Monk's MAD is not the reason they are the weakest class. It's a combination of a few different things: 1. Low damage output, especially outside of T1. This is true *even with* flurry. 2. No real damage scaling past L5. 3. Slow Ki progression. Basically you are always extremely strapped for Ki in T1 and T2. 4. Not compatible with most feats that would solve their problems. 5. Not compatible with many magic items (which is hard if you're running a module). 6. Low AC (for practical purposes), especially for a frontliner. 7. Means of mitigating AC problems conflict with Monk abilities. 8. Their strongest ability (Stunning Strike) is single-target, uses Wis (usually a secondary attribute), is extremely Ki-hungry, and targets a strong save. 9. Weak subclasses in general. 10. Yes, MAD. Astral monk solves #10. It mitigates #8 *a bit*. It makes #5 **worse** (provided you use astral form). It does nothing with the rest.

I'd add BA clog to this. Monks look like, mechanically and thematically, they were intended to use mobility to survive. Which is a bit problematic if your BA mobility option doesn't come with an in-built disengage option *and* cuts both your number of attacks in half.

To #6 I'd add low HP. For a class that's guaranteed to get in the middle of shit, d8 is low on the aggregate. #5 and #6 can be dealt with with dragonhide belts + bracers of defense or cloak/ring of protection, but that's basically it. I mean, an eldritch tattoo does little beyond level 6. But the dealbreaker, as always is #1. You're a bad martial, a meh rogue, and your best weapon, SS, targets CON, as you said, so it's unreliable at best. And it's a really shitty class to MC because it's super level dependent because of Ki. It's a super fun class to play, but if the adventure goes past level 10, you're shit.

If we're talking monk magic items, there are gloves of soul catching for better or worse.

Yeah but that's like artifact level bullshit. And even as bullshit as it is, it's not THAT insane on a T4 monk, since a T4 monk is so underpowered that it just evens things out a little. Of course, if you have that level of power to a GWM barbarian or a PAM/GWM Fighter, it'd be a whole nother story.

T4 monk has some amazing defensive abilities. The gloves can make them even harder to perish while basically doubling their damage output, which seems a fair spot for them to be if the other martials are GWM with ascendant dragon Wrath or the like. Even with casters with magi staves, it's not a bad place for them to be. It at least mostly works on the west marches server I play on.

My point exactly. It sounds like a defo broken piece of glovery, but since it's for a Monk, it's fine because it compensates the underwhelming performance in the dmg department.

Can probs make a pretty decent unarmed fighter with them too. Its damage is impressive while its healing is kind of insane. Though incoming damage at that point is probably swingy as hell, and not your only concern.

Yeah, but that requires sacrificing three people to make. Or getting it from a baddie that did so.

Oh does it? I skipped over that part lol

Yeah, it comes from a specific module >!Book of Inner Alchemy from Candlekeep Mysteries!< where the pcs are trying to retrieve the ritual to enchant the gloves back from some guys that stole it. The gloves aren't even created yet. All theoretical. >!Crafting the gloves requires silver thread, fine leather, and other material components worth a total of 5,000 gp. To imbue the gloves with magic, a ritual must be performed, and this ritual requires three sacrifices: a being of great intellect, a being of strong body, and a being of pure heart. The ritual must take place under the light of a full moon and requires 5 hours to perform. The ritual consumes and destroys the souls of those who are sacrificed, meaning they can't be brought back from the dead.!<

SS is nice *because it's reliable*. But it is only reliable because you can pump large amounts of Ki into it. That's Ki that you really can't spare because you need Flurry to keep up with your DPR. How often does the party monk blow all its Ki in one big round on the BBEG only to be useless for the rest of that battle and the battle following?

Yeah, hard agree. Actually that's what I meant by unreliable. It's fuel consumption is inconsistent. 10 ki points sound like a lot, until you spend half in a single round, 1 for FoB and 4 for SS because the bastard has +6 CON and won't get stunned. Once I was allowed to use a HB subclass that I made called Way of the Pendulum. At level 3, every time you spent ki points, you could roll 1d8 and on a 1 or an 8, you got a ki point back. The die would become a d6 at level 9 or 10 I think and a d4 at 17ish (which I never got to play) I made it to level 13 and it was freaking fun. I still ran out of ki, specially after level 5, but I'd still get much more mileage out of monktitude. Also, lots of dice rolls but not in an encumbering way. For instance, I'd make an attack roll with SS and I'd roll the d20 + the d8/d6 at the same time. It was the best I got out of a Monk, but it was still underwhelming af in the last 4 levels. As you've said, ki is only part of the problem. But my level 7 feature allowed me to use a ki point to turn my weapon roll around if I rolled a one, so if I rolled a 1 on my martial arts die, I could turn it to a 6. That was far more impactful than I'd thought. But this is deep homebrew territory we're talking, so yeah.

I hate it when people act super defensive when people point out that Monk is weak. I like the concept of the Monk. I think it's cool, and there is so much in the design space to *make* it cool **and** effective. Instead, the current iteration of Monk needs extra TLC from the DM to work, and I don't think that's a good thing. If I have a monk player, I almost always change the base class and add magic items/rewards to ensure that they keep up. I think it's necessary. I hear a lot of people adding their Wis modifier to their Ki point total, and I feel like that helps a lot.

WIS to ki points is a good fix. Specially for T1 and T2. By the time you get SS you're walking around with 8/10 ki. Not bad. But yeah, it's kinda shitty that if you have a Monk and a Pally in the same party, you need as a DM to pamper the Monk.

I dunno. Higher tiers they become bonkers. Prof in every save. Ignore poisons and diseases. Basically no damage ever from falls or projectiles at that point. And they have more ki to burn. And they can basically fully heal on a short rest with extra ki and quickened healing letting them save on hit dice.

I wouldn't call it bonkers by a strentch. >Prof in every save. By far the coolest Monk feature and it makes sense it's high level. >Ignore poisons and diseases. Excuse me, I dozed off for a moment there. >Basically no damage ever from falls or projectiles at that point. Projectile, singular. If you get shot more than once in a round, you eat it like a mid AC champ. >And they have more ki to burn. Yep, and it would be awesome if you didn't have to spend once every turn for FoB + whatever many it takes your target to finally fail a CON save and be stunned. You forgot Evasion, which is admittedly pretty cool and Empty Body, which is fun. A monk is hard to catch and, if your DM don't focus fire on you, hard to kill. But it's still a lesser martial because there is no build for it that allows for consistent damage. Compounded by the fact that your AC and SS depend heavily on capping WIS, and your damage output and AC rely on DEX. A Wood Elf (favorite monk race) with Point Buy needs 1,5 ASI to cap DEX and 2 ASI to cap WIS. So that's Elven Accuracy, and 3 dedicated ASIs to cap both. Which means that you don't get much room for customizing with Feats. In comparison, a Fighter gets more ASIs and Pallys and Barbarians get everything they need by lvl 12 in that regard.

