How bad or good is the sun soul monk?

[Throne12]

So I like the monk my first d&d character was a shadow monk and I've played like 4 different shadow monks. So I was looking at the sun soul and thinking it looks good. But look can alway be Deceiving. So what yall thought on the sun soul monk?

[Man_Over_Game]

So I like the monk my first d&d character was a shadow monk and I've played like 4 different shadow monks. So I was looking at the sun soul and thinking it looks good. But look can alway be Deceiving. So what yall thought on the sun soul monk?

It's fine, but it can be a bit boring. You'll want to be leveraging your mobility and distance a lot, but you'll also be spending most of your time harassing bruisers with cantrips.

It makes an excellent flying character, though. The Monk has the best features for someone that flies, and adding consistent range makes it a complete package.

[clash]

The sun soul monk is in an interesting space. It gives great ranged options and aoe options which fills in a big weakness for monks much like bladesinger fills in a weakness for wizards not being able to survive in melee. Where it falls a bit short is if you want to only be ranged. Martial arts still doesnt function at range and stunning strike only works on melee attacks.

My personal ruling as a dm for sun soul monks is two-fold.
One: allow them the free bonus action attack with sunbolt.
Two: At level 6 they also gain the ability to spend one ki to attempt to blind an enemy they hit with sunbolt. Not as strong as stun but it works at range and gives them a bit of control.

[Man_Over_Game]

The sun soul monk is in an interesting space. It gives great ranged options and aoe options which fills in a big weakness for monks much like bladesinger fills in a weakness for wizards not being able to survive in melee. Where it falls a bit short is if you want to only be ranged. Martial arts still doesnt function at range and stunning strike only works on melee attacks.

My personal ruling as a dm for sun soul monks is two-fold.
One: allow them the free bonus action attack with sunbolt.
Two: At level 6 they also gain the ability to spend one ki to attempt to blind an enemy they hit with sunbolt. Not as strong as stun but it works at range and gives them a bit of control.

I do like that. I've also heard of the option of allowing the Shove action through the bolts.

It gets dull shooting light rays and moving 20 feet every turn.

[Makorel]

Sun Soul was the first character I made and I was thoroughly unimpressed with it. Some key points:

1. You cannot Stunning Strike off of Radiant Sun Bolt. Stunning Strike is your best tool as a Monk and if you're not using it then you're just doing the Monk's normal attack damage, which is not too great for a martial. This makes the Radiant Sun Bolts a tool for when you need some range and not your main offense.

2. You cannot do a free bonus action attack with Radiant Sun Bolt. You're either spending a ki point to get those extra two hits and doing acceptable damage or you're not. You can stay out of the way and let other people take hits while you do safe damage but a Rogue is just so much better at this sort of thing.

3. The range of Radiant Sun Bolt is only 30 feet. Every Monk is capable of using a shortbow which has a minimum range of 80 feet and it scales off the martial arts die like the Sun Bolts. Unless you're spending ki points for the extra Sun Bolt attacks then a shortbow is strictly better for a Monk than the Sun Bolts.

4. Searing Arc Strike is kind of weird and expensive to use. You're attacking a guy for single target damage and then letting out an AOE on the same turn, but it's a small aoe and only really does more damage than flurry if you've got 2 or more people in it. I dunno I didn't use it much.

5. Searing Sunburst is at will damage but the damage is absolutely pitiful. 2d6 probably would have been fine at 5th level but at 11th it's not impressive. You can add Ki to make it stronger but when a save negates and the DC is against Constitution do you really want to gamble those points?

6. I didn't get to a high enough level with that character for Sun Shield so I'm not gonna comment on it.

Being a Monk was still fun but I really regretted picking Sun Soul. I think the one cool thing I did with it was when I ran up a tower and stuck my hand through an arrow slit to tag some archers with the Sun Soul Bolts. Any other cool moments I had were because I was a Monk, not because I was a Sun Soul.

[HPisBS]

3. The range of Radiant Sun Bolt is only 30 feet. Every Monk is capable of using a shortbow which has a minimum range of 80 feet and it scales off the martial arts die like the Sun Bolts. Unless you're spending ki points for the extra Sun Bolt attacks then a shortbow is strictly better for a Monk than the Sun Bolts.
...
5. Searing Sunburst is at will damage but the damage is absolutely pitiful. 2d6 probably would have been fine at 5th level but at 11th it's not impressive. You can add Ki to make it stronger but when a save negates and the DC is against Constitution do you really want to gamble those points?

You're mistaken on 3. While all Monks are proficient with shortbows, they aren't monk weapons, since they're 2-handed. Meaning (unless you use the class variants UA), Monks can only deal d6's with them. Also, radiant is a strictly better damage type.

Searing Sunburst isn't just at-will damage, it's at-will AOE. And not just AOE, but Fireball's AOE. That puts it much higher than any other cantrip-like ability.


- It might be a good house rule to let you spend an extra 1 ki point to make it a save-for-half, though.

[Man_Over_Game]

Slings work, tho.

