Monk: Open Hand vs Drunken Master

[GriffinRider]

Hi all-

Finally making the switch over to 5e. I'm planning on playing a monk, as I'm told they no longer suck. I've got my choices narrowed down to either the way of the open hand, or the way of the drunken master. Does anyone have any experiences with either - or both - to report out on? It seems to me that some of the abilities of the open hand could be useful (knocking an opponent down or back) but the opponent has a chance to save, whereas the drunken style grants abilities that affect/buff yourself and so there's little or no chance that they will "fail". Just FYI - the character will be a human, and we're using the variant rules that grant a feat at 1st level to humans. Also, we don't usually play characters much above 14th level, so some of the higher level stuff from either way will never come into play. Maybe most importantly, there's only one front-line combatant in the group: a fighter. So some of the heavy lifting in combat will fall to my my monk and another player's cleric; we'll have an illusionist, rogue and bard behind us. Any thoughts? I'm not necessarily trying to power-game, but I'd like him to be effective and maybe I'm overlooking the best way to do that.

[KorvinStarmast]

Hi all-

Finally making the switch over to 5e. I'm planning on playing a monk, as I'm told they no longer suck. I've got my choices narrowed down to either the way of the open hand, or the way of the drunken master. Does anyone have any experiences with either - or both - to report out on? It seems to me that some of the abilities of the open hand could be useful (knocking an opponent down or back) but the opponent has a chance to save, whereas the drunken style grants abilities that affect/buff yourself and so there's little or no chance that they will "fail". Just FYI - the character will be a human, and we're using the variant rules that grant a feat at 1st level to humans. Also, we don't usually play characters much above 14th level, so some of the higher level stuff from either way will never come into play. Maybe most importantly, there's only one front-line combatant in the group: a fighter. So some of the heavy lifting in combat will fall to my my monk and another player's cleric; we'll have an illusionist, rogue and bard behind us. Any thoughts? I'm not necessarily trying to power-game, but I'd like him to be effective and maybe I'm overlooking the best way to do that. My experience with Open Hand monk is that they are very playable, but I never got to double digit levels so I can't speak to that. I went with a wood elf for a variety of reasons; the long bow proficiency was handy. So was the mask of the wild (hiding) and that extra proficiency in Perception. Our party had five characters.

Can't speak to Drunken Master.

[ImproperJustice]

We have had a Drow Shadow Monk in our party from time to time.

Based on my experience with him, and what it sounds like you will be going into my advice would be:

Both sub classes seem fun. Open Hand looks on paper to be the most efficient.

Avoid tanking on the front line. Stay mobile, and pick your target carefully then unload.
Our Monk has great staying power by never being in one place long enough to get surrounded by more than one foe. And against that guy, he stuns and beats senseless with his four attacks a round at 6th level.
He can run circles around everything else, and spreads our enemies out for the rest of us. He is happy to aggravatingly plink at an enemy for a round or two, until he can draw one off and destroy them.
If there are squishies in the enemy for formation, he ruins their day in a hurry.

I will say, that the one time he gor careless and went to to toe with a powerful Dwarven Vampire he got nailed pretty good. But, that enemy would have been dangerous to anyone.

[Nidgit]

Open Hand is probably marginally stronger and better at protecting your back line, whereas Drunken Master has more flavor and REALLY loves skirmishing and mobility. I'd probably lean Open Hand for you unless you expect to see a lot of mobs.

[Wisefool]

Which feat are you looking at to take? Avoid Mobile as both OH and DM don't rely on it as much as other monks. Lucky always plays and Resilient WIS or CON are your best options. WIS if you want to stunlock at Lv.5, CON if you want to not be as squishy.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

I'm only level two with my monk but I've been looking pretty heavily into monk stuff.

Ignoring level 17 abilities.
11th level abilities are both kind of meh and situational.
6th level abilities Open hand gets to heal themselves 1/day. Drunken master gets to get up from prone easier and a situational ability, though that ability is great if you sit in the middle of a crowd of enemies.

At third level they both get additions to flurry of blows.

Open Hand: Prone, knockback, or no reactions. No reactions means no AoO, counterspells and things like that. this also isn't negated by sentinel type abilities.
Drunken Master: Ribbon ability and disengage +10' of movement speed.


Personally I think Open hand is the winner out of these two as it's abilities can't really be replicated whereas the DM's can be replicated by 2 feats and only one of which do you usually need.

For feats I disagree with the previous poster, Mobile is amazing on every monk except for the DM and even they benefit from a reduction in Ki expenditure and higher movement speed.
Sentinel: is amazing for a monk as well when locking people down.
Lucky: is always broken.
Alert: go first and stun everything...
Prodigy: athletics, become a grapple monk.
Resilient: a good but kind of boring choice.

[JDanton]

My current character is a variant human, drunken master monk and dear god is it fuuuuuuuun!

I'd say that from my experience, open hand is the more consistent and powerful monk subclasses, with good damage dealing, utility, defence and even a bit of healing, it's a real jack of all trades class and it's 17th level ability is an awesome 1 hit kill move. Drunken master on the other hand gets a bit of a bad rep from the community because a lot of people don't understand how to play it and thus think its underpowered, it is not. The key features of the drunken master is the free disengage when you make an attack against a creature, what this basically means is that you can freely bounce between enemies with your insane move speed as a monk and then run away, it makes you the slipperiest thing on the field. Drunken master is all about mobility and attacking multiple enemies, you get 3 or 4 attacks (if you use FoB) a round which you can spred out between all the enemies within your reach without taking opportunity attacks, you can spend ki points to basically use luck (which can be clutch) and redirect any missed attacks against you (and any ranged with deflect missiles) so yeah, throw in a few stunning strikes and you are the best skirmisher in the game with a tonne of combat utility. The capstone is where people get put off, 5 attacks against different targets may not sound great in practice, since when are you gonna be in combat with 5 enemies, until you remember that you get that free disengage and you have insane movement, so you can jump around the battle field doing 7 attacks in 1 round (3 could be on 1 target) or as many attacks as there are enemies close to you, all for 1 measly ki points, throw in a few stunning strikes and you basically control the battlefield (seriously stunning strikes is ridiculous, never forget it).

As an additional note, put haste on a drunken master and dear god, you are the fastest, slipperiest hard hitting thing on the field, it turns you into a tornado of death that just wrecks everything, double movement and an extra attack action, with drunken fury on top of that and everything is dead. Drunken master really excellent when your outnumbered and surrounded, you can just slip between the enemies never getting hit and punching everyone, it can be amazing. There are a lot of details that I've left out but you should get the gist that drunken master is amazing and a lot of fun, open palm may be a bit more versatile and consistent but I'd really recommend giving the drunken master a try, it's also way more fun to RP since classic monks can be a tad dull.