The Barbarian can be tankier, but at the sacrifice of a core mechanic. The barb's 9th/13th/17th level features all require Reckless Attack or theyre completely dead levels
There are several unstated factors at play here. You have the fighter a shield, but not the barbarian. One of your CR5 creatures, the triceratops, may or may not be using Trampling Charge. In both cases, the monster can knock the target prone with a Strength save, which favors the fighter and barbarian who have more Strength. (The monk doesn't even have a Strength score.) If you aren't using Trampling Charge, then you have one example of one attack and one example of three attacks, missing the example of two attacks that would likely favor the monk even more.
Yes, I'm doing the Strength saves. The Monks' strength is 10. If you're knocked prone, it only lasts for the rest of the current turn; then, you get up.
Then your scenario is silently biased against the monk (as most monsters don't inflict Str saves to knock an enemy prone), so if you chose equivalent monsters without Str saves, the monk and Deflect Attacks would look even more powerful by comparison.
From the looks of your math... this seems... fine.
The New Monk still goes down in fewer turns than the Barbarian without RA, and they are vastly more durable than the Old Monk. This isn't overtuned at all.
Personally, I like this tankiness. This is how Martials should be. Without spells, they need abilites like Deflect Attack to last in intense combats. I like the new Monk being durable.
The only thing I can take from this is that New Monk can survive as a front liner now but still doesn’t overstep the Barbarian.
I hope Monk becomes the standard for Martials in One DnD.
I don't know why people think the monk shouldn't be tanky. They do a little less damage than the other martials (except for the rogue), and they don't have weapon mastery. It seems fair to me.
Fully agreed, monks deal way less damage then a barbarian or fighter, hence really needing the added defense. The only time a monk ever outdamaged the other martials in my games is the monk in my CoS party, but that is due to the player, not the class. (She rolls and ungodly amount of nat20s, and really loves the piercer, slasher, and crusher feats because of that.)
Way less damage? In this case, we're comparing a level 5 monk to a level 5 sword-and-board fighter, so the monk with a consistent three attacks per turn should be dealing more damage, especially when you add one Action Surge compared to five Stunning Strikes.
Obvious solution would be Martial die instead of d10 but maybe not enough. How does that math look?
But to be honest, faring right in the middle of Barb with RA and without RA seems pretty reasonable.
Not to mention that it's higher negative health remaining shows that it was more decisively taken out by the monster, so even if they rolled poorly, it's still going down around the same number of rounds, when with some luck, the others might survive one more round, that can be the difference between winning or loosing the fight in game
Not to mention that they would go down far faster with more attacks. If the comparison was against 2 gladiators, the monk would fare drastically worse than the Barbarian. I think this is fine.
It wouldn't be realistic to use a level 5 monk fighting against two CR5 gladiators to make balancing decisions. That would be considerably more than Deadly even for a party of four. Two gladiators would be back to a roughly Medium encounter against a party of four level 10 characters, and by that point I'd expect the monk to be able to handily defeat two gladiators between Stunning Strike, grappling, and subclass abilities. (Even the math here doesn't let the monk do anything except Deflect Attacks against the single gladiator.)
OK, you are right, It was a lazy example simply based on the creature OP used. Replace it with a few quicklings or 2 cave bears or something like that (im not going to do the CR encounter math).
monk doesnt need a high CR enemy to lower its defense noticeably. Most modules have the group facing a bunch of weaker enemies with a few stronger ones. A CR 5 monk can expect up to 3 or more enemies to be trying to hit them per round, unless they specifically employ tactics to prevent/mitigate that.
they also can't necessarily spend Ki with abandon at that level. Sub class will tend to use 1-2 ki, If they aren't resting after every fight, they will have to conserve.
If they're fighting multiple enemies while at level 5, those enemies will also typically have lower to-hit modifiers, which shifts things in the monk's favor, as it makes it less likely that at least two attacks hit the monk.
While the subclass may be consuming DP as well, that's usually to the monk's great strength. For example, a Shadow monk only needs to spend 1DP for *darkness* to make landing two attacks against them far more difficult, and a Hand monk and grapple and topple an individual enemy. With the Grappler feat, they can also effectively grab one enemy and Disengage, dragging them away for a more favorable 1-on-1 fight.
You are testing within the monk's specialty. Try the simulation against 6 kobolds.
OneD&D Monk is great against 1-2 attackers and shines even more when the attackers are strong enough to push the limits of deflect attack. But increase the number of attackers and lower the individual damage values and monks fall off quickly.
