Chris and Colby one thing I think you missed was that the changes to unarmed strike from earlier in the playtest were also bad for monk. Sure monks can shove and grapple but those are back to being strength based, where in the earlier playtests it was based on your unarmed strike attack roll. When I saw the change in Playtest 5, I had assumed it was because they were giving the monk an ability to let them use Dex instead of Str when grappling or shoving. They were just aiming to kneecap the Monk any chance they got.
At first I thought Chris might be overreacting but then I watched the video and he's right. The shortsword nerf is something I never even considered, and way too specific/weird to be a coincidence. They literally are locking the monk out of tons of feats.
@@PsyrenXYsomeone high up in wotc just absolutely despises the idea of martial arts, maybe they were bullied by the karate club at school and this is their vendetta.
@@PsyrenXY Best case scenario it was not intentional and a confluence of design choices that ended up like this. So best case scenario, the design team cannot keep track of their changes properly and needs the community to do it for them. You mentioned the worst case scenario.
@@ODDnanrefI'm betting a lot of these small changes have to do with all the technical rule changes they're doing, such as diseased being labeled under poisoned now, as far as needing someone to check them better at least they're listening to the feedback
Colby: "I'm going to say this nicely, I don't like these changes." Chris: *hits the monk changes with a truck, backs them over, lists every feat that they can't use, proceeds to rev the engine and drive over the changes again* Loving this collab! Fill out your surveys everyone... if you do it for no other class in this 50+ page playtest doc, please at least do it for the Monk haha
Around 8:50 regarding defense, monks had amazing defense in the first versions of D&D. In the years after TSR, it feels like someone has held a grudge against the class.
He understands and communicates the rules, he doesn't overreact and he sees the big picture. He also doesn't post click bait rage content. Chris is the best
In my Homebrew I called it Inner Force. So Force points. It is less direct than Ki, but it is somewhat reminiscent of Star Wars and above all it sounds better.
The whole design philosophy of the monk has always been "you can only use some of your features some of the time." There's the extremely limited ki for all of your abilities of course, but there's also things like patient defense, step of the wind, and martial arts all taking a bonus action. If a fighter uses a two handed weapon they don't loose their plate armor. If a mage uses their highest level spell slot they don't use all of their other slots. If a rogue uses cunning action to dash they can still sneak attack. But monk has to make these choices every time they use a class feature
This is why I really think that ki points should go away. The opportunity cost for monk abilities is already extremely high. Especially when step of the wind is a clone of a free ability for rogues. Change stunning strike to dazing strike, a wisdom save, once per turn. Now your choices are basically just action economy focused -offense, defense, movement each turn.
“Use some of your abilities some of the time” should be the design philosophy of some skill-based classes and Spellcasters, but for some reason a combat-oriented class is the most resource-limited class in the game. Not because the class is too powerful, but because the designers are afraid for some reason of making the class good. IDK why. A strong Monk may supplant a Fighter, but it won’t scratch the power level of a full caster or even a Paladin.
Yes, one of the biggest problems of the monk is the choice you have to make every one of its turns, and now that they have created weapon mastery NICK, they have the solution in hand, but they are not using it. If they could at least make a change to Martial Arts in Bonus Unarmed Strike + the concept of NICK would solve this big problem. *1st: Martial Arts - Quick Strike (Bonus Unarmed Strike).* When you use the Attack action with an Unarmed Strike or a Simple Weapon on your turn, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action on the same turn. *If you use a force point during your turn, you can decide to move your Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack action.* It is still possible to make this extra attack only once per turn. *1st: Unarmed techniques (or Unarmed Mastery)* *2nd: Inner Force (Martial Discipline) - Iron Strike (replaces Flurry of Blows).* Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. *If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice it to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend Force points. *The additional damage is of the same type as your unarmed attacks. *2nd: Unarmored Movement* [...] + Additionally, while you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, you can take the Dash or Disengage actionas as a bonus action on your turn. When you use one of this actions your jump distance is doubled *5th: Stunning Strike.* When you hit a creature with Iron Strike of your Inner Force feature, you can attempt a Stunning Strike. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or have the Stunned condition until the end of your next turn. You cannot use this feature in combination with another unarmed techniques. *11th: Flurry of Blows.* Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Quick Strikes rather than one. If you spend 1 force point or more as an action that is not an attack action on your turn, you can make the Flurry of Blow as a bonus action before the end of the turn. *18th: Flurry of Iron Strikes.* Your unarmed attacks have never been more powerful. Now Iron Strike is no longer limited to once per turn, but that is only if you sacrifice advantage to execute it.
My fix for the Monk that gives them a non-Discipline dependant ability and fixes their weapon masteries: STANCES. You spend movement to enter a stance and can do it once per turn. You begin knowing 2 stances and at level 20 know 5. A Stance confers the benefits of one type of Weapon Mastery along with another small bonus. For example: Mantis Style: Costs 15 movement to enter. When you miss an opponent with an unarmed strike, you deal damage to them equal to your Dex or Strength modifier. Opportunity Attacks made in this stance that hit reduce an enemies movement by 5 feet. (Or: You become Proficient in Slight of Hand Checks, or something like that). Something like this is essential as Unarmed Strikes have no Weapon Mastery property. As Unarmed Strikes advance faster now, this means you're highly encouraged to ditch weapons (and thus, the fun new weapon mastery system they just introduced). Stances also allow Monks to do things without spending Ki! Different Subclasses could also each include their own unique Stance. Please copy/paste this in the survey if you agree folks
@@momqabt Just his opinion. I don't think Jacob is some kind of math nerd optimizer. So for him, it might be acceptable to have a high failure rate on the Monk's stunning strike or the "conditions" as he puts it (such as stunned) more of turn offs and obstacles. Also doesn't seem to care about lack of immunity from poison, etc. I'd say Jacob cares a lot more about flavor and the new baseclass and couple of the subclasses are truly more flavorful.
At level 11 Monks should just get extra attack Part of their concept is that they're speedy bois; giving them another attack fulfills that concept (I also like the idea of Monks exclusively having 2 reactions per turn)
I've often thought along similar lines. I feel like folks want the monk to be a glass cannon, but with three feet of steel reinforcing the glass. Currently, the monk is mostly selfish utility, but if they gave him more utility powers that help the party and more reactions/bonus actions to use those powers and become a really neat support class, it would be so much fun. He would still be unique and stand often in the spotlight, but it wouldn't feel like your party is in a dungeon with some guy who thinks he's playing a singleplayer game.
2 reactions is a really interesting idea! Never heard that suggestion before but I love it. I also wish you could do your unarmed bonus action strike whether or not you used your action to attack. It would be so nice to be able to use your action to take a healing potion or use some other ability and then use your bonus action to at least get one punch in. Feels so punishing to not be able to do that... in my case at least the bonus action is typically wasted because I don't want to spend Ki on BAs provided by the class
What I tried before is to give them an extra unarm strike. Works fine and fun even for weapons focused monks since their unarm strike damage is similar to their weapons. Overall makes it a different favor from fighter
*Instead of adding another attack I would do it this way:* *1st: Martial Arts - Quick Strike (Bonus Unarmed Strike).* When you use the Attack action with an Unarmed Strike or a Simple Weapon on your turn, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action on the same turn. If you use a force point during your turn, you can decide to move your Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack action. It is still possible to make this extra attack only once per turn. *1st: Unarmed techniques (or Unarmed Mastery)* *2nd: Inner Force (Martial Discipline) - Iron Strike (replaces Flurry of Blows).* Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. *If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice it to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend Force points. *The additional damage is of the same type as your unarmed attacks. *2nd: Unarmored Movement [...]* + Additionally, while you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, you can take the Dash or Disengage actionas as a bonus action on your turn. When you use one of this actions your jump distance is doubled *5th: Stunning Strike.* When you hit a creature with Iron Strike of your Inner Force feature, you can attempt a Stunning Strike. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or have the Stunned condition until the end of your next turn. You cannot use this feature in combination with another unarmed techniques. *11th: Flurry of Blows.* Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Quick Strikes rather than one. If you spend 1 force point or more as an action that is not an attack action on your turn, you can make the Flurry of Blow as a bonus action before the end of the turn. *18th: Flurry of Iron Strikes.* Your unarmed attacks have never been more powerful. Now Iron Strike is no longer limited to once per turn, but that is only if you sacrifice advantage to execute it.
You didn't mention that unarmed strikes now can Grapple and shove which SHOULD be a monk buff, BUT the saving throw is calculated on your STRENGTH which makes it bad for monks. This should also be addressed.
Also, about the grapple and shove: "Whenever you use your Unarmed Strike, choose ONE of the following options for its effect: Damage, Grapple, Shove" It would be a buff, if you dealt damage on top of attempting to grapple or shove, or they had left hitting an unarmed strike as an auto success on the shove or grapple, but you don't and they didn't. So, all this really means is you can grapple or shove as a Bonus Action. Everything else you could already do with the 2014 rules, except now it's worse because Skill Expert(Expertise in Athletics) can`t help you.
Ooo secret video. Ngl when I saw the monk drop, I couldn't wait to hear either of your opinions on this. A collab is the best of both worlds. Hopefully wotc listens to some of your concerns, as I really feel they missed the mark on why this is only a slight improvement over 2014.
Is it actually an improvement though? From my understanding of the changes, the recourse pool is still too small, the best feature in the class (stunning strike) has been nerfed to be once per turn, and the damage hasn't been given any assistance. The only help I see with the base class was giving them weapon mastery but monks are heavily based off of unarmed strikes as it is, but they decided to remove monk weapons. They did make some cool changes to the subclasses that make them more appealing to play, but they're still connected to a significantly weaker martial class than the other options. I don't mean to be antagonistic to your comment, but I don't don't see anything they did as an improvement, at most I'd say they made it equally weak.
@@SuperHbkforever I guess i see this more as it is X steps forward and X +/- 1 steps back. The forward comment is mainly on changes to four elements and shadow monk. Regardless, it's an absolute disappointment and I'll be very vocal when the survey comes around. I never wanted to play a 2014 monk, and this play test doesn't make me want to play one any more. I agree with Chris' comment that if they don't make any significant changes in the next playtest, the class itself cannot be salvaged. Of course short of house rules to fix WOTC's incredible oversights.
Here is my Level 11 solution for the monk. At level 11, Flurry of Blows no longer requires Ki to use. This also applies to their level 2 bonus action abilities. Also, I would add a +1 bonus to unarmored defense at level 6, up that to +2 at 11, and +3 at 17.
I think the current Step of the Wind should be a mini A. Stride. Let it be usable as an action, but if you use ki/di+bonus action then anyone you pass by gets dealt your martial arts die plus (half?) your monk level in damage. Incentive the monk to use their great speed to deal chip damage, and harass those back lines that might be tanky or concentrating on spells.
@@SilvrSavior I'd word it "Step of the Wind: You may Dash OR Disengage as a bonus action. You may spend a point to Dash AND Disengage, you also double your jump distance until the beginning of your next turn."
Something you may have missed in this UA is that class groups no longer exist, so the designers totally sidestep the "warriors get masteries." UA6 monk feels like kicking someone when they're down.
