4-elements Monk

[Garfunion]

I saw zero punches thrown in the Firebending clip, only spellcasting. You clearly don't need Extra Attack to be a fire bender.

I saw a lot of punches being thrown, just because they don’t make physical contact doesn’t mean they are not punches. The element they use is an extension of their unarmed attacks.

[HPisBS]

Are you saying those were real punches and they both just whiffed repeatedly? #epicfail, heh.

Punches? What? Noooo, no way. No fists flew, there definitely weren't any martial forms to be found. All there was was a bunch of fire effects, the actual characters never even moved!

😑

[MaxWilson]

I saw a lot of punches being thrown, just because they don’t make physical contact doesn’t mean they are not punches. The element they use is an extension of their unarmed attacks.

It was clearly spellcasting, not real punching, probably something like Eldritch Blast or Scorching Ray where one spell gives you multiple spell attacks.

Again, you clearly don't need the Extra Attack feature to be a fire bender in 5E.

[Asisreo1]

Punches? What? Noooo, no way. No fists flew, there definitely weren't any martial forms to be found. All there was was a bunch of fire effects, the actual characters never even moved!

😑

If you removed the fire and kept literally everything the same, you could call it a form of martial arts...you can't call it martial arts fighting.

That's what we're saying. Even though their somatic materials are based off of various eastern martial arts, they don't do those actual martial arts because they don't make contact.

It's a mix with light martial arts inspiration in a large wizard battle.

What's the difference between "I extend my fingers to cast a burning hands" and "I use my monastery's technique of flowing chakra to cast Burning Hands."

If you want to, you could even give them spell points as was suggested before.

[HPisBS]

If you removed the fire and kept literally everything the same, you could call it a form of martial arts...you can't call it martial arts fighting.

If you removed the fire and the distance, and kept everything else the same, then it would be martial arts fighting. One punches, the other deflects the strike down and to the side. One does a low kick (or maybe more of a stomp? It's hard to tell with the screen cut off like that), the other takes a step back to protect his shin.

[Kane0]

If you removed the fire and kept literally everything the same, you could call it a form of martial arts...you can't call it martial arts fighting.

That's what we're saying. Even though their somatic materials are based off of various eastern martial arts, they don't do those actual martial arts because they don't make contact.

It's a mix with light martial arts inspiration in a large wizard battle.

What's the difference between "I extend my fingers to cast a burning hands" and "I use my monastery's technique of flowing chakra to cast Burning Hands."

If you want to, you could even give them spell points as was suggested before.

I always thought this scene was very monk-like. Very little bending happening.

In fact, the whole Blue Spirit episode is actually a pretty good example. Zuko is both a firebender and swordsman, taking us even further away from a traditional mage.

[Asisreo1]

I always thought this scene was very monk-like. Very little bending happening.

In fact, the whole Blue Spirit episode is actually a pretty good example. Zuko is both a firebender and swordsman, taking us even further away from a traditional mage.

Zuko as the blue spirit stuck me as a rogue. It would make sense as a multiclass rogue/wizard.

Which, yeah, you probably need to multiclass to get exactly how you want your pop culture reference.

[Asisreo1]

If you removed the fire and the distance, and kept everything else the same, then it would be martial arts fighting. One punches, the other deflects the strike down and to the side. One does a low kick (or maybe more of a stomp? It's hard to tell with the screen cut off like that), the other takes a step back to protect his shin.

If you remove the effects and distance from a spellcaster fight, it's just an argument with alot of pointing or yelling, that doesn't mean wizards are a bunch of politicians.

"I cast regular rebuke!" "I cast counterargument!"

Same thing with a harry potter wizard, just a bunch of people arguing over which stick is cooler in a different language. It's probably inspired by pagan witchcraft (not a harry potter fan) but D&D wizards don't need sacrificial blood to fuel their spellcasting.

[Deathtongue]

Let's be honest, nobody would want to actually play anyone except for Aang in the game, and only a series finale Aang because the majority of book 1, he had only air & water bending, he got earthbending book 2, and he got firebending book 3.

Where are you getting that? In action-adventure fiction, the number of single or dual-element martial artists/elementalists is much, much greater than the number of 'bend every element' martial artists. Nothing to do with power level (Magneto, for instance, would contemptuously spank any of the multi-element bending Avatars even at their full power) but that's just how genre fiction works. Having multiple elemental powers tends to dilute peoples' themes, especially if you stereotype personality types with elements -- which even A:TLA did.

