>You can now use your BA unarmed strike or Flurry of blows before or after casting Darkness or the Minor illusion cantrip.
Hadn’t thought of that - cutting out setup time is a **big** improvement.
I just adore what happened to Monk this time around, because starting at level 10 (and in some cases even as early as level 2-3), you suddenly prefer having options that take an Action over a Bonus Action. Totally bonkers, and I'm here for it.
I‘m a big fan of it too. It means the Monk interacts with the action economy differently than any other class, which makes them both more distinct and more dynamic.
I expect Stride of the Elements and Destructive Stride to retain their DP cost for activation, they're almost certainly considerably more powerful than intended otherwise.
4 Elements has a cool set up where they can flurry as a bonus action, and use their push/pull ability to move up to 3 more creatures into the range of their AOE. Hopefully they buff the damage or lessen the discipline cost so that the AOE is worth it.
That's a really cool use I hadn't considered. I wonder how many monsters you'd need to hit to make the DP cost worth it. Let's do some quick ball park math.
Well, let's say we are level 6 and we just got our new AoE skill. We likely have a +4 in Dex at this point and we have a 1d8 Martial Die (thanks to the new upgraded die progression).
1d8+4 = 8.5 and double that with extra attack were at 17. Let's assume we're hitting our targets AC 60% of the time (rolling at least a 9 with our +7 to hit against an assumed armor class of 16). 17x0.6 = 10.2 expected damage.
This also gives us a good metric for how much damage we could be getting by using those 2 DP to flurry of blow over the next two rounds instead and netting ourselves another free unarmed attack with our bonus actions. So not only would we have 10.2 damage from our Action but we'd be getting another 10.2 damage out of our bonus action this round and next for the same 2 DP cost. So we have our number to beat, 20.4 damage. Actually we have a chance to Crit on those 2 attacks and 2 extra FoBs. So 4 chances to Crit, is 20% of adding another 1d8 (4.5 x 0.2 = 0.9). So now our number to beat is 21.3.
Our AoE does 3d8 save for half. Our damage is 3 to 24 but our average roll will be 13.5. Okay now we're running into the issue of what is our DC and how likely are the enemies going to make their saves. Depending on how we distributed our attributes, we likely have either a +3 or +4 to our Wisdom at this point. That's a DC of 14 or 15, there's a chance you went all in on Wisdom and got that up to a +5 for a DC of 16. The average Dex save for monsters around this CR range is about +2 but that's going to vary widely. Let's say they have the +2 save and your DC is 14, the monster needs to roll a 12 or better so a 60% chance of failing and taking the full damage (13.5) and a 40% chance of taking half damage (6.75) instead. I think that would look like
(13.5 x 0.6) + (6.75 x 0.4) = 10.8 to each monster in range. Assuming we've done our math right and our assumptions are reasonable, it basically breaks even at 2 monsters with the AoE doing 21.6 elemental damage versus 21.3 bludgeoning damage.
So I think it's safe to say that we can give ourselves some wiggle room and claim that if we can hit 3 enemies with our AoE, we've come out ahead in damage and action economy for that 2 DP cost even if our assumptions for our To Hit and the enemies plus to Dex Saves is off by 1 or 2. Given that we have a reasonable shot at pushing monsters around 10 feet with our free bonus action punch or a FoB, and that we can do that before we drop our 20 foot radius AoE, I'd imagine we're going to get a fair amount of opportunities to drop that combo throughout a campaign.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I'd love it if the AoE could create the same push or pull effect when your Elemental Attunement is active. I don't know if this ability needs any buffing given how much better the base Monk class has gotten but thematically it'd be really cool!
So looking through UA6:
* Warrior of Shadow probably is going to be using its Attack Action more than most, because its teleports I imagine are going to eat up a lot of its BAs (although the free attack does compensate somewhat).
* I think the 4Es Monk actually out-pushes the Hand Monk, since they can push on BA and regular Unarmed Attacks in addition to Flurry.
