Strongest possible pure monk

[Psyren]

The 1DnD monk (from the latest UA) *is* overpowered, and I don’t really think its much of a question.

The 5e version otoh (After Tashas) is generally considered slightly better than the rogue and barbarian, but no more, and really requires incredibly narrow build options and scenarios in which to shine (theres basically only three builds that can work at highop, and they have almost no wiggle room).

But the monk is one of those classes where they are in a superposition of being good and being terrible, and slight imbalances could tip it one way or the other. So of course a sequence of major buffs by the dev team was going to kick the status of the class into orbit.

For this to make any kind of sense I really need to know what definition of "overpowered" you're working with The 5.5e monk is stronger but still faces material tradeoffs for achieving maximum offense or defense - and that's a good thing.

I haven't played with it but overpowered is a tall order.

Is this overpowered, like say, reasonable choice with ups and downs in comparison to paladin? What is the range we are talking here?

Even with the Divine Smite nerf paladin comes out on top imo. And while base smite was nerfed, the smite spells were mostly buffed, plus they can smite with thrown weapons and unarmed strikes now, plus Paladins get them all prepared for free, and they're ritual casters on top of that so they have a bunch of utility they didn't have before too.

[Schwann145]

Seriously, though, the Monk is not a weak class. Four Element Monk is arguable the weakest subclass in the game, sure, due how ki-hungry it is relatively to the effects it does, but that doesn't drag down the whole class.

Folks constantly treat Way of Mercy as an elevation to the class.
If Mercy can elevate, then Elements can certainly drag.

[Dr.Samurai]

I haven't played with it but overpowered is a tall order.

Is this overpowered, like say, reasonable choice with ups and downs in comparison to paladin? What is the range we are talking here?

Experience so far is that he is difficult to threaten and can do a lot of stuff on his turn. Incredibly mobile, deals a lot of damage, can take a lot of attacks, whether they hit, miss, or he deflects them. He can cart me around the battlefield at Dash speed. He can spend all of his resources in a long day (most of our days are long days with a handful of encounters) and then start the next encounter with full Ki and healing 1/long rest.

My feeling is the player is still getting used to everything he can do, so his turn takes a little longer. And he's even told me "I'm figuring it out while other people are taking their turns, but there's a lot of options". This lag is noticeable during encounters. For the DM, I think he doesn't have a firm grasp of the 1D&D monk's potential. He can be anywhere on the map at any time, and bring my Large rune knight fighter with him. No one is safe. And with that mobility, enemies have to be equally as mobile to focus fire on him, otherwise he can deflect a big attack and also heal himself with Open Hand technique.

I said it's overtuned, and I think that's right. There's a lot going on for the new monk, and we're not in tier 4 yet where it looks like it gets even tougher. He gets five attacks, 2 with his magic weapon, and 3 that Shove/Knock Prone/Addle. In the target rich encounters we play in, he's doing a lot of decision making on where to move and who to target and what to impose on them. There is a noticeable and significant difference between this monk, and the OG monk he was playing in this same campaign. As I've said in other threads, the player feels like Superman now lol.

Is it overpowered? I don't know, but I don't think it needed everything it got. But again, if we're going by standard "optimization" stuff, then yeah, the monk sucks and needs a major overhaul. But for me, fighting alongside the OG monk, he was doing great. I could see increasing his damage, and mostly because I think the damage he was putting out just wouldn't feel good for fulfilling that martial arts fantasy, not because fights were unwinnable due to his damage output.

[LudicSavant]

I think the reason why they were asking about the Way of Mercy is that Kane0's post was pairing it with Gunner, which implies that you aren't going to be Flurrying

Mercy gunner is a thing! They have the option to shoot+flurry+poison (remember, Gunner boosts Monk melee damage, too), or stay back and shoot 3 times with KFA, or shoot twice and heal twice and remove status effects twice, as the monster matchup demands.

Relative to a kensei, you're basically trading some of your raw ranged damage output for a pool of hundreds of hit points, an unusually efficient status heal, and the ability to jump in and poison or stun enemies that are vulnerable to such.

[Hael]

For this to make any kind of sense I really need to know what definition of "overpowered" you're working with The 5.5e monk is stronger but still faces material tradeoffs for achieving maximum offense or defense - and that's a good thing.
Even with the Divine Smite nerf paladin comes out on top imo..

They have very different roles, so I wouldn’t make the direct comparison with a halfcaster or the full casters. The 5.5 monk is overpowered in the sense that he is clearly above the rest of the pure martials in overall efficacy, and crucially does his role (skirmishing) significantly better than his nearest competitor (the rogue). Its sorta like how the 5e wizard was simultaneously the best pure caster, and was clearly superior to his nearest competitor (the sorceror).

I tested the original incarnation of the 1DnD monk (with disastrous results) and havent gotten the chance to see the new version in play. However my table has.. Multiple times, and the reports are that the MvP encounter after encounter has been the new open hand monk. To the point where it induces snickers (not unlike when we used to get shepherd druids or twilight clerics at the table in 5e).

[LudicSavant]

Shadow is another contender for top Monk. The reasons being...

They make their party a ninja strike team
Unlike a Rogue, you bring your entire party with you when you infiltrate.