4E Monk not really being able to support a single-element duelist is just another failure of its design. Not to say that multi-element manipulators don't exist, but for every Aang you have a Human Torch, a Sub-Zero, a Sandman, and a Goenitz.

[Dienekes]

I saw zero punches thrown in the Firebending clip, only spellcasting. You clearly don't need Extra Attack to be a fire bender.

The dude literally used a spinning kick to get up from prone while also knocking his opponent prone in the same move.

Which goes back to, yeah. You can probably model every bending use with some spell. But by doing so you’re missing the feeling of Avatar. They aren’t just casting spells. They are throwing punches and kicks and the elements come out as extensions of those moves.

It would be something truly special if 5e could figure out a way to get that feeling tied to the mechanics. But they didn’t. They found a way to make the effect without the flavor. Which honestly what I feel is wrong with pretty much how most of how 5e feels.

[MaxWilson]

Where are you getting that? In action-adventure fiction, the number of single or dual-element martial artists/elementalists is much, much greater than the number of 'bend every element' martial artists. Nothing to do with power level (Magneto, for instance, would contemptuously spank any of the multi-element bending Avatars even at their full power) but that's just how genre fiction works. Having multiple elemental powers tends to dilute peoples' themes, especially if you stereotype personality types with elements -- which even A:TLA did.

You misunderstand--Asisreo was making a claim about the differences between fiction and game, not a claim about fiction. I don't really agree with the claim but it wasn't a claim about genre fiction.

[Deathtongue]

You misunderstand--Asisreo was making a claim about the differences between fiction and game, not a claim about fiction. I don't really agree with the claim but it wasn't a claim about genre fiction.

In the game as she is played? It kind of is. Most people don't agonize over the mechanical details like we do -- they want to play Jaime Lannister or Zorro or Scorpion or Iron Man. And by that perspective, there are a lot more people wanting to play, given equal power levels (think Lightning Lad versus Aang), single-element users than multi-element users. That the 4E monk mechanically strongly discourages people from playing single-element users is just another instance of genre emulation fail.

[HPisBS]

If you remove the effects and distance from a spellcaster fight, it's just an argument with alot of pointing or yelling, that doesn't mean wizards are a bunch of politicians.
...

Noooo, it'd just be "&%@(*& @$&^(%!" and finger waggles. They wouldn't actually be doing anything recognizable.

That kind of disengenuity doesn't really help anything.

Ah, who am I kidding? There's been plenty of misrepresentations already. It's especially weird to misrepresent a clip as having "no punches" when the link is right there for people to see a bunch of punches for themselves.

The dude literally used a spinning kick to get up from prone while also knocking his opponent prone in the same move.

Which goes back to, yeah. You can probably model every bending use with some spell. But by doing so you’re missing the feeling of Avatar. They aren’t just casting spells. They are throwing punches and kicks and the elements come out as extensions of those moves.

It would be something truly special if 5e could figure out a way to get that feeling tied to the mechanics. But they didn’t. They found a way to make the effect without the flavor. Which honestly what I feel is wrong with pretty much how most of how 5e feels.

Absolutely.


At this point, it seems that the disagreement here really does just boil down to "Some people want that feeling of Avatar [or other elemental warriors], and some people simply don't care."

Kind of a long, cumbersome, gratuitous way of saying "I don't care, so get over it," but eh, whatever.

[Asisreo1]

In the game as she is played? It kind of is. Most people don't agonize over the mechanical details like we do -- they want to play Jaime Lannister or Zorro or Scorpion or Iron Man. And by that perspective, there are a lot more people wanting to play, given equal power levels (think Lightning Lad versus Aang), single-element users than multi-element users. That the 4E monk mechanically strongly discourages people from playing single-element users is just another instance of genre emulation fail.

Okay, but think about this: if you wanted to play a single element, why would you go to a subclass that gives 4-elements? It even forces 4-elements as soon as you dip.

That's like wanting to play a blood sorcerer, then choose wild magic because it kinda has risks, and be disappointed because it doesn't sap your blood in order to cast spells.

That's what happened to me, too. The first thing I wanted to be in D&D 5e was a blood sorcerer that used their life essence to bring a ton of power into spells that equal magic casters couldn't do. You can flavor blood sorcerer as only using their sorcery points as "a different life essence" and all but it didn't exactly fit my picture.

