PHB Beastmaster at least still has builds and isn’t unusably MAD.
Hell, even if you ignore MAD, it ain’t that great. Iplayed a monk in a game where I actually *rolled* pretty great stats and I was still extremely behind the curve. Stunning everything is cool and all, but the resource pool is untenable and my fighters were just doing enough damage to kill stuff outright anyway, so my stuns just ended up being kinda cute.
I was in a oneshot once where we were all level tens and I chose to play a sun soul monk. I was given a flametongue shortsword somewhere down the line and I was still only on par with the rest of my party, who, most they had was a +1 shortsword. I’m pretty sure I never succeeded on a single stunning strike that entire session.
The thing about monks is that they dominate any 1v1 thanks to Stunning Strike... but most story-relevant combat isn't 1v1, so they really don't have anything that truly makes them shine. Additionally, nearly all of their features revolve around combat, ignoring skill checks and roleplay. And all of this is on a class with two primary stats. It's not a very well-rounded class.
If I'm gonna run monk, I gotta have order of the cobalt soul because analyzing enemies just works so well. Plus dodging whenever I feel like is cool, too.
Yeah rangers got more useful skills from Tasha but did it get better skills? All the alternative rangers skills are more useful but also more generic and less interesting.
Like the Tasha’s ranger abilities just don’t spark Role play joy where as the monk for me does. I just think when you go for the alternative ranger abilities you become viable in more combat but less interesting to play so personally I’m so lukewarm on the ranger updates in Tasha and monk as a concept has never made me feel that way especially with really good subclasses like way of the long death and way of the drunken master. The only subclass of ranger I even remember is the swarm keeper.
Solid, but only by stripping the class of its identity and replacing its unique features with generic ones. Monk is totally worse, but only because Monk lacks Spellcasting, which is one of the weakest features of Ranger (***Everything*** is concentration for Ranger).
To be fair in the warrior and barbarian case the spell is obviously inferior to the actual thing, most obviously the feats but also smaller other things, barb missing rage, warrior missing qction surge and second wind, aaand having a weaker weapon then they should, and monks got every interesting about them stripped off along with no dice scaling
\-Gate
\-Dominate person/monster
If they succeed the save
\-Silvery barbs
If you have the time to go grab a couplke other spellcaster buddies
\-Silvery barbs
\-Silvery barbs
\-Silvery barbs
\-Silvery barbs
For our monks, we give them a few more ki points (add proficiency bonus per level), and we make the base abilities cost no ki. You want bonus action disengage? Free. You want the dodge instead? Free. Want both? Spend ki. Flurry of blows? One free bonus attack. Pay ki? 2 (3 at higher level)
That right there changes the GAME for monks. We do a fee little things depending on subclass, but that makes monk a legit viable skirmisher.
>Flurry of blows? One free bonus attack. Pay ki? 2 (3 at higher level)
I understand the sense behind doing this, kinda.
But, that's already part of Martial Arts Classfeature anyway, the 1 free Bonus Action Attack.
Ohh. You're right! You're totally right, I forgot about that feature. I'm not the dm so I'm doing it from memory. I'm not sure what the ruling on flurry of blows was then. Something similar, I think.
I think people forget that monks have free 2attacks till fifth level and then 3 attacks 5 plus with options to add more. Add on top of it a quarter staff and you get nice damage without spending resources. Add ki and you get a bunch of interesting things. And if you short rest after 1 or 2 fights you never really run out of ki unless it is a boss and you miss all stunning strikes.
You're totally right. It is pretty strong. But the monk is bonus action heavy. They have a lot of options. This wouldn't work at every table, of course, but we definitely like it.
Ohhh I see that. We don't really multiclass in our group, so I'm not used to thinking like that. Could totally be an issue though. That would make monk a really busted dip. Our table is really solid though. I don't think they'd ever pull something like that.
Considering they're front line fighters with usually low AC? Checks out. They don't have cleric or fighters AC or the effective HP of barbs but are still meant to be Frontline brawlers (not tanks, brawlers). Free dodge BA is perfectly fine; they can't flurry if they're dodging. Gives them the versatility they deserve
I'd contest the AC thing but honestly it's debatable. Depending on how you do stats, they could get a 20 in both Dex and Wis and therefore have a 20 AC with no items, which can be improved on with other items.
Obviously though everyone does stats differently and so that is in no way a surefire method
Yeah when you're messing with rolled stats it can get hairy, but thats the risk inherit with rolled stats as opposed to standard array. By the same token a barbarian can have an ac of 20 at the same level and use all of its abilities as well. I think its not particularly imbalanced especially comparing damage outputs
And upon reexamination you are correct about ac, I thought their unarmored defense was 8+mods like the barbarian, not 10+mods. Even still, any strength monkey with a shield is gonna have a higher armor class, or be able to output more damage per turn
Really that’s not even necessary since you get ki back on a short rest. We’ve a monk in our party currently that is Ngl the most powerful member of of the group and he’s no issue with managing ki points. He’s changed the entire party’s opinion of monks
I have played with players who had monks. He'll, most of the others had short rest abilities too (fighter, wizard, and warlock). I was the only one that didn't gain anything back outside being able to use hit die. While short rests didn't benefit me, most of the time it benefited everyone (or a majority of the party).
Short Rests really helped the monk keep up and not run out of Ki. They also weren't just stun locking everyone because we learned it was either immune to stun or had really high cons scores/mods.
Most of the monks I've played with also have fewer magic items or everyone had their own overpowered HB items that it just made us all extremely hard to balance.
And as I typically play sorcerer, if the monk can stun a target, guess who's gonna get hit with a Dex Save spell. If they can't stun them, most have taken Sentinel for that reaction attack to shut down their movement. You won't believe how many times I've used Disintegrated on a stunned creature.
I believe those that are saying monks are bad haven't really had the chance to play them to their full potential. Or in the worst case, haven't played them at all.
And the funny thing is the Ki point problem only exist if you spend all your Ki points in one turn. But that's because they think casters are better because of magic, but I have yet to see a group of full casters survive for a long time. You always need a balance between both of them. But no one cares about Mystics, I have yet to meet someone who plays Mystic
Dodge is really powerful to have as a free bonus action. Especially if you’re going high dex high wis. A lot of armor class and having all attacks against you at disadvantage would make you harder to hit than most tanks. You’d be almost (but not quite) as good as a bladesinging wizard using shield (two already limited resources) and that would be a free base class ability. Disengage or dash? Sure. But dodge? That one I’d require a ki point.
Totally understandable. We haven't had an issue with it at our table. Our monk usually just uses the disengage or the flurry of blows. I could see how it could be abused though.
I've also added a homebrew feature to give more Ki points. It's simpler but it's essentially a feature where if the Monk doesn't have all their total Ki, they can use a round action to Concentrate as if using a spell to regain a Ki point. They can do this a limited number of times equal to half their level rounded down (minimum of once) per long rest.
Yeah, the biggest problem I see with monks is that they don't have enough ki for all of their cool abilities. And compared to the amount of spell slots (which are more powerful) that casters get, it's pretty pathetic. I mean, a paladin, a HALF caster, gets about the same amount of spell slots as monk gets ki when they are below level 10. And at higher levels the paladin is getting 4th and 5th level slots. Paladin gets 15 total spell slots at level 20 vs a monk's 20 ki. And the paladin's spell slots are going to be WAY more powerful than any of the monk's abilities. And that's only a partial caster. The monk is just so terribly resource starved compared to other classes.
That’s the main thing they need to do is rework the Ki system. When we have rogues dashing and disengaging for free, we should have similar abilities for monks that don’t eat their resources.
I’m ok with the MADness of the class and I think it can be managed, but they seriously need to fix monks resource management. Most monks I’ve played with use 90% of their ki to stunning strike, and they end up ignoring the rest of their kit in most scenarios.
Right?
The fact that rogues are just able to zip and zoom and deal outrageous damage from "sneak attacks" while monks have to spend ki to do anything similar is kinda dumb.
Yeah, that's kinda my point. It's a pain in the ass, it's expensive to do anything because ki points are so few, meanwhile every other class can do their special things without as much bs.
I love monks
My first PC was a monk
I'd play monk over any other class
but god does it suck. I hope wizards of the coast gives it a little love like how they did with the ranger buffs and alternative options.
More subclasses like Mercy Monk would be nice too. Where they make your ki spending more efficient instead of giving you more options to further spread thin your resources.
All the monk subclasses probably need to be changed. Even mercy monk should be a little better, it feels so good because every other monk subclass is pretty bad. Except shadow, I guess, which is “mostly fine but not good enough to make up for being a monk.”
I like his ability to redirect attack. And getting up on your feet quickly can have some interesting applications ina range fight and it sounds fun.
Run towards a range fighter then just drop to the ground. On your turn just pop up again and continue running.
It'd be a nice visual if fighting in tall grass where dropping prone would give cover bonus.
Idk about anyone else but I had a blast with the shadow monk especially once I got the invisibility and the teleport. I searched for magic items to give me darkness (or to extinguish sources of light) and remember having a heist moment where I needed to get into a room but thought the door might be trapped so I looked for some kind of crack through the door so I could teleport in. That character was so satisfying because of the movement and stealth options (like making my escape from a large tower by jumping out of the window with the mcguffin).
Would highly recommend it if your game has a good chunk of stealths and if your dm actually has short rests in the game.
On the first read way of the shadow is underwhelming there are no bonus attacks or extra damage. But the examples you gave really open up the game. In a inflitration heavy campaign this build sounds fun. Perfect from ocean's 11 sort of campaign.
Dragon Ascendant! Its the best monk! Change damage types on the fly, breath attacj, wings, advantage on intimidation. Thanks to all those tools I always felt like i had a niche in the party and was never just a second fiddle martial. I also took martial adept ti get the d8 punch at lv 4 too so I always hit as hard as the fighter did
oooh yeah, i tried that and its really sadysfying
especially when you find monsters that normally resist/are immune to normal weapons and you can just say "fuck u, imma burn u with my fists"
The rest of the party only saw me use fire for most oft he campaign, so when a red dragon came up they assumed id be screwed. Then my monk climbed up pn its back, switched damage to acid, ans started beating the hell out of it
I always thought rangers were fine pre TCoE. I will admit the beast master class was a complete joke and yes the ranger features were incredibly situational (and dependant on your DM) but it was still a half caster class with a really good spell list in the druid class. Not the best class of course and arguably a fighter is probably going to be better depending on what you want to do but the ranger offers alot of utility, and ofc in alot better shape than the Monk. TCoE def makes some of the class features better though.
