Monk- 5e General Education
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
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Monks need a rework desperately. Glad to see DnD 1 is handing that. The arcana stuff has been experimenting with some great ideas also. Thank you for the coverage as always!
This is a good goblin.
I might have to keep up the spotty schedule a little longer regardless, as the new landlord’s absolutely destroyed my sleep schedule with inspectors and surprise visits and such for like 2 weeks. The last thing *scheduled* is next week, so hopefully we'll be back to normal soon. Though sadly not before, as I’ve had to cannibalize half my video making time for sleeping time.
After that though, I’ll get back in the groove of making videos, and start learning how to balance it with streaming when I’ve got a moment and recovered. Might be a bit, but we'll get there. Just me being overzealous and trying to make too many things at once.
Also, I'm vaguely disappointed that 5e doesn't have at least one variant which fit in their 3.0/3.5 prime role: Monks are/were Magekillers. Got a big bad wizard chillaxing behind enemy lines? Between the movement, the fact that they used to get a Misty Step equivalent ability, the prime saves (still a thing) and the loads of medium power attacks at 3/4 BAB? Yeah, that Necromancer got to get all up close and personal with death.
Always bothered me that nobody I knew understood just how good Monks were at killing arcane casters until I either played a Monk or added a Monk antagonist to make that higher level Wizard/Sorcerer regret being born.
Oh yeah, I loved monk in 3.5 for that. And don't forget they just got straight-up spell resistance too, if you were of an equal level it was basically a coin flip on whether thier spell would even go off to begin with. And even if it went off, you had a bonus to enchantment spells and great reflex saves. My DM didn't even use mages very often, but the ability to pick off key targets like mages and archers was wonderful. Thier speed bonus was double the 5e version too, so you were constantly nipping at the fringe units and hunting down anyone trying to run. So many captives interrogated because the last tried to run but couldn't quite outpace the monk.
My longest running was in a dragonslayer campaign, most of the fights were vs dragons and mages. Once I slaughtered the dragon before the party could even get there, getting evasion at level 2 was wild! Had to have a whole character arc, because we were level 15 and I hadn't expected to live that long. "I mean, I'm the last halfling in these lands, so far as I know. Kinda expected to go down in a blaze of glory, get a statue in our honor and all, give us a legacy worth remembering. Didn't really expect punching dragons to actually keep working. What do you do when the story doesn't end?"
Monk still does that in 5e compared with adjustments to casting accounted for, the problem is their burst damage depends on subclass and in the 7-13 they have a extreme dip in "how cool my feature is while being impactful" unless the person rolled extremely well, did their math right with class+point buy (or did the full wiz+MI stick monk).
Biggest downers on the 5th ed is that ki is linear scaling instead of logarithmic and how many DMs and parties dont use the base amount of encounters and short rests between long rests (making burst/nova damage more important) or adjust short rest features for the change of rules for the style of play.
4 elements is still scuffed, as are sun and "not-scaled fist", but the core works. Similar to how a RAW bm ranger is actually very very solid on the dpr side while still having high utility.
Some people (including Gygax himself) get bent out of shape about Monks, an Asian-coded class, operating in the setting coded around Medieval Europe. They shouldn't, because the world has _never_ be a partitioned off place, where folks from one part of the world never venture into another. Both a Black man and a Dutchmen have been honest-to-God SAMURAI, in Japan. You think the reverse can't be true? Especially in a secondary world D&D takes place in, where the analogue to Asia could be as distant or as connected to its Europe analogue as the DM wants.
But if your precious suspension of disbelief cannot handle an Asian-coded person in your Europe-coded adventure setting, there are a number of ways to flavor a Monk around historical European archetypes. Or at least ones that definitely were in proximity to it.
1) Alchemists, Internal or External. Maybe you employ or imbibe various concoctions every day, to alter your humours or perform neat effects.
2) Olympic Wrestler. You train for the games held ever few years, in grappling and pugilism, and probably also in other sports like footraces or discus throwing. A kind of professional athlete, who takes their skills on the road when the games aren't on. You're wrestling bugbears in a tavern and owlbears in a cave, to keep your skills sharp for the next Fantasy Olympics.
3) Trained by fighting manual. The Medieval and Renaissance periods were full of illustrated manuals for fighting, with dedicated weapons, improvised weapons, or one's bare hands. Perhaps you learned how to fight from these texts. Or you live in an Italy analogue during its Renaissance, and you are a student from any number of rival fighting schools (including fencing), employing innovative new styles and the burgeoning mathematics of war for defense and bragging rights. Maybe you even plan to start your own school, if you had the money.
