If you treat the monk as a happy-slappy warrior you deserve to go home in a pine box.

You've got no armour. You are screwed if you stop moving. But you have insane mobility, and disciplines on top of that.

So build that into your mission.

I'm using Fangs of the Fire Snake to attack from behind my friendly tank.
I'm starting beyond max range, using MOVE-ATTACK-MOVE to move in and out of max range to throw darts or whatever.
I'm using One Handed Technique to push my enemy off a cliff.
I'm using Shadow Step to get behind my foe.

So many options, whichever WAY you choose.

Quote from: Motorskills;842348If you treat the monk as a happy-slappy warrior you deserve to go home in a pine box.

You've got no armour. You are screwed if you stop moving. But you have insane mobility, and disciplines on top of that.

Yes, keep moving when nothing else in a D&D fight actually moves.  I've seen more Monks die a miserable death because the rest of the party won't do anything inefficient, like breaking away from an opponent.

Any class played miserably will probably die. No amount of HP or AC or DPS or your trolling is going to change that.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;840923When you try and measure all classes simply by the amount of damage that they can inflict per round and the amount of damage that they can take, yes there will be some classes weaker than others by those metrics.

IIRC, if you compare just AC, HP and damage, 3.5 wizards are supposedly balanced with Fighters:D!

Quote from: Motorskills;842348If you treat the monk as a happy-slappy warrior you deserve to go home in a pine box.

To me, that's always been the problem with the Monk.  People hear "monk" and they think "Kung Fu" movie, and think that the monk SHOULD be the class that can totally kick ass.  But it just doesn't hold up.

I've played a monk for a couple of adventures so far in 5e. I was expecting her to be kind of crappy but she's turned out to be really effective.

She's a Way of the Shadow Monk 11/Rogue 1 with that feat that gives you a cantrip. I chose Eldritch Blast, so straightaway I have a decent missile attack that requires no equipment or setup. I have AC19, a move rate of 55, the ability to walk up walls, invisibility at will, teleport at will, and 2 weapon attacks plus bonus unarmed attacks, all