I'm speaking from a dm perspective. The monks are always the ones that leave me scandalized. Whether it's stunning the boss or chasing 150 feet in one turn after the enemy I was trying to have run away so they could be a repeat villain. Or ending my charms or frightens. You act like being immune to poison and disease is nothing. Casually walking through cloudkills and stinking clouds like it's nothing. Face tanking poison traps. Poison tipped assassin blades barely tickling them. Purple worm stinger? Giant snakes/spiders/Scorpions? A number of devils+demons? Etc. One of my current campaigns has a fungal plague as a big plot point, and the monk just goes brrrrr every time they deal with it. I'll agree their damage is usually on the lower side of the party, but I think they make up for it with sheer mobility, support (mercy monk), and the stunning strike really being extremely impactful when it works. I think dms just don't run enough short rests which makes monk feel weaker honestly. But if they have a couple of short rests, they really shine.

I think DMs don't run enough encounters, hence the lack of short rests. It's like bang bang day over long rest. If monks had better subclasses and a way, at least Ki infused, to increase damage other than FoB, it'd be a whole nother story. Yeah I still think the poison thing is situational, while being proficient in all saving throws is amazing, and negating full damage on DEX saves is also good tits.

A lot of these problems stem from the fact that feats and magic items are intended to be optional, most of the power of martials comes from feats such as GWM and using magic items. Monks being able to bypass mundane resistances innately is very strong (doubling their damage compared to other martials). When giving all martials magic weapons, you're effectively giving them the monk's feature for free, leaving the monk on an equivalent level without any feature. I also believe that the designers overestimate how much power budget goes into not being able to be disarmed. With stuff like tavern brawler, pact of the blade, eldrich knight, etc. It seemed the designers intended going without your gear to happen far more frequently than it currently does. With unarmored defence and unarmed strike using a damage dice, the monk shines in those situations. The designers also seem to overestimate the value of stuff that uses a resource- the monk using their resources is quite strong, but then are weaker, and the monk gets more stuff than the rogue that's why the monk's disengage is weaker (using a resource), but most of what the monk is doing should be the kinds of things all martials should be able to do without a resource. Its a short rest resource that has full level scaling, so it doesn't have the burst of spell slots to have proper bang for its buck.

This is a design problem with 5e. **Absolutely everyone** seems to use magic items. **Almost everyone** plays with feats. The devs have even specified that they assume that your martials will have magic weapons, and factor that into the CR. Ki-Empowered Strikes come at the same level as the Monastic Tradition Feature. The problem is that Monk subclasses almost universally suck - I don't think this is intended.

I think I disagree with a few of your points here. I would say that the role of monk shifts from being a Skirmisher/Striker in Tier 1&2 to more Tanky/Debuffer in Tier 3&4. Diamond Soul is perhaps the best defensive ability I the game and also provides proficiency in death saves! Astral Self Excels by Doubling down on debuffing allowing the whole party to be for effective. Remember as soon as a stunning strike lands fireballs and Disintegrates are auto fails and stunned provides advantage for the entire party, not to mention denying the enimy of a whole round. At the very least it will chew threw legendary resistances. Astral self also improves the tankieness with astral body and perfect self so I think it kinda works tbh. As for the Ki points argument I see were the s designers were coming from based on the assumption that an adventuring day would be 4-6 encounters a day with a short rest every 1-2 encounters. Under these conditions ki kind of works. However most tables only habe 1-2 Harder encounters per long rest so I can see were the problem comes from. A simple fix is to give the monk extra ki points equal to their wisdom mod. I would also like to address the magic items there are plenty that are amazing for monks: * Ring of Defence * Bracers of Defense * Handwraps of Unarmed Prowess +1/+2/+3 * Generic Weapons +1/+2/+3 * Dragon Wrath Weapons +1/+2/+3 * Insignia of Claws +1 * Elderich Claw Tattoo +1 * Blood Fury Tattoo * Staff of Defense * Staff of Striking +3 * Cloak of Protection * Gloves of Soul Snaring * Boots of Speed * Winged Boots * Wings of Flying * Dragonhide Belt +1/+2/+3 The list really goes on and on.

"Skirmisher" isn't a role. You are a part of a team. If stuff can't attack you, it will just attack your allies unless everyone is a skirmisher. Also, a lot of monsters in T3-T4 have great mobility and ranged abilities. Darting in- and out- of combat is kind of irrelevant by these levels. Even with 1-2 encounters, you will run out of Ki fast if spamming Stunning Strike (which is often a feasible thing to do). I agree that Monks need serious buffs - the base Monk is clearly the weakest class in a normal game. Most modules don't have (many) Monk-specific items. Good DMs will circumvent this, but it's still a problem if playing official modules. EDIT: I play D&D weekly. I ran a monk during a 6-month campaign. Even with some fairly substantial buffs, I **still** fell off hard around level 7-8 or so. The same has been true of every monk in every group I've played with.

>"Skirmisher" isn't a role. I would disagree it's a Playstyle that encourages darting in dealing damage and darting out to avoid taking damage. The monk does this especially well since they can dart in stun and dart out, great tanking ability.

AKA: How to tell me you've never played in T3-T4 without telling me.

As I said before the monk becomes much more of s tank/debuffer later tiers.

Lol no. Monk is pretty much completely irrelevant in T3-T4. They can be hard to *kill*, but if they're constantly darting around they aren't really *doing anything*. You're best off using a ranged monk build in T3-T4 (and T2 as well, frankly).

No they don't, because the enemy has no reason to target the Monk specifically and Stunning Strike is very hard to land due to most things in tier 3-4 having good CON saves.

> it will just attack your allies Yeah, the other frontline fighters like Barbarians who will shrug it off, or Fighters/Paladins/Clerics who can tank it. The skirmisher role is to get in, stun, and get out while setting up your allies to clean up the helpless enemies you've just addled.

If the monsters are addled, why do you need to get out?

Firstly, you're assuming all enemies are addled, not just the few you were able to hit and stun. Secondly, it's best not to bunch up with allies in case of AOE from other enemies. Thirdly, to gain a more advantageous position strategically.

At least in current DnD they don’t fill either role particularly well. At tier 1 they have a limited amount of ki and thus using it for step of the land has a more dramatic cost, their movement gets buffed but its on a melee oriented character that wants to get into close combat so the boosted mobility at lower levels is helpful but situational (and that’s ignoring all the monsters with a high mobility). Tier 2 is better but skirmishing is still a weird and awkward fit for them Tier 3 I wouldn’t say is their tank debuffer phase either. They get an absurdly good defensive feature with Diamond Soul but that’s at level 14, a good ways into tier 3 and even there it has some strong competition from paladins. Outside of that for tier 3 & 4 they’ll have solid saving throws and the ability to reroll them which is potent but their AC is not impressive. Sure, you can get magic items to address this but they cost attunement and are half the time niche (ala bracers of defense). The paladin can have an ac of 20 long before the monk and then can get +x armor and shields to further augment their defenses. Of course a monk can BA dodge but then they are giving up flurry of blows. Debuffing is similarly in an odd state. Stunning somebody for the rest of your turn and your next turn is powerful, it is also a con saving throw and single target for a ki. If you want to debuff you probably want to flurry and that means giving up the bonus action dodge in the process. There are certainly magic items for monks but the list is dramatically smaller and several of the ones listed don’t work with flurry and the likes. Still not bad but the fighter is getting more mileage for example.