Because I was forcing a picture to be exact and perfect without noticing that it wouldn't work with the class/subclass. And it would be an awful mechanic, honestly. Imagine using HP to fuel spellcasting. You'd be dead in an instant. Bloodhunter tries but it still doesn't hit all the check marks and I'm still unable to play a true blood sorcerer which I still really want to do.

[Kane0]

Zuko as the blue spirit stuck me as a rogue. It would make sense as a multiclass rogue/wizard.

Which, yeah, you probably need to multiclass to get exactly how you want your pop culture reference.

Zuko isn't one or the other, he's both. You know the simplest and most straightforward way to depict that? The 4E monk. No optional multiclassing or feats required. The only problem is that while 4E monk is thematically on the mark and promises mechanics to match... those mechanics aren't up to scratch.

But then again, you don't think Warlocks are spellcasters so I'm afraid I don't know what else to say.

That's what happened to me, too. The first thing I wanted to be in D&D 5e was a blood sorcerer that used their life essence to bring a ton of power into spells that equal magic casters couldn't do. You can flavor blood sorcerer as only using their sorcery points as "a different life essence" and all but it didn't exactly fit my picture.

Because I was forcing a picture to be exact and perfect without noticing that it wouldn't work with the class/subclass. And it would be an awful mechanic, honestly. Imagine using HP to fuel spellcasting. You'd be dead in an instant. Bloodhunter tries but it still doesn't hit all the check marks and I'm still unable to play a true blood sorcerer which I still really want to do.

But hey, i'm sure we can figure out a way to do it. Say for example when resting burn Hit Die for Sorcery Points and being able to take exhaustion rather than HP damage to cast spells or restore slots.

[Asisreo1]

Zuko isn't one or the other, he's both. You know the simplest and most straightforward way to depict that? The 4E monk. No optional multiclassing or feats required. The only problem is that while 4E monk is thematically on the mark and promises mechanics to match... those mechanics aren't up to scratch.

yeah, he's both. That's why I said he was a multiclsss.

I'm not entirely sure what you're arguing. Is the 4-elemonk sufficient to run your vision of a bender or not? If it's not, we're in agreement and I'm saying other classes handle what you want better if you flavor it right.

I mean, if all you care about is fluff-work martial arts, you can flavor ordinary monk features as the elements. With powerful stuff like burning hands or water whip to add more mechanical flavor.

If you want the mechanics, you can go Druid, Wizard, Sorcerer, or Cleric and pick up elemental spells.

If you want both, just play a spellcaster with a dip or two in monk. There's no shame in multiclassing to get your build just right.

But then again, you don't think Warlocks are spellcasters so I'm afraid I don't know what else to say.

I'm confused. When did I say that? No seriously, this thread is very long and I can't remember literally everything I said. But I don't remember claiming warlocks aren't spellcasters.

But hey, i'm sure we can figure out a way to do it. Say for example when resting burn Hit Die for Sorcery Points and being able to take exhaustion rather than HP damage to cast spells or restore slots.

Exhaustion for spells is awful. It's a long rest ability that gets worse overusing it. By your second casting, you're a sitting duck.

Hit Dice to Sorcery Points is probably nice in other games but games I run use up hit dice completely and having less means having less survivability.

[MaxWilson]

I'm confused. When did I say that? No seriously, this thread is very long and I can't remember literally everything I said. But I don't remember claiming warlocks aren't spellcasters.

I know you're aware and have made the point on the warlock thread that Pact Magic isn't Spellcasting and doesn't interact in the same way with e.g. Multiclassing rules or the DMG spell point variant. Sounds like someone mistook that for a claim that they aren't spellcasters.

[Kane0]

I'm not entirely sure what you're arguing. Is the 4-elemonk sufficient to run your vision of a bender or not? If it's not, we're in agreement and I'm saying other classes handle what you want better if you flavor it right.

I mean, if all you care about is fluff-work martial arts, you can flavor ordinary monk features as the elements. With powerful stuff like burning hands or water whip to add more mechanical flavor.

If you want the mechanics, you can go Druid, Wizard, Sorcerer, or Cleric and pick up elemental spells.

If you want both, just play a spellcaster with a dip or two in monk. There's no shame in multiclassing to get your build just right.

