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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next 4 elements monk + sun soul monk = better 4 elements monk



clash
2018-01-12, 09:04 AM
So just what is says in the title. I have taken he abilities and format of the sun soul monk and added in abilities and options for the 4 elements monk as a rework on the 4 elements monk. Please let me know what you think.



4 Elements Monk

3 Fist of the elements:
Starting at level 3, the monk gains one of the following attacks. You are proficient with it, and it counts as an unarmed strike.

Searing sun bolt: You hurl searing bolts of magical radiance. This attack is a ranged attack with 30ft range that deals fire damage.

Water Whip: You create a whip of water that pulls creatures. This attack is a melee attack with 15ft range and deals bludgeoning damage. When hit with this attack a creature must succeed on a strength save or be pulled 10 ft closer to you.

Fist of unbroken air: You can create a blast of compressed air that strikes like a mighty fist. This attack is a melee attack with 20ft range and deals bludgeoning damage. When hit with this attack a creature is pushed 5 ft away from you.

Fist of Stone: You can punch a wall or the floor and create a fist up to 30ft away from you to punch an opponent. This is a melee attack with 30ft range and can only be used when both you and your target are within 5ft or an earthen or stone wall or floor.

6 Elemental Strike
At 6th level, you gain the ability to channel your ki into waves of energy. Choose one of the following abilities.

Searing Arc Strike: Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 2 ki points to cast burning hands as a bonus action.

Rush of the Gale Spirits: Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 2 ki points to cast gust of wind as a bonus action.

Wave of Rolling Earth: Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 2 ki points to cast Earth Tremor as a bonus action.

Fang of the icy Serpent: Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 2 ki points to cast Ice Knife as a bonus action.

11 Force of Nature:
At 11th level you become a force of nature able to call down it's treachery upon your foes. Choose one of the following abilities.

Searing Sunburst: As an action, you can create an orb of light and hurl it at a point you choose within 150 feet, where it erupts into a sphere of radiant light for a brief but deadly instant. Each creature in that 20 foot radius sphere must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 fire damage. You can increase the sphere's power by spending ki points. Each point of ki you spend, up to a maximum of 3, increases the damage by 2d6.

Breath of winter: As an action you can create a 30ft long cone of cold. Each creature in that area sphere must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage. You can increase the sphere's power by spending ki points. Each point of ki you spend, up to a maximum of 3, increases the damage by 2d6.

Stormy Path: As an action you can create 100 feet long and 5 feet wide blast of lightning. Each creature in the area must succeed on a dexterity save or take 2d6 lightning damage. You can increase the sphere's power by spending ki points. Each point of ki you spend, up to a maximum of 3, increases the damage by 2d6.

Rupture of Stone: As an action you can cause stony spikes to erupt from the ground in a 5 ft cube. A creature in the cube must succeed on a dexterity saving throw or take 4d6 damage. You can summon more than one stony spike by spending ki points. Each point of ki you spend, up to a maximum of 3 increases the number of spikes you can summon by 1. When summoning multiple stony spikes, a creatures takes damage from only one, regardless of how many they would be hit with.

17 Perfect Union:
At 17th level you reach perfect unity with the elements gaining one of the abilities listed below

Sun Shield: You become wreathed in a luminous aura. You shed bright light in a 30 foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. You can extinguish or restore this light as a bonus action. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while this light shines, you can use your reaction to deal fire damage equal to 5 plus your Wisdom modifier to the creature.

Eternal Mountain Defense: Your skin becomes like stone stopping weapons from striking true. You reduce all bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage by an amount equal to your wisdom modifier.

Ride the Wind: You gain a flight speed equal to your walking speed, but you must start and end your movement each turn on the ground.

Blessing of the Sea: You can breathe and speak normally underwater and have a swim speed equal to your walking speed.

Lalliman
2018-01-12, 11:42 AM
I don't know about the math, but this certainly looks better than the original. I like that most of the benefits aren't dependent on your precious ki points.

However, the elements really don't line up. It's called Four Elements, but the choices are strongly skewed towards air and light (which isn't even one of the four classical elements).

If you classify lightning and thunder as falling under air, you get:
3rd: light, water or air
6th: fire, air or air
11th: light, water or air
17th: light, earth or air

So not only is it over-saturated with air, but the average player will never even get an earth-based benefit from this.

