Can we make something out of the 4 Elements monk in 2023?

[Condé]

Just curious.

A lot of thread about this subclass are old. So I am curious to know if someone on earth made something usable out of this archetype.

If you HAD to play this class and subclass, what would you do? (Multiclass allowed, but you have to have a majority of monk level)
[No joke answer like, "Killing my character", "reroll" or "ask my DM if I can play something else" plz por favor]

It can be a gimmick build, one-trick pony or trying to get the best out of the subclass, you decide.

And yes, everyone and their mother know that this subclass is bad and all, but that's not the point. The point is trying to find an enjoyable "build" for this subclass. Because the flavor is cool nontheless.

[RogueJK]

Rather than trying (and failing) to be an "AoE caster Monk" like most people who take this subclass want to do (and end up sorely disappointed), I'd ignore the damage spell options and focus instead on being a Generic Monk who spends most of their Ki on standard Monk stuff like Stunning Strike, Patient Defense, Step of the Wind, and Flurry of Blows, but then also has the occasional additional utility "spell" at times from Disciplines like Shape of the Flowing River, Mist Stance, and Ride of the Wind.

Then lean even heavier into the utility caster role and be a VHuman with the Ritual Caster Wizard feat at 1st Level.

Not anywhere near optimal, but it'd at least be a functional "utility caster Monk". And if you go into it managing your expectations about your spellcasting ability, you're not setting yourself up for disappointment when you can't afford to fulfill your Avatar fantasy and be slinging Fireballs and Shatters throughout every combat.

[Kane0]

Without using any of the myriad fixes and homebrews? I'd probably lean heavily on Fangs of the Fire Snake or Tasha's Ki-Fueled Attack, which could be a ranged weapon attack using Dedicated Weapon, useful for if you are using other options. Proning something at range with Fist of Unbroken Air or Water Whip might be beneficial depending on your party composition, otherwise i'd likely stick to just one Discipline for combat and use the others as supplemental noncombat utility (Mist Stance, Ride the Wind, Shape the Flowing River, maybe Wave of Rolling Earth)

[stoutstien]

Water whip (even after that changed from a ba) is decent nova. If you can finagle the DM to agree with spending the extra ki after a hit as well due to open wording then even better.

[J-H]

Are we allowed to reduce ki point costs by half and give more disciplines known? Because that makes it a lot better.

If not:

Fangs of the Fire Snake converts all damage to fire and gives +10' reach for your turn (total 15' reach). Combined with jumping, this lets you hit creatures up to 25'+ in the air. Unfortunately, it doesn't let you grapple. Compares unfavorably to Astral Monk, though.

Fist of Unbroken Air gives a 30' range attack for 2 ki points, with a save-or-prone and push 20'. There aren't very many other effects that let you shove someone a full 20' in one go. Combine with Crusher and the free martial arts attack after expending ki points, and you can potentially do 25' of pushing in a turn. Pair with cliffs/lava/Spike Growth/Spiritual Guardian for maximum exploitation. This is situationally good.

Water Whip is the pull towards you version of the same thing.

Shatter/Fireball is okay. The price is high, but at 6th level if you were a warlock you'd have 2 spell slots for Shatter, and as a monk, you have enough ki points for 2 castings of Shatter, so you're not too far off (ignoring the value of invocations vs. losing flurry of blows). There will be times when you want to open a battle with an AOE.

Gust of Wind is good if you are an archer or trying to evade pursuit. Kensei makes a better archer, though.

Gaseous form and Fly options are okay if you have low access to magic items. I'd take Gaseous Form in a heist type campaign.

None of the others appeal, particularly due to the number of Concentration effects.

I guess Wall of Stone has some out of combat utility, and it lets you do the whole Air-Water-Fire-Earth thing with Water Whip, Fist of Air, Fireball, Wall of Stone.

It'd be a lot better if you could apply Stunning Fist with these spells at no extra ki cost.

[Segev]

I would hope we were playing a seafaring campaign, because the flowing river discipline controls a surprisingly large and effective volume of water, capable of swamping medium-sized ships and creating barriers that even galleons would hesitate to cross. Ki-expending access to gust of wind is also good for sailing: always have a 60-mile-an-hour wind blowing in whatever direction you want to be sailing!

