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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ECMO3" data-source="post: 9348621" data-attributes="member: 7030563">No I mean forgo - you forgo patient defense, as in you don't do Patient Defense in order to use martial arts or Ki-Fueled Attack as a bonus action.   That is often a good choice.  Using FOB rarely is though.Yes but FOB is not enough extra damage to matter very often.  FOB is based on martial arts dice which don't scale fast enough to have a single attack make much of a difference, especially when Ki-fueled attack is almost always going to do more damage than a martial arts attack.  Like I said at 20th level FOB is about 7-8 points more damage than just doing martial arts.   More often then not the enemy you were attacking is going to die on the exact same turn he was going to die on if you did not use FOB.Disengage is usually worse than Patient Defense or Dash for the "not be there" use case.  It is generally rare that Disengage is better than one of the other two options.   A Monk has high movement, but not enough to move into melee range and then move out of melee range to the point where the enemy can't reach them.    To do this effectively round after round they will need an obstacle or they will need to use dash.  Even when they do have enough to do it, it presumes the enemy does not have ranged attacks or other enemies are not going to be able to attack the Monk.IME if you are going to be backing out of melee with a Monk it is usually (not always) better to use Dash or Dodge and take the AOO then it is going to be to use Disengage.  The reason is dash or dodge will give you more protection against future attacks in the vast majority of cases.Yes it is a risk, but mathematically giving you a 4th opportunity to stun an enemy is not likely to be game changing.Stunning Strike is game changing but having 2 weapon attacks plus 2 martial arts attacks with 4 stunning strike opportunities is generally not going to be game changing compared to having 3 weapon attacks with 3 stunning strike opportunities, especially when you consider it is 3 ki vs 5 ki.Forced movement with WOH substantially buffs FOB and on such a character I would not be as down on it.   I have not played this subclass personally but I question the utility of Hex generally in such a combination because of bonus action economy.It does become less useful, but your static AC is going up as well, whch compensates some. They do, but IME that type of teamwork is generally going to drive you away from FOB, not towards it.  At low levels you want to save ki for things that are more effective (like stunning strike).  At high levels when you have a lot of ki you are usually going to want to do something else with your bonus action and you often have a bad ass magic weapon that you are going to want to use instead of using martial arts.For the Dragon yes, for the Monk no; I am considering unlimited ki, which means the Monk hits on a 2 with focused aim.Remember also this is with a weak weapon for the level.  With a good weapon and the damage is going to get closer.  Give her something like a Staff of Striking or a Flame Tongue (and a different Dragon) and the damage can actually go down using FOB.None of these examples will last even 20 rounds.  The guy doing FOB is burning on 3.1 ki per turn on average, the guy using patient defense is burning 1.9 ki per turn average.  That is only using focused aim, and FOB or patient defense.Not considering focused aim or legendaries the chance of stunning a red dragonon 2 attacks with a +1 monk weapon plus two martial arts attacks is 53%, the chance on 3 attacks with a +1 weapon is 46%.  That is hardly groundbreaking.  If you consider legendaries, and he has them all, the chance of doing it with FOB is 0.08% or 8 times in 10000 combats.This is exactly the case, although this is a weak enemy for 20th level characters.  Put the other PCs in there and FOB becomes even less impressive as the extra damage becomes even less relevant.With 20th level characters that Dragon will often die in one round and almost always die in 2 rounds.  Your use of FOB is extremely unlikely to change that and is unlikely to even change the turn it does die on.  On the other hand using FOB will cost you more both in ki and in hps than dodging, so I fail to see how that is better for the party.See I think this is backwards.  With other party members there the minimal damage you get from FOB is usually irrelevant.   Almost always irrelevant in fact when you compare it to ki-fueled attack or martial arts niether of which cost any ki.That is my biggest problem with FOB, it is not effective use of ki.  Dodging might not be either for a specific situation, but just because you can't dodge does not make FOB more effective.The Monk is a poor striker IMO.  They are a good tank when they want to tank and they are a good (arguably the best) controller among non-casters.Everyone is vulnerable to being hit, Monk is less vulnerable than other classes when they don't want to be hit.I am looking at the class options, if you start talking about individual subclasses things change quite a bit.While DM, OH and Astral Self all have subclass abilities that enhance FOB quite a bit and TBH make it a better use of ki.  Others though for the most part have another good use of Ki that make it even less valuable in comparison.For example you talk about taking unwanted hits above.  A Long Death Monk can burn ki to stay above 0hp, so in addition to dodging she can't die as long as she has 1 ki left. Martial arts as a bonus action is good.  Ki-Fueled attack is awesome and both of those are bonus actions that do damage without burning any more ki.  FOB is generally a waste IMO unless you have a subclass that makes it better (as you noted).I mean if we are talking "earl points".   At 5th level you are spending a ki for an extra 5 damage (roughly) on that turn.  I just don't agree 5 damage is a good way to spend it.  I will admit if you have one of those 3 subclasses I mentioned it may be a different story, but I think generally dodge or situationally disengage or dash or most of the other subclasses abilities are all usually better than that 4 damage you get from using this expensive (for the level) resource.   This is especially true since Ki-Fueled attack comes online at level 3 and stunning strike and focused aim are both online by this time. In terms of damage per ki spent, at low levels focused aim is always going to outdo FOB (1 weapon hit and 1 weapon attack as a bonus vs 2 unarmed strikes as a bonus) and Stunning Strike will usually outdo FOB considering your allies and the attacks you have next turn.</blockquote>

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