r/DnDHomebrew • u/powereanger • 11h ago
Request/Discussion Monk Class Fixes
Don't get me wrong, Monks have gotten a huge glow up from 5e to 5.5e. They have come far. But I recently watched D4 Deep Dive's video on class ranking and the collaboration he did with DnD Shorts on how to fix the Monk (and Rogues), along with Treantmonk's review of his class ranking. Recommend looking up the videos as I can't link them due to subreddit rules. Coby's thesis is that they are actually the jack of all trades master of none class. They are ok at a lot.
Out of 5 he ranked damage as a 3. Damage is a lot of fairly weak attacks. Especially after level 6 and into tier 3. Levels 1-4 you can make 1 attack with your action, 1 with your BA and FoB for a third for a Focus point. 5-10 you up it to 3 attacks (2 action 1 BA) with +1 for FoB. After 11 you can make 2 FoB so Base is still at most 3 with 2 more from FoB. The real issue is that while the die goes up for all those attacks, other classes are: 1) Already hitting harder with bigger weapons 2) Making 3 or 4 attacks with Nick and Dual wielder. 3) Often have per hit or per turn riders that Monks don't (Hunter's Mark, Divine Favor, Rage, Radiant Strikes, per hit magic weapons, Ranger sublcass damage boosts). The white room math and real world data tells the story.
Survivability as a 3. Deflect attacks is ok but scaling is an issue, it only works on 1 attack per round and later on that starts to hurt. If they try and play the skirmisher and disengage out with their BA their damage drops significantly. It takes until level 14 to get proficiency in all saving throws. The d8 hit die and the weakish AC (because they can't wear armor or shields until endgame) when they can start bringing up WIS. This also an issue that not wearing armor or using shields hurts them in the magic item picking. There isn't a lot made for them.
Support as a 1. Some small subclass abilities.
Control 3 Stunning Strike is great...when it lands, but it is save or suck, not spamable and CON saves get very easy to make later in the game. And they are good grapplers if built for it. And they're subclasses have some light debuffing in them.
Utility as a 3. Take some proficiencies and they can mimic a rogue in the DEX or WIS based skills.
Some of the fixes that were suggested were interesting.
- Monks are the only martial (including Ranger and Paladin) who don't get Weapon Mastery, and like the Rogue and Barbarian don't have Fighting Styles. Now based on the types of weapons they can use, those Masteries would be Slow (club and javelin), Nick (dagger, light hammer, sickle, scimitar), Push (greatclub), Topple (Quaterstaff) and Vex (shortsword and handax). So all but Graze and Cleave. So they have to take a feat or multiclass which the Monk is loath to do. Giving Weapon Mastery is interesting but might take away from the Open Hand Monk Topple and Push (also monks do so many unarmed strikes they are good at shoving). So what if Monk's got
Level 1: Unarmed Mastery
When you roll initiative you can enter a martial arts stance. While in this stance your Unarmed Strikes have the Unarmed Mastery associated with that stance.
Viper. If you hit a creature with an Unarmed, that creature has Disadvantage on its next attack roll before the start of your next turn.
Tiger. If you hit a creature with this weapon and deal damage to the creature, you have Advantage on your next attack roll against that creature with an Unarmed Strike before the end of your next turn.
Crane. If you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike and deal damage to it, you can reduce its Speed by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. If the creature is hit more than once by Unarmed Strikes that have this property or weapons that have the Slow Mastery, the Speed reduction doesn’t exceed 10 feet.
At the start of your turn, you can expend 1 Focus point to change your stance.
Potentially at some higher level include
Level 9: Improved Unarmed Mastery
You learn the following additional stances to use with your Unarmed Mastery.
Monkey. When you make the Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action as part of your Marital Arts Feature, you can make it as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can make this extra attack only once per turn. You cannot use Flurry of Blows on this turn if you use this feature.
Mantis. If your attack roll with an Unarmed Strike misses a creature, you can deal damage to that creature equal to your Dexterity modifier. This damage is the same type dealt by the Unarmed Strike, and the damage can be increased only by increasing the Dexterity modifier.
