Greywander
2021-12-31, 06:05 PM
Here's a quick revised monk I threw together: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JEC7rsuj6iJgqnI7lvsmyUJD4tlRdAjUjiw4pVA9Ffo/edit?usp=sharing
Forum-quotable version under the spoiler. Only new/modified features are shown, with changes/additions shown in blue, and removals shown in red.
Martial Arts
Your practice of martial arts gives you mastery of combat styles that use unarmed strikes and monk weapons, which are shortswords and any simple melee weapons that don't have the two-handed or heavy property any weapons you are proficient with that don't have the two-handed property.
You gain the following benefits while you are unarmed or wielding only monk weapons and you aren't wearing armor or wielding a shield you aren’t proficient with.
You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons.
You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table*.
When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. For example, if you take the Attack action and attack with a quarterstaff, you can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, assuming you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn.
Certain monasteries use specialized forms of the monk weapons. For example, you might use a club that is two lengths of wood connected by a short chain (called a nunchaku) or a sickle with a shorter, straighter blade (called a kama).
*Your martial arts die scales at the same levels as before, but now it goes from 1d4 to 2d4 to 3d4 to 4d4.
Ki
Starting at 2nd level, your training allows you to harness the mystic energy of ki. Your access to this energy is represented by a number of ki points. Your monk level determines the number of points you have, as shown in the Ki Points column of the Monk table.
You can spend these points to fuel various ki features. You start knowing three such features: Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind, this last being detailed in its own feature. You learn more ki features as you gain levels in this class.
When you spend a ki point, it is unavailable until you finish a short or long rest, at the end of which you draw all of your expended ki back into yourself. You must spend at least 30 minutes of the rest meditating to regain your ki points.
Some of your ki features require your target to make a saving throw to resist the feature's effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:
Ki save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Flurry of Blows
Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action.
When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to make one additional weapon attack, which must be an unarmed strike.
Patient Defense
You can spend 1 ki point to take the Dodge action as a bonus action on your turn.
Step of the Wind
You can spend 1 ki point to take the Disengage or Dash action as a bonus action on your turn, and your jump distance is doubled for the turn.
Unarmored Movement
Step of the Wind
Starting at 2nd level, your speed increases by 10 feet while you are not wearing armor or wielding a shield with which you aren’t proficient. This bonus increases when you reach certain monk levels, as shown in the Monk table.
On your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to double the bonus to your speed from this feature. When you do so, your movement does not provoke opportunity attacks and your jump distance is doubled until the end of your turn. Using this feature does not require an action.
At 9th level, you gain the ability to move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on your turn without falling during the move.
Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 10th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.
Stillness of Mind
Starting at 7th level, you can use your action to end one effect on yourself that is causing you to be charmed or frightened.
Starting at 7th level, if you are charmed or frightened at the start of your turn, you may end one effect on yourself that is causing you to be charmed or frightened. When you do so, you lose your action for that turn.
Perfect Self
At 20th level, when you roll for initiative and have no ki points remaining, you regain 4 ki points.
Beginning at 20th level, if you start your turn with less than 4 ki points, you regain 1 ki point.
Okay, so let's go over some of these changes and why they exist. First, I wanted to clean up some of the bonus action stuff. Flurry of Blows now adds an additional unarmed strike to your Attack action, being functionally identical to how it worked before if you also take your Martial Arts BA attack. The difference is that you can Flurry and still use your BA for something else. Step of the Wind no longer uses a BA, either, simply requiring you to expend a point of ki. Step of the Wind also works differently in that it simply doubles your Unarmored Movement bonus instead of taking the Dash action. Monks are already speedy bois, so I didn't think they needed a BA Dash that much, and this makes monk/rogue multiclasses more interesting since you can now use both Step of the Wind and a BA Dash together.
The second thing was cleaning up how armor is handled. Only armor you're not proficient with impedes Martial Arts and Unarmored Movement (which is why Unarmored Movement was renamed/replaced with Step of the Wind). Monks don't get any armor proficiencies, so straight-classed monks shouldn't see any difference, but through feats, multiclassing, or certain races, an armored monk is now an option. I'm of the opinion that armor is generally less viable than being unarmored for monks, unless you happen to find magical armor. Access to armor lets you get a higher AC early on, but once you max out both DEX and WIS, your unarmored AC will be better (sans magic armor). But lets say you want to play a STR monk, or you don't want to invest too deeply into WIS. Well, now you have viable alternatives that allow you to have decent AC while doing that.