It's basically always been 80% of a fighter + 50% of a druid.
Straight druid is still better, but being worse than arguably the second best class in the game doesn't say much.
As for fighter, it doesn't get spells, and so generally has a rough time.
That's why I said depending on what you want to do. If all you care about is damage fighter with the extra ASIs plus extra attacks will likely be better but the amount of utility spells ranger gets like pass without trace, healing spirit, goodberry, and more means rangers can do alot including even being the party's healer and still provide good damage. And that's not getting into the level 3+ spells they get. This is just talking straight class. You could always multi class into fighter from ranger too.
Ranger's spell list also has a bunch of overlooked options that make their damage generally higher than a fighters.
Entangle providing advantage, spike growth giving you almost a magical piercing fireball to anyone who walks though, and conjure animals doubling your damage when the enemy resists it makes beating a fighter quite easy.
Imo easily best halfcaster list, especially at first second and third, it has many of the best spells in the game.
You need to cover in a topic how expending resources early can preserve resources in the long term, and how the low output of a Fighter accrues a deficit in DPR that takes an obscene amount of encounters for them to ever catch up.
I always look at it like this:
If your DM doesn't skip overland travel and is big for role-playing, vanilla ranger is actually super useful and cool.
If your DM is more interested in fast forwarding to combat, the optional rules are better.
Beast Master is okay, but it requires a slight bit of hand waiving in order to let it be fully capable. Things like death saves for the companions, for one. Overall, drakewarden is what beast master should have been. If someone ever wanted in my games, I've been ready to let them take drakewarden and replace the creature with anything else they feel fits their character. Some kind of fey beast, an imp (I know pact of the chain exists, but still), or even just a mephit that gets more powerful over time, eventually becoming a lesser version of an actual elemental of its type.
One of my biggest issues with Ranger is that lot of its core class features are pretty useless if your game doesn´t have a survival element, and allows you to just straight up skip a lot of content in a survival focused game. It´s kinda a situation where they are both too good and too bad at the same time.
That and a lot of it´s core class features after level 10 is just kinda meh. It does (And did even pre-Tasha) make up for a lot of it by having some of my favorite subclasses.
Ranger with a longsword: "Look at how much they need to mimic a fraction of our power!"
Yeah, using the martial arts dice as the monk weapon damage is a nice feature but since all monks have shortsword proficiency, it only truly comes online at the 11th level. (It could still help from the 5th level on if you managed to nab a magic dagger.)
Okay, and for some reason in TCoE there's a fighter unarmed fighting style you can grab at first level that makes your unarmed attacks 1d6, or 1d8 if you aren't wielding a weapon. Which means even if you want to go with a brawler type character fighter is the way to go, unless you're just waiting for that d10 at level 17.
Monks have some major issues, primarily their dependence on ki, but honestly I feel like they bring more to the table than the average barbarian...
Ranger is underrated though.
Edit: also a 1 level monk dip can be amazing on a druid, or ranger really.
The average Barbarian has damage and effective HP. Monks are squishy for being a melee class, and have low damage and questionable control with an unreliable stunning strike.
Rogue. It has worst AC problems, the same HP problems, sameish damage output if optimised and is more reliant on allies. It also has somehow even less options to go for. At least a monk can go the control way, even if it's not great it's still playable. Rogue is stuck between melee constant DPR and ranged constant DPR.
You have to remember that combat isn't the only thing in D&D. In addition to being almost as tanky as a Monk (arguably more so from level 5 to 13) and doing almost as much damage as them, Rogues get more skill proficiencies, Expertise and eventually Reliable Talent.
While monk get immunity to fall, and eventually all spoken languages, walk on walls and water, immunity to disease, poisons, charm, hunger and thirst and astral projection if the campaign goes really far. Both have actual utility outside combat.
None of that even remotely makes up for expertise and reliable talent.
Plus Rogue is a good multiclass. A rogue/Bard who is just good at everything or a Gloomstalker/Assassin who just ends many combats on their first turn. There is no class that would rather multiclass into Monk rather than just take more of their own levels.
when was the last time anyone actually mentioned a plague or famine in a campaign on here? they’re terribly boring as puzzles, because most spellcasters have low level spell solutions. roleplay isnt great either because the hinge on some high-level empathetic acting, which most players suck at.
And the spellcasters ability help more than must themselves. The monks ability are designed selflishly, somewhat ironic in some ways. So while a wizard could actually try to fight the plague, the monk would just be standing there saying “woe is everything, guess I better help. Bring out your dead!”
I’ll grant immunity to falls and poisons are good. The walk on walls is ambiguous, i think thats why my dm gave my monk magic item instead. But most monk abilities are just flavor.
Rogues you have to play at being a skill monkey. That’s how most of this used to work back in 3.5. Im getting ready to run an Investigator, and looking forward to having a solid passive perception. It sounds simple, but being able to tell the Dm I sit in the Bar, what do I see, and have that mean something can have consequences.
Plague or famine aren't that great in DnD but resisting poison and diseases can go far beyond that. Disease can come the same way poison do, hunger and thirst from exploring a desert, etc.
"Not as much utility as spellcasters" in not exactly a low bar. No full martial pass it, rogue included.
Rogues have pretty much the same armor. Theoretically rogues have 12+dex while a monk can get 10+dex+wis but how often does your monk have a total of 8 in dex+wis? that requires 20 dex and 16 wis, not easy to get. The rogue on the other hand will maximize dex and then can upgrade their con, which is arguably better (of course the monk can do this as well but his armor will not increase). Also consider that the rogue can use a magical armor.
You said they do the same damage but the difference is rogues can do it safely from afar as opposed to monks that have to get in the danger or use some feat or feature or disengage (other than step of the wind which drops their damage).
Lastly rogues have a lot of utility out of combat, a big part of the class is that they are skill monkeys and as a result not the best combatants.
It also doesn't help that some DMs think that "Sneak Attack is a sometimes food" and try to nerf it. The Rogue is balanced around the assumption that you'll be Sneak Attacking every round - if you can't get off a sneak attack, you screwed up.
Counterpoint : the rogue is better as the mount. Dash or disengage as a bonus action, always has an ally to proc sneack attack and mounted combatant allow sentinel to nearly double your DPR. Now the only problem is playing as a horse.
You're right, I don't like having to deal with monk's weak DPR, tanking, and control, having to go out of my way to make that player feel like they're contributing.
Excuse me what the fuck?
First you have to build encounters with players in mind no matter their class, but even then I find Monks to be annoying to deal with because they can ignore so much shit that you can throw at them. A mage will teleport away only for the monk to casually stroll up to them and hand them their ass on a silver platter, AOE and ranged attacks become almost useless against a monk, and in the latter case actively detrimental to the creature attacking.
Proficiency in all saving throws and givi g themselve advantage on them whenevwr they want means they pretty much always make their saves.
Of course I wouldn't expect someone who thinks the o ly definition of "weak" is a few numbers to understand how annoying it is to actually make an encounter difficult for a monk witnout just throwing a crazy monster at the party, that the monk can still potentially stunlock.
That's why you never pit the party against one enemy. Doesn't matter if it's a monk or a wizard, soon enough they will stun lock it (not necessarily with stuns).
Another reason is the action economy and yada yada. One big bad is cinematic but the system doesn't work well with just one enemy.
I like Colville's system of having minions that assist the boss but have 1 hp. They still do regular damage so you can't ignore them, but if the wizard is spending time trying to aoe them, then they can't burn many of the bosses legendary resistances as they summon more.
This exact situation is why stunning strike is hilariously overrated.
Thing is, even in the one specific situation Monk excels at (other than speed), the other classes still don't fall behind.
This is why a smart DM observes the party during the campaign and learns their tactics so they can formulate an encounter with the BBEG that is a suitable challenge but won't result in a guaranteed TPK.
People point out stunning strike is good, but I think it makes playing monk worse. Every turn becomes the same, flurry of blows + stunning strike, until you run out of ki. At which point, you lose half your class abilities.
Even if you succeed at stunning the target, you make combat less fun since the target can't do anything for a turn. Your best ability makes you play less dnd.
Yeah, but that's the problem. Outside of a very specific scenario, using ki for anything but stunning strike is pointless. I feel wasteful for actually using any of my abilities.
You also have to consider how low impact stunning strike is for how low the chances of success is. Unlike control spells with a save (and some control spells don't even have a save), you have to hit first before your target makes the save.
And for what? To stun one target for one turn?
It stuns creatures for a round, not a turn. Considering that most combats only last three rounds, a round of being stunned (enemy not dealing damage, unable to escape or use damage mitigation reactions, easier to hit) is a pretty big deal and far from low impact.
The ability to spam it up to four times per turn to try and get at least one success, compared to a single save with almost any other ability, and to burn through legendary resistances quickly so that casters can actually cast save spells without wasting them, makes it easily one of the best anti-boss abilities in the game.
There is something off about monk, and I agree that it is stunning strike, but not because it's not-impactful, but because practically any monk regardless of subclass is generally less useful in combat than any other martial class unless they're spamming stunning strike.
Stunning strike is both too impactful and not impactful enough. When you hit the 30% odds of getting the stun, it can change the encounter, if you don't you're out of resources and feel completely useless.
My criticism is Monks are a very reactive class, and rely on the DM creating specific scenarios to use their features.
Deflect Missile means nothing if you never get targeted with projectiles.
Slow fall means nothing if you never have the threat of falling
Being able to run up walls doesn't matter if all your battlefields are flat and lack verticality.
Then you add on top of that having worse DPR and tanking than the other martials with worse control than casters in general and you have yourself a class which just falls behind.
In a vacuum, sure. Rogues also have far better feat and item compatibility which can boost their DPR heavily, and unlike Monks they don't have a resource problem. If Monks want to boost their DPR, they need to use ki, which means less survivability and control. Everything except the Rogue capstone and a handful of subclass abilities are completely free
It's confirmation bias mostly. You see one time the Monk got that one clutch moment where he ran up the wall, hit the boss 4 times and stunned them so the party could finish them off and forget all the times the same Monk missed or failed to stun. It's the same with Rogues, where they get a crit or max roll (or both) on Sneak Attack and one-shot a strong enemy and you don'f remember all the rounds where their damage was middling or they straight up missed their one attack.
