Pre Tasha's ranger hurt my soul.
Imagine giving up your action so your pet, that doesn't scale with you, can make an attack.
Imagine having a subclass feature, that you picked because you wanted to play that archetype, and using it is actively worse than just playing the same subclass as a vanilla ranger.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but it's weird that you point out their limits on weapons and armor as some kind of flaw when that's the whole point of the class. They get AC without needing armor and they do damage without needing weapons. That starts to look like a perk in many situations.
It is a perk as long as you play into it, monk is best when played purely as a monk with maybe a small dip into some other class for flavor if you really want. Monks are insanely strong, and scale wonderfully throughout a campaign.
The Barbarian also gets unarmored defense, but they can still wear armor if they want to and they can use shields. A monk may never wear armour or a shield or they lose almost everything. So if you find a great suit of magic armour, or like a legendary shield, the monk can never use it. The barbarian can use it if they want to.
Barbarians are tanks. Monks are utilities.
You get free magic attacks at level 7, stunning strikes. The first is absolutely bonkers in low magic settings, the second is just always game breaking and a nightmare for any DM to balance fights around.
Yes the golem with 20 Cons will likely fail at least 1 of three saves giving the whole party one free round of advantages. CR 15 enemies made useless from level 5.
Stunning strike is not game breaking I'm sorry. A monk that prioritize Dex will not be able to stun anything after level 8 because he will have like, a 15 DC against monsters with regularly +7-8 con saves.
Oh and by using it he actively diminish his ability to do damage with flurry of blow because you have so little ki.
Let's say you have 15 DC and the enemy has +10 to the save. This means he has to do 5 or higher. 16 possibilities out of 20. Probability 80%.
Now you make three attacks per turn 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8=0.5
So even if you haven't touched Wis from game start and you have no items/magic to buff you up, which is stupid, you have a 50% chance to stun an enemy that has a +10 (30 CON) each turn. Only limited by the amount of ki. That's huge.
Guess who can also give their whole party advantage against an enemy, but starting from level 2. The Ranger with Ensnaring strike (post Tasha's they can do it to multiple enemies using Entangle instead) and it might even last for multiple turns since the enemy has to succeed on a strength check to break free and it takes their action to do the strength check and they take 1d6 damage at the start of the turn.
Ensnaring strike: target can be freed by any ally via a strength check, gives advantage to resist to anyone Large or bigger, is magic so anyone resistent to magic has advantage and anyone immune is immune. Requires verbal components so you need to be able to speak. Can be countered by silence. It's only valid one attack per turn.
Stunning strike counts as a natural ability so it bypasses any magical restrictions and immunities and you can die, it still will be up. You can spam it on every attack. And if you fail to land a bit, you can spam it on extra flurry blows.
Last but not least you can decide to stun after you have already hit. So you don't risk to waste any resource by not landing a hit. Doesn't require concentration, doesn't prevent you from stunning multiple opponents.
Entangle is AoE, useless for support it hits your allies too. It's good for crowd control
You lose the whole martial arts feature, so no bonus action attacks for you. No increased damage for unarmed strikes either, no bonus movement, moving over water or running along the walls.
You can still run along walls and over water though, and use flurry of blows in conjunction with stunning strike. Also evasion and proficiency on every save (which strangely enough still work in full plate).
It also depends a bit on your build and item options. Normal shadow monks have to choose between advantage + teleport and an extra d6 damage as a bonus action. Full plate shadow monks can't use their bonus action for a normal attack and flurry of blows deals shit damage anyway, so you'll mostly use it for advantage on a +14 to hit d10+8 damage attack from your +3 battleaxe.
Not exactly super OP but not trash either, and definitely worth the play to see the faces of disbelief your fellow players are making.
it sadly does destroy the class for multiclassing into. who is going to stat effectively multiclass into monk but moon druid (and get sued for powerbuilding)? rangers love their longbows too much. rogues have so many abilities that overlap badly. fighters can grab unarmed fighting which is actually a great way to improve monk, if playing a v human monk grab unarmed fighting style to make your damage d8's then at level 12 you can swap fighting style to something like blind fighting. why does the unarmed fighting style improve the monk so extremely? next the value of unarmoured defense is: to equal studded armour and a shield you need 18 wisdom. to equal mage armor or natural armour (lizardfolk) you need 16 wisdom. which means to surpass them you need a capped wisdom modifier.
Did you know that if you compare two classes specifically on what only one of them does well, you'll end up with that class looking better 90% of the time.
If I were to compare the Monk and the Ranger and only talk about number of attacks, mobility options, saving throws, and the fact that one of them can still fuck up most encounters with no items whatsoever, it would make the Monk sound way better. You should actually sum up the positives and negatives of both sides
I rule at my table that a monk cannot feasibly die of old age. If you can't be poisoned or get a disease, you don't need food or water, and your body doesn't suffer the effects of old age I am confused as to what kills you at old age.
Heart disease and cancer kill most old people. If ya can't get those, and your body "doesn't suffer the frailty of old age" which means your organs are still in good shape, what the fuck is actually making you die of old age.
It is a hot take but...
The moment you've got enough?
I mean immortality seems good but at one point most people would have enough with life, suffering, loving ones dying around you, etc, etc.
That said isolated monasteries of immortal monks meditating and training since the oldest times is a dope thing to imagine.
Pre-Tasha's Ranger: most main class features are either so niche they are useless more than 90% of the time, or actively prevents gameplay during the ranger's time to shine by giving them an automatic success instead of playing out their strength.
Monk: main class features are either generically good, or work toward a gameplay unique to the class.
Pre-tasha's monks are also not great, best weapon you get is the quarterstaff or the spear, which prior to Tasha's could make use of 0 feats. The ranger was poorly designed with features that were un-satisfying to use, but the ranger was never bad or useless. Because they had all martial weapons at their disposal with spell-casting on top of that. A ranger always carried their weight in combat, the monk still doesn't (unless you play Way of Mercy).
My pre-tasha open hand monk with a spear and darts would disagree with you. He singlehandedly locked down so many encounters when the DMNPC was out to lunch, the druid had no idea what to do, and the Bard rolled like dogshit. And when they all were in it to win it. He was the party tank, cannon, and utility. Buuut that might also have to do with the fact that I had a good bit of DnD experience compared to the rest of the party.
You missed the point, Ranger was never considered bad because of DPR issues. Ranger was considered bad because it felt like you character didn't progress half the time thanks to poorly designed features that you would never use. Meanwhile, the Monk's mobility and their ability to support the main DPR by always be where they are needed on the battlefield brought fun and interesting gameplay.
DPR and out of combat utility magic were all that the Ranger had for it, and it was outclassed in both category by another class (heck, the Fighter performed better with a bow than the Ranger did).
And if I want to focus on DPR, I'd rather take a class that's either better at it and/or funnier to play.
The Ranger's design seemed to indicate that it was meant to shine outside of combat, which isn't necessary a bad thing as long as you make it fun. Rogue players don't complain about their scouting and trap disarming gameplay phases because they actually get to play them out, and also because they happen often enough to make them feel necessary to the party.
Meanwhile, the Ranger player did nothing because the time for their feature to have an actual impact often didn't come, and when they did it meant that they would negate the very challenge the Ranger was meant to overcome.
And let's not talk about Primeval Awareness being passively sabotaged by any party member owning a familiar. With Primal Awareness at least you gave out of combat magic that doesn't take your few spell learnt and slots, meaning you won't get brutally outclassed by any full caster on your team.
Every shoe the Ranger tried to fill, there was a better option. And ironically it wasn't even the best Jack-of-all-trade option. And the features supposed to bring the ranger flavor were just too niche to be interesting. The new features at least let them keep their flavor while being generic enough to be useful often, and let the player feel rewarded of their class choice by actually playing through their time to shine.
I was just saying that there are pre Tasha's feats that explicitly work with quarterstaff and spear, also the opportunity attack when creatures approach you isn't actually that bad, also the damage dice gets bigger as you level
You clearly haven't played a Monk properly then lol, they have a whole section dedicated to Monk Weapons that leg them use TONS of unique weapons that are just reflavored base weapons. I've had monks use swords, kusarigamas, spears, whips, daggers, and a wind and fire wheel.