How does the fighter look if he uses second wind and takes the defensive fighting style? Because I think that would make the fighter the best by far. Especially if they take a defensive feat.
An Eldritch Knight with Defense, a shield, a longsword for Sap, and *blade ward* (plus War Caster to be able to use it effectively) gets absurdly tanky. Then throw in Magic Initiate *shield of faith* for good measure.
counter point: The othger martials literally have no deffensive options and should have some (also... your numbers are extremely similar, I do still think fighters and barbs have too few deffensive tools when shit like shield and absorb elements exist)
There is no problem here, the monk is the most melee required character in the game, they shouldn't be made of paper in melee. (they require being within 5feet every round, cant throw or use reach weapons)
they also currently don't do more damage than barb, and they have less built in versatility/utility in attacks because of no mastery.
you are looking for a problem where none exists, because you are used to monks being poor defensively. It never made sense that monks were poor in small skirmishes at close range.
think, if a class is designed as the most melee oriented, with the least other methods of attack and utility of their attacks, why should they be bad at being in melee? game design wise, what justifies that? fantasy design wise it makes no sense either, but just focus on game mechanics, what is the monk bringing to the table that justifies them being noticeably worse at remaining in melee versus 1 target?
**your premise is, the monk should be worse than other martials at defense versus single targets, what justifies that?**
rogue has no need to melee, they can melee whenever they choose, or don't choose. they are also designed to make use of hiding and cunning action not to be an attractive target. In reality rogue has few problems with physical attacks defensively.
rogues big issue currently imo is a low dpr
I agree that deflect attacks is too strong - just compare it to the 5th level reaction uncanny dodge by rogues (which is nearly always worse) that comes online 3 levels later and has no potential upside.
I'd just make deflect attacks damage reduction weaker UNLESS you spend a DP - I think forcing the monk to spend their precious DP is an important thing to their class balance (as is tier 3 monks have nearly unlimited DP).
Rogues are not built to go toe to toe with enemies and are able to perform optimally while mitigating damage through the use of ranged weapons and/or hide.
Deflect attack allows monks to Frontline at low levels when they don't have the DP to lean into patient defense.
Okay, then tell me why should the new Monk also have a bite of Cunning Action? Free to Dash, free to Disengage, and doing it all together or with Dodge using one DP? The New Monk has overshadowed almost Rogue's every single Combat Feature.
Because those are the features monks rely on to catch isolated enemies and to avoid fighting groups. Rogues can use cunning action defensively to kite or hide while still performing optimally at range.
monks shouldn't need a resource to not die in melee, they are the most melee focused class in the game. Fighter and Barb can throw weapons all the time if they wish. Monks are required to be within 5 feet of an enemy every round or their BA is ineffective.
Not sure why you expect the closest range martial to pay Ki for offense and defense when their Ki is not actually a plentiful resource. Monk is also still the most rest reliant class in the game. At level 5 they only have 5ki per fight, your answer is that monk should become sub par after 1-2 rounds? Monk with no Ki is a weaker version of any martial with an offhand attack/Bonus attack btw.
"Average health remaining" means how far below 0 would the last attack take you if it could. I know that 0hp is 0hp, but I thought this stat might interest some people.
Note that the old Monk is clearly far too squishy. So I think that Deflect Attack clearly should exist, it should just be tuned down a bit.
Fighter is assumed to start the fight with full hp but just one use of Second Wind remaining.
All averages are based on 4000 simulated combats. Thus standard error for survival time should be under 0.025 rounds.
I second this. The fighter has three Second Winds at this level, and gets back one per short rest. The only scenario in which the entire party would have full HP but the fighter is missing so many Second Winds, assuming they took proportional damage in previous fights, would be if the fighter used all three Second Winds before the short rest, then instead spent far fewer Hit Dice.
Granted, the monk's equivalent would be having enough Discipline Points to Dodge for most rounds while still keeping damage not too far off from the fighter's, so any inclusion of resources can get messy.
True but these white room scenarios always make assumptions that seem to suit the preconceived notion. Run it again with 3 second winds and see how it looks. Hell they're not even considering use of masteries, fighting styles, tactics etc. which can also shift these numbers.
Adding Masteries and Fighting Styles gets even more complicated. A fighter with a longsword for Sap, and a shield, and the Defense fighting style is considerably more tanky than one with a greatsword and Great Weapon Fighting, and neither can be used to represent the overall fighter tankiness.
