Medicine & Dexterity (Athletics) for Monks & Elemental Adept tweak

[rudy]

These are three completely unrelated tweaks that I want to throw out there real quick. The first is simple, but I think elegant. I'm interested to hear if there are any obvious flaws with it, or reasons to be wary of it.


Monks At level 2, add "Graceful Form". Allows Monks to make a Dexterity (Athletics) check in place of any Strength (Athletics) check.

The second is the altered Elemental Adept feat


Elemental Adept

(Choose your element)

Damage that you deal of that kind ignores resistance to damage of the chosen type (standard). In addition you may re-roll one damage roll of the chosen type, and use either total. You cannot use this re-roll feature again until you complete a long rest. (I like this damage boost better because it is equivalent between the different dice "types")

Finally, select one spell that you know, or have in your spellbook. Whenever you cast that spell, you can replace any acid/cold/fire/lightning/thunder damage that spell deals with your chosen element. You can change your choice of spell whenever you complete a long rest. (This last part is the most significant change; the idea is to make the non-fire types more viable by opening up their options)

The last is slightly more complex, and first I must note that my players do not auto-heal during a long rest. Instead, they must spend hit dice regained from the long rest to heal.

This makes the changes to the Medicine Skill make more sense:


Medicine Skill Changes
* Stabilizing requires the use of a healer's kit AND the Medicine DC 10 check to stabilize.

* More significantly, you can use the Medicine skill and ten minutes of treatment before a long rest to help creatures recover more hit dice during their long rest. Right now I've got:

11-: +0 HD
12-15: +1 HD
16-19: +2 HD
20-23: +3 HD
24-27: +4 HD
28+: +5 HD

These hit dice do not allow a creature to go over its maximum, but "surplus" hit dice can be spend immediately at the end of a long rest to heal rather than be lost.


That's it. Thoughts on any of these Micro-tweaks appreciated if you have a few minutes to spare for criticism/feedback! :)

[Wondermndjr]

Graceful Form doesn't make too much sense. Athletics checks are mostly used for climbing, jumping and swimming, as well as escaping grapples. I can't really see swimming or jumping as based on Dex, so I wouldn't use it. Balance-wise, there's no problem, but it just doesn't make sense.

The new Elemental Adept looks fine. It means that you can vary your damage types to play, for example, an ice mage (with scorching ray as cold damage). I like it a lot.

The first change to Medicine would simply make healer's kits mandatory, which doesn't do anything to balance really. The second change to Medicine is something that seems reasonable, given your houserule. You may need to test it a little to determine its balance. One change you could make is that a creature can only benefit from 1 of these Medicine checks at a time, which prevents stacking or retries.

[rudy]

Graceful Form doesn't make too much sense. Athletics checks are mostly used for climbing, jumping and swimming, as well as escaping grapples. I can't really see swimming or jumping as based on Dex, so I wouldn't use it. Balance-wise, there's no problem, but it just doesn't make sense.
That's very fair. In my game world I want Monks to be very good indeed at escaping grapples, climbing, jumping and swimming. Perhaps I can re-skin it to something like "Mastery of Body" where you can optionally use Wisdom for Athletics and Acrobatics (unlikely to make a different for the latter), and the fluff is something about how your complete awareness of the movement of your body and how it performs allows you to increase your physical capabilities. Hm...


The new Elemental Adept looks fine. It means that you can vary your damage types to play, for example, an ice mage (with scorching ray as cold damage). I like it a lot.Thanks! Yeah, that's exactly what I was going for.


The first change to Medicine would simply make healer's kits mandatory, which doesn't do anything to balance really.I'm not sure I agree. Needing a healer's kit means, to me, that you have to have it *in your hand*, which requires potentially several item interactions, depending on whether you have a shield, etc. It makes trying to use a healer's kit on someone in the middle of battle difficult, which frankly, it should be. It's already ridiculous that you can use it in six seconds or less, and I'm resisting the urge to change that as well, because I know it's in there for "fun" reasons, and not "this makes sense" reasons.


The second change to Medicine is something that seems reasonable, given your houserule. You may need to test it a little to determine its balance. One change you could make is that a creature can only benefit from 1 of these Medicine checks at a time, which prevents stacking or retries.Oh! Thanks for pointing that out. It was definitely my intent that a creature could only try once per creature per day, but I did not state that anywhere I see!

Thanks a lot!

[Isidorios]

That's very fair. In my game world I want Monks to be very good indeed at escaping grapples, climbing, jumping and swimming.

They already run like a cheetah, can fall from great heights, and jump like no one's business with Step of the Wind. Give em some form of Ki-based Climbing technique if they really need to be super-climbers. Note that climbing at half their (increased) speed makes them pretty impressive scalers of anything they simply can't wind step atop/over. Same for swimming speed.

I feel it's a mistake to start re-statting Skills, especially to a Stat that's already heavy with exceptionally useful skills. If your Monk player just has to be this flawless guy at climbing difficulty checks, give him a Feat for +1 stat/Expertise in Athletics, or a magic item.

[rudy]

They already run like a cheetah, can fall from great heights, and jump like no one's business with Step of the Wind. Give em some form of Ki-based Climbing technique if they really need to be super-climbers. Note that climbing at half their (increased) speed makes them pretty impressive scalers of anything they simply can't wind step atop/over. Same for swimming speed.

I feel it's a mistake to start re-statting Skills, especially to a Stat that's already heavy with exceptionally useful skills. If your Monk player just has to be this flawless guy at climbing difficulty checks, give him a Feat for +1 stat/Expertise in Athletics, or a magic item.
All good ideas, but none of which gets at my main concern of making Monks decent at grappling. I should have made it clearer that was my primary motivation.