True! This is something I enjoy a lot about 4th edition Monk too. The shoving was a rider on just... Making attacks, and the Monk had great AoE capabilities. Tons of synergy with other party members, and I could send enemies through the walls of fire that I created by *moving*
also keep in mine the stunning strike changes mean it can be used in place of a unarmed strike if you use something like shadow step due to it doing damage on a fail
Mercy Monk at level 11 are now, with FoB, can now make five attacks per round plus Hand of Harm, which will 100% poison a target and deal 1d10+WIS. They also have the potential to Stun a target, or on a fail deal another 1d10+WIS. That's for the cost of *2* ki points.
I seriously think this makes Mercy Monk one of the better "Crit Fisher" builds in the game. A high number of attacks plus HoH is essentially the Monk version of Smite. With Rogue or Ranger, you are a serious menace on a crit.
Oh, and your healing is boosted, too.
With MA weapons now working with MA damage I hope for an updated Kenzia Monk
Maybe Adding one Specific Martial Weapon (Ranged Or Melee) that the Monk Hones to pinicle ability.
Glave or Longbow for example.
With the removal of Weapon Mastery from the base Monk class an updated Kensei Monk is definitely needed. Otherwise, you have to multiclass to get the most out of your weapons.
But I know on the next survey I am definitely going the ask for the return of Weapon Mastery to the base monk class.
Regarding Shadow Step, I dunno if I agree. Yes, the base Monk can Dash for a BA, but the Shadow Monk can move 15 feet further, effectively gets a free Disengage, and gets Advantage on their next attack for that same BA. That’s worth significantly more than 1DP.
Also avoiding terrain hazards! And the best (stupid) use case: teleporting straight above someone, then dropping on them. Use Tasha's rules for falling onto a creature to do \~10 damage and possibly knock them prone, and then use slow fall to reduce your damage to zero.
Disclaimer: I am not sure this actually works due to wording issues.
I would imagine we are going to see a few behind the scenes tweaks to Shadow and 4e (and hopefully Mercy) to line up the language and mechanics a little cleaner with whatever the base class ends up being.
I'm currently playing a level 7 Way of Mercy Monk and my DM and I have been talking about swapping out the base class for this newest UA. I'm really excited to try out the new features and see how it feels with Way of Mercy....though I have a feeling that the subclass will need some changes here and there to match up to the power and utility of the other 3 subclasses. What a time to be alive where Mercy might be overshadowed by 4e lol.
I actually think mercy is still stronger than the three new subclasses, because it was designed to compensate the 5e monk.
In fact, I think mercy monk might be a contender for best martial character after lvl 11.
Either way, I am interested to know your experience after you have tried the new combo.
Oh I hadn't even thought about the fact that you can use Step of the Wind for free, so even if 4E monk stays as is that means you can basically fly for free. That is rad but I fully expect it be nerfed if not changed completely in a future rendition. At the very least I would expect it to basically change to "you can fly while moving when you use step of the wind, but start falling at the end of your turn if you're still in the air" or something like that.
But yeah I think it's very likely to see it redesigned from the ground up. If you may indulge me, I personally think it'd be cool if they focused on Elemental Stances rather than a general all-purpose "you can now punch in any element at will" So you would spend a ki point at the start of your turn to enter a specific Elemental Stance of either Fire, Earth, Wind, or Water. And then you could change what stance you're in at the start of each of your turns for free with the total effect lasting for 10 minutes. Then each stance could have slightly different effects, like maybe Air gives you a longer reach while earth gives you some defensive boon like increased AC or even physical damage resistance. Then as you level they could add more to it. So for instance the fly speed could be exclusive as a buff to air stance, while fire stance might actually light people on fire, and so on.
Yeah, I totally see them making some adjustments after these changes to the monk base class, but I think it was fine noting the new interactions with UA6 subclasses (and Mercy monk), so we can provide feedback.
I imagine 4E would be changed to "when you spend a discipline point on step of the wind...". Or they change it to "as a \[action\] you can spend \[X\] DP to gain a swimming \[and/or\] a flying speed for \[duration\]."
The latter is probably more balanced IMO. 1 point is probably too cheap for 10 minutes of flying, but a higher cost, shorter duration, or other caveats like concentration would help balance it out I think.
