Why do Tongue of the Sun and Moon & Timeless Body still exist? [Archive]

gkathellar

2016-07-18, 09:17 AM

Monks advance their ki as well right? No, its not great, but the class is good enough, and all classes have levels that are less interesting.

They advance their ki at literally every other level, too. These aren't even levels where their damage dice or speed increase, or anything. 13 and 15 are just arbitrarily pointless.

Timeless Body not only protects against aging attacks, it also allows Monks to go without food and water. Pretty handy in a desert campaign (especially a Dark Sun campaign).

Sure, but since aging doesn't have any defined effects, the first bit is 100% meaningless. The second bit is a nice frill, I guess, if extremely specific and way, way, way too late at 15th level.

Some people are just obsessed with mechanical benefits I guess, always liked the stuff that makes you age 1 year every 10 yrs, with classes/subclasses that gets such things I usually play a short lived race that took that path cause he is obsessed about staying alive and leave a big mark on the world before he has to go. :)

Abilities like that are cool, sure. But they shouldn't be all you get at any level - there shouldn't be a situation where the players are going around the table leveling up, and the cleric's like, "yeah, 8th level spells!" and the barbarian's pleased as punch about Persistent Rage (although he shouldn't be, because it sucks), and the monk gets to ... not age? Not even live longer. Just not age until death.

It's an ability that does literally nothing unless the DM house-rules for it. That's not what you should be getting when other classes are getting cool things.

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-18, 10:14 AM

The abilities you refer to are so-called 'ribbons'. You'll find them in backgrounds, in races, in spells, and in class abilities. They are (intentionally) more fluff than crunch. They affect your interaction with the narrative, give your class some definition, but have little impact on your ability to beat people up.

I'm personally torn on ribbons. I'd prefer to have meaningful out of combat powers and abilities that aren't magic, even if it means that some classes lose combat prowess (the lack of these abilities means that I can't see 5e as anything but a combat game).

Also, the image of monks here is the agile warrior who spent years training in a mountaintop, right? Even though I really think that the monk class should be combined into the fighter, I don't like these abilities as part of the freestanding monk class. If they weren't there the most likely result is that the problems they solve would either not come up for Tongue of the Sun and Moon, or you'd be covered by what the rest of the party is doing anyway for Timeless Body (where the big benefit, not needing food or water, would be awesome ten levels earlier).

Now, I think the Monk's agility should go beyond slow fall and evasion, so why don't I just brew up a replacement 13th level ability, to show what the monk could have had.

Lightfoot: starting at 13th level you always have advantage on Strength (Athletics) and Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks to jump, climb, or maintain your footing. In addition, when using your Slow Fall class feature you can reduce damage by ten times your Monk level.

I'd personally prefer something like that, because I tend to take several languages at character creation and it's one of the things I'd have a Monk do in their downtime, so Tongue of the Sun and Moon just seems worthless for me. Thieves' Cant is something that I would like, because the implied ability to quickly learn ones in new cities could be a serious benefit to communicating secret information within the party without having to spend a feat to create ciphers.

Naanomi

2016-07-18, 11:15 AM

'Ribbon' can mean several things, I'm labeling them for ease of organizing my thoughts:
*type 0: no unique class abilities at all at this level
*type 1: abilities that have virtually no mechanical function, or are actively detrimental; pure fluff
*type 2: abilities with mechanical functions that are so rare a benefit in most campaigns as to be functionally worthless
*type 3: abilities with mechanical functions, but fit poorly with the class they are given with so as to be functionally limited

Also note: every character gets HP at each level, so it is never completely 'worthless'; and 5, 9, 13, and 17 come with proficiency boosts so don't feel so bad

Barbarian:
-totem: 6 (most are type 2); gets extra rage
-totem: 10 (type 3)

Bard:
-7, 9: (type 0); gets new spell level access

Cleric:
-3, 7, 9, 13, 15: (type 0); gets new spell level access
-Nature: 2, 17: (type 2); gets new spell level access at 17

Druid:
-3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16: (type 0); gets new spell level access
-18: (timeless body is Type 1); also gets Beast Spells
-Land: most of 6, 14: (type 2)

Fighter:
-*several bonus feats (type 2/3)
-battlemaster: parts of 3: (type 2); though gets lots of other stuff this level

Monk:
-13, 15: (type 2/3; type 1) also gets Ki
-open hand: 11: (type 3); also gets Ki and unarmed damage increase
Elemental: *some discipline choices are (type 2)

Paladin:
-9, 13, 17: (type 0); gets new spell level access
-devotion: parts of 3: (type 2)

Ranger:
-1, 6, 20, parts of 3, 10, 15, most of 8: (type 3)
-9, 13, 17: (type 0); gets new spell level access

Rogue:
-*several bonus feats (type 2/3)
-thief: 13 (type 2); also gets sneak attack
-assassin: 9, 13 (type 2, often type 3); also gets sneak attack
-mastermind: parts of 3, 17; also gets sneak attack

Sorcerer:
-5, 7, 11, 13: (type 0), also get spell levels, sorcery points
-Dragon: parts of 1: (type 2); only if you choose the 'wrong' element
-Wild: Parts of 1: (type 2, arguably type 1)

Warlock:
-*several invocation choices (type 2)
-2, 18: (type 0); also get invocations
-5, 7, 9: (type 0); also get invocations and spell levels
-11, 13, 16, 17: (type 0); also get spell levels
-arch fey, old one: 10: (type 2)
-undying: parts of 1, 10, 14: (type 1/2)

Wizard:
-3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17: (type 0); gets new spell level access
-conjuror + Transmuter 2: (type 2)
-Evoker 6: (type 0/2): may change with future spells
------------
Clearly spellcasters are getting spells instead of class abilities; but I still think rangers are the kings of 'I got ribbons instead of class abilities'

gkathellar

2016-07-18, 11:17 AM

Lightfoot: starting at 13th level you always have advantage on Strength (Athletics) and Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks to jump, climb, or maintain your footing. In addition, when using your Slow Fall class feature you can reduce damage by ten times your Monk level.

That's much more meaningful. I might just might hijack that verbatim.

'Ribbon' can mean several things, I'm labeling them for ease of organizing my thoughts:

Handy.

I'd be tempted to some of the "extends the adventuring day" abilities as Type 4, especially the ones that come instead of the character getting a capstone.

Clearly spellcasters are getting spells instead of class abilities; but I still think rangers are the kings of 'I got ribbons instead of class abilities'

Definitely. Spells are class abilities, if we're being real - that's why so many class abilities basically just replicate spells.

famousringo

2016-07-18, 11:25 AM

Having spent my last few play sessions locked out of social encounters due to a language barrier, I sure wish my character had a feature that let me talk to anything with a language.

Fflewddur Fflam

2016-07-18, 11:31 AM

Is there something I'm missing here?

You are, it's a ROLE-PLAYING GAME. Those abilities are conducive to role-play. Try it out some time.

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-18, 11:39 AM

That's much more meaningful. I might just might hijack that verbatim.

Feel free, it's exactly why I put it here. I might redo the monk as either a fighter subclass or a set of feats (but not a feat chain) at some point, focusing on replicating Wuxia action.

Handy.

I'd be tempted to some of the "extends the adventuring day" abilities as Type 4, especially the ones that come instead of the character getting a capstone.

Oh man, I can say I hate those abilities. 'regain one superiority die at the start of combat'? It might allow me to start every fight with a trick up my sleeve, but getting 1/5 of my resources back if running on empty is boring and actually does little to change how I use resources. I might spend a point or two more in early fights, but it doesn't stop me from hording if I know what's coming.

Definitely. Spells are class abilities, if we're being real - that's why so many class abilities basically just replicate spells.

Yep. This is why the Cleric is so feature-light, it's biggest strength is being able to swap out your class-features with a long rest (this also applies to wizards, although druids get more features).

Having spent my last few play sessions locked out of social encounters due to a language barrier, I sure wish my character had a feature that let me talk to anything with a language.

Yeah, YMMV. I personally like to hoard both languages and skills (my character's next two ASIs are going to be spent on Linguist and Skilled), and generally you only need one of the party to speak the language as long as they're willing to act as a translator (allowing everyone else to participate to an extent). As I said, I have reasons I dislike Tongue of the Sun and Moon.

EDIT: @Fflewddur Fflam: don't be so aggressive, lots of people enjoy both roleplaying and having interesting abilities. To be honest, I can think of several monk concepts who would never have one of the two abilities, and yet I'm forced to have them anyway (why?). There are legitimate reasons to dislike an ability that aren't 'I don't like to roleplay'. I have personally made suboptimal build decisions in favour of concept before, but I still prefer to have a useful ability over one that forces flavour on me (which is the real problem with these two and Thieves' Cant).

Specter

2016-07-18, 01:09 PM

I like Tongue of the Sun and the Moon. It's essentially a permanent level-3 spell on me. Timeless Body is definitely meh.

Also, Ranger called, he said he's got ten times more ribbons than the monk.

Naanomi

2016-07-18, 01:23 PM

Tongue of Sun and Moon is just generally a class mismatch... If a bard has it no one would complain

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-18, 01:25 PM

Agreed. I absolutely loved these abilities in old D&D editions. Not only did it have precise mechanical rules meaning (ie you had specified age ranges as well as a maximum age). But also there was an expectation that a campaign would go beyond the lifetime of a single human being. That you would have to retire characters due to old age, and play the next generation, as the campaign progressed.