The Athlete feat is one I prize on ship-board games because of the ease of climbing, though if you're starting at level 9+, the ability to run up the rigging may be fine without that. I fear I was a bit of a jerk to my DM at one point when I was complaining about that, he chided me, and I reacted sharply. ^^; I shouldn't have been quite so demanding; the overlap isn't THAT bad.

I'd also probably look into a race with an innate swim speed so that I could take advantage of shaped water for terrain.

[Garfunion]

In my opinion Way of The Ascendant Dragon does a good enough job at being an elemental monk. I would much rather make more of a shrine/temple warrior archetype that cast protective, banishing, buffering, and AoE attack spells. The homebrew forums had a similar archetype but I’m still tinkering with it leaning more towards the 5 Chinese element (wood, fire, earth, metal and water). The monk would choose up to 3 on the element that are connected to their shrine. May even summon the spirit guardian of the shrine, similar to the Druid’s circle of wildfire spirit.

[solidork]

I would hope we were playing a seafaring campaign, because the flowing river discipline controls a surprisingly large and effective volume of water, capable of swamping medium-sized ships and creating barriers that even galleons would hesitate to cross. Ki-expending access to gust of wind is also good for sailing: always have a 60-mile-an-hour wind blowing in whatever direction you want to be sailing.

Yeah, in the right game Flowing River could be super interesting. Four Elements might just go on my short list if I ever get into a Rime of the Frostmaiden game; all that snow and ice! A real stickler GM might not allow it, but I'd totally let a Tidal Wave in a confined space act as a set up for Flowing River shenanigans.

[Hawk7915]

d4 did a video on "The Avatar Monk" here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PVj_CaqIfg&t=455s); he kept the rule of "no more levels in another class than Monk". The builds primary gimmick is to utilize Water Whip and Fist of Unbroken Air to continually yank or throw enemies through a Spike Growth field from a druid dip. His build also took some Battlemaster Fighter levels for Action Surge + Pushing Attack for maximum burst damage and forced movement. He went really nuts and also took ranger levels for Swarmkeeper nonsense - but, admitted if you wanted to focus on defense or utility more Monk levels or Druid levels wouldn't hurt. His final build is a bit of a cheat (Monk 6/Fighter 4/Druid 4/Ranger 3; he only maps to Level 17 and I'd wager most folks would probably go +1 Ranger +2 Monk for ASIs).

I don't know if I'd go THAT ham, especially since this build would be good for about 2 encounters per day before falling off a cliff and would be having to ask for a short rest after every fight. But with Four Elements Monk getting some of the best forced movement effects in the game, comboing those with hazardous terrain spells like Create Bonfire/Moonbeam/Spike Growth/Wall of Fire sounds pretty sick.

[animorte]

I played a Four Elements Monk for Strixhaven. Naturally I wanted to join the Intramural Water-Dancing Club. It was fun. The Strixhaven Initiate feat really helped to keep the magical stuff relevant.

[Hurrashane]

4elements monk is something I've wanted to play for a bit. I've played a few of the other "underpowered" classes and had a blast. Currently playing an Alchemist Artificer and having a good time being super useful to my party.

But for the 4e monk I'd probably go either vuman or custom lineage for a feat, taking magic initiate druid and grabbing Gust, Produce flame, and Ice Knife. If I can't convince my DM to let me take Magic initiate again for Mold Earth, Shape Water, and another 1st level spell, I'd probably just dip a level in druid for the cantrips, or grab at least 2 levels of Ranger for Druidic warrior fighting style.

Once I have 4 elemental cantrips I'd stick monk just taking whatever seemed fun at the time. Getting the feeling of being a master of all elements means a bit more to me than any perceived/real lack of power.

[elyktsorb]

I feel like it isn't that you can't do something with 4elements Monk, just that doing so isn't worth it.

Anything it can do can almost certainly be done better by another class/subclass, which makes sense as the majority of it's abilities are just taking spells from other classes.

