have a 21, matching even a Sword and Board Fighter or Paladin with Defense fighting style when you are NOT dodging.FOB is very weak damage compared to what else you can use your ki for.  IF it did more damage you would have a point, but compared to martial arts you are talking about roughly 7-8 points of damage for using a ki at 20th level.  That is the peak, at lower levels is worth less.  It is going to be rare that this damage will make a difference.  Not unheard of but rare.FOB is WEAK damage.  This is especially true when you consider your weapons usually have high magic bonuses and using ki on your action lets you attack with your weapon.Forgoing patient defense or another using a Martial Arts bonus action attack is often advisable.  Using FOB if very rarely good.  Maybe if you know you won't run out of ki and if you know no one will attack you during the next turn (i.e. one BBEG and he is stunned or similar), or if an enemy is very low on hit points and you think having two shots at him are worth the ki to get the kill now .... but those circumstances are not common,Ok.  To be clear -  the argument presented that you replied to was FOB allows a Monk to use more stunning strikes in a turn.  If you are using stunning strike with FOB you need to be able to hit the enemies with your unarmed strikes and they need to be within reach when the Monk takes the attack action. If you are fighting one single higher level enemy, yes he will always be within reach, but he won't always be vulnerable to stunning strike.  You have 3 attacks and 3 chances to stun before FOB matters at all in terms of stunning that enemy and if you land one of them then you can't stun with FOBYour first post quoted above said "enemies" as in plural.  To use FOB against multiple enemies they need to be standing right next to the Monk.FOB does increase you damage output against a single enemy or against 2 enemies standing right next to the Monk, but it increases it by very, very little.  Something like getting a single casting of Hex through Fey touched (and boosing Wisdom) will give you a bigger bonus to damage over the course of a day than using your ki for FOB will.It can be good at this, but FOB is one more attack only and one more chance to stun for the cost of 2 ki.  It can be the right move, but this is situational.  It is most beneficia when you are high level AND ki is plentiful AND the enemy has legendary resistance AND does not have a great con save AND another use of your bonus action is not more advisable.Also keep in mind enemies with legendary resistance at high level also often have legendary actions and at that level using patient defense to beat those multiple attacks, or alternatively to take an AOO and move out of range to get hit with Legendary action attacks is often advisable.That is my pont, people don't think this through, they just use FOB and complain they are out of ki and Monks are weak.Think about what you are saying here - I have 3 attacks to land this stun (1 probably with advantage), the bad guy has Bane on him and my Wizard is going to make him reroll if he makes his save ..... but by gosh if I use FOB, going from 3 to 4 attacks - that is going to be what makes a difference!This is the real problem with Monks - if you could not stun a guy on 3 attacks under Bane and also with Silvery Barbs it is a safe bet your 4th attack from FOB is not going to either.  This is the like a Wizard expecting a good result Fireballing a bunch of Devils because Fireball is his favorite spell.Ok this is a great example.Your 20th level Monk is in melee with an adult Red Dragon and he is wielding lets say a Dragontooth Dagger (which is pretty weak for this level).With unlimited ki, using Focused aim and the Dragon concentrates all attacks on you (no breath weapon):If you stay in melee range and your Monk uses FOB the dragon will do 83 DPR and you will do 48 DPR.If you stay in melee range and attack but do not use FOB you use 1 less ki and do 40 DPR.If you dodge and stay in melee, the dragon will do 60 DPR and you will do 28 DPRIf you disengage and move the dragon will do 44DPR and you will do 28 DPRNow in the numbers above I gave the Monk a weak weapon (for 20th level) and no AC-boosting magic at all.  Either of these would move the needle further towards the Monk that does NOT use FOB.  At best you are getting another 18 damage from using FOB compared to using dodge or disengage or 8 more compared to using no ki on FOB and this is a team event where the Dragon is focusing on you alone and you should have allies helping.This is with no magic at all boosting your weapon attacks or your AC and it is using focused aim so you only need a 2 to hit. If I am ddodging I am expecting to take attacks and take fewer hits than if I was dodging.If the Monk was more of a striker or if unarmed strikes did more damage it would be different, but FOB is a bad use of ki most of the time and an unarmed strike is usually not the best use of your bonus action if you have ki to make the better bonus actions available.Note this is also a different story if you have a good magic weapon (which is relatively often) and can use ki-fueled attack.  In this case using your bonus action to attack instead of using a ki because your attack is hitting harder and not costing any (more) ki.</blockquote>

Verification