Yes the monk should have a feature like Unarmed Mastery. *1st: Unarmed Technique.* Your training without weapons allows you to learn two Unarmed Techniques, and use them with your unarmed strikes. You cannot repeat the same Technique on the same creature in the same turn. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can practice others Unarmed Techniques and change the kinds of Unarmed Technique you chose. When you reach certain levels in this class, you gain the ability to use more kinds of Unarmed Techniques, as shown in the Unarmed Techniques column of the Monk table. You can use these techniques while you are unarmed or wielding only Simple Weapons and you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a shield: *GRAPPLER.* When you try to grapple, you can choose to use Acrobatics instead of Athletics check. *PUSH.* If you hit a creature with your technique, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you if it is no more than one size larger than you. If used in combination with Iron Strike, the affected creature will be pushed 5 feet more and the size no longer affects the technique. *SAP.* If you hit a creature with this technique, that creature has Disadvantage on its next attack roll before the start of your next turn. *SLOW.* If you hit a creature with this technique and deal damage to the creature, you can reduce its Speed by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. If used in combination with Iron Strike, the affected creature Speed will be reduce by 20 feet. *SWEEP.* If you hit a creature with this technique, you can force the creature to make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature has the Prone condition. *VEX.* If you hit a creature with this technique and deal damage to the creature, you have Advantage on your next attack roll against that creature before the end of your next turn.
They mentioned weapon master at level 4. It isn’t much better, but the Kensai gets weapons at level 3. At least that is something, and it does not cost a feat.
I feel like all classes that aren't full casters should get another ASI or feat at 10 level like the rogue. Also, level 11: superior unarmored defense (AC is base 13+Dex+Wis)
@@destinpatterson1644 I do ac base 13 because that is the equivalent of a +3 magic armor, which by level 11 is quite possible for party members to have already.
@@jthurne23 No I think the increase should just be at Unarmed defense at level 1 and by 11th level most monks at most have 20 Dex +5, and 14 Wis +2, so that would be 10+5+2+3, that's only an AC of 20, and which would be the same as a rogue at this level but a rogue can disengage to avoid damage and half the damage of a particularly high attack, the monk doesn't have any of that, they're far more like a fighter, and a fighter with heavy armor only needs 15 strength to wear full plate, and a fighter has a lot more hit points
@@destinpatterson1644 Monks get a bonus action disengage at level 2. Granted, its an objectively worse version than rogue since it requires ki, but they do have the option.
I disagree, the monk should run around the enemy and attack with freedom of movement. See example below. *1st: Martial Arts - Quick Strike (Bonus Unarmed Strike).* When you use the Attack action with an Unarmed Strike or a Simple Weapon on your turn, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action on the same turn. If you use a force point during your turn, you can decide to move your Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack action. It is still possible to make this extra attack only once per turn. *2nd: Inner Force (Martial Discipline)* *Iron Strike (replaces Flurry of Blows).* Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. *If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice it to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend Force points. *The additional damage is of the same type as your unarmed attacks. *Patient Defense.* [...] + If at the end of Patient Defense no one has attacked you, then you may use your reaction to make unarmed attack against a creature within your unarmed reach. *Step of the Wind.* [...] and your step is so light that for the turn you can run through the air. *2nd: Unarmored Movement.* [...] + Additionally, while you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, you can take the Dash or Disengage actionas as a bonus action on your turn. When you use one of this actions your jump distance is doubled *11th: Flurry of Blows.* Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Quick Strikes rather than one. If you spend 1 force point or more as an action that is not an attack action on your turn, you can make the Flurry of Blow as a bonus action before the end of the turn.
My fixes to the 5E Monk. [1]: change hit die from d8 to d10. makes them less squishy and brings them closer to the other warrior classes. [2]: add Wisdom modifier to number of discipline points. At high levels these extra 3-4 points likely won't matter much, but at low levels they'd make the monk at least playable. [3]: Unarmed Weapon Mastery: At the start of each day choose 2 mastery options from the following list: push, sap, slow, topple, or vex. You may apply them to your unarmed strikes. [4]: Deflect Missiles: redirect damage scales to 3 rolls at 9th level and 4 rolls at 15th level. [5]: Stunning Strike: inflicts dazed condition if they make the save. [6]: Heightened Metabolism: In addition, when you finish a short rest you reduce your level of exhaustion by 1. [7]: Perfect Discipline: Change to the following: Using Patient Defense and Step of the Wind no longer cost discipline points but cannot be used if you have no discipline points remaining. In addition, the first time each round that you use flurry of blows you may reroll any one's rolled on the damage die for the bonus unarmed strikes. [8]: Defy Death: Change to the following: If you drop to 0 hit points you may spend up to 4 discipline points. For each point spent roll 2 martial arts dice and add all the numbers rolled together and add your WIS modifier. Your number of hit points instead changes to the number rolled. In addition, for a number of rounds equal to your WIS modifier after using this ability, you gain the benefit of your Superior Defense feature without spending any additional discipline points. [9]: Empowered Far Strikes: This is a new feature gained at 11th level. You may spend 2 discipline points on your turn to make your unarmed attacks against a target you can see within 30 feet as if they were within your reach, ignoring any cover less than total cover. This ability lasts until the start of your next turn. At 19th level the range increases to 60 feet.
Defense Boost suggestions: -Unarmored AC is now 10+Dex+Wis+Prof Bonus. -Wis mod times per short rest, Monks can use a reaction (for free! No Discipline Points) to roll a martial arts die to reduce an enemy's attack roll. -Deflect Missiles changes to Deflect Attack, so it can be used on ranged OR melee. Offense Boosts: - what Chris said about giving Monks a Weapon Mastery on Unarmed Strikes. - free disengage if they hit with an attack (like the Swashbuckler. Let the Monk take advantage of their movement). - Feats. Create some Monk-specific feats, or at least feats that Monks can use.
The monk capstone is so sad and embarrasing as is, literally anything would be better, I would love something unique but that would be great. Especially since their whole thing is reaching physical and mental perfection
The most Pro Monk and Con Monk youtubers breaking down the new class and subclasses? I am 100% in. Much love to both of you! 🤗 [Edit] After Chris' comment at 13:27 I revise my comment to: "The most hopeful of successful monk revision youtubers..." [Edit] Monks are Western themed unarmed fighters in my game. They were a knightly order who were stripped of their status and banned from wearing livery, armor, using martial weaponry, and meting out justice. Out of all the options one could use to describe the energy they wield for their abilities (Ki, Chi, Prana, etc), I went with "Vril" from the 1871 novel 'The Coming Race' by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
watching through chris's "What I want" about increasing the defensive capabilities of the monk got me thinking that it'd be interesting to adjust their unarmored defense in one simple way: add their proficiency bonus. you'd want to do it at a moderate level investment (say 5) to avoid dips, but early enough that it's there for the meat of the game. using a 15/15/15/8/8/8 point buy, after racials, start with 16/16 DEX/WIS. At level 4, increase one to 18, you're sitting at base AC of 17. at level 5 your proficiency goes to +3. Add it and increase your AC to 20. by level 8, assuming you're using your ASI to boost DEX/WIS, you're at AC 21. Level 9, +prof, AC of 22. at level 12, you're at 20/18 dex/wis, for AC 23. Level 13, prof.+, AC 24. When coupled with patient defense, you're sitting pretty. if patient defense were further altered by outright removing the ki requirement (there's still an opportunity cost; you're not using your BA for damage), you've got a recipe for a solid dodger through T2-T3.
Monks need: - A d10 hit die - More Ki, free disengage and dash, and less overall dependency on Ki as their only resource. - Access to Weapon Masteries for Unarmed Strikes. Topple and Push are excellent and thematic options for Monks. - Access to strong martial feats (like every other Martial class) - Bring back Monk weapons and the Dedicated Weapon - Better AC. They need to be harder to hit. - Deflect Missiles redirect needs to be free and should go back to Martial Arts die + Dex. The Deflect Spells should either go hand in hand with Deflect Missiles or should be given at level 6 at the latest. - I would argue that Monks should get a 3rd attack at level 11 like Fighters. I could even see an argument to give Monks the same ability Swashbuckler Rogues have where making an attack against a target prevents them from taking an opportunity attack on you, but that may be too much.
As a martial arts fan and practitioner i would say why not look for the solutions in real life examples? Ki points issue? Have a ability that's called "refocus" based on qi gong that costs a bonus action and recovers ki points. So the monk becomes a guerrilla fighter where you decide to pace yourself a turn and just explode the next, especially with the next suggestion: Combos! Look if one class should have a "rekka", its the monk. Make it so that if an attack hits it allows you to do another and another (balance needs to be decided) and then you can follow up with using your ki points for a stronger finisher: a takedown into a grapple that makes dmg per turn or incapacitates, a really strong haymaker (stunning strike), or a kick that pushes you off and makes the target nauseated (just like a liver blow) or a calf kick that does x or y... I mean there are tons of real life examples that could translate so well into dnd and make the monk so distinct and strong. And monks (from shaolin, to indian to the itto ikki) historically studied all kinds of weapons, from polearms to inconspicuous ones so dnd insisting on monks not using any reasonable weapon for me never made any sense.
1:00:00 don't forget when Crawford was naming off all the classes in the UA and forgot Monk entirely and had to reminded it even existed by the interviewer.
I am so glad they called out the thumbnail they used in the Monk video. It infuriated me that I had no plausible way to make that guy with this rule set unless I multiclassed
A buff for deflect missiles can be each time you spend a point to throw back (hehe), you are also able to deflect 1 additional ranged attack before the start of your next turn as part of the same reaction.
When Jeremey said that Playtest 6 was them moving out of the experimentation phase and into the refinement phase, I joked that that means the monk won't be getting any experimentation. ... turns out it wasn't a joke.
I really like the idea of the "ki/discipline" resets at the start of the round and increase with monk levels. I think it could make the monk very unique feeling, in a good way. 🤔
Make it scale like its proficiency, but just don't call it proficiency so it doesn't scale with multiclassing, have it refresh at the start of every turn.
If it reset with every round I don’t think you could run out of Ki points, meaning you might as well not have a cost to begin with which to be fair some of their abilities shouldn’t cost anything. But instead I would go for something from Apotheosis, in that game there’s several abilities that regains their use after short r long rest but a select few regains their uses every 10 minutes, I would suggest that a monk that’s not in combat for 10 minutes would regain a martial arts die worth of Ki points.
@@AtelierGod’ve always liked the idea of spending an action to receive one martial dice worth of Ki points which couldn’t exceed your max. Basically like a meditation round. You’d have Ki at the start of every fight, but could only go Nova for a few rounds before having to let up for a round.
@@AtelierGod one could use the same argument for the new rogue ability to exchange sneak attack die for additional effects, as it is essentially a similar system I'd like to see for the monk. Each turn they'd have X dicipline (probably 2 +1 at levels 5, 9, 13, and 17) to exchange for additional effects. It could be things like "1 point to bonus action dodge, 2 points for flurry of blows, 1 for stunning strike, 1 to impose disability on the save, X dicipline to increase AC until next turn, 1 point to attack if an attack misses you" and so on. That just seems pretty cool, in theory, to me and fits well for a martial arts character. They'd be all about discipline! The balance is how much discipline to spend on offense and what to spend on defense each turn. I do think it would require some serious changes to subclasses, which would perhaps conflict too much with their stated goal of backwards compatability (though that seems relatively easy to evercome, in the few cases where it's even a problem).
