Unearthed Arcana: Monk & Barbarian

[Protolisk]

If the duration was 1 minute, I would agree with you: that's "an encounter". But 10 minutes is plenty of time for the party to end combat, use a few rounds to heal up or whatever, then move on to the next encounter. You can easily get 3 encounters out of a 10 minute effect. Obviously this is going to vary from table to table and dungeon to dungeon.

Okay, that's kind of fair for duration, though not true at most of the games I have played in. I would want to say it's true for games I have DM'd, but players always insisted that after a fight they should find a pace to short rest because everyone burned their big guns on the first fight or otherwise need healing, so all monks would get recharged anyway. You aren't wrong though, in dungeon crawling it has higher values.

But, for monks after level 3, all monks are making 2 attacks per turn, except Astral are stuck at d4 while other monks get a d8 snuck in via quarterstaff. Then until level 11, the Astral is still only making 3 attacks per round, while other monks are making... 3 attacks per round, both at no additional cost. But other monks are using a d8 attacks for 2 of their attacks, Astrals are stuck with all attacks being d6. It does have reach I guess over the others. But once those 10 minutes do run out, it'll have to spend the ki again, or just not have a subclass until the next short rest. (Open Hand and Drunken have this issue too mostly if it runs out of ki, but not other monks. Still, they still have a subclass with 1 ki point remaining, Astral can't with just 1 ki point)

So for most campaigns (how many campaigns get past level 10 or so?) base monks are better than them, and only at 11 does it finally reach higher values due to nearly all attacks being the same damage die and Astrals finally get an actual DPR buff. But you are right, after this it's 5d8+4*Wis per round compared to 3d8+3*Dex each round. That does make Astral look slightly more favorable in the higher levels, but again only during long fights or multiple quick fights.

I still think that's too long for the class to end up "good", though. A base "Astral" monk without using his Astral form using Dex instead will do more damage than an Astral that actually uses his abilities focusing Wis, even though they are using Wis for damage (Base Astral Monk can still flurry of blows without his Astral Form). Most monks get defensive buffs from their subclass by level 6, it gets advantage on a few skills (Insight is good, intimidation not so much as what Monk will have high Charisma to really benefit greatly from that), darkvision, reach, and replacing strength saves to use wisdom, but only at ki point expenditure. It's only real defensive bonus was reach, and I guess the strength save, even then. The reach's purpose to avoid attacks of opportunities is largely equal to Open hand's no reaction, or Drunken free disengage, or Shadow's teleport. Some of these cost ki though. Besides that, other sub classes get other forms of defense anyway. Open hand also get that heal. Kensei get the +2 AC at level 3 instead of level 17, for free. Long Death has reasonable sustain with its temp health. And even Sun Soul gets to hit enemies at even longer reach (no stunning strike, though), and Kensei can just straight up shoot with long bows. I won't speak on 4 elements as I know its a hassle.

So I guess the niche Astral Self is trying to fill is the edge case of "being strong in long protracted fights or dungeon crawls, but only at level 11 or higher". Until then its just "Alternate Strength Monk" as it seems worse than the rest in most other regards. I just get the feeling that that's not worth the first 10 levels being worse than pretty much any other monk, but that is a personal feeling.

[Damon_Tor]

I have yet to be in any game that has had 2 encounters within 10 minutes of each other, let alone 3.

It strains belief that creatures 100 feet away and around a corner don't hear the sound of battle and begin to mobilize, even if the enemy isn't actively calling for reinforcements. A specialized party making efforts to keep things quiet (and get lucky) sure, I could see it going right from time to time and not alerting other enemies, but the vast majority of the time it makes sense for one encounter to flow into another with only a few rounds of downtime.

[Fnissalot]

It strains belief that creatures 100 feet away and around a corner don't hear the sound of battle and begin to mobilize, even if the enemy isn't actively calling for reinforcements. A specialized party making efforts to keep things quiet (and get lucky) sure, I could see it going right from time to time and not alerting other enemies, but the vast majority of the time it makes sense for one encounter to flow into another with only a few rounds of downtime.

This is so depending on the table.
For example, in the last campaign where I was a player, the last mission had 6 encounters over a day and a half. Only 2 of them happened between 10 min from each other and only one of the 6 was longer than 3 rounds. We did other things than fighting; exploring an abandoned house, figuring out what happened there, saving a prisoner, and so on.

[Amechra]

A few things...

1) At second glance, the default Arms really don't do much for you in a fight (at least until 11+). They seems to really be more for extended reach/completely dumping Strength. Which, when combined with their extended duration, makes them pretty decent for exploration. I honestly think the whole "it's a Monk Weapon with Reach!" thing is just in case you get caught in the middle of exploring things.

