The Monk class is missing a few things

[Jerrykhor]

Have you ever looked at a class' features and wonder, why do they not have certain things? Fluff and mechanics both. The Monk seems to be missing out on certain signature stuff. Obviously WotC haven't watch enough kung fu movies.

1. The kip-up: How is it that 20th level monk still get up from prone like total noob? Needs the Athlete feat 'get up using 5ft movement' built in.

2. Dodging: Monks are good at this. Like, damn good. But because of bounded accuracy, all i see is them getting hit. A lot. Reaction to force disadvantage on incoming attack? (Require Ki point)

3. Flurry of Misses: Bad rolls, mostly. But still, unless they are fighting another martial artist, they tend to land their hits, because their style is mostly about speed and accuracy, rather than power. Spend Ki for advantage on attacks?

4. Parrying unarmed strikes: YOU DARE PUNCH A MONK? A MASTER OF THE MARTIAL ARTS? Well lucky for you you're in dindi world, they can't block that. This is just stupid. Cut out that Timeless Body and Empty Body crap, they are not supposed to lose a bunch of thugs in a tavern brawl.

Any others?

[JackPhoenix]

1: nope. If they want to do that, they can take the feat. Or ask the GM to do so with Acrobatics check, maybe.
2: nope. They can already take Dodge as a bonus action for Ki point if they want
3: nope. "unless they are fighting another martial artist, they tend to land their hits, because their style is mostly about speed and accuracy, rather than power" is meaningless. And their style already IS about speed and accuracy, what with extra attacks and being dex based.
4: nope. First, PCs are rarelly attacked by unarmed characters, making the feature mostly useless, and they are already much better than tavern thugs, thanks to Unarmored Defense AC (here's your blocking), better stats and better unarmed damage. And most likely better hp beyond first 3 levels.

Basically, problem isn't that WotC watch too few kung-fu movies, the problem is that you're watching too many of them and wants to translate that stuff to the game where it doesn't fit.

[UrielAwakened]

These are actually all really good ideas that people here will hate because it questions 5e's designers.

[Lombra]

A 20th level monk, on top of what Jack said, uses 30 feet of movement to get up, and still has 30 feet of movement to go with: in the eyes of a non-monk (yours and ours prlerspective of commoners), the monk is getting up for free.

I think that they should, however , gain bonuses to grappling and shoving.

[Finlam]

These are actually all really good ideas that people here will hate because it questions 5e's designers.

Agreed.

I particularly like the idea of being able to spend ki for advantage on attacks. It may need to be on a per attack (little 'a' not the 'Attack' action) to keep it balanced against the Samurai class, where guaranteed advantage is kind of their only thing. It would also need to be at least 4 levels into the class to put it out of reach of dipping, but once that's done, spending 1 ki point for advantage on 1 attack isn't nearly as a good as spending 1 ki point for a stunning strike. Combine that with the monk's already very limited ki, and it's not a huge power boost, just a very small bump. That said, it would open up some really fun and flavorful Elven Accuracy monk builds, but then again, you'd get more bang for your buck out of a successful stunning strike anyway.

That said...

A previous poster is correct that monks can already spend a bonus action and 1 ki point to dodge, giving disadvantage on all attacks against them until the start of their next turn.

I also think that the kick-up is really not necessary as monks get so much speed increase that it's effectively simulated anyway: a monk with a 50ft move speed can get up and still move 25 feet, 10ft more than a typical character.

Lastly, I like the idea of a monk having the ability to punish characters who attack them unarmed and who are not martial artists. I agree with JackPhoenix that it's an exceptionally rare occurrence: which make it a ribbon anyway. It would a good low level addition to the monks to help them feel more like a monk during a low level bar fight, but it wouldn't really do much else. I don't think it would affect the power of the class at all, really.

[Caelic]

Why, precisely, would a highly-trained unarmed combatant be more competent in landing blows than a highly-trained armed combatant?

I think that they should, however , gain bonuses to grappling and shoving.

This, I agree with. "Martial arts" includes a lot more than jump kicks and knife-hands.

[lunaticfringe]

Go read the official Drunken Master Jerry.

[Lombra]

Go read the official Drunken Master Jerry.

I like how that subclass addresses literally all of his points. I call that good game design: they aimed at a movie trope and fans of the movie trope reflect perfectly within the design choices.

[JackPhoenix]

I think that they should, however , gain bonuses to grappling and shoving.

I think just making grapple and shove Dex-based for monks would be enough. Monks don't need strength for anything else. Still, Open Hand Technique gives you shove and super-push (15') on FoB hit. No grapple, though. And it's save, which may be worse than opposed ability checks.

[scalyfreak]

This, I agree with. "Martial arts" includes a lot more than jump kicks and knife-hands.