Likewise, monk weapons are now any weapon you are proficient with that doesn't have the two-handed property. Again, I haven't changes the monk's weapon proficiencies, but if you obtain proficiencies from another source then you'll be able to use those weapons as monk weapons. This renders Dedicated Weapon obsolete.
I've also changed how the Martial Arts die scales. It scales at the same levels as before, but now goes from 1d4 to 4d4. Apparently, the consensus is that monks are strong enough in the early levels, but their damage drops off at later levels. I'm not sure how much of a factor this really is, but this was one option I considered to ameliorate this. Another option I decided not to go with, but might reconsider, is adding both STR and DEX mod to damage rolls, possibly just for unarmed strikes (to make them compete with magic weapons). That said, monks are already quite MAD, they don't need another stat that needs to be invested in. But this could at least be a good reason to leave STR at 12 or so instead of dumping it to 8.
Speaking of MADness, monks now get an additional ASI at 10th level.
Based on a video from Treantmonk, I tweaked Stillness of Mind to be usable under conditions where the charm or frighten effect doesn't allow you to take actions.
Perfect Self now recovers 1 ki every turn if you have less than 4. This means you always enter combat with at least 4 ki, and can always use at least 1 ki point per turn. It does prevent you from chaining a lot of ki abilities together, or using more expensive ki features, but this is already pretty great value. Being able to Flurry or Stunning Strike every round is pretty good. This feature basically gives you permission to go nova and dump as much ki as you can as quickly as you can, and still always have a small amount of ki to fall back on.
I might later go in and tweak some of the subclasses, but for now I wanted to focus on the base class. I'm also not familiar with every monk subclass, and I know some, like the Four Elements, need a lot of reworking, and I'm just not confident I can do that justice at this point. For now, let me know what you think of these changes, if it could be made better, and what I might want to look out for while tweaking subclasses (e.g. subclasses that are disproportionally affected by these changes).
Forum-quotable version under the spoiler. Only new/modified features are shown, with changes/additions shown in blue, and removals shown in red.
Martial Arts
Your practice of martial arts gives you mastery of combat styles that use unarmed strikes and monk weapons, which are shortswords and any simple melee weapons that don't have the two-handed or heavy property any weapons you are proficient with that don't have the two-handed property.
You gain the following benefits while you are unarmed or wielding only monk weapons and you aren't wearing armor or wielding a shield you aren’t proficient with.
You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons.
You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table*.
When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. For example, if you take the Attack action and attack with a quarterstaff, you can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, assuming you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn.
Certain monasteries use specialized forms of the monk weapons. For example, you might use a club that is two lengths of wood connected by a short chain (called a nunchaku) or a sickle with a shorter, straighter blade (called a kama).
*Your martial arts die scales at the same levels as before, but now it goes from 1d4 to 2d4 to 3d4 to 4d4.
Ki
Starting at 2nd level, your training allows you to harness the mystic energy of ki. Your access to this energy is represented by a number of ki points. Your monk level determines the number of points you have, as shown in the Ki Points column of the Monk table.
You can spend these points to fuel various ki features. You start knowing three such features: Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind, this last being detailed in its own feature. You learn more ki features as you gain levels in this class.
When you spend a ki point, it is unavailable until you finish a short or long rest, at the end of which you draw all of your expended ki back into yourself. You must spend at least 30 minutes of the rest meditating to regain your ki points.
Some of your ki features require your target to make a saving throw to resist the feature's effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:
Ki save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Flurry of Blows
Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action.
When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to make one additional weapon attack, which must be an unarmed strike.
Patient Defense
You can spend 1 ki point to take the Dodge action as a bonus action on your turn.
Step of the Wind
You can spend 1 ki point to take the Disengage or Dash action as a bonus action on your turn, and your jump distance is doubled for the turn.
