PEACH Tweaks to the Ascendant Dragon Monk.

[TerrorSweats]

Preamble: So, not really much of this is homebrew so much as a compromise, but it felt weird to post to the rpg 5e sub-forum

The UA dragon monk was the first wotc subclass that ever got me psyched about the idea of a single classed character. With a few feats it had everything I liked from the sorlock I was building at the time except weaker & more compact. And it had the form factor & style I was looking for in a weird mage-monk I'd been iterating homebrew of since 3rd edition & evoked a bunch of flavour ideas. Loving it, seemed almost too perfect.
Then the directions they took in Fizban's to go about tuning it down a notch soured it into unplayability in my eyes.

Dunno how relatable or relevant wanting to fix this is, but it's where I'm at.
Anyways.

Here's my idea for how to hit a happy medium between the potentially op & wing clipped versions, let me know if it sucks.

Lv 3:

- Drop the price of Breath of the Dragon back to 1 in exchange for turfing the free uses.

- not a balance thing, but let Draconic Strikes apply to melee attacks with monk weapons without reach or anything as long as they're using unarmed damage or less.

Lv 6:(edit)

- Give back the ability to spend ki on extra uses of Wings Unfurled.
No trade-off, I just think it was the wrong decision. Cut the freebies if you want but putting a mobility option on a long rest cooldown for a monk was the deal breaker for me. Also, for the ki cost, you should have the option to use this as a separate bonus action indipendent of step of the wind as well as a part of it.

Lv 11:

- Aspect of the Wyrm's nerfed range is a shame but it's fine.
The removal of the free rebukes is fine. That was crazy good.
Making you choose between the types of aura sucks, just have the aura give both the resistance & that frighten beams. Keep the lower ki for the terrible range.

Maybe consider increasing the range on frighten a bit, just because it's weird to only be scary right up close when the thing that makes them scary is tied to flying & shooting acid more than other monks but it doesn't super matter.

- Also, just make Wings Unfurled a part of Step of the Wind instead of charging extra. Either here or at 17, but ideally here.

Lv 17:

- The blind sight area nerf is unfortunate, but not super unfair, maybe split the difference at 20, but 10 is ok.

- add in the clinging breath thing from the UA as a 1 ki modifier to breath of the dragon, explosive fury, or draconic strike with a save. Maybe cap it to a d4 or 6.

- Explosive Fury should definitely, definitely save for half.

Thanks for reading if anyone does.
Thoughts?

[Greywander]

So for the breath, if you use it a number of times that is less than twice your proficiency bonus, you actually come out ahead, ki wise. If you use it more than twice your proficiency bonus, then revoking the free uses in exchange for dropping the cost to 1 ki is more efficient. I guess what I'm saying is that YMMV, and that these are actually more comparable than you might think. The nice thing about the way it is now is that if you're especially conservative with ki, or if you want to save it for a different feature (e.g. Stunning Strike), then having a few free uses of the breath weapon allows you to still use it without taking ki away from something else.

For Wings Unfurled, I think it should simply activate every time you use Step of the Wind. No ki cost, no limited uses. You're already spending a ki to use Step of the Wind. As far as flight abilities go, this one is pretty lackluster, though it at least comes fairly early. However, compare with Genielock.

The blindsight comes awfully late. The fighter has had the same ability since 1st level. The blindsight should be moved up, or should have the range expanded to compensate coming so late. Heck, I might even move the blindsight up to 6th level and move the flight back to 17th level but with a permanent fly speed (like draconic/divine soul/storm sorcerer).

Those are the main things I'm concerned about, though I've only skimmed a lot of this subclass.

[Greywander]

I looked over the subclass a bit more thoroughly, so here are some more of my thoughts.


Lv 3:

- Drop the price of Breath of the Dragon back to 1 in exchange for turfing the free uses.
I detailed this in my previous post, but I think either option is roughly comparable. If you're specifically looking for a "weird mage-monk", then I can see why you'd want to trade the free uses for a lower cost; you want to be using this on every round.


- Give back the ability to spend ki on extra uses of Wings Unfurled.
No trade-off, I just think it was the wrong decision. Cut the freebies if you want but putting a mobility option on a long rest coolfown for a monk was the deal breaker for me. Also, for the ki cost, you should have the option to use this as a separate bonus action indipendent of step of the wind as well as a part of it.
This is a 6th level feature, not 3rd, so I don't know why you placed it here. Anyway, as I said in my previous post, I don't know why this has limited uses in the first place. Genielock gets a much better flight ability at the same level, and gets a damage resistance on top. My 2 cents is that (a) Wings Unfurled should have unlimited uses (it's already limited by ki via Step of the Wind), and (b) move the blindsight up to here. Again, the fighter has (potentially) had blindsight since 1st level.


- not a balance thing, but let Draconic Strikes apply to melee attacks with monk weapons without reach or anything as long as they're using unarmed damage or less.
Eh, I don't think this is an issue. I just wouldn't make it fiddly. Just say it applies to any monk weapon.


Lv 11:

- Aspect of the Wyrm's nerfed range is a shame but it's fine.
The removal of the free rebukes is fine. That was crazy good.
Making you choose between the types of aura sucks, just have the aura give both the resistance & that frighten beams. Keep the lower ki for the terrible range.