I think you could fix this relatively easily.

1. Replace the light-based ones from Sun Soul with fire. You don't even have to change them really, just alter the damage type and use a Dex save for Searing Sunburst.

2. Replace Thunderwave at 6th level with the very similar Earth Tremor.

3. Add some extra options: an earth option at 3rd, water at 6th, earth at 11th, and water at 17th.

Then you'll actually have the four elements, and people can choose for themselves whether to focus on one or combine multiple.

clash
2018-01-12, 12:11 PM
Thanks for the suggestions, UI mostly worked by altering existing abilities which are really skewed as far as elements but I will see what I can do. As far as fist of unbroken air and water whip, do you think those should have a save? they are at will multiple times a day so it might mean a lot of saves. It isn't unprecedented to not have one. Warlock repelling blast has no save. Actually neither does thorn whip which is also at will. Do you think they would be op with no save? They still need the attack to hit.

clash
2018-01-12, 01:42 PM
I changed the radiant damage to fire, and added additional abilities for level 6,11,and 17. Couldn't think of good ideas for how the level 3 attack should work though. Any thoughts?

demonslayerelf
2018-01-12, 04:44 PM
Well, the abilities are all carbon-copies of the Sun Monk, which means balance isn't really much of a factor.

But, I have 3 complaints.

1- This lacks one of the biggest components that made the idea of an Avatar-Monk special; Variety. This lacks the variety of things that was so entertaining, and IS entertaining about spellcasters. Your WotFE Monk will be the exact same as my WotFE Monk, as far as the subclass is concerned. And I know that's true for most subclasses, but it was an entertaining point that you could do all these different things with the elements, but now you're down to the same, shared spell-like abilities or just spells, which is also shared with the Sun Monk.

2- There are no good capstone abilities. Sure, the collection is neat, but they're almost ribbons. Flight but only on your turn is fine, but it's barely a step up from running up walls and across ceilings, which every monk does. Reducing all damage by 5 is fine, but only really helpful against smaller threats. A 10 fire damage reaction is nice(And a night light is always helpful), but it's also once per turn, and doesn't do anything to stop them from just hitting you again. And lastly you get a swim speed, which is the ribbon of all ribbons, because there are 20 million ways to get it, and you don't even really NEED it if you're confident in your athletics.

3- The spell abilities are almost as bad as the normal path. It comes down to; Is a Burning Hands/Ice Knife/Earth Tremor/Thunderwave worth 2 FoB's? And the answer is always no. They're all low-damage spells, worse than most cantrips at higher levels. Those are bad enough, but then there's the lack of appropriate little things. This subclass basically tries to pass ribbons off as actual features, but it's seriously lacking in ribbon. You can't sell the idea that someone is an avatar-esque martial artist unless they can control the elements, but they can't do that except in minor, defined ways, usually by spending Ki. If nothing else, you could give them a slow, "Choose one of the "Control X" cantrips, which you may use without spending ki."

After those, I have possible solutions and general suggestions to make this better.

1- Echoing the last complaint a bit, simply give the Monk some cantrips. Specifically, at 3rd or maybe 6th level, give them Control Flames, Gust, Mold Earth, and Shape Water. I would also say the monk can combine them a bit, without changing the core principles of the spells.(For instance, lighting a rock on fire, and leaving it levitating for 1 hour, through a mix of Control Flames, Mold Earth, and Gust, respectively.)

2- The spells to be cast are minor and relatively useless for how much Ki you spend. (What's 4 punches to a Burning Hands, for instance?) I would personally make it so that you can cast upto your Monk level in spell slots, and may spend upto your proficiency modifier of those slots, to cast Burning Hands, Earth Tremor, Ice Knife, Thunderwave, and probably a couple of other spells. Maybe things like Absorb Elements, Create/Destroy Water, etc.

3- You should have a powerful "Avatar Form" as the capstone. Since it's... Ya know... The Capstone. Something to rival 9th level spells and quivering palm.
I would do it basically as a combined version of all the Investure of X spells. Not copying the exact text of the spell,
but something similar, certainly.