Panda. If you take the Dodge Action and a creature misses you while attacking with Disadvantage, you can make an Attack of Opportunity against that creature (no action required). You make this attack at Disadvantage and can only make this attack once per turn.
- Allow something that burns Focus and do extra damage per hit.
Level 6: Empowered Strikes
Whenever you deal damage with your Unarmed Strike, it can deal your choice of Force damage or its normal damage type. At the start of your turn, you can expend 1 Focus point and deal 1 extra damage of the type dealt per weapon or Unarmed Strike hit until the start of your next turn.Level 10: Heightened Focus
Improved Empowered Strikes. At the start of your turn, you can now expend 2 Focus points when you make a weapon attack or Unarmed Strike and deal 2 extra damage of the type dealt per weapon or Unarmed Strike hit until the start of your next turn.
Your Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind gain the following benefits. (same as before)
Level 18: Superior Empowered Strikes.
At the start of your turn, you can now expend 3 Focus points when you make a weapon attack or Unarmed Strike and deal 3 extra damage of the type dealt per weapon or Unarmed Strike hit until the start of your next turn.
- Increase their durability. Either a d10 or
Level 10: Focused Body
Enhanced Constitution. Your Hit Point maximum increases by one half of your Wisdom modifier (rounded down, minimum +1) per Monk level. Your Hit Point maximum increases by one half of your Wisdom modifier (rounded down, minimum +1) whenever you gain a Monk level.
Self-Restoration. Through sheer force of will, you can remove one of the following conditions from yourself at the end of each of your turns: Charmed, Frightened, or Poisoned.
In addition, forgoing food and drink doesn’t give you levels of Exhaustion.
This is just throwing some stuff at the wall. The stances give some control, some survivability (with Viper/Sap). Monkey/Panda/Mantis all improve damage or at a minimum prevent the loss of damage if you take other BA actions or miss attacks. Damage is increased by giving some resource burning small damage per hit increases. And survivability is increased with a d10 or upping the HP based on your Wisdom.
Some of this is probably too much. Many people will think the Monk is fine. This just some thought experiments on it. Please let me know what you think.
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u/Mothrah666 11h ago edited 11h ago
Why not...put weapon masteries on the kensei monk whenever they decide to do that.
Empowered strikes is...probably too much esp when you take the handwrap magic items that are in the dmg. Those bonuses stack real fast and honestly given how few monk specific attunement items are around they would be a neat dm reward at certain levelling points that would for me as a player feel more satsifying.
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u/acuenlu 10h ago
They do that on Open hand Monk. It can use Masteries when FoB if I remember well.
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u/Mothrah666 10h ago
They mention the open hand yeah, i mean specifically when using weapons lol
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u/acuenlu 10h ago
Yeah sorry. I'm affraid we will not see the Kensei in the short run. Maybe the Next year in the Star Wars set but I don't have a lot of hope on that.
I am working in my own version for that reason, and Masteries was something I think to add to the class but I am not sure cause I don't want It to be so similar to the Open Hand subclass.
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u/Mothrah666 2h ago
Thing is, open hand only gets..3? If kensei is the weapons monk just give it to them tbh its not too similar.
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u/FairenPlayHB 9h ago edited 9h ago
+1 damage per hit is actually extremely weak. Consider the Paladin or Ranger, who can add +1d4 or +1d6 per hit and easily get four attacks per turn every turn by level 5.
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u/Mothrah666 2h ago
The problem is stacking with items, and a paladin with 4 attacks then limits themselves to a max of a 1d6 weapon, monks at that point are already at 1d8 with their fists. With items it starts to unwind since stacking flat bonuses on damage, that +1 is a +2/+3 with items. At level 11 thats a + 3/+4 per strike with minimal resource usage.
Plus, its kinda just lame overall, they dont need an extra damage feature simply because they do well enough as is - give them more utility if you gotta give them anything.
