A simple Improvement to Way of the Four Elements monk?

[Whiskeyjack8044]

At 3rd level you gain Ki points equal to your wisdom modifier ( minimum one, maximum five). These extra Ki points increase as your wisdom modifier improves.

Would these make the W4E Monk more Ki cost effective? Seems easier than adjusting the cost of each discipline.

[Man_Over_Game]

At 3rd level you gain Ki points equal to your wisdom modifier ( minimum one, maximum five). These extra Ki points increase as your wisdom modifier improves.

Would these make the W4E Monk more Ki cost effective? Seems easier than adjusting the cost of each discipline.

Potentially, but most people would just use those Ki Points to fuel Flurry of Blows and Stunning Strike, I think.

Lowering the cost of the Four Elements abilities means that they'll consistently find more use. The main reason I think anyone would use them vs. FoB and SS wit this kind of change is because you have a ton of Ki points and they'll go to waste if you get a Short Rest.

[Floogal]

Yes, you need to ensure that your changes don't just encourage more flurries & stuns.

One in-flavour alternative to lowering the ki-costs:
4-element monks gain the ability to do an "elemental focus" as a bonus action, which reduces the ki-cost of any elemental discipline by 1 for that turn (minimum cost of zero ki). Maybe increase the ki reduction at higher Monk levels?

[Man_Over_Game]

You could do something that actually impairs someone's ability to use Flurry of Blows and Stunning Strike.

For example, something like: When you take the Dodge action, the next Discipline you use before the end of your next turn costs half as much (rounded down).

This impairs someone's ability to spam Flurry of Blows, leads to them using fewer attacks due to using up their Bonus Action for Unarmed Strike, and easily adds a scaling "cost adjustment" per ability, while still keeping the overall power level in check.

[stoutstien]

Something I've been toying with is increasing ki per lv and also increase the cost of the higher powered ki ratio actions such as stunning, quivering palm, master of death, patient defense, and so on.

Haven't found the point it all works out but I think it could work

[Whiskeyjack8044]

Yeah SS and Patient Defense abuse is something I'd be worried about, but it's only intended as a quick and dirty fix for those of us that aren't great at D&D Calculus. Maybe Half your modifier rounded up? There are a lot of clever fixes out there, but the point of this one is simplicity.

Floogal, I actually might like that idea better than my own.

[KorvinStarmast]

: A simple Improvement to Way of the Four Elements monk?

we had a thread on this a few months back.

My suggestion is to do away with the "having to choose" thing.

You know the Elemental Attunement⁠ discipline and one other elemental discipline of your choice, which are detailed in the “Elemental Disciplines” section below. You learn one additional elemental discipline of your choice at 6th, 11th, and 17th level.
I think that's far too restrictive.
All of the powers are available when they are unlocked by level.

[Vogie]

What I'd do:

Crack Elemental Attunement to now include the 4 elemental cantrips - Mold Earth, Shape Water, Gust, & Control Flame - and being able to cast them as bonus actions after level 11.
Explicitly allow to Shape Water create a monk weapon out of ice, and later allow Shape the Flowing River to trapping things in ice
Reduce the cost of all spell-based Elemental Disciplines by 1 ki, as well as the "Maximum Ki Points for a Spell" table.
Change Fangs of the Fire Snake to be any element, and allow it to scale to 2d10 at level 11.
Reimage the Elemental Discipline tree to look more like the Paladin/Ranger spell tree. It already does follow that, but is easier on the eyes.
Double the number of elemental disciplines known in addition to the Elemental Attunement (from 2,3,4,5 to 3,5,7,9 at levels 3,6,11,17), Allow any elemental-esque spell of levels 1-5 as a potential Elemental Discipline, plus the following: Absorb Elements, Animal friendship, Beast Bond, Entangle, Web, Speak with Plants, Guardian of Nature, and the like.

[Yakk]

The Elemental monk is akin to a 1/3 caster. The 1/3 casters have the equivalent of 39 Ki points of spells just from the subclass.

The Elemental monk, in comparison, gains 0 Ki points, just new ways to spend them. And only 20 points. The "core" abilities of flurry and stunning blow are meanwhile extremely cheap.

Handing out an additional 40 Ki points doesn't solve the problem, because Flurry and Stunning Blow are still so cheap and so good. About all it does is encourage more nova action.

I'd suggest adding a focus component.

Elemental Focus
As a bonus action you invest a point of Ki to gain an Elemental Focus. When you have your Elemental Focus, the first time you hit with a melee attack you deal +1d8 Fire, Cold, Thunder or Lightning damage.