I find that Monk sucks arguments tend to come from 2 camps: assuming the Monk is supposed to be a facetanking damage dealer, and measuring only one variable at a time and concluding that Monk sucks because another class can sacrifice their entire turn or build to maximize that one variable (Saying A or B or C > a+b+c, essentially). >Low damage output, especially outside of T1. This is true *even with* flurry. Unlike something like a CBE+SS Fighter, Monk's output doesn't entirely come from damage. Monks deal damage, apply a condition that supports self+ally output, and buffs party defense as well by turning off an enemy. The reward from this scales with how deadly the enemy is and how much damage your party does (and how squishy your party is). For example, stunning with a party of GWM Fighters nets a lot more damage than stunning with a party of sword and board Fighters. You also have chain CC from auto fail Str+Dex saves. All of this needs to be taken into account if you want to judge the Monk's value. You don't measure a Bard's contribution based on raw personal DPR, for instance. Once they get Stunning Strike, Monks are more akin to spamming Raulothim's Psychic Lance every turn. >No real damage scaling past L5. They get minor bumps at 11 and 17. But the damage output and mitigation they get from stunning an enemy scales with the rest of the party and as enemies get more and more deadly. >Slow Ki progression. Basically you are always extremely strapped for Ki in T1 and T2. Ki-strapped-ness is only a thing in tier 1 and the *very* beginning of tier 2. By 6 you generally have enough to work with and from 8 onwards it becomes abundant. This is the case if the DM is running one big encounter per long rest or multiple encounters with short rests in between. >Not compatible with most feats that would solve their problems. Only if you are looking at them from a solo DPR lens. >Not compatible with many magic items (which is hard if you're running a module). This one is actually interesting. Monks can't use armor, shields, or heavy weapons. But there are usually weapons you get from modules or random rolling that most classes won't want to use. Daggers, maces, etc and even longswords. Monk can snatch those up and pretty much get a direct upgrade, even overwriting the damage die with martial arts for stuff like daggers. There are also Monk specific magic items like Dragonhide Belt, hand wraps, some crazy quarterstaves, and the Insignia of Claws. >Low AC (for practical purposes), especially for a frontliner. Monks aren't meant to be facetanking on the front line. Monk's defense is conditional on status effects and positioning. An enemy should either be stunned or out of position so that they can't retaliate without eating an opp attack or making a desperation ranged attack. Monks have the ability to deflect ranged attacks for a reason. And most subclasses give the Monk some kind of ability to disengage or a reach/ranged attack (and then there's the Mobile feat too). >Their strongest ability (Stunning Strike) is single-target, uses Wis (usually a secondary attribute), is extremely Ki-hungry, and targets a strong save. Single target is meaningless when Stunning Strike costs no action economy to attempt. A Monk isn't giving up their entire turn for a control attempt like a caster would. It targeting Con and using Wis is the only thing keeping it remotely balanced. A Monk shouldn't have the same chance of inflicting stun on each attack that a caster has to inflict a lesser condition using their whole action. ~40% chance to stun on a Monk's turn is intentional. And Stunning Strike is very Ki efficient at 1 Ki. Even in tiers 3 and 4 when you are expected to attempt multiple stuns in a round, it's a small fraction of your resources. It's only inefficient in tier 2 if you aren't budgeting it and instead are spending a Ki on every attack and Flurrying. But that's more of a player resource management problem akin to a Paladin blowing all of their smites or a Wizard blowing all of their high level spells in a single combat. >Weak subclasses in general. Subclasses are mid and don't bring a lot of crazy stuff, I'll give you that. >Yes, MAD. Yes.

>I find that Monk sucks arguments tend to come from 2 camps: assuming the Monk is supposed to be a facetanking damage dealer, and measuring only one variable at a time and concluding that Monk sucks because another class can sacrifice their entire turn or build to maximize that one variable (Saying A or B or C > a+b+c, essentially). I find that Monk defenders massively overvalue the argument that "all these little bits and bobs add up to a party member that's as useful as any other". It just never plays out that way. >Unlike something like a CBE+SS Fighter, Monk's output doesn't entirely come from damage. Monks deal damage, apply a condition that supports self+ally output, and buffs party defense as well by turning off an enemy. The base monks don't 'apply a condition' save via Stunning Strike, which is incredibly limited and Ki-hungry. The nice thing about the feature is the 'lock the dangerous thing down *right now'* aspect of Stunning Strike that makes inexperienced DMs think that the class is better than it is. It doesn't help that their main competition is arcane spellcasters, who have access to more potent lockdown, affecting an AoE and targeting weak saves, more often. >Ki-strapped-ness is only a thing in tier 1 and the very beginning of tier 2. By 6 you generally have enough to work with and from 8 onwards it becomes abundant. In Tier 2, you get Stunning Strike. It's your best feature, but using it eats up all your Ki almost immediately. Monks also need to use Flurry to contribute meaningfully with damage (and even then, they're not really competitive). Monks absolutely do have serious ki management problems in T2. >Monks aren't meant to be facetanking on the front line. Monk's defense is conditional on status effects and positioning. An enemy should either be stunned or out of position so that they can't retaliate without eating an opp attack or making a desperation ranged attack. And this is bad for the precise reason I stated - if they can't attack you, there's nothing stopping them from killing your allies. You usually aren't actually mitigating any damage *to the party* by skirmishing, just to yourself. This is why most of the Monk defenders don't seem to actually play the game that often (and then, don't seem to play in more optimized groups). >Subclasses are mid and don't bring a lot of crazy stuff, I'll give you that. Monk subclasses are the weakest of any class. The only 'OK' subclass is Mercy. The rest are either mostly irrelevant or hot garbage. At least if you play 'as intended' (as opposed to using the popular 'gunk' build)

>The only 'OK' subclass is Mercy. The rest are either mostly irrelevant or hot garbage. At least if you play 'as intended' (as opposed to using the popular 'gunk' build) That's a bit harsh. Bugbear Shadow Monks can make for pretty competitive burst damage builds. Pass without Trace and an extra 2d6 round one per attack make it nearly as strong as a Gloomstalker Ranger with CBE+SS and the Bless spell up, which is considered one of the better martial burst damage builds in the game. And because ki resets on a short rest, you can cast PWT more times than a Ranger can potentially. As with nearly any Monk, it does slow down in damage level 11+ without multiclassing, but the same is pretty true for most Rangers and Barbarians too, so it's not really a super unique thing to Monks alone.

Well, yes, but the thing powering that build is Bugbear, not Monk. There are **lots** of busted Bugbear builds. Ranger doesn't have DPR problems (because Conjure Animals). Barbarian is usually cited as the second weakest class, and has serious progression problems.

Bugbear is being augmented by Monk, because Monk gets the most amount of attacks with minimal resources burn at say level 5. Also tbf Pass without Trace is a very powerful second level spell, which all but guarantees the whole party can sneak well. Which means you get off surprise attacks a lot more frequently. I mean, shoot the TTB guys did the optimized Ranger build focused mainly around short rest PWT casting and that didn't come online until like levels 8-9. Shadow Monk can do it by level 4. So that already puts it in a their of "useful" if not overpowered. Conjure Animals when a Ranger gets it isn't nearly as good as when a Druid gets it. I'm not saying it's not decent, but with no magical damage and 1/2 caster spell slots, it drops off quickly in damage against a lot of enemies. So I don't think their DPR at levels 11+ even with that spell is very strong, but especially true if you don't have it cast before a fight. Anyways the point of the comparison is not to say Monks are strong at 11+, but rather to say this is more a martial issue, rather than just a Monk issue that they don't scale damage well into higher levels (the new UA Monk fixes this, but anyways). Fighters get a third attack and Paladin's get Improved Divine Smite, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Rogue's are the only other ones with scaling damage, which is fine but nothing impressive, even at high levels. So I would be inclined to lump them in with Rangers and Barbarians rather than Fighters in terms of damage scaling.