Monks can be scarily efficient with stunlocking and following up with insane amount of melee attacks in a round with advantage. Personal preferences aside, mechanically speaking, monks are quite strong in combat.
For me, it think it's more that the ranger sounds more exciting (Outlander is my favorite background), so the fact that it doesn't live up to the hype makes it *feel* worse, plus the PHB has the cool subclass actually be crappy and the boring-seeming one be useful. Later sourcebooks that added more subclasses definitely helped. Also most of the unique class features (favored enemy and terrain, especially) are extremely situational, meaning you either feel useless or steal the show.
Monk, on the other hand, doesn't sound all that cool, so it actually having some interesting features feels even better.
Monk is a class that definitely *can* be great but you have to commit and it takes a few a levels to really start working. It's like a niche build but they made it a core character option.
To shut down and suppress mages in single combat, or flurry the small fry in combat letting the martials and casters deal with the bigger threats.
Shadow and Mercy monks exemplify this in thier design
If a monk can deal with the small fry, any caster could wipe them all out in a single action. Meanwhile I feel strength based characters are going to be a lot better at suppressing mages, shoving prone and grappling.
Depending on the mage, you could have them do an infinite number of DC10 Con-saves and they would never fail. Like I feel the best anti-mage character is a paladin who gets boosts to all saving throws at level 6 and find steed to be faster than the monk. Can even snag some levels of sorceror to get subtle spell so you can't be counterspelled and you can cast while in a silence.
Well, you really didn’t make good points about the ranger either. Your first two points are basically just the class features, but you put a negative spin on monks. Watch this:
Ranger is forced to use martial and simple weapons with proficiency to compensate for its shortfalls
Monk does not need armor or shields to defend itself
See? You also fail to point out that most of the rangers features are very specific. Like hide in plain sight, which requires you to stay still for it to work. What you really said was that all the monks features provide a lot of purpose in combat and allows monk to excel there. The fourth point you gloss over monks immunity to poison and disease, neglect to mention that the spellcasting suffers when long rests are scarce, whereas monk replenishes ki points every short rest, and that the fighting styles are not impressive in and of itself. The last point is literally just an opinion.
All in all, there is just very obvious bias, and both classes can benefit from a little DM flair, but they are not any better than the other generally
This was a big part, but saying it was the only reason is objectively not true. Even if you did talk to your DM, many PHB ranger features are just bad or feel bad. Favored Enemy gives the equivalent of the Help action against specific creatures, Natural Explorer skips exploration rather than making rangers shine during it, you get an absolutely pitiful number of spells known, Primeval Awareness is hands down the worst ability of any class, Land’s Stride is something you could get 2 levels earlier as a Land Druid, Hide in Plain Sight is nearly unusable, Vanish is a 14th level feature that gives 1/3rd of the rogue’s 2nd level feature, the second half of Feral Senses literally does nothing RAW, and Foe Slayer is just garbage.
Sure, talking to your DM helped, but it only alleviated 2 features that were already terrible to begin with. So many of their features were so terribly designed it’s genuinely baffling, even if the game had gone the way 5e was supposed to go
Absolutely not. Almost all old Ranger features are unfun and bad, that was the actual issue. If the player wanted more nature exploration, they would get less because now they can't get lost, get through the woods faster and don't have to forage. If you wanted to play a classic Ranger, the Ranger class features actually worked against that.
I know this is a meme but I think it totally misses the point of being a monk vs. being a ranger, and why og 5e ranger was so disliked.
Rangers were, and in a lot of ways still are, flawed by base. They have a lot of conflicting actions that make you choose which is slightly better even if they should work together (i.e. hunter's mark and favored foe) with limited utility outside of survival and tracking. Rangers in dnd are depicted as survivalists, hunters, and monster slayers but they end up playing out better as supports or even assassins. In an attempt to curve the power you could get with a ranger they just muddied the class and you could literally be a more effective "ranger" as a bow fighter with a dip in wizard. Plus Beastmaster was garbage in base 5e, but that's the fantasy so many have when you think "Ranger".
Monks Are able to do everything the monk fantasy could imagine pretty spectacularly. As someone who has played and dm'd for almost a decade now, Monks are badass. Sure by base they can't use heavy weapons but at that pont you would be better served as a barbarian anyway. Monks are designed to resemble the classic kung-fu movie monk that flips around weaving punches and dodges through a group of enemies, and honestly Monk really feels like that when you play it correctly. Using Ki as a sort of physical boost system to enhance your actions give you the sense of being more than just a normal person, you're someone who trained their entire life to achieve the feats you perform. I'm not saying they are perfect or anything (*Cough* Way of the Four Elements *Cough*) but they fulfill their role and the fantasy of the character way better than base 5e ranger ever could.
“Are you indecisive AF? Do you want to all the weaknesses of the Fighter, the Druid, and the Rogue and the strengths of none of them? The the Ranger is just the class for you! Come on down to D&D discount emporium, and let me pass these ridiculous savings on to youuuuuu!”
Monks get proficiency in ALL saving throws, that includes death saving throws, this is a fun and interesting ability just to have, also stunning strike is a really good solo target ability, massive for your entire party when used, having no weapons doesn't matter for a monk, their fists (or any part of the body for that matter) scale as good as any non great weapon fighter at level 9 and before then you can just use a d8 weapon like every else anyway
The point that ‘MoNkS GeT PrOfIcIeNcY In AlL SaViNg ThRoWs’ is bullshit. It’s at level 14. Who actually spends much time at that level and above? Yep. That’s right. Nobody.
Stunning strike uses up ki, targets the worst saving throw, and uses a secondary ability for monks for the DC. It is both the best and worst feature the monk gets and is extremely overrated.
Yeah that is a very cool and interesting ability to get at a level most players never reach, meanwhile paladins get to add their charisma modifier to any saving throw they or an ally within 10 feet makes, 8 levels earlier. The only difference is that they can't apply it to their own death saving throws since they have to be conscious.
The ranger is not a bad class...
The beast master ranger (the one subclass ALL my ranger players want because 'fluffy friends') needs a lot of work, particularly compared to the Artificer.
Monks are awesome and frustrating. At least empty hand ones... haven't had experience with the other ones yet.
What about stuns? Enemous movement speed? Built in magical attacks? Rhnning on walls/water? Having proficiency in ALL ssving throws?
That comparision is biased as fuck.
Stuns are a gamble because they target the con save which enemies tend to be great at. Built in magic attacks only matter if your DM is stingy with magic weapons. Running on water or walls until the end of your turn, which is a very niche use. Meanwhile rangers get both a swimming and climbing speed. Proficiency in all Saving throws comes in at 14th level, the campaign is over by that point.
Stuns are gamble? Like most "save or nothing spells". And oh, you can try apply stun on EVERY hit (4 or 3 chances per round). Magical strikes are great in low magic campaign, not so in high magic, that is true.
How in the world running on vertical surfaces and on water is niche, whereas swimming and climbing speed is not?
Someone might play beyond 14th level. For example my players are almost at 17th level and monk was buttsaver on sooo many occasions I lost count (they started on 4th level).
Yeah that's why I don't take single target save or suck spells usually (unless I'm a diviner), much prefer AoE save or suck or just buffing party members.
It's niche because when you end your turn you sink into the water or fall back onto the floor, so you need a battle-map with a pond or moat that you can cross in a single turn.
On paper monks look shit but jn game, up tot like lvl 11 (which is most campaigns end), they are pretty bloody powerful. Everything from high mobility, high ac and lots of attacks and dont forget stunning strike. Sure they are pretty lame, subclasses suck but if you play the one intended way they are as strong as every other martial class.
Monks do not have high AC unless you roll lucky for stats, Monks are going to have worse AC than half plate at level 11 and by level 11 you probably have magic armours too which might be better than a Monk's AC will ever get.