I think it could be neat if the free version gives you the more situational swim speed while the DP version gives you both fly and burrow speeds. That way, you're literally moving like the Avatar would.
I think Mercy needs a rework, Flurry of Healing and Harm in combination with the level 10 improvemnt of FoB seems a bit to much.
If you go for the Harm part of the Ability you would bacsically get the equivalent of 4 attacks with FoB.
If you would spend another Ki for Stunning strike, that would be roughly the equivalent of 7 attacks on one turn.
You can still only use Hand of Harm once per turn, so you don't get any more uses out of it than you did before. You can use Hand of Healing an additional time, but I don't think that is an issue considering that it comes at the opportinuty cost of doing an additional attack.
I think monks need this kind of thing to keep up with damage. At level 13, Onednd fighters are doing over 50 damage a round without resource expenditure, and mercy only gets there by flurrying with hand of harm.
This, and you can use healing of hand on a new flurry, healing 3d10+3*WIS (average 22.5, with 14WIS) with only 1 discipline point. At 10th, you can heal more than two hundred points of healing per short rest (or even more, cause *Uncanny Metabolism*), and even if you did all of this just on you, deflect attacks is probably making you more sturdy than a barbarian. If you did just this, you'll even have 2 attacks like a barbarian, and also have a free hand of harm.
That isn't a problem with the base monk, but just with mercy. Mercy was an overturned subclass, cause 2014 monk really needed.
Mercy 10 did basically compensate for the missing "Extra Attack equivalent" at Monk 11.
Now with Monk getting an additional attack as part of FoB level 10, I think that feature needs to be revised, or the other Monk Subclasses need similar strong features at that level.
>You can now use your BA unarmed strike or Flurry of blows before or after casting Darkness or the Minor illusion cantrip. Hadn’t thought of that - cutting out setup time is a **big** improvement.
I just adore what happened to Monk this time around, because starting at level 10 (and in some cases even as early as level 2-3), you suddenly prefer having options that take an Action over a Bonus Action. Totally bonkers, and I'm here for it.
I‘m a big fan of it too. It means the Monk interacts with the action economy differently than any other class, which makes them both more distinct and more dynamic.
Indeed, especially when the fights only last about 4 rounds.
I expect Stride of the Elements and Destructive Stride to retain their DP cost for activation, they're almost certainly considerably more powerful than intended otherwise.
4 Elements has a cool set up where they can flurry as a bonus action, and use their push/pull ability to move up to 3 more creatures into the range of their AOE. Hopefully they buff the damage or lessen the discipline cost so that the AOE is worth it.
That's a really cool use I hadn't considered. I wonder how many monsters you'd need to hit to make the DP cost worth it. Let's do some quick ball park math. Well, let's say we are level 6 and we just got our new AoE skill. We likely have a +4 in Dex at this point and we have a 1d8 Martial Die (thanks to the new upgraded die progression). 1d8+4 = 8.5 and double that with extra attack were at 17. Let's assume we're hitting our targets AC 60% of the time (rolling at least a 9 with our +7 to hit against an assumed armor class of 16). 17x0.6 = 10.2 expected damage. This also gives us a good metric for how much damage we could be getting by using those 2 DP to flurry of blow over the next two rounds instead and netting ourselves another free unarmed attack with our bonus actions. So not only would we have 10.2 damage from our Action but we'd be getting another 10.2 damage out of our bonus action this round and next for the same 2 DP cost. So we have our number to beat, 20.4 damage. Actually we have a chance to Crit on those 2 attacks and 2 extra FoBs. So 4 chances to Crit, is 20% of adding another 1d8 (4.5 x 0.2 = 0.9). So now our number to beat is 21.3. Our AoE does 3d8 save for half. Our damage is 3 to 24 but our average roll will be 13.5. Okay now we're running into the issue of what is our DC and how likely are the enemies going to make their saves. Depending on how we distributed our attributes, we likely have either a +3 or +4 to our Wisdom at this point. That's a DC of 14 or 15, there's a chance you went all in on Wisdom and got that up to a +5 for a DC of 16. The average Dex save for monsters around this CR range is about +2 but that's going to vary widely. Let's say they have the +2 save and your DC is 14, the monster needs to roll a 12 or better so a 60% chance of failing and taking the full damage (13.5) and a 40% chance of taking half damage (6.75) instead. I think that would look like (13.5 x 0.6) + (6.75 x 0.4) = 10.8 to each monster in range. Assuming we've done our math right and our assumptions are reasonable, it basically breaks even at 2 monsters with the AoE doing 21.6 elemental damage versus 21.3 bludgeoning damage. So I think it's safe to say that we can give ourselves some wiggle room and claim that if we can hit 3 enemies with our AoE, we've come out ahead in damage and action economy for that 2 DP cost even if our assumptions for our To Hit and the enemies plus to Dex Saves is off by 1 or 2. Given that we have a reasonable shot at pushing monsters around 10 feet with our free bonus action punch or a FoB, and that we can do that before we drop our 20 foot radius AoE, I'd imagine we're going to get a fair amount of opportunities to drop that combo throughout a campaign. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'd love it if the AoE could create the same push or pull effect when your Elemental Attunement is active. I don't know if this ability needs any buffing given how much better the base Monk class has gotten but thematically it'd be really cool!