Holy Cow! This is crazy! This FEATS conversation is crazy! So are we trying to say just DON'T PLAY MONK! The Slap in the Face statement is getting more and more clear. Stunning Strike- why not a Wisdom save? Then it's more likely and you only get one try. OR the Dazed condition?
I love that all the channels about D&D which I really enjoy, are all cross-pollinating each other. Chris, Colby and Will are all my go to character guys! All of them come at it from different angles but give me quality information and entertainment! Keep up the good work gentlemen. 🤘
Monks can use the Nick mastery, but oops! You can’t take the Fighting Style feat for TWF anymore unless you already have a fighting style! Because the most OP feat in 5e was clearly Fighting Initiate.
Also the fact that they made grapples part of the unarmed strike attack but it's now a saving throw and the DC is determined by your STR. I thought FOR SURE the monk would be able to swap the DC to be based on DEX instead, but no. They added to grapples to unarmed strikes and then made it so that the class that's all about unarmed strikes can't use it. Also with empty body, previously Tasha's had given the optional feature that if you spend ki points as an action, you can attack with an unarmed strike or melee weapon as a bonus. So you still got to do something on that first turn. Also don't like the capstone since it's the problem of "I never want to use ki for anything except this" that stunning strike used to have. As long as you have disipline points, you are immortal! Why spend any disipline points at all! And I don't like the fact that they got rid of martial arts dice working for weapons "because you get masteries instead", except masteries don't scale! The whole point is that martial arts scales the damage for monk! They're not equivilant!
The Empty Body nerf is much worse than you described since using it as an action lets you use Ki-Fueled Attack to get a bonus action attack. So losing 1 attack for 1 minute of invisibility is a terrible trade.
I have a file on my account's "About" (can't share link, because UA-cam is dumb 😡) that I really hope anyone interested will see, because I'm interested to hear what thoughts you all have. It covers what I believe to be a pretty solid fix to the One D&D monk and its old (and new) problems. It it also more or less what I am going to pull from for my answers to the survey.
The "fewer than four, more than zero" aspect of the old capstone has been a pet peeve of mine with Monks since 2014. It's also a rotten design in the sense that it makes saving ki bad.
Monk needs to take some more lessons from, of all classes, Bard. For starters, the new Dance Bard has an ability that lets them make an unarmed attack whenever they spend a usage of Bardic Inspiration on something, and Monk should have that when they use Ki/Discipline. They should also get something like the Swords Bard blade flourishes, where they can use Discipline to temporarily increase their AC.
@@VerseilusI'm not talking just a bonus action attack. The Dance Bard ability is that if they spend Inspiration as part of their Action, BA, or Reaction, they can make an additional unarmed attack as part of that Action, BA, or Reaction. Giving Monk something similar would let them do stuff like get an additional attack when they Step of the Wind or Stunning Strike (which should be fine if Stunning Strike is once per turn)
@@CivilWarMan Yeah, that would obviously be cool as heck. I didn't express myself well, I was just wondering why did away with that Tasha's feature in the playtest monk because it was vaguely similar.
Y'know... for you being on vacation and doing "less videos", we sure seem to be getting more than normal videos! Which I'm totally fine with, just found it amusing. 😜
Small idea for a thought experiment. Two, technically, but a fun idea to consider. We take the legendary action kind of approach with ki points. You get ki points equal to your Wisdom modifier that recharge at the start of your turn. We could just alter the amount of ki points that certain features cost to help compensate. Other idea which is why the explanation at the top was needed. Flurry of Blows just becomes an upgrade to the attack action. When you take the attack action on your turn, you can spend ki to get more attacks, 1 ki equalling one extra attack. You can only spend extra ki equal to half your proficiency bonus (rounded up) for these extra attacks.
An idea I had was to take away the free bonus action attack from martial arts and replace it by giving monk unarmed attacks the nick property by default. This would give the same number of free attacks to the monk while also ensuring this extra attack is no longer competing with the half dozen other abilities monk has that require their bonus action.
Remember they have to reduce the base class to be less Shaolin Monk and more Franciscan Monk... putting the flavor into the subclass. But they do need to build up the base again... blocking mele weapon blows and adding back weapons.
Conceptually, I want monks to be fast and hard to hit, thus I think increasing their AC and not their hit die is the way to go What I would change from the 5e Monk: Unarmoured Defence: AC = dex + 2x mental ability score of your choice (since Monks are multi score dependent I want to give them more choices for character creation, plus this makes their AC higher) Step of the Wind's abilities individually should be free, however if you want to use both (like in this playtest), then it costs 1 ki Give them 2 reactions (fits with the theme perfectly imo, and it bolsters offence in a skirmish and defence from Deflect Missles/Energy) Whenever you defeat an enemy (knocking unconscious or outright killing them) you regain 1 ki ASI's at the same levels as Rogues Stunning Strike should only work once per turn, but on a save the target suffers the Dazed condition Heightened Metabolism gained at 5th level Bring Deflect Energy down to 7th level; acquiring it at the same level as Evasion makes this a good level defencively Extra Attack at level 11 like the fighter. Plus Flurry of Blows allows for 2 extra unarmed strikes
On the theme of "screwing the monk": in earlier UAs, the fighting style feats had a prerequisite of "Warrior class group," which included the monk. UA6 dropped the "class group" language entirely and made the prerequisite for fighting style feats that you have the Fighting Style feature - which the monk does not have. So you can't even take Two-Weapon Fighting, which is the only one that was any good for the monk in the first place and which could at least have increased their damage by their DEX bonus each turn. And the only Light d6 weapon is the handaxe, which doesn't have the Nick property, forcing you into using at least one d4 weapon (dagger, light hammer, sickle) if you want to fight with two weapons and still keep your bonus action for something else. Stunning strike: I was thinking I would like to see it become a Monk-exclusive option for unarmed strikes, so your choices are now: 1. Do damage; 2. Push back or knock prone; 3. Grapple; or 4. Stunning Strike. With no point cost, and no once-per-round limitation. That would follow the theme they're using elsewhere of swapping some damage for a tactical option (like with the rogue's Cunning Strikes). But then I watched the end of your video and thought, "Yeah, the monk should get weapon mastery on their unarmed strikes that lets them do damage AND do that other stuff with the same strike."
1. Echo Knight Fighter (Naruto), Psi Knight Fighter (Jedi) and this Dancer Bard are all clearly monk concepts that were given to base classes because of popularity. There is simply nothing else to it. Also, NEW Shadow monk is the new teleporting Echo Knight Fighter! 2. Concerning Monk and Stunning Strike - is this supposed to be a TEAMWORK issue? Like, Mind Sliver + Stunning Strike, or Bane + Stunning Strike, or Portent + Stunning Strike, or some Bard feature + Stunning Strike, followed up by some Silvery Barbs? If so, we need to make that clear in the text! That we designed this as a SUPPORT CLASS that REQUIRES additional SUPPORT and you are supposed to make ONE hit with a stunning strike attempt and then DisEngage, because you are going to have no AC at level 5+ when Main Monsters will have +7 to hit and will have more than one attack so they WILL hit you for significant damage! There are very few Taunt Mechanics, so it's not like they are going to focus on your fighter friend in the armor standing next to you. Their logical choice (due to action economy) KILL the low AC guy that just attacked 3-4 times (even if he missed 1-2 times) versus the hard-to-hit Front Line fighter (Fighter/ Barbarian/ Paladin/ Maybe Cleric). 3. Concerning Monk and Actions at level 5 - 3.a. - so I can unarmed attack and extra attack (d8, d8), and Nick attack with a Dagger (d4- this dagger part may be a miss read- please correct me), then spend 1 Discipline for 2 more unarmed attacks (d8) - only to be used on minions and lieutenants. That's 1 Discipline spent (or use Environmental Burst for 2 Discipline spend if available) OR... 3.b - I can attack and extra attack (d8, d8) and spend a Discipline for 1 attempt at Stun and then spend another Discipline to disengage/retreat. This is for Boss Opponents that I expect to have Legendary actions and resistances. And, I need to make sure I have a Spell Support of some type to make sure I have a reasonable chance against a healthy Constitution save (see Supporting Support note above). I MUST use the disengage because I know the opponents at this leve will have +7 to their attack rolls and multi attacks can do enough damage to a monk to kill them in one or two hits (so one round). I didn't include sub-class effects, I'm trying to see how the base monk is supposed to be used well. If you have the elements monk reach, or making the Boss fall on his buttock so they have to attack from Prone at disadvangtage (Open Hand), or if you manage to maybe poison the boss (Mercy), or if you are attacking /defending in the dark (Shadow - messing up the fighter), I imagine that will help a lot. Those spell casters are not going to want to help me. They are going to want to control battlefield, slow opponents, or do AOE Damage...
The thing I hate most about the UA is that monks still can't take advantage of the new grappling rules. The enemy gets to choose whether to make a strength or dex save against your STRENGTH based dc. No option to use dex instead. What a huge miss.
Well, up until this UA, monks COULD have gotten access to Fighting Styles through taking the feat. But they took that away in the same UA they released the monk 😂
@@The_Crimson_Witch Oh I know. It was just a semi(ish?) comparable option. Because with the sorc feat, the sorc gets to be more of a sorc. And with fighting styles, a martial would get to be more of a martial.
@MrSeals1000 Fighting Style Initiate is more comparible with Magic Initiate. Magic Initiate lets spell casters use more spells, FSI lets martials get more bang for their buck. Meta Magic Adept and what OP is suggesting would be more like Martial Adept. All are more specific, and are more useful to the character types they're borrowing from than anyone else. Like, Dicipline Adept.
My house rule is that Patient Defense and Step of the Wind don’t cost ki as a bonus action, but you can spend a ki point to do them as a free action. Likewise, Deflect missiles is no ki cost for one missile, but can deflect multiple if you spend a ki point.
Great video. Here's a few things I would add to your summary. Cunning Strike makes the rogue more of a martial artist than the monk now (much like the dance bard). Hope WotC ditches the Ki pool and gives the monk a resource that regenerates each turn to fuel cool maneuvers and stances as well. This would solve so many issues with resource fiddling, repetitive actions, and boring combat. Addressing the MADness and making STR-monks / grappling viable should be added to the list of important monk improvements too.
Great video on these changes. I share your optimism for the future. The only good thing is that they seems to semi-listen to the people when there is harsh criticism to be heard. Also Chris with his conspiracy about WOTC and the monk cracks me up. Reminds me of that Charlie Day meme
Best collab ever! I kind of agree the monk is mechanically underwhelming, but im not sold yet on the weapon mastery fixing it as it is, I kinda hope next time they implement bolder changes to the class. The subclasses have cool thematics, but the base class begs for some kind of "Battlemaster manouvers" that dont expend your Ki points.