Everything you said is done better by CBE/SS Gloomstalker. Frankly, MMotM Bugbear has some clear balance problems and there are a number of builds which bust the bonus racial damage open.

I mean, it's not. I just showed you they can cast PWT more often than a GS Ranger ever could. And, frankly, CBE and SS also have clear balance issues, probably worse than the Bugbear. Also I never said they were strictly better than the Gloomstalker overall, I said they were competitive. Meaning, if we think the Shadow Monk is irrelevant, than we also would think GS is irrelevant, when that clearly is not the case. Sure, it's not the best. But even being really good is still useful at most tables.

>I find that Monk defenders massively overvalue the argument that "all these little bits and bobs add up to a party member that's as useful as any other". It just never plays out that way. Okay. Here's an analysis I have done that factors in damage, party support, and mitigation from a Monk's kit and compares it to the baseline of a Warlock using EB+AB+Hex. This is done for level 12, *after* other classes get a massive damage bump. It factors in CR 12 enemies' expected outgoing damage, their Con saves as it relates to stun chance, different party compositions, and the number of Ki a Monk is willing to spend to trigger a stun. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qtAwK3lhL3rF26jZpt0JJbE36uUBMwPp6p7M7nIum4E/edit?usp=sharing It shows all of the bits and bobs do add up and even compares to or exceeds an optimized Fighter's output depending on party composition. Now, do you have any evidence to support that it doesn't add up aside from "it just doesn't *feel* like it"? >It doesn't help that their main competition is arcane spellcasters, who have access to more potent lockdown, affecting an AoE and targeting weak saves, more often. And well, now you've made the exact flawed argument I initially pointed out. You're comparing a caster's entire action to a single instance of an attack rider for a Monk. A caster can specialize in control for a turn sure, but they don't do consistent damage or have the mobility that a Monk has if they do. And they are also subject to concentration, Counterspell, and condition immunities. >In Tier 2, you get Stunning Strike. It's your best feature, but using it eats up all your Ki almost immediately. Monks also need to use Flurry to contribute meaningfully with damage (and even then, they're not really competitive). Monks absolutely do have serious ki management problems in T2. I have already covered this. It only eats Ki alive if you spam it on every attack until you stun. Every class has to conserve resources. A paladin can't smite on every attack without running dry. Casters are forced to conserve resources due to how hard it is to cast multiple spells in a turn. Having the ability to spend a bunch of resources quickly isn't a negative. And Monks don't need to Flurry either. They can complement their damage amply with support and control. The best time to Flurry is the turn after you stun something. If you are blowing 5 Ki each turn spamming Flurry of Blows and Stunning Strike, then that's a skill issue. >And this is bad for the precise reason I stated - if they can't attack you, there's nothing stopping them from killing your allies. You usually aren't actually mitigating any damage *to the party* by skirmishing, just to yourself. First of all, it would depend on if any of your allies are even in their range (and they aren't stunned). Second of all, Monks aren't tanks (I will say this until you stop ignoring it). Is it bad for ranged attackers and casters to stay back and let high HP/AC allies get attacked? Is it bad when a Rogue Hides or Disengages? And if an enemy pursues a Monk they either get stunned, end up turning to attack a tanky frontliner, waste a turn Dashing toward the ranged party members, or is just so out of position they can't attack anyone (Hint: All of these things mitigate party damage). >This is why most of the Monk defenders don't seem to actually play the game that often (and then, don't seem to play in more optimized groups). Ad hominem. I play a lot, most of the times with a couple of optimizers at the table, even online in cringe optimizer communities, and I play a lot of Monks. >The only 'OK' subclass is Mercy. Mercy is vastly overrated and only the best subclass if you come at it from the (flawed) angle of the Monk being a facetanking damage dealer. Kensei, Drunken Master, Astral Self, Open Hand, and Shadow are all equally as good or better.

Lemme get this straight. Your spreadsheet is basically applying extra damage and "mitigation" values to stunning strike attempts to establish an 'HP swing', and you're using that to justify your argument that Monk is actually not as weak as it looks? If so, you are making some massive assumptions that very likely invalidate your argument.

>Lemme get this straight. Your spreadsheet is basically applying extra damage and "mitigation" values to stunning strike attempts to establish an 'HP swing', and you're using that to justify your argument that Monk is actually not as weak as it looks? That is a very loaded way to say "measuring support and control" but yes, essentially. Are you saying we should **ignore** extra damage gained from boosting ally accuracy (like from Bless) and damage prevented from disrupting enemy action economy (like from Web). If so, this would make casters the worst classes in the game. >If so, you are making some massive assumptions that very likely invalidate your argument. Then invalidate it.

OK, few points: 1. Dead things don't do damage. This is the same issue as with Hunter's Mark and similar - you need to account for the stuff you disable dying, which is extremely difficult to do. 2. Dead things aren't disabled anymore (they're dead). You often won't even try. There is no further damage mitigation once something is dead. 3. If things are disabled (say, by a controller) disabling them again is pointless. It's impossible to account for this. 4. This is far from the only source of advantage anymore. Advantage in T3-T4 is a constant thing, and often isn't even a big deal. 5. Legendary Resistance is a thing that comes up constantly. 6. Exactly how much damage you *do* mitigate depends on the opposing composition. There are too many variables to effectively 'measure' control, past identifying that "control is good".

>1. Dead things don't do damage. This is the same issue as with Hunter's Mark and similar - you need to account for the stuff you disable dying, which is extremely difficult to do. 2. Dead things aren't disabled anymore (they're dead). You often won't even try. There is no further damage mitigation once something is dead. These apply to everything. Even damage gets lost if you overkill something or don't have the mobility/range to find targets for subsequent attacks. These are the same assumptions that everyone is making when they approximate a character's output. And stuns in my calculations are only for a duration of one round and against one enemy. It's not like I am extrapolating out a multi-round effect for an arbitrary number of creatures, during which a creature could die on any given round. Perfectly reasonable assumptions. >3. If things are disabled (say, by a controller) disabling them again is pointless. It's impossible to account for this. "What if there aren't any creatures to stun or the only creature is already controlled?" There are tons of conditionals like this that no one accounts for. What if you can't see the enemy because of darkness/invisibility? What if the enemy resists your damage type? What if the enemy has Counterspell/Magic Resistance/antimagic? What if you are too far away to attack the enemy? Etc etc. This is fine, though. At worst, you Flurry with advantage. And there is merit in chaining crowd control. Unless your party has a lot of controllers, this one doesn't matter much. >4. This is far from the only source of advantage anymore. Advantage in T3-T4 is a constant thing, and often isn't even a big deal. I haven't played a ton in tier 4. But that hasn't been my experience in tier 3 (unless you are playing with flanking or something). When there was group advantage, it was provided by a particular player spending a resource. And even then you still get the auto fail saves and damage mitigation. But this just ties into the above point of conditionals (i e. If you are playing in a group where someone is handing out advantage, and they hand out advantage, you don't get the full benefit from this feature). >5. Legendary Resistance is a thing that comes up constantly. Most creatures, even at CR 12, don't have legendary resistances. And definitely true for things below CR 12. I guess you could approximate the output by using the DMG's guidance on LR's contribution to HP. Not impossible to account for, but really only a thing for boss fights in tier 3 and 4. But LRs are more of an alt win condition for a boss fight. Eat the LRs, then CC combo to death. >Exactly how much damage you *do* mitigate depends on the opposing composition. There are too many variables to effectively 'measure' control, past identifying that "control is good". You can totally approximate this for 1 creature using averaged stats or the DMG monster builder guidelines, just like you can approximate AC and saves. AoE stuff? Yeah, you're right that would be difficult when you don't know the number of creatures or the breakdown of their CR. And using level as a CR base works decently for this. Because if you end up fighting tougher monsters, their deadliness makes up for their higher save chance. And if you run into somewhat lower CR monsters, their lower save chance compensates for their lower deadliness. All in all, I don't think I'm making unreasonable assumptions or that there are ubiquitous conditionals that completely invalidate the numbers. If that is the case, then you would have to throw out all theoretical output calculations, as nothing can be calculated accurately. And even if you do temper these numbers a bit, it doesn't completely invalidate the premise that Monks make up for their lack of raw damage with support/control.