A jiu-jitsu monk sounds like a pretty fun idea, actually. Or an aikido one.

[Anonymouswizard]

Have you ever looked at a class' features and wonder, why do they not have certain things? Fluff and mechanics both. The Monk seems to be missing out on certain signature stuff. Obviously WotC haven't watch enough kung fu movies.

1. The kip-up: How is it that 20th level monk still get up from prone like total noob? Needs the Athlete feat 'get up using 5ft movement' built in.

2. Dodging: Monks are good at this. Like, damn good. But because of bounded accuracy, all i see is them getting hit. A lot. Reaction to force disadvantage on incoming attack? (Require Ki point)

3. Flurry of Misses: Bad rolls, mostly. But still, unless they are fighting another martial artist, they tend to land their hits, because their style is mostly about speed and accuracy, rather than power. Spend Ki for advantage on attacks?

4. Parrying unarmed strikes: YOU DARE PUNCH A MONK? A MASTER OF THE MARTIAL ARTS? Well lucky for you you're in dindi world, they can't block that. This is just stupid. Cut out that Timeless Body and Empty Body crap, they are not supposed to lose a bunch of thugs in a tavern brawl.

Any others?

0: yes, like looking at a Sorcerer and wondering how they cannot have a decent number of spells known. Not for the monk though.

1: if it's not in the rules already being able to make a DC15 Acrobatics check as a free action to get up for 5ft of movement should really be standard. Monks will tend to have high Dex and training in acrobatics, so you'll most likely begin with a better than even chance to make it, and end up at about an 80% chance. The only person who does it better is a rogue trained in acrobatics.

2: redundant with an existing ability. It's also rather weak. But I can totally see it as part of a subclass, it's the sort of feature that would fit a subset of monks but not all of them.

3: really, almost all 'combat' classes are martial artists. Specifically it's the default fluff for Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, and some Clerics. I can also totally see a Barbarian fluffed as using some ancient martial art that involves throwing yourself into a reckless flurry of attacks, and even using the fluff for some rogues. Heck, every PC class has training in multiple weapons, meaning most PCs are probably martial artists of some kind.

4: this is part of what Armour Class is supposed to represent. They already have the second best unarmoured AC in the game (beaten only by Barbarians), so at most they just need the ability to increase their defence slightly for a ki point. Maybe it could let them spend a bonus action to dodge.

These are actually all really good ideas that people here will hate because it questions 5e's designers.

Eh, there's problems with several of them. Mainly redundancy or being modelled by something else. The only one that might be worthwhile adding to the base monk is the 'get up cheaply' one.

The others would work much better as subclass features, especially 2 and 4 combined into one. Call it Way of the Unyielding Mountain, give them the ability to spend a reaction and a ki point to give disadvantage on one attack roll, and a bonus action and a ki point to get resistance to one damage type until the end of their next turn, and it would be a cool and viable option (with a couple of extra features, of course).

I think that they should, however , gain bonuses to grappling and shoving.

I certainly agree on the idea of giving the core monk the ability to grapple and shove with Dexterity.

Then maybe a subclass revolving around grapples, shoves, and throws? It means that you could have some really big impressive abilities, rather than more minor boosts.

[MrStabby]

I agree a little with the monk getting up bit. I do see the point that improved monk speed is kind of equivalent but really high monk speed comes well after the point at which a monk should get up quickly.

Everything else... kind of seems a bit overkill.

[Saiga]

I would much rather give Monks the support to make Strength/grappling builds an effective alternative then let them make grapples/shoves with Dex. Have some build variety, instead of havong Monks able to do everything from stacking Dex.

[Nifft]

These are some good ideas, which could be turned into a viable Monk subclass, or a variant Monk chassis.

I'd love to see a Rogue-ish Monk who got Cunning Action and Uncanny Dodge, for example -- but that would need to cost something, since those are great abilities.

[Citan]

Have you ever looked at a class' features and wonder, why do they not have certain things? Fluff and mechanics both. The Monk seems to be missing out on certain signature stuff. Obviously WotC haven't watch enough kung fu movies.

1. The kip-up: How is it that 20th level monk still get up from prone like total noob? Needs the Athlete feat 'get up using 5ft movement' built in.

2. Dodging: Monks are good at this. Like, damn good. But because of bounded accuracy, all i see is them getting hit. A lot. Reaction to force disadvantage on incoming attack? (Require Ki point)

3. Flurry of Misses: Bad rolls, mostly. But still, unless they are fighting another martial artist, they tend to land their hits, because their style is mostly about speed and accuracy, rather than power. Spend Ki for advantage on attacks?