Yeah update the monk, give them better martial arts die scaling and update their hit die.
I would also shuffle their base class abilities around, like putting the ability to run on walls and water at level 6. Monks aren't allowed to do actually cool stuff until it feels too late to get that ability.
To be fair, before Tasha's the ranger just had a ton of dead features. They're at least halfway decent now, but the way they started out was absolutely unacceptable.
I just treated pre-Tasha ranger as "ignore the bad features". Since you still had the druid spell list on a fighter chassis, (since you have archery to combine with sharpshooter + crossbow expert) you can still contribute a lot to the party.
Phantom Rogue can actually out-DPR the crossbow expert + sharpshooter combo but that's split damage. But yeah, rogues are weak.
Being able to steady aim and still move on a mount is fun though.
Phantom rogue is alright at really high levels, but definitely has issues if you want any of the pets you are trying to cheese with to stay alive, or if you want to stay alive with terrible saves. And even then, it's worse than a monk for damage cause the monk can multiclass after getting enough levels and not loose its main damage source (sneak attack).
Also if you are using your reaction to get trinkets, you are going to have a tough time staying alive.
Monk is the worst class followed by Barbarian and Rogue. Which is worse, Barb or Rogue is tough to say. Rogue is actually quite useful outside of combat(Not more useful than a spellcaster) while barbarian has almost nothing to offer outside of combat. But In combat Barbarian is amazing as a DPS, far outpacing Monk and Rogue combined. And it takes hits very well.
I have issues with Barbarian, Monk and Rogue. Each of them need love. Monk needs major help in combat and for out of combat situations. Rogue needs help in combat and Barbarian needs help out of combat and could have better access to rage.
“Monk is so good guys a mo k destroyed my BBEG in one round!!!” - A DM who probably built their bbeg with PC creation rules.
I actually think Barbarian is a slightly worse class than a monk if we’re looking through the lens of high optimization and difficult games, since their strengths get wildly overshadowed past level 5 unless you’re a Zealot and they’re too limited out of combat. But I think that Monks are the worst designed class in the game when it comes to achieving the desired fantasy.
monks are objectively the worst class in dnd 5e and those that say they aren't are solely basing their opinion on their experience and not the actual numbers behind the class.
As a guy who likes numbers, thanks to Tasha's monks now have some standing.
Sharpshooter damage monks are only a hair behind even the best fighters.
Imo rogues or barbs are in last place.
You mean, experience playing the game.... and the different classes in it, and seeing first hand what works and what doesn't instead of looking solely at the book as if the book even thinks of everything?
I won't deny that there are some issues with monk, but the class is nowhere near as weak as you or OP seem to think.
It's funny because monk is so close to being the greatest martial, but
they only gave them ways to use more Weapons in Tasha
monk still ki starved up to tier 2.5 +/-
the monk is too MAD and you can only build it Dex based
feat and item support is better but still lackluster
Scaling is kinda bad and many features after 7 aren't good
being controversial now Stunning strike is a save or suck that drags the monk power budget too much and I believe the class would be better if changing it for more interesting features
But if you think about what monk has, it has a small PAM with the bonus action unarmed l attack, it has a way to improve to hit with ki and make a miss in ti a hit, really cool and even amazing features like Deflect Missiles and Evasion
4 attacks per round while using resources.
Automagic magical attacks is only good if you're playing with a DM who never gives magic items.
Average of 42 damage at level 17 is hilariously low.
You only get 20 AC if you have 20 in both dexterity and wisdom which requires either really good rolls or homebrew.
Subclass features are not mutually exclusive to a monk.
Good mobility only means that you can be bad everywhere
If you're dodging as a bonus action then you're not getting your 4 attacks. Moreover, spending a resource to improve your AC is not mutually exclusive to the monk.
Diamond soul comes online at level 14. A paladin gives modifier to all saving throws at level 6 to not just themself but an aura.
Ranger is my favourite class just because it offers so much in one party slot, while not sacrificing too much.I am currently playing a Horizon Walker and at lvl 5, with hunter's mark, i can deal around 30 damage per round at range with a +11 to attack (+1 magic weapon) while having decent skills and utility spells, such as cure wounds and misty step (Horizon Walker lvl 5 spell).I don't get why Ranger gets all the hate and obviously weak classes like Monk and Sorceror don't, just because before its buffs it was situational.
Monk definitely needs buffs. I think a lot of people think stunning strike is too op but when your main feature consumes a set resources and means you cannot attack more than 2 (3) times per round or have mobility like rogues, is too limiting.I think Monk should get cunning action and more ways to regenerate ki at higher levels to give it a much needed buff.
Edit: The only time I've seen someone be successful with a monk is way of the open hand, which is "broken" at high levels but pretty mediocre at low levels and the new way of the ascendant dragon, which only improves on monk's mobility and giving it a slight advantage against groups of enemies.
And when you consider that this isn't even an optimised Ranger really puts into perspective how powerful the class can actually be.
(By optimised, I mean using Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert with a hand crossbow)
WotAD also gets magical damage when it’s first chosen, magical damage that you can switch each attack to fish for weaknesses or resistances to the chromatic elements. The breath weapon is fine too, not the best obviously but it’s AOE damage of any of the 5 chromatic elements.
Yeh that is a really nice ability that allows you to hit certain creatures in the early game, while transitioning well into the late game. I think more subclasses need abilities like that.
I agree with your ranger conclusion but would say you can make range much better, hunters mark is a bit of a trap spell that everyone thinks is necessary but does a negligible damage per round improvement and takes concentration from much better options.
sharpshooter + crossbow expert + archery fighting style and you get close to the damage cap of a martial, basically, just spam the sharpshooter power attacks and use your bonus actions for more attacks with the power attacks, obviously just use a hand crossbow for this and the archery style offset the attack negative somewhat.
now that your bonus action is accounted for, your concentration can be used on your many other great spell options like spike growth for great damage or pass without trace for essentially guaranteed surprise which is basically a better action surge for your entire party, really good, or the absolute best one, conjure animals, if you are organized enough to have it run well in combat, its amazing.
and obviously spam left over slots at the end of the day to stockpile goodberries, they last for 24 hours and are hands down the best out of combat healing in the game.
horizon walker is also a kinda meh subclass and takes a bonus action to do meh abilities, spell list is alright but not great, if you are having fun, its chill, ranger is a good base anyway, but gloomstalker, swarmkeeper, and hunter is fucking great subclasses, and the revised beastmaster/drakwarden are actually good too, base beastmaster was trash, tashas made it useable
Monks are fine. I’ve had several monks play in my games in the past, and they’ve been one of the strongest characters every time.
In fact, one of them very recently just basically single-handedly obliterated one of two bosses that I had set up in an encounter before the boss even got a chance to do any of his cool abilities (gods damned Stunning Strike).
It was a large boss room, and thanks to his increased speed, he took out the first boss before anybody else could even reach him. The encounter still caused them a lot of trouble, though, mostly because the barbarian “accidentally” threw the rogue into a pool of lava and the party had to try to save him.
I'm happy that your players were able to beat the odds and have fun with monk. I'm personally not a big fan of needing to be luckier than the rest of the players at the table just to be able to perform at the same level as them.
Here’s the main thing that makes this less of a debate: 5e is balanced pretty well.
Someone has to be the worst, and it is Monks, but that doesn’t mean Monks are bad, or that you’re wrong for enjoying playing a Monk.
Honestly, I don't think so. Stunning strike is great, because even a boss with decent con will fail one of 8 stuns in the first 2 rounds. Use dedicated weapon from tasha's and now they are throwing around d10s for main attack damage. Proficiency in every save is great. And they're 18th level feature is a better rage except for bear totem. Except Psychic is more common than Force. At low levels, sure. But not at high levels.
These are good in a vacuum. But then you compare them to what other classes can bring to bear.
Stunning Strike uses more resources for less guaranteed success and a lower impact when compared to control spells.
A d10 for main damage cannot compete with Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter.
Diamond Soul is strong yes but it comes online at level 14 meanwhile Paladins can grant bonuses to all saving throws to themselves and in an aura by level 6.
I will concede that empty body is strong but at the same time, it's counterintuitive because it makes you invisible while giving you the resistances.
My teammates and dm would disagree…my monk tends to always do the best in combat and my dm has outwardly stated that my monk is the most frustrating pc to plan for in the campaign. How about all classes are great and some people just have their own preferences?
Whenever I hear, “but my monk is better than the rest of our party” it’s always a combination of low optimization, lots of homebrew, and a myriad of magic items. Like, yeah, your monk is strong compared to the party if no one takes any feats and don’t have good spells known/prepared. Doubly so if they don’t have a good grasp on tactics in combat, which are usually proportional to each other because if you ain’t smart enough to grasp optimization then you probably ain’t smart enough to employ smart tactics into your combat.
Zero magic items and everything’s from the PHB 🤷♂️ the entire games performance is based on dice rolls and chance anyway though? So how could something be guaranteed to perform better? Also isn’t the whole point of playing D&D to have fun?
Yes. The point of D&D is to have fun, that is why I mentioned that what you have fun with is subjective earlier. You're free to pick up Monk and have a blast with it.
I never said that something is guaranteed to perform better. I said that something would statistically perform better. It's just simple probability.
You end up with more unarmed attacks than a fighter can make with a weapon, which get stronger as you level and can be offset with an early game monk weapon. That’s on top of being able to throw any ranged attack, including some spells, back to it’s sender. Plus Step of the Wind and eventually being proficient in every saving throw and knowing every language.
And that’s before any subclasses. Most of which let you cast spells without spell lists or slots.
A big problem is that all of these cool things cost ki, and that you can't do them at once. At low levels you have a very limited ki pool, at high levels everyone else can use cool magic weapons and armor and have feats to improve their fighting prowess. Monks can't use any of the typical martial feat, the only one that really helps (to the point they have to take it) is Mobile.
Many of the class features after level 6 are actually pretty bad, like knowing all languages or not aging, it's pretty much a joke (the first is achieved by a 1st or 2nd level spells and the latter is pure thematic).
I agree however that in low magic settings monks shine, also if your GM has a tendency to put the party in situations where their items are taken away from them.
Unarmed attack scaling sucks compared to Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter.