I'm saying 4E is thematically in the right spot but its mechanics don't let it live up to its own expectations. Instead of looking for the same results elsewhere by putting together a MC/Feat build I'd rather change the 4E Monk to better deliver on its design goal. I care about both the flavor and mechanics.
Yes, a full caster can be an elementalist. Element-based spells are a big portion of the poo, especially so for Fire. A Wu Jen would be a good way to implement an elementalist caster and would make a great compliment to the 4E monk as two approaches to the same thing, one putting more emphasis on a martial/magic blend and the other more heavily into the magic side.

I'm confused. When did I say that? No seriously, this thread is very long and I can't remember literally everything I said. But I don't remember claiming warlocks aren't spellcasters.

Well, in technicality warlocks are not spellcasters, they're pact magic casters. They also share similarities but I'll leave that aside as well.

Exhaustion for spells is awful. It's a long rest ability that gets worse overusing it. By your second casting, you're a sitting duck.

Hit Dice to Sorcery Points is probably nice in other games but games I run use up hit dice completely and having less means having less survivability.

If you'd care to start a Homebrew thread i'm sure we can figure something out, I'd be happy to help.

[Asisreo1]

I'm saying 4E is thematically in the right spot but its mechanics don't let it live up to its own expectations. Instead of looking for the same results elsewhere by putting together a MC/Feat build I'd rather change the 4E Monk to better deliver on its design goal. I care about both the flavor and mechanics.
Yes, a full caster can be an elementalist. Element-based spells are a big portion of the poo, especially so for Fire. A Wu Jen would be a good way to implement an elementalist caster and would make a great compliment to the 4E monk as two approaches to the same thing, one putting more emphasis on a martial/magic blend and the other more heavily into the magic side.





If you'd care to start a Homebrew thread i'm sure we can figure something out, I'd be happy to help.

When I said warlocks aren't spellcasters, it's a technicality based on the wording of certain mechanics. That is, they are spellcaster because they cast spells but they don't have the spellcasting feature and do not have the same rules for multiclassing and certain variant features.

I've experimented with homebrew and I can't get it to be both fun and correctly flavorful so I just turned my concept into a cursed magic item that lets you upcast spells one level beyond your spell level except you take damage equal to the spell's new level. It doesn't let you use the item for a spell beyond 5th level as I've noticed spells beyond fifth level are sacred for WoTC. Maybe it has to do with half-casters since that's their maximum spellcasting ability. Either way, nobody is capable of casting more than 2 6th level spells per long rest.

Admittedly, spells get really fun at those levels so it's understandable they'd be reserved against it.

When I saw Wu Jen Mystics, I actually thought "Yeah, this is A:TLA character." It gave me those vibes more than 4-elemonk ever did. I think we've already established that you want elemonks to be close to Avatar. I personally think they're just a different type of monk. Like how a shadow monk can be like Naruto but it's also just a stereotypical ninja. It's actually more ninja than naruto since naruto gets things like major image, balls of energy that shoot people back, and a summon of pure energy. If someone told me go shadow monk for naruto, I'd probably also be disappointed. Though, I should warn that I've never actually watched much Naruto. It seems like the flashy spellcaster type fights, too. Except they actually get close and land direct hits with their bodies so monk wouldn't be that awful. There would be a distinct lack of jutsu, which has to be spellcasting with somatic components and no eastern history lesson will even come close to convincing me otherwise.

[Kane0]

Nah Jade Empire for me man, all the way. That's my ideal 4E monk.

Edit: But I recognize that A:TLA is far more popular and very similar.

[Zuras]

Hard disagree. Even if they cast using spell slots, you've still shrunk the number of Fireballs per day from 9 to 2 at level 13, for instance. That's a huge (78%!) nerf to Fireball capability even if the elemonk now has plenty of ki for Stunning Strikes.

If your goal is to do monk stuff while mostly ignoring elemental stuff, then it's not a nerf, but then why are you playing an elemonk in the first place? If you want an elemental monk who actually does elemental stuff, that's a huge nerf, regardless of the "extra" spell slots.

Again, we must be playing in very different Tier 3 games, because I’ve never seen anyone want or need to cast 9 Fireballs in a single adventuring day, ever. None of the PCs I’ve seen capable of such things, even the Arcane Trickster with the Wand of Fireballs, for whom it was obviously their best AoE, chucked more than 3 or so a game.

Most of the time you either aren’t fighting mooks, the enemy is too intermixed with your guys, or you end up having something else to do that’s a more valuable use of your time. Even in full on Army v. Army Helm’s Deep type scenarios it wasn’t a fireball fest.