2) The Visage is another decent out-of-combat utility option - Astral Vision is Devil's Sight, and Wisdom of the Spirit is a decent social buff.

3) Once you hit 11+, the subclass goes "oh, wait, combat is a thing", and starts throwing combat buffs on the combo'd Arms + Visage. Which feels a bit weird, honestly.

4) I think building around the Wisdom to attack and damage is a mistake. Activating it in combat burns your bonus action, and it's not like any of your other monk weapons run off of Wisdom. It'd be great if it modified Martial Arts so that Wisdom to attack and damage was always an option.

As for what niche it fills... I think it'd be really interesting if they went for a Wisdom Monk with more general utility. Using Wisdom for Strength checks and saves is cool and all, but I'd like to see more of that, Maybe the Visage could let you use your Wisdom in place of your Charisma for checks and saves while you have it up? I'd also prefer it if they didn't go for up to six attacks at 17th+ - that just sounds really tedious to roll.

[Protolisk]

I thought that since Astral Monks could go SAD (more or less) and focus on Stunning Strikes DC, that maybe they could be useful stun-bots. Except like already pointed out, they get less attacks in, which means less chances to stunning strike. So which is better, more chances via more hits, or better chance via higher DC?

I was thinking about working it out but it looks like someone on Reddit already did the work.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/com...nk_being_able/

"TL;DR: For a narrow level range, against particularly strong enemies, if they spend all of their Ki, an Astral Monk that prioritized Wis over Dex does slightly better at stunning than a typical Monk."

That's too many requirements for Astral to get a lead. Astral needs buffs, it seems. Worse DPS, worse defenses, and worse Stuns?

[Kane0]

‘When you use your bonus action to make unarmed attacks using your martial arts or flurry of blows, your reach increases to 10 feet’
Or just
‘your unarmed attacks have a reach of 10 feet’
And then rework later features to suit

[Mitsu]

Monk little too strong, even though class needs it (buff) - it's not good idea to just introduce another hexblade for monks.

Barbarian, I love the concept and mostly mechanics but I don't like random AoE damage that can kill your party.

It's all fun and giggls with magical exploding barbarian till moment when you roll effect and explode AoE damage around and kill your already wounded in encounter friends. This is where noone at table will have fun...

So I think monk needs to be toned down and Barbarian needs to have either:

1. Some sort of effect control. So maybe no 8 random effects but 4 you can chose from.

2. Replace "creatures" with "enemies" in AoE effect descriptions or give him some sort of Sculpt Spell effect where he can exclude up to "CON modifier" numbers of creatures out of effect.

[Kane0]

Monk little too strong, even though class needs it (buff) - it's not good idea to just introduce another hexblade for monks.

Barbarian, I love the concept and mostly mechanics but I don't like random AoE damage that can kill your party.

It's all fun and giggls with magical exploding barbarian till moment when you roll effect and explode AoE damage around and kill your already wounded in encounter friends. This is where noone at table will have fun...

So I think monk needs to be toned down and Barbarian needs to have either:

1. Some sort of effect control. So maybe no 8 random effects but 4 you can chose from.

2. Replace "creatures" with "enemies" in AoE effect descriptions or give him some sort of Sculpt Spell effect where he can exclude up to "CON modifier" numbers of creatures out of effect.

Wouldn't that just be a rehash of the Ancestral and Storm barbarians then?

[stoutstien]

The friendly fire isn't that bad because most of the effects are pretty low damage. The worst is the 1d10 Necro aoe that if I'm reading correctly is a huge area. 30 feet from you is a 60 ft sphere.

[MinimanMidget]

To me, the worst thing about the Barbarian is that they came up with an amazing feature:

Plant life temporarily grows around you: until your rage ends, the ground within 10 feet of you is difficult terrain.

And then they put it in a random table instead of making a subclass based on it. It kind of exemplifies the "great ideas, terrible execution" theme of a lot of UA (and 5e, for that matter).

[Kane0]

I've seen that particular feature as a common Fighting Style for reach weapons. Use it myself actually.

[MinimanMidget]

It was in 3.5e and 4e, too. It's not necessarily a new idea, but within the context of 5e it's unique enough and important enough that it deserves to be a significant feature, not one entry in a random table.

[Foxhound438]

First and foremost, they finally give us a Stand subclass but it can't even be a boat? I'll come back when you fix this, Mearls.

