Monk House rules: Looking for Feedback

[Trustypeaches]

Heya!

I really like the idea of a Monk in theory, but in practice I find them pretty frustrating to play and have observed similar sentiments from other players at my tables. The UA class feature variants help, but it's not enough. I've been brainstorming a couple of house rules that might make them more enjoyable to play and flexible to play.




House Rule #1: Transcendence

At level 3, you learn how to draw energy from your strikes as your body and soul enter perfect union.

Once on each of your turns, when you score a critical hit with a monk weapon or unarmed strike or reduce a hostile creature to 0 hit points with one, you recover one Ki point. Ki gained in this way cannot exceed your Ki maximum.
The Problem: Ki economy is frustrating in the first 2 tiers of play, especially with many subclasses that add more expensive Ki maneuvers.

How this Fixes it: It adds a method of generating Ki points organically during combat that synergizes well with their number of attacks, and gives them room to be more aggressive with Ki spending.

Possible Consequences: Due to the monks high number of attacks, even with the once per turn limitation, they could generate a lot of Ki over the course of combat. Especially if they fight lots of enemy hordes or find methods of increasing their crit chance (Champion Fighter, Elven Accuracy, etc). One fix is to add the following:

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.




House Rule #2: Ki-Infused Body

At level 5, you have learned to channel Ki throughout your entire body, enhancing your physical strength.

Whenever you make a Strength or Strength (Athletics) check, you gain a bonus to the check equal to your Wisdom modifier
The Problem: Monks are MAD, and very rarely are able to invest into Strength, despite physical prowess being a defining feature of martial arts. They can simultaneously run 180 feet in 6 seconds and struggle to open a metal door.

How this Solves it: Pretty straightforward and in line with the monks flavor, without completely invalidating Strength. This is similar to the Samurai Fighter's ability to add Wisdom to their Persuasion checks.

Possible Consequences: None that I can think of. It would make grappling and shoving more attractive options for the monk, but I see that as purely a good thing.




House Rule #3: Stunning Strike (Revised)

Starting at 5th Level, you can interfere with the flow of ki in an opponent's body.

When you hit another creature with a melee weapon Attack, you can attempt a stunning strike. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be Stunned until the end of your next turn.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
The Problem: Stunning Strike is by far the Monk's most powerful feature, and every other usage of Ki suffers in comparison to it.

The Solution: Separating Stunning Strike from the Ki economy means that it no longer competes with other uses of Ki, freeing Monks up to utilize more features more often.

Possible Consequences: The main consequence that may end up being a nerf is that Monks can't use Stunning Strike as often. This is offset by being able to spend Ki on other things, but at higher levels this change may detract from the Monk's power. A few solutions.

Solution A: Starting at 10th Level, you regain all expended uses when you finish a short rest.

Solution B: Starting at 10th level, you can attempt a stunning strike by expending a ki point.




So, what are your thoughts on each of these possible house rules? I'm aware they likely aren't balanced entirely, and that there may be interactions I'm not aware of.

[Quietus]

Random thought, with absolutely no time put into researching it : What if you just let a monk use all their "basic kit" stuff (step of the wind, patient defense, flurry of blows) for free, and reduce the Ki pool to, say, equal to proficiency, to power stunning strikes and things? You'd have to massively decrease four elements costs, probably by 1 or 2 Ki per item, and anything that hits 0 is at-will, but ... nothing really stands out as game breaking about this off the bat?

Though really, Monk's real issue is that it requires dex and wis and con. It's probably easier to play around with that, say by making their AC equal to 10+dex or wis + proficiency, and then giving a couple extra Ki at lower levels.

[Your_Majesty]

for #1: Seems pretty good, monks have always had problems with their ki amount, especially at low levels. Could potentially make way of the 4 elements not horrible
for #2: I would probably add a dexterity bonus instead of wisdom, as for monks their dexterity is like their strength (most dnd monks are depicted as really muscular even though they got low strength because of their high dexterity. Case and point beauregard from critical role).
for #3: I like this change, don't really got anything to add to it.

[stoutstien]

i've personally spent a good long minute looking the monk over and i'll share what have found out.

house rule 1-depending on table this might result in 1 ki recovered every three rounds while also pushing the monk to take more risks. suggestion: just add bonus ki = to wisdom modifier at lv 2-3.

house rule 2- with open hand technique and stunning strike making targets automatically fail Str checks/saves i don't think this is needed. monks move around obstacles rather than use brute power to overcome them.

house rule 3- SS only really works if the monk can spam it. sure it is a low cost but it takes a successful attack and a failed throw before it works. i tracked it for almost a year and found out it take spending about 3 ki on average to land SS. if you want to limit to once a turn/round it really need some form of rider that always happens regardless if they pass the save or make the target auto fail.

[stoutstien]

Random thought, with absolutely no time put into researching it : What if you just let a monk use all their "basic kit" stuff (step of the wind, patient defense, flurry of blows) for free, and reduce the Ki pool to, say, equal to proficiency, to power stunning strikes and things? You'd have to massively decrease four elements costs, probably by 1 or 2 Ki per item, and anything that hits 0 is at-will, but ... nothing really stands out as game breaking about this off the bat?