That's interesting. It also gives a new insight into racial level limits, where if your character was longer lived you could play them for longer, so your level becomes capped to stop you from overshadowing those with shorter lifespans all the time. It's also interesting in that most of them seem to be around where players were expected to retire their characters to run a keep or something. In this view running a human character becomes a gamble, you might die or retire before getting to those really high levels, but unlike an elf you have a chance of reaching them.

Nowadays campaign generally is taken to mean "adventure arc(s) with characters progressing from levels 1 to 20, or some subset". And a 'new' campaign is started for the next adventure arc(s) with the next set of characters. When the game is envisioned to be played that way by the majority of players and the company designing it, Timeless Body becomes a true "ribbon" (ie flavor only) ability.

Yes, I agree that different campaigns place a different amount of 'worth' on different abilities. It's what actually makes point buy systems so hard to balance (if GM A's GURPS game is combat heavy then IQ might be relatively balanced, even though in GM B's campaign with little combat it's the god stat). I'll go on record as saying that I significantly prefer the 'modern' style of a campaign being an adventure arc (or set of arcs), it describes the best games I've played in.

The thing that is interesting is the idea of a generational campaign though. Where you adventure with one group of characters for several sessions, and then retire them, skip ahead 20 years or so, and roll up a set of new characters as their 'successors' (children, students, copycats, etc.), and so on for several generations, all following a single story arc. I'd go so far as to allow each player to chose some abilities from their current character to add to their 'successor', slowly increasing the starting points value but retaining a link.

Tanarii

2016-07-18, 01:36 PM

Also, Ranger called, he said he's got ten times more ribbons than the monk.I hear this a lot. And it's a huge part of the reason why when I hear "ribbon", I think: hugely useful mechanical ability that isn't combat related.

Ranger's so-called "ribbons" are absolutely amazing in a Combat-as-war campaign.

Tanarii

2016-07-18, 01:43 PM

That's interesting. It also gives a new insight into racial level limits, where if your character was longer lived you could play them for longer, so your level becomes capped to stop you from overshadowing those with shorter lifespans all the time. It's also interesting in that most of them seem to be around where players were expected to retire their characters to run a keep or something. In this view running a human character becomes a gamble, you might die or retire before getting to those really high levels, but unlike an elf you have a chance of reaching them.That's absolutely why level limits existed. Also to make players more likely to play humans. Those were explicitly the reasons for it.

The thing that is interesting is the idea of a generational campaign though. Where you adventure with one group of characters for several sessions, and then retire them, skip ahead 20 years or so, and roll up a set of new characters as their 'successors' (children, students, copycats, etc.), and so on for several generations, all following a single story arc. I'd go so far as to allow each player to chose some abilities from their current character to add to their 'successor', slowly increasing the starting points value but retaining a link.For sure. That's one of the most common things to do in an old-style campaign. Of course, there's also often no assumption that all characters will advance as a group, leveling together. Or even that the campaign will only have one group. So it's entirely possible for one character to be replaced by his "son" while the others go on. Especially if you have differently aging demihumans or ageless humans still active as PCs.

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-18, 02:18 PM

That's absolutely why level limits existed. Also to make players more likely to play humans. Those were explicitly the reasons for it.

Yep, it makes so much more sense. I just assumed it was a case of 'elves are better at low levels but suck once everyone else is level 15' because I was looking at it from a modern viewpoint.

For sure. That's one of the most common things to do in an old-style campaign. Of course, there's also often no assumption that all characters will advance as a group, leveling together. Or even that the campaign will only have one group. So it's entirely possible for one character to be replaced by his "son" while the others go on. Especially if you have differently aging demihumans or ageless humans still active as PCs.

Yeah, which makes perfect sense for an old-style campaign. Although I think if you wanted to run a 'modern-style' generational campaign you'd limit it to humans only (heck, I'd also probably use a levelless system so I can just say 'transfer X points of abilities to your successor'). Nothing wrong with either style, although I could never personally manage in an old school campaign (although I can manage in combat as war).

It is interesting that 5e seems to be dominated as 'combat as sport' while it seems to be designed to also appeal to 'combat as war'. I know the GM I play with runs CaS, while I try to build CaW characters (I have one who I intend to arm with a load of magical crossbow bolts, so I can adapt to encounters), and it seems to work, but I have a feeling that at least on these boards abilities are analysed mainly looking at Combat as Sport.

Now I love the ranger. My current character is a fighter mainly because I wouldn't be able to justify my half-desert elf ranger and I agreed to try out the class*. I might multiclass actually, I'll see if my GM will let me switch my subclass to Champion, although we've currently started playing Tunnels and Trolls because everyone can see the GM has too much work to properly prepare (in other news, Tunnels and Trolls is fun despite being hilariously unbalanced, with fairies being almost useless at low levels while dwarves get a big starting buff to their combat), where I took the character type who gains no bonuses with weapons or magic but can dabble in both.

* My findings? Fighters are fun and rather balanced, although I just prefer having access to spells, personal taste. I just wish they had more skills.

Tanarii

2016-07-18, 02:26 PM

CaS, or at least more heavily CaS than CaW, is by far the most common way to play D&D IMX, even back as far as 3e. And yeah, that affects people's perception of 'ribbon' abilities a lot.

(Not that they were called CaS/CaW before the terms became common during the run up to 5e.)

Seppo87

2016-07-18, 02:28 PM

Actually the question is - is the monk balanced even if he's got a couple dead levels? If it is, then I don't see an issue.

MeeposFire

2016-07-18, 02:36 PM

I actually love these kind of abilities...I just wish they came online earlier.

Would it be cool to get some more combat abilities those levels? Sure I can always have more of those but in all honesty I do not NEED them as I think the monk as is is good at what it is designed to do and it is not missing anything that I recall a monk would specifically need.

If anything I think classes in general could use more of these though not by getting rid of anything they already have of course.

Naanomi

2016-07-18, 02:36 PM

Ranger ribbons are because they are so situational...

Favored enemy is advantage in a small set of survival checks for a small set of enemies (checks usually not terribly difficult), advantage in knowledge checks you probably couldn't afford the skills for, and a language (you dumped charisma though so...). And a capstone once/round combat boost for the last combats of the campaign... Again if you picked the right foes. Help action invalidates 95% of its functionality.

Natural explorer is a bit better, expertise in Survival, Perception, and maybe intelligence checks (which you may or may not have the skill for)... Makes up for your likely dumped intelligence. Gives some special abilities that a Survival check can probably duplicate or replace; makes things faster (that probably are not time sensetive or only work solo)... But again only in a small subset of times, and never in cities, most dungeons, other planes...

If the campaign is 'against the desert Giants' those abilities are fine... Not as good as expertise in Survival and Perception that a one level rogue dip gives, and the help action from a familiar; but decent enough. In a standard campaign or (lord forbid) AL where you fight a variety of foes and in a variety of places; they are ribbons.

The same goes for most abilities that only work against certain foes or in certain terrains. Unless you can guarantee their presence they are just for background.

Tanarii

2016-07-18, 02:48 PM

Favored enemy is advantage in a small set of survival checks for a small set of enemies (checks usually not terribly difficult), advantage in knowledge checks you probably couldn't afford the skills for, and a language (you dumped charisma though so...). And a capstone once/round combat boost for the last combats of the campaign... Again if you picked the right foes. Help action invalidates 95% of its functionality.Remembering things about enemies isn't covered by skills any more. So advantage of those Int checks is HUGE. And advantage on tracking them is pretty enormous too. After all, that's what Rangers do.

Natural explorer is a bit better, expertise in Survival, Perception, and maybe intelligence checks (which you may or may not have the skill for)... Makes up for your likely dumped intelligence. Gives some special abilities that a Survival check can probably duplicate or replace; makes things faster (that probably are not time sensetive or only work solo)... But again only in a small subset of times, and never in cities, most dungeons, other planes...By sixth level you can have two out of three of forest, mountain, and plains. That means you're covering 2/3 of the typical terrain of any campaign map that's not a special campaign. (Seriously go check out a forgotten realms map. Other than the great desert, that's most of the land areas.)

And any Ranger player that dumps Int & doesn't take Nature or Investigation clearly doesn't want to play a Ranger. He just wants to play a fighter with nature spells.

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-18, 02:52 PM

I actually love these kind of abilities...I just wish they came online earlier.

Really, I think this is the main problem people have. Let's look at Timeless Body, you can't be magically aged (possibly useful), and you don't require food and water (useful). The problem is the latter part can be made useless when the cleric casts Create Food and Water and gives enough food to feed the whole party. At 15th level it's not really a major concern, as you have many spell slots of 3rd level and higher, but if it arrived at 5th level? Suddenly logistics just became a lot easier.

MeeposFire

2016-07-18, 02:55 PM

Really, I think this is the main problem people have. Let's look at Timeless Body, you can't be magically aged (possibly useful), and you don't require food and water (useful). The problem is the latter part can be made useless when the cleric casts Create Food and Water and gives enough food to feed the whole party. At 15th level it's not really a major concern, as you have many spell slots of 3rd level and higher, but if it arrived at 5th level? Suddenly logistics just became a lot easier.

Being able to without food/water is something that would actually make you fairly cool in some lower levels campaigns (even ones NOT set in Dar Sun) which is something every class wants.