I know that Chris isn't into Pathfinder 2E, but I think it would be interesting for both of you to do a Pathfinder to build comparison like you did with the Rune night for D&D 5e. Just both of you pick a class that you want to build to compare the way you build and see how it comes out. You don't even have to go past first level to really get an idea of how different the two of you will end up building in Pathfinder 2E
Dungeon dudes doing their Pathfinder video made me willing to try it out, they seemed overwhelmingly positive about it, and the more I play dnd the more I feel the limitations of the system.
Colby, I have some weird suggestions that maybe you could take a look at? How weird would it be to have a feature, hopefully at level 1, that changes the Monk's hitpoints to be 1d8 + WIS instead of 1d8 + CON every level? Seems like it wouldn't be too strong given their lackluster defense and would help with the Ability Score problem Chris pointed out early in the video. I also think there's room for having a standard whereby a subclass feature should compare to what the Wizards have at the same level for spells. Level 17 class features and/or subclass features should make the character feel like they're not being punished for not being a Wizard / Sorcerer / Arcana Cleric / Warlock and not having access to Wish / Meteor Swarm etc. A feature that seems obviously overpowered like "Every unarmed strike you hit with during your turn raises your AC and All Saving Throws by +1 until the start of your next turn" is still chump change compared to some of the spells full casters get ON TOP OF them also getting other features (i.e. Bladesingers get the best Extra Attack AND a shiny new spell slot at 6th Level). Thanks Colby
Chris has me convinced that there's someone high up in wotc that absolutely hates the monk and is sabotaging it at every turn. Seriously how can a single class keep going one step forward, two steps back every single update.
I don't see anyone talk about how the monk is in the warrior group and doesn't get a fighting style. They made the fighting style feat require the fighting style feature.
I still think we should just get rid of Ki altogether. Roll the martial attack into the attack action. Remove FoB; make PD and SotW free. With that, the defensive problem would be solved. Change SS to be a WIS save against dazed. Free once per turn. Then give an additional free Unarmed Strike at level 11. That would solve the entire dilemma.
I completely agree with Chris in the fact that the mechanics don't work with the thematics of the class (also since OneDnD has been trying to limit Stunning Strike to be once per round I'd rather it didn't costed anything, infact if we could get rid of Ki Points and give the Monk cool abilities once per turn similar to Rogue it would be great.)
When is the strong mountian, take the strike head-on! I get the fast strike an multi-strike, but i want big bulky monk that hits like a truck and take a blow like a champ!
d4: "It may be too much of me loving this fantasy of the kung-fu warrior, 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', or even 'Kung-Fu Panda', for that matter..." TM: "Kill Bill!" d4: "...Yeah. Sure" That actually made me laugh.
Having watched part 2 as well and loving both of you and the content you each produce I'd like to offer a small critique. I was having a hard time hearing each of you in part 1. Some noise in my line of work. Had to put in both my ear buds and I'm not supposed to do that. Music didn't help but not the main issue. Part 2 I was able to remove a earbud and even turned the volume down a bit.
A.C. changes +1 every 4 levels in addition to A.C. 10 plus dex mod and wis mod. Weapon properties to unarmed strikes and Monks have no prerequisite to feats.
I really like Chris' idea of having less Discipline Points (DP) but having them come back each time you roll initiative. Here is my idea for that. At 2nd level you have 2 maximum DP, and every 3rd level (5th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 20th) you add one maximum DP for a maximum of 8 DP at level 20. Each time you roll initiative your DP refills to maximum. I would combine this with my idea of giving monks free Step of the Wind and Flurry of Blows from level 11 onwards.
Weapon Masteries applying to unarmed strikes with Martial Arts would be perfect: Taekwondo was made by peasants to unhorse riders with kicks - that's Pushing/Topple.
So awesome to see you and Treant Monk discuss together! Both of you are rules savvy and monk enjoyers! Your collaborations are awesome. We believe we have character options that would satisfy the thematics and functional ideals you both have for monks!
I think Chris nailed it- perhaps unintentionally- the designers don't want the monk in the players handbook. If so, very sad that the cowards are caving to the empty-minded echo chambers that scream upon the internet. Monks are world-renowned for their feats of strength, and discipline, and healing! They are the inspiration for this class, removing the credit for this legacy is just cowardly. final note to Chris. Seriously buddy, that fro is getting out of control. Haircut or dog tags.
*This is the best solution I found following WotC's design style. If they can't find a better solution I think I will play with my design.* *1st: Martial Arts* *Quick Strike (Bonus Unarmed Strike).* When you use the Attack action with an Unarmed Strike or a Simple Weapon on your turn, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action on the same turn. *If you use a force point during your turn, you can decide to move your Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack action. It is still possible to make this extra attack only once per turn.* *1st: Unarmed techniques (or Unarmed Mastery)* *2nd: Inner Force (Martial Discipline)* *Iron Strike (replaces Flurry of Blows).* Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. *If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice it to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend Force points. *The additional damage is of the same type as your unarmed attacks. *Patient Defense.* [...] + If at the end of Patient Defense no one has attacked you, then you may use your reaction to make unarmed attack against a creature within your unarmed reach. *Step of the Wind.* [...] and your step is so light that for the turn you can run through the air. *2nd: Unarmored Movement* [...] + Additionally, while you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, you can take the Dash or Disengage actionas as a bonus action on your turn. When you use one of this actions your jump distance is doubled *5th: Stunning Strike* When you hit a creature with Iron Strike of your Inner Force feature, you can attempt a Stunning Strike. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or have the Stunned condition until the end of your next turn. You cannot use this feature in combination with another unarmed techniques. *6th: Assimilation (replaces Empowered Strike).* You can assimilate one simple weapon with magical properties into your body and use its magical properties with your unarmed attacks. A small tattoo that resembles the item absorbed appears on the skin of your arm. The absorbed item is undetectable by normal means, although the effect is detectable via Detect Magic. The item can be discharged as an action and the weapon is automatically equipped. You must be capable of holding the weapon or it falls to your feet (such as if you had no hands free). If you are unconscious or dead the assimilated weapon automatically separates from you. This feature can only be used with unarmed attacks and cannot be added to other items that enhance unarmed attacks. *10th: Self-Cultivation (Self-Restoration)* [...], and have advantage in saving throws against the Charmed, Frightened and Poisoned conditions. [...]. *11th: Flurry of Blows* Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Quick Strikes rather than one. If you spend 1 force point or more as an action that is not an attack action on your turn, you can make the Flurry of Blow as a bonus action before the end of the turn. *15th: Patient Resistance* When you have Patient Defense active and a creature that can be seen hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage by 1d10 plus your Dexterity modifier plus your monk level. *18th: Flurry of Iron Strikes* Your unarmed attacks have never been more powerful. Now Iron Strike is no longer limited to once per turn, but that is only if you sacrifice advantage to execute it. *20th: Enlightenment* Through your Inner Force and your physical and mental discipline, your being has achieved enlightenment. You raise three ability scores of your choice and increase them by 2. The maximum for those scores is now 30. Additionally, each time you roll for initiative, you always have a number of Force points equal or above your wisdom modifier.
Martial Arts also is written narrow enough that Monk can't really take advantage of the new rules for grappling and pushing associated with unarmed strikes
If they want to remove the martial arts die from weapons, then they should give monks access to martial weapons as well. Would a greatsword-monk really be overpowered? There's plenty of weapon master type monks in media so let us play the fantasy! And I like the idea of adding masteries to your unarmed strike as well.
The worst part of this monk revision is that as Chris was pointing out, a lot of the nerfs are hard for a person with less experience with tile mechanics to see. How many people would miss the feat prerequisite?!
Watch Part 2 on Treantmonk's channel here: ua-cam.com/video/6sZCooZrz5I/v-deo.html
AND SUBSCRIBE TO HIS CHANNEL IF YOU HAVEN'T!!!
Can't get enough of him. Or you! 😁
Chris and Colby one thing I think you missed was that the changes to unarmed strike from earlier in the playtest were also bad for monk. Sure monks can shove and grapple but those are back to being strength based, where in the earlier playtests it was based on your unarmed strike attack roll. When I saw the change in Playtest 5, I had assumed it was because they were giving the monk an ability to let them use Dex instead of Str when grappling or shoving. They were just aiming to kneecap the Monk any chance they got.
"Fixed" in the same way you'd "fix" a dog.
It's amazing that they deliberately managed to make the worst class in the game... worse.
Are you a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints? Watched an old video and you started it by singing a primary song
Another awesome video as always!!!
Colby: I hope no one is sad or upset but I'm not happy with the changes
Chris: THIS IS A SLAP IN THE FACE AND I AM READY FOR VIOLENCE!
At first I thought Chris might be overreacting but then I watched the video and he's right. The shortsword nerf is something I never even considered, and way too specific/weird to be a coincidence. They literally are locking the monk out of tons of feats.
@@PsyrenXYsomeone high up in wotc just absolutely despises the idea of martial arts, maybe they were bullied by the karate club at school and this is their vendetta.
@@PsyrenXY
Best case scenario it was not intentional and a confluence of design choices that ended up like this. So best case scenario, the design team cannot keep track of their changes properly and needs the community to do it for them.
You mentioned the worst case scenario.
Great collaboration! 😍 Keep finding reasons to make this happen. Nobody can beat the number crunching between Chris and Colby.
@@ODDnanrefI'm betting a lot of these small changes have to do with all the technical rule changes they're doing, such as diseased being labeled under poisoned now, as far as needing someone to check them better at least they're listening to the feedback
Colby: "I'm going to say this nicely, I don't like these changes."
Chris: *hits the monk changes with a truck, backs them over, lists every feat that they can't use, proceeds to rev the engine and drive over the changes again*
Loving this collab! Fill out your surveys everyone... if you do it for no other class in this 50+ page playtest doc, please at least do it for the Monk haha
I'm so mad I put neutral scores for everything in the new UA and gave super negative scores for the monk
Around 8:50 regarding defense, monks had amazing defense in the first versions of D&D. In the years after TSR, it feels like someone has held a grudge against the class.
I did it twice even .
I think Chris is the 100% best for rules and game understanding.
Definitely the most consistent among the D&D content creators, Colby being a really close second ;)
Facts and I don’t even like the guy tbh
I love that he acknowledges what is best for each table, and that things make fun are equally as important as the rules.
me too
He understands and communicates the rules, he doesn't overreact and he sees the big picture. He also doesn't post click bait rage content. Chris is the best
This is going to be an absolute flurry of blows at this UA
Wizards: people hated ki
Wizards: we renamed it
Yep, also Wizards: Half races are/is racist.
Almost everyone else in the world: What?
I refuse to say Discipline Points.
They are now D Points
In my Homebrew I called it Inner Force. So Force points. It is less direct than Ki, but it is somewhat reminiscent of Star Wars and above all it sounds better.
@@erikwilliams1562Ki Points are now Di Points.
haha! easy fix
Man I love you guys. I watch 3 channels consistently.
Treantmonk, Colby, Dungeon Dudes. The trifecta.
I would love to see them all come together to playtest OneDnD as a part of a one shot
I just want to see video of them casually chatting and discussing random DnD together stuff tbh
Watch all three regularly as well. They are my go to UA-camrs.
