How to Make a Bow-Kata Monk/Fighter?

[Zalabim]

Normally I'd just skip commentary when a post gets so long. So I apologize if I screw up any important parts of your manifesto. I'm trimming as much as I can.

A monk also has no reason to not be using a weapon two handed if it is versatile because they can't use a shield and they can bonus action attack anyway so no reason to ever two weapon fight.

Not kensei specific. Versatile weapons are good for any monk, even though they might not always use both hands on the weapon. They may be holding a light, a ranged weapon, or an enemy in their other hand. Two weapon fighting is an option just for a little more ranged damage, short ranged though it is.

Battleaxe/Longsword/Warhammer: Same weapon essentially, it is a 1d8 weapon with versatile 1d10. 1 damage higher but not throwable, kind of breaks even.

You aren't losing the option to draw and throw a spear/trident/handaxe, at any time, or to start combat with the throwable weapons and switch to the martial weapon if you don't need to throw anything, so it's purely a benefit.

Rapier/Scimitar/Shortsword: Only reason to pick these is you pick the parry feat or you are multiclassing into rogue.

I like my waffles with butter.

Whip: Gives reach, which can be nice.

Ranged Weapons:

The longbow is an obviously good choice. The sling allows bludgeoning damage at range. The hand crossbow if you want to be a crossbow expert.

B. 3rd level Kensei ability:

Melee: You now know how to use your new weapon in melee, so at most you gained 1 point of damage ...
as well as not using PAM if you chose to take it.

Show of hands: Who took Polearm Master for your monk? Sure, it gives you a reaction attack. . .

However, for level 3 and 4 you only get one weapon attack and a bonus unarmed attack maybe 2 if you flurry. You can attack with your new weapon, or you can just stand there and hold it and use an unarmed strike like every other monk can do to gain +2 ac but now you have dropped from a 1d8 or maybe 1d10 damage to a 1d4 for that 2AC.
At level 5+ you can make 2 weapon attacks and 1 or 2 unarmed, or you can make 1 weapon attack and 2 maybe 3 unarmed strikes to gain 2 AC.

Turn to turn, you can choose either higher AC than any other monk or higher damage than any other monk.

Ranged: this is key Read the specific wording of Flurry of Blows compared to Martial Arts. Flurry of Blows says:"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." It does not say it has to be a monk weapon. So you could shoot once, or twice if level 5+ then just spend a ki, walk over and unarmed attack twice with FoB.

The first attack of flurry of blows is immediately after the attack action, so you can't attack, then walk over and flurry. You have to already be in range to flurry. That's going to make at least one of your ranged attacks a little difficult, most of the time.

With monk's massive levels of mobility as is, it is already a great chance you can reach someone to unarmed attack, and would be almost impossible for you to not be in range for a bow attack.
Is it worth it to give up 1 or maybe even 2 unarmed attack to do 1d4 extra damage with a bow shot? Maybe, but not very often.

If you're in a position that you want to make unarmed attacks, then you probably want to just use one of your melee weapons. If you're using a ranged weapon, there's a high chance you don't want to get into melee, and so may appreciate an alternative way to deal more damage as a bonus action.

Another issue with archery based monks is ASI, Monks need a great Dex, a pretty good if not great Wis, and a good Con, but unlike classes like Fighter or Rogue, Monks don't get any bonus ASI, so you could easily get to level 16 before ever being able to take an archery based feat, also monks do not get a fighting style without multi classing. If I was going to make an archer monk, it would only be 3 levels of monk and the rest would be battle master.

There is no issue here. Kensei makes archery an option, and if you want to focus on it, you don't have to have great wisdom to still get good AC for an archer. Monks multiclass well with battle master, but that's a benefit, not a problem.

C: Level 6 features:

Your Kensei Weapon counts as magic for overcoming damage resistance. Cool. But how long before that becomes redundant by you just getting a magic weapon. That and any monk can still just unarmed attack for magic damage if the have to. It also depends on: A. how often your DM uses resistant monsters, B. how the magic item distribution is in the game, and C. Will what you attack with really be that much better than an unarmed strike in the first place, by now your unarmed strikes are 1d6, the most you are going to get out of a weapon is 1d10 and that is only 2 attacks a round, only 1 if you want the 2 ac, if you are at ranged, the most common magic item in the entire game is a +1 arrow, by now you should have enough around to shoot a bow against things you simply can't reach that are ALSO resistant to non-magic that it shouldn't matter.

The party might have one or more magic weapons, but they might not have enough for everyone, they might not have every kind of magic weapon, and this is to give the Kensei parity with their unarmed strikes. It's exactly as important as the baseline monk ability. For C, yes, it will be that much better than an unarmed strike. +2 damage is the whole Dueling Fighting Style, or the weapon will have longer reach. And I guess I'll call it D, you will never have enough +1 arrows in the party for everyone who needs them to never have to worry about them. They're only 5% chance on the random tables they show up on, and a party would need several per round of combat.

other ability is 1ki for a mini-smite. In the long run not a great as just using that same ki for some of your other abilities, but on a crit i can see it being used against some targets. Not too cost effective but pretty good.

In the short run, it can be used on top of everything else the monk can already do. It's pretty cost effective if the enemy is tough to hit, or you have some reason to not use flurry.

D: Level 11 feature:

Can spend 1/2/3 ki to give your Kensei weapon a + 1/2/3, not bad at all BUT, it does not stack with any other +s on the weapon already.
If you have a +1 longsword, this ability is pointless unless you also carry a normal longsword you can pull to spend 3 ki to make it a +3.

The most likely weapon you won't have at this level is a +x longbow, since nearly everybody could use one and they hardly show up randomly. If you have a +x whip, a +x longsword, a +x longbow, and a +x sling at level 11, good for you. The rest of us will probably find some times this is useful.

E. Level 17 Feature:

A free re-roll on a miss once a turn. Yes, that is some kind of nice.

The subclass is fine. By virtue of having the options for the best melee damage, best ranged damage, and best AC among monks, it is the best monk subclass at martial combat.

There is no need for that many Kensei weapon choices.

Let them pick 1 weapon at level 3 and another at level 11.
Their level 6 ability makes whatever weapon they picked a +1 weapon
Level 11 makes it a +2, second weapon becomes +1
Level 17 makes it a +3 , second weapon becomes +2

Add in a clause of "as long as you have enough Ki points left in your pool = to the + you can have it is active" if you want.

OR

Let them pick unarmed strike as a Kensei weapon.

I love the concept of the weapon master monk, they just really fouled it up.

Speaking of badly thought out game design: In the first case, the character would have no ability to choose different weapons. It would either have the ranged weapon benefit or the melee weapon benefit for most of the game. I can list 5 weapons any kensei would benefit from mastering without going into specific feats or multiclasses: Longsword/Battleaxe, Warhammer, Whip, Longbow, Sling. They don't need that many choices, but they do need more than 1. Balancing the magic weapon bonuses around a cost means that getting a permanent magic weapon isn't totally redundant. It frees up resources for your other abilities to be used more. Giving the same bonus (option) to every weapon is just for convenience. Your suggestion reminds me of the awful scaling on Favored Enemy damage bonuses, where the one you pick at the start of the game could go up to +10 and the one you pick at the end just gets +2. This version is like the kensei, but even more boring and possibly less powerful.
OR
Just have every Kensei end up as a purely unarmed character because Unarmed Strike would always end up as the clear best melee option by level 17, if not earlier, and who cares about themes and identity in a subclass. Kensei can't pick unarmed strike because 1) That's not the point, and 2) That would overshadow almost every melee weapon. At least the whip has reach.