I can't say I would do much of anything special you know? At early levels, I don't have enough ki to do more than 1 thing per fight. I'd probably find every excuse to use elemental attunement as possible. Then at higher levels I'm almost certainly saving most of my ki for Stunning Strikes because stunning something is almost always better than what most of my elemental attacks would do.

I'd probably take hold person, because a ranged paralyze for 3 ki is very worth it on a character that can close the distance or get towards the backline faster.

[Dr.Samurai]

Why isn't Clench of the North Wind considered a good pick? At the level you get it, you can do it twice per short rest (assuming you don't use your ki for anything else). But Paralyzed is better than Stunned, and Hold Person lasts longer than Stunning Strike, and forces a Wisdom saving throw rather than a Constitution saving throw. Seems to me at higher levels when there's more ki to throw around, this is a great pick for CCing a powerful foe and letting everyone (including yourself) get crits on it until it saves.

EDIT: Just remembered this will only ever be able to target humanoids, which is a big limitation.

[Dork_Forge]

Tasha's really uplifted the 4E Monk with Ki-Fueled Strike and Dedicated Weapon, if you're using those rules you don't really need to do anything special to make it viable, just grab what interests you and be a generic Monk when you're out of Ki. Supplement with spellcasting from race and/or feats if you want to lean into magic aspect.

[elyktsorb]

Why isn't Clench of the North Wind considered a good pick? At the level you get it, you can do it twice per short rest (assuming you don't use your ki for anything else). But Paralyzed is better than Stunned, and Hold Person lasts longer than Stunning Strike, and forces a Wisdom saving throw rather than a Constitution saving throw. Seems to me at higher levels when there's more ki to throw around, this is a great pick for CCing a powerful foe and letting everyone (including yourself) get crits on it until it saves.

EDIT: Just remembered this will only ever be able to target humanoids, which is a big limitation.

Additionally it can be counterspelled, doesn't work in zones of antimagic, and for the 3 ki you spend on it, you could have attempted 3 separate stuns.

Being able to get it off from 60ft is nice if you can't close the distance and 'need' the humanoid locked down for at least 1 turn, but if you can close the distance I'd rather attempt multiple saves instead of only one. It is on the assumption that your attacks will land tho.

[Dr.Samurai]

Additionally it can be counterspelled, doesn't work in zones of antimagic, and for the 3 ki you spend on it, you could have attempted 3 separate stuns.

Being able to get it off from 60ft is nice if you can't close the distance and 'need' the humanoid locked down for at least 1 turn, but if you can close the distance I'd rather attempt multiple saves instead of only one. It is on the assumption that your attacks will land tho.
Haven't seen the casters in my party encounter counterspells or antimagic zones very often. But I've seen the monk in my party fail to land a Stunning Strike three turns in a row. Clench of the North Wind seems like a nice alternative when you think a Wisdom save will fail more likely than a Con save. And anyone that can take advantage of the auto-crits might make it worth the investment.

Too bad these abilities don't scale and it doesn't eventually become Hold Monster.

I really do wonder about the martial class design.

[Ganryu]

Honestly, hot take. With Tasha's, this is now a decent subclass. Not great, not even good, but not the flaming pile of garbage it used to be. Base monk class comes with enough goodies that you can survive with just the addons seen as goodies. Now, the problem is, if you blow through your ki points, you're worse than a regular monk. But if you use them appropriate to your level, not bad.

Water whip is decent damage, but knocks an opponent prone. This lets your follow up bonk with your monk weapon (as you spent ki points) come with advantage.

I don't actually like fist of unbroken air, as I find Con/Str saves to be near impossible to win with against most monsters. At least at the table my DM runs, always a superboss... dex though is always nice. A strange class combination is to take rogue levels and use this advantage for sneak attack, it is your first attack that turn.

Casting fly on yourself as a monk is amazing at 11th level, you can now burst up to a 'smart' dragon, stunning strike it til it falls out the sky, then laugh at it as party deals with it (Though, again, con saves against dragons are a pain, but you can stun it, and if it falls, that's massive damage.)