A few got chucked, sure, but the Rogues and Monks were on anti-Mage duty, because they were the best able to counter enemy wizards. Granted, the PCs were always defending the townsfolk from the horde, and knew that accidentally burning it down was bad.

Also, with a short rest refresh, using that many Fireballs would mean multiple encounters of the same style (lots of mooks) in the same day, which is something I actively design against as a DM, as varied encounters give different PCs chances to shine. To say nothing of the fact that by the time my party encountered their third hobgoblin platoon of the day I would be very disappointed if the best solution they could come up with was fireballing them to charcoal.

[Garfunion]

Let’s face it. The 4E monk as it currently is, will not fit the elemental monk theme most players want.
Regarding the Benders, if we take a look at a basic bender (not avatar or sub-bending like blood, metal, or sparky boom boom) I believe the Sun Soul monk is much closer in design to be an elemental bender.

[Skylivedk]

In the game as she is played? It kind of is. Most people don't agonize over the mechanical details like we do -- they want to play Jaime Lannister or Zorro or Scorpion or Iron Man. And by that perspective, there are a lot more people wanting to play, given equal power levels (think Lightning Lad versus Aang), single-element users than multi-element users. That the 4E monk mechanically strongly discourages people from playing single-element users is just another instance of genre emulation fail.

To me, it sounds more like the issue is that playing an elementalist is weak/unfeasible (especially single element focus) than all of this resting on the shoulders of 4e monk.

I don't get all those comments about bending being different from spellcasting rather than just one range of somatic components. In most cases of the bender fights that distinction makes no/little sense, the sense-making only really taking place when there's physical contact between the benders.

[Pex]

Sun Soul to me reads like being Ryu/Ken from Street Fighter.

[MaxWilson]

Again, we must be playing in very different Tier 3 games, because I’ve never seen anyone want or need to cast 9 Fireballs in a single adventuring day, ever. None of the PCs I’ve seen capable of such things, even the Arcane Trickster with the Wand of Fireballs, for whom it was obviously their best AoE, chucked more than 3 or so a game.

To me this is a difference in psychology: casting 3 of your 9 total Fireballs feels fine, but casting 3 of your 3 total Fireballs feels bad/risky, so you wind up casting only 1 or 2 Fireballs so you can save the third one. (And of course it's not really purely about Fireballs--Fly and Hold Person IV-V are good spells too.)

Don't forget that there's also a difference in effectiveness: with this rule change, you spend levels 11-12 casting Shatter instead of Fireball.

[Zuras]

To me this is a difference in psychology: casting 3 of your 9 total Fireballs feels fine, but casting 3 of your 3 total Fireballs feels bad/risky, so you wind up casting only 1 or 2 Fireballs so you can save the third one. (And of course it's not really purely about Fireballs--Fly and Hold Person IV-V are good spells too.)

Don't forget that there's also a difference in effectiveness: with this rule change, you spend levels 11-12 casting Shatter instead of Fireball.

Is it psychology or logic? If you have already run into 9 squads of mooks on patrol, how likely is it that #9 was the last? If two Fireballs don’t do the trick, or if more hordes keep arriving, something with a longer duration or an alternate non-combat solution is probably preferable anyway.

I’m not a total combat-as-war guy, though. I have run sessions where the equivalent of 12+ Fireballs were chucked by one player, but that was an Into the City of the Dead type deal where the Sun Soul Monk got a chance to shine. Again, the party could have avoided the ghoul patrols but the Sun Soul player was making all sorts of semi reasonable arguments like “what if we have to deal with them later all at once when we find the boss vampire?” since he wanted to ash them all.

[MaxWilson]

Is it psychology or logic? If you have already run into 9 squads of mooks on patrol, how likely is it that #9 was the last? If two Fireballs don’t do the trick, or if more hordes keep arriving, something with a longer duration or an alternate non-combat solution is probably preferable anyway.

Huh, well from what you just said there it looks like there's another playstyle difference: I would definitely not assume that 9 Fireballs went to 9 squads of mooks. You could easily use up 3-5 Fireballs in one encounter with a platoon of Githyanki, for example. It takes 2-4 Fireballs to kill any given Githyanki Warrior, and they won't all be clustered in the same place. Fifteen Githyanki Warriors is a perfectly reasonable encounter for Tier 3 PCs in my book, honestly a bit on the small side. (30 would make more sense as a platoon, but 30 teleporting enemies are unwieldy to run so I'd probably break them apart into two squads in hopes that the PCs would tackle the squads separately.)

