Is Way of the Ascendant Dragon still a good/decent Monk Subclass?

[Foolwise]

1) As monk gets neither skill you'd need a background that give both persuasion and deception, which I don't think exists. Even if it did I'm guessing it would be an odd/awkward one for a monk to justify in most cases.

Urban Bounty Hunter allows you to pick two from Deception, Insight, Persuasion, and Stealth.

PHB allows players to swap skills at creation if their background doubles up a skill from their class. Doing this opens up another 20+ backgrounds (incl variants).

Nevermind the fact the PHB says at the start of the chapter on backgrounds that they are fully customizable. Players can take any two skills they want with their background if the recommended ones do not fit their build.

edit- looks like I got shadow monk'd while checking how many backgrounds opened up

[ProsecutorGodot]

1) Point, but again - if your party has the monk as the face something has likely gone quite wrong somewhere. I'm not saying it's a useless feature, just odd.

2) AoE spells do a hell of a lot more base damage than 2d4 generally, and scale much faster than martial arts die do. Even burning hands starts at 3d6, and that's at level 1! I don't see what's controversial about 2d4+Wis.

3) I didn't say it wasn't useful out of combat.

4) I'm devaluing it because it's a 17th level feature that just isn't all that impressive. The fact that other martials can get the effect much earlier than they do is just a bonus.

1)It's an option for a Monk to contribute socially, which is fantastic to have because they're otherwise given little reason to even consider being sociable thanks to their MAD ability score requirements. It's good for build diversity and the effect can be substantial if they lean into it given the opportunity.

2)AoE spells are also typically less frequent in occurrence and made from less durable characters. I'm not saying that adding a Wisdom modifier will guarantee that it's busted, just that the mentality that it can't have an impact is something I don't agree with. Mostly I'm hesitant to add it because, in my opinion, the damage isn't going to be lackluster in scenarios where you're planning on using it.

3)All I'm saying is that as far as design goes you should be comparing it to the power level of other 6th level monk abilities. It even leans on the more useful side of those so I'd say it's a "good" feature.

4)Good thing it's not the only thing they get at 17th level. You're comparing it to an ASI version of a fighting style, that makes it look pretty appealing as the extra third bullet point attached to my cool big dragon breath and nova. You can get a pretty big damage AoE by combining your various effects (which at this level isn't all that costly) for 7d10 save for half where the aoe overlap.

The first time you do this it only costs a single ki point, then 4 for each use after the first until you've done it 6 times. That's a lot of uses, you'll probably be doing it pretty often.

[Psyren]

1)It's an option for a Monk to contribute socially, which is fantastic to have because they're otherwise given little reason to even consider being sociable thanks to their MAD ability score requirements. It's good for build diversity and the effect can be substantial if they lean into it given the opportunity.

2)AoE spells are also typically less frequent in occurrence and made from less durable characters. I'm not saying that adding a Wisdom modifier will guarantee that it's busted, just that the mentality that it can't have an impact is something I don't agree with.

3)All I'm saying is that as far as design goes you should be comparing it to the power level of other 6th level monk abilities. It even leans on the more useful side of those so I'd say it's a "good" feature.

4)Good thing it's not the only thing they get at 17th level. You're comparing it to an ASI version of a fighting style, that makes it look pretty appealing as the extra third bullet point attached to my cool big dragon breath and nova. You can get a pretty big damage AoE by combining your various effects (which at this level isn't all that costly) for 7d10 save for half where the aoe overlap.

The first time you do this it only costs a single ki point, then 4 for each use after the first until you've done it 6 times. That's a lot of uses, you'll probably be doing it pretty often.

I didn't say "can't have an impact" either.

For Draconic Disciple, my point is you can have both (a reason to be sociable, and a mechanically strong feature.) Compare Draconic Disciple to something like Otherworldly Glamour or even Elegant Courtier, there's no reason monk can't get something like that. But I get the feeling that some monk fans would fight tooth and nail against them getting subclass features as strong as even other martials get, and I just don't understand why.

[stoutstien]

I didn't say "can't have an impact" either.

For Draconic Disciple, my point is you can have both (a reason to be sociable, and a mechanically strong feature.) Compare Draconic Disciple to something like Otherworldly Glamour or even Elegant Courtier, there's no reason monk can't get something like that. But I get the feeling that some monk fans would fight tooth and nail against them getting subclass features as strong as even other martials get, and I just don't understand why.

Mostly because monks are truly unique in play style/impact so most of the efforts ppl make to 'balance' them end up just turning them into a lame tribute to fighters.

[ZRN]

I think the objection in this case is that its solidly in line with other monk subclasses and many people (myself included) feel that monk needs a power boost to be more competetive so I want to see stronger monk subclasses.

Yeah, but this is always risky, because if you buff the class through subclasses you end up with fewer "non-trap" options. Sorcerers are the obvious example: post-Tasha it feels really mechanically suboptimal to make, say, a shadow sorcerer or a storm sorcerer. Better to rebalance the core class if there are real balance issues.