4- An Earth-based punch power; When you're within 5 feet of a stone wall, and a creature within 30 feet is within 5 feet of a stone wall,
you can punch him with the wall by punching your fist into the wall, and causing a corresponding fist to punch them.

I'LL BE HERE ALL NIGHT, FOLKS~!

Lalliman
2018-01-13, 03:32 AM
As far as fist of unbroken air and water whip, do you think those should have a save? they are at will multiple times a day so it might mean a lot of saves. It isn't unprecedented to not have one. Warlock repelling blast has no save. Actually neither does thorn whip which is also at will. Do you think they would be op with no save? They still need the attack to hit.
I was wondering this too. I do think it seems fair to do it without a save, though you should probably limit the effect to creatures of Large size or smaller, and maybe limit the movement effect to 5 feet per hit, since you'll be able to use it several times per round right off the bat.


This lacks one of the biggest components that made the idea of an Avatar-Monk special; Variety. This lacks the variety of things that was so entertaining, and IS entertaining about spellcasters. Your WotFE Monk will be the exact same as my WotFE Monk, as far as the subclass is concerned.
You don't get all four of them, you choose one at each level. (I now notice that Force of Nature doesn't say that, but I assume it's the same there.) So there are 256 distinct combinations one could make.


3- The spell abilities are almost as bad as the normal path. It comes down to; Is a Burning Hands/Ice Knife/Earth Tremor/Thunderwave worth 2 FoB's? And the answer is always no. They're all low-damage spells, worse than most cantrips at higher levels.
The notable difference compared to the vanilla is that they're cast as a bonus action. Even so, my next concern would indeed have been whether they are worth the ki cost. Given that you can make two unarmed strikes for a bonus action and 1 ki, having the aforementioned spells cost the same seems fair.


Echoing the last complaint a bit, simply give the Monk some cantrips. Specifically, at 3rd or maybe 6th level, give them Control Flames, Gust, Mold Earth, and Shape Water.
This is a solid idea. You could maybe give one of choice at each level, so that by the end he has all four.


An Earth-based punch power; When you're within 5 feet of a stone wall, and a creature within 30 feet is within 5 feet of a stone wall, you can punch him with the wall by punching your fist into the wall, and causing a corresponding fist to punch them.
This is great, I endorse it. It would probably work through the floor as well though, I don't really know why it wouldn't.

demonslayerelf
2018-01-13, 06:03 PM
I was wondering this too. I do think it seems fair to do it without a save, though you should probably limit the effect to creatures of Large size or smaller, and maybe limit the movement effect to 5 feet per hit, since you'll be able to use it several times per round right off the bat.
I'll agree with this. I'll also say that Fist of Unbroken Air should have a 20 foot reach.(Reason: Water Whip is 15 and brings people closer, but monks punch people, so pushing people away isn't very preferable, and should therefore have a slight bonus. I'm choosing reach because it doesn't make sense to improve damage.)


You don't get all four of them, you choose one at each level. (I now notice that Force of Nature doesn't say that, but I assume it's the same there.) So there are 256 distinct combinations one could make.
Oh, yeah, I didn't notice that. Honestly though, it doesn't make it much better. The 6th and 14th level abilities are more or less 4 versions of the same ability, so it's really more like 12 combinations(3 Punch options, 4 Capstone powers). (I mean, the earth ability at 14 is a little different, but not by too much... 24 choices, if you count that.)
It makes it a little better, but even if it WERE 256 wholly different combinations of powers, where none of the powers are copied from eachother, compare to even the Battlemaster, who is wholly nonmagical(And, honestly, way less inspired than an Avatar Monk), who has 12,870 technical combinations with it's maneuvers.


The notable difference compared to the vanilla is that they're cast as a bonus action. Even so, my next concern would indeed have been whether they are worth the ki cost. Given that you can make two unarmed strikes for a bonus action and 1 ki, having the aforementioned spells cost the same seems fair.
I mean, maybe, but they're really weak spells. Even a 1 Ki casting... I mean, maybe. I dunno. I wouldn't do it. Maybe Ice Knife. Situationally Thunder Wave, but with Fist of Unbroken Air beats that out easily by pushing them 20 feet no save for the same cost, and doing more damage.