[MaxWilson]

So I like the monk my first d&d character was a shadow monk and I've played like 4 different shadow monks. So I was looking at the sun soul and thinking it looks good. But look can alway be Deceiving. So what yall thought on the sun soul monk?

In Tier 1-2 it's like a slightly better Elemonk, but at higher levels, it's like a worse Elemonk with save-for-none Fireball instead of save-for-half, and no access to Fly or Hold Person or Cone of Cold. Since Tier 3 Fireballs/etc. is the whole point of playing an Elemonk, to me that just makes the Sun Soul not worth playing.

It's worth noting that the Sun Soul can effectively Flurry of Blows at range, and a shortbow cannot, but meh. Flurry of Blows typically isn't a great use of ki in the first place so who cares.

[Makorel]

You're mistaken on 3. While all Monks are proficient with shortbows, they aren't monk weapons, since they're 2-handed. Meaning (unless you use the class variants UA), Monks can only deal d6's with them. Also, radiant is a strictly better damage type.

Searing Sunburst isn't just at-will damage, it's at-will AOE. And not just AOE, but Fireball's AOE. That puts it much higher than any other cantrip-like ability.


- It might be a good house rule to let you spend an extra 1 ki point to make it a save-for-half, though.

Well that's my bad on the bows. Thank you for the correction. I guess that means there a reason to use Sun Bolt, which is good, but still 30 feet isn't a lot of range IMO.

I think Searing Sunburst should just do half, no ki cost required. I feel like it's disingenuous to compare searing Sunburst to Fireball. Fireball saves for half, spreads around corners and targets Dex instead of Con. Furthermore most Fireball users are getting it at 5th level. The only thing good I can say about it is that it's very spammable on a short rest like most monk abilities, but if you don't power it up you'd probably be better off doing normal attack damage unless there are a ton of targets (I think you need like 5 targets for the average damage to be more than just your normal monk punch/bonus punch), and if you are powering it up then that's 3 points you gotta gamble to do something with your turn and personally that was just never a gamble I wanted to take.

[HPisBS]

Maybe let spending any ki to power it up also make it a save-for-half. Otherwise, you'd have a Fireball-Area cantrip that also guarantees damage throughout that whole area. It'd be just a tad imbalanced to let anyone freely spam something like that all day long lol

[8wGremlin]

With the UA Class Feature Variants they become worse when compared with the other traditions.


Monk
A monk has access to the following features.

Monk Weapons
1st-level monk feature (enhances Martial Arts) You can use this feature to define your monk weapons, rather than using the definition in Martial Arts.
You practice your martial arts with specially chosen weapons, which become monk weapons for you. You can choose a number of weapons to be your monk weapons equal to 5 + your Wisdom modifier (minimum of five weapons). The chosen weapons must each meet the following criteria:


The weapon must be a simple or martial weapon.
You must be proficient with the weapon.
The weapon must lack these properties: heavy, special, or two-handed.



Ki-Fueled Strike
2nd-level monk feature (enhances Ki)
If you spend 1 ki or more as part of your action on your turn, you can then immediately make one unarmed strike as a bonus action.


Ki Features
2nd-level monk feature (enhances Ki)
When you gain the Ki feature at 2nd level, you get access to the following features.


Distant Eye When you make a ranged weapon attack, you can spend 1 ki point to prevent attacking at long range from imposing disadvantage on your attack rolls until the end of the current turn.


Quickened Healing As an action, you can spend 2 ki points and roll a Martial Arts die. You regain a number of hit points equal to the number rolled.

Drow monks can now use hand crossbows, as they are not special, heavy or require two hands.
So yeah, whilst I love the concept, they aren't great, although the Ki-fuled strike does work well with thier other features besides Sunbolt.

[Satori01]

It's worth noting that the Sun Soul can effectively Flurry of Blows at range, and a shortbow cannot, but meh. Flurry of Blows typically isn't a great use of ki in the first place so who cares.

Stunning Strike and Flurry of Blows is a great combo.
Why forgo it?
Granted a slap monk, (Way of the Open Hand)is better equipped to use the combo better than a Sun Soul.

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to imagine a scenario where Flurry of Blows at range would be better then a Kensai with it’s Longbow.

Can’t think of any...(Shrug)

[Amechra]

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to imagine a scenario where Flurry of Blows at range would be better then a Kensai with it’s Longbow.

While Kensei do make surprisingly decent archers, Flurrying with a Sun Soul Monk exceeds Kensei Longbow expected damage starting at level 5, and it stays ahead pretty much forever. And yes, this is with Deft Strike factored in.

On the other hand, the Kensei's longbow has the advantage of actually being a weapon, instead of a spell attack.

[8wGremlin]

While Kensei do make surprisingly decent archers, Flurrying with a Sun Soul Monk exceeds Kensei Longbow expected damage starting at level 5, and it stays ahead pretty much forever. And yes, this is with Deft Strike factored in.

On the other hand, the Kensei's longbow has the advantage of actually being a weapon, instead of a spell attack.

And feats such as sharpshooter, and magic weapons, and bracers of archery, so yeah, I've always wanted to play a sun soul, just never been able to make it work for me. pity as i really like the concept.