A fun interaction is if you grab Fangs of the Fire Snake... and waste it. You've now spent a ki point, and can attack with a monk weapon as a bonus action. Which if you have a long bow means you can rain death from above 3 times a turn at level 11 from the sky. Dip down to be just in range, then fly straight up with 40 feet dip, and you are faaaar out of the range of almost every ranged attack. And if anything flying comes up to challenge you, drop kick it with stunning strike and let gravity take care of the rest of that problem.

The problem is, ki points run out like ice in the Saraha at low levels. Anything level 6 or below is agony to play this subclass with. But, it sort of sorts itself out as you get higher levels. Tasha's helped it a TON by letting it attack as a bonus action with monk weapons.

[Condé]

I can quite get the love for water whip / unbroken air... Kinda.

Back when XGTE wasn't a thing, pushing/pulling people wasn't really common. It still isn't but you now have a lot more and what I mean by that is... They feel kinda lackluster. (Like the whole subclass so let's not talk about that too much). What I mean is... They get a little overshadowed by features like the Gathered swarm from the swarmkeeper Ranger.

If you could have both Unbroken air AND water whip that would be aweosme. Just use the one you need when you need it. But if you do you can't take much else and/or are very limited.

The swarmkeeper require a str save, is only 15ft... But works with any type of damage and is all day everyday of the week, no question asked or anything. AND works as ranged and melee.

Unrboken and water whip deal some good damage at 3rd level (I mean it's on par with most 2 level spells from what I've seen). But it scales pretty poorly, you can only use 1 at level 3 and 2 at level 4 and that's it.

I have read that you could use both unbroken and water whip in gaseous form (you get it a 11th level) since nothing prevents you from doing so. Which is... A thing. I guess.

I am really sad WotC' designers never add things to subclasses because they feel empty. If a book could have add some new spells or elemental discipline that would have been awesome. Even not great options or any balancing. Just... More options. Since you are pretty limited. That would have been something, at least.


Other problem I have with this subclass is how (even more) ki-dependant you are. So multiclassing is... Mostly out.

That's a shame since maybe a level of cleric or druid could add some interesting flavor and cantrips, low level spells and whatnot that his subclass really need.

Maybe some magic initiate shenanigans? But it costs you an ASI to get so not ideal. Since monk really need them. And and talking about feats/ASI, it is a shame that monks really don't have many feats that benefits them.
All my favorite monk subclasses "Concepts" do not have any kind of support. (Sun soul / 4 Elements). At least, as said earlier, the Dragon Ascendant monk is kinda cool and let you deal elemental damage whenever you want...

[Zuras]

Tasha’s ki-fueled attack helps your action economy a great deal. It’s still under-powered, because you’re spending one of your core resources to do stuff someone else is probably better at, but it’s far less frustrating.

I’d give them Absorb Elements (costing 2 ki) along with an elemental cantrip with their starting Elemental Attunement, adding another cantrip each time they get a new discipline.

Elemental cantrips will let them do their elemental thing more often, especially out of combat. In particular, control flames, shape water, mold earth and gust let them be creative with their abilities.

If you are in AL or some other situation with a less flexible DM, you can also be a variant human and take Magic Initiate: Druid to achieve the same thing.

[Witty Username]

4E monk might be the best monk out of the PHB, I would prioritize the forced movement and utility effects.

Notes,
You will generally underperform in every area of the game you interact with. The goal is to leverage your ability to do many things on demand to stay effective.
Situationally, you have good stuff the goal is to identify and use it.
You have shortcomings, similar to most monks, but unlike most monks you have additional tools to mitigate those shortcomings. (My favorite example from playing one, I lost a fight to a dragon, but unlike most monks, I was actually able to fight toe to toe with an airborne dragon due to flight)
There is a lot of similarity to the Way of Shadow monk, the problem is less the subclass and more the base class, if you devise a solution to the base classes shortcomings (probably multiclassing) it becomes effective.

Overall, 4 Elements monk is more middle of the monk road than people give it credit for. I personally think most of its issues are general monk issues. I would play it over a Sun Soul in a heartbeat.