Monk Magic Initiate

[DracoKnight]

There's a player (a Monk) in our group who wants to take the Magic Initiate feat on their next ASI. They're asking if they could be allowed as a house rule to expend Ki points to cast the spell (granted to them by the feat) at a higher level/or more than once a day. Would this be too overpowered?

[MrStabby]

Well there are two interpretations out there. The first is the literal interpretation that notes that you may not cast the spell again until after a long rest. If you follow this then Ki doesn't help. If you are going for a more liberal interpretation and ignore that phrase then things get much more interesting.

I think it is probably not entirely unreasonable to allow Ki to cast the spell, especially if you are going to allow other people who take the feat to drop other spell slots to cast the spell. Be very, very aware though that you may wan't some restrictions. Hex, for example when you hit and flurry will add a massive amount of damage to a Monk DPR.

[DracoKnight]

I can see that being an issue, if they were to take a spell list that included that, however, they're choosing the Cleric spell list because they have an extremely high Wisdom, and want to do some healer-esque things as well as get Guiding Bolt.

[MrStabby]

A healing monk would be thematic and very effective. I don't think it would be too powerful and as it would support the other characters in what they want to do rather than competing with them it is likely to add to the fun at the table.

You may find yourself having to adjust the number of encounters in the day or change the composition a little bit to accommodate this simply because the character would get their "spell slots" back on a short rest so by default any unused Ki would manifest itself as healing on a short rest.

For a similar role they could consider druid and use goodberries to heal, if they preferred the druid cantrips?

OR

Guiding bolt - no problem here. It is powerful at low levels but by the time you get to level 5 the monk should have better things to do with their action than expend it and Ki on a spell (even one that does a decent amount of damage for its level).

Unfortunately there are no healing cantrips so they have to chose between these.

[DracoKnight]

A healing monk would be thematic and very effective. I don't think it would be too powerful and as it would support the other characters in what they want to do rather than competing with them it is likely to add to the fun at the table

Okay, maybe not so much healing as one of the cantrips they're planning on picking is Spare the Dying. So, basically want to help out our Cleric by stabilizing people, since our DM is throwing an Ancient Red Dragon at our party of 8 level 7 characters :P