4. Parrying unarmed strikes: YOU DARE PUNCH A MONK? A MASTER OF THE MARTIAL ARTS? Well lucky for you you're in dindi world, they can't block that. This is just stupid. Cut out that Timeless Body and Empty Body crap, they are not supposed to lose a bunch of thugs in a tavern brawl.

Any others?

Hi!

First, all of them are nice ideas. ;) In a homebrew game, i would probably steal a bit of them from you. Now to try and answer your question (note that I'm not part of WoTC ^^ but I always make the assumption that what they did was for good reason and work from there. Barring all the official tweets that came after publishing though, because half of those are quick, thought-empty replies. ;)).

1. I understand your frustration, but I guess when saying that you were imagining humanoids fighting Monks, or similar creatures. Obviously you would expect a Monk to be able to reset his balance quickly when shoved / pushed by such a creature.
Now, take big, powerful monsters like dragons or higher/bigger and represent yourself a scene where such creature gives a very powerful blow from tail/claw/head/whatever to smash Monk on the ground. With those creatures having STR exceeding 20, would it seem so strange to you that even a Monk would have trouble getting back up from those hits? I'll dare that it would not.
So basically, in some situations, it should feel natural that Monk gets right back up, in others, not that much.
Because 5e aimed simplicity, I guess they made a binary choice, and let the feat option.
>>> Just give a free feat to everyone in your games, or houserule that Monk gets Athlete at 10th level or so.

2. This is a great idea, thematic, and balanced. I have no good idea as to why WoTC didn't propose something similar: maybe not to make too many similarities with Battlemaster (manoeuver +AC on attack) or some other martial (doesn't remember which one has another similar defensive), or maybe they actually counted on the fact that the "optional" rules (multiclass, feats) would be widely used, letting Monk take Defensive Duelist as needed (agreed though, it does have a big impact on your character fluff, using a weapon instead of expertly deviating/parrying with bare arms). Or just counted on the fact that Monk ends with great AC (18-20) and that having Dodge as bonus action on top, even at a cost, would make Monks resilient enough as is.
Or just thought it would be a rarely used feature because, let's be honest, a Monk usually tries to get as many chances to land Stunning Strike as possible (so on OA too).
>>> I'd even go as far as making it free from Ki, but gained at higher level (after all, it's still only one attack affected).

3. Feel free to implement this houserule in your games, but this one I would pass personally. Monks already have...
- plenty of ways to spend their Ki, making resource management a bit complex (that's the number 1 critic of Monks here too ^^).
- plenty of ways to gain advantage by themselves (just using one of their attacks on Shove).
- plenty of ways to gain advantage from allies: Expert Shoving Rogue, Tripping Battlemaster, Wolf Barbarian, bootload of spells restraining people one way or another...
Well, it can't hurt to allow it, but it's a bit sad because it would tend to make Monk player think "solo" instead of trying to understand how to coordinate with friends.

4. Confer to 1, it's the same problem: you are thinking about "mundane" situations, but WoTC had to define a structure of mechanics that were consistent for the whole game (whatever combination of player/monsters you have). In a "3.5 like" game which didn't care digging to an extreme level of detail, I would totally agree with you that they should have written a class feature like "any punch from a creature the same size as you is avoided automatically, unless it has the 'Barehand Fighting' talent or you are restrained".
In 5E? Meh. I'm glad they didn't.
You could however houserule a class feature such as "as long as you are able to move, unarmed strikes made by creatures without Martial Arts or Tavern Brawler feature are automatically avoided" (barring 20, or including 20 as you prefer).

[JNAProductions]

I agree with Monks being able to get up from Prone extra fast. That seems a reasonable change-probably stick it at level 3 or something.

The rest, though? Not needed, at all.

[Chibachiva]

A jiu-jitsu monk sounds like a pretty fun idea, actually. Or an aikido one.

I actually made a subclass that's based on having advantage and giving disadvantage to enemies!
Look for Way of the Vengeful Wave :)

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

A jiu-jitsu monk sounds like a pretty fun idea, actually. Or an aikido one.

I haven't looked at any monk stuff yet, so I doubt the support is there. But an aikido monk that accomplishes most of its combat goals by being attacked rather than doing the attacking would be quite interesting.

[jojo]

3: really, almost all 'combat' classes are martial artists. Specifically it's the default fluff for Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, and some Clerics. I can also totally see a Barbarian fluffed as using some ancient martial art that involves throwing yourself into a reckless flurry of attacks, and even using the fluff for some rogues. Heck, every PC class has training in multiple weapons, meaning most PCs are probably martial artists of some kind

"Martial Arts" in the original uses refers to the "Arts of Mars," one of the Greek Gods of War. By that definition the core "combat" classes, Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin and Ranger are Martial Artists.