4) Whirling Dervish. Remember, Spain is also part of Europe, and for a while it was thoroughly Islamic. Any trope that applies to Arabia, like turban'd dervishes, is fair game here. You might even have the aid of a genie, that can summon fire or manifest itself to beat your enemies.
5) Mystical Hermits. You retreated from the world to focus on spiritual matters. Your time of contemplation and deliberate privation haven't given you Enlightenment - yet - but they have taught you how to make full use of your body and even transcend earthly limitations. Or perhaps you've learned to tap into the divinity within, or into the divinity in nature.
6) Philosopher adept. Embracing the complex philosophies of the old masters and living a morally upright (or, conversely, a deliberately contrarian) lifestyle has granted you boons. With understanding of natural philosophy and the higher principles of platonic reality, you can bend the elements, cloak yourself in shadows, or direct the emanations of divinity to your own use.
7) Imperial assassin. The Empire may have fallen or is on its last legs, but the secret police or spymasters of its ruling authority remain. Steeped in their secret signs and even more secret mysteries, you are an heir and agent of this shadowy order. Draping yourself in darkness or learning the effects of medicine and poison, according to methods made perfect at the height of the Empire's power. Or maybe your order retains knowledge of the more ancient numina, or the less wholesome cthonic gods, who can be beseeched or channeled for your own ends.
8) Borderland holdout. In the world of D&D, the wilderness and border countries are rife with all manner of dangers. From bandits and warlike humanoids, to monsters and hungry beasts. Maybe you're an actual monk, from an isolated monastery or hermitage. Or maybe you're a "lowly peasant", trying to make a life on a homestead or village. Either way, you don't have professional arms or armor. Nor do you have coin to pay for mercenaries. You have to learn to fight with the tools at hand, and even your own body. Maybe you taught yourself martial arts, or maybe you were taught by traveling instructors in return for hospitality. Whatever the case, in learning to fight, you've also learned to meditate. Or maybe you're just really determined, and that determination bears unexpected fruit.
Seriously, absolutely nothing to get bent out of shape. We have record of Japanese people in Rome, Chinese dignitaries travelling the Byzantine Empire, even in that time period it’s a known factor. It's like how people get worked up over guns existing, but don't bat an eye at the Rapier...which evolved in the 15th century, 100 years after guns were used in Europe, and 500 after our earliest records of them existing. Teleportation and dimensional travel exists, but travelling a continent over is absurd? Plus if you're in Forgotten Realms, there's a simple reason for them to exist- they were literally ripped from EARTH. Happened a couple times, it's why Greek and Egyptian gods and such exist in DnD. And why magic's gone from earth, all the gods granting the magic followed thier people and got trapped. So even inside the main DnD setting, they’re pretty well established.
As much as it steps on people’s toes, most class archtypes can easily be swapped around if one wishes. The monk could be a robin-hood esque hunter or ranger, their ki simple focus. It could be simple adrenaline, manifesting the speed and twitch reflex of “Flight” instead of the barbarian’s “Fight”. Fighter? Everything from wrestlers and boxers to just any military of the time. If you were going to be career military, you were getting martial training, these are just people who specialized in it. Ki as internalized magic, enhancing the body instead of the mind. And as you said, alchemy to enhance the body is classic. If the flavor is offensive or not fitting the world, just refurbish it to fit. Bards figured out how to destroy modify the fabric of reality by doing sign language to aggressive polka music, I don’t get why “I have trained to punch harder than most” is the dealbreaker for some.
I do appreciate you pointing out how philosophy and physical fitness go hand in hand. "Plato" wasn't even the philosopher's real name. It means “broad shouldered,” it was his wrestling name, his name was Aristocles. And of course in Britain, those fighting manuals were often targeted specifically at nobility. A proper gentlemen not needing to stoop to weaponry on unworthy ruffians and whatnot.
Hey I have a question: If you were a DM would you allow the monk player to add their wisdom modifier to their ki points if they ask?
Depends. If your players are the type to rarely short rest, or often go 3-4 encounters between rests, I'd say go for it. Otherwise most monks typically have enough. can't use thier options every round of every combat, but that's the point of a limited resource. If their issue is that they feel they aren't able to use subclass features enough, I'd personally recommend doing what the Dragon subclass did. Give them 1 free use of thier ability per day, or a number equal to proficiency it it's a more situational one. That way you get the benefit of more ki without giving them 3-5 more chances to stun a monster.