I don't understand why they keep making new subclasses that just look like they're trying to out-do previous things or be broken in multiclass. (okay maybe I do know why they probably do, but making the next book sell better is a bad idea long term...) I get that the Jojo monk doesn't instantly outshine everything right away by a notable margin like hexblade did, but it has the same stink of "let's put all stat dependancy on your mental stat at a low level and it'll be fine". It's slower to get to the busted stuff, but being able to go into one stat exclusively and then take feats still puts this at a questionable position from the start, and if you're looking at making a character for a game that expects to get to high levels it really pushes down on the other monk subclasses in a way that I don't like.

I also have an issue with the fact that it looks like they keep trying to make the monk be "nuts DPS class" like a paladin or something, but the monk really doesn't need to do that. Not everything has to be the DPS, and the monk is fine acting more like a rogue than a fighter.

[Justin Sane]

Has anyone noticed Astral Self lets you play an armored Monk? Just start off with a 1 level dip in some form of Cleric, and you're good to go.

[Damon_Tor]

Has anyone noticed Astral Self lets you play an armored Monk? Just start off with a 1 level dip in some form of Cleric, and you're good to go.

The problem here is that you don't use your martial arts dice for monk weapons when you're wearing armor, and the Astral Arms don't seem to have a damage dice of their own.

[Justin Sane]

The problem here is that you don't use your martial arts dice for monk weapons when you're wearing armor, and the Astral Arms don't seem to have a damage dice of their own.

D'oh, missed that one. Thanks for the clarification.

[alchahest]

I like the barbarian pitch, a lot.

I think what I'd do is make it so you've got a pool that refreshes on a long rest - 1 spell level per level, in a similar way to ki, still rolling for the spell level you give and taking damage equal to 5x the number rolled, and the recipient can only recieve a spell slot if they have a used slot of that level, or the next available lower slot.

examples:

Rudy the sixth Half-Orc Barbarian wants to give Sam the Paladin 3/fighter3 a spell slot.

Rudy rolls a four. he takes 20 damage, and subtracts four from his pool. Sam cannot recieve the spell slot, as he does not have that level of slot free, and instead gains the use of one of his first level slots back.

Sam uses that slot to smite mightily and by the time Rudy's turn rolls around, Greg the Wizard really wants to cast fireball so, Rudy decides to use up his action to give that spell slot. He rolls a four. oops! he takes 20 damage, dumping him unconscious as he'd already had a few hits to his noggin. As he only has two points left in his pool, his shortsightedness means that the slot given is a level 2. Now Greg the Wizard hasn't cast any level 2 spells yet, and has no slots available, so the slot generated instead fills his empty first level slot he'd used on a sleep spell earlier.


This might be even more restrictive... but this is a Barbarian slangin magic around like it's hotcakes on a hotcake sale.

[Damon_Tor]

There was another thread where I suggested simply giving this barbarian a spell slot progression, and allowing him to pass out those spell slots. He'd still take damage, but I'd remove the random element (there's still plenty of random to be had elsewhere in the subclass).

[alchahest]

There was another thread where I suggested simply giving this barbarian a spell slot progression, and allowing him to pass out those spell slots. He'd still take damage, but I'd remove the random element (there's still plenty of random to be had elsewhere in the subclass).

that's cool - I admit I do like the randomness of it but I like this take as well

[Reevh]

I have yet to be in any game that has had 2 encounters within 10 minutes of each other, let alone 3.

My party had 2 encounters within 10 minutes... twice, yesterday. I don't think we did more than two within 10 minutes, but it's within reason that we would. I'm pretty sure we have, in fact.

[Reevh]

So I think the issue with monks is more to do with flavor/utility/non-combat stuff than it is the numbers in combat, but if we feel they need a combat buff, I think there are better ways to go about it than a sub-class that can outshine the other subclasses.

Maybe introduce fist weapons to the game that can be used with the "unarmed attack" features. Or add a feat that improves unarmed attacks somehow, like GWM and Sharpshooter improve those things.

[Reevh]

There was another thread where I suggested simply giving this barbarian a spell slot progression, and allowing him to pass out those spell slots. He'd still take damage, but I'd remove the random element (there's still plenty of random to be had elsewhere in the subclass).

Might be fun to let them do a Rogue (from X-men) style thing, and steal spell slots from other casters, then give them to his compatriots, without actually being a spellcaster themselves.

[Damon_Tor]

Might be fun to let them do a Rogue (from X-men) style thing, and steal spell slots from other casters, then give them to his compatriots, without actually being a spellcaster themselves.