I also recommend Nerd Immersion, Insight Check, Ginny Di, D&D Daily, Trekiros, and Urge TV
XP to Level 3, One Shot Questers, Ginny Di, Pointy Hat, MrRhexx...
The whole design philosophy of the monk has always been "you can only use some of your features some of the time." There's the extremely limited ki for all of your abilities of course, but there's also things like patient defense, step of the wind, and martial arts all taking a bonus action. If a fighter uses a two handed weapon they don't loose their plate armor. If a mage uses their highest level spell slot they don't use all of their other slots. If a rogue uses cunning action to dash they can still sneak attack. But monk has to make these choices every time they use a class feature
This is why I really think that ki points should go away. The opportunity cost for monk abilities is already extremely high. Especially when step of the wind is a clone of a free ability for rogues.
Change stunning strike to dazing strike, a wisdom save, once per turn. Now your choices are basically just action economy focused -offense, defense, movement each turn.
“Use some of your abilities some of the time” should be the design philosophy of some skill-based classes and Spellcasters, but for some reason a combat-oriented class is the most resource-limited class in the game. Not because the class is too powerful, but because the designers are afraid for some reason of making the class good. IDK why. A strong Monk may supplant a Fighter, but it won’t scratch the power level of a full caster or even a Paladin.
@@alexmiller1800
Probably "They are not using any resources! Quick nerf them before they get out of hand!"
Yes, one of the biggest problems of the monk is the choice you have to make every one of its turns, and now that they have created weapon mastery NICK, they have the solution in hand, but they are not using it. If they could at least make a change to Martial Arts in Bonus Unarmed Strike + the concept of NICK would solve this big problem.
*1st: Martial Arts - Quick Strike (Bonus Unarmed Strike).* When you use the Attack action with an Unarmed Strike or a Simple Weapon on your turn, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action on the same turn. *If you use a force point during your turn, you can decide to move your Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack action.* It is still possible to make this extra attack only once per turn.
*1st: Unarmed techniques (or Unarmed Mastery)*
*2nd: Inner Force (Martial Discipline) - Iron Strike (replaces Flurry of Blows).* Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. *If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice it to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend Force points. *The additional damage is of the same type as your unarmed attacks.
*2nd: Unarmored Movement* [...] + Additionally, while you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, you can take the Dash or Disengage actionas as a bonus action on your turn. When you use one of this actions your jump distance is doubled
*5th: Stunning Strike.* When you hit a creature with Iron Strike of your Inner Force feature, you can attempt a Stunning Strike. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or have the Stunned condition until the end of your next turn. You cannot use this feature in combination with another unarmed techniques.
*11th: Flurry of Blows.* Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Quick Strikes rather than one. If you spend 1 force point or more as an action that is not an attack action on your turn, you can make the Flurry of Blow as a bonus action before the end of the turn.
*18th: Flurry of Iron Strikes.* Your unarmed attacks have never been more powerful. Now Iron Strike is no longer limited to once per turn, but that is only if you sacrifice advantage to execute it.
My fix for the Monk that gives them a non-Discipline dependant ability and fixes their weapon masteries:
STANCES.
You spend movement to enter a stance and can do it once per turn. You begin knowing 2 stances and at level 20 know 5. A Stance confers the benefits of one type of Weapon Mastery along with another small bonus. For example:
Mantis Style:
Costs 15 movement to enter.
When you miss an opponent with an unarmed strike, you deal damage to them equal to your Dex or Strength modifier. Opportunity Attacks made in this stance that hit reduce an enemies movement by 5 feet. (Or: You become Proficient in Slight of Hand Checks, or something like that).
Something like this is essential as Unarmed Strikes have no Weapon Mastery property. As Unarmed Strikes advance faster now, this means you're highly encouraged to ditch weapons (and thus, the fun new weapon mastery system they just introduced). Stances also allow Monks to do things without spending Ki! Different Subclasses could also each include their own unique Stance.
Please copy/paste this in the survey if you agree folks
Colby and Chris? Absolutely watching
Chrolby
@@mosqapuccino Colris
Oh hell yes. This is the content I want.
Sadly Jacob is very isolated in dnd opinions on the internet: he thinks monks are good🤷♂️🤦♂️and this UA makes them better🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
@@momqabt Just his opinion. I don't think Jacob is some kind of math nerd optimizer. So for him, it might be acceptable to have a high failure rate on the Monk's stunning strike or the "conditions" as he puts it (such as stunned) more of turn offs and obstacles. Also doesn't seem to care about lack of immunity from poison, etc. I'd say Jacob cares a lot more about flavor and the new baseclass and couple of the subclasses are truly more flavorful.
When Jeremy said that they were done with the "big changes" I knew the Monk was in trouble.
At level 11 Monks should just get extra attack
Part of their concept is that they're speedy bois; giving them another attack fulfills that concept (I also like the idea of Monks exclusively having 2 reactions per turn)
I've often thought along similar lines. I feel like folks want the monk to be a glass cannon, but with three feet of steel reinforcing the glass. Currently, the monk is mostly selfish utility, but if they gave him more utility powers that help the party and more reactions/bonus actions to use those powers and become a really neat support class, it would be so much fun. He would still be unique and stand often in the spotlight, but it wouldn't feel like your party is in a dungeon with some guy who thinks he's playing a singleplayer game.
2 reactions is a really interesting idea! Never heard that suggestion before but I love it. I also wish you could do your unarmed bonus action strike whether or not you used your action to attack. It would be so nice to be able to use your action to take a healing potion or use some other ability and then use your bonus action to at least get one punch in. Feels so punishing to not be able to do that... in my case at least the bonus action is typically wasted because I don't want to spend Ki on BAs provided by the class
What I tried before is to give them an extra unarm strike. Works fine and fun even for weapons focused monks since their unarm strike damage is similar to their weapons. Overall makes it a different favor from fighter
Use a ki point to gain an additional reaction. :-P
*Instead of adding another attack I would do it this way:*
*1st: Martial Arts - Quick Strike (Bonus Unarmed Strike).* When you use the Attack action with an Unarmed Strike or a Simple Weapon on your turn, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action on the same turn. If you use a force point during your turn, you can decide to move your Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack action. It is still possible to make this extra attack only once per turn.
*1st: Unarmed techniques (or Unarmed Mastery)*
*2nd: Inner Force (Martial Discipline) - Iron Strike (replaces Flurry of Blows).* Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. *If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice it to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend Force points. *The additional damage is of the same type as your unarmed attacks.
*2nd: Unarmored Movement [...]* + Additionally, while you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, you can take the Dash or Disengage actionas as a bonus action on your turn. When you use one of this actions your jump distance is doubled
*5th: Stunning Strike.* When you hit a creature with Iron Strike of your Inner Force feature, you can attempt a Stunning Strike. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or have the Stunned condition until the end of your next turn. You cannot use this feature in combination with another unarmed techniques.
*11th: Flurry of Blows.* Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Quick Strikes rather than one. If you spend 1 force point or more as an action that is not an attack action on your turn, you can make the Flurry of Blow as a bonus action before the end of the turn.
*18th: Flurry of Iron Strikes.* Your unarmed attacks have never been more powerful. Now Iron Strike is no longer limited to once per turn, but that is only if you sacrifice advantage to execute it.
You didn't mention that unarmed strikes now can Grapple and shove which SHOULD be a monk buff, BUT the saving throw is calculated on your STRENGTH which makes it bad for monks. This should also be addressed.
Also, about the grapple and shove:
"Whenever you use your Unarmed Strike,
choose ONE of the following options for its effect: Damage, Grapple, Shove"
It would be a buff, if you dealt damage on top of attempting to grapple or shove, or they had left hitting an unarmed strike as an auto success on the shove or grapple, but you don't and they didn't.
So, all this really means is you can grapple or shove as a Bonus Action. Everything else you could already do with the 2014 rules, except now it's worse because Skill Expert(Expertise in Athletics) can`t help you.
Ooo secret video. Ngl when I saw the monk drop, I couldn't wait to hear either of your opinions on this. A collab is the best of both worlds. Hopefully wotc listens to some of your concerns, as I really feel they missed the mark on why this is only a slight improvement over 2014.
Is it actually an improvement though? From my understanding of the changes, the recourse pool is still too small, the best feature in the class (stunning strike) has been nerfed to be once per turn, and the damage hasn't been given any assistance. The only help I see with the base class was giving them weapon mastery but monks are heavily based off of unarmed strikes as it is, but they decided to remove monk weapons. They did make some cool changes to the subclasses that make them more appealing to play, but they're still connected to a significantly weaker martial class than the other options. I don't mean to be antagonistic to your comment, but I don't don't see anything they did as an improvement, at most I'd say they made it equally weak.
@@SuperHbkforever I guess i see this more as it is X steps forward and X +/- 1 steps back. The forward comment is mainly on changes to four elements and shadow monk. Regardless, it's an absolute disappointment and I'll be very vocal when the survey comes around. I never wanted to play a 2014 monk, and this play test doesn't make me want to play one any more. I agree with Chris' comment that if they don't make any significant changes in the next playtest, the class itself cannot be salvaged. Of course short of house rules to fix WOTC's incredible oversights.
Here is my Level 11 solution for the monk. At level 11, Flurry of Blows no longer requires Ki to use. This also applies to their level 2 bonus action abilities. Also, I would add a +1 bonus to unarmored defense at level 6, up that to +2 at 11, and +3 at 17.
Oh boi, thatbwould feel good on mercy monk. Iirc at lvl 13 they get a feature that makes hand if harm not cost any ki if you use flurry of blows.
Alternatively, you just get 3 attacks instead of 1 when you Flurry. No matter what it needs to get stronger.
I think the current Step of the Wind should be a mini A. Stride. Let it be usable as an action, but if you use ki/di+bonus action then anyone you pass by gets dealt your martial arts die plus (half?) your monk level in damage.
Incentive the monk to use their great speed to deal chip damage, and harass those back lines that might be tanky or concentrating on spells.
This did not occur to me. It's genius!!
@@SilvrSavior I'd word it "Step of the Wind: You may Dash OR Disengage as a bonus action. You may spend a point to Dash AND Disengage, you also double your jump distance until the beginning of your next turn."
Chris with the observant feat peeping that shortsword dilemma!
Something you may have missed in this UA is that class groups no longer exist, so the designers totally sidestep the "warriors get masteries." UA6 monk feels like kicking someone when they're down.
And the only reason they (slightly) buffed Martial Arts dice is so that said kicks would hit harder.
Just you wait, they'll give masteries to warlocks and clerics as well
@@adventurer3288 War Cleric already gets a Weapon Mastery in this document. xD
Yes the monk should have a feature like Unarmed Mastery.
*1st: Unarmed Technique.* Your training without weapons allows you to learn two Unarmed Techniques, and use them with your unarmed strikes. You cannot repeat the same Technique on the same creature in the same turn. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can practice others Unarmed Techniques and change the kinds of Unarmed Technique you chose. When you reach certain levels in this class, you gain the ability to use more kinds of Unarmed Techniques, as shown in the Unarmed Techniques column of the Monk table. You can use these techniques while you are unarmed or wielding only Simple Weapons and you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a shield:
*GRAPPLER.* When you try to grapple, you can choose to use Acrobatics instead of Athletics check.