I will say it is not a game breaker or anything just a minor thing that would be cool to get earlier.

Naanomi

2016-07-18, 03:03 PM

Knowledge of creatures is clearly determined by skills, each skill description has the creatures it covers over the four 'knowledge skills'; and besides advantage is cheap... Any party member can give it, or a familiar, or your beast companion. Your own spells replace much of the rest (goodberry...)

The world map is one thing, Adventuring Locations tend to be another... While there is no artic wasteland next to every door, I'd bet I've adventured in more than on the open plains. Again it also leaves aside urban, constructed dungeon, skysailing, spell jamming, seafaring, and extraplanar adventuring all together.

As for skills... you took Nature, Investigation, Perception, Stealth, and Survival; likely a Custom background there unless you are a human or elf; and little room for Athletics/Acrobatics, other knowledge skills for your favored enemies, any social skills... Your wisdom is likely only 12-14 outside of specialized builds, and intelligence is 8-12 (and that is generous); so good chance for most of the campaign other people will be better than you at those skills anyways; even assuming no one took expertise in them

I love ranger, went to 20 with a Beastmaster, but the few times those abilities mattered they didn't matter much; and for years of playing I can't think of a time a published module or home campaign hinged on 'tracking exact numbers of things at a regular movement pace'... Heck in most 'combat as war' campaigns tracking was used to avoid enemies not hunt them down, and mounts matter more than the class abilities in that regard anyways

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-18, 03:03 PM

Being able to without food/water is something that would actually make you fairly cool in some lower levels campaigns (even ones NOT set in Dar Sun) which is something every class wants.

I will say it is not a game breaker or anything just a minor thing that would be cool to get earlier.

As I said, logistics becomes a lot easier. The party has one less mouth to feed, but can carry the same number of rations. This allows the party to adventure for 33% longer in a group of four (25% longer in a group of five, 20% longer in a group of six...), which is not gamebreaking but removes a lot of pressure.

I think part of the problem is the developers thinking that higher levels should be cooler, without realising that some abilities get less cool as the party increases in level. Timeless Body is a very cool ability in isolation, but compared to what the party casters can already do it becomes 'oh, I'm not going to use that'.

Slow Fall is another example of such an ability. It's amazing at level 5, but by the time you get to level 10 other party members get things that do the job better. I think Evasion is the only example I can think of which is truly as cool at level 18 as at level 2. At level 2 I'm dodging small blasts of fire, but at level 18 I'm dodging meteors. There's nothing that's as cool as being able to literally dodge a rock dropped from orbit, not matter what other people are doing.

Cybren

2016-07-18, 04:22 PM

Seriously, though, why are they still wasting ink on these "abilities?"

I'm pretty new to 5E, and there are a lot of things about its monk that I like. I like some of these things enough that I can ignore a 1st-level monk's lack of meaningful class features, and the monk's general inability to grapple despite being a martial arts guy.

But every time I look at the monk's 13th and 15th levels, I start shaking (hyperbole) with anger (not hyperbole). It would almost be less insulting for the levels to be 100% dead, rather than becoming a polyglot at the same level that a bard learns to become ethereal. Hell, it's somehow worse than it was in 3E - at least there, you could talk to squirrels or whatever.

And since I can't find rules for aging, I'm not even sure what Timeless Body is even supposed to do, if anything.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Why not play the game some more and get a sense of how it works??

MaxWilson

2016-07-18, 04:32 PM

Tongue of Sun and Moon is just generally a class mismatch... If a bard has it no one would complain

I dunno. I have a Shadow Monk at level 11 who is kind of looking forward to her Tongue of the Sun and Moon upgrade, although not as much as she looks forward to Diamond Soul or Empty Body.

By level 15 or so, everybody in the whole party will have the ability to communicate with any language-using creature (3 warlock mixins and a Shadow Monk).

I do kind of wish that monks got something else in addition at level 13, but I have no objection to the ability's mere existence. Timeless Body is... a bit more meh, since it removes a disadvantage (aging penalties) which by RAW doesn't exist anyway. It would be a lot cooler if it just froze aging entirely. Not needing food and water is cool though.

Slow Fall is another example of such an ability. It's amazing at level 5, but by the time you get to level 10 other party members get things that do the job better. I think Evasion is the only example I can think of which is truly as cool at level 18 as at level 2. At level 2 I'm dodging small blasts of fire, but at level 18 I'm dodging meteors. There's nothing that's as cool as being able to literally dodge a rock dropped from orbit, not matter what other people are doing.

I don't see any such degradation in Slow Fall. It's exactly as cool at level 11 as it is at level 5, which is to say, it's terrain-dependent. In hilly or urban terrain it's great, especially if the DM has challenging combats that reward PCs who are able to leverage terrain. (E.g. rooftop combats that require Dex (Acrobatics) checks every round to avoid falling off the edge 30', against a Quadruple-Deadly or greater threat like a bunch of demons.) On flat terrain, it's useless unless you can create hilly terrain or in some other way lead the fight onto such terrain. (Fortunately monks are sneaky and mobile, so they have a better chance of doing this than anyone else would.)

Bohandas

2016-07-18, 05:42 PM

Isn't Tongue of the Sun & Moon a still a non-dispellable permanent Tongues, Speak With Animals, and Speak With Plants effect (with the caveat of not working on the undead or unliving constructs)? From a mechanacal perspective in terms of to being three level 2-3 spells permenently in effect - even in an antimagic field - it seems pretty decent, even if it is pretty crap in combat. In anything short of pure hack-and-slach I think that would have its uses.

MaxWilson

2016-07-18, 06:21 PM

Bohandas

2016-07-18, 08:05 PM

Oh. Ok. In 3.x it allowed you to speak with any living creature.

VoxRationis

2016-07-18, 08:11 PM

Would people really have complained less had WotC removed them?

Plus, it makes updating characters and settings far easier if certain easily-discerned-in-universe class features stay the same between editions. If all the wizened sages in the Forgotten Realms suddenly stopped being able to speak to students of all backgrounds, when they could before, people would be upset.

Zalabim

2016-07-19, 03:00 AM

First off, Tongue of the Sun and Moon is subtitles. They come in yellow (sun) and white (moon) colored text. It had to be said. A lot of the monk abilities come from kung fu movie parodies.

Now mechanically, if the monk's martial arts die tracked with proficiency, level 13 wouldn't be a disappointing level at all. As it is, the proficiency improvement and extra Ki still makes stunning strike better. Timeless body is definitely the worse offender, since it and level 15 are even less noticeable. Notably, these two fluffy abilities are the bread around the rather meaty diamond soul. Look at what rogues get at 13, 14, and 15 as a comparison. Actually, a perception improving ability is the thing I would have tacked on in these levels to make them a little more useful.

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-19, 06:06 AM

I don't see any such degradation in Slow Fall. It's exactly as cool at level 11 as it is at level 5, which is to say, it's terrain-dependent. In hilly or urban terrain it's great, especially if the DM has challenging combats that reward PCs who are able to leverage terrain. (E.g. rooftop combats that require Dex (Acrobatics) checks every round to avoid falling off the edge 30', against a Quadruple-Deadly or greater threat like a bunch of demons.) On flat terrain, it's useless unless you can create hilly terrain or in some other way lead the fight onto such terrain. (Fortunately monks are sneaky and mobile, so they have a better chance of doing this than anyone else would.)

Yes, but is Slow Fall as comparatively cool as flying? We're back to the 3.X problem, where the casters get cooler options with the restriction 'can only use X times per day'. I'll agree that it remains useful up to level 20, but it kind of loses it's cool factor when the 20th level wizard is flying and the 20th level monk is still waiting for his amazing kung fu leaps.

First off, Tongue of the Sun and Moon is subtitles. They come in yellow (sun) and white (moon) colored text. It had to be said. A lot of the monk abilities come from kung fu movie parodies.

And a lot more come from Wuxia characters (by extension), which makes it weird that:
-Monks don't get the ability to lightfoot (while not universal in Wuxia, it's common enough that people expect it).
-Able to use the longsword, saber, and spear as martial arts weapons. Literally three of the Chinese four great weapons aren't available to the monk, only the staff/gun. No Jian, no Dao, no qiang, just the Grandfather of All Weapons.

Now, you could get around it by making some martial art things feats and separating the idea of 'martial arts' from the monk class.

Now mechanically, if the monk's martial arts die tracked with proficiency, level 13 wouldn't be a disappointing level at all. As it is, the proficiency improvement and extra Ki still makes stunning strike better. Timeless body is definitely the worse offender, since it and level 15 are even less noticeable. Notably, these two fluffy abilities are the bread around the rather meaty diamond soul. Look at what rogues get at 13, 14, and 15 as a comparison. Actually, a perception improving ability is the thing I would have tacked on in these levels to make them a little more useful.

Yes Diamond Soul is awesome. However, this doesn't mean that level 13 and level 15 are letdowns (as I said, Timeless Body 10 levels earlier would be awesome, and wouldn't make the monk stronger at level 15). As I said, monks don't get the lightfoot they really should have, in fact their agility only increases by movement speed after they get Evasion. It's sort of not what I see a monk as (have you seen the first fight scene in the 2003 TV version of Legend of the Condor Heroes? That's a monk fighting).