If you nerf the Elemonk to the point where he's only got two Fireballs all day, what was even the point of him playing through those early levels where Elemonks are bad? At level 13 (under the proposed spell slot rules) they're still bad! But under PHB rules they're pretty awesome in that scenario.

Anyway, playstyle difference: I'm a big believer in bounded accuracy and monsters never going obsolete. I would totally run a level 11-15ish adventure where potential encounters look something like:

Adventure is set up so that PCs are likely to encounter between four and six of the following:
(a) platoon of Githyanki, broken into two fifteen-man squads while they investigate an act of rebellion in Gith territory.
(b) a Githyanki Gish on a Young Red Dragon, actively seeking the PCs
(c) a Nightwalker, unleashed by accident
(d) a hobgoblin platoon (50 hobgoblins + hobgoblin captain + Iron Shadow + Devastator)
(e) six Neogis (one of them a Neogi Master) and six Umber Hulks, opportunistically seeking to capture the PCs as powerful new slaves. Will abandon the hunt as unprofitable and flee if a majority of the neogi are killed or seriously wounded. Umber Hulks don't count.
(f) 4 Frost Giants and an Abominable Yeti.
(g) Two Glabrezus and a Goristro fighting a Drow Favored Consort and a Draegloth, PCs can choose to aid one side.

I'd have to give some thought to why Neogis, hobgoblins, giants, and Githyanki would all be fighting over the same chunk of territory (probably in space) and maybe I'd change these monsters up, but that's not the point. My instincts and experience tell me that this is about the right level of difficulty to challenge (and therefore entertain) a level 11-15 party of 4 PCs. Anyway, I could certainly imagine an elemonk only spending 2-4 Fireballs all day in this adventure because she might have better things to do each round, but hopefully you can see why running completely out of Fireballs for the day would feel bad/risky: the player doesn't know if there's more githyanki or hobgoblin patrols out there.

I’m not a total combat-as-war guy, though. I have run sessions where the equivalent of 12+ Fireballs were chucked by one player, but that was an Into the City of the Dead type deal where the Sun Soul Monk got a chance to shine. Again, the party could have avoided the ghoul patrols but the Sun Soul player was making all sorts of semi reasonable arguments like “what if we have to deal with them later all at once when we find the boss vampire?” since he wanted to ash them all.

That's reasonable. The DM needs to handle it in a way such that it doesn't take up much table time though, since easy combats are boring. One way I've handled such things in the past is to tell the players something like "If you can beat these ghouls with disadvantage on all your rolls and advantage on all of theirs, we'll assume that that was the unluckiest you got all day, and you win 5 other such combats without having to play them out. I'll grant you the XP for all six combats and then we'll skip ahead to the interesting stuff."

[Kane0]

I’m not a total combat-as-war guy, though. I have run sessions where the equivalent of 12+ Fireballs were chucked by one player, but that was an Into the City of the Dead type deal where the Sun Soul Monk got a chance to shine. Again, the party could have avoided the ghoul patrols but the Sun Soul player was making all sorts of semi reasonable arguments like “what if we have to deal with them later all at once when we find the boss vampire?” since he wanted to ash them all.

If you nerf the Elemonk to the point where he's only got two Fireballs all day, what was even the point of him playing through those early levels where Elemonks are bad? At level 13 (under the proposed spell slot rules) they're still bad! But under PHB rules they're pretty awesome in that scenario.

Hmm, how about Burning Hands for 2 Ki @ lvl 3, Flaming Sphere for 3 Ki @ lvl 5 and Fireball for 5 Ki @ lvl 13 wrapped into the same Discipline?
And the same sort of thing for the others too, so you end up with Elemental Attunement plus four sets of these.

[MaxWilson]

Hmm, how about Burning Hands for 2 Ki @ lvl 3, Flaming Sphere for 3 Ki @ lvl 5 and Fireball for 5 Ki @ lvl 13 wrapped into the same Discipline?
And the same sort of thing for the others too, so you end up with Elemental Attunement plus four sets of these.

I don't like it. Flaming Sphere is a bad spell, and you're raising the price on Fireball and delaying it until level 13.

[Kane0]

Hmm, there's also Ag's Scorcher and Scorching Ray instead.

So many fire spells, so few for the others...