Though really, Monk's real issue is that it requires dex and wis and con. It's probably easier to play around with that, say by making their AC equal to 10+dex or wis + proficiency, and then giving a couple extra Ki at lower levels.

free bonus action dodge would make monk a auto dip for some builds.

[Quietus]

free bonus action dodge would make monk a auto dip for some builds.

True, not something you'd want to front load. Might be worth moving some of those abilities back a little, if you go down that road.

[Evaar]

I think these are good changes. The only issue I see is that an expanded crit range would be very useful if you’re regenerating Ki with crits, so that’s another character that benefits from a Hexblade dip.

Could be solved by offering an expanded crit range in the monk. If you did that, you’d want to limit it to monk weapons and unarmed strikes.

[sithlordnergal]

House Rule #1: Transcendence: This seems pretty decent to me. The only change I'd make is remove the chance to regain Ki on a crit. This seems a bit too powerful to me, but that's also due to the fact that I crit a lot. I play on roll20, and roll openly for all my players to see...and they have asked that I impose a rule for myself where I have to make a second attack roll to see if I successfully crit whenever I roll a nat 20. I have refused that particular request...but I'd be gaining Ki multiple times every combat with that homebrew rule without including bringing someone to 0.


House Rule #2: Ki-Infused Body: Ehhh, this one seems like a complicated solution. Personally, I would just have it so most Strength checks can be used with Dexterity or Wisdom. But if you don't want to invalidate Strength, this is ok. Still a bit more arduous then just saying Monks can make a Dexterity(Athletics) check, but I can see why its there.


House Rule #3: Stunning Strike (Revised): I would say this is a bad nerf, because it nerfs Stunning Strike too much. Stunning Strike's greatest strength is that it is spamable, because that's really the only way to get it to land. Most creatures in 5e have relatively high Con saves, high enough that most Con save spells are considered to be worse off because of them being a Con save. Limiting it to a maximum of 5 times per long rest, or 6 times if you find the right Book, makes this ability practically worthless for an entire adventuring day. Especially when you start facing monster's with Legendary Resistance. If you do feel the need to nerf Stunning Strike, I would do the following:

"You can only apply Stunning Strike to three attacks per turn."

This makes it so its still somewhat spam-able, but you have to be careful how you apply it. You can make two normal attacks, and then save the third for a potential Attack of Opportunity, or you can use all three at once. The Ki cost doesn't change, but it does allow the Monk to make more use of the different Ki options available to them through their subclass.

[Man_Over_Game]

For number one, I've always liked the idea of halving the Ki pool, then make the Monk's first ki point spent each round free.

Accomplishes the same goal, without forcing a habit of aggression. I like it when Monk's utilize their mobility and defense features more often than just spamming more damage like everyone else.

[Quietus]

For number one, I've always liked the idea of halving the Ki pool, then make the Monk's first ki point spent each round free.

Accomplishes the same goal, without forcing a habit of aggression. I like it when Monk's utilize their mobility and defense features more often than just spamming more damage like everyone else.

I quite like that, but as someone pointed out to me upthread, free dodge as bonus action makes this look very dipable. Have you had any issues with this?

[nickl_2000]

free bonus action dodge would make monk a auto dip for some builds.


I quite like that, but as someone pointed out to me upthread, free dodge as bonus action makes this look very dipable. Have you had any issues with this?

What builds exactly?

Paladins and Barbarians would certainly be nice, but they likely wouldn't have the Wisdom and Dex high enough to multi-class into Monk. Clerics are using their bonus action for spiritual weapon most of the time. Rogues already have plenty of bonus actions that are just as effective.

I could see Moon Druids, but then you are delaying spell progression and Wildshape progression.

Maybe Sword and Board Fighters?



The easiest fix may be to make it so that you can only use those abilities when you aren't wearing armor or using a shield. That alone avoids a lot of multi-class issues.

[HiveStriker]

Heya!

I really like the idea of a Monk in theory, but in practice I find them pretty frustrating to play and have observed similar sentiments from other players at my tables. The UA class feature variants help, but it's not enough. I've been brainstorming a couple of house rules that might make them more enjoyable to play and flexible to play.




House Rule #1: Transcendence

The Problem: Ki economy is frustrating in the first 2 tiers of play, especially with many subclasses that add more expensive Ki maneuvers.

How this Fixes it: It adds a method of generating Ki points organically during combat that synergizes well with their number of attacks, and gives them room to be more aggressive with Ki spending.

Possible Consequences: Due to the monks high number of attacks, even with the once per turn limitation, they could generate a lot of Ki over the course of combat. Especially if they fight lots of enemy hordes or find methods of increasing their crit chance (Champion Fighter, Elven Accuracy, etc). One fix is to add the following:





House Rule #2: Ki-Infused Body

The Problem: Monks are MAD, and very rarely are able to invest into Strength, despite physical prowess being a defining feature of martial arts. They can simultaneously run 180 feet in 6 seconds and struggle to open a metal door.