Zalabim

2016-07-19, 07:13 AM

I thought the ability to run over water and up walls was supposed to cover that.

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-19, 07:59 AM

I thought the ability to run over water and up walls was supposed to cover that.

Kind of? You're still missing the cinematic leaps.

RickAllison

2016-07-19, 08:22 AM

As has been noted in other threads, we must remember that monks represent striking martial arts, while many other martial arts would be better represented through the Fighter. The fighter, remember, is supposed to be the warrior whose chassis encompasses all martial arts, eastern and western. The best way to re-create various martial arts styles is to just take that chassis and toss in a feat that covers the other parts to it.

gkathellar

2016-07-19, 09:02 AM

-Able to use the longsword, saber, and spear as martial arts weapons. Literally three of the Chinese four great weapons aren't available to the monk, only the staff/gun. No Jian, no Dao, no qiang, just the Grandfather of All Weapons.

If you look at the D&D monk historically, it's an odd mish-mash of concepts - dominated by a very lame-brained conception of shaolin with the serial numbers filed off, with "monk weapons" (sai, kama, nunchaku, staff, and maybe a tonfa here and there) and ki (the Japanese word for Chi) ported from Okinawan karate. I think this mostly comes down to lack of research, where designers have just taken what little they knew about martial arts from Shaw Bros' films and McDojo martial arts classes and thrown it onto a character in haphazard fashion. The worst of that came together in 3E's monk.

5E's monk is a step up from that, and is much more in line with what the monk purports itself to be, but it's still carrying around 3E's dross for ... reasons outlined in my signature quote.

As has been noted in other threads, we must remember that monks represent striking martial arts, while many other martial arts would be better represented through the Fighter.

Even if I agreed with this, what exactly do striking martial arts have to do with being a polyglot who ages gracefully?

... although most of the martial arts masters I know are polyglots who have aged gracefully. Hmmmmm. Maybe there's something to this!

Most, if not all, realistic martial arts would be better approximated through the fighter, rogue, or even barbarian (no joke, but with its focus on endurance conditioning and overwhelming, if subtle, power, Tai Chi would be well-represented by the barb).

The monk, however, is not and has never been an approximation of realistic martial arts. Even when it's failed to live up to its promise mechanically (as in 1E, 2E, and 3E), it's always played to the notion of the agile, intuitive, and oft-high flying martial artist who appears in wuxia stories and hong kong action movies - a more-or-less-vaguely spiritual warrior who knows how to fight unarmed. That's why monk archetypes get abilities like "shoot lasers from my hands" and "control the four elements."

Nothing about any of this actually speaks to striking martial arts in particular, especially given that traditional martial arts related to shaolin, the whole basis for the idea of "bare-handed warrior monks," included plenty of grappling and trapping. Frankly, you can expect historical martial arts in general to give zero damns about this whole "grappling vs. striking" concept from modern combat sports, because when you're studying to cripple and kill other human beings who are going to fight back with everything they have, you do anything and everything that works. There's even an Okinawan karate form that can be broken down as training to disarm, incapacitate, and abduct a Japanese Imperial soldier (the history of the martial arts has been filled with revolutionaries and political extremists).

Why not play the game some more and get a sense of how it works??

I fully intend to. But, having worked semi-professionally at game design and having a lot of experience with 3E, I know a dud when I see one.

First off, Tongue of the Sun and Moon is subtitles. They come in yellow (sun) and white (moon) colored text. It had to be said. A lot of the monk abilities come from kung fu movie parodies.

Assuming that's really the basis for the ability (and I can believe it - it sounds like the kind of thing Monte Cook talked about throwing into 3E), it's not actually a good reason to keep it.

Now mechanically, if the monk's martial arts die tracked with proficiency, level 13 wouldn't be a disappointing level at all.

But it doesn't, so it is.

Also, you are dramatically overestimating the value of a single die step at such a high level.

As it is, the proficiency improvement and extra Ki still makes stunning strike better.

... the proficiency improvement that every class gets, and the extra ki that the monk gets at literally every other level?

Timeless body is definitely the worse offender, since it and level 15 are even less noticeable. Notably, these two fluffy abilities are the bread around the rather meaty diamond soul.

Which means that either the monk isn't balanced at levels 13 and 14, because Diamond Soul is worth three levels worth of abilities, or that it's not balanced at level 13+, because Diamond Soul isn't worth three levels' worth of abilities. Level-by-level balance is a thing.

Would people really have complained less had WotC removed them?

Yes.

If all the wizened sages in the Forgotten Realms suddenly stopped being able to speak to students of all backgrounds, when they could before, people would be upset.

Because the majority of FR's wizened sages have 13+ monk levels, amirite?

Perhaps more to-the-point, a few people before you have mentioned the retired old monk on a mountaintop as an excuse for TotSM. I hate to tell you this, but that's an NPC, and he doesn't follow PC creation rules. The mysterious old master on the mountaintop is not a valid explanation for why the adventurous kung fu fighter class has what are dead levels in a huge percentage of games, because the mysterious old master on the mountaintop doesn't have levels.

Joe the Rat

2016-07-19, 09:46 AM

-Able to use the longsword, saber, and spear as martial arts weapons. Literally three of the Chinese four great weapons aren't available to the monk, only the staff/gun. No Jian, no Dao, no qiang, just the Grandfather of All Weapons.They do get spear, just not longspear/pikes. I'm on the fence mechanically about the Longsword, but Saber/Scimitar was an odd omission.

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-19, 10:00 AM

If you look at the D&D monk historically, it's an odd mish-mash of concepts - dominated by a very lame-brained conception of shaolin with the serial numbers filed off, with "monk weapons" (sai, kama, nunchaku, staff, and maybe a tonfa here and there) and ki (the Japanese word for Chi) ported from Okinawan karate. I think this mostly comes down to lack of research, where designers have just taken what little they knew about martial arts from Shaw Bros' films and McDojo martial arts classes and thrown it onto a character in haphazard fashion. The worst of that came together in 3E's monk.

5E's monk is a step up from that, and is much more in line with what the monk purports itself to be, but it's still carrying around 3E's dross for ... reasons outlined in my signature quote.

Oh, I know. The monk is trying to take all 'eastern martial arts' into one class. The sheer difference between 5e's monk and the martial arts in Legends of the Wulin is striking in that once you read the latter you'll be annoyed at how little research went into the former. Heck, Legends of the Wulin even admits that it's not basing it on real martial arts, because those aren't as cool, but it still gets what they are like far more.

Most, if not all, realistic martial arts would be better approximated through the fighter, rogue, or even barbarian (no joke, but with its focus on endurance conditioning and overwhelming, if subtle, power, Tai Chi would be well-represented by the barb).

The monk, however, is not and has never been an approximation of realistic martial arts. Even when it's failed to live up to its promise mechanically (as in 1E, 2E, and 3E), it's always played to the notion of the agile, intuitive, and oft-high flying martial artist who appears in wuxia stories and hong kong action movies - a more-or-less-vaguely spiritual warrior who knows how to fight unarmed. That's why monk archetypes get abilities like "shoot lasers from my hands" and "control the four elements."

Nothing about any of this actually speaks to striking martial arts in particular, especially given that traditional martial arts related to shaolin, the whole basis for the idea of "bare-handed warrior monks," included plenty of grappling and trapping. Frankly, you can expect historical martial arts in general to give zero damns about this whole "grappling vs. striking" concept from modern combat sports, because when you're studying to cripple and kill other human beings who are going to fight back with everything they have, you do anything and everything that works. There's even an Okinawan karate form that can be broken down as training to disarm, incapacitate, and abduct a Japanese Imperial soldier (the history of the martial arts has been filled with revolutionaries and political extremists).

The fact is, the monk fails at being a realistic martial artist, and isn't customisable enough to be a decent supernatural martial artist (my 'sorcerer monk', that is a sorcerer who only takes touch spells and yells attack names, would be better). That's also ignoring the fact that most characters in Wuxia primarily fight with weapons also used by the military, which I'm fairly certain the designers didn't know due to a lack of knowledge of the genre and instead
based it on Hong Kong action movies.

Because the majority of FR's wizened sages have 13+ monk levels, amirite?

Perhaps more to-the-point, a few people before you have mentioned the retired old monk on a mountaintop as an excuse for TotSM. I hate to tell you this, but that's an NPC, and he doesn't follow PC creation rules. The mysterious old master on the mountaintop is not a valid explanation for why the adventurous kung fu fighter class has what are dead levels in a huge percentage of games, because the mysterious old master on the mountaintop doesn't have levels.

Here's the other thing: those languages he has are probably studied, not the result of a supernatural ability. You don't earn the title of wizened old sage by cheating your way to knowledge now.

Heck, the wizened old sage actually rarely speaks every language. What the protagonist speaks, yes, some older languages so they can know more lore as well, but not every language. The ability is significantly less thematic than the rest of the class in that respect.

Plus agreeing with you on the whole 'he's probably an NPC' front. I mean, in Eclipse Phase do I bother working out how many CP to spend on the enemy's grunts? Or do I just give them 15 in every Aptitude, a splicer morph, and 50 in Beam Weapons and Fray? In Dark Heresy do I make sure that the Chaos Sorcerer has the powers his psy rating entitles him to, or do I just give him the four or five he'll probably use? I mean, if the old sage needs an ability for the story to work, bam he can now understand a dialect of infernal only spoken on the three hundred and eighteenth level of the abyss (don't ask me why it's spoken there, it's just an example).