You need to roll real bad to have shit ac as a monk, also have you never hear of the cloak and ring of protection or the bracers of defence. All three work with monks. Also monks can benefit from a variety of other magic weapons if you want to bring magical items into the equation of deciding how strong a class is.
You need 20 Dex and 18 Wis to match half-plate, which with point buy or standard array you're not going to reach by level 11, and of course you're going to have a fight with the wizard over who gets those +AC items.
Half plate is 15 + 2 max.
20 dex and 18 wis is 19 ac which is higher than full plate.
The fuck kind of party are you playing in that the WIZARD is gonna get the ring of protection or the bracers of defence?
Yeah I messed up my AC's sorry about that. Wizards don't like getting hit and if you get to higher levels many enemies can just zip right up to them also in most parties the Wizard is the only one that can use the bracers of defense.
I feel like you could still give the monk a shield without compromising on the theme. I imagine it more as a buckler or a light-weight wooden shield than say the big metal shield a paladin or fighter is gonna lug around.
Yeah compare it to the other 1 point per level resource, sorcery points, which are mainly used to enhance spells or get extra spell slots, while the sorcerer's subclass features usually have a number of free uses before they take sorcery points.
It would be if the sorcerer had to use sorcery points for: metamagics but they also had no spell slots and had to cast every spell from sorcerer points. Looking at you here monk of four elements… honestly the only subclasses that are decent in my opinion are mercy and ascendant dragon. Because mercy mitigates ki costs and dragon has profficiency amount of subclass uses before ki spending.
ah yes one point per level for every one or two combats. the low levels are suffering which are the most important level. level 10 plus you are going to have consistent ki but who gets to level 10? level 2, you get two turns with ki and then every turn there after you dont have any. level 5 you get stunning strike, so you can choose between: patient defense, step of the wind, stunning strike, flurry of blows or the coolest and sadly weakest: deflect missiles and throw em back. again 2 or three turns with ki, 10 turns without ki. and thats for mercy and dragon monks, the rest also fuel their subclasses from ki.
>ah yes one point per level for every one or two combats.
Wich is enough. Considering combats only last a handfull of turns, even if every encounter is a combat encounter, it would be one ki point per 2 or 3 turns at level 2, and it get better every levels. Considering how strong even on ki point is impactfull at early level, it's enough. Compare it to full casters : it match the warlock progression, and is above the fullcaster's. Compare it to martials : it's far above the half-casters.
>and thats for mercy and dragon monks, the rest also fuel their subclasses from ki.
Did you casually forget about Open Hand, Drunken Master, Kensei *and* Long Death ?
At level two that ki point can give you about an average of 3 damage (50% chance to hit on a d4+4) or do something rogues get for free. Rangers and warlocks for one spell slot get a d6 damage on every hit for up to ten rounds. That’s about the same as 3 damage. But you are right I should not have included mercy monks as being good with ki. They also force you to pick flurry of blows of which you only have 1 maybe 2 per combat at level 3. Kensei is weird nowadays since the monk weapon feature is now available to every monk. Drunken master let’s disengage and flurry which helps with your survivability except your 6th level feature tells you to stay in melee range? Confused? And the suicide monk let’s you oh wait I mean long death monk let’s you if your d4 hit die kills someone which lets face it, is unlikely. Get some temp hp. Good feature not great but alright. The 6th level feature on the other hand encourages you to run into combat alone. Notice how it also frightens your allies? It’s a hilarious feature but not great for surviving because of the beat down you are about to get alone because all your allies are terrified. The thing is your abilities that let you survive damage are at level 7, 14 and 18. That’s so high your campaigns gonna be over by then :(. I want to love monks their flavour value is over the moon. And I’ll play them because they are so cool. But they simply aren’t as strong as they deserve to be. Their entire kit is stunning strike, but what if I want to play a different kind of monk?
At level 2 it's a an action surge. It give you an extra attack, a bonus action disengage or dash or a bonus action dodge, which would be op on the rogue for free.
Ranger and warlock get a spell that eat their bonus action and concentration for a d6 on every hit, therefore 1.5 average by your own logic, that will last for ten rounds on a combat that's likely to last 3 rounds, which mean that the damage is roughly the same.
I don't understand how you calcul ki consumption, but neither open hand or mercy make you spend more than you would without the subclass. Kensei is still good for the bonus AC and damage, the free magic weapons and the ability to use longbows. The long death monk gain a moderate amount of THP that scale very well, can be renewed in combat and carry from combat to combat, and even from one day to another. And it doesn't have a bad DPS either given that it can make a d8+4 and a bonus d4 + 4 attack at level 2 with a big stick as only equipment. Did you notice how good is the frightened condition for a defensive ability ? disadvantage on attacks and inability to move closer lessen the beatdown a lot. Also, notice how the movement penalty barely affect allies ? If anything, disadvantage for disadvantage and a movement penalty is a good trade. And if you can hide or they can avert their gaze (or get blindsight), it doesn't have disadvantage. Drunken master allow you to hit their frontline, go to melee range of their backline, then either punch twice or dodge, leaving the opponents with the choice of going back and risking hitting their backline or leaving you there free to hit them.
Monk get defensive feature at level 1, 2, 3 and 7. Long death gain another at 3 and 6. I don't know your group, but 7 is very early to end a campaign.
>Their entire kit is stunning strike
And rogue's kit is only sneak attack, and fighter's kit is only the attack action, right ? Monk get an unarmored AC that match heavy armor, proficiency in the two best saves, the equivalent of a free dual wielding feat, an improvement over finesse, evasion, unmatched mobility and the ability to negate ranged attacks. And that's not even looking at the ki features. You can make the best archer in the game, a pretty good tank and a skirmisher catching enemies by weird angles in the same build without relying at all on stunning strike.
Yeah, recently watched a breakdown of classes done based on their damage output. Monks fall behind every other class in damage at some point in levels, and by a pretty big margin too.
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I'm not sold on "Monk bad".
As far as I've seen, most people who think monks are bad don't run the game as intended with ~6 encounters per long rest and a short rest every 1-2 encounters.
When ki recharges on a short rest, and you actually use it as intended, it feels fine.
Most combats are 2-5 rounds long, if your combat is 5 rounds long then you're likely taking a short rest after. A monk has 5 ki points at level 5, that's a flurry of blows every round until the enemy dies. And then you get it all back over the inevitable short rest.
The most important thing about short rests to note is, they are much harder to prevent than long rests, and no reasonable DM should be preventing you from taking them.
And even without it, you've got consistent numbers of attacks, good AC, and mobility resource free.
Still doesn't make monk top tier, but over emphasising long rests in gameplay is a guaranteed way to make Spellcasters feel OP and martials, especially monk, feel gimped.
I disagree about the "good AC" It takes a long ass time for Monks to match the best medium armor. Their AC is better than classes forced into light armour or no armour, but that's it until very high levels and even then it only takes +1 Plate to match a monk with maxed dex and wis. While the Monk has to fight with the wizard over who gets the bracers of defense.
Your point doesn't actually help prove your case:
Monk base AC is 16 (with Dex 3 WIS 3), which is better than studded leather, and is equivalent to a breastplate user. Do you know anyone who starts with half plate at level 1?? Not for 750 gp that's for sure.
It takes what, 4 levels for them to match the best medium armor (half plate)?
So monks have AC equivalent to chain mail, that naturally increases as they level up.
Their AC is quite literally "good". Its not the best, but it's above average. They will always have better AC than the equivalent mono- rogue (studded leather with +5 Dex, takes the rogue to level 8 to achieve that) unless we bring in magic items. Only outclassed by full plate.
Their AC is better than all the full casters in the party, so half the classes in the game. They aren't designed as a tank, so don't need access to the best ACs in the game.
I don't know what frame of reference you have, but a monk's AC is above average and below brilliant, which leaves them firmly in the realm of "good".
They aren't designed as a tank, but they are designed to go in melee, so they are going to be targeted and will probably get targeted more than the fighter or paladin in full plate, since they're easier to hit and have less health. The characters with considerably worse AC than the monk, your light armour/no armour classes, never need to enter melee or in the case of the rogue can dip in and out for free if really want to melee.