*PUSH.* If you hit a creature with your technique, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you if it is no more than one size larger than you. If used in combination with Iron Strike, the affected creature will be pushed 5 feet more and the size no longer affects the technique.
*SAP.* If you hit a creature with this technique, that creature has Disadvantage on its next attack roll before the start of your next turn.
*SLOW.* If you hit a creature with this technique and deal damage to the creature, you can reduce its Speed by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. If used in combination with Iron Strike, the affected creature Speed will be reduce by 20 feet.
*SWEEP.* If you hit a creature with this technique, you can force the creature to make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature has the Prone condition.
*VEX.* If you hit a creature with this technique and deal damage to the creature, you have Advantage on your next attack roll against that creature before the end of your next turn.
The fact that you can't use Weapon Mastery unarmed feels like such an oversight.
A very. Very. Deliberate one.
@@MrSeals1000 They very clearly said that Monk weapons don't get Martial Arts die because they now get Weapon Masteries. Extremely Deliberate.
It was an open goal to give unarmed attacks a Weapon Mastery from *list*
They mentioned weapon master at level 4. It isn’t much better, but the Kensai gets weapons at level 3. At least that is something, and it does not cost a feat.
Colby’s “long” (barely any longer than normal 😂) form unedited chats are easily the best things on UA-cam
I feel like all classes that aren't full casters should get another ASI or feat at 10 level like the rogue. Also, level 11: superior unarmored defense (AC is base 13+Dex+Wis)
Monks should just be able to add their proficiency bonus to their AC
@@destinpatterson1644 I do ac base 13 because that is the equivalent of a +3 magic armor, which by level 11 is quite possible for party members to have already.
@@jthurne23 No I think the increase should just be at Unarmed defense at level 1 and by 11th level most monks at most have 20 Dex +5, and 14 Wis +2, so that would be 10+5+2+3, that's only an AC of 20, and which would be the same as a rogue at this level but a rogue can disengage to avoid damage and half the damage of a particularly high attack, the monk doesn't have any of that, they're far more like a fighter, and a fighter with heavy armor only needs 15 strength to wear full plate, and a fighter has a lot more hit points
@@destinpatterson1644 Monks get a bonus action disengage at level 2.
Granted, its an objectively worse version than rogue since it requires ki, but they do have the option.
I disagree, the monk should run around the enemy and attack with freedom of movement. See example below.
*1st: Martial Arts - Quick Strike (Bonus Unarmed Strike).* When you use the Attack action with an Unarmed Strike or a Simple Weapon on your turn, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action on the same turn. If you use a force point during your turn, you can decide to move your Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack action. It is still possible to make this extra attack only once per turn.
*2nd: Inner Force (Martial Discipline)*
*Iron Strike (replaces Flurry of Blows).* Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. *If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice it to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend Force points. *The additional damage is of the same type as your unarmed attacks.
*Patient Defense.* [...] + If at the end of Patient Defense no one has attacked you, then you may use your reaction to make unarmed attack against a creature within your unarmed reach.
*Step of the Wind.* [...] and your step is so light that for the turn you can run through the air.
*2nd: Unarmored Movement.* [...] + Additionally, while you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, you can take the Dash or Disengage actionas as a bonus action on your turn. When you use one of this actions your jump distance is doubled
*11th: Flurry of Blows.* Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Quick Strikes rather than one. If you spend 1 force point or more as an action that is not an attack action on your turn, you can make the Flurry of Blow as a bonus action before the end of the turn.
Man! All these collabs are a treat, Colby!
You two make a REALLY good team. Your tones and approaches complement each other in the best ways.
My fixes to the 5E Monk.
[1]: change hit die from d8 to d10. makes them less squishy and brings them closer to the other warrior classes.
[2]: add Wisdom modifier to number of discipline points. At high levels these extra 3-4 points likely won't matter much, but at low levels they'd make the monk at least playable.
[3]: Unarmed Weapon Mastery: At the start of each day choose 2 mastery options from the following list: push, sap, slow, topple, or vex. You may apply them to your unarmed strikes.
[4]: Deflect Missiles: redirect damage scales to 3 rolls at 9th level and 4 rolls at 15th level.
[5]: Stunning Strike: inflicts dazed condition if they make the save.
[6]: Heightened Metabolism: In addition, when you finish a short rest you reduce your level of exhaustion by 1.
[7]: Perfect Discipline: Change to the following: Using Patient Defense and Step of the Wind no longer cost discipline points but cannot be used if you have no discipline points remaining. In addition, the first time each round that you use flurry of blows you may reroll any one's rolled on the damage die for the bonus unarmed strikes.
[8]: Defy Death: Change to the following: If you drop to 0 hit points you may spend up to 4 discipline points. For each point spent roll 2 martial arts dice and add all the numbers rolled together and add your WIS modifier. Your number of hit points instead changes to the number rolled. In addition, for a number of rounds equal to your WIS modifier after using this ability, you gain the benefit of your Superior Defense feature without spending any additional discipline points.
[9]: Empowered Far Strikes: This is a new feature gained at 11th level. You may spend 2 discipline points on your turn to make your unarmed attacks against a target you can see within 30 feet as if they were within your reach, ignoring any cover less than total cover. This ability lasts until the start of your next turn. At 19th level the range increases to 60 feet.
Defense Boost suggestions:
-Unarmored AC is now 10+Dex+Wis+Prof Bonus.
-Wis mod times per short rest, Monks can use a reaction (for free! No Discipline Points) to roll a martial arts die to reduce an enemy's attack roll.
-Deflect Missiles changes to Deflect Attack, so it can be used on ranged OR melee.
Offense Boosts:
- what Chris said about giving Monks a Weapon Mastery on Unarmed Strikes.
- free disengage if they hit with an attack (like the Swashbuckler. Let the Monk take advantage of their movement).
- Feats. Create some Monk-specific feats, or at least feats that Monks can use.
I feel the monk capstone could be like the barbarian capstone where you become inhumanly fast and wise. You get +4 dex and +4 wisdom or +2 to each
The monk capstone is so sad and embarrasing as is, literally anything would be better, I would love something unique but that would be great. Especially since their whole thing is reaching physical and mental perfection
The most Pro Monk and Con Monk youtubers breaking down the new class and subclasses? I am 100% in. Much love to both of you! 🤗
[Edit] After Chris' comment at 13:27 I revise my comment to: "The most hopeful of successful monk revision youtubers..."
[Edit] Monks are Western themed unarmed fighters in my game. They were a knightly order who were stripped of their status and banned from wearing livery, armor, using martial weaponry, and meting out justice. Out of all the options one could use to describe the energy they wield for their abilities (Ki, Chi, Prana, etc), I went with "Vril" from the 1871 novel 'The Coming Race' by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
watching through chris's "What I want" about increasing the defensive capabilities of the monk got me thinking that it'd be interesting to adjust their unarmored defense in one simple way: add their proficiency bonus. you'd want to do it at a moderate level investment (say 5) to avoid dips, but early enough that it's there for the meat of the game.
using a 15/15/15/8/8/8 point buy, after racials, start with 16/16 DEX/WIS. At level 4, increase one to 18, you're sitting at base AC of 17. at level 5 your proficiency goes to +3. Add it and increase your AC to 20. by level 8, assuming you're using your ASI to boost DEX/WIS, you're at AC 21. Level 9, +prof, AC of 22. at level 12, you're at 20/18 dex/wis, for AC 23. Level 13, prof.+, AC 24. When coupled with patient defense, you're sitting pretty. if patient defense were further altered by outright removing the ki requirement (there's still an opportunity cost; you're not using your BA for damage), you've got a recipe for a solid dodger through T2-T3.
Monks need:
- A d10 hit die
- More Ki, free disengage and dash, and less overall dependency on Ki as their only resource.
- Access to Weapon Masteries for Unarmed Strikes. Topple and Push are excellent and thematic options for Monks.
- Access to strong martial feats (like every other Martial class)
- Bring back Monk weapons and the Dedicated Weapon
- Better AC. They need to be harder to hit.
- Deflect Missiles redirect needs to be free and should go back to Martial Arts die + Dex. The Deflect Spells should either go hand in hand with Deflect Missiles or should be given at level 6 at the latest.
- I would argue that Monks should get a 3rd attack at level 11 like Fighters. I could even see an argument to give Monks the same ability Swashbuckler Rogues have where making an attack against a target prevents them from taking an opportunity attack on you, but that may be too much.
yes this
The whole video was great but the moment when I stood and applauded was when Chris described the monk with a glaive thumbnail …
As a martial arts fan and practitioner i would say why not look for the solutions in real life examples?
Ki points issue? Have a ability that's called "refocus" based on qi gong that costs a bonus action and recovers ki points. So the monk becomes a guerrilla fighter where you decide to pace yourself a turn and just explode the next, especially with the next suggestion:
Combos! Look if one class should have a "rekka", its the monk. Make it so that if an attack hits it allows you to do another and another (balance needs to be decided) and then you can follow up with using your ki points for a stronger finisher: a takedown into a grapple that makes dmg per turn or incapacitates, a really strong haymaker (stunning strike), or a kick that pushes you off and makes the target nauseated (just like a liver blow) or a calf kick that does x or y... I mean there are tons of real life examples that could translate so well into dnd and make the monk so distinct and strong.
And monks (from shaolin, to indian to the itto ikki) historically studied all kinds of weapons, from polearms to inconspicuous ones so dnd insisting on monks not using any reasonable weapon for me never made any sense.
"They're going conservative but then they'll give us more."
Treant: But there was nothing!
I felt this. I cried a little.
1:00:00 don't forget when Crawford was naming off all the classes in the UA and forgot Monk entirely and had to reminded it even existed by the interviewer.
I am so glad they called out the thumbnail they used in the Monk video. It infuriated me that I had no plausible way to make that guy with this rule set unless I multiclassed
A buff for deflect missiles can be each time you spend a point to throw back (hehe), you are also able to deflect 1 additional ranged attack before the start of your next turn as part of the same reaction.
I think it would be thematic still if it worked in melee as well
I really want to see Monks get one discipline point at the start of each of their turns. I think that would do a lot to solve their resource economy.
When Jeremey said that Playtest 6 was them moving out of the experimentation phase and into the refinement phase, I joked that that means the monk won't be getting any experimentation. ... turns out it wasn't a joke.
I really like the idea of the "ki/discipline" resets at the start of the round and increase with monk levels. I think it could make the monk very unique feeling, in a good way. 🤔
Make it scale like its proficiency, but just don't call it proficiency so it doesn't scale with multiclassing, have it refresh at the start of every turn.
If it reset with every round I don’t think you could run out of Ki points, meaning you might as well not have a cost to begin with which to be fair some of their abilities shouldn’t cost anything. But instead I would go for something from Apotheosis, in that game there’s several abilities that regains their use after short r long rest but a select few regains their uses every 10 minutes, I would suggest that a monk that’s not in combat for 10 minutes would regain a martial arts die worth of Ki points.