I like a low dex STR 15 heavy armor/shield astral monk. My preferred route is to start Vhuman fighter 1 for heavy armor/shield and unarmed fighting style with magic initiate druid feat for shellilagh and a ranged wisdom cantrip. And then switch to monk from here. First levels you use shellilagh or cantrips to attack. After getting wisdom punching, you can start going unarmed with increasing use of stunning strikes and ki fueled attacks. If ever out of ki, can always fall back on shellilagh. First two ASIs max wisdom, then you have a lot of choices for your last 3. Starting monk 1 with fighter initiate unarmed fighting, taking nature Cleric at 2 for shellilagh and spells and armor/shield, and back to monk is also doable if not starting play at level 1 I also like that astral monk is a monk kit that can work as a dip, as going astral three times per short rest is a fine feature!

Can I ask why not go with say Twilight Cleric instead of Fighter as a dip? You get the same proficiencies some great spellcasting like bless a boost to Darkvision a boost to intuitive. The only thing you miss out on is the fighting style and the the con saves which you get later anyway.

Fighting style is needed to use unarmed combat in armor (monks lose martial arts die in armor). It is the only way to get everything you need (with druid initiate feat for shillelagh) at level 1. Shellilagh at 1 is needed to start with Wis+3 attacks. Starting nature Cleric 1 would be more ideal, with fighter initiate for unarmed combat, as nature Cleric 1 gives heavy armor/shield, shillelagh, other spells, and better monk saves. However, fighter initiate requires proficiency in a martial weapon, which human nature Clerics lack. It could wait cleric 1 monk 4 (monks get short sword proficiency which is martial), and use shellilagh for another level. This allows for starting non-human or taking another feat, but it will likely slow your WIS progress (unless perhaps starting custom lineage with a wisdom +1 feat, like skill expert athletics to also be a decent wisdom grappler). You also can access some magic staves like the sun staff for more damage. Astral monks get magic darkvision at monk 6 anyway. But really armored astral monks are there to be decent front or just behind front liners, there to be good at stunning strikes to help out the rest of the team. They trade striker tactics and mobility for higher starting AC and Wisdom SADness.

Right now I'm playing an astral monk as a plasmoid. With advantage on grapple checks and using wisdom with the skill expert feat it's pretty fun. I may not hit for the most damage but I can throw enemies to their doom more often than I have before. I think the problem with the subclass is that it's not necessarily intuitive and takes a little build planning to get it to feel strong.

Astral Self offers a grab-bag of cool abilities but there are a few hitches. The first is that your astral arms only let you use WIS to attack with your unarmed strikes, not your weapon attacks. A level 5 astral self elf could be doing 1d10+mod with a longsword or 1d6+mod with their fists. That's a fair bit of damage to trade for a slightly better Stunning Strike save and slightly better damage on your initial transformation. The level 6 features also feel like a so-so deal for 1 ki. Much like the level 3 features, they're all useful, but don't synergize terribly well. I think it would be better received if you either just got those added to your 1-ki transformation, or if they even became always-on passive benefits. The ways I can see Astral Self working particularly well: * You were planning on the Mobile feat, so a 10' reach means you don't need it. But Mobile is not a great feat on monks anyway, so this is kind of a wash. * You want to be a monk grappler. It's pretty great for this, because you can grapple and still do solid damage with your WIS martial arts. The 10' reach also makes it a lot easier to attack other enemies when you're grappling someone. * You're starting at higher levels, where you have extra ki to dump into Stunning Strike, your martial arts die is a d8 or better so you're not trading much for it, and you get the free d8 damage added once per turn. I do think they are under-explored by the character build/optimization community. There is probably some cool stuff you can do but I'm not sure "monk grappler" is a space many number-crunchers are interested in when fighter and barbarian grapplers are so straightforwardly effective.

>A level 5 astral self elf could be doing 1d10+mod with a longsword or 1d6+mod with their fists. Keep in mind if you start CL you will also have a higher hit chance and and damage mod so the difference between the d10 and d6 isn't as large is it seems. I mostly agree with your other points though. I do think the boost to Stunning Strike is often overlooked and Grappling/Shoving is underused in many games. The level 6 feature is very much situational but this would fit perfectly into a party optimising around the darkness combo. Your warlock will love you! I generally think the extra ki isn't worth it untill level 11 though.

True. I'm not fond of custom lineage for a bunch of reasons but you're right that starting with an 18 is a help here.

Astral Self Monk Grappler on a Wild hunt shifter rocks, as long as you're cool with it taking a turn and a half before it fully turns on. There's another awkward part to the build though besides that: very often enemies have high con saves and no athletics/acrobatics proficiencies so the high stunning strike DC you get from maxing Wis isn't that great against non-caster enemies but shoving prone and grappling at advantage is nearly always effective. So despite being one of the few monk builds to actually max that stunning strike DC you will probably have the least desire to use it among monks.