Unarmored Movement
Step of the Wind
Starting at 2nd level, your speed increases by 10 feet while you are not wearing armor or wielding a shield with which you aren’t proficient. This bonus increases when you reach certain monk levels, as shown in the Monk table.
On your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to double the bonus to your speed from this feature. When you do so, your movement does not provoke opportunity attacks and your jump distance is doubled until the end of your turn. Using this feature does not require an action.
At 9th level, you gain the ability to move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on your turn without falling during the move.
Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 10th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.
Stillness of Mind
Starting at 7th level, you can use your action to end one effect on yourself that is causing you to be charmed or frightened.
Starting at 7th level, if you are charmed or frightened at the start of your turn, you may end one effect on yourself that is causing you to be charmed or frightened. When you do so, you lose your action for that turn.
Perfect Self
At 20th level, when you roll for initiative and have no ki points remaining, you regain 4 ki points.
Beginning at 20th level, if you start your turn with less than 4 ki points, you regain 1 ki point.
Okay, so let's go over some of these changes and why they exist. First, I wanted to clean up some of the bonus action stuff. Flurry of Blows now adds an additional unarmed strike to your Attack action, being functionally identical to how it worked before if you also take your Martial Arts BA attack. The difference is that you can Flurry and still use your BA for something else. Step of the Wind no longer uses a BA, either, simply requiring you to expend a point of ki. Step of the Wind also works differently in that it simply doubles your Unarmored Movement bonus instead of taking the Dash action. Monks are already speedy bois, so I didn't think they needed a BA Dash that much, and this makes monk/rogue multiclasses more interesting since you can now use both Step of the Wind and a BA Dash together.
The second thing was cleaning up how armor is handled. Only armor you're not proficient with impedes Martial Arts and Unarmored Movement (which is why Unarmored Movement was renamed/replaced with Step of the Wind). Monks don't get any armor proficiencies, so straight-classed monks shouldn't see any difference, but through feats, multiclassing, or certain races, an armored monk is now an option. I'm of the opinion that armor is generally less viable than being unarmored for monks, unless you happen to find magical armor. Access to armor lets you get a higher AC early on, but once you max out both DEX and WIS, your unarmored AC will be better (sans magic armor). But lets say you want to play a STR monk, or you don't want to invest too deeply into WIS. Well, now you have viable alternatives that allow you to have decent AC while doing that.
Likewise, monk weapons are now any weapon you are proficient with that doesn't have the two-handed property. Again, I haven't changes the monk's weapon proficiencies, but if you obtain proficiencies from another source then you'll be able to use those weapons as monk weapons. This renders Dedicated Weapon obsolete.
I've also changed how the Martial Arts die scales. It scales at the same levels as before, but now goes from 1d4 to 4d4. Apparently, the consensus is that monks are strong enough in the early levels, but their damage drops off at later levels. I'm not sure how much of a factor this really is, but this was one option I considered to ameliorate this. Another option I decided not to go with, but might reconsider, is adding both STR and DEX mod to damage rolls, possibly just for unarmed strikes (to make them compete with magic weapons). That said, monks are already quite MAD, they don't need another stat that needs to be invested in. But this could at least be a good reason to leave STR at 12 or so instead of dumping it to 8.
Speaking of MADness, monks now get an additional ASI at 10th level.
Based on a video from Treantmonk, I tweaked Stillness of Mind to be usable under conditions where the charm or frighten effect doesn't allow you to take actions.
Perfect Self now recovers 1 ki every turn if you have less than 4. This means you always enter combat with at least 4 ki, and can always use at least 1 ki point per turn. It does prevent you from chaining a lot of ki abilities together, or using more expensive ki features, but this is already pretty great value. Being able to Flurry or Stunning Strike every round is pretty good. This feature basically gives you permission to go nova and dump as much ki as you can as quickly as you can, and still always have a small amount of ki to fall back on.
I might later go in and tweak some of the subclasses, but for now I wanted to focus on the base class. I'm also not familiar with every monk subclass, and I know some, like the Four Elements, need a lot of reworking, and I'm just not confident I can do that justice at this point. For now, let me know what you think of these changes, if it could be made better, and what I might want to look out for while tweaking subclasses (e.g. subclasses that are disproportionally affected by these changes).