- Pass Without Trace is a game-changer spell that makes the entire party good at stealth, and you can keep it up for every encounter of the day for a pittance.

- Darkvision can be cast at the start of the day as a "1 hour ritual" to give all those pesky VHumans darkvision and ensure nobody in the party is tempted to turn on a lantern.

- Silence not only is useful for shutting down spellcasters (at least, the ones that still actually cast spells... glares at the new caster monster writeups), but it's also one of the best ways to get through doors or walls. Who needs a lockpick when you can cast silence and take out your sledgehammers?

- Later on, you can turn invisible at-will, making your stealth even better.

Basically, the Shadow shines in the supports it adds to their party -- albeit in a completely different way than Mercy.

New splat features combo with their old kit.
- Darkness has a lot of different ways for people to see through it or otherwise combo with it these days, both yourself and allies.

- Ki-Fueled Attacks triggers off of Darkness and Silence, so you can lay down a stun attempt or gunshot on the same turn. And then take another stun attempt if the enemy tries to walk out of your Darkness or Silence, and trigger your OA!

[Psyren]

They have very different roles, so I wouldn’t make the direct comparison with a halfcaster or the full casters. The 5.5 monk is overpowered in the sense that he is clearly above the rest of the pure martials in overall efficacy, and crucially does his role (skirmishing) significantly better than his nearest competitor (the rogue). Its sorta like how the 5e wizard was simultaneously the best pure caster, and was clearly superior to his nearest competitor (the sorceror).

I don't agree with this either. In terms of pure melee damage, it's a lot closer now but Fighter and Barbarian still have them beat, especially in terms of sustain, particularly once you add in heavy weapons and Weapon Mastery. In terms of ranged damage Monk is not even close, and sometimes that's the ideal way to attack. Even Barbarians have them beat at range now that RA applies to thrown weapons. And out of combat, Barbarians now have Primal Knowledge while Fighters now have Tactical Mind. All that is before subclasses are taken into account.

New Monk is great, but I don't see it being better than the other two pure martials, never mind being overtuned relative to them.

I tested the original incarnation of the 1DnD monk (with disastrous results) and havent gotten the chance to see the new version in play. However my table has.. Multiple times, and the reports are that the MvP encounter after encounter has been the new open hand monk. To the point where it induces snickers (not unlike when we used to get shepherd druids or twilight clerics at the table in 5e).

I can see how a low-op table that's too used to the weak version might be caught off guard, but come on. Shepherd Druids and Twilight Clerics, seriously?

[Hael]

I don't agree with this either. In terms of pure melee damage, it's a lot closer now but Fighter and Barbarian still have them beat, especially in terms of sustain, particularly once you add in heavy weapons and Weapon Mastery. In terms of ranged damage Monk is not even close, and sometimes that's the ideal way to attack. Even Barbarians have them beat at range now that RA applies to thrown weapons. And out of combat, Barbarians now have Primal Knowledge while Fighters now have Tactical Mind. All that is before subclasses are taken into account.

New Monk is great, but I don't see it being better than the other two pure martials, never mind being overtuned relative to them.

Are you sure about that first point? Most of the math that I saw online was incorrect and sloppy, with dubious resource usage assumptions and not properly taking into account advantage generation from the monks abilities (eg stunning strike/subclass features etc). My back of the envelope calculations had a good monk build as higher dpr than the barbarian and closing in on the fighter. And thats before adding in things like openhand monk tricks (like hitting people 15 feet up in the air, watching them take fall damage and then proning them.. add crusher for even more damage). It also relied on harder to confirm abilities for the fighter (like the new charger feat) being available every turn.

In any event, the biggest playtest issues that I heard was due to their new deflect abilities (which are crazy strong), as it turns them into one of the best tier1-early tier2 classes in the game as they can negate a sizeable amount of damage. Meanwhile the designers indicated they would include level appropriate magic items for the monk (like gloves +1,+2,+3, flametongue etc) which is a big deal, as they will use those items better than anyone in the game.

[Skrum]

"Hitting people 15' in the air" sounds like an extremely dubious ruling. Unless the ability actually said you may move them 15' in any direction, I would never allow that, and strongly believe that is not RAW or RAI.

Back = directly away from the monk along the plane of the surface they are standing on.

Frankly it sounds like you're describing the monk Being Actually Competent. This is a departure from most monk and monk classes going back to 3e, but I don't think it should be confused with overtuned.

[Psyren]

1) Barb and Fighter can do the pop-up-knock-back thing too with Push and Crusher. They don't even need a specific subclass to do it, nor do they need to spend a resource.

2) What Skrum said regarding Actually Competent vs Overtuned.

[LudicSavant]

I don't think this is supposed to be a 1D&D thread...

[notthegiant]

I don't think this is supposed to be a 1D&D thread...

I wasn't planning on it, but this is interesting too!

[Psyren]

I don't think this is supposed to be a 1D&D thread...

I was asked about it so I answered.

I wasn't planning on it, but this is interesting too!

Essentially, two of the subclasses will be more geared towards skirmishing (Open Hand, 4 Elements) while the other two will be able to frontline/tank more effectively (Mercy, Shadow).