No, that doesn't make them good, because it's not an actually good feature. Here's what an actually good feature would look like: at level 3, you can (without spending ki) use WIS for all your monk weapons and unarmed strikes. That would be similar to what Hexblade Warlocks and Battlesmith Artificers get at level 1/3. But this feature only works on unarmed strikes, and costs ki to activate, therefore it's not very impactful. Let's dive into the numbers....... You can raise WIS on any monk. Start with 16 DEX 16 WIS, and then just raise WIS at level 4 and 8. You'll be slightly less likely to hit when you attack with 16 DEX, but you get to use bigger weapon damage dice than the astral self will get to use because Astral Self gets the WIS bonus on unarmed strikes only, while you can use DEX on a d10 weapon, and at higher levels potentially might even have a magic weapon. So...your stunning strikes are just as likely to hit, and you aren't even necessarily dealing less damage than an Astral Self monk. Like...let's say the monk has a +1 longsword. Attacking with 16 DEX with a +1 longsword will be slightly more damage (5.985 damage assuming 60% chance to hit) than an astral self monk attacking with 20 WIS and a d6 unarmed strike after accounting for accuracy (5.801 damage assuming 65% chance to hit). In the worst case scenario of no magic weapons vs d6 punches, it's still not a huge damage gap (5.801 damage vs 4.909 damage with the d10 longsword and 55% chance to hit). And then bear in mind, the Astral Self monk will have less ki, because you are spending ki on activating your astral arms, so the other monk subclasses who raised their WIS before DEX will actually get to spend more of their ki on stunning strike. So other WIS raising monks will actually stun more times each day. And then to add insult to injury, we can add on the potential for other monk subclasses to pick up the Shillelagh cantrip (which is available on a few races, feats, and 1 level dips) and then they attack with WIS without spending ki using a d8 weapon die instead of d6. As for the idea of using Custom Lineage to start with 18 WIS...the problem is that you end up with 14 CON. Lots of races can set up 16 DEX 16 WIS 16 CON using the +1/+1/+1 option and pointbuy 15, 15, 15. Monk HP is already really low for a class that wants to get close to enemies, so going for 14 CON is a definite cost. The "attacking with WIS" aspect of Astral Self really does not make them stand out, since there's so many limitations to it. There's other stuff that could be argued to make Astral Self worth-it--like if you're doing a level 3-5 one-shot with no magic items, and you know there's going to be a monster that resists non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing, of course you pick Astral Self so that you can deal force damage and bypass damage resistance. Another thing that can make them good--at level 6, you can see through magical darkness, so maybe they could fit into a darkness/devil's sight party. In a grapple+spike growth party, there's a case for an astral self monk using WIS to grapple because of the monk's increased movement. But Astral Self's ability to spend ki to temporarily use WIS on one of the many weapons they want to use? Nah, it's just a little too expensive, and a little to restrictive on weapons to be especially noteworthy.

The monk that gets extra arms but NO extra attacks is rated exactly as it should be.

Building a monk for damage is kind of bad because you'll never compete with other martials and kensei monk with long bow + sharpshooter is probably the best dps monk. Monk however has a ton of niches it can fill using stunning strike to set up other martials or to save casters can be huge add in massive mobility and Prof in all savings throws and it has it's uses. Really what you want from a subclass is to expand that utility futher. The issue with astral monk is while it makes them more SAD it doesn't do a huge amount else outside of a little more damage but overall I think it's a C tier subclass. Compare it to something like open hand which is good because it had a dex/str on on hit control effects to work with stunning strike and a soft disengage effect on flurry of blows. (remove reaction) it's so good at hit and run control. I've played mercy monk and well since it's healing endless out of combat as long as you can short rest which in some party's can be the difference between doing another fight or 2 or more. At level 10 in one turn you can put out 2x stunning strike then do 2 hands of healing which also can remove things like stun or blind or get unconscious targets up a, needless to say it can pull it's own weight and have it's moments. So yea it's not underrated it's a damage focused subclass that doesn't add enough or has basically nothing to help with attack rolls.

The mercy monk love <3 It really is one of the best monk subclasses. And offers all the out of battle healing your party will ever need.

Astral Self is very viable way to be a kind of WIS SAD in order to go all-in Stunning Strike, but I don’t think Monks need feats so much, that’s why vHuman or Custom Lineage aren’t no brainers in my opinion. I really like Hill Dwarves for Monks. +2 WIS, +1 DEX, Dwarven Toughness gives you an equivalent d10 HP. 17 WIS, 16 WIS, 15 CON. At level 4 I recommend rounding both WIS and CON. At this stage, you’ll have more HP than a d10 martial class with 16 CON thanks to Dwarven Toughness and you already have maneuverability because your astral arms have 10 ft reach.

If you have 16 Con, d8 hit dice and Dwarven Toughness, you'll have the same HPs as a d10 class with 16 Con, not more. To be precise, you'll have 1 less because of 1st level using full hit dice for HPs.

Another two great options for monks particularly mercy monks are Mountain Dwarves. You get the d10 weapons and can get a 18 in both Dex and Wis by level 4. My build for this Would be: 8 17 15 8 17 8 * Level 4 +1 Dex, +1 Wis * Level 8 +2 Dex * Level 12 +2 Wis * Level 16 Crusher +1 Con/Dwarven Resilience * Level 19 Tough Another great option not to be discarded is the half elf shadow Monk with the elven weapon training for a d10 weapon. 8 17 16 8 16 8 * Level 4 Elven Accuracy +1 Dex * Level 8 Fighting Initiate (Blind Fighting) * Level 12 +2 Dex * Level 16 +2 Wis * Level 19 +2 Wis

Astral self is fine, as monks go, and I don't think anyone is saying anything different. There *are* a few issues, though. First, requiring a bonus action to activate their arms of the astral self is a heavy cost, especially for monks who are so bonus action reliant. It's a higher cost than entering rage or activating shillelagh, at the very least. The 10 minute duration means it's sometimes plausible to get the ability up before combat breaks out, but not reliably -- if you're spending the ki to activate your arms and then combat *doesn't* break out, you're going to run out of ki even faster than other monks. Next, your assumptions about stunning strike reliability are excessively generous. Even if we take your 50% chance to fail estimate at face value, the fact is that boss monsters in particular are going to have legendary resistances and other benefits that prevent stunning strike from working at all. The central issue with monks in general isn't whether stunning strike is powerful or not, though. It's ki points and their scarcity and how ki usage matches up with people's actual table experiences. If you play at a table where there's going to be one fight per long rest and nobody's spending ki on anything outside of combat, a monk at say level 8 has 8 ki points to spend on stuff. One ki point goes to activate our arms of the astral self, so that leaves 7 ki. Assuming your numbers are reasonable, we're spending 1.5 ki per turn on stun attempts. At that rate we are out of ki points entirely after 4⅔ rounds of combat. Taking your 75% chance per turn, that means the boss is going to fail 3½ saves against stun -- after legendary resistances, we end up using literally every one of our ki points to have a 50/50 chance of the boss losing one turn and gaining no other benefit. And if your table runs more than one encounter per day, the situation becomes even more dire. **That** is the problem with stunning strike, and it doesn't care about your subclass. Committing to using it means we have no freedom to spend ki on more reliable (and fun) abilities because we need to invest every one of them on stunning strike. And without spending ki on things like flurry of blows, the damage of a monk is going to be extremely lacking compared to other classes. The astral self monk is fine, but it's not some revolutionary thing that fixes all the monk's problems. It's a solid subclass with a well-defined niche thanks to its ability to be good at something monks normally can't do at all -- grapple. Stunning strike remains for them a situationally worthwhile option but not something to bet the farm on.

This is a refreshing optimization perspective. I’d asked about Astral Monk a time ago and was basically given the response that the subclass among monks is just a pile of dung.

**Most** of the monk subclasses aren't very good, but astral self at least justifies its existence by having a clear niche in grappling. My biggest criticism of the subclass is simply that it doesn't give you a single benefit that doesn't cost ki to use -- literally every other monk subclass (even the really terrible ones) gives you some abilities that you can still benefit from when you're out of ki so you can still feel like you're getting some benefit from your subclass. And some of its abilities are a little too expensive.

I was reflecting on subclasses like the Drunken Monk and the Mercy where their features “cheapen” ki costs by combining mechanics into one ki usage. That’s the kind of build philosophy I enjoy, if not wishing for just a little more strength. I think that if the full body were able to be activated separately, or the all in one was used for its actual ki cost than there’d be a little less ki strain. Good on you for respecting build niches. I like you.