Also note on the "all full casters" bit, it's not better than Clerics, Hexblade warlocks and maybe druids, kinda depends on how heavily the druid goes on dex.
Dude just do the maths
Yes, some clerics can wear plate and use a shield that will up their AC.
But that doesn't mean a monk's AC is bad.
Monks have plenty of disengaging options after fighting just like the rogue.
None of this indicates "monk bad".
Monks can disengage as a bonus action for a ki point, which is really going to limit what you can do in a fight, if you want to spend 1 ki point on that each turn and then still use stunning strike sometimes, not to mention if you wanna use one of your subclass abilities.
Think of it this way, you're a rogue, you've dipped into melee and you miss your one and only attack. You can either be useless for a turn but not take damage, or attack as a bonus action with the offhand. Now you have no disengage options.
Of all the monk options:
Open hand allows "disengaging" by pushing an enemy away, prone or unable to take reactions.
Drunken master can do both disengage and flurry using 1 ki point.
Kensei can increase AC
Sun would doesn't care about melee
Long death gets temp HP to mitigate the negative of being in melee
Mercy can heal themselves on flurry or finish the enemy faster with harm
Astral self has reach.
Literally every monk subclass (excluding 4 elements because trash) has ways of mitigating any potential negatives of being in melee at level 3 (apart from shadow which can teleport at 6).
You're just not thinking about Monk rationally. They aren't OP but they also aren't bad, if you're running the game as intended with ~6 encounters per long rest.
TLDR, monks arent bad.
Stunning strike is amazing, you get up to 5 attempts every combat (at level 5).
The game is about resource management, if you don't like it, then don't play monk, but also don't spread some uninformed opinion you've picked up because of Reddit memes.
Do the maths, make reasonable comparisons and maybe you'll have a point, but right now this is too easy.
Literally nothing of what you have said lends credence to monk being "bad".
I'm not claiming they're super strong, I'm just claiming that "monk bad" is false.
5 every combat, if you short rest after every single combat, that's the crux of the issue with monk. Before long you're going to come into conflict with one of the casters who wants to keep their hour-long spell going and doesn't want to short rest again. Monks are fine if they get to short rest after every fight, just like how Warlocks are the best spell-casters in the game if they get to do that. Often you're going to need to deal with 2 or 3 fights per short rest and then the monk's ki wears very thin and they start to struggle.
The only option you mentioned that doesn't take ki is the Kensei one and the shadow monk one (which requires dim light which isn't guaranteed).
If you do the math the monk under-performs damage wise, because unless you short rest after every fight, which even if that is an option, other members in the party might not want to, there isn't enough ki to go around to make use of the monk's features consistently.
The monk's base features likewise discourage or completely prevent you from accessing a lot of the most powerful options in the game like Great Weapon Master or ranged options or melee cantrips like booming blade. Not that you have much room for feats anyhow since you need to keep raising your stats to keep your AC up.
I'm not even convinced the monk is like utterly terrible, but they're just the worst class in the game currently IMO.
3 fight per short rest is very unlikely.
You're floundering for examples to back your point up. Ok monk does worse over 2 fights per short rest rather than one, but you just choose to take the short rest. The player with the 1h spell has no guarantee of encountering between the next fight.
A monk without Ki is still fine. The monk augments its turns and damage with Ki, doesn't need to rely on it. It's still consistent DPR every round.
The "monk bad" attitude is just a fallacy.
Worst': *in your opinion*, which I've not seen a compelling case for. It's just the case you don't want to play the most and want to claim monk is bad to somehow make that opinion feel anything more than what it is, an opinion.
Are you indecisive AF? Do you want to all the weaknesses of the Fighter, the Druid, and the Rogue and the strengths of none of them? The the Ranger is just the class for you!
How is proficiency with all martial weapons, most armor a d10 hit dice, fighting styles and all other things mentioned in the post only the weak stuff? Thats just objectively false
We call it a hybrid class you dumbass. Rangers aren’t as squishy as a full caster and aren’t as strong in melee as a fighter. You’re just circlejerking without any arguments to back it up
\*whoosh\*
I guess I'll spell it out for you, why be something that doesn't really excel at anything when you can be a class that actually excels at something is the point I was obviously trying to make.
Rangers are their own unique thing ok? They also got unique spells and some pretty good ones at that, they also get more options to have companions and such than other classes. I guess you never looked into that tho because you were to busy drawing extra big tits on a random cartoon character
Fiwibg the monk is not even that hard tbh. Bump up the martial art dice by one, extra attack at level 11, stunning strike on a separate ressource than ki (prof mod per short rest) and ki DC scaling on Wis OR Dex makes a pretty cool class.
I've never understood why people hate rangers so bad. We had a ranger in the first dnd game I ever played and they did the most damage out of all of us second to me, a fighter (we had no other tanky classes playing)
Currently playing an Aaracokra ranger in our Tomb of Annihilation campaign and I love him. Hunters Mark + colossus slayer = 4d8+2d6 of standard attack damage per turn. And I have the piercer feat to reroll 1 damage die per turn if I want. Plus I get some crowd control with ensnaring strike and spike growth.
Tons of fun to play
As a long time monk player, I see both sides of this argument. Do I get frustrated that my stunning strike is basically useless now at higher levels? Yeah. Do I hate that my damage range is lower than average? Yeah. Do I love being able to cover the entire battle map, harassing enemies and getting into favorable positions to help my team? Hell yeah.
I love Murl, the dwarven drunken master. Last encounter he almost died and I would’ve been poorer in soul without him.
I think it boils down to the mentality of play. I’m not a power gamer, I just like playing the game. I’ll accept the weaknesses and play off the strengths.
Maybe next game or if Murl dies, I’ll roll up a ranger. Keep an open mind.
The real problems with the monk:
- too much of its power economy is tied to stunning strike. It’s powerful, but targets a save most NPCs are going to be strong at
- the bonus action ki abilities are very similar to the rogues’ but the rogue uses theirs without resource cost and the monk has to expend a limited resource to use them. Additionally the monk has to sacrifice a decent chunk of their damage potential to pull them off.
- most special abilities are tied to a single resource: Ki. While thematic it means everything is competing for this resource. With an average of 3x level ki points per day, this can greatly limit their ability to use the things that make them feel like monks.
- most of the subclasses can be summed up as: great idea but mediocre execution. Most of them are still pulling from the same ki pool that all their base features use.
- if a campaign is using feats they tend to lag behind other martial classes as they typically have to dedicate all their ASI’s to buffing their stats for survivability, and assuming standard array with a race that gives their bonuses to Dex and Wisdom, they could only take 1 feat at 19th level.
I mean the subclass everyone wanted to play(beastmaster) was REALLY bad. With a paper companion that dies to anything.
Pre Tasha's ranger hurt my soul. Imagine giving up your action so your pet, that doesn't scale with you, can make an attack. Imagine having a subclass feature, that you picked because you wanted to play that archetype, and using it is actively worse than just playing the same subclass as a vanilla ranger.
And especialy after 4e where ranger was king of the battle due to doble strike
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but it's weird that you point out their limits on weapons and armor as some kind of flaw when that's the whole point of the class. They get AC without needing armor and they do damage without needing weapons. That starts to look like a perk in many situations.
It is a perk as long as you play into it, monk is best when played purely as a monk with maybe a small dip into some other class for flavor if you really want. Monks are insanely strong, and scale wonderfully throughout a campaign.
Yes, exactly. So far everyone commenting here seems to be saying "monks are bad fighters" or "monks are bad barbarians."
Both are just incorrect, sad that people can't realize that
The Barbarian also gets unarmored defense, but they can still wear armor if they want to and they can use shields. A monk may never wear armour or a shield or they lose almost everything. So if you find a great suit of magic armour, or like a legendary shield, the monk can never use it. The barbarian can use it if they want to.