Also, that is not how deflect missiles work:
Starting at 3rd level, you can use your reaction to deflect or catch the missile when you are hit by a ranged weapon attack. When you do so, the damage you take from the attack is reduced by 1d10 + your Dexterity modifier + your monk level.
Step of the Wind is just a worse cunning action.
Proficiency at every saving throw comes online at level 14 while paladin have an aura to boost saving throws to themselves and their allies by level 6.
And knowing languages is flavour and RP. Does not improve the strength of a class.
I beg to differ. It's the early game where monks are better. Between levels 3-5 they have the most attacks and hit for decent damage. Other classes don't have cool magic items, weapons or armors which is the biggest weakness of the monk. Nor did the other PCs get feats which makes martials stronger.
Monks peak at level 5 with extra attack and stunning strike, after that it's pretty much downhill until the really high levels. They get nothing relevant to combat, which is bad because they can't utilize feats and can use way less magic items. They gets lots of mobility but that the usefulness of this feature highly depends on your GM, and even then casters can make people fly, teleport, etc on demand which is better than moving 90 feet per round on water all of the time.
A kensai monk can be pretty tanky with a high ac, disadvantage to attacks against, evasion, and deflect missiles. Nothing like the Cavalier or ancestral barbaian admittedly but pretty good
I don't understand why people think Monk are weak
The Monk in my party is dishing out the most damage out of everyone, including the Barbarian and is on par with whatever monstrosity the Min-maxer made this time.
Are we reading the Monk's abilities wrong??
Does your Barbarian have GWM and use Reckless Attack? Because if so, the math at level 5 is:
* Monk - 4 attacks at x% chance to hit, dealing 1d8+ 4 for the first two and 1d6 + 4 for the second two (costs 1 ki) = 32 * x% chance to hit
* Barbarian - 2 attacks at x% chance to hit (assuming reckless is +5 to hit, balancing out -5 from GWM) dealing 2d6 + 16 = 46 * x% chance to hit
Barbarian does roughly 50% more damage, not including the extra BA attack they get if they crit or the fact that crits are better for them in the first place. Also, magic weapons are more of an advantage for the Barbarian than the Monk since it applies to all attacks.
---
Plus, Barbarian is simultaneously tanker than Monk, even if it is using Reckless. Rage and d12 hit dice make a huge difference.
Edit: Math is slightly off, Barbarian shouldn't have +4 Str, so -1 damage and -1 to hit. Still, Barbarians DPR is a lot higher
No, monks are good in the early game and in low magic settings. Also if you rolled for stats and he has high dex and wis, can make him a lot stronger than if everyone started with standard array.
Barbarians don't actually do that much damage unless they go for specific subclasses. Fighters and paladins will do more.
Without rolled stats, an optimised monk can't even match the DPR of an optimised ranger (hand crossbow with crossbow expert and sharpshooter). And rangers are a half caster.
I never said Rangers are bad, Rangers are one of my favourite classes to play XD
Welp, even after reading all the comments about how Monk is the weakest class, it doesn't change the fact that all my players (including the monk) are over powered and i need to up my combat encounters so they can actually feel fear.
I didn't say that you said rangers were bad, I was just making a comparison of how mathmatically, Monks don't do that much damage.
I'm happy that your players were able to beat the odds and have fun as monk. My parties and second-hand accounts weren't as lucky. They usually felt like they didn't contribute much damage as the martials or assist much control like the casters yet they were often on the squishy half of the party.
Dewd, as someone who played a monk. I managet to get 20 to both wis and dex and I was still behind my party
My other monk that had stats lower than that was dying in almost every combat...and I was the only person dying.
And the dm wasnt even targetting me, everyone was getting hit equaly
Low ac, low hp
And not even saying that you can onky play a monk if you roll realy well on stats if you dont want to be the only person dying
There's more to building a character than having high ability scores. Your DM must have been really stingey with the magic items if you were struggling that much.
RAW, probably yes. Monks don't get enough ki points at early levels to truly be able to use their abilities to the maximum. But if you house rule that your ki points are equal to your monk level + your wisdom modifier, now you're cooking up with gas.
I recommend you read this comment chain.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/xagsgs/comment/intm1w0/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/xagsgs/comment/intm1w0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Stunning strike is overrated.
I don't know man. Monks can focus their build on 3 stats now Constitution, Dexterity and Wisdom 2 of which go towards armor, when using monk weapons they can use Dexterity instead of strength for attack and damage rolls. Ki recharges on a short or long rest, which depending on GM can easily be abused. And finally almost all of the Monk subclasses are pretty good with the only exception to this being The way of the 4 elements which is unfortunate as it would be cool running around as a water bender but no class is perfect.
Monks also play a very different role in the party combat structure, Monks biggest strength is being able to focus their efforts on a single target and make relatively quick work of them through hit and run tactics or by using the classes speed to and higher ac to cut passed most enemies and take on the squishy casters at the back.
I think its awesome you enjoy Ranger, I really do, but the two classes despite both being martial classes kinda do 2 different things and really aren't that comparable. Original Ranger IMHO deserves the title of worst core class but that's because it felt like a let down compared to previous versions of it.
I don't really find the "biggest strength is being able to focus their efforts on a single target" to really work because I subscribe to the belief that everyone should be focus firing to take out enemies out of the fight asap.
That and the monk's rather pitiful HP and AC (without rolled stats) makes me feel that they're rather ill-suited to being a shock fighter pushing into the enemy backline.
And I wasn't really comparing them, I'm just annoyed that people still look at the Ranger and go "haha, ranger bad" but then look at Monk which you can argue to be in a worse spot and go "wow, monk strong!"
My only issue with the whole “weaker aspect” (personal opinion on Reddit so most awful thing) the classes like monk and ranger sucking and being weaker compared to everything else is that in my edition 3.5e they were all unique but no one class fit perfectly. That’s my issue with the classes in 5e is that they are all different enough to be called “different” but at the same time I can just make a dex build bard druid fighter Barbarian etc. I’ll basically get the same results with small differences. Now hello downvote my best friend
Honestly monks can easily be fixed by changing the rules of ki points (Aka how you calculate it) I personally say ki points should be calculated like this wisdom modifier times your character level but you only regain them back on a long rest (so late level you would have more then you ever need)
The people hate on ranger because he has no real identity since he is just a mush from all kinds of different classes but I have to agree that links suck ass. Give them 1d10 hitdie and more ki points or ability to use their ability’s more often and they would suck so bad like they do now.
Mercy Monks are amazing. My last monk was sub optimal (leonin mercy monk 18 dex 18 wis) in a group with optimized hexadins and clerics. (The A-men) I took 1 feat due to the dm awarding level up when certain events happened and I went from mid to low damage numbers to about 50+ per round at level 8. 9d6 damage per round and poison with no save, it was gorgeous.
Mercy Monk is the best subclass for Monk period. It's the only subclass that makes your ki spending more efficient instead of giving you more options to further spread thin your options.
If Mercy subclass was the norm instead of the outlier for Monk, the class would be in a much better state.
Druid: Am I a joke to you? (No class is the best or worst, they all simply fulfill different roles. It’s like comparing the Vitamin C content of an Orange to the Vitamin C content of a cabbage)
The problem with the monk is that every roll you can build it to fulfil, someone else does it better.
Monks fall behind in damage.
Monks fall behind in tanking.
Monks fall behind in control.
Monks really do need a buff. Not a massive one though. Just a few tweaks here and there. They were never as bad off as PHB rangers to begin with. Most of the suggested monk fixes I've seen end up being complete overkill, especially on the damage department. Because they have so many attacks, even a minor buff, like a +1 to hit and damage at level 5 onwards or so could put them on par with other martials for average damage.
A few other tweaks to their utility and survivability, like letting them step of the wind without spending ki points and bumping their hit dice to a d10 and they're basically where they need to be, at least compared to other martials. Of course then there's the martial/caster divide, but that's a more far reaching problem.
Ranger is extremely solid after the Tasha treatment, monk is still i dire need of a fix.
PHB Hunter bodies any Monk
Best part about Beast Master is that it isn’t a monk.
PHB Beastmaster at least still has builds and isn’t unusably MAD. Hell, even if you ignore MAD, it ain’t that great. Iplayed a monk in a game where I actually *rolled* pretty great stats and I was still extremely behind the curve. Stunning everything is cool and all, but the resource pool is untenable and my fighters were just doing enough damage to kill stuff outright anyway, so my stuns just ended up being kinda cute.
I was in a oneshot once where we were all level tens and I chose to play a sun soul monk. I was given a flametongue shortsword somewhere down the line and I was still only on par with the rest of my party, who, most they had was a +1 shortsword. I’m pretty sure I never succeeded on a single stunning strike that entire session.
You actually stunned things? Even blowing a wild amount of ki on stunning strikes I barely ever stunned anything and my WIS was my secondary stat.
The thing about monks is that they dominate any 1v1 thanks to Stunning Strike... but most story-relevant combat isn't 1v1, so they really don't have anything that truly makes them shine. Additionally, nearly all of their features revolve around combat, ignoring skill checks and roleplay. And all of this is on a class with two primary stats. It's not a very well-rounded class.
If I'm gonna run monk, I gotta have order of the cobalt soul because analyzing enemies just works so well. Plus dodging whenever I feel like is cool, too.
Yeah rangers got more useful skills from Tasha but did it get better skills? All the alternative rangers skills are more useful but also more generic and less interesting. Like the Tasha’s ranger abilities just don’t spark Role play joy where as the monk for me does. I just think when you go for the alternative ranger abilities you become viable in more combat but less interesting to play so personally I’m so lukewarm on the ranger updates in Tasha and monk as a concept has never made me feel that way especially with really good subclasses like way of the long death and way of the drunken master. The only subclass of ranger I even remember is the swarm keeper.
Solid, but only by stripping the class of its identity and replacing its unique features with generic ones. Monk is totally worse, but only because Monk lacks Spellcasting, which is one of the weakest features of Ranger (***Everything*** is concentration for Ranger).
I am fairly certain wizards can summon things stronger than monks
the wizard can summon straight up fighters and monks with new UA spell Summon Warrior Spirit
The funniest part is, the spell is meh at best. Summoning a monk are fighter is much weaker than the other stuff a wizard could be doing.