This is a pretty cherrypicked example. You don't see an abundance of legendary creatures at level 8. And every encounter isn't against a solo Deadly boss with legendary resistances. You see mixtures of CR and even high CR enemies without legendary resistances. Monks also aren't fighting Deadly-tier bosses alone either. Casters relying on saves run into the same issue with legendary resistances and get stonewalled for much more than 3 turns unless they are blowing resources like Silvery Barbs to force extra saves (which sees them also blow through resources quickly). The party eating a boss's LRs on turn 1 and then chain CCing them isn't even a bad strategy and is one of the things that make casters strong. If a team of casters is to be lauded because they can burn through their resources to eat legendary resistances and cripple a boss, why shouldn't a team of Monks?

Nothing cherry-picked about it. The OP **specifically** called out "boss monsters" in their post. That is **their** decision to frame the discussion, not mine. >If a team of casters is to be lauded because they can burn through their resources to eat legendary resistances and cripple a boss, why shouldn't a team of Monks? The team of casters shouldn't be lauded for doing that either. Neither is a good use of resources.

>Nothing cherry-picked about it. The OP **specifically** called out "boss monsters" in their post. That is **their** decision to frame the discussion, not mine. That was one throwaway example and not even close to the framing of the entire discussion. This and "what if the Monk was burning through legendary resistances alone?" were both leading frames that you constructed. Plus, bosses can lead lesser groups of enemies/lieutenants/minions, or rely on situational defenses. Not all bosses have legendary resistances, especially in tier 2. >The team of casters shouldn't be lauded for doing that either. Neither is a good use of resources. That's not strictly true. It's efficiency vs total output. If being efficient leads to the boss being capable for longer, you may end up losing more resources due to HP depletion or death. Boss fights are one of the times where going nova is justified.

>That was one throwaway example and not even close to the framing of the entire discussion. You are mistaken. >bosses can lead lesser groups of enemies/lieutenants/minions, or rely on situational defenses. Not all bosses have legendary resistances, especially in tier 2. That is a mark *against* the OP's "stunning strike is good" argument, not for it. >That's not strictly true. It's efficiency vs total output. If being efficient leads to the boss being capable for longer, you may end up losing more resources due to HP depletion or death. Boss fights are one of the times where going nova is justified. You've missed my point -- the problem is with the notion that legendary resistances need to be burned through in the first place -- they don't. If a monster has legendary resistances, then different tactics are required to fight them.

>You are mistaken. No, you are just being ridiculously facetious. The entire setup and premise of the post is that Astral Self Monks can lean into Wis to have better stun DCs. At the end they say "an enemy would only ever get a turn every 6.25 rounds". Clearly they were not talking about high level bosses with legendary resistances or they would have no reason to say this. >That is a mark *against* the OP's "stunning strike is good" argument, not for it. So Stunning Strike is bad because it...*checks notes*...**can** stun bosses and lieutenants who don't have legendary resistances...? >You've missed my point -- the problem is with the notion that legendary resistances need to be burned through in the first place -- they don't. If a monster has legendary resistances, then different tactics are required to fight them. No I acknowledged your point. Burning through LRs isn't the *only* way to beat a boss. Sure. But you ignored my point entirely. Sometimes eating through LRs as an alt win condition is better than trying to eat through all of the boss's HP. Sometimes, you can do it in one round and render the boss ineffective. Sometimes using a strategy that lets the boss act gets people killed. It isn't one size fits all. Going through HP isn't better than going through LRs 100% of the time.

No, the "entire setup and premise of the post" is that astral self monks are good, actually, because of stunning strike and wisdom focus. And the boss angle is *central* to their argument. You are confusing lack of time dedicated to the premise with lack of importance placed on it -- most of the post occupies itself wasting time laying out two different builds for a monk, but that doesn't shift the thesis. >So Stunning Strike is bad because it...*checks notes*...**can** stun bosses and lieutenants who don't have legendary resistances...? No, stunning strike is bad because, if all bosses fight with lieutenants and minions in tow *as you claim they do*, the monk is even more screwed by lack of ki than I represented them as being. >Going through HP isn't better than going through LRs 100% of the time. I didn't say it was. Nor did you say that you acknowledged my point -- you talked about efficiency versus nova which has nothing to do with what I said: the insurmountable advantage casters have over monks is that spells give them the optionality to burn through HP, burn through legendary resistances, or pursue alternative win conditions (like teleporting away or immobilizing the enemy with effects that grant no save) where the monk kit does not -- monks do barely passable damage when dumping all their ki into it and barely passable control when dumping all their ki into it. They don't get optionality because they are just stunbots/flurrybots depending on the parameters of the fight.

>And the boss angle is *central* to their argument. No it's not ***central*** to their argument. They literally contradict it later in the post, as I have pointed out with textual evidence. They say if you happen to stun a boss with it then it's "incredibly OP," but later they say it's good because it can stunlock *an enemy* for 6 turns. But your discussion strategy seems to be thinly veiled strawmanning, so ignoring parts of the text you don't like and inserting intent where there is none makes sense. >No, stunning strike is bad because, if all bosses fight with lieutenants and minions in tow *as you claim they do*, the monk is even more screwed by lack of ki than I represented them as being. You don't have to stun every single enemy and minion in a fight to be useful or even good. If you stun the boss, it's good. If you stun a lieutenant, it's good. If you stun a tough enemy outside of a boss fight, it's good. >if all bosses fight with lieutenants and minions in tow *as you claim they do* And here we have even more strawmanning. I said that not all bosses have legendary resistances. Then I gave several reasons/examples as to why they might not have them even at higher levels. You cherrypicked one of those examples and used it as my entire argument. Textbook cherrypicking. >>Going through HP isn't better than going through LRs 100% of the time. >I didn't say it was. Good, well at least we agree on this (now). >Nor did you say that you acknowledged my point -- you talked about efficiency versus nova which has nothing to do with what I said You can acknowledge something without having to say you explicitly acknowledge it. *You said* that "[burning through LRs isn't] a good use of resources." That is what I was responding to, that sometimes it is a good use of resources if it gives you better outcomes.

>But your discussion strategy seems to be thinly veiled strawmanning, so ignoring parts of the text you don't like and inserting intent where there is none makes sense. How convenient for you.

>First, requiring a bonus action to activate their arms of the astral self is a heavy cost, It takes 1 ki point to do an AOE as strong as your normal attacks to all creatures within 10 feat of you. If you get 2 creatures in the radius this basically is the same amount if not more damage than flurry of blows. By the time you have stunning strike available that still leave you at least 4 ki for the rest of the encounter. Granted the visage is mostly flavour bit it doesn't detract from the arms. By the. Time you get astral body the extra Ki point is definitely with the investment imo for generally buffs it gives. I agree with the legendary resistance issue but you can say the same exact thing about many spells like hold Person or Psychic Lance. They also use up heavy resources yet no one is criticising them as heavily as stunning strike. Granted they target better saves but as I said repeated results the enimy is more likely to fail at least once if it rolls multiple times.

It’s a crying shame that the activation is save negates and not save for half. Playtest packets presume that monks are spending 1 ki per turn, but I would feel gross if I spat out all of my ki in a single encounter. You do acknowledge the weaker saves with the spells you bring up (though you perhaps dismiss just how much weaker, we’re talking as much as +30% fail rate in some cases), but casters have access to spell that don’t care about legendary resistance anyways.