Maybe consider increasing the range on frighten a bit, just because it's weird to only be scary right up close when the thing that makes them scary is tied to flying & shooting acid more than other monks but it doesn't super matter.
I wonder if the fear effect shouldn't be an AoE, but it only lasts for 1 round. So as long as you stick around an enemy, they have to keep saving against fear. This would also be in keeping with this subclass's focus on AoE. On the other hand, as it is you can use it every turn, frightening an enemy for up to 1 minute, even when you're not nearby. You basically land in their face and roar at them before taking off again. Hmm, I can see going either way.

I think I might agree that both auras should activate at the same time, instead of having to choose. Partly because I see these as being used in different situations anyway. You're not gonna spook a dragon, and fire resistance won't really help against a bunch of goblins. Why not allow both to be active at the same time?

I'd expand the aura to 30 feet at 17th level, possibly by spending extra ki (as with Augment Breath).


- Also, just make Wings Unfurled a part of Step of the Wind instead of charging extra. Either here or at 17, but ideally here.
I'm still firmly of the opinion that it should just be this way from the start.

Instead, why not consider permanent flight as an option for 17th level?


Lv 17:

- The blind sight area nerf is unfortunate, but not super unfair, maybe split the difference at 20, but 10 is ok.
5e tends to use specific intervals for various things. 20 feet is a pretty uncommon interval, though I think it does pop up on a few things like thrown weapon ranges. Most of the time, the intervals jump from 10 feet to 30 feet; I don't think you'll find any monsters with blindsight/truesight/tremorsense/darkvision between those intervals.

I think 10 feet is enough for a monk. You're a melee skirmisher anyway, so if it's close enough to punch then it's inside your blindsight area.


- add in the clinging breath thing from the UA as a 1 ki modifier to breath of the dragon, explosive fury, or draconic strike with a save. Maybe cap it to a d4 or 6.

- Explosive Fury should definitely, definitely save for half.
Eh, I'm not sure about the clinging breath, especially when we already have the augmented breath. I would actually also axe Explosive Fury. Instead, I'd like to see some combination of (a) permanent flight, (b) expanding aura range to 30 feet, (c) expanding blindsight to 30 feet, or (d) a floating immunity to one energy type (or a floating resistance that upgrades to immunity when you activate your aura).

Explosive Fury just seems redundant given we already have the breath weapon, and the range on it is pretty piddly. I'd rather have a fun new toy than a bit of extra damage.


Now, I did come up with what I think could be a fun and thematic build for this subclass. Go tiefling, winged variant. Then take the Infernal Constitution feat. Refluff your character as an actual dragon. You've got the wings, the resistance, the breath weapon, the unarmed strikes, everything. The only thing that's "off" is being based on DEX and WIS instead of STR and CHA, but a permissive DM may let you swap those around.

This just to say that, you said you'd been put off this subclass entirely, but I think there are still fun builds you can do with it.

[TerrorSweats]

This is a 6th level feature, not 3rd

can do with it.

Nice catch, I'm working on addressing the rest when I'm not at work, but it's was a copy-paste mistake one of the times the page I was writing on crashed flipping through tabs. I forgot to put the lv6 heading split back in


II think either option is roughly comparable. If you're specifically looking for a "weird mage-monk", then I can see why you'd want to trade the free uses for a lower cost; you want to be using this on every round.


Honestly I just really don't like them(breath & wings) having their own long rest sets of uses when monks already have ki for that and are a short rest class. It even says these abilities explicitly use ki, but doesn't work by just spending ki points on them. I want the trade-off between what to use the limited points on, not the management of three different arbitrarily separate pools of the same resource. It's why I couldn't deal with vancian spell slots in older editions. I still don't like them except on stuff like artificers where it's easier to justify.

[Greywander]

Not every ki ability requires you to spend ki points. Monks get quite a few "supernatural" powers that don't expend any ki. To name a few: Ki-Empowered Strikes, Purity of Body, Tongue of the Sun and Moon, and Timeless Body. We can also infer that some of your other abilities come from ki, even if they don't mention ki. So for the breath weapon, I would think of it like you can use it a few times without straining yourself (i.e. without spending ki), and after that it starts pulling on your ki reserves.

As far as managing multiple resource pools, that's fair. It is more complicated, that's for sure. The benefit is being able to use an ability a few times, even if you wouldn't normally want to spend ki on it. It just makes sure that you'll actually use the feature instead of hoarding ki for something else.

To be honest, I could see using this idea as the basis for a whole system, where everybody gets a few free uses of their abilities, then has to draw on a limited resource pool to use them further. It's more resource management, but it's basically the best of both extremes: you can always use each of your abilities a few times, even if you're resource pool is empty, and you can use an ability more than the allotted number of times, if you're willing to spend resources on it. Imagine if, for example, fighters could choose to Action Surge more often in exchange for a steep resource cost?

So I understand where you're coming from, but it's not as simple as one way of doing it being strictly better than the other. Each has its trade offs. As I've said, I think switching the breath weapon to cost 1 ki and have no free uses is perfectly fine. One thing I would be concerned about is this being a more efficient use of ki than, say, Flurry of Blows. One breath attack will do more damage, and to multiple targets, than one additional unarmed strike. For this reason, I think the 2 ki cost with free uses works a little better. It makes you think a bit more before using the breath weapon, e.g. if you can catch a certain number of enemies in it. So that's the only thing I'd be concerned about.