MaxWilson

2016-07-19, 10:33 AM

MaxWilson

2016-07-19, 10:39 AM

Yes, but is Slow Fall as comparatively cool as flying? We're back to the 3.X problem, where the casters get cooler options with the restriction 'can only use X times per day'. I'll agree that it remains useful up to level 20, but it kind of loses it's cool factor when the 20th level wizard is flying and the 20th level monk is still waiting for his amazing kung fu leaps.

Why is the wizard flying? Fly is generally a poor use of concentration and limited spell slots in 5E. Pretty much anything you can do by casting Fly in advance can be done more cheaply by casting either Expeditious Retreat or Phantom Steed, or putting a saddle on a Planar Bound Air Elemental.

Anyway, the monk runs up walls/cliffs/etc. thanks to Unarmored Movement IX, and then he can jump down (or fall off) without damage and without landing prone thanks to Slow Fall. He doesn't have to spend anything but a reaction to get this benefit, and he can do it all day every day in the Himalayas. Free is always cool.

Cybren

2016-07-19, 10:47 AM

Yeah, I don't particularly get the OPs distaste for the monk in general, and some other peoples for some of their abilities. As a whole, a monk 20 is a very viable character that can contribute to the party both in combat and out of it, and always on abilities like Tongue of the Sun and Moon and Slow Fall are useful, even if classes at those levels have a way to emulate them with an expendable resource. Slow fall also makes the monk one of the better choices for recipient of a flying spell or item, because suddenly tumbling to the ground at 200ft is less dangerous for them then it is other classes.

gkathellar

2016-07-19, 11:20 AM

Yeah, I don't particularly get the OPs distaste for the monk in general,

Could be because I don't have any distaste for the monk in general. There are some things about its current iteration that bother me, most of which come from its sordid, sordid history. Overall, I think 5E's monk is solid.

My distaste, again, is reserved for the two abilities mentioned in the thread title, which are non-abilities presented at levels where nothing else is gained. This is excused with the term "ribbon" ... which is fine unless you've seen the explanation of the term in Unearthed Arcana: Waterborne, where it explains why Storm Sorcerers get two 6th level abilities.

Ribbons
On the R&D team, any ability meant to convey flavor
rather than a mechanical advantage is referred to as a
ribbon—a thing that’s mostly for show. Thieves’ Cant is
a great example of a ribbon ability, and Storm Guide
also falls into this category.
We don’t weigh ribbons when balancing one class or
option against another. For example, Heart of the Storm
carries the power load at 6th level for the storm
sorcerer, while Storm Guide is here only to show how
these sorcerers can excel as sailors. It isn’t meant to
help in combat, but it’s potentially very useful in
maneuvering a ship.

... thus going to why a monk's 13th and 15th levels are incoherent - they grant ribbons (ribbons that aren't even well-suited to the class, no less) in place of class features.

Cybren

2016-07-19, 11:22 AM

But if the monk as a whole functions fine, then ribbons do no harm, while contributing fun abilities that give narrative power to the character. They are a good thing.

gkathellar

2016-07-19, 11:33 AM

They're fine so long as they're not replacements for actual abilities, which in this case, they are. A level that only provides a ribbon, and nothing else, is functionally a dead level.

Bohandas

2016-07-19, 11:57 AM

They're fine so long as they're not replacements for actual abilities, which in this case, they are. A level that only provides a ribbon, and nothing else, is functionally a dead level.

What makes you think that they're replacing an actual ability though?

Z3ro

2016-07-19, 12:00 PM

What makes you think that they're replacing an actual ability though?

Would you preferred just a dead level instead? Plenty of classes have dead levels; I'd prefer a ribbon ability to no ability.

gkathellar

2016-07-19, 12:13 PM

What makes you think that they're replacing an actual ability though?

Because the only classes with dead levels are spellcasters, on levels where they gain a new spell level. There's clearly a commitment to avoiding dead levels, but when you avoid them by throwing ribbons at things, you're violating your own design principles.

MaxWilson

2016-07-19, 12:32 PM

Because the only classes with dead levels are spellcasters, on levels where they gain a new spell level. There's clearly a commitment to avoiding dead levels, but when you avoid them by throwing ribbons at things, you're violating your own design principles.

Would you prefer it if Diamond Soul were broken up into multiple levels?

Level 13: gain proficiency in Con and Int saves. Tongue of the Sun and Moon.
Level 14: gain proficiency in Wis and Cha saves.
Level 15: can spend ki to re-roll failed saves. Timeless Body.

Not a rhetorical question.

Cybren

2016-07-19, 12:32 PM

Because the only classes with dead levels are spellcasters, on levels where they gain a new spell level. There's clearly a commitment to avoiding dead levels, but when you avoid them by throwing ribbons at things, you're violating your own design principles.
That doesn't smell right. They are relevant abilities that give the monk productive in game abilities. They're just not combat abilities. Besides, you're objectively wrong. Look at the fighter: the level 7 ability for both battlemasters and champions are ribbons. You're making a mountain out of a single grain of sand.

MaxWilson

2016-07-19, 12:58 PM

That doesn't smell right. They are relevant abilities that give the monk productive in game abilities. They're just not combat abilities. Besides, you're objectively wrong. Look at the fighter: the level 7 ability for both battlemasters and champions are ribbons. You're making a mountain out of a single grain of sand.

The Transmuter's 10th level ability is arguably a ribbon, in combat terms. Also, all of the 6th level totems.

It doesn't make sense to me to think in terms of ribbons/non-ribbons. Roleplaying games are infinite-resolution--the player can drill down on literally anything that interests him. Combat isn't the only relevant sphere of activity.

thepsyker

2016-07-19, 02:06 PM

Kind of? You're still missing the cinematic leaps.
Cinematic leaps are covered by doubling jump distance with Step of the Wind.

As for Tongue of the Son and Moon, it is actually kind of interesting. In AD&D 1st edition monks gained the ability to speak to animals and plants like Druids. This seems to have become TotSaM in 3.x where they also gained Tongues. For 5th, unless this happened in 4th which I dont have any experience with, it seems they kept the Tongues ability and droped the animal and plant ability. That seems an odd choice.

Z3ro

2016-07-19, 02:30 PM

Because the only classes with dead levels are spellcasters, on levels where they gain a new spell level. There's clearly a commitment to avoiding dead levels, but when you avoid them by throwing ribbons at things, you're violating your own design principles.

That's just factually incorrect, unless you're counting things like extra uses of Indomitable for the fighter, extra brutal critical die for the barbarian, or expanded auras of the Paladin. And I don't see how extra ki doesn't fit into those categories.

Zalabim

2016-07-21, 03:03 AM

It's not specifically about these two abilities, but I wanted to add my source on the whole parody thing.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)
The original monk character class was created by Brian Blume, inspired by the fictional martial arts of the Destroyer series of novels.[2] The monk was introduced in 1975's Blackmoor supplement.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destroyer_(novel_series), I found the name of the martial art.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinanju_(martial_art) I learn that "Sinanju is a fictional Korean martial art (the "Sun Source" of all martial arts) of a cult paperback book series, The Destroyer, by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. The Destroyer series lampoons politicians, politics, and other adventure novels, and features gory violence on evildoers, martial art adventures and more." Farther in "Sinanju training enables one to hold one's breath over an hour, rip steel doors from their hinges, climb walls, dodge bullets (even at point-blank range), overturn a moving tank, outrun a car, seem invisible, overcome multiple opponents..."

So D&D monks are Korean. Obviously there's a lot more to the history of the monk between Blackmoor in '75, the AD&D martial artist in '86, and the following versions from WotC. I just found this interesting enough to share.

[2] E. Gary Gygax, "Preface", Oriental Adventures (1st edition, 1986): "In its early development, the D&D game was supplemented by various booklets, and in one of these the monk, inspired by Brian Blume and the book series called The Destroyer, was appended to the characters playable. So too was this cobbled-together martial arts specialist placed into the AD&D game system, even as it was being removed from the D&D game."

gkathellar

2016-07-21, 09:37 AM

Besides, you're objectively wrong. Look at the fighter: the level 7 ability for both battlemasters and champions are ribbons. You're making a mountain out of a single grain of sand.

When I say, "the only classes with dead levels are spellcasters," I am referring to levels that have literally nothing in the ability column for a particular level.

You're right, other classes have ribbons in place of real abilities, and that's equally bad (although both of the examples you offer are a bit specious, since both of them have real mechanical uses and don't rely on the GM to do extra work to provide the abilities with function).

If this is a problem bigger than TotSM and Timeless Body abilities, why am I particularly offended by these two? Because they were already problematic in 3.X for virtually identical reasons, and not only have they been brought back, they're arguably even worse. It's one thing to make a mistake, and another entirely to have everybody tell you it's a mistake, and then make it again anyway.

It doesn't make sense to me to think in terms of ribbons/non-ribbons. Roleplaying games are infinite-resolution--the player can drill down on literally anything that interests him.

Sure, to a degree, but you may have noticed that in this edition of the game, you can't make a non-combat character. Every class is loaded down with combat options, because D&D is traditionally, and will probably continue to be, a high-combat game. Even if it weren't, because combat is often the most labor-intensive, granular, and time-consuming portion of any roleplaying game, it's important that every player be able to contribute meaningfully to combat.