Monks on the other hand traditionally, in both Eastern and Western cultures, are individuals who focus on the attainment of spiritual enlightenment or some other form of mental perfection.

Personally I think that this is well-reflected in DnD as a whole, fighters and what not better themselves to become better at fighting and warfare. Monks become better at fighting as a result of their attempts to better their mind/soul. The monk's abilities reflect this, sure enlightenment can make you dangerous, but it's not going to make you more dangerous than someone who's eschewed enlighten in pursuit of becoming better at violence.

I think the lower hit-points, limited weapon selection and other key parts of the Monk class actually do a pretty good job of representing the fact that Monks are really just spamming the fringe benefits of spiritual enlightenment for other-than-intended-purposes to keep up with/defend against people that totally eschewed seeking it.

As far as the Original Post is concerned:

It's worth noting that in Kung-Fu movies relatively few characters are actually described as "monks" when compared to those who are described as "sorcerers, "soldiers, "warriors" or otherwise. Most protagonists in those movies are secular warriors trying to "master" a specific "style" of Kung-Fu and therefore have a lot more in common with Fighters than with DnD who get abilities like "Diamond Soul" and "Tongue of Sun and Moon" and use a resource pool that's clearly spiritual in nature.

Even going back to 3.5 Monks haven't been the only character class to get access to improved physical abilities represented by wearing lighter armor, specifically Unarmored Movement for the Barbarian and the myriad of evasive maneuvers built into the Rogue class.

[Anonymouswizard]

"Martial Arts" in the original uses refers to the "Arts of Mars," one of the Greek Gods of War. By that definition the core "combat" classes, Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin and Ranger are Martial Artists.

I was looking at the default fluff, which makes the latter three definitely martial artists (as in formally trained in a martial art), while the former may or may not be formally trained (in most settings they probably are, but I've seen Barbarian characters fluffed as 'I'm just naturally good at it, no training' more than the other three).

Baator, I love using the term Martial Artist to refer to the classes which focus on weapon combat (which includes the Monk and Rogue) as a counterpoint to casters/magicians for those who focus on spells (I know caster is more common, but I prefer Magician).

But as I said, look at the weapon proficiencies characters get. Even wizards and druids get a handful of varied weapons, more than your average commoner probably can use (which should boil down to maybe 'knife, spear, and bow') and they spent years studying magic. We might as well state that every PC has basic training in martial arts.

Monks on the other hand traditionally, in both Eastern and Western cultures, are individuals who focus on the attainment of spiritual enlightenment or some other form of mental perfection.

Oh sure, I actually prefer my monks to be of the scholarly kind than the martial arts kind (which, if I'm not mistaken, some monks learnt from ex-soldiers who had joined the order). If I make a character who is a 'monk' they most likely have the Acolyte or maybe Sage background and any class bar Monk.

Personally I think that this is well-reflected in DnD as a whole, fighters and what not better themselves to become better at fighting and warfare. Monks become better at fighting as a result of their attempts to better their mind/soul. The monk's abilities reflect this, sure enlightenment can make you dangerous, but it's not going to make you more dangerous than someone who's eschewed enlighten in pursuit of becoming better at violence.

I think the lower hit-points, limited weapon selection and other key parts of the Monk class actually do a pretty good job of representing the fact that Monks are really just spamming the fringe benefits of spiritual enlightenment for other-than-intended-purposes to keep up with/defend against people that totally eschewed seeking it.

Eh, I don't really like spiritual enlightenment making you inherently more dangerous, but the again I do ban the monk class.

As far as the Original Post is concerned:

It's worth noting that in Kung-Fu movies relatively few characters are actually described as "monks" when compared to those who are described as "sorcerers, "soldiers, "warriors" or otherwise. Most protagonists in those movies are secular warriors trying to "master" a specific "style" of Kung-Fu and therefore have a lot more in common with Fighters than with DnD who get abilities like "Diamond Soul" and "Tongue of Sun and Moon" and use a resource pool that's clearly spiritual in nature.

Even going back to 3.5 Monks haven't been the only character class to get access to improved physical abilities represented by wearing lighter armor, specifically Unarmored Movement for the Barbarian and the myriad of evasive maneuvers built into the Rogue class.

Totally this. Soldiers I see a lot, priests I see a lot (I see the wandering Daoist/Taoist priest more than I see the wandering monk). Both professional Wuxia games I own consider being able to play a kung fu using doctor more important than a monk, both consider being able to play a Taoist priest, or a courtier more important.

In my experience of Wuxia, this fits. You might have a Taoist monk (because the difference between them and Taoist priests can be a bit arbitrary), but most of the protagonists are going to be soldiers or other secular fighters.