@@AtelierGod’ve always liked the idea of spending an action to receive one martial dice worth of Ki points which couldn’t exceed your max. Basically like a meditation round. You’d have Ki at the start of every fight, but could only go Nova for a few rounds before having to let up for a round.
@@AtelierGod one could use the same argument for the new rogue ability to exchange sneak attack die for additional effects, as it is essentially a similar system I'd like to see for the monk. Each turn they'd have X dicipline (probably 2 +1 at levels 5, 9, 13, and 17) to exchange for additional effects.
It could be things like "1 point to bonus action dodge, 2 points for flurry of blows, 1 for stunning strike, 1 to impose disability on the save, X dicipline to increase AC until next turn, 1 point to attack if an attack misses you" and so on. That just seems pretty cool, in theory, to me and fits well for a martial arts character. They'd be all about discipline!
The balance is how much discipline to spend on offense and what to spend on defense each turn. I do think it would require some serious changes to subclasses, which would perhaps conflict too much with their stated goal of backwards compatability (though that seems relatively easy to evercome, in the few cases where it's even a problem).
3:42 “I’m a UA-cam subscriber to one channel, and that is yours.” ❤
Holy Cow! This is crazy! This FEATS conversation is crazy! So are we trying to say just DON'T PLAY MONK! The Slap in the Face statement is getting more and more clear.
Stunning Strike- why not a Wisdom save? Then it's more likely and you only get one try. OR the Dazed condition?
I love that all the channels about D&D which I really enjoy, are all cross-pollinating each other. Chris, Colby and Will are all my go to character guys! All of them come at it from different angles but give me quality information and entertainment! Keep up the good work gentlemen. 🤘
Monks can use the Nick mastery, but oops! You can’t take the Fighting Style feat for TWF anymore unless you already have a fighting style! Because the most OP feat in 5e was clearly Fighting Initiate.
I think monks should just have proficiency in all weapons and weapon masteries for unarmed strikes
Also the fact that they made grapples part of the unarmed strike attack but it's now a saving throw and the DC is determined by your STR. I thought FOR SURE the monk would be able to swap the DC to be based on DEX instead, but no. They added to grapples to unarmed strikes and then made it so that the class that's all about unarmed strikes can't use it.
Also with empty body, previously Tasha's had given the optional feature that if you spend ki points as an action, you can attack with an unarmed strike or melee weapon as a bonus. So you still got to do something on that first turn.
Also don't like the capstone since it's the problem of "I never want to use ki for anything except this" that stunning strike used to have. As long as you have disipline points, you are immortal! Why spend any disipline points at all!
And I don't like the fact that they got rid of martial arts dice working for weapons "because you get masteries instead", except masteries don't scale! The whole point is that martial arts scales the damage for monk! They're not equivilant!
New subscriber here from DnD Shorts 😆 I was one of the 5 people watching that didn't know Chris 🤣
The Empty Body nerf is much worse than you described since using it as an action lets you use Ki-Fueled Attack to get a bonus action attack. So losing 1 attack for 1 minute of invisibility is a terrible trade.
I have a file on my account's "About" (can't share link, because UA-cam is dumb 😡) that I really hope anyone interested will see, because I'm interested to hear what thoughts you all have. It covers what I believe to be a pretty solid fix to the One D&D monk and its old (and new) problems.
It it also more or less what I am going to pull from for my answers to the survey.
The "fewer than four, more than zero" aspect of the old capstone has been a pet peeve of mine with Monks since 2014.
It's also a rotten design in the sense that it makes saving ki bad.
Monk needs to take some more lessons from, of all classes, Bard. For starters, the new Dance Bard has an ability that lets them make an unarmed attack whenever they spend a usage of Bardic Inspiration on something, and Monk should have that when they use Ki/Discipline. They should also get something like the Swords Bard blade flourishes, where they can use Discipline to temporarily increase their AC.
Wasn't there a similar bonus action attack for monks in Tasha's?
@@VerseilusI'm not talking just a bonus action attack. The Dance Bard ability is that if they spend Inspiration as part of their Action, BA, or Reaction, they can make an additional unarmed attack as part of that Action, BA, or Reaction. Giving Monk something similar would let them do stuff like get an additional attack when they Step of the Wind or Stunning Strike (which should be fine if Stunning Strike is once per turn)
@@CivilWarMan Yeah, that would obviously be cool as heck. I didn't express myself well, I was just wondering why did away with that Tasha's feature in the playtest monk because it was vaguely similar.
42:35 - "if this stays snd goes live, well no one is going to play monk anymore"
THATS THE PLAN!
That's absolutely the plan
Y'know... for you being on vacation and doing "less videos", we sure seem to be getting more than normal videos!
Which I'm totally fine with, just found it amusing. 😜
Ha ha well, to be fair, the script writing and editing are the most time consuming parts. If I can just ramble and not edit it? Piece o cake 😉
For sure. I'll take it either way, I'm always happy to see your videos pop up. 😊
Small idea for a thought experiment. Two, technically, but a fun idea to consider. We take the legendary action kind of approach with ki points. You get ki points equal to your Wisdom modifier that recharge at the start of your turn. We could just alter the amount of ki points that certain features cost to help compensate.
Other idea which is why the explanation at the top was needed. Flurry of Blows just becomes an upgrade to the attack action. When you take the attack action on your turn, you can spend ki to get more attacks, 1 ki equalling one extra attack. You can only spend extra ki equal to half your proficiency bonus (rounded up) for these extra attacks.
An idea I had was to take away the free bonus action attack from martial arts and replace it by giving monk unarmed attacks the nick property by default. This would give the same number of free attacks to the monk while also ensuring this extra attack is no longer competing with the half dozen other abilities monk has that require their bonus action.
I really love your collaborations. You both have complementary but unique ways of viewing D&D, and together you make a great team.
Remember they have to reduce the base class to be less Shaolin Monk and more Franciscan Monk... putting the flavor into the subclass.
But they do need to build up the base again... blocking mele weapon blows and adding back weapons.
Conceptually, I want monks to be fast and hard to hit, thus I think increasing their AC and not their hit die is the way to go
What I would change from the 5e Monk:
Unarmoured Defence: AC = dex + 2x mental ability score of your choice (since Monks are multi score dependent I want to give them more choices for character creation, plus this makes their AC higher)
Step of the Wind's abilities individually should be free, however if you want to use both (like in this playtest), then it costs 1 ki
Give them 2 reactions (fits with the theme perfectly imo, and it bolsters offence in a skirmish and defence from Deflect Missles/Energy)
Whenever you defeat an enemy (knocking unconscious or outright killing them) you regain 1 ki
ASI's at the same levels as Rogues
Stunning Strike should only work once per turn, but on a save the target suffers the Dazed condition
Heightened Metabolism gained at 5th level
Bring Deflect Energy down to 7th level; acquiring it at the same level as Evasion makes this a good level defencively
Extra Attack at level 11 like the fighter. Plus Flurry of Blows allows for 2 extra unarmed strikes
On the theme of "screwing the monk": in earlier UAs, the fighting style feats had a prerequisite of "Warrior class group," which included the monk. UA6 dropped the "class group" language entirely and made the prerequisite for fighting style feats that you have the Fighting Style feature - which the monk does not have. So you can't even take Two-Weapon Fighting, which is the only one that was any good for the monk in the first place and which could at least have increased their damage by their DEX bonus each turn. And the only Light d6 weapon is the handaxe, which doesn't have the Nick property, forcing you into using at least one d4 weapon (dagger, light hammer, sickle) if you want to fight with two weapons and still keep your bonus action for something else.
Stunning strike: I was thinking I would like to see it become a Monk-exclusive option for unarmed strikes, so your choices are now: 1. Do damage; 2. Push back or knock prone; 3. Grapple; or 4. Stunning Strike. With no point cost, and no once-per-round limitation. That would follow the theme they're using elsewhere of swapping some damage for a tactical option (like with the rogue's Cunning Strikes). But then I watched the end of your video and thought, "Yeah, the monk should get weapon mastery on their unarmed strikes that lets them do damage AND do that other stuff with the same strike."
1. Echo Knight Fighter (Naruto), Psi Knight Fighter (Jedi) and this Dancer Bard are all clearly monk concepts that were given to base classes because of popularity. There is simply nothing else to it. Also, NEW Shadow monk is the new teleporting Echo Knight Fighter!
2. Concerning Monk and Stunning Strike - is this supposed to be a TEAMWORK issue? Like, Mind Sliver + Stunning Strike, or Bane + Stunning Strike, or Portent + Stunning Strike, or some Bard feature + Stunning Strike, followed up by some Silvery Barbs? If so, we need to make that clear in the text! That we designed this as a SUPPORT CLASS that REQUIRES additional SUPPORT and you are supposed to make ONE hit with a stunning strike attempt and then DisEngage, because you are going to have no AC at level 5+ when Main Monsters will have +7 to hit and will have more than one attack so they WILL hit you for significant damage! There are very few Taunt Mechanics, so it's not like they are going to focus on your fighter friend in the armor standing next to you. Their logical choice (due to action economy) KILL the low AC guy that just attacked 3-4 times (even if he missed 1-2 times) versus the hard-to-hit Front Line fighter (Fighter/ Barbarian/ Paladin/ Maybe Cleric).
3. Concerning Monk and Actions at level 5 -
3.a. - so I can unarmed attack and extra attack (d8, d8), and Nick attack with a Dagger (d4- this dagger part may be a miss read- please correct me), then spend 1 Discipline for 2 more unarmed attacks (d8) - only to be used on minions and lieutenants. That's 1 Discipline spent (or use Environmental Burst for 2 Discipline spend if available) OR...
3.b - I can attack and extra attack (d8, d8) and spend a Discipline for 1 attempt at Stun and then spend another Discipline to disengage/retreat. This is for Boss Opponents that I expect to have Legendary actions and resistances. And, I need to make sure I have a Spell Support of some type to make sure I have a reasonable chance against a healthy Constitution save (see Supporting Support note above). I MUST use the disengage because I know the opponents at this leve will have +7 to their attack rolls and multi attacks can do enough damage to a monk to kill them in one or two hits (so one round).
I didn't include sub-class effects, I'm trying to see how the base monk is supposed to be used well. If you have the elements monk reach, or making the Boss fall on his buttock so they have to attack from Prone at disadvangtage (Open Hand), or if you manage to maybe poison the boss (Mercy), or if you are attacking /defending in the dark (Shadow - messing up the fighter), I imagine that will help a lot.
Those spell casters are not going to want to help me. They are going to want to control battlefield, slow opponents, or do AOE Damage...
The thing I hate most about the UA is that monks still can't take advantage of the new grappling rules. The enemy gets to choose whether to make a strength or dex save against your STRENGTH based dc. No option to use dex instead. What a huge miss.
So sorcerers had an ability to get a feet that gave them extra metamagic options and sorcery points. Why can't they do that for the month as well?
Well, up until this UA, monks COULD have gotten access to Fighting Styles through taking the feat.
But they took that away in the same UA they released the monk 😂
@@MrSeals1000 I think OP means for ki points
@@The_Crimson_Witch Oh I know. It was just a semi(ish?) comparable option. Because with the sorc feat, the sorc gets to be more of a sorc.