Maybe just something boring like giving them advantage at grappling. So "blah" though, and perhaps overpowered.

[HammeredWharf]

If you want Monks to be good at escaping grapples, they already can be via Acrobatics.

[Isidorios]

Maybe just something boring like giving them advantage at grappling. So "blah" though, and perhaps overpowered.
There's a feat for better grappling though.
As has been said, they are generally great at escaping grapples due to high dex/acrobatics.
Why should they be as great at grappling as a powerful warrior or barbarian who grapples?

Seriously, Strength gets ONE decent skill, and yet people want to make dexterity EVERYTHING in 5e.

[Lombra]

Monks already do all of this: they have increased speed, unarmored movement improve and open hand monks can bypass most athletics checks with their abilities. Giving the monk free grappling scaling would be unfair to other classes which have to trade potential AC for it.

I think you should specify in elemental adept that you can't replace the current element with necrotic/force/radiant damage types, it is implicit because they technically are not "elements" but clarification is always good to prevent debate.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Why should they be as great at grappling as a powerful warrior or barbarian who grapples?
Because they're martial artists, and grappling is common in such styles? It's hard to do, say, aikido throws as a monk with a low Str, even though they're hardly strength-based techniques in real life. I think Wis might be more thematic, though; possibly charging a Ki point.

[Isidorios]

Because they're martial artists, and grappling is common in such styles? It's hard to do, say, aikido throws as a monk with a low Str, even though they're hardly strength-based techniques in real life. I think Wis might be more thematic, though; possibly charging a Ki point.

Open Hand technique "When you hit a creature with on of the attacks granted by your Flurry of Blows, you can impose one of the following effects o that target:
- It must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone.
- it must make a Strength saving throw. If it fails, you can push it 15' feet away from you
- It can't take reactions til the end of your turn.

Seems like Aikido throws are covered pretty well to me, Grod. Stop supporting people messing with RAW for flimsy reasons.

[Biggstick]

All good ideas, but none of which gets at my main concern of making Monks decent at grappling. I should have made it clearer that was my primary motivation.

Maybe just something boring like giving them advantage at grappling. So "blah" though, and perhaps overpowered.

Have the PC in question dip one level of Rogue. They should already be meeting the requirement of Dex and Wis for Monk. The level grants them 1 skill from the Rogue list (which includes Athletics, or if they already have that, they can pick from a few other good skills) and 2 Expertise choices. Expertise allows them to be a "decent" grappler without them being physically strong. A level 9 PC with 10 Str and Expertise in Athletics is till making those grapple checks with +8, and it only gets better at every proficiency bump.

They also get the other bells and whistles of Rogue if they decide to go further (Cunning Action is so delicious on a Monk).

[Grod_The_Giant]

Open Hand technique "When you hit a creature with on of the attacks granted by your Flurry of Blows, you can impose one of the following effects o that target:
- It must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone.
- it must make a Strength saving throw. If it fails, you can push it 15' feet away from you
- It can't take reactions til the end of your turn.

Seems like Aikido throws are covered pretty well to me, Grod. Stop supporting people messing with RAW for flimsy reasons.
Whatever; still no grappling. Monks are all about mobility and skill over strength. They should be good at everything Athletics covers-- and yes, that should mean they're as good or better than the hulking brute. They should be the most mobile characters, the best at tripping and wrestling and running and jumping. Maybe that means using another stat, maybe that means giving them Expertise, but giving more options to a player is only good. And there's nothing holy about RAW. If it doesn't work for your group, you're doing yourselves a disservice by not changing it.

[Isidorios]

Whatever; still no grappling. Monks are all about mobility and skill over strength.

Yeah "whatever" I'm completely right. Monks have mobility and skill out the ass. God forbid the hulking brute be able to put a bear hug on someone better than the little Kung Fu hero. Who can escape said bear hugs with his phenomenal skill/agility.



They should be good at everything Athletics covers-- and yes, that should mean they're as good or better than the hulking brute.

Now you are just letting your boner for Monks override your common sense completely. There's no precedence for martial artists being champion swimmers or climbers. You have wire-fu fictional guys swooping over walls and such, which is covered by a Ki ability.


They should be the most mobile characters, the best at tripping and wrestling and running and jumping.

Aside from swimming (arguable since they can eventually swim as fast as a person can run without even taking a feat) they ARE the best at all of those things, including tripping. A monk with the right feat can outswim almost anything in the ocean.



Maybe that means using another stat, maybe that means giving them Expertise, but giving more options to a player is only good. And there's nothing holy about RAW. If it doesn't work for your group, you're doing yourselves a disservice by not changing it.

Maybe it means that every single time some inexperienced 5e GM comes on to this forum wanting to dissect the rules for a silly non-reason, Grod_the_Giant doesn't encourage them to start swapping around mechanics, and instead encourages them to READ THE BOOK, and maybe they'll find what they want within the core/optional rules. New DMs don't need to start rewriting the rules; they need to learn the existing rules BETTER. I think if you could really design a game better than 5e, we'd all be happy to play it with you.

Let Stronk characters be Stronk and do cool things only Stronk characters can. I can't believe I'm telling this to a Giant.

[rudy]

I think you should specify in elemental adept that you can't replace the current element with necrotic/force/radiant damage types, it is implicit because they technically are not "elements" but clarification is always good to prevent debate.
Thank you for the input, but I believe that is already clear (I think): they have to choose an element for the feat (fire, cold, lightning, electricity, acid), and then it replaces the damage with the element that they chose, which cannot possibly be necrotic / force / radiant damage. No?

As far as the monk thing, I appreciate all of the input. I will certainly think carefully before implementing any changes on that end.