Of course, it's also important that every player be able to contribute meaningfully out of combat, because many games go for long stretches without any fights. Ideally, these tools should all be unique along class lines, too. What a designer should want to avoid, is creating situations where some players can participate meaningfully, and others can't (and to a lesser extent, designers should avoid redundancy in methods or abilities between players, wherever possible).

The best abilities are applicable in both situations (it's one reason why spellcasters rarely attract the kind of complaining that non-casters have long drawn). Cybren's examples of ribbons, above, actually satisfy this metric as far as I'm concerned: they're useful in and out of combat, and that's good, even if I find them a bit lackluster in both respects. It's also why when AnonymousMage put forth a hypothetical Lightfoot ability, I was pleased - that's handy in a lot of situations.

But not all abilities are going to be useful in both the combat game and the non-combat game. After all, "you can make a guy's heart stop with a punch" is pretty strictly about punching and hearts stopping, right? That's a combat ability, and it needs to be balanced against other combat abilities to ensure relatively equal participation in what is a core pillar of the game.

Therein lies the utility of ribbons, which give players flavorful bonuses and tools for interacting with the game world that don't upset the aforementioned element of balance. Like a ribbon on a birthday present, it's a good-looking accompaniment to the crunchy combat mechanics you should be getting at each level.

But because this is the role ribbons play, you can't offer them in place of combat abilities. And, hell, ribbons themselves should be useful, feel appropriate to the scale of the game at the level they come in at - Timeless Body being a serious offender in this regard - and feel logically connected to the class they're associated with - TotSM might make sense on a bard, but it has little or nothing to do with a monk.

That's just factually incorrect, unless you're counting things like extra uses of Indomitable for the fighter, extra brutal critical die for the barbarian, or expanded auras of the Paladin. And I don't see how extra ki doesn't fit into those categories.

Because those things aren't gained at literally every other level.

A fighter starts off with 1 use of indomitable per long rest, and over the next eight levels, gets 2 more. Each of those three uses are precious, and give the fighter a chance to turn a bad thing around. Likewise with brutal critical dice - each extra die is a significant increase to an the ability, and a potentially significant jump in damage potential. I'm not fond of either of these cases, but at the very least they're not bad design.

As for the 18th level improvement to the paladin's aura? Yeah, that's pretty lackluster (mostly because the aura goes from "pitifully tiny" to "hey this is still pretty small"). But, you know, it is still improving the range of the ability by a factor of three, so I guess that's something?

Ki, on the other hand, is gained at every level. It is the monk's primary resource, and is necessary for the class to function at all. 5E is all about increasing damage at higher levels, and ki is necessary for the monk to do that. It's also a short rest resource - you're expected to use most or all of it during each fight, and so a single point is not hugely precious. Saying, "but it gets a point of ki!" to deny the deadness of a level is like claiming that odd-numbered levels for the 3E fighter aren't dead because their BAB increases by 1.

"Sinanju training enables one to hold one's breath over an hour, rip steel doors from their hinges, climb walls, dodge bullets (even at point-blank range), overturn a moving tank, outrun a car, seem invisible, overcome multiple opponents..."

Well, those feats sound like the sorts of things a high level D&D character should be capable of!

MaxWilson

2016-07-21, 10:47 AM

Sure, to a degree, but you may have noticed that in this edition of the game, you can't make a non-combat character.*snip*

I get your point--5E is a very combat-centric game, unfortunately--but you actually can make a non-combat character. Consider a Lore Bard who takes healing and socialization spells (Enhance Ability, Charm Person, Comprehend Languages) and doesn't learn Vicious Mockery. He may not be entirely useless in combat thanks to Bardic Inspiration's ability to apply to any and every roll, and some of his spells (Calm Emotions) may even be somewhat useful in combat sometimes, but he will be clearly a fish out of water whenever combat occurs.

So if 5E is a very combat-centric game already, why would you want to strip out the few non-combat-oriented bits of it and make it even more combat-centric? There is absolutely nothing wrong with Tongue of the Sun and the Moon; at most you could complain that they're not getting something else on top, but I certainly don't want to see them gone.

Cybren

2016-07-21, 10:50 AM

When I say, "the only classes with dead levels are spellcasters," I am referring to levels that have literally nothing in the ability column for a particular level.

You're right, other classes have ribbons in place of real abilities, and that's equally bad (although both of the examples you offer are a bit specious, since both of them have real mechanical uses and don't rely on the GM to do extra work to provide the abilities with function).

The "real mechanical use" of Know Your Enemy is probably far far far far less likely to come up in play than Tongue of the Sun and Moon. It's kind of absurd to say otherwise. One requires a minute of study and let's you determine one point of comparison between you and them. The other always works at all times.

Z3ro

2016-07-21, 11:17 AM

Ki, on the other hand, is gained at every level. It is the monk's primary resource, and is necessary for the class to function at all. 5E is all about increasing damage at higher levels, and ki is necessary for the monk to do that. It's also a short rest resource - you're expected to use most or all of it during each fight, and so a single point is not hugely precious. Saying, "but it gets a point of ki!" to deny the deadness of a level is like claiming that odd-numbered levels for the 3E fighter aren't dead because their BAB increases by 1.

If you think 1 Ki is the same as 1 BAB then your monks play very differently than mine. Ki is hugely vital, and there's never enough. I can't think of any monk player I've seen who didn't want more Ki. I think you're vastly underrating it. Even if you get it at every other level too, the same is true of spells, and no one considers those dead levels.

MaxWilson

2016-07-21, 11:30 AM

If you think 1 Ki is the same as 1 BAB then your monks play very differently than mine. Ki is hugely vital, and there's never enough. I can't think of any monk player I've seen who didn't want more Ki. I think you're vastly underrating it. Even if you get it at every other level too, the same is true of spells, and no one considers those dead levels.

I'm really stingy with ki. I've never run out that I can remember. (Haven't played that monk in a while though--I might have forgotten.)

I mostly spend ki on Darkness and Pass Without Trace; occasionally on a Stunning Strike or four.

So, you still haven't "seen" a monk player who didn't want more ki, but now you've met one who (putatively) doesn't really need it. But I do want Diamond Soul!

Dralnu

2016-07-21, 12:14 PM

They're ribbons. The real value from gaining those monk levels is the ki point. 1 Ki = 1 Stunning Strike. At levels 11+, when the Monk damage really falls off, SS becomes the primary ability that the Monk contributes in battle. It's crazy powerful. So while getting a level in Monk where you only get 1 ki isn't flashy and kind of boring, it's well worth it from a value perspective.

stenver

2016-07-21, 12:22 PM

Why are they a problem to you? The class in general is balanced. These 2 are absolutely awesome roleplay and fluff abilities.

Speaking any language you want? This comes to play for us at all times. Our wizard even has able learner feat just so he could speak more languages and is always learning more.

Timeless body? I mean, as an old man you can still look young and kick ass. A classic fluff for a monk that has found Nirvana.

Absolutely perfect abilities. If anything, I think there should be more of these fluff abilities all over the place.

Give a try at roleplaying. It enhances the game. A lot. There's a reason why it's called role-playing game. Listen to "critical role (http://geekandsundry.com/shows/critical-role/)" or "Acquisitions incorporated (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/podcasts/acquisitions-inc)" to see how it's done.

gkathellar

2016-07-21, 12:59 PM

So if 5E is a very combat-centric game already, why would you want to strip out the few non-combat-oriented bits of it and make it even more combat-centric?

I don't, nor did I say so. In fact, I stated many times over the course of my response to you that ribbons are a good thing, and that the best abilities are applicable both in and out of combat.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Tongue of the Sun and the Moon;

Arguably there's something wrong with it being on the monk, as opposed to a class like bard. But yes, I agree in general. There is nothing inherently wrong with TotSM as a ribbon.

at most you could complain that they're not getting something else on top, but I certainly don't want to see them gone.

That is exactly what I am complaining about. When abilities like TotSM are put forth as if they fill up a dead level, that is a design problem. TotSM is fine as a ribbon - a nice pink bow on top of a level that would otherwise be all about combat (and thus a bit boring for certain characters). It's not fine as the one ability you gain for level 13.

If you think 1 Ki is the same as 1 BAB

Not actually what I said. My words were: " It is the monk's primary resource, and is necessary for the class to function at all." Increasing the player's ki pool isn't some kind of cool bonus - it's mandatory. Once you introduce the concept, nothing works without it. Getting another point of it does not amount to a class feature - it amount to the bare minimum required for a monk's math to stay in the ballpark it's supposed to be in. Or, as you said:

Ki is hugely vital, and there's never enough. I can't think of any monk player I've seen who didn't want more Ki.

My point, if you want me to clarify it further, is this: progressing a feature that becomes effectively useless if it doesn't progress doesn't amount to gaining a new thing.

Even if you get it at every other level too, the same is true of spells, and no one considers those dead levels.

See above. I consider gaining access to a new spell level to be a new feature, but just progressing what's already there is effectively mandatory. This is illustrated by the leveling charts for every spellcasting class.

The "real mechanical use" of Know Your Enemy is probably far far far far less likely to come up in play than Tongue of the Sun and Moon. It's kind of absurd to say otherwise. One requires a minute of study and let's you determine one point of comparison between you and them. The other always works at all times.