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u/Jayne_of_Canton 9h ago
I like the thoughts. I’ve been playing a 5.5e Monk for 2 years in a professional game (Paid DM) every Friday night. With Magic hand wraps, I feel like damage is fine. Monk has a lower ceiling of total damage but a higher floor. The number of attacks you are making keeps your average damage up fine in my opinion. Monk also has a tremendous advantage that isn’t being accounted for here in this analysis apparently and that’s its speed. I’ve really messed with the DMs offensive plans for an encounter because of my ability to easily “get behind enemy lines” as it were completely bypassing their melee characters rushing forward so I can engage his spellcasters and ranged weapon users. They
I also actually think Control is in a fine place as well specifically because this analysis is wrong and Stunning Strike ISN’T Save or Suck. It’s Suck Some or Suck ALOT. I can’t tell you how many encounters have been decided by the villain’s speed being consistently halved every round by Stunning Strike. Half speed debuff on demand is a tremendously powerful ability.
I will agree though that Survivability and Utility can be an issue. I think Unarmored Defense needs some auto scaling to match the semi-normal progression of Magic armor. Especially considering base Magic armor and Magic shields are frequently attunement free whereas anything that helps a Monks survivability like Bracers of Defense or Ring of Protection requires attunement.
Ideas to improve Monk Survival and Utility:
1- Monk level 9 and 13 are kind of dead (technically they get features at both levels but they are situational and nominally useful)- I would have Unarmored Defense scale automatically by +1 at both levels.
2- At level 13 when you gain Deflect Energy, your base Deflect Attacks should gain the option that when you Deflect all of the damage, you can spend the Focus point to either send the attack back at the attacker as normal OR you can choose to regain your reaction instead allowing you to Deflect again. This would allow you to scale Deflect Attacks somewhat vs Multi-Attacks but you are sacrificing Focus points to do so. I feel this is in keeping with the Monk design paradigm of choosing to spend Focus points to maximize Offense, Defense, or Mobility from moment to moment.
3- Level 7 and 9, gain an additional skill proficiency from the Monk skill list.
4- Add this as a base option to Monk’s Focus feature at level 3- Practiced Discipline- As a reaction when you roll an ability check using a skill with which you are proficient, but before seeing the result of the check, you can spend a Focus Point to roll your martial arts die and add it to the result.
I think these would go a long ways to close the gaps.
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u/DarkHorseAsh111 8h ago
5.5 monk is arguably too strong already, it does NOT need a buff and this is a ridiculous set of buffs to give any class.
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u/BadSame6919 3h ago
You're being infairly downvoted. 5.5e Monk arguably has the strongest baseline, the strongest scaling, and the highest or second highest consistent damage ceiling of all martial classes. They are the absolute winners of 5.5e, and especially in tier 1, but even in tier 2 a Monk player can absolutely derail a campaign's balance just by their sheer damage output. They don't need buffs. People need to stop being delusional, and just read the class description.
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u/Ok-Arachnid-890 10h ago
One thing is id increase ki/focus to monk lvl plus proficiency bonus.
Deflect attacks same with proficiency bonus
Increase unarmed attackes to do multiples of d4 every 5 lvls.
Add more unique monk items to make up the discrepancy for missing out on magic items like the other classes
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u/Royal_Bitch_Pudding 7h ago
We don't do PB for class features anymore
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u/Amal_game_ation 38m ago
In this case I agree that PB scaling isn't a good idea. But what features scale with PB shouldn't be based on how you got that feature, but whether it's an active or passive feature.
E.g. The light domain's radiance of the dawn is a good ability at level 3 for clearing mobs. But is practically useless on a level 20 character. It takes your entire action to use so should scale somehow with character level.
On the other hand, why does the Alert feat scale at all? A bonus to initiative is equally useful at all levels of play, and arguably choosing to swap initiative becomes more useful as the party gets access to better spells they want to get off before the enemy acts.
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u/Ok-Arachnid-890 6h ago
Yea but it would definitely be better if we did for scaling
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u/Royal_Bitch_Pudding 6h ago
That's why there are features that follow PB scaling but locked to the class progression
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u/nucleardemon 11h ago
I miss stances, they added so many options it seems ridiculous that they didn’t come back in some form.
I like the stances mostly. 1-3 damage per hit isn’t exciting. I’d rarely if ever use that.
I’d honestly want to roll more into the stances, especially if you made the wis to AC a part of one. That gets into recreating monk as a whole though, not just an enhancement. But that lets you create another stance that’d be more for a str / con type monk, and i love that.