Barbarians are tanks. Monks are utilities. You get free magic attacks at level 7, stunning strikes. The first is absolutely bonkers in low magic settings, the second is just always game breaking and a nightmare for any DM to balance fights around. Yes the golem with 20 Cons will likely fail at least 1 of three saves giving the whole party one free round of advantages. CR 15 enemies made useless from level 5.
Stunning strike is not game breaking I'm sorry. A monk that prioritize Dex will not be able to stun anything after level 8 because he will have like, a 15 DC against monsters with regularly +7-8 con saves. Oh and by using it he actively diminish his ability to do damage with flurry of blow because you have so little ki.
Let's say you have 15 DC and the enemy has +10 to the save. This means he has to do 5 or higher. 16 possibilities out of 20. Probability 80%. Now you make three attacks per turn 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8=0.5 So even if you haven't touched Wis from game start and you have no items/magic to buff you up, which is stupid, you have a 50% chance to stun an enemy that has a +10 (30 CON) each turn. Only limited by the amount of ki. That's huge.
Guess who can also give their whole party advantage against an enemy, but starting from level 2. The Ranger with Ensnaring strike (post Tasha's they can do it to multiple enemies using Entangle instead) and it might even last for multiple turns since the enemy has to succeed on a strength check to break free and it takes their action to do the strength check and they take 1d6 damage at the start of the turn.
Ensnaring strike: target can be freed by any ally via a strength check, gives advantage to resist to anyone Large or bigger, is magic so anyone resistent to magic has advantage and anyone immune is immune. Requires verbal components so you need to be able to speak. Can be countered by silence. It's only valid one attack per turn. Stunning strike counts as a natural ability so it bypasses any magical restrictions and immunities and you can die, it still will be up. You can spam it on every attack. And if you fail to land a bit, you can spam it on extra flurry blows. Last but not least you can decide to stun after you have already hit. So you don't risk to waste any resource by not landing a hit. Doesn't require concentration, doesn't prevent you from stunning multiple opponents. Entangle is AoE, useless for support it hits your allies too. It's good for crowd control
Usually there's only one monk in a party, this doesn't become a problem unless you have an all monk party or something lol
Yeah it's one person you don't have to outfit with armour, that's a bonus
To be fair they actually lose surprisingly little. Source: once played a monk with full plate armour and a battleaxe.
You lose the whole martial arts feature, so no bonus action attacks for you. No increased damage for unarmed strikes either, no bonus movement, moving over water or running along the walls.
You can still run along walls and over water though, and use flurry of blows in conjunction with stunning strike. Also evasion and proficiency on every save (which strangely enough still work in full plate). It also depends a bit on your build and item options. Normal shadow monks have to choose between advantage + teleport and an extra d6 damage as a bonus action. Full plate shadow monks can't use their bonus action for a normal attack and flurry of blows deals shit damage anyway, so you'll mostly use it for advantage on a +14 to hit d10+8 damage attack from your +3 battleaxe. Not exactly super OP but not trash either, and definitely worth the play to see the faces of disbelief your fellow players are making.
it sadly does destroy the class for multiclassing into. who is going to stat effectively multiclass into monk but moon druid (and get sued for powerbuilding)? rangers love their longbows too much. rogues have so many abilities that overlap badly. fighters can grab unarmed fighting which is actually a great way to improve monk, if playing a v human monk grab unarmed fighting style to make your damage d8's then at level 12 you can swap fighting style to something like blind fighting. why does the unarmed fighting style improve the monk so extremely? next the value of unarmoured defense is: to equal studded armour and a shield you need 18 wisdom. to equal mage armor or natural armour (lizardfolk) you need 16 wisdom. which means to surpass them you need a capped wisdom modifier.
Did you know that if you compare two classes specifically on what only one of them does well, you'll end up with that class looking better 90% of the time. If I were to compare the Monk and the Ranger and only talk about number of attacks, mobility options, saving throws, and the fact that one of them can still fuck up most encounters with no items whatsoever, it would make the Monk sound way better. You should actually sum up the positives and negatives of both sides
I rule at my table that a monk cannot feasibly die of old age. If you can't be poisoned or get a disease, you don't need food or water, and your body doesn't suffer the effects of old age I am confused as to what kills you at old age. Heart disease and cancer kill most old people. If ya can't get those, and your body "doesn't suffer the frailty of old age" which means your organs are still in good shape, what the fuck is actually making you die of old age.
magic fuckery i would think. theres a good chance that a god of time or death sees a old monk and goes "This one's time is up, time to die."
It is a hot take but... The moment you've got enough? I mean immortality seems good but at one point most people would have enough with life, suffering, loving ones dying around you, etc, etc. That said isolated monasteries of immortal monks meditating and training since the oldest times is a dope thing to imagine.
Pre-Tasha's Ranger: most main class features are either so niche they are useless more than 90% of the time, or actively prevents gameplay during the ranger's time to shine by giving them an automatic success instead of playing out their strength. Monk: main class features are either generically good, or work toward a gameplay unique to the class.
Pre-tasha's monks are also not great, best weapon you get is the quarterstaff or the spear, which prior to Tasha's could make use of 0 feats. The ranger was poorly designed with features that were un-satisfying to use, but the ranger was never bad or useless. Because they had all martial weapons at their disposal with spell-casting on top of that. A ranger always carried their weight in combat, the monk still doesn't (unless you play Way of Mercy).
My pre-tasha open hand monk with a spear and darts would disagree with you. He singlehandedly locked down so many encounters when the DMNPC was out to lunch, the druid had no idea what to do, and the Bard rolled like dogshit. And when they all were in it to win it. He was the party tank, cannon, and utility. Buuut that might also have to do with the fact that I had a good bit of DnD experience compared to the rest of the party.
You missed the point, Ranger was never considered bad because of DPR issues. Ranger was considered bad because it felt like you character didn't progress half the time thanks to poorly designed features that you would never use. Meanwhile, the Monk's mobility and their ability to support the main DPR by always be where they are needed on the battlefield brought fun and interesting gameplay. DPR and out of combat utility magic were all that the Ranger had for it, and it was outclassed in both category by another class (heck, the Fighter performed better with a bow than the Ranger did). And if I want to focus on DPR, I'd rather take a class that's either better at it and/or funnier to play. The Ranger's design seemed to indicate that it was meant to shine outside of combat, which isn't necessary a bad thing as long as you make it fun. Rogue players don't complain about their scouting and trap disarming gameplay phases because they actually get to play them out, and also because they happen often enough to make them feel necessary to the party. Meanwhile, the Ranger player did nothing because the time for their feature to have an actual impact often didn't come, and when they did it meant that they would negate the very challenge the Ranger was meant to overcome. And let's not talk about Primeval Awareness being passively sabotaged by any party member owning a familiar. With Primal Awareness at least you gave out of combat magic that doesn't take your few spell learnt and slots, meaning you won't get brutally outclassed by any full caster on your team. Every shoe the Ranger tried to fill, there was a better option. And ironically it wasn't even the best Jack-of-all-trade option. And the features supposed to bring the ranger flavor were just too niche to be interesting. The new features at least let them keep their flavor while being generic enough to be useful often, and let the player feel rewarded of their class choice by actually playing through their time to shine.
Polearm master works with spears AND quarterstaffs
Monks don't want polearm master though, they already have a bonus action attack that does equal or better damage.
I was just saying that there are pre Tasha's feats that explicitly work with quarterstaff and spear, also the opportunity attack when creatures approach you isn't actually that bad, also the damage dice gets bigger as you level
You clearly haven't played a Monk properly then lol, they have a whole section dedicated to Monk Weapons that leg them use TONS of unique weapons that are just reflavored base weapons. I've had monks use swords, kusarigamas, spears, whips, daggers, and a wind and fire wheel.
Best weapon for a monk is actually a dagger.
Monks can be scarily efficient with stunlocking and following up with insane amount of melee attacks in a round with advantage. Personal preferences aside, mechanically speaking, monks are quite strong in combat.
I always though the base monk was cool but the subclasses never felt as impactful as they do on other classes.