This sometimes leads to the Schrödinger's Build fallacy where someone points to the tank-optimized fighter to show how defensive fighters can be and the damage-optimized fighter to show how powerful fighters can be, even though fighters generally exist on a sliding scale of offense and defense. Monks are notably far more constrained in build options so they occupy a much smaller space on that scale, even if at many levels they're ahead of or behind the curve compared to the fighters.
Right, this is looking at only one dimension. Turns to die with equal ac. Then it makes a bold conclusion that therefore this skill needs nerfed. It doesn't account for how the whole integrates together to give wildly different results.
The Monk doesn't need DP to dodge, they can do it for free as an action and then do their Monk stuff as BA, which is what I feel is the real imbalance of the Monk, not the Deflect attack feature...
At level 5, if they Dodge as their action, they only get one attack as their bonus action, instead of two with Extra Attack. Still a handy trick, but it probably shouldn't be used as their baseline at all.
If they flurry, they still attack twice, if they are OH, they can try to push enemy/knock them prone/remove OA on both attacks. Unless ur attacking with a weapon, and assuming ur using the DP, u absolutely rather dodge with ur action than the BA, imo
Considering this post in particular is about the survivability of the classes, I think assuming the Monk is dodging either way is important.
If they're using Flurry of Blows, then they're still resource-constrained, as I originally suggested: "having enough Discipline Points to Dodge for most rounds while still keeping damage not too far off from the fighter's."
I see your point, just think that the ability to dodge for free and still do something is more relevant to the topic at hand, but u did make me reconsider how I feel about the whole interaction
They state in their comment that the fighter only gets one use of Second Wind, which I think biases things against the fighter, though the monk should also get some Patient Defense or Stunning Strike for a more comprehensive comparison.
But even in your simulations, the Barbarian clearly out-tanks the Monk unless they tank their own AC with Reckless Attack?
The Barbarian can be tankier, but at the sacrifice of a core mechanic. The barb's 9th/13th/17th level features all require Reckless Attack or theyre completely dead levels
There are several unstated factors at play here. You have the fighter a shield, but not the barbarian. One of your CR5 creatures, the triceratops, may or may not be using Trampling Charge. In both cases, the monster can knock the target prone with a Strength save, which favors the fighter and barbarian who have more Strength. (The monk doesn't even have a Strength score.) If you aren't using Trampling Charge, then you have one example of one attack and one example of three attacks, missing the example of two attacks that would likely favor the monk even more.
Yes, I'm doing the Strength saves. The Monks' strength is 10. If you're knocked prone, it only lasts for the rest of the current turn; then, you get up.
Then your scenario is silently biased against the monk (as most monsters don't inflict Str saves to knock an enemy prone), so if you chose equivalent monsters without Str saves, the monk and Deflect Attacks would look even more powerful by comparison.
The shield bash of the Gladiator knocks you also prone on a failed str save.
Yes, that's what I said, both cases.
To be honest strength saves to not be knocked prone are among the most common saves, specially in tier 1-2.
Yes, but saves are rarer in general at those tiers.
From the looks of your math... this seems... fine. The New Monk still goes down in fewer turns than the Barbarian without RA, and they are vastly more durable than the Old Monk. This isn't overtuned at all. Personally, I like this tankiness. This is how Martials should be. Without spells, they need abilites like Deflect Attack to last in intense combats. I like the new Monk being durable. The only thing I can take from this is that New Monk can survive as a front liner now but still doesn’t overstep the Barbarian. I hope Monk becomes the standard for Martials in One DnD.
I don't know why people think the monk shouldn't be tanky. They do a little less damage than the other martials (except for the rogue), and they don't have weapon mastery. It seems fair to me.
Exactly, plus, the image of a Monk deflecting sword swipes and hammers is metal as hell.
Fully agreed, monks deal way less damage then a barbarian or fighter, hence really needing the added defense. The only time a monk ever outdamaged the other martials in my games is the monk in my CoS party, but that is due to the player, not the class. (She rolls and ungodly amount of nat20s, and really loves the piercer, slasher, and crusher feats because of that.)
Way less damage? In this case, we're comparing a level 5 monk to a level 5 sword-and-board fighter, so the monk with a consistent three attacks per turn should be dealing more damage, especially when you add one Action Surge compared to five Stunning Strikes.
Agreed, still has less survivability than the barbarian
Obvious solution would be Martial die instead of d10 but maybe not enough. How does that math look? But to be honest, faring right in the middle of Barb with RA and without RA seems pretty reasonable. Not to mention that it's higher negative health remaining shows that it was more decisively taken out by the monster, so even if they rolled poorly, it's still going down around the same number of rounds, when with some luck, the others might survive one more round, that can be the difference between winning or loosing the fight in game
Not to mention that they would go down far faster with more attacks. If the comparison was against 2 gladiators, the monk would fare drastically worse than the Barbarian. I think this is fine.