Oooh, that's kind of a cool idea:

Starting at 6th level, whenever a spell is cast that damages you, as a reaction you can absorb some of the arcane energies of that spell by making a constitution save against the caster's spell save DC. If you succeed, you have resistance to damage from that spell, and absorb some of its residual arcane energies, gaining one spell slot of the same level used to cast that spell. This spell slot lasts until your next long rest.

As an action, you can touch another creature to transfer one spell slot to them.

Seems to feel more like a barbarian to me than the straight up "mana battery" functionality of the ability as written. The ability to potentially absorb and refund your own allies' AoE spells you get caught in is deliberate. Also relevant, you could potentially absorb your OWN spells in this way; I'd love it if there was an excuse for a sorcerer to take 6 levels of barbarian.

[Reevh]

Oooh, that's kind of a cool idea:

Starting at 6th level, whenever a spell is cast that damages you, as a reaction you can absorb some of the arcane energies of that spell by making a constitution save against the caster's spell save DC. If you succeed, you have resistance to damage from that spell, and absorb some of its residual arcane energies, gaining one spell slot of the same level used to cast that spell. This spell slot lasts until your next long rest.

As an action, you can touch another creature to transfer one spell slot to them.

Seems to feel more like a barbarian to me than the straight up "mana battery" functionality of the ability as written. The ability to potentially absorb and refund your own allies' AoE spells you get caught in is deliberate. Also relevant, you could potentially absorb your OWN spells in this way; I'd love it if there was an excuse for a sorcerer to take 6 levels of barbarian.

Yeah, I dig the mechanic as you describe it, though it only references damaging spells. I feel like it should take effect if you save against a non-damaging spell as well, and it should be spell-level capped to an equivalent caster level.

[stoutstien]

Might be fun to let them do a Rogue (from X-men) style thing, and steal spell slots from other casters, then give them to his compatriots, without actually being a spellcaster themselves.

Too dependent on facing enemy casters who use slots but would be fun

[Reevh]

Too dependent on facing enemy casters who use slots but would be fun

I mean when you're not facing enemy casters, you're still a freaking Barbarian. I'd be happy to get a class feature that fills a hole in my Barb's defensive capabilities. Even better when I can use that to empower my allies.

[Damon_Tor]

Too dependent on facing enemy casters who use slots but would be fun

My version above would let you refund your allies' spells as long you were getting caught in the AoE.

[Reevh]

My version above would let you refund your allies' spells as long you were getting caught in the AoE.

Yeah, it's a real risk/reward mechanic for your friends to drop fireballs on you. Sure, you can often shrug it off and give your friend back their spell slot, but sometimes you won't be able to. Feed the RAGE!

Oh yeah, should probably only work when raging.

[jaappleton]

ATTENTION EVERYONE THAT CRAPPED ON MIKE MEARLS AND PRETTY MUCH CALLED HIM AN ANIME LOVING *scrubbed* OVER HIS DESIGN OF THE ASTRAL SOUL MONK (because some of ya’ll did, and you know it)

Ben Petrisor designed the Astral Soul.

Mike Mearls had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Enjoy your crow.

[Sindeloke]

So I think the issue with monks is more to do with flavor/utility/non-combat stuff than it is the numbers in combat, but if we feel they need a combat buff, I think there are better ways to go about it than a sub-class that can outshine the other subclasses.

Maybe introduce fist weapons to the game that can be used with the "unarmed attack" features. Or add a feat that improves unarmed attacks somehow, like GWM and Sharpshooter improve those things.

In a featless game, the one and only thing they need to scale properly is one extra attack at level 11. If you want to be super conservative you can put it on Flurry (three extra attacks for 1 ki), or you can outright give them Extra Attack 2 (call it Improved Flurry, like the paladin's Improved Smite).

That would require them to errata a class they've already printed, though, and they've apparently decided to draw a hard line there. Perhaps the ranger will be the thing that finally breaks it, but I think it's more likely they'll try to hold that as a weird exception and continue to make unbalanced subclasses* to try to fix base class problems out of sheer terror of even hinting that they might make anything like "5.5e".

(Also, it does nothing to help a feated game, but that we can fix with a single feat, which is easy to add in a UA, so it's not really the same kind of issue.)

* Not that, to actually be on topic for five seconds, the JoJo Monk is really noticeably better than the gold standard Open Palm - but it is weird, giving too little at first, overloading itself in the endgame, overriding instead of synergizing with multiple base class features, and operating on a 10-minute timescale that puts it out of sync with the rest of the party's 1-minute/1-hour resource expenditures. Going off the map like that makes it really hard to judge against either other subclasses a monk could take or other classes in the party, and angles toward the kind of Ivory Tower Design that they deliberately stepped away from this edition.