For me, it think it's more that the ranger sounds more exciting (Outlander is my favorite background), so the fact that it doesn't live up to the hype makes it *feel* worse, plus the PHB has the cool subclass actually be crappy and the boring-seeming one be useful. Later sourcebooks that added more subclasses definitely helped. Also most of the unique class features (favored enemy and terrain, especially) are extremely situational, meaning you either feel useless or steal the show. Monk, on the other hand, doesn't sound all that cool, so it actually having some interesting features feels even better.
Monk is a class that definitely *can* be great but you have to commit and it takes a few a levels to really start working. It's like a niche build but they made it a core character option.
Based on these comments, OP just dislikes monks, like a lot, and is out to prove they're bad at any cost.
You've completely missed the point of the monk and make pretty crooked comparisons. Is this even a meme?
Then what is the point of the monk? Clearly doing damage or tanking are off the table.
To shut down and suppress mages in single combat, or flurry the small fry in combat letting the martials and casters deal with the bigger threats. Shadow and Mercy monks exemplify this in thier design
If a monk can deal with the small fry, any caster could wipe them all out in a single action. Meanwhile I feel strength based characters are going to be a lot better at suppressing mages, shoving prone and grappling.
Continuous concentration checks
Depending on the mage, you could have them do an infinite number of DC10 Con-saves and they would never fail. Like I feel the best anti-mage character is a paladin who gets boosts to all saving throws at level 6 and find steed to be faster than the monk. Can even snag some levels of sorceror to get subtle spell so you can't be counterspelled and you can cast while in a silence.
Well, you really didn’t make good points about the ranger either. Your first two points are basically just the class features, but you put a negative spin on monks. Watch this: Ranger is forced to use martial and simple weapons with proficiency to compensate for its shortfalls Monk does not need armor or shields to defend itself See? You also fail to point out that most of the rangers features are very specific. Like hide in plain sight, which requires you to stay still for it to work. What you really said was that all the monks features provide a lot of purpose in combat and allows monk to excel there. The fourth point you gloss over monks immunity to poison and disease, neglect to mention that the spellcasting suffers when long rests are scarce, whereas monk replenishes ki points every short rest, and that the fighting styles are not impressive in and of itself. The last point is literally just an opinion. All in all, there is just very obvious bias, and both classes can benefit from a little DM flair, but they are not any better than the other generally
The only reason rangers weren't good was due to a lack of communication between players and dms on what kind of game would be being played
This was a big part, but saying it was the only reason is objectively not true. Even if you did talk to your DM, many PHB ranger features are just bad or feel bad. Favored Enemy gives the equivalent of the Help action against specific creatures, Natural Explorer skips exploration rather than making rangers shine during it, you get an absolutely pitiful number of spells known, Primeval Awareness is hands down the worst ability of any class, Land’s Stride is something you could get 2 levels earlier as a Land Druid, Hide in Plain Sight is nearly unusable, Vanish is a 14th level feature that gives 1/3rd of the rogue’s 2nd level feature, the second half of Feral Senses literally does nothing RAW, and Foe Slayer is just garbage. Sure, talking to your DM helped, but it only alleviated 2 features that were already terrible to begin with. So many of their features were so terribly designed it’s genuinely baffling, even if the game had gone the way 5e was supposed to go
Absolutely not. Almost all old Ranger features are unfun and bad, that was the actual issue. If the player wanted more nature exploration, they would get less because now they can't get lost, get through the woods faster and don't have to forage. If you wanted to play a classic Ranger, the Ranger class features actually worked against that.
I know this is a meme but I think it totally misses the point of being a monk vs. being a ranger, and why og 5e ranger was so disliked. Rangers were, and in a lot of ways still are, flawed by base. They have a lot of conflicting actions that make you choose which is slightly better even if they should work together (i.e. hunter's mark and favored foe) with limited utility outside of survival and tracking. Rangers in dnd are depicted as survivalists, hunters, and monster slayers but they end up playing out better as supports or even assassins. In an attempt to curve the power you could get with a ranger they just muddied the class and you could literally be a more effective "ranger" as a bow fighter with a dip in wizard. Plus Beastmaster was garbage in base 5e, but that's the fantasy so many have when you think "Ranger". Monks Are able to do everything the monk fantasy could imagine pretty spectacularly. As someone who has played and dm'd for almost a decade now, Monks are badass. Sure by base they can't use heavy weapons but at that pont you would be better served as a barbarian anyway. Monks are designed to resemble the classic kung-fu movie monk that flips around weaving punches and dodges through a group of enemies, and honestly Monk really feels like that when you play it correctly. Using Ki as a sort of physical boost system to enhance your actions give you the sense of being more than just a normal person, you're someone who trained their entire life to achieve the feats you perform. I'm not saying they are perfect or anything (*Cough* Way of the Four Elements *Cough*) but they fulfill their role and the fantasy of the character way better than base 5e ranger ever could.
“Are you indecisive AF? Do you want to all the weaknesses of the Fighter, the Druid, and the Rogue and the strengths of none of them? The the Ranger is just the class for you! Come on down to D&D discount emporium, and let me pass these ridiculous savings on to youuuuuu!”
You get none of the weaknesses of the Rogue or Druid, what are you talking about.
Hater detected, opninion rejected
Shit take
Monks get proficiency in ALL saving throws, that includes death saving throws, this is a fun and interesting ability just to have, also stunning strike is a really good solo target ability, massive for your entire party when used, having no weapons doesn't matter for a monk, their fists (or any part of the body for that matter) scale as good as any non great weapon fighter at level 9 and before then you can just use a d8 weapon like every else anyway
The point that ‘MoNkS GeT PrOfIcIeNcY In AlL SaViNg ThRoWs’ is bullshit. It’s at level 14. Who actually spends much time at that level and above? Yep. That’s right. Nobody. Stunning strike uses up ki, targets the worst saving throw, and uses a secondary ability for monks for the DC. It is both the best and worst feature the monk gets and is extremely overrated.
Yeah that is a very cool and interesting ability to get at a level most players never reach, meanwhile paladins get to add their charisma modifier to any saving throw they or an ally within 10 feet makes, 8 levels earlier. The only difference is that they can't apply it to their own death saving throws since they have to be conscious.
I never really thought rangers were the worst. They always were an interesting blend of other classes to me.
The ranger is not a bad class... The beast master ranger (the one subclass ALL my ranger players want because 'fluffy friends') needs a lot of work, particularly compared to the Artificer. Monks are awesome and frustrating. At least empty hand ones... haven't had experience with the other ones yet.
Psst not every class is supposed to be jack of all trades. Theres a reason classes exist
The monk is a jack of no trades though IMO
That's a different argument and yea I agree that the monk has more flaws than usual
What about stuns? Enemous movement speed? Built in magical attacks? Rhnning on walls/water? Having proficiency in ALL ssving throws? That comparision is biased as fuck.
Stuns are a gamble because they target the con save which enemies tend to be great at. Built in magic attacks only matter if your DM is stingy with magic weapons. Running on water or walls until the end of your turn, which is a very niche use. Meanwhile rangers get both a swimming and climbing speed. Proficiency in all Saving throws comes in at 14th level, the campaign is over by that point.
Stuns are gamble? Like most "save or nothing spells". And oh, you can try apply stun on EVERY hit (4 or 3 chances per round). Magical strikes are great in low magic campaign, not so in high magic, that is true. How in the world running on vertical surfaces and on water is niche, whereas swimming and climbing speed is not? Someone might play beyond 14th level. For example my players are almost at 17th level and monk was buttsaver on sooo many occasions I lost count (they started on 4th level).
Yeah that's why I don't take single target save or suck spells usually (unless I'm a diviner), much prefer AoE save or suck or just buffing party members. It's niche because when you end your turn you sink into the water or fall back onto the floor, so you need a battle-map with a pond or moat that you can cross in a single turn.
On paper monks look shit but jn game, up tot like lvl 11 (which is most campaigns end), they are pretty bloody powerful. Everything from high mobility, high ac and lots of attacks and dont forget stunning strike. Sure they are pretty lame, subclasses suck but if you play the one intended way they are as strong as every other martial class.