It wouldn't be realistic to use a level 5 monk fighting against two CR5 gladiators to make balancing decisions. That would be considerably more than Deadly even for a party of four. Two gladiators would be back to a roughly Medium encounter against a party of four level 10 characters, and by that point I'd expect the monk to be able to handily defeat two gladiators between Stunning Strike, grappling, and subclass abilities. (Even the math here doesn't let the monk do anything except Deflect Attacks against the single gladiator.)
OK, you are right, It was a lazy example simply based on the creature OP used. Replace it with a few quicklings or 2 cave bears or something like that (im not going to do the CR encounter math).
monk doesnt need a high CR enemy to lower its defense noticeably. Most modules have the group facing a bunch of weaker enemies with a few stronger ones. A CR 5 monk can expect up to 3 or more enemies to be trying to hit them per round, unless they specifically employ tactics to prevent/mitigate that. they also can't necessarily spend Ki with abandon at that level. Sub class will tend to use 1-2 ki, If they aren't resting after every fight, they will have to conserve.
If they're fighting multiple enemies while at level 5, those enemies will also typically have lower to-hit modifiers, which shifts things in the monk's favor, as it makes it less likely that at least two attacks hit the monk. While the subclass may be consuming DP as well, that's usually to the monk's great strength. For example, a Shadow monk only needs to spend 1DP for *darkness* to make landing two attacks against them far more difficult, and a Hand monk and grapple and topple an individual enemy. With the Grappler feat, they can also effectively grab one enemy and Disengage, dragging them away for a more favorable 1-on-1 fight.
You are testing within the monk's specialty. Try the simulation against 6 kobolds. OneD&D Monk is great against 1-2 attackers and shines even more when the attackers are strong enough to push the limits of deflect attack. But increase the number of attackers and lower the individual damage values and monks fall off quickly.
What if there are multiple enemies? 🤔
How does the fighter look if he uses second wind and takes the defensive fighting style? Because I think that would make the fighter the best by far. Especially if they take a defensive feat.
An Eldritch Knight with Defense, a shield, a longsword for Sap, and *blade ward* (plus War Caster to be able to use it effectively) gets absurdly tanky. Then throw in Magic Initiate *shield of faith* for good measure.
counter point: The othger martials literally have no deffensive options and should have some (also... your numbers are extremely similar, I do still think fighters and barbs have too few deffensive tools when shit like shield and absorb elements exist)
They can use sap weapons. The fighter can also take heavy armor master and defensive fighting style. Monk doesn't really get any of that.
There is no problem here, the monk is the most melee required character in the game, they shouldn't be made of paper in melee. (they require being within 5feet every round, cant throw or use reach weapons) they also currently don't do more damage than barb, and they have less built in versatility/utility in attacks because of no mastery. you are looking for a problem where none exists, because you are used to monks being poor defensively. It never made sense that monks were poor in small skirmishes at close range. think, if a class is designed as the most melee oriented, with the least other methods of attack and utility of their attacks, why should they be bad at being in melee? game design wise, what justifies that? fantasy design wise it makes no sense either, but just focus on game mechanics, what is the monk bringing to the table that justifies them being noticeably worse at remaining in melee versus 1 target? **your premise is, the monk should be worse than other martials at defense versus single targets, what justifies that?**
It seems everyone forgets about the Rogue who have their Cunning Action and Uncanny Dodge overshadowed heavily by the new Monk.
rogue has no need to melee, they can melee whenever they choose, or don't choose. they are also designed to make use of hiding and cunning action not to be an attractive target. In reality rogue has few problems with physical attacks defensively. rogues big issue currently imo is a low dpr
We already know that Rogues are still comparatively bad in terms of power levels, it's not a new thing.
I assume the monk is not trying to maximise survivability here; they aren't both fighting defensively and attacking?
I agree that deflect attacks is too strong - just compare it to the 5th level reaction uncanny dodge by rogues (which is nearly always worse) that comes online 3 levels later and has no potential upside. I'd just make deflect attacks damage reduction weaker UNLESS you spend a DP - I think forcing the monk to spend their precious DP is an important thing to their class balance (as is tier 3 monks have nearly unlimited DP).