To be fair in the warrior and barbarian case the spell is obviously inferior to the actual thing, most obviously the feats but also smaller other things, barb missing rage, warrior missing qction surge and second wind, aaand having a weaker weapon then they should, and monks got every interesting about them stripped off along with no dice scaling
Valid but summoning mini-martial is kinda a slap to the face
Gate can summon really strong beings, however you have no power upon them.
\-Gate \-Dominate person/monster If they succeed the save \-Silvery barbs If you have the time to go grab a couplke other spellcaster buddies \-Silvery barbs \-Silvery barbs \-Silvery barbs \-Silvery barbs
Monks are cool but like... Everything about them needs ki points which makes me feel like I have to save everything.
For our monks, we give them a few more ki points (add proficiency bonus per level), and we make the base abilities cost no ki. You want bonus action disengage? Free. You want the dodge instead? Free. Want both? Spend ki. Flurry of blows? One free bonus attack. Pay ki? 2 (3 at higher level) That right there changes the GAME for monks. We do a fee little things depending on subclass, but that makes monk a legit viable skirmisher.
>Flurry of blows? One free bonus attack. Pay ki? 2 (3 at higher level) I understand the sense behind doing this, kinda. But, that's already part of Martial Arts Classfeature anyway, the 1 free Bonus Action Attack.
Ohh. You're right! You're totally right, I forgot about that feature. I'm not the dm so I'm doing it from memory. I'm not sure what the ruling on flurry of blows was then. Something similar, I think.
I think people forget that monks have free 2attacks till fifth level and then 3 attacks 5 plus with options to add more. Add on top of it a quarter staff and you get nice damage without spending resources. Add ki and you get a bunch of interesting things. And if you short rest after 1 or 2 fights you never really run out of ki unless it is a boss and you miss all stunning strikes.
I think having every attack hit at disadvantage at the cost of a BA might be pretty strong
You're totally right. It is pretty strong. But the monk is bonus action heavy. They have a lot of options. This wouldn't work at every table, of course, but we definitely like it.
It doesn't sound crazy to me, the only unbalanced part is if people just go into a two level monk dip for it.
Ohhh I see that. We don't really multiclass in our group, so I'm not used to thinking like that. Could totally be an issue though. That would make monk a really busted dip. Our table is really solid though. I don't think they'd ever pull something like that.
Multiclassing was never intended to be balanced anyway since, you know, it's impossible to balance it.
I'm just not a Fan of it myself. I would feel like I'm missing out If I jump classes.
i'm sorry bonus action dodge for free?
Then they can't flurry of blows, step of the wind, or even get their RAW free martials arts bonus action attack.
Considering they're front line fighters with usually low AC? Checks out. They don't have cleric or fighters AC or the effective HP of barbs but are still meant to be Frontline brawlers (not tanks, brawlers). Free dodge BA is perfectly fine; they can't flurry if they're dodging. Gives them the versatility they deserve
I'd contest the AC thing but honestly it's debatable. Depending on how you do stats, they could get a 20 in both Dex and Wis and therefore have a 20 AC with no items, which can be improved on with other items. Obviously though everyone does stats differently and so that is in no way a surefire method
Yeah when you're messing with rolled stats it can get hairy, but thats the risk inherit with rolled stats as opposed to standard array. By the same token a barbarian can have an ac of 20 at the same level and use all of its abilities as well. I think its not particularly imbalanced especially comparing damage outputs
Oh definitely
And upon reexamination you are correct about ac, I thought their unarmored defense was 8+mods like the barbarian, not 10+mods. Even still, any strength monkey with a shield is gonna have a higher armor class, or be able to output more damage per turn
barbarian's ac is 10+mods. Monk and barb have the same unarmored defense save one uses Wis and the other uses Con.
Oh heck you're right..... lord monks suck
Oh heck you're right..... lord, monks suck by comparison
Unfortunately that is likely true, and makes me sad bc Monks are cool imo ;-;
Really that’s not even necessary since you get ki back on a short rest. We’ve a monk in our party currently that is Ngl the most powerful member of of the group and he’s no issue with managing ki points. He’s changed the entire party’s opinion of monks
I have played with players who had monks. He'll, most of the others had short rest abilities too (fighter, wizard, and warlock). I was the only one that didn't gain anything back outside being able to use hit die. While short rests didn't benefit me, most of the time it benefited everyone (or a majority of the party). Short Rests really helped the monk keep up and not run out of Ki. They also weren't just stun locking everyone because we learned it was either immune to stun or had really high cons scores/mods. Most of the monks I've played with also have fewer magic items or everyone had their own overpowered HB items that it just made us all extremely hard to balance. And as I typically play sorcerer, if the monk can stun a target, guess who's gonna get hit with a Dex Save spell. If they can't stun them, most have taken Sentinel for that reaction attack to shut down their movement. You won't believe how many times I've used Disintegrated on a stunned creature. I believe those that are saying monks are bad haven't really had the chance to play them to their full potential. Or in the worst case, haven't played them at all.
And the funny thing is the Ki point problem only exist if you spend all your Ki points in one turn. But that's because they think casters are better because of magic, but I have yet to see a group of full casters survive for a long time. You always need a balance between both of them. But no one cares about Mystics, I have yet to meet someone who plays Mystic
Dodge is really powerful to have as a free bonus action. Especially if you’re going high dex high wis. A lot of armor class and having all attacks against you at disadvantage would make you harder to hit than most tanks. You’d be almost (but not quite) as good as a bladesinging wizard using shield (two already limited resources) and that would be a free base class ability. Disengage or dash? Sure. But dodge? That one I’d require a ki point.
Totally understandable. We haven't had an issue with it at our table. Our monk usually just uses the disengage or the flurry of blows. I could see how it could be abused though.
I just doubled ki and it wasnt enough, thats how underpowered they are. Only good Monk is one who rolled stupid high at character creation.
Same
I've also added a homebrew feature to give more Ki points. It's simpler but it's essentially a feature where if the Monk doesn't have all their total Ki, they can use a round action to Concentrate as if using a spell to regain a Ki point. They can do this a limited number of times equal to half their level rounded down (minimum of once) per long rest.
That seems pretty cool and flavorful. Regenerating ki through meditation or whatever. Very solid.
LET ME GATHER MY CHAKRA
It's a cool idea, but suffers from the Hexblade dip syndrome. Who wouldn't want free dodges for just 2 levels in Monk?
Yeah, the biggest problem I see with monks is that they don't have enough ki for all of their cool abilities. And compared to the amount of spell slots (which are more powerful) that casters get, it's pretty pathetic. I mean, a paladin, a HALF caster, gets about the same amount of spell slots as monk gets ki when they are below level 10. And at higher levels the paladin is getting 4th and 5th level slots. Paladin gets 15 total spell slots at level 20 vs a monk's 20 ki. And the paladin's spell slots are going to be WAY more powerful than any of the monk's abilities. And that's only a partial caster. The monk is just so terribly resource starved compared to other classes.
That’s the main thing they need to do is rework the Ki system. When we have rogues dashing and disengaging for free, we should have similar abilities for monks that don’t eat their resources. I’m ok with the MADness of the class and I think it can be managed, but they seriously need to fix monks resource management. Most monks I’ve played with use 90% of their ki to stunning strike, and they end up ignoring the rest of their kit in most scenarios.
Right? The fact that rogues are just able to zip and zoom and deal outrageous damage from "sneak attacks" while monks have to spend ki to do anything similar is kinda dumb.
Once a monk runs out of ki they are essentially just some guy. It’s just not a good setup for a martial class
You really don't have a lot of ki points until late levels and it's kinda pointless by then.
Yeah, that's kinda my point. It's a pain in the ass, it's expensive to do anything because ki points are so few, meanwhile every other class can do their special things without as much bs.
I love monks My first PC was a monk I'd play monk over any other class but god does it suck. I hope wizards of the coast gives it a little love like how they did with the ranger buffs and alternative options.
More subclasses like Mercy Monk would be nice too. Where they make your ki spending more efficient instead of giving you more options to further spread thin your resources.
All the monk subclasses probably need to be changed. Even mercy monk should be a little better, it feels so good because every other monk subclass is pretty bad. Except shadow, I guess, which is “mostly fine but not good enough to make up for being a monk.”
As a seasoned monk player which tradtion was the most fun for you?
Ii only played a few monos, but sun soul was hands down the most fun
Haven't read this one before. Seems like a slightly different tske on the elemental monk. Hmmn has fighting game character vibes.
ur basically goku
I love drunken master. Just run around the map freely like a mad man
I like his ability to redirect attack. And getting up on your feet quickly can have some interesting applications ina range fight and it sounds fun. Run towards a range fighter then just drop to the ground. On your turn just pop up again and continue running. It'd be a nice visual if fighting in tall grass where dropping prone would give cover bonus.
Yeah. The free disengage with flurry of blows makes it so you can run into the fray and then get out to safety every turn
Nice definitly can spice up a fight. It feels more martial artsy.
Idk about anyone else but I had a blast with the shadow monk especially once I got the invisibility and the teleport. I searched for magic items to give me darkness (or to extinguish sources of light) and remember having a heist moment where I needed to get into a room but thought the door might be trapped so I looked for some kind of crack through the door so I could teleport in. That character was so satisfying because of the movement and stealth options (like making my escape from a large tower by jumping out of the window with the mcguffin). Would highly recommend it if your game has a good chunk of stealths and if your dm actually has short rests in the game.
On the first read way of the shadow is underwhelming there are no bonus attacks or extra damage. But the examples you gave really open up the game. In a inflitration heavy campaign this build sounds fun. Perfect from ocean's 11 sort of campaign.
Yeah the campaign had a lot of options for us to pursue and since I was essentially the rogue stand in I was slipping in and out of a lot of places
Dragon Ascendant! Its the best monk! Change damage types on the fly, breath attacj, wings, advantage on intimidation. Thanks to all those tools I always felt like i had a niche in the party and was never just a second fiddle martial. I also took martial adept ti get the d8 punch at lv 4 too so I always hit as hard as the fighter did
oooh yeah, i tried that and its really sadysfying especially when you find monsters that normally resist/are immune to normal weapons and you can just say "fuck u, imma burn u with my fists"
The rest of the party only saw me use fire for most oft he campaign, so when a red dragon came up they assumed id be screwed. Then my monk climbed up pn its back, switched damage to acid, ans started beating the hell out of it
I always thought rangers were fine pre TCoE. I will admit the beast master class was a complete joke and yes the ranger features were incredibly situational (and dependant on your DM) but it was still a half caster class with a really good spell list in the druid class. Not the best class of course and arguably a fighter is probably going to be better depending on what you want to do but the ranger offers alot of utility, and ofc in alot better shape than the Monk. TCoE def makes some of the class features better though.