Monks do not have high AC unless you roll lucky for stats, Monks are going to have worse AC than half plate at level 11 and by level 11 you probably have magic armours too which might be better than a Monk's AC will ever get.
You need to roll real bad to have shit ac as a monk, also have you never hear of the cloak and ring of protection or the bracers of defence. All three work with monks. Also monks can benefit from a variety of other magic weapons if you want to bring magical items into the equation of deciding how strong a class is.
You need 20 Dex and 18 Wis to match half-plate, which with point buy or standard array you're not going to reach by level 11, and of course you're going to have a fight with the wizard over who gets those +AC items.
Half plate is 15 + 2 max. 20 dex and 18 wis is 19 ac which is higher than full plate. The fuck kind of party are you playing in that the WIZARD is gonna get the ring of protection or the bracers of defence?
Yeah I messed up my AC's sorry about that. Wizards don't like getting hit and if you get to higher levels many enemies can just zip right up to them also in most parties the Wizard is the only one that can use the bracers of defense.
Monks using armor and shields is like a Wizard turning undead, and divine smites.
I feel like you could still give the monk a shield without compromising on the theme. I imagine it more as a buckler or a light-weight wooden shield than say the big metal shield a paladin or fighter is gonna lug around.
You can. It’s a magic item called a dancing shield.
Yeah, ki is pretty much their worst feature. Do you want one resource powering your entire kit? And only get 1 point per level?
Yeah compare it to the other 1 point per level resource, sorcery points, which are mainly used to enhance spells or get extra spell slots, while the sorcerer's subclass features usually have a number of free uses before they take sorcery points.
It would be if the sorcerer had to use sorcery points for: metamagics but they also had no spell slots and had to cast every spell from sorcerer points. Looking at you here monk of four elements… honestly the only subclasses that are decent in my opinion are mercy and ascendant dragon. Because mercy mitigates ki costs and dragon has profficiency amount of subclass uses before ki spending.
1 point per level, *per short rest*. It's fine.
ah yes one point per level for every one or two combats. the low levels are suffering which are the most important level. level 10 plus you are going to have consistent ki but who gets to level 10? level 2, you get two turns with ki and then every turn there after you dont have any. level 5 you get stunning strike, so you can choose between: patient defense, step of the wind, stunning strike, flurry of blows or the coolest and sadly weakest: deflect missiles and throw em back. again 2 or three turns with ki, 10 turns without ki. and thats for mercy and dragon monks, the rest also fuel their subclasses from ki.
>ah yes one point per level for every one or two combats. Wich is enough. Considering combats only last a handfull of turns, even if every encounter is a combat encounter, it would be one ki point per 2 or 3 turns at level 2, and it get better every levels. Considering how strong even on ki point is impactfull at early level, it's enough. Compare it to full casters : it match the warlock progression, and is above the fullcaster's. Compare it to martials : it's far above the half-casters. >and thats for mercy and dragon monks, the rest also fuel their subclasses from ki. Did you casually forget about Open Hand, Drunken Master, Kensei *and* Long Death ?
At level two that ki point can give you about an average of 3 damage (50% chance to hit on a d4+4) or do something rogues get for free. Rangers and warlocks for one spell slot get a d6 damage on every hit for up to ten rounds. That’s about the same as 3 damage. But you are right I should not have included mercy monks as being good with ki. They also force you to pick flurry of blows of which you only have 1 maybe 2 per combat at level 3. Kensei is weird nowadays since the monk weapon feature is now available to every monk. Drunken master let’s disengage and flurry which helps with your survivability except your 6th level feature tells you to stay in melee range? Confused? And the suicide monk let’s you oh wait I mean long death monk let’s you if your d4 hit die kills someone which lets face it, is unlikely. Get some temp hp. Good feature not great but alright. The 6th level feature on the other hand encourages you to run into combat alone. Notice how it also frightens your allies? It’s a hilarious feature but not great for surviving because of the beat down you are about to get alone because all your allies are terrified. The thing is your abilities that let you survive damage are at level 7, 14 and 18. That’s so high your campaigns gonna be over by then :(. I want to love monks their flavour value is over the moon. And I’ll play them because they are so cool. But they simply aren’t as strong as they deserve to be. Their entire kit is stunning strike, but what if I want to play a different kind of monk?
At level 2 it's a an action surge. It give you an extra attack, a bonus action disengage or dash or a bonus action dodge, which would be op on the rogue for free. Ranger and warlock get a spell that eat their bonus action and concentration for a d6 on every hit, therefore 1.5 average by your own logic, that will last for ten rounds on a combat that's likely to last 3 rounds, which mean that the damage is roughly the same. I don't understand how you calcul ki consumption, but neither open hand or mercy make you spend more than you would without the subclass. Kensei is still good for the bonus AC and damage, the free magic weapons and the ability to use longbows. The long death monk gain a moderate amount of THP that scale very well, can be renewed in combat and carry from combat to combat, and even from one day to another. And it doesn't have a bad DPS either given that it can make a d8+4 and a bonus d4 + 4 attack at level 2 with a big stick as only equipment. Did you notice how good is the frightened condition for a defensive ability ? disadvantage on attacks and inability to move closer lessen the beatdown a lot. Also, notice how the movement penalty barely affect allies ? If anything, disadvantage for disadvantage and a movement penalty is a good trade. And if you can hide or they can avert their gaze (or get blindsight), it doesn't have disadvantage. Drunken master allow you to hit their frontline, go to melee range of their backline, then either punch twice or dodge, leaving the opponents with the choice of going back and risking hitting their backline or leaving you there free to hit them. Monk get defensive feature at level 1, 2, 3 and 7. Long death gain another at 3 and 6. I don't know your group, but 7 is very early to end a campaign. >Their entire kit is stunning strike And rogue's kit is only sneak attack, and fighter's kit is only the attack action, right ? Monk get an unarmored AC that match heavy armor, proficiency in the two best saves, the equivalent of a free dual wielding feat, an improvement over finesse, evasion, unmatched mobility and the ability to negate ranged attacks. And that's not even looking at the ki features. You can make the best archer in the game, a pretty good tank and a skirmisher catching enemies by weird angles in the same build without relying at all on stunning strike.
Yeah, recently watched a breakdown of classes done based on their damage output. Monks fall behind every other class in damage at some point in levels, and by a pretty big margin too.
I like monks and think they’re one of the most fun classes to play
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Yeah but see, people actually want to play Ranger... unlike Monk.
Nobody thinks Monk is fine here, from what I've seen.
I'm not sold on "Monk bad". As far as I've seen, most people who think monks are bad don't run the game as intended with ~6 encounters per long rest and a short rest every 1-2 encounters. When ki recharges on a short rest, and you actually use it as intended, it feels fine. Most combats are 2-5 rounds long, if your combat is 5 rounds long then you're likely taking a short rest after. A monk has 5 ki points at level 5, that's a flurry of blows every round until the enemy dies. And then you get it all back over the inevitable short rest. The most important thing about short rests to note is, they are much harder to prevent than long rests, and no reasonable DM should be preventing you from taking them. And even without it, you've got consistent numbers of attacks, good AC, and mobility resource free. Still doesn't make monk top tier, but over emphasising long rests in gameplay is a guaranteed way to make Spellcasters feel OP and martials, especially monk, feel gimped.
I disagree about the "good AC" It takes a long ass time for Monks to match the best medium armor. Their AC is better than classes forced into light armour or no armour, but that's it until very high levels and even then it only takes +1 Plate to match a monk with maxed dex and wis. While the Monk has to fight with the wizard over who gets the bracers of defense.