How this Solves it: Pretty straightforward and in line with the monks flavor, without completely invalidating Strength. This is similar to the Samurai Fighter's ability to add Wisdom to their Persuasion checks.

Possible Consequences: None that I can think of. It would make grappling and shoving more attractive options for the monk, but I see that as purely a good thing.




House Rule #3: Stunning Strike (Revised)

The Problem: Stunning Strike is by far the Monk's most powerful feature, and every other usage of Ki suffers in comparison to it.

The Solution: Separating Stunning Strike from the Ki economy means that it no longer competes with other uses of Ki, freeing Monks up to utilize more features more often.

Possible Consequences: The main consequence that may end up being a nerf is that Monks can't use Stunning Strike as often. This is offset by being able to spend Ki on other things, but at higher levels this change may detract from the Monk's power. A few solutions.






So, what are your thoughts on each of these possible house rules? I'm aware they likely aren't balanced entirely, and that there may be interactions I'm not aware of.
Hi!

Those first two are great houserules (I'd definitely put a hard max on the first one). I'm a bit wary of the third one.
Not only do I disagree that Stunning Strike is the most powerful feature (really depends on archetype and which play level we are talking), I think this is far too limiting in amount.

But I understand that in your opinion it's too powerful and you want to restrict a bit its use to motivate use of other abilities.

So I'd make it a scaling limit, and very simply, a number of times equal to either...
a) Proficiency mod every short rest.
b) Monk level every long rest.
And still using Ki on every attempt (especially when you can regain Ki on a critical hit).
With my preference going to a) for several reasons.
First, it's inline with Monk being a short-rest class.

Second, imo, it's better in blocking the "spam SS for the win against big boss" tactic which is probably the main thing bothering you.

At level 5, with a), Monk could spam Stunning Strike 3 times in a row if he wants to really use up everything. Still, it's not 100%, although near 80% (whereas with b) it could be 100%).
At level 18, with a), Monk could spam Stunning Strike only 6 times in a row (so 1.5 round), then he will have no other choice than to consider other options: against big bosses, he's still useful to wear out Legendary Resistances, but against resilient targets he can only maintain SS for two, three rounds at most. Whereas with b) he can still choose to dedicate everything on SS for that fight because he didn't spend any use before and he knows long rest is coming after.

Third, because it's short-rest, and all Monk's playstyle relies on managing resources on a short-rest basis, it's easier for everyone to follow and makes bad decisions more forgivable.

In short, you still allow Monks to go all SS nova, but (imo) you limit it enough that now they have to choose this like Paladin trying to land a smite spell or a caster using Disintegrate: a high risk high reward highly limited feature. ^^

And if you think this is still too much "available spamminess" from your experience, simply halve values (half-proficiency / short rest or half Monk level / long rest).

[stoutstien]

What builds exactly?

Paladins and Barbarians would certainly be nice, but they likely wouldn't have the Wisdom and Dex high enough to multi-class into Monk. Clerics are using their bonus action for spiritual weapon most of the time. Rogues already have plenty of bonus actions that are just as effective.

I could see Moon Druids, but then you are delaying spell progression and Wildshape progression.

Maybe Sword and Board Fighters?



The easiest fix may be to make it so that you can only use those abilities when you aren't wearing armor or using a shield. That alone avoids a lot of multi-class issues.

clerics would be my first thought. dodge+ SW/SG is already a solid combo. adding the ability for them to dodge as a bonus action would add more flexibility.

barbarians would be my second pick. 13 wis isn't that hard to swing and trading 2 AC from a shield for canceling disadvantage from RA would be a pretty big boon.

[Man_Over_Game]

The easiest fix may be to make it so that you can only use those abilities when you aren't wearing armor or using a shield. That alone avoids a lot of multi-class issues.

Or better yet, tie the refunded Ki into your Unarmored Defense feature.

[sithlordnergal]

What builds exactly?

Paladins and Barbarians would certainly be nice, but they likely wouldn't have the Wisdom and Dex high enough to multi-class into Monk. Clerics are using their bonus action for spiritual weapon most of the time. Rogues already have plenty of bonus actions that are just as effective.

I could see Moon Druids, but then you are delaying spell progression and Wildshape progression.

Maybe Sword and Board Fighters?



The easiest fix may be to make it so that you can only use those abilities when you aren't wearing armor or using a shield. That alone avoids a lot of multi-class issues.

Ehh, Clerics, Druids, and Rangers would be the biggest dips. While you do lose spell progress, three levels is worth being able to dodge as a bonus action for free. Not to mention all three classes would potentially be getting an AC boost, since they focus on using Wisdom. You could make a pretty powerful Dex/Wisdom Cleric, while the Druid could because really strong due to the AC boost. At the very least Druids would get a +5 to their AC whenever they Wild Shape due to their Monk features.