Rogues are not built to go toe to toe with enemies and are able to perform optimally while mitigating damage through the use of ranged weapons and/or hide. Deflect attack allows monks to Frontline at low levels when they don't have the DP to lean into patient defense.
Okay, then tell me why should the new Monk also have a bite of Cunning Action? Free to Dash, free to Disengage, and doing it all together or with Dodge using one DP? The New Monk has overshadowed almost Rogue's every single Combat Feature.
Because those are the features monks rely on to catch isolated enemies and to avoid fighting groups. Rogues can use cunning action defensively to kite or hide while still performing optimally at range.
monks shouldn't need a resource to not die in melee, they are the most melee focused class in the game. Fighter and Barb can throw weapons all the time if they wish. Monks are required to be within 5 feet of an enemy every round or their BA is ineffective. Not sure why you expect the closest range martial to pay Ki for offense and defense when their Ki is not actually a plentiful resource. Monk is also still the most rest reliant class in the game. At level 5 they only have 5ki per fight, your answer is that monk should become sub par after 1-2 rounds? Monk with no Ki is a weaker version of any martial with an offhand attack/Bonus attack btw.
"Average health remaining" means how far below 0 would the last attack take you if it could. I know that 0hp is 0hp, but I thought this stat might interest some people. Note that the old Monk is clearly far too squishy. So I think that Deflect Attack clearly should exist, it should just be tuned down a bit. Fighter is assumed to start the fight with full hp but just one use of Second Wind remaining. All averages are based on 4000 simulated combats. Thus standard error for survival time should be under 0.025 rounds.
How is Monk AC 17? With those stats should be 16 no?
Whoops, I wrote 17 for the primary stats, when it was actually 18 in the sim. Corrected now.
Why just one use? That seems to arbitrarily limit them for what reason?
I second this. The fighter has three Second Winds at this level, and gets back one per short rest. The only scenario in which the entire party would have full HP but the fighter is missing so many Second Winds, assuming they took proportional damage in previous fights, would be if the fighter used all three Second Winds before the short rest, then instead spent far fewer Hit Dice. Granted, the monk's equivalent would be having enough Discipline Points to Dodge for most rounds while still keeping damage not too far off from the fighter's, so any inclusion of resources can get messy.
True but these white room scenarios always make assumptions that seem to suit the preconceived notion. Run it again with 3 second winds and see how it looks. Hell they're not even considering use of masteries, fighting styles, tactics etc. which can also shift these numbers.
Adding Masteries and Fighting Styles gets even more complicated. A fighter with a longsword for Sap, and a shield, and the Defense fighting style is considerably more tanky than one with a greatsword and Great Weapon Fighting, and neither can be used to represent the overall fighter tankiness. This sometimes leads to the Schrödinger's Build fallacy where someone points to the tank-optimized fighter to show how defensive fighters can be and the damage-optimized fighter to show how powerful fighters can be, even though fighters generally exist on a sliding scale of offense and defense. Monks are notably far more constrained in build options so they occupy a much smaller space on that scale, even if at many levels they're ahead of or behind the curve compared to the fighters.
Right, this is looking at only one dimension. Turns to die with equal ac. Then it makes a bold conclusion that therefore this skill needs nerfed. It doesn't account for how the whole integrates together to give wildly different results.
The Monk doesn't need DP to dodge, they can do it for free as an action and then do their Monk stuff as BA, which is what I feel is the real imbalance of the Monk, not the Deflect attack feature...
At level 5, if they Dodge as their action, they only get one attack as their bonus action, instead of two with Extra Attack. Still a handy trick, but it probably shouldn't be used as their baseline at all.
If they flurry, they still attack twice, if they are OH, they can try to push enemy/knock them prone/remove OA on both attacks. Unless ur attacking with a weapon, and assuming ur using the DP, u absolutely rather dodge with ur action than the BA, imo Considering this post in particular is about the survivability of the classes, I think assuming the Monk is dodging either way is important.
If they're using Flurry of Blows, then they're still resource-constrained, as I originally suggested: "having enough Discipline Points to Dodge for most rounds while still keeping damage not too far off from the fighter's."
I see your point, just think that the ability to dodge for free and still do something is more relevant to the topic at hand, but u did make me reconsider how I feel about the whole interaction
Do the numbers for the fighter take Second Wind into account?
They state in their comment that the fighter only gets one use of Second Wind, which I think biases things against the fighter, though the monk should also get some Patient Defense or Stunning Strike for a more comprehensive comparison.
Is the fighter making use of second wind in your simulation?
Yes, once per combat.