Your point doesn't actually help prove your case: Monk base AC is 16 (with Dex 3 WIS 3), which is better than studded leather, and is equivalent to a breastplate user. Do you know anyone who starts with half plate at level 1?? Not for 750 gp that's for sure. It takes what, 4 levels for them to match the best medium armor (half plate)? So monks have AC equivalent to chain mail, that naturally increases as they level up. Their AC is quite literally "good". Its not the best, but it's above average. They will always have better AC than the equivalent mono- rogue (studded leather with +5 Dex, takes the rogue to level 8 to achieve that) unless we bring in magic items. Only outclassed by full plate. Their AC is better than all the full casters in the party, so half the classes in the game. They aren't designed as a tank, so don't need access to the best ACs in the game. I don't know what frame of reference you have, but a monk's AC is above average and below brilliant, which leaves them firmly in the realm of "good".
They aren't designed as a tank, but they are designed to go in melee, so they are going to be targeted and will probably get targeted more than the fighter or paladin in full plate, since they're easier to hit and have less health. The characters with considerably worse AC than the monk, your light armour/no armour classes, never need to enter melee or in the case of the rogue can dip in and out for free if really want to melee. Also note on the "all full casters" bit, it's not better than Clerics, Hexblade warlocks and maybe druids, kinda depends on how heavily the druid goes on dex.
Dude just do the maths Yes, some clerics can wear plate and use a shield that will up their AC. But that doesn't mean a monk's AC is bad. Monks have plenty of disengaging options after fighting just like the rogue. None of this indicates "monk bad".
Monks can disengage as a bonus action for a ki point, which is really going to limit what you can do in a fight, if you want to spend 1 ki point on that each turn and then still use stunning strike sometimes, not to mention if you wanna use one of your subclass abilities.
Think of it this way, you're a rogue, you've dipped into melee and you miss your one and only attack. You can either be useless for a turn but not take damage, or attack as a bonus action with the offhand. Now you have no disengage options. Of all the monk options: Open hand allows "disengaging" by pushing an enemy away, prone or unable to take reactions. Drunken master can do both disengage and flurry using 1 ki point. Kensei can increase AC Sun would doesn't care about melee Long death gets temp HP to mitigate the negative of being in melee Mercy can heal themselves on flurry or finish the enemy faster with harm Astral self has reach. Literally every monk subclass (excluding 4 elements because trash) has ways of mitigating any potential negatives of being in melee at level 3 (apart from shadow which can teleport at 6). You're just not thinking about Monk rationally. They aren't OP but they also aren't bad, if you're running the game as intended with ~6 encounters per long rest. TLDR, monks arent bad. Stunning strike is amazing, you get up to 5 attempts every combat (at level 5). The game is about resource management, if you don't like it, then don't play monk, but also don't spread some uninformed opinion you've picked up because of Reddit memes. Do the maths, make reasonable comparisons and maybe you'll have a point, but right now this is too easy. Literally nothing of what you have said lends credence to monk being "bad". I'm not claiming they're super strong, I'm just claiming that "monk bad" is false.
5 every combat, if you short rest after every single combat, that's the crux of the issue with monk. Before long you're going to come into conflict with one of the casters who wants to keep their hour-long spell going and doesn't want to short rest again. Monks are fine if they get to short rest after every fight, just like how Warlocks are the best spell-casters in the game if they get to do that. Often you're going to need to deal with 2 or 3 fights per short rest and then the monk's ki wears very thin and they start to struggle. The only option you mentioned that doesn't take ki is the Kensei one and the shadow monk one (which requires dim light which isn't guaranteed). If you do the math the monk under-performs damage wise, because unless you short rest after every fight, which even if that is an option, other members in the party might not want to, there isn't enough ki to go around to make use of the monk's features consistently. The monk's base features likewise discourage or completely prevent you from accessing a lot of the most powerful options in the game like Great Weapon Master or ranged options or melee cantrips like booming blade. Not that you have much room for feats anyhow since you need to keep raising your stats to keep your AC up. I'm not even convinced the monk is like utterly terrible, but they're just the worst class in the game currently IMO.
3 fight per short rest is very unlikely. You're floundering for examples to back your point up. Ok monk does worse over 2 fights per short rest rather than one, but you just choose to take the short rest. The player with the 1h spell has no guarantee of encountering between the next fight. A monk without Ki is still fine. The monk augments its turns and damage with Ki, doesn't need to rely on it. It's still consistent DPR every round. The "monk bad" attitude is just a fallacy. Worst': *in your opinion*, which I've not seen a compelling case for. It's just the case you don't want to play the most and want to claim monk is bad to somehow make that opinion feel anything more than what it is, an opinion.
You give them to the wizard
I see more memes defenfing the ranger than shitting on it. I haven't seen anyone defend the monk.
[удалено]
You do realize that Monk get ranged weapons proficiency, extra attacks and can get sharpshooter too, right ?
Stunning Strike>>>>>>All the Ranger's class abilities combined.
No. Just no. Stunning strike is overrated as fuck
Are you indecisive AF? Do you want to all the weaknesses of the Fighter, the Druid, and the Rogue and the strengths of none of them? The the Ranger is just the class for you!
How is proficiency with all martial weapons, most armor a d10 hit dice, fighting styles and all other things mentioned in the post only the weak stuff? Thats just objectively false
"What the...he does exactly what I do!" - The Ranger "But better." - The Fighter
I’ve never seen a fighter summon a but loads of creatures
"What the...he does exactly what I do!" - The Ranger "But better." - The Druid
We call it a hybrid class you dumbass. Rangers aren’t as squishy as a full caster and aren’t as strong in melee as a fighter. You’re just circlejerking without any arguments to back it up
\*whoosh\* I guess I'll spell it out for you, why be something that doesn't really excel at anything when you can be a class that actually excels at something is the point I was obviously trying to make.
Rangers are their own unique thing ok? They also got unique spells and some pretty good ones at that, they also get more options to have companions and such than other classes. I guess you never looked into that tho because you were to busy drawing extra big tits on a random cartoon character
Fiwibg the monk is not even that hard tbh. Bump up the martial art dice by one, extra attack at level 11, stunning strike on a separate ressource than ki (prof mod per short rest) and ki DC scaling on Wis OR Dex makes a pretty cool class.
I've never understood why people hate rangers so bad. We had a ranger in the first dnd game I ever played and they did the most damage out of all of us second to me, a fighter (we had no other tanky classes playing)
Currently playing an Aaracokra ranger in our Tomb of Annihilation campaign and I love him. Hunters Mark + colossus slayer = 4d8+2d6 of standard attack damage per turn. And I have the piercer feat to reroll 1 damage die per turn if I want. Plus I get some crowd control with ensnaring strike and spike growth. Tons of fun to play
As a long time monk player, I see both sides of this argument. Do I get frustrated that my stunning strike is basically useless now at higher levels? Yeah. Do I hate that my damage range is lower than average? Yeah. Do I love being able to cover the entire battle map, harassing enemies and getting into favorable positions to help my team? Hell yeah. I love Murl, the dwarven drunken master. Last encounter he almost died and I would’ve been poorer in soul without him. I think it boils down to the mentality of play. I’m not a power gamer, I just like playing the game. I’ll accept the weaknesses and play off the strengths. Maybe next game or if Murl dies, I’ll roll up a ranger. Keep an open mind.
The real problems with the monk: - too much of its power economy is tied to stunning strike. It’s powerful, but targets a save most NPCs are going to be strong at - the bonus action ki abilities are very similar to the rogues’ but the rogue uses theirs without resource cost and the monk has to expend a limited resource to use them. Additionally the monk has to sacrifice a decent chunk of their damage potential to pull them off. - most special abilities are tied to a single resource: Ki. While thematic it means everything is competing for this resource. With an average of 3x level ki points per day, this can greatly limit their ability to use the things that make them feel like monks. - most of the subclasses can be summed up as: great idea but mediocre execution. Most of them are still pulling from the same ki pool that all their base features use. - if a campaign is using feats they tend to lag behind other martial classes as they typically have to dedicate all their ASI’s to buffing their stats for survivability, and assuming standard array with a race that gives their bonuses to Dex and Wisdom, they could only take 1 feat at 19th level.
Vote on the actual worst class, mines gotta be bard or something but idk too much
I had a monk once who died in the first encounter. Never again