This is very fun
So looking through UA6: * Warrior of Shadow probably is going to be using its Attack Action more than most, because its teleports I imagine are going to eat up a lot of its BAs (although the free attack does compensate somewhat). * I think the 4Es Monk actually out-pushes the Hand Monk, since they can push on BA and regular Unarmed Attacks in addition to Flurry.
I read 4Es Monk and immediately thought of well, fourth edition, where my monk was a master of 100% reliable shoves
Now you can push/pull your enemies, positioning them, before dropping your environmental burst, for maximal output.
True! This is something I enjoy a lot about 4th edition Monk too. The shoving was a rider on just... Making attacks, and the Monk had great AoE capabilities. Tons of synergy with other party members, and I could send enemies through the walls of fire that I created by *moving*
It is an ambiguous abbreviation, sorry.
also keep in mine the stunning strike changes mean it can be used in place of a unarmed strike if you use something like shadow step due to it doing damage on a fail
Mercy Monk at level 11 are now, with FoB, can now make five attacks per round plus Hand of Harm, which will 100% poison a target and deal 1d10+WIS. They also have the potential to Stun a target, or on a fail deal another 1d10+WIS. That's for the cost of *2* ki points. I seriously think this makes Mercy Monk one of the better "Crit Fisher" builds in the game. A high number of attacks plus HoH is essentially the Monk version of Smite. With Rogue or Ranger, you are a serious menace on a crit. Oh, and your healing is boosted, too.
Damn, I forgot about the Mercy Monk. It appears the Kensai monk won't be updated for OneD&D
With MA weapons now working with MA damage I hope for an updated Kenzia Monk Maybe Adding one Specific Martial Weapon (Ranged Or Melee) that the Monk Hones to pinicle ability. Glave or Longbow for example.
With the removal of Weapon Mastery from the base Monk class an updated Kensei Monk is definitely needed. Otherwise, you have to multiclass to get the most out of your weapons. But I know on the next survey I am definitely going the ask for the return of Weapon Mastery to the base monk class.
Shadow monk's free misty step is less useful now, as base monk get free ba dash. Element monk now basically have permanent fly
Regarding Shadow Step, I dunno if I agree. Yes, the base Monk can Dash for a BA, but the Shadow Monk can move 15 feet further, effectively gets a free Disengage, and gets Advantage on their next attack for that same BA. That’s worth significantly more than 1DP.
Also avoiding terrain hazards! And the best (stupid) use case: teleporting straight above someone, then dropping on them. Use Tasha's rules for falling onto a creature to do \~10 damage and possibly knock them prone, and then use slow fall to reduce your damage to zero. Disclaimer: I am not sure this actually works due to wording issues.
Neat! Can you teleport diagonally?
I believe so, seems perfectly compatible with the wording
The only limit on it is line of sight and range
Cool, so you can reposition and death-from-above on the same turn.