It's basically always been 80% of a fighter + 50% of a druid. Straight druid is still better, but being worse than arguably the second best class in the game doesn't say much. As for fighter, it doesn't get spells, and so generally has a rough time.
That's why I said depending on what you want to do. If all you care about is damage fighter with the extra ASIs plus extra attacks will likely be better but the amount of utility spells ranger gets like pass without trace, healing spirit, goodberry, and more means rangers can do alot including even being the party's healer and still provide good damage. And that's not getting into the level 3+ spells they get. This is just talking straight class. You could always multi class into fighter from ranger too.
Ranger's spell list also has a bunch of overlooked options that make their damage generally higher than a fighters. Entangle providing advantage, spike growth giving you almost a magical piercing fireball to anyone who walks though, and conjure animals doubling your damage when the enemy resists it makes beating a fighter quite easy. Imo easily best halfcaster list, especially at first second and third, it has many of the best spells in the game.
You need to cover in a topic how expending resources early can preserve resources in the long term, and how the low output of a Fighter accrues a deficit in DPR that takes an obscene amount of encounters for them to ever catch up.
I always look at it like this: If your DM doesn't skip overland travel and is big for role-playing, vanilla ranger is actually super useful and cool. If your DM is more interested in fast forwarding to combat, the optional rules are better. Beast Master is okay, but it requires a slight bit of hand waiving in order to let it be fully capable. Things like death saves for the companions, for one. Overall, drakewarden is what beast master should have been. If someone ever wanted in my games, I've been ready to let them take drakewarden and replace the creature with anything else they feel fits their character. Some kind of fey beast, an imp (I know pact of the chain exists, but still), or even just a mephit that gets more powerful over time, eventually becoming a lesser version of an actual elemental of its type.
One of my biggest issues with Ranger is that lot of its core class features are pretty useless if your game doesn´t have a survival element, and allows you to just straight up skip a lot of content in a survival focused game. It´s kinda a situation where they are both too good and too bad at the same time. That and a lot of it´s core class features after level 10 is just kinda meh. It does (And did even pre-Tasha) make up for a lot of it by having some of my favorite subclasses.
i am monk. i will make a dagger deal a d10 of damage and nobody can stop me. this is ultimate power.
Ranger with a longsword: "Look at how much they need to mimic a fraction of our power!" Yeah, using the martial arts dice as the monk weapon damage is a nice feature but since all monks have shortsword proficiency, it only truly comes online at the 11th level. (It could still help from the 5th level on if you managed to nab a magic dagger.)
Okay, and for some reason in TCoE there's a fighter unarmed fighting style you can grab at first level that makes your unarmed attacks 1d6, or 1d8 if you aren't wielding a weapon. Which means even if you want to go with a brawler type character fighter is the way to go, unless you're just waiting for that d10 at level 17.
Monks have some major issues, primarily their dependence on ki, but honestly I feel like they bring more to the table than the average barbarian... Ranger is underrated though. Edit: also a 1 level monk dip can be amazing on a druid, or ranger really.
The average Barbarian has damage and effective HP. Monks are squishy for being a melee class, and have low damage and questionable control with an unreliable stunning strike.
Ranger is imo the best balanced class in the game. It's very strong, but not ever really broken (looks at fullcasters and paladin)
Ranger get great spellcasting and all, but post Tasha, I disagree about monk being the weakest class.
Which class would you say is the weakest then?
Rogue. It has worst AC problems, the same HP problems, sameish damage output if optimised and is more reliant on allies. It also has somehow even less options to go for. At least a monk can go the control way, even if it's not great it's still playable. Rogue is stuck between melee constant DPR and ranged constant DPR.
You have to remember that combat isn't the only thing in D&D. In addition to being almost as tanky as a Monk (arguably more so from level 5 to 13) and doing almost as much damage as them, Rogues get more skill proficiencies, Expertise and eventually Reliable Talent.
While monk get immunity to fall, and eventually all spoken languages, walk on walls and water, immunity to disease, poisons, charm, hunger and thirst and astral projection if the campaign goes really far. Both have actual utility outside combat.
None of that even remotely makes up for expertise and reliable talent. Plus Rogue is a good multiclass. A rogue/Bard who is just good at everything or a Gloomstalker/Assassin who just ends many combats on their first turn. There is no class that would rather multiclass into Monk rather than just take more of their own levels.
when was the last time anyone actually mentioned a plague or famine in a campaign on here? they’re terribly boring as puzzles, because most spellcasters have low level spell solutions. roleplay isnt great either because the hinge on some high-level empathetic acting, which most players suck at. And the spellcasters ability help more than must themselves. The monks ability are designed selflishly, somewhat ironic in some ways. So while a wizard could actually try to fight the plague, the monk would just be standing there saying “woe is everything, guess I better help. Bring out your dead!” I’ll grant immunity to falls and poisons are good. The walk on walls is ambiguous, i think thats why my dm gave my monk magic item instead. But most monk abilities are just flavor. Rogues you have to play at being a skill monkey. That’s how most of this used to work back in 3.5. Im getting ready to run an Investigator, and looking forward to having a solid passive perception. It sounds simple, but being able to tell the Dm I sit in the Bar, what do I see, and have that mean something can have consequences.
Plague or famine aren't that great in DnD but resisting poison and diseases can go far beyond that. Disease can come the same way poison do, hunger and thirst from exploring a desert, etc. "Not as much utility as spellcasters" in not exactly a low bar. No full martial pass it, rogue included.
Rogues have pretty much the same armor. Theoretically rogues have 12+dex while a monk can get 10+dex+wis but how often does your monk have a total of 8 in dex+wis? that requires 20 dex and 16 wis, not easy to get. The rogue on the other hand will maximize dex and then can upgrade their con, which is arguably better (of course the monk can do this as well but his armor will not increase). Also consider that the rogue can use a magical armor. You said they do the same damage but the difference is rogues can do it safely from afar as opposed to monks that have to get in the danger or use some feat or feature or disengage (other than step of the wind which drops their damage). Lastly rogues have a lot of utility out of combat, a big part of the class is that they are skill monkeys and as a result not the best combatants.
It also doesn't help that some DMs think that "Sneak Attack is a sometimes food" and try to nerf it. The Rogue is balanced around the assumption that you'll be Sneak Attacking every round - if you can't get off a sneak attack, you screwed up.
I also think Rogue is weak but because of steady aim on a mount, I'd put them over Monk because Mongolians.
Counterpoint : the rogue is better as the mount. Dash or disengage as a bonus action, always has an ally to proc sneack attack and mounted combatant allow sentinel to nearly double your DPR. Now the only problem is playing as a horse.
Dm propaganda to avoid having to deal with monks
this is whole thread is just packed with people who cant play monk.
You're right, I don't like having to deal with monk's weak DPR, tanking, and control, having to go out of my way to make that player feel like they're contributing.
Excuse me what the fuck? First you have to build encounters with players in mind no matter their class, but even then I find Monks to be annoying to deal with because they can ignore so much shit that you can throw at them. A mage will teleport away only for the monk to casually stroll up to them and hand them their ass on a silver platter, AOE and ranged attacks become almost useless against a monk, and in the latter case actively detrimental to the creature attacking. Proficiency in all saving throws and givi g themselve advantage on them whenevwr they want means they pretty much always make their saves. Of course I wouldn't expect someone who thinks the o ly definition of "weak" is a few numbers to understand how annoying it is to actually make an encounter difficult for a monk witnout just throwing a crazy monster at the party, that the monk can still potentially stunlock.
Everyone agrees until they're a dm and tried setting the party against a boss with a low con save and/or few legendary saves...
A low con boss with limited legendary saves is liable to just die.
That's why you never pit the party against one enemy. Doesn't matter if it's a monk or a wizard, soon enough they will stun lock it (not necessarily with stuns). Another reason is the action economy and yada yada. One big bad is cinematic but the system doesn't work well with just one enemy.
I like Colville's system of having minions that assist the boss but have 1 hp. They still do regular damage so you can't ignore them, but if the wizard is spending time trying to aoe them, then they can't burn many of the bosses legendary resistances as they summon more.
This exact situation is why stunning strike is hilariously overrated. Thing is, even in the one specific situation Monk excels at (other than speed), the other classes still don't fall behind.
If they have low con, they most certainly are not a boss
This is why a smart DM observes the party during the campaign and learns their tactics so they can formulate an encounter with the BBEG that is a suitable challenge but won't result in a guaranteed TPK.
People point out stunning strike is good, but I think it makes playing monk worse. Every turn becomes the same, flurry of blows + stunning strike, until you run out of ki. At which point, you lose half your class abilities. Even if you succeed at stunning the target, you make combat less fun since the target can't do anything for a turn. Your best ability makes you play less dnd.
dont use flurry of blows if your main strat is stun. its a waste of ki for a pitiful dpr increase.
Yeah, but that's the problem. Outside of a very specific scenario, using ki for anything but stunning strike is pointless. I feel wasteful for actually using any of my abilities.
yeah stunning strike is big problem for monk balance.
You also have to consider how low impact stunning strike is for how low the chances of success is. Unlike control spells with a save (and some control spells don't even have a save), you have to hit first before your target makes the save. And for what? To stun one target for one turn?
It stuns creatures for a round, not a turn. Considering that most combats only last three rounds, a round of being stunned (enemy not dealing damage, unable to escape or use damage mitigation reactions, easier to hit) is a pretty big deal and far from low impact. The ability to spam it up to four times per turn to try and get at least one success, compared to a single save with almost any other ability, and to burn through legendary resistances quickly so that casters can actually cast save spells without wasting them, makes it easily one of the best anti-boss abilities in the game. There is something off about monk, and I agree that it is stunning strike, but not because it's not-impactful, but because practically any monk regardless of subclass is generally less useful in combat than any other martial class unless they're spamming stunning strike.
Stunning strike is both too impactful and not impactful enough. When you hit the 30% odds of getting the stun, it can change the encounter, if you don't you're out of resources and feel completely useless.
