How are monks doing?

[Nevereatcars]

I'm running my first 5e game, and one of my players, a newbie who sat in on a few 3e sessions but has never played as a "full" party member (expected to be at the table, not just dropping in) wants to play as a monk. Everybody knows exactly how well monks played in 3e, and while I looked at the PHB and don't see anything too terrible there, I don't really have the game experience to judge for myself. Anybody playing a 5e monk, your thoughts on the class?

[SaintRidley]

Monks are vastly improved in 5e, being perfectly functional as a bare minimum now, rather than requiring heavy optimization to almost function (as was the case in 3.5).

[Totema]

Big improvements include the elimination of BAB (allowing them to hit just as well as anyone else) and FoB being used on a bonus action, allowing for a lot more usability.

[EvilAnagram]

It's a big improvement over past editions. It's fun, it has a lot of cool builds, and it Unarmored Defense means it's great for multiclassing. It's also just plain effective.

[Chaosvii7]

Monk's supernatural abilities and extraordinary abilities have been unmarried from each other - the base monk gives you all the cool kung fu stuff and a ki pool, and then it's subclasses let you specialize in everything from punching, to stealth, to covertly ripping off Avatar: The Last Airbender. Monks are pretty good and while they're not really a caster class, their spell access lets them do some pretty cool stuff.

[Person_Man]

The 5E Monk is mobile class with a variety of special defenses (especially at higher levels) and a few useful offensive tricks. It still suffers from some MAD (though this problem has been greatly reduced) and lacks the pure damage output of many other classes (though it's much more respectable then it was in the past). I'm sure it will once again be one of the most debated classes in the game.

[Grynning]

The extra unarmed attack (or two) really makes the monk one of the best melee characters pre level 5. The monks in my two HotDQ games are both rocking it in fights with lots of enemies to get in melee with. Last night a level 3 monk player pretty much single-handedly KO'ed a boss, then used her elemental blasty thing to take down a tough mook the rest of the party had been dancing with. A lot of it just comes down to dice rolls of course, but Monks are by no means weak at low levels. I imagine that at higher levels they taper off a bit since their damage scaling is a little slow (you'll want a quarterstaff or spear for a while) and other classes catch up in being able to make more attacks.

[obryn]

I'm not thrilled with a lot of things in 5e, but I think the 5e monk looks pretty great. Well, past the first few levels anyway, but that's true for almost everyone.

You just have to think of them as a highly-mobile melee controller (in 4e terms) instead of as a skirmishing damage dealer. They will probably do less damage than some other classes, but the ability to stun-lock several enemies is massive. Stunning Fist is good. Like, really, really good.

[Beige]

Monks are actually pretty good - they're not the best damaging class, but their mobility is brilliant and they have some great defensive options. Compared to that joke that was the 3.5e monk, they're vastly improved.

so I wouldn't worry to much about it.