Huh. I completely missed the minute of study thing.

Yeah, that's pretty miserable. Arguably even worse than TotSM.

Doesn't make TotSM or Timeless Body any better (or any more suitable to the class they're stapled haphazardly to), though.

Z3ro

2016-07-21, 01:23 PM

See above. I consider gaining access to a new spell level to be a new feature, but just progressing what's already there is effectively mandatory. This is illustrated by the leveling charts for every spellcasting class.

Ok then. So I assume you have a huge problem with most of the spellcasting classes, who have a huge number of dead levels, compared to the martials?

gkathellar

2016-07-21, 01:45 PM

Ok then. So I assume you have a huge problem with most of the spellcasting classes, who have a huge number of dead levels, compared to the martials?

No, because, as I have stated several times, they gain new spell levels at every otherwise dead level. Those new spell levels are the equivalent of new class features, and come with extensive connotations for both combat and non-combat gameplay.

Anyway, I'm done with this thread. I've gotten opinions from people who aren't basically opposed to my perspective on this, and at this point it's just becoming a place for people to ignore 80% of the words I post and commit the Stormwind Fallacy in my general direction.

MaxWilson

2016-07-21, 01:51 PM

I don't, nor did I say so. In fact, I stated many times over the course of my response to you that ribbons are a good thing, and that the best abilities are applicable both in and out of combat.

Arguably there's something wrong with it being on the monk, as opposed to a class like bard. But yes, I agree in general. There is nothing inherently wrong with TotSM as a ribbon.

That is exactly what I am complaining about. When abilities like TotSM are put forth as if they fill up a dead level, that is a design problem. TotSM is fine as a ribbon - a nice pink bow on top of a level that would otherwise be all about combat (and thus a bit boring for certain characters). It's not fine as the one ability you gain for level 13.

Sorry for the confusion--I wasn't responding strictly to you. I understand that your point is different than the OP's complaint.

In response to your complaint about dead levels, all I have to say is, "Regardless, I am looking forward to 14th level."

Cybren

2016-07-21, 06:16 PM

I'm really stingy with ki. I've never run out that I can remember. (Haven't played that monk in a while though--I might have forgotten.)

I mostly spend ki on Darkness and Pass Without Trace; occasionally on a Stunning Strike or four.

So, you still haven't "seen" a monk player who didn't want more ki, but now you've met one who (putatively) doesn't really need it. But I do want Diamond Soul!

Our monk tends to blow through her Ki pretty fast, but our DM likes to throw deadly + encounters on us out of nowhere and I (the valor bard) am kind of insane so I always encourage us to split up (but man was it cool when we both started two separate encounters in the basement/main floor of a tavern respectively, before joining them together and burning the place down with a fireball). To be fair, there was a string of 4-5 sessions where she missed over 50% of her attacks...

Xetheral

2016-07-22, 12:45 PM

Perhaps more to-the-point, a few people before you have mentioned the retired old monk on a mountaintop as an excuse for TotSM. I hate to tell you this, but that's an NPC, and he doesn't follow PC creation rules. The mysterious old master on the mountaintop is not a valid explanation for why the adventurous kung fu fighter class has what are dead levels in a huge percentage of games, because the mysterious old master on the mountaintop doesn't have levels.

That's very much a question of DM style: 5e supports building NPCs with class levels just as well as it supports building NPCs as monsters. For DMs like me who vastly prefer modeling NPCs using the same system as PCs (albiet often in less detail), it's helpful that highly-visible abilities like Timeless Body are maintained in new editions, because it makes it easier to adapt my campaign world to the new edition and reduces the need for rewriting or retconning. (And the easier it is to adapt my campaign world to a new system, the more likely I am to adopt that new edition.)

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-23, 04:33 AM

That's very much a question of DM style: 5e supports building NPCs with class levels just as well as it supports building NPCs as monsters. For DMs like me who vastly prefer modeling NPCs using the same system as PCs (albiet often in less detail), it's helpful that highly-visible abilities like Timeless Body are maintained in new editions, because it makes it easier to adapt my campaign world to the new edition and reduces the need for rewriting or retconning. (And the easier it is to adapt my campaign world to a new system, the more likely I am to adopt that new edition.)

Or you could just add such abilities to characters that need them. I don't think anybody would get annoyed that the Sage has studied every language in the PhB or doesn't age, even if they don't get those abilities from their class.

mgshamster

2016-07-23, 10:23 AM

But, having worked semi-professionally at game design and having a lot of experience with 3E, I know a dud when I see one.

Heads up - 5e is a very different game than 3e. Viewing 5e through a 3e lens can cause a lot of misunderstandings or wrong expectations for game play (leading to disappointment).

The worst of the 5e 3PP I've seen were from designing 5e stuff from a 3e lens. Likewise, some of the more egregious misunderstandings on the game have come from a 3e viewpoint.

It truly is its own game, and I'd recommend looking at it through a fresh set of eyes.

If you're familiar with Pathfinder at all (similar to 3e), then you may be interested in an older thread (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2t6qj?5e-Advice-for-Pathfinder-Players#1) giving advice to PF players coming over to 5e.

Xetheral

2016-07-23, 11:46 AM

Or you could just add such abilities to characters that need them. I don't think anybody would get annoyed that the Sage has studied every language in the PhB or doesn't age, even if they don't get those abilities from their class.

I prefer not to have to. I find it adds to verisimilitude when the PCs (and I!) know that they could (in principle) do anything that an NPC can do.

Heads up - 5e is a very different game than 3e. Viewing 5e through a 3e lens can cause a lot of misunderstandings or wrong expectations for game play (leading to disappointment).

The worst of the 5e 3PP I've seen were from designing 5e stuff from a 3e lens. Likewise, some of the more egregious misunderstandings on the game have come from a 3e viewpoint.

It truly is its own game, and I'd recommend looking at it through a fresh set of eyes.

If you're familiar with Pathfinder at all (similar to 3e), then you may be interested in an older thread (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2t6qj?5e-Advice-for-Pathfinder-Players#1) giving advice to PF players coming over to 5e.

While it's definitely it's own game mechanically, it's still D&D, and it's not unreasonable for players to assume that the different editions are (or at least should be) somewhat compatible. They're intended to be able to tell stories in the same fictional worlds, after all, and that implies at least a certain degree of continuity.

Mith

2016-07-23, 12:19 PM

A bit of an aside, is there any reason one can see to not to add back in Speak with Animals and Plants to Tongue of Sun and Moon? Because until this thread pointed it out, I had assumed that it was still in play.

georgie_leech

2016-07-23, 12:40 PM

Lucas Yew

2016-07-23, 12:50 PM

Hi there, OP.

I've woke up in the middle of 2 o'clock around here (Seongnam, South Korea) because I was startled by your lament at the seemingly underpowered two abilities of the 5E Monk, and felt the urge to spill some beans on this topic. And since I grew up reading on wuxia (pronounced mu-hyeop around where I live in) novels, I know that the original concepts of the two are actually more stronger than the ones in the SRD.

First, the original technique for TotSM (慧光心語; I don't know if the Chinese characters will show up, though) was actually an outright telepathy. That worked on any living thing, of course. A shame that it was severely weakened, though. By the way, there is actually a more commonly appearing but weaker version (傳音入密) that involves vibrating the nearby air with your qi-empowered lips to let only the ones you want to hear to hear your vocal message.

Next, the Timeless Body feature. When I saw and compared with the Druid's version, I was QUITE UPSET, for that was actually more closer to the point of that ability, to extend your lifespan. In wuxia novels, the origin of this effect (返老還童) was that when a person gains significant enlightenment coupled with a lot of qi stored in one's body, the body would immediately regain youth up to its prime if older before, and start aging further much slower than before. Along with getting the attention of the protagonist's significant other, it was arguably the most popular "prize" a hero can achieve in the course of a typical wuxia storyline. Alas though, the 5E version had nothing changed from 3E, and decided to swap the Druid's same ability from 3E with the lifespan extension that the monk deserved.

And finally, while it's not something you mentioned in the first post, I'd like to add something on the Monk's capstone, Perfect Self. The original 3E version was actually closer to the concept that brought it forth (羽化登仙), which was that an over-the-top master of qi-based supernatural martial arts (especially if said arts originated from in-story Taoist temples), the master would be ascended to a demigod (仙人/僊人) as the first step in the Chinese celestial bureaucracy. Thus becoming a (natural) outsider in 3E. Well, while the 5E one actually has a decent function that lengthens one's adventuring time, I personally miss the "ribbon-like" 3E version's effect, really.

And that's it. Good day to you.

ShikomeKidoMi

2016-07-24, 02:02 AM

Tongue of Sun and Moon is just generally a class mismatch... If a bard has it no one would complain

Yes, exactly. I never got why that was a key Monk ability. They're not social characters (though I guess high Wisdom gives good Insight/Sense Motive). At least not aging ties into their 'physical perfection' motif, along with things like Purity of Body (and the original version of Perfect Self, which was a lot cooler than the new one). Tongue of Sun and Moon stands alone, disconnected from all other Monk abilities, even if it does match some legendary martial arts techniques it seems more like the kind of thing some martial arts masters could learn rather than all of them must learn.