And with fighting styles, a martial would get to be more of a martial.
@MrSeals1000 Fighting Style Initiate is more comparible with Magic Initiate. Magic Initiate lets spell casters use more spells, FSI lets martials get more bang for their buck.
Meta Magic Adept and what OP is suggesting would be more like Martial Adept. All are more specific, and are more useful to the character types they're borrowing from than anyone else.
Like, Dicipline Adept.
My house rule is that Patient Defense and Step of the Wind don’t cost ki as a bonus action, but you can spend a ki point to do them as a free action.
Likewise, Deflect missiles is no ki cost for one missile, but can deflect multiple if you spend a ki point.
The fact that the videos are almost exactly the same length, but two seconds off, made me both very happy and frustrated at the same time
Great video. Here's a few things I would add to your summary. Cunning Strike makes the rogue more of a martial artist than the monk now (much like the dance bard). Hope WotC ditches the Ki pool and gives the monk a resource that regenerates each turn to fuel cool maneuvers and stances as well. This would solve so many issues with resource fiddling, repetitive actions, and boring combat. Addressing the MADness and making STR-monks / grappling viable should be added to the list of important monk improvements too.
Great video on these changes. I share your optimism for the future. The only good thing is that they seems to semi-listen to the people when there is harsh criticism to be heard.
Also Chris with his conspiracy about WOTC and the monk cracks me up. Reminds me of that Charlie Day meme
Best collab ever! I kind of agree the monk is mechanically underwhelming, but im not sold yet on the weapon mastery fixing it as it is, I kinda hope next time they implement bolder changes to the class. The subclasses have cool thematics, but the base class begs for some kind of "Battlemaster manouvers" that dont expend your Ki points.
I know that Chris isn't into Pathfinder 2E, but I think it would be interesting for both of you to do a Pathfinder to build comparison like you did with the Rune night for D&D 5e. Just both of you pick a class that you want to build to compare the way you build and see how it comes out. You don't even have to go past first level to really get an idea of how different the two of you will end up building in Pathfinder 2E
Chris has said that he just doesn't have the necessary experience and system mastery to confidently build PF2E characters.
@@elementzero3379 yeah, I realize that. I think my message came across as a desire for to happen instead of a regret that it didn't happen.. :-)
Dungeon dudes doing their Pathfinder video made me willing to try it out, they seemed overwhelmingly positive about it, and the more I play dnd the more I feel the limitations of the system.
man that would be so cool
The Battlemaster gets more options than the monk with all the fighter perks, unarmed fighting style and crusher
Colby, I have some weird suggestions that maybe you could take a look at? How weird would it be to have a feature, hopefully at level 1, that changes the Monk's hitpoints to be 1d8 + WIS instead of 1d8 + CON every level? Seems like it wouldn't be too strong given their lackluster defense and would help with the Ability Score problem Chris pointed out early in the video. I also think there's room for having a standard whereby a subclass feature should compare to what the Wizards have at the same level for spells. Level 17 class features and/or subclass features should make the character feel like they're not being punished for not being a Wizard / Sorcerer / Arcana Cleric / Warlock and not having access to Wish / Meteor Swarm etc. A feature that seems obviously overpowered like "Every unarmed strike you hit with during your turn raises your AC and All Saving Throws by +1 until the start of your next turn" is still chump change compared to some of the spells full casters get ON TOP OF them also getting other features (i.e. Bladesingers get the best Extra Attack AND a shiny new spell slot at 6th Level). Thanks Colby
I don’t know that any buff is too crazy for Monks at this point 😉
I love your ideas, guys. These ideas should be mentioned in the survey to immediately send the message across
I love it when you two get together and chat.
The BG3 Monk has been homebrewed and buffed. The showcase starts in less than 1hr from this comment... here's hoping WoTC take notes from Larian!!
My survey response was "you spent more time remaining Ki points than you did fixing the problems with them."
Chris has me convinced that there's someone high up in wotc that absolutely hates the monk and is sabotaging it at every turn. Seriously how can a single class keep going one step forward, two steps back every single update.
I don't see anyone talk about how the monk is in the warrior group and doesn't get a fighting style. They made the fighting style feat require the fighting style feature.
Well I mean, neither does Barbarian.
I still think we should just get rid of Ki altogether.
Roll the martial attack into the attack action. Remove FoB; make PD and SotW free. With that, the defensive problem would be solved.
Change SS to be a WIS save against dazed. Free once per turn.
Then give an additional free Unarmed Strike at level 11.
That would solve the entire dilemma.
I completely agree with Chris in the fact that the mechanics don't work with the thematics of the class (also since OneDnD has been trying to limit Stunning Strike to be once per round I'd rather it didn't costed anything, infact if we could get rid of Ki Points and give the Monk cool abilities once per turn similar to Rogue it would be great.)
When is the strong mountian, take the strike head-on! I get the fast strike an multi-strike, but i want big bulky monk that hits like a truck and take a blow like a champ!
d4: "It may be too much of me loving this fantasy of the kung-fu warrior, 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', or even 'Kung-Fu Panda', for that matter..."
TM: "Kill Bill!"
d4: "...Yeah. Sure"
That actually made me laugh.
I love the monk concept, and DnD's monk is so sad that it made me write my own ttrpg to play a monk...
Having watched part 2 as well and loving both of you and the content you each produce I'd like to offer a small critique.
I was having a hard time hearing each of you in part 1. Some noise in my line of work. Had to put in both my ear buds and I'm not supposed to do that. Music didn't help but not the main issue.
Part 2 I was able to remove a earbud and even turned the volume down a bit.
This was fun haha, love the insight you and Chris share!
Not only should Monk Unarmed Strikes get Weapon Mastery properties, but they should also qualify as any melee weapon for the purpose of feats.
Got it. Build a fighter and flavor them as a monk
So jealous of the collab! Did my first collab interview just a few days ago with Robodad1, I love the DnD community 😁🤓
A.C. changes +1 every 4 levels in addition to A.C. 10 plus dex mod and wis mod. Weapon properties to unarmed strikes and Monks have no prerequisite to feats.
This is making me want to make my own monk like class since I can’t get a good version from WOTC
Colby: your favorite UA-camr's favorite UA-camr.
I really like Chris' idea of having less Discipline Points (DP) but having them come back each time you roll initiative. Here is my idea for that. At 2nd level you have 2 maximum DP, and every 3rd level (5th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 20th) you add one maximum DP for a maximum of 8 DP at level 20. Each time you roll initiative your DP refills to maximum. I would combine this with my idea of giving monks free Step of the Wind and Flurry of Blows from level 11 onwards.
Weapon Masteries applying to unarmed strikes with Martial Arts would be perfect: Taekwondo was made by peasants to unhorse riders with kicks - that's Pushing/Topple.
So awesome to see you and Treant Monk discuss together! Both of you are rules savvy and monk enjoyers! Your collaborations are awesome.
We believe we have character options that would satisfy the thematics and functional ideals you both have for monks!
I think Chris nailed it- perhaps unintentionally- the designers don't want the monk in the players handbook.
If so, very sad that the cowards are caving to the empty-minded echo chambers that scream upon the internet. Monks are world-renowned for their feats of strength, and discipline, and healing! They are the inspiration for this class, removing the credit for this legacy is just cowardly.
final note to Chris. Seriously buddy, that fro is getting out of control. Haircut or dog tags.
*This is the best solution I found following WotC's design style. If they can't find a better solution I think I will play with my design.*
*1st: Martial Arts*
*Quick Strike (Bonus Unarmed Strike).* When you use the Attack action with an Unarmed Strike or a Simple Weapon on your turn, you can make one Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action on the same turn. *If you use a force point during your turn, you can decide to move your Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack action. It is still possible to make this extra attack only once per turn.*
*1st: Unarmed techniques (or Unarmed Mastery)*
*2nd: Inner Force (Martial Discipline)*
*Iron Strike (replaces Flurry of Blows).* Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. *If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice it to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend Force points. *The additional damage is of the same type as your unarmed attacks.
*Patient Defense.* [...] + If at the end of Patient Defense no one has attacked you, then you may use your reaction to make unarmed attack against a creature within your unarmed reach.
*Step of the Wind.* [...] and your step is so light that for the turn you can run through the air.
*2nd: Unarmored Movement* [...] + Additionally, while you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a Shield, you can take the Dash or Disengage actionas as a bonus action on your turn. When you use one of this actions your jump distance is doubled
*5th: Stunning Strike* When you hit a creature with Iron Strike of your Inner Force feature, you can attempt a Stunning Strike. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or have the Stunned condition until the end of your next turn. You cannot use this feature in combination with another unarmed techniques.
*6th: Assimilation (replaces Empowered Strike).* You can assimilate one simple weapon with magical properties into your body and use its magical properties with your unarmed attacks. A small tattoo that resembles the item absorbed appears on the skin of your arm. The absorbed item is undetectable by normal means, although the effect is detectable via Detect Magic. The item can be discharged as an action and the weapon is automatically equipped. You must be capable of holding the weapon or it falls to your feet (such as if you had no hands free). If you are unconscious or dead the assimilated weapon automatically separates from you. This feature can only be used with unarmed attacks and cannot be added to other items that enhance unarmed attacks.
*10th: Self-Cultivation (Self-Restoration)* [...], and have advantage in saving throws against the Charmed, Frightened and Poisoned conditions. [...].
*11th: Flurry of Blows* Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Quick Strikes rather than one. If you spend 1 force point or more as an action that is not an attack action on your turn, you can make the Flurry of Blow as a bonus action before the end of the turn.
*15th: Patient Resistance* When you have Patient Defense active and a creature that can be seen hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage by 1d10 plus your Dexterity modifier plus your monk level.
*18th: Flurry of Iron Strikes* Your unarmed attacks have never been more powerful. Now Iron Strike is no longer limited to once per turn, but that is only if you sacrifice advantage to execute it.
*20th: Enlightenment* Through your Inner Force and your physical and mental discipline, your being has achieved enlightenment. You raise three ability scores of your choice and increase them by 2. The maximum for those scores is now 30. Additionally, each time you roll for initiative, you always have a number of Force points equal or above your wisdom modifier.
Martial Arts also is written narrow enough that Monk can't really take advantage of the new rules for grappling and pushing associated with unarmed strikes
A Holy Alliance! Thanks guys! 🐉❤️
Great collaboration, thanks!
If they want to remove the martial arts die from weapons, then they should give monks access to martial weapons as well. Would a greatsword-monk really be overpowered? There's plenty of weapon master type monks in media so let us play the fantasy! And I like the idea of adding masteries to your unarmed strike as well.
My 2 favourite dnd content creators united! Hope to see more collabs! Very good analysis by both btw 😊
I've been waiting for this video. TM and Colby explaining *what they did* to the monk!
The worst part of this monk revision is that as Chris was pointing out, a lot of the nerfs are hard for a person with less experience with tile mechanics to see. How many people would miss the feat prerequisite?!
Get rid of stunning strike as a ki based skill and make a watered down version the weapon effect for monk unarmed strikes.
Way of the long death gets a better feature than the capstone at lv 11