During your turn you can expend your Elemental Focus to fuel an Elemental Discipline. You end your Elemental Focus and gain up to 3 Ki to immediately spend on an Elemental Discipline. You cannot both Gain and Expend an Elemental Focus on the same turn.

At level 11 you deal +2d8 damage from the Elemental Focus.

At level 17 you deal +3d8 damage from the Elemental Focus.

---

This gives you a large discount of most Elemental Disciplines. You can have your Focus up outside of combat to start it (a no-brainer).

During combat, you have to choose if you want to burn your bonus on refreshing your Focus (instead of Flurry) or make do without it.

If you always use your Elemental Focus, level 1/2 spells cost 1, level 3 cost 2, level 4 cost 3, and level 5 cost 4 Ki.

Casting a full set of half-caster spells then costs 16 out of your 20 Ki. It still strips out your baseline monk abilities.

+2 attacks from Flurry is better than the +1d8/2d8/3d8 damage the focus grants. But a 2nd level Burning Hands, plus +1d8/2d8/3d8 damage, becomes pretty tempting for 1 Ki point.

[Talionis]

Yes, you need to ensure that your changes don't just encourage more flurries & stuns.

One in-flavour alternative to lowering the ki-costs:
4-element monks gain the ability to do an "elemental focus" as a bonus action, which reduces the ki-cost of any elemental discipline by 1 for that turn (minimum cost of zero ki). Maybe increase the ki reduction at higher Monk levels?

The simplest thing is simply reducing them all by one ki point anything that is one ki point stays one ki point.

The idea of some action that reduces ki could work, but again its more complicated than simply reducing the costs.

Certainly you are not breaking the game by increasing the amount of Ki WotFE has beyond the other classes, but this is not the simplest answer, reducing the costs is simpler and has less side effects. Granting access to more Ki would be especially attractive to Monks that choose to multiclass.


Honestly, my solution to WotFE is to simply print more "spells" and allow the Monks to select more options more often. For example look at the number of spells known by an Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight. Maybe some of these new options might be more ki economical. I would be looking at buffs that last longer than a short rest and out of combat spells that might bring more flavor to the class. So that WotFE can use the Ki at times that allow them to be cast for free during non-combat and thus they don't strain the Ki Pool.

[MrStabby]

The problem with 4 elements isn't just the Ki cost on abilities. It is the abilities themselves.

Monks core abilities are mobility, respectable attack damage and awesome single target control. What they really need is something that compliments these rather than substitutes.

As it is monks get spells that don't scale well. Fireball is awesome at level 5 when anyone else in the party that gets it is likely to have it. By the time monks get it, it isn't really an exciting ability. They don't get to take the lead on cool stuff.

Compare with a shadow monk: spellcasting is more limited, but level 2 spells at level 3 is at least giving you fun stuff at an appropriate level, rather than when it isn't fun anymore. Also the spells stay pretty useful without scaling. Monk of the long death gets mass control through fear - mass control adds something to the monk.

I think that allowing the monk to do stuff before it gets tired is the bigger part of the fix. Giving higher level spells sooner (still with a high Ki cost) would Let the archetype do awesome stuff, even if just occasionally and at the expense of a lot of other abilities.

[Man_Over_Game]

The simplest thing is simply reducing them all by one ki point anything that is one ki point stays one ki point.

The idea of some action that reduces ki could work, but again its more complicated than simply reducing the costs.

Certainly you are not breaking the game by increasing the amount of Ki WotFE has beyond the other classes, but this is not the simplest answer, reducing the costs is simpler and has less side effects. Granting access to more Ki would be especially attractive to Monks that choose to multiclass.


Honestly, my solution to WotFE is to simply print more "spells" and allow the Monks to select more options more often. For example look at the number of spells known by an Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight. Maybe some of these new options might be more ki economical. I would be looking at buffs that last longer than a short rest and out of combat spells that might bring more flavor to the class. So that WotFE can use the Ki at times that allow them to be cast for free during non-combat and thus they don't strain the Ki Pool.

Or you could just make them "Prepared". Clerics, for example, have fewer spells "readied" than Bards, yet they have access to more spells over the course of the campaign because they can change what they use. Do the same thing with the Monk vs. Arcane Trickster/Eldritch Knight. Allow the Monk to change what abilities he can use after a Long Rest, and that fixes the problem of their limited number of available Disciplines.