NotADragonYet

2016-07-24, 06:05 AM

Anonymouswizard

2016-07-24, 07:13 AM

Those abilities are for the Social and Exploration side of things. Sure, the other guy's barbarian might learn to hit things harder, but that monk can suddenly understand and be understood in all languages. Nobody learned Undercommon or Dwarvish and you need to negotiate with those duergar? Bam! Tongue of the Sun and Moon.

But it doesn't fit thematically. I'm sure there would be less complaints if it was instead 'spend Ki for telepathy's or something similar.

Also, can anybody show me this social side of 5e, I can't see it.

MaxWilson

2016-07-24, 10:03 AM

Next, the Timeless Body feature. When I saw and compared with the Druid's version, I was QUITE UPSET, for that was actually more closer to the point of that ability, to extend your lifespan. In wuxia novels, the origin of this effect (返老還童) was that when a person gains significant enlightenment coupled with a lot of qi stored in one's body, the body would immediately regain youth up to its prime if older before, and start aging further much slower than before. Along with getting the attention of the protagonist's significant other, it was arguably the most popular "prize" a hero can achieve in the course of a typical wuxia storyline. Alas though, the 5E version had nothing changed from 3E, and decided to swap the Druid's same ability from 3E with the lifespan extension that the monk deserved.

Hey, thanks. That's useful to know. FWIW, you've persuaded me to add the druid's life-extension to Timeless Body, and to make it retroactive (i.e. youth-restoring). It's good to know that this is how it's supposed to work in the original source material.

But it doesn't fit thematically. I'm sure there would be less complaints if it was instead 'spend Ki for telepathy's or something similar.

Also, can anybody show me this social side of 5e, I can't see it.

Join my table. There are lots of languages in play, to the point where one of the PCs once hired himself out to another PC as a translator at a rate of one cp per word translated. "Common" in my first 5E campaign was actually gith due to historical reasons; in the current campaign it is goblinoid.

Language issues don't come up every session, but knowing the right languages prevents you from getting frozen out of any diplomatic negotiations, and if at least one person doesn't know the right languages your options may get reduced to strictly "fight/flight/posture/submit" or even just "fight/flight." And fighting something you don't know anything about can get you killed.

RickAllison

2016-07-24, 11:42 AM

Hey, thanks. That's useful to know. FWIW, you've persuaded me to add the druid's life-extension to Timeless Body, and to make it retroactive (i.e. youth-restoring). It's good to know that this is how it's supposed to work in the original source material.

Join my table. There are lots of languages in play, to the point where one of the PCs once hired himself out to another PC as a translator at a rate of one cp per word translated. "Common" in my first 5E campaign was actually gith due to historical reasons; in the current campaign it is goblinoid.

Language issues don't come up every session, but knowing the right languages prevents you from getting frozen out of any diplomatic negotiations, and if at least one person doesn't know the right languages your options may get reduced to strictly "fight/flight/posture/submit" or even just "fight/flight." And fighting something you don't know anything about can get you killed.

In my games, most every civilized race knows Common, but most don't like using it. If you go to a place and attempt to try diplomacy in Common, you will offend the targeted party. At that point, you demonstrate that the target culture is not worth your time to follow their customs.

Heck, the two most important skills for social interactions in my game are Charisma (as expected), but equally Intelligence. Charisma tells you how to work people over, but skills like Religion and History (the ones that tend to get neglected...) will keep the user from unwittingly insulting the other party. With Wisdom also being crucial to understanding intentions, that means that a PC has to dump all three stats in order to not have a meaningful way to influence negotiations.

MBControl

2016-07-24, 01:39 PM

The way I see it, there are base classes, and creative classes. This is by no way true or fact, but when I create PC's, when I want to get extra creative and tricky, and RP based, there are certain classes (and races) that I prefer.

For example:

Fighter (base) Strong Fighter / Melee fighter
Monk (creative)

Barbarian (base) Tank Class
Paladin (creative)

Rogue (base - though naturally creative) Stealth fighter / ranged fighter
Ranger (creative)

Cleric (base) Healer / Support
Druid (creative)
Bard (creative)

Wizard (base) Aggresive Magics
Sorcerer (creative)
Warlock (creative)

All classes are creative but, I view them this way, purely on the way I make characters, and it will be different for everybody. I find the base classes fit the classic archetypes, like primary colours, where as the creative classes tend to blend classes, or have more built in flavour.

The monk is just a fighter with flavour, and for this there is a trade-off in it's design.

Sigreid

2016-07-24, 08:39 PM

Yes, exactly. I never got why that was a key Monk ability. They're not social characters (though I guess high Wisdom gives good Insight/Sense Motive). At least not aging ties into their 'physical perfection' motif, along with things like Purity of Body (and the original version of Perfect Self, which was a lot cooler than the new one). Tongue of Sun and Moon stands alone, disconnected from all other Monk abilities, even if it does match some legendary martial arts techniques it seems more like the kind of thing some martial arts masters could learn rather than all of them must learn.

I think it ties in fine with the whole enlightenment/one with the universe thing.

gkathellar

2016-07-25, 08:34 AM

oh god it just keeps dragging me back in aaaaaaaah

I think it ties in fine with the whole enlightenment/one with the universe thing.

... out of curiosity, what other monk class abilities do you see as related to enlightenment and being one with the universe? Because I mostly see abilities related to punching guys and moving real fast.

In fact, there are numerous supernatural powers associated with enlightenment in Buddhist, Taoist and Hindu lore: feats of clairvoyance, prophecy, flight, telekinesis, bodily transformation, teleportation, healing others, exorcism of demons,mastery over space and distance, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angulimala#Meeting_the_Buddha) and so on. Even moving away from these religious traditions, there are lots of cultures where ascetics display fantastic supernatural powers like invulnerability and superhuman strength (Samson), pyrokinesis (St Blaan), and more*. If the monk is all about enlightenment and becoming one with the universe, why does he substitute powers like these with ... punching guys and moving real fast?

The answer, supplied by posters above, is that the monk's abilities are a mix of parody and a series of Korean pulp novels. But it's been quite a few years now, and the class has pretty clearly leaned away from that and towards punching guys and moving real fast. It would be nice if the class were coherently about that, instead of throwing random asides on in the place of class abilities.

*To those who say, "those guys were clerics, not monks," I say, "my point is about source material, and the fact that the monk's source material is pretty clearly punching guys and moving real fast, not the practice of religious self-perfection."

Sigreid

2016-07-25, 04:30 PM

oh god it just keeps dragging me back in aaaaaaaah

... out of curiosity, what other monk class abilities do you see as related to enlightenment and being one with the universe? Because I mostly see abilities related to punching guys and moving real fast.

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I would say Stillness of Mind, Diamond Body, and Tranquility are decent examples.

Cybren

2016-07-25, 04:40 PM

I would say Stillness of Mind, Diamond Body, and Tranquility are decent examples.

Also, the premise of the argument makes no sense: 'other than these things that exhibit this quality, what things exhibit this quality!?'. What? Those things do, why do other things need to?

RickAllison

2016-07-25, 07:18 PM

oh god it just keeps dragging me back in aaaaaaaah

... out of curiosity, what other monk class abilities do you see as related to enlightenment and being one with the universe? Because I mostly see abilities related to punching guys and moving real fast.

In fact, there are numerous supernatural powers associated with enlightenment in Buddhist, Taoist and Hindu lore: feats of clairvoyance, prophecy, flight, telekinesis, bodily transformation, teleportation, healing others, exorcism of demons,mastery over space and distance, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angulimala#Meeting_the_Buddha) and so on. Even moving away from these religious traditions, there are lots of cultures where ascetics display fantastic supernatural powers like invulnerability and superhuman strength (Samson), pyrokinesis (St Blaan), and more*. If the monk is all about enlightenment and becoming one with the universe, why does he substitute powers like these with ... punching guys and moving real fast?

The answer, supplied by posters above, is that the monk's abilities are a mix of parody and a series of Korean pulp novels. But it's been quite a few years now, and the class has pretty clearly leaned away from that and towards punching guys and moving real fast. It would be nice if the class were coherently about that, instead of throwing random asides on in the place of class abilities.

*To those who say, "those guys were clerics, not monks," I say, "my point is about source material, and the fact that the monk's source material is pretty clearly punching guys and moving real fast, not the practice of religious self-perfection."

I would say Stillness of Mind, Diamond Body, and Tranquility are decent examples.

Also, the premise of the argument makes no sense: 'other than these things that exhibit this quality, what things exhibit this quality!?'. What? Those things do, why do other things need to?

First, I agree that the monk is already pretty enlightenment-focused. Ki comes from learning how to manipulate the life force through meditation, Patient Defense and (to a lesser extent) Unarmored Defense are about being beyond just a punching man and feeling the ki of others to react faster and better, Stillness of Mind, Purity of Body, TotSaM, basically everything at higher levels. Really, the only parts of a monk that are focused on being a striking martial artist are te first few abilities.

However, many of the archetypes don't follow this. Open Hand is all about improving the body as a weapon, Shadow is about using a little enlightenment to become much more proficient at more earthly dilemmas, while 4elements is about becoming in touch with nature. It is the SCAG paths that really seem to focus on enlightenment and progress (Sun Soul goes from attacking to actually being an envoy of the sun, Long Death goes from extending life, to defying death, to actually controlling death). Still, I would like to see a monk focused on pure enlightenment, the utility monk as it were. Someone who is focused entirely on becoming a higher being.