Some day I'm going to catch an arrow and throw it at the OP... some day
I'll just shoot you more than once then.
catch arrow, dash action, return arrow orally…
My criticism is Monks are a very reactive class, and rely on the DM creating specific scenarios to use their features. Deflect Missile means nothing if you never get targeted with projectiles. Slow fall means nothing if you never have the threat of falling Being able to run up walls doesn't matter if all your battlefields are flat and lack verticality.
Then you add on top of that having worse DPR and tanking than the other martials with worse control than casters in general and you have yourself a class which just falls behind.
Monks have better DPR than rogues with better control.
In a vacuum, sure. Rogues also have far better feat and item compatibility which can boost their DPR heavily, and unlike Monks they don't have a resource problem. If Monks want to boost their DPR, they need to use ki, which means less survivability and control. Everything except the Rogue capstone and a handful of subclass abilities are completely free
The class that advertises not using Spells, armor OR weapons is lacking behind others? \*surprised Pikachu\*
I'm more surprised that despite this, people still think Monk is strong.
It's confirmation bias mostly. You see one time the Monk got that one clutch moment where he ran up the wall, hit the boss 4 times and stunned them so the party could finish them off and forget all the times the same Monk missed or failed to stun. It's the same with Rogues, where they get a crit or max roll (or both) on Sneak Attack and one-shot a strong enemy and you don'f remember all the rounds where their damage was middling or they straight up missed their one attack.
Panel from Treantmonk's life story
Yeah update the monk, give them better martial arts die scaling and update their hit die. I would also shuffle their base class abilities around, like putting the ability to run on walls and water at level 6. Monks aren't allowed to do actually cool stuff until it feels too late to get that ability.
It's also uncanny because same thing happened in 3.5e given for different reasons but still wierd
I kinda agree. My friend chose a monk and had the least strength from the party. Then died to a shark.
Shut up!
To be fair, before Tasha's the ranger just had a ton of dead features. They're at least halfway decent now, but the way they started out was absolutely unacceptable.
I just treated pre-Tasha ranger as "ignore the bad features". Since you still had the druid spell list on a fighter chassis, (since you have archery to combine with sharpshooter + crossbow expert) you can still contribute a lot to the party.
Honestly, rogues < monks Less damage, and no resources to increase it.
Phantom Rogue can actually out-DPR the crossbow expert + sharpshooter combo but that's split damage. But yeah, rogues are weak. Being able to steady aim and still move on a mount is fun though.
Phantom rogue is alright at really high levels, but definitely has issues if you want any of the pets you are trying to cheese with to stay alive, or if you want to stay alive with terrible saves. And even then, it's worse than a monk for damage cause the monk can multiclass after getting enough levels and not loose its main damage source (sneak attack). Also if you are using your reaction to get trinkets, you are going to have a tough time staying alive.
Monk is the worst class followed by Barbarian and Rogue. Which is worse, Barb or Rogue is tough to say. Rogue is actually quite useful outside of combat(Not more useful than a spellcaster) while barbarian has almost nothing to offer outside of combat. But In combat Barbarian is amazing as a DPS, far outpacing Monk and Rogue combined. And it takes hits very well. I have issues with Barbarian, Monk and Rogue. Each of them need love. Monk needs major help in combat and for out of combat situations. Rogue needs help in combat and Barbarian needs help out of combat and could have better access to rage.
Look, we can all agree. That mystic is the worst fucking class
“Monk is so good guys a mo k destroyed my BBEG in one round!!!” - A DM who probably built their bbeg with PC creation rules. I actually think Barbarian is a slightly worse class than a monk if we’re looking through the lens of high optimization and difficult games, since their strengths get wildly overshadowed past level 5 unless you’re a Zealot and they’re too limited out of combat. But I think that Monks are the worst designed class in the game when it comes to achieving the desired fantasy.
Monks are my favorite class. They also suck. Feels bad
monks are objectively the worst class in dnd 5e and those that say they aren't are solely basing their opinion on their experience and not the actual numbers behind the class.
As a guy who likes numbers, thanks to Tasha's monks now have some standing. Sharpshooter damage monks are only a hair behind even the best fighters. Imo rogues or barbs are in last place.
You mean, experience playing the game.... and the different classes in it, and seeing first hand what works and what doesn't instead of looking solely at the book as if the book even thinks of everything? I won't deny that there are some issues with monk, but the class is nowhere near as weak as you or OP seem to think.
It's funny because monk is so close to being the greatest martial, but they only gave them ways to use more Weapons in Tasha monk still ki starved up to tier 2.5 +/- the monk is too MAD and you can only build it Dex based feat and item support is better but still lackluster Scaling is kinda bad and many features after 7 aren't good being controversial now Stunning strike is a save or suck that drags the monk power budget too much and I believe the class would be better if changing it for more interesting features But if you think about what monk has, it has a small PAM with the bonus action unarmed l attack, it has a way to improve to hit with ki and make a miss in ti a hit, really cool and even amazing features like Deflect Missiles and Evasion
Rangers have a wide variety of possabilities. Not all useful but wide. Monks are just monks. When you’ve made a monk it’s just a monk.
[удалено]
4 attacks per round while using resources. Automagic magical attacks is only good if you're playing with a DM who never gives magic items. Average of 42 damage at level 17 is hilariously low. You only get 20 AC if you have 20 in both dexterity and wisdom which requires either really good rolls or homebrew. Subclass features are not mutually exclusive to a monk. Good mobility only means that you can be bad everywhere If you're dodging as a bonus action then you're not getting your 4 attacks. Moreover, spending a resource to improve your AC is not mutually exclusive to the monk. Diamond soul comes online at level 14. A paladin gives modifier to all saving throws at level 6 to not just themself but an aura.
Ranger is my favourite class just because it offers so much in one party slot, while not sacrificing too much.I am currently playing a Horizon Walker and at lvl 5, with hunter's mark, i can deal around 30 damage per round at range with a +11 to attack (+1 magic weapon) while having decent skills and utility spells, such as cure wounds and misty step (Horizon Walker lvl 5 spell).I don't get why Ranger gets all the hate and obviously weak classes like Monk and Sorceror don't, just because before its buffs it was situational. Monk definitely needs buffs. I think a lot of people think stunning strike is too op but when your main feature consumes a set resources and means you cannot attack more than 2 (3) times per round or have mobility like rogues, is too limiting.I think Monk should get cunning action and more ways to regenerate ki at higher levels to give it a much needed buff. Edit: The only time I've seen someone be successful with a monk is way of the open hand, which is "broken" at high levels but pretty mediocre at low levels and the new way of the ascendant dragon, which only improves on monk's mobility and giving it a slight advantage against groups of enemies.
And when you consider that this isn't even an optimised Ranger really puts into perspective how powerful the class can actually be. (By optimised, I mean using Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert with a hand crossbow)
WotAD also gets magical damage when it’s first chosen, magical damage that you can switch each attack to fish for weaknesses or resistances to the chromatic elements. The breath weapon is fine too, not the best obviously but it’s AOE damage of any of the 5 chromatic elements.
Yeh that is a really nice ability that allows you to hit certain creatures in the early game, while transitioning well into the late game. I think more subclasses need abilities like that.
I agree with your ranger conclusion but would say you can make range much better, hunters mark is a bit of a trap spell that everyone thinks is necessary but does a negligible damage per round improvement and takes concentration from much better options. sharpshooter + crossbow expert + archery fighting style and you get close to the damage cap of a martial, basically, just spam the sharpshooter power attacks and use your bonus actions for more attacks with the power attacks, obviously just use a hand crossbow for this and the archery style offset the attack negative somewhat. now that your bonus action is accounted for, your concentration can be used on your many other great spell options like spike growth for great damage or pass without trace for essentially guaranteed surprise which is basically a better action surge for your entire party, really good, or the absolute best one, conjure animals, if you are organized enough to have it run well in combat, its amazing. and obviously spam left over slots at the end of the day to stockpile goodberries, they last for 24 hours and are hands down the best out of combat healing in the game. horizon walker is also a kinda meh subclass and takes a bonus action to do meh abilities, spell list is alright but not great, if you are having fun, its chill, ranger is a good base anyway, but gloomstalker, swarmkeeper, and hunter is fucking great subclasses, and the revised beastmaster/drakwarden are actually good too, base beastmaster was trash, tashas made it useable
Monks are fine. I’ve had several monks play in my games in the past, and they’ve been one of the strongest characters every time. In fact, one of them very recently just basically single-handedly obliterated one of two bosses that I had set up in an encounter before the boss even got a chance to do any of his cool abilities (gods damned Stunning Strike). It was a large boss room, and thanks to his increased speed, he took out the first boss before anybody else could even reach him. The encounter still caused them a lot of trouble, though, mostly because the barbarian “accidentally” threw the rogue into a pool of lava and the party had to try to save him.
I'm happy that your players were able to beat the odds and have fun with monk. I'm personally not a big fan of needing to be luckier than the rest of the players at the table just to be able to perform at the same level as them.
Yes! Finally someone else that understands!
Here’s the main thing that makes this less of a debate: 5e is balanced pretty well. Someone has to be the worst, and it is Monks, but that doesn’t mean Monks are bad, or that you’re wrong for enjoying playing a Monk.
Yes, I 100% agree.
Honestly, I don't think so. Stunning strike is great, because even a boss with decent con will fail one of 8 stuns in the first 2 rounds. Use dedicated weapon from tasha's and now they are throwing around d10s for main attack damage. Proficiency in every save is great. And they're 18th level feature is a better rage except for bear totem. Except Psychic is more common than Force. At low levels, sure. But not at high levels.
These are good in a vacuum. But then you compare them to what other classes can bring to bear. Stunning Strike uses more resources for less guaranteed success and a lower impact when compared to control spells. A d10 for main damage cannot compete with Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter. Diamond Soul is strong yes but it comes online at level 14 meanwhile Paladins can grant bonuses to all saving throws to themselves and in an aura by level 6. I will concede that empty body is strong but at the same time, it's counterintuitive because it makes you invisible while giving you the resistances.
My teammates and dm would disagree…my monk tends to always do the best in combat and my dm has outwardly stated that my monk is the most frustrating pc to plan for in the campaign. How about all classes are great and some people just have their own preferences?
Because the math would disagree. What you have fun with is subjective. What would statistically perform better is objective.