[stoutstien]

Or you could just make them "Prepared". Clerics, for example, have fewer spells "readied" than Bards, yet they have access to more spells over the course of the campaign because they can change what they use. Do the same thing with the Monk vs. Arcane Trickster/Eldritch Knight. Allow the Monk to change what abilities he can use after a Long Rest, and that fixes the problem of their limited number of available Disciplines.
I'm going steal this. I think ability to prepare disciplines and either some way of increasing ki resources or reduce cost could being 4-ele up to par

[Talionis]

Or you could just make them "Prepared". Clerics, for example, have fewer spells "readied" than Bards, yet they have access to more spells over the course of the campaign because they can change what they use. Do the same thing with the Monk vs. Arcane Trickster/Eldritch Knight. Allow the Monk to change what abilities he can use after a Long Rest, and that fixes the problem of their limited number of available Disciplines.

I like this idea but think they need more options than in the players manual.

[MrStabby]

Yeah, more options are needed. There isn't much improvement between choosing from four options that are not worth the Ki/action and choosing from twelve that are not worth the Ki/action.

[Merudo]

Or you could just make them "Prepared". Clerics, for example, have fewer spells "readied" than Bards, yet they have access to more spells over the course of the campaign because they can change what they use.

I'm not sure if I get you. Clerics have about the same number of spells prepared as Bard, *plus* their domains spells.

At level 9, a Bard will know 12 spells, while a Cleric will likely have 24 spells prepared...

[Shuruke]

I like this idea but think they need more options than in the players manual.

Tbh it wouldn't have been that hard for Wizard to make a monk tab for Xanathar spells

But since that didn't happen od recemend loolonf through it

Things like erupting earth, tidal wave, earthen grasp, earth bind, catapult.

I'm sure u could easily double the list size between the spell levels 1-5

[The Big Bear]

My 'simple' fixes for the Way of the 4 Elements Monk would be to add these two abilities:

- At 3rd level you gain an amount of ki points equal to your wisdom modifier.
- Draw Power: At 3rd level you gain the ability to draw the power of the weave into your body and you become particularly attuned to the elemental planes. Choose one of the elements on this list at level 3; you may change this element when you gain a level in this class and gain an additional element at levels 6, 11, and 17. You may spend an action to draw this power and restore 1 ki point, gaining the effects of the chosen element when you do so. At level 11, when you inflict damage of one of the types you have chosen, roll an additional d6 and add it to the damage; at level 17 add another d6.

Elements:

- Fire (Fire damage type) - Fire envelops your body, dealing 1d6 of damage to any creature that attempts to hit you with a melee attack.

- Earth (Blunt damage type) - The area around you becomes difficult terrain (15'). You may use your reaction to force all creatures within 15' of you to make a dexterity saving throw or fall prone.

- Wind (Lightning damage type) - A storm surrounds you. Any creature that moves within 10' of you takes lightning damage equal to your wisdom modifier for every 5' they move. You gain 1/2 cover against ranged projectile attacks.

- Water (Ice damage type) - Ice forms on your skin, giving you +2 to AC until the start of your next turn.

Dont know how balanced it is, to be honest. But it adds a ton of utility and scales with level.

[Shuruke]

Tbh the simplest way would be to just make them better blasters

Most of their spell choices are aoe damage or art of single target damage

However
At 5th level
A second level burning hands is 4d6
And well that just doesn't scream blaster to me not when your spending over half your KI



The easiest solution I have is this

Spells and KI point casting

3rd&4th level = 3ki maximium on spell
5th-8th = 4 ki maximium a spell
9-12 = 5 kiaximium a spell
13-16= 6 KI maximum a spell
17-20 7ki maximum a spell

The level requirement for learning disciplines will change as follows

1st and 2nd level spells. 3rd level

3rd level spells at 6th level

4th level spells 11th level

5th level spells 17th level


Doing this will allow a second level spell at 3rd level if they burn all their ki till a short rest

3rd level Upcast spell at 5th level if they burn most pf their KI

At 6th level this could allow fly or fireball at most of their KI
(I think this is fair because although they get multi attack and wouldn't be behind wizard to much on getting the 3rd level spell bump. Some casters have archetypes to get extra attack at 6. So a limited 3rd level slot and spell isnt that big of game breaker especially when giving up flurries or stunning strike.)

At 9th level u can cast up to 4th level for a few levels before actually getting fourth level spells.

At 11th when you get 4th level spells u can Upcast up to 5th

And 17th when u get 5th level spells u can Upcast as high as 6th.



Main reason I thought of this was because I realized that trying to give them blaster spells isnt gonna do a while lot when they have to not only sacrifice a full action and give up bonis action martial art attack
They also gotta spend ki

I also thought that it was fitting for eternal mountain defense at level 11 and thought it was weird u got 4th anf 5th spells at 17
Rather than front loading and giving option of 1st or 2nd level at 3 then having it scale normally from their.


What do u guys think? Would this be to much?

I think its pretty simple fix and its really just changing numbers on a table on the numbers in parenthesis for what level they can be learned