OneDnD - 5e UA Material/Discussion

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What do we think of the new Monk? (self.onednd)

submitted 1 year ago by jake_eric to c/[email protected]

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So Monk is the one class we didn't get a prior UA for, which means all the changes are totally new. I'm still wrapping my head around it. Martial Arts die increase: good. Martial Arts die not affecting weapons: bad. Step of the Wind buff: good. Stunning Strike nerf: bad but reasonable?

I feel like they knew Monks needed help, but it doesn't really seem like they made as much effort to fix that as I think they really needed to. Anything I might be missing that saves the Class here?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can you master a dagger to get Nick and get the extra attack and flurry of blows? Would be cool.

[–] jake_eric 2 points 1 year ago

That is pretty good actually! Though I can see some Monks disliking that they have to optimally use a weapon and not stay unarmed. Cool for a ninja-themed Shadow Monk though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Each night, you can pick two simple weapons to master. A dagger is a simple weapon. It also uses your martial arts die for damage, just as it would today for Dedicated Weapon or Kensai.

Here is Nick:

When you make the extra attack of the Light property, you can make it as part of the Attack action, instead of as a Bonus Action. You can still make this extra attack only once per turn.

At level 1, there is a bonus unarmed attack on Monk - since that is not the Light property on a Weapon, that bonus unarmed attack can still be used. Flurry of Blows is also not the Light property on a weapon, and so it'd also be open - assuming you took Two-Weapon Fighting, you would make that attack with your ability modifier and your martial arts die.

And so that would increase all the numbers by the martial arts die, and then by the attribute modifier as well if you had two-weapon fighting. This would put it very much comparable to the Warlock Baseline that was recently posted here.

A friend once told me, it was for Xcom and EverQuest back in the day, that there's a secret in all games. I will share his wisdom. "When you don't hit, things don't die." So, if you're looking at anything that improves a hit rate - it will tend to improve your damage over time more than something that merely improves damage, unless the damage boost is ridiculously overpowered.

To me, this is the principal behind a lot of high damage builds - of any class - the principal of "my attack bonus is high, and I roll the die many times." And that's because consider Disintegrate, for example. It is a great spell - it does a lot of damage. But it is all or nothing - either the spell gets you or it doesn't. Again - it's a great spell, but either it works or it doesn't - and if it doesn't you deal none of that damage and may not have the spell slots to try again.

If you look at the Monk - there's another thing to consider here, which is stunning strike.

When a creature is stunned, you get advantage on attacks and prevent it from doing anything, so you can attack.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A dagger is a simple weapon. It also uses your martial arts die for damage, just as it would today for Dedicated Weapon or Kensai.

Actually, new monk loses the ability to use their martial arts die in place of a weapon's damage.

New Monk:

Martial Arts Die. You can roll a d6 in place of the normal damage of your Unarmed Strike. This die changes as you gain Monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table

Old monk:

When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. For example, if you take the Attack action and attack with a quarterstaff, you can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, assuming you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True.

So, you're doing D6+D6 from dagger, martial arts from your other attack (unarmed), then flurry - and so it lowers the dice at higher levels - but it remains good. Also, you're making up this damage from Empowered Strike - for example - as a subclass feature. It does make it so that, particularly at higher levels, unarmed is better - but unarmed is going to be better (generally) anyway because force damage isn't resisted.

So, you're trailing by one when the die changes to D8, trailing by two when it changes to D10, and by three when it changes to D12 - on average. However, you're gaining your ability modifier an additional time - which will counter that average reduction. And it's an extra hit roll, sending down your chance not to cause damage at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, except dagger damage is d4, and to to get Two Weapon Fighting to add your ability modifier, you’ll have to multi-class to get the Fighting Style feature. The feat now has that as a prerequisite in this UA.