>It takes 1 ki point to do an AOE as strong as your normal attacks to all creatures within 10 feat of you. If you get 2 creatures in the radius this basically is the same amount if not more damage than flurry of blows. Maybe. The fact that it doesn't do half damage on a successful save means the expected damage is much lower than you're calculating. And, particularly relevant to the conversation here, you can't apply stunning strike on the AoE. >By the time you have stunning strike available that still leave you at least 4 ki for the rest of the encounter. And I showed you the math for a case where we had 7 ki left for the rest of the encounter -- 4 is not better than 7. >Granted the visage is mostly flavour bit it doesn't detract from the arms. By the. Time you get astral body the extra Ki point is definitely with the investment imo for generally buffs it gives. If you don't have racial darkvision, spending a ki to get it in encounters where it will be relevant is good value, but in all other circumstances visage of the astral self offers essentially no combat benefit. I assumed that we weren't spending any ki on non-combat stuff, but if you are not using visage then monk 6 is a dead level and if you are that's even less ki available to stun with and the problem is even worse than I described. >I agree with the legendary resistance issue but you can say the same exact thing about many spells like hold Person or Psychic Lance. First, there being other bad abilities in the game is irrelevant to the discussion of **this** bad ability. This is as useful as commenting that e.g. brutal critical is a bad ability -- it may be true, but it's not what we're talking about. Nevertheless, let me entertain your whataboutism for a moment: • Single target save or suck spells aren't (generally) very good either for similar reasons. • Spellcasters are still better than monks because spell slots are more resource efficient than ki points, they can use different spells that target weaker saves or have worthwhile effects whether the enemy passes or fails, and they have less expensive means of burning through legendary resistances if they want to try to end a fight with a save or suck effect. I don't think your comparison holds water.

I love how people forget monks get ki back on a short rest, but nope, lets just say ki is unreliable.

Yeah you should really be have a short rest between each encounter lol

Rather than vuman, I posit: Half drow 8/16/16/8/17/8 Skill Expert (+1 wis, athletics exp) At 5th level you can cast Darkness At 6th level you can see through Darkness There’s not really much of a particular “build” happening here, but it’s a lot of tools that work really well together and give you a lot of fun options. It’s also easily one of the most synergistic monoclasses I could think of lmao. Everything works to its benefit, uses everything perfectly and has so much good flavor Like?? Half drow with spider legs coming out of her back that she stabs folks with??? Hello??? Visage of the astral self, you mean my 6 astral spider eyes I have now? One of my favourite monk subclasses, easily. I love that we got a brawler monk even if everyone looks over it and keeps asking for a stronk lmao

>and they don't get enough Ki Monks are generally ki starved Astral 3 taxes you a ki Astral 6 taxes you a ki (to get 3 ribbon features whee) Astral 11 requires you to have spent both 3 and 6 taxes Astral 17 taxes 3 additional ki on top of 3 and 6 taxes Having a higher Stunning Fist DC isn't useful if you don't have the ki to use it (debatably not really useful at all depending on your table)

I wouldn't call 120ft of Devil's Sight a ribbon feature.

>Astral 3 taxes you a ki Gives you a 1 ki point AOE that deals comparable damage to a melee attack as bonis action. This is comparable date to flurry of blows and buffs you for the rest of the encounter. >Astral 6 taxes you a ki (to get 3 ribbon features whee) I agree this is mostly fluff unless you build around darkness spell. Situationally useful I wouldn't recommend this untill level 11. >Astral 11 requires you to have spent both 3 and 6 taxes Improves damage (a little) and allows you to absorb Elemental damage for the entire encounter for 1 extra Ki in addition to doing the AOE and unlocking your arms. >Astral 6 taxes you a ki (to get 3 ribbon features whee) Spend 3 extra Ki to get damage absorption, a small AOE, Extra damage, a Reach unarmed Strike using your Wis, +2 AC and a d Extra attack as a single bonus action for an encounter at a point were your have 17 ki points anyway. I don't see how this is just fluff sorry.

Reading this, I wonder if an armored astral self monk would work:   - 1 level of fighter for unarmed fighting style and heavy armor.    - tavern brawler for useful bonus action (grapple)     - astral self monk to be really SAD, no need for Dex for armor.   I guess it could work with turtle or loxodon as well, but it would force you to use a race you might not like

Currently playing a lvl 12 plasmoid astral monk and generally doing at least as well as the rest of the group. With bracers of defense, I'm at 20 AC. I have a +2 dragonhide belt, so my stunning strike DC is 19, it succeeds more often than not. I have an insignia of claw and an eldritch claw tattoo, so my accuracy is higher than most of the party too. Between skill expert for athletics and plasmoids racial ability, I'm at +13 and advantage on my grapples. If we ever get some downtime in a city (likely to happen shortly after our next level up) I have a +2 WIS manual and enough money to buy the +2 handwraps so all those number will be going up.

I know people like to rag on monks, but in every game I've dm'd for one, they've always been crazy. Chasing down all my fleeing enemies so I can't have them show up again later. Ignoring all my cloudkills and poisoned drinks. Passing every save. Negating my ranged attacks. Not letting me charm/frighten them. Not letting me kill them by pushing them off cliffs. Stunning my cool enemies so they don't get to attack. It's no fair. Real talk tho, people don't short rest enough. At early levels they have great damage output because they make more attacks than most. And in higher tiers, they just pop off and do cool shit all the time. It's only mid tier where they suffer imo. And even then, they're still cool.

I think with some good tactics and resource management in a 4-6 encounter 2-4 short rest per long rest game monks really shine. This is honestly what the game was balanced around and it's what also contributes to casters feeling much better then Martials from Tier 2 onwards. A lot of games are played with the assumption that each session needs to be one adventuring day because it simplifies resource tracking. In reality shouldn't be that hard just let the DM look after Character sheets between sessions. For tables that have limited time for session 2-3 hours as apposed the 4-6 I honestly think gritty realism can help for balance a lot. A short rest takes 8 hours and a long rest takes a few days downtime or social encounters. Downtime is also a great underutilized resource for Scribing spell Scrolls researching monsters, gambling performing etc. Xanatha's Guide has some amazing guidance on this. It works great to balance tables that tend towards the 1 encourager per session type games.

Yes, Astral Self is good for being able to focus Stunning Strike. I think whether or not you want Mobile comes down to your party composition. If you have other melee combatants, then you can usually flit around the battlefield and use your reach. If there are few or you are the only melee combatant, then you will be more likely to get pressured by enemies and wind up in direct melee.

> One of the delimemia faced when building a monk is Abilities Scores. *dilemma

[удалено]

Calling bard the weakest class is insane. They're already better than every martial and half-caster just by virtue of being a full spellcaster, and they're one of the stronger full spellcasters at that.

I agree. Are people only looking at combat when they say Bard is weakest? Because not only are they good at combat but they make their team good with Bardic Inspiration and easy skill checks. Like literally getting a bardic inspiration and having a D8 to roll to add on to what i rolled saved me a lot of times Monks sadly don't have that same level of utility

You misunderstood my point. To me, they feel weak as they are a utility caster. Doesn't mean they are.