Lalliman
2018-01-14, 03:46 AM
I'll agree with this. I'll also say that Fist of Unbroken Air should have a 20 foot reach.(Reason: Water Whip is 15 and brings people closer, but monks punch people, so pushing people away isn't very preferable, and should therefore have a slight bonus. I'm choosing reach because it doesn't make sense to improve damage.)
I do think it's useful because against tough opponents, monks rely on moving in, attacking, then moving out of reach again. Pushing them back makes it harder for them to reach you on their next turn. I do think it could use some extra reach though, because otherwise the only mileage you're ever going to get out of this is the initial 5 feet.


Oh, yeah, I didn't notice that. Honestly though, it doesn't make it much better. The 6th and 14th level abilities are more or less 4 versions of the same ability, so it's really more like 12 combinations(3 Punch options, 4 Capstone powers). (I mean, the earth ability at 14 is a little different, but not by too much... 24 choices, if you count that.)
I think that's an exaggeration. Among themselves, each of the 6th and 11th level options have a different area of effect and damage type, and several of them have different resolution rolls and rider effects.They do all fall into the category of "small or medium AOE damage", but if you were to make a party of four monks each specialising in a single element, each would find that their 6th and 11th level features works best in a different circumstance.


I mean, maybe, but they're really weak spells. Even a 1 Ki casting... I mean, maybe. I dunno. I wouldn't do it. Maybe Ice Knife. Situationally Thunder Wave, but with Fist of Unbroken Air beats that out easily by pushing them 20 feet no save for the same cost, and doing more damage.
It is true that they will become increasingly irrelevant with level. Do you think it's reasonable to be able to cast something like this at will at 6th level? The damage is small, but there is guaranteed damage attached in some cases.

And indeed, Thunderwave is kind of outclassed by FoUA. Maybe that one should be replaced by Gust of Wind.

clash
2018-01-14, 09:41 AM
These are all great feedback. Let me start by saying that this subclass was never meant to outclass sun soul monk except for the obvious fix of just making the special attack count as an unarmed strike so it actually worked with the rest of the monks abilities.

Alright with that out of the way let me address specifics.

The earth fist punch is great thematically but what does it do mechanically different from searing sun bolt?

The level 6 abilities does provide monks a bonus action air which does have its uses but I will agree it is typically a weak choice.

I feel like replacing thunderwave with gust of wind would almost be worse. You can already push one enemy at a time with fist of unbroken air. Thunder wave has the advantage of pushing everyone around you back.

As for the range on fist of unbroken air I pictured a cinematic sequence of following up behind the guy you were attacking with more strikes pushing him back. So approach knock back approach knock back to kinda simulate the shoving mechanic from 3.5 but I could definitely see increasing the range on it.

I'll agree that the capstone is weak compared to the open hand but open hand has a near useless level 11 feature so I wad trying to balance against sun soul monk instead. I could still see changing the air and water but the earth seemed unique from sun soul and right in line with the power of it. Suggestions for the air and water abilities at that level?

Anyways great hearing your thoughts. Keep them coming. (Sorry for lack of quotes. On phone right now)

Lalliman
2018-01-14, 09:56 AM
I feel like replacing thunderwave with gust of wind would almost be worse. You can already push one enemy at a time with fist of unbroken air. Thunder wave has the advantage of pushing everyone around you back.
You might be confusing Gust of Wind with the Gust cantrip. Gust of Wind pushes everything in a 60 foot long, 10 foot wide line, and halves the speed of creatures moving against it while concentration is maintained. Quite useful for the aforementioned skirmishing strategy.


As for the range on fist of unbroken air I pictured a cinematic sequence of following up behind the guy you were attacking with more strikes pushing him back. So approach knock back approach knock back to kinda simulate the shoving mechanic from 3.5 but I could definitely see increasing the range on it.
While this is cool, I wonder how useful it is to a monk. You'd need to have some natural hazards to exploit, or maybe a very well-coordinated party so that you can push a backline enemy into the fighter's reach, where he can't retreat without wasting his turn. It sounds pretty fun to mess around with, but I don't know how reliably useful it is on its own.

clash
2018-01-16, 09:08 AM
I added earth fist ability and increased the range on fist of unbroken air. As well I changed out thunderwave for gust of wind. Still not sure what to do for the water and air capstone abilities.