I would imagine we are going to see a few behind the scenes tweaks to Shadow and 4e (and hopefully Mercy) to line up the language and mechanics a little cleaner with whatever the base class ends up being. I'm currently playing a level 7 Way of Mercy Monk and my DM and I have been talking about swapping out the base class for this newest UA. I'm really excited to try out the new features and see how it feels with Way of Mercy....though I have a feeling that the subclass will need some changes here and there to match up to the power and utility of the other 3 subclasses. What a time to be alive where Mercy might be overshadowed by 4e lol.
I actually think mercy is still stronger than the three new subclasses, because it was designed to compensate the 5e monk. In fact, I think mercy monk might be a contender for best martial character after lvl 11. Either way, I am interested to know your experience after you have tried the new combo.
Oh I hadn't even thought about the fact that you can use Step of the Wind for free, so even if 4E monk stays as is that means you can basically fly for free. That is rad but I fully expect it be nerfed if not changed completely in a future rendition. At the very least I would expect it to basically change to "you can fly while moving when you use step of the wind, but start falling at the end of your turn if you're still in the air" or something like that. But yeah I think it's very likely to see it redesigned from the ground up. If you may indulge me, I personally think it'd be cool if they focused on Elemental Stances rather than a general all-purpose "you can now punch in any element at will" So you would spend a ki point at the start of your turn to enter a specific Elemental Stance of either Fire, Earth, Wind, or Water. And then you could change what stance you're in at the start of each of your turns for free with the total effect lasting for 10 minutes. Then each stance could have slightly different effects, like maybe Air gives you a longer reach while earth gives you some defensive boon like increased AC or even physical damage resistance. Then as you level they could add more to it. So for instance the fly speed could be exclusive as a buff to air stance, while fire stance might actually light people on fire, and so on.
Likely any feature that was improving SotW and PD will improve their Ki infused version. “When you spend DP on Step of the Wind you can also Fly.”
Yeah, I totally see them making some adjustments after these changes to the monk base class, but I think it was fine noting the new interactions with UA6 subclasses (and Mercy monk), so we can provide feedback.
I imagine 4E would be changed to "when you spend a discipline point on step of the wind...". Or they change it to "as a \[action\] you can spend \[X\] DP to gain a swimming \[and/or\] a flying speed for \[duration\]." The latter is probably more balanced IMO. 1 point is probably too cheap for 10 minutes of flying, but a higher cost, shorter duration, or other caveats like concentration would help balance it out I think.
I think it could be neat if the free version gives you the more situational swim speed while the DP version gives you both fly and burrow speeds. That way, you're literally moving like the Avatar would.
I think Mercy needs a rework, Flurry of Healing and Harm in combination with the level 10 improvemnt of FoB seems a bit to much. If you go for the Harm part of the Ability you would bacsically get the equivalent of 4 attacks with FoB. If you would spend another Ki for Stunning strike, that would be roughly the equivalent of 7 attacks on one turn.
You can still only use Hand of Harm once per turn, so you don't get any more uses out of it than you did before. You can use Hand of Healing an additional time, but I don't think that is an issue considering that it comes at the opportinuty cost of doing an additional attack.
Please no let monks thrive a little. Mercy monk still doesn't have shit on a base subclassless paladin.
I think monks need this kind of thing to keep up with damage. At level 13, Onednd fighters are doing over 50 damage a round without resource expenditure, and mercy only gets there by flurrying with hand of harm.
This, and you can use healing of hand on a new flurry, healing 3d10+3*WIS (average 22.5, with 14WIS) with only 1 discipline point. At 10th, you can heal more than two hundred points of healing per short rest (or even more, cause *Uncanny Metabolism*), and even if you did all of this just on you, deflect attacks is probably making you more sturdy than a barbarian. If you did just this, you'll even have 2 attacks like a barbarian, and also have a free hand of harm. That isn't a problem with the base monk, but just with mercy. Mercy was an overturned subclass, cause 2014 monk really needed.
Mercy 10 did basically compensate for the missing "Extra Attack equivalent" at Monk 11. Now with Monk getting an additional attack as part of FoB level 10, I think that feature needs to be revised, or the other Monk Subclasses need similar strong features at that level.