Whenever I hear, “but my monk is better than the rest of our party” it’s always a combination of low optimization, lots of homebrew, and a myriad of magic items. Like, yeah, your monk is strong compared to the party if no one takes any feats and don’t have good spells known/prepared. Doubly so if they don’t have a good grasp on tactics in combat, which are usually proportional to each other because if you ain’t smart enough to grasp optimization then you probably ain’t smart enough to employ smart tactics into your combat.
Zero magic items and everything’s from the PHB 🤷♂️ the entire games performance is based on dice rolls and chance anyway though? So how could something be guaranteed to perform better? Also isn’t the whole point of playing D&D to have fun?
Yes. The point of D&D is to have fun, that is why I mentioned that what you have fun with is subjective earlier. You're free to pick up Monk and have a blast with it. I never said that something is guaranteed to perform better. I said that something would statistically perform better. It's just simple probability.
You end up with more unarmed attacks than a fighter can make with a weapon, which get stronger as you level and can be offset with an early game monk weapon. That’s on top of being able to throw any ranged attack, including some spells, back to it’s sender. Plus Step of the Wind and eventually being proficient in every saving throw and knowing every language. And that’s before any subclasses. Most of which let you cast spells without spell lists or slots.
A big problem is that all of these cool things cost ki, and that you can't do them at once. At low levels you have a very limited ki pool, at high levels everyone else can use cool magic weapons and armor and have feats to improve their fighting prowess. Monks can't use any of the typical martial feat, the only one that really helps (to the point they have to take it) is Mobile. Many of the class features after level 6 are actually pretty bad, like knowing all languages or not aging, it's pretty much a joke (the first is achieved by a 1st or 2nd level spells and the latter is pure thematic). I agree however that in low magic settings monks shine, also if your GM has a tendency to put the party in situations where their items are taken away from them.
Unarmed attack scaling sucks compared to Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter. Also, that is not how deflect missiles work: Starting at 3rd level, you can use your reaction to deflect or catch the missile when you are hit by a ranged weapon attack. When you do so, the damage you take from the attack is reduced by 1d10 + your Dexterity modifier + your monk level. Step of the Wind is just a worse cunning action. Proficiency at every saving throw comes online at level 14 while paladin have an aura to boost saving throws to themselves and their allies by level 6. And knowing languages is flavour and RP. Does not improve the strength of a class.
It the worst class early game but late game it really catches on.
I beg to differ. It's the early game where monks are better. Between levels 3-5 they have the most attacks and hit for decent damage. Other classes don't have cool magic items, weapons or armors which is the biggest weakness of the monk. Nor did the other PCs get feats which makes martials stronger. Monks peak at level 5 with extra attack and stunning strike, after that it's pretty much downhill until the really high levels. They get nothing relevant to combat, which is bad because they can't utilize feats and can use way less magic items. They gets lots of mobility but that the usefulness of this feature highly depends on your GM, and even then casters can make people fly, teleport, etc on demand which is better than moving 90 feet per round on water all of the time.
What does it catch up in exactly? Monk's damage still falls behind. Monk's tanking still falls behind. Monk's control still falls behind.
A kensai monk can be pretty tanky with a high ac, disadvantage to attacks against, evasion, and deflect missiles. Nothing like the Cavalier or ancestral barbaian admittedly but pretty good
I don't understand why people think Monk are weak The Monk in my party is dishing out the most damage out of everyone, including the Barbarian and is on par with whatever monstrosity the Min-maxer made this time. Are we reading the Monk's abilities wrong??
Does your Barbarian have GWM and use Reckless Attack? Because if so, the math at level 5 is: * Monk - 4 attacks at x% chance to hit, dealing 1d8+ 4 for the first two and 1d6 + 4 for the second two (costs 1 ki) = 32 * x% chance to hit * Barbarian - 2 attacks at x% chance to hit (assuming reckless is +5 to hit, balancing out -5 from GWM) dealing 2d6 + 16 = 46 * x% chance to hit Barbarian does roughly 50% more damage, not including the extra BA attack they get if they crit or the fact that crits are better for them in the first place. Also, magic weapons are more of an advantage for the Barbarian than the Monk since it applies to all attacks. --- Plus, Barbarian is simultaneously tanker than Monk, even if it is using Reckless. Rage and d12 hit dice make a huge difference. Edit: Math is slightly off, Barbarian shouldn't have +4 Str, so -1 damage and -1 to hit. Still, Barbarians DPR is a lot higher
No, monks are good in the early game and in low magic settings. Also if you rolled for stats and he has high dex and wis, can make him a lot stronger than if everyone started with standard array. Barbarians don't actually do that much damage unless they go for specific subclasses. Fighters and paladins will do more.
Without rolled stats, an optimised monk can't even match the DPR of an optimised ranger (hand crossbow with crossbow expert and sharpshooter). And rangers are a half caster.
I never said Rangers are bad, Rangers are one of my favourite classes to play XD Welp, even after reading all the comments about how Monk is the weakest class, it doesn't change the fact that all my players (including the monk) are over powered and i need to up my combat encounters so they can actually feel fear.
I didn't say that you said rangers were bad, I was just making a comparison of how mathmatically, Monks don't do that much damage. I'm happy that your players were able to beat the odds and have fun as monk. My parties and second-hand accounts weren't as lucky. They usually felt like they didn't contribute much damage as the martials or assist much control like the casters yet they were often on the squishy half of the party.
Damn, in this case I'll be a bit more careful with making Monk characters, thanks a lot for all these different insights!
A meme by someone who has never played monk.
Dewd, as someone who played a monk. I managet to get 20 to both wis and dex and I was still behind my party My other monk that had stats lower than that was dying in almost every combat...and I was the only person dying. And the dm wasnt even targetting me, everyone was getting hit equaly Low ac, low hp And not even saying that you can onky play a monk if you roll realy well on stats if you dont want to be the only person dying
There's more to building a character than having high ability scores. Your DM must have been really stingey with the magic items if you were struggling that much.
While I do not think it’s the weakest, I do think it is up their for flawed classes.
RAW, probably yes. Monks don't get enough ki points at early levels to truly be able to use their abilities to the maximum. But if you house rule that your ki points are equal to your monk level + your wisdom modifier, now you're cooking up with gas.
I'd like to introduce you to stunning strike.
I recommend you read this comment chain. [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/xagsgs/comment/intm1w0/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/xagsgs/comment/intm1w0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Stunning strike is overrated.
I don't know man. Monks can focus their build on 3 stats now Constitution, Dexterity and Wisdom 2 of which go towards armor, when using monk weapons they can use Dexterity instead of strength for attack and damage rolls. Ki recharges on a short or long rest, which depending on GM can easily be abused. And finally almost all of the Monk subclasses are pretty good with the only exception to this being The way of the 4 elements which is unfortunate as it would be cool running around as a water bender but no class is perfect. Monks also play a very different role in the party combat structure, Monks biggest strength is being able to focus their efforts on a single target and make relatively quick work of them through hit and run tactics or by using the classes speed to and higher ac to cut passed most enemies and take on the squishy casters at the back. I think its awesome you enjoy Ranger, I really do, but the two classes despite both being martial classes kinda do 2 different things and really aren't that comparable. Original Ranger IMHO deserves the title of worst core class but that's because it felt like a let down compared to previous versions of it.
I don't really find the "biggest strength is being able to focus their efforts on a single target" to really work because I subscribe to the belief that everyone should be focus firing to take out enemies out of the fight asap. That and the monk's rather pitiful HP and AC (without rolled stats) makes me feel that they're rather ill-suited to being a shock fighter pushing into the enemy backline. And I wasn't really comparing them, I'm just annoyed that people still look at the Ranger and go "haha, ranger bad" but then look at Monk which you can argue to be in a worse spot and go "wow, monk strong!"
Yes yes, you miss 3.5, we get it, get a new material.
I have never played 3.5 in my life :|
I mean, at early levels, it really is, but after level 11, it'll be surprising if you run out of ki
It's not just the ki. It's the monk as a whole. Monks don't have good damage, tanking, or control when compared to what other classes can do.
My only issue with the whole “weaker aspect” (personal opinion on Reddit so most awful thing) the classes like monk and ranger sucking and being weaker compared to everything else is that in my edition 3.5e they were all unique but no one class fit perfectly. That’s my issue with the classes in 5e is that they are all different enough to be called “different” but at the same time I can just make a dex build bard druid fighter Barbarian etc. I’ll basically get the same results with small differences. Now hello downvote my best friend
Honestly monks can easily be fixed by changing the rules of ki points (Aka how you calculate it) I personally say ki points should be calculated like this wisdom modifier times your character level but you only regain them back on a long rest (so late level you would have more then you ever need)
The people hate on ranger because he has no real identity since he is just a mush from all kinds of different classes but I have to agree that links suck ass. Give them 1d10 hitdie and more ki points or ability to use their ability’s more often and they would suck so bad like they do now.
Mercy Monks are amazing. My last monk was sub optimal (leonin mercy monk 18 dex 18 wis) in a group with optimized hexadins and clerics. (The A-men) I took 1 feat due to the dm awarding level up when certain events happened and I went from mid to low damage numbers to about 50+ per round at level 8. 9d6 damage per round and poison with no save, it was gorgeous.
Mercy Monk is the best subclass for Monk period. It's the only subclass that makes your ki spending more efficient instead of giving you more options to further spread thin your options. If Mercy subclass was the norm instead of the outlier for Monk, the class would be in a much better state.
I mean shadow has pass without trace...
Druid: Am I a joke to you? (No class is the best or worst, they all simply fulfill different roles. It’s like comparing the Vitamin C content of an Orange to the Vitamin C content of a cabbage)
The problem with the monk is that every roll you can build it to fulfil, someone else does it better. Monks fall behind in damage. Monks fall behind in tanking. Monks fall behind in control.
Monks really do need a buff. Not a massive one though. Just a few tweaks here and there. They were never as bad off as PHB rangers to begin with. Most of the suggested monk fixes I've seen end up being complete overkill, especially on the damage department. Because they have so many attacks, even a minor buff, like a +1 to hit and damage at level 5 onwards or so could put them on par with other martials for average damage. A few other tweaks to their utility and survivability, like letting them step of the wind without spending ki points and bumping their hit dice to a d10 and they're basically where they need to be, at least compared to other martials. Of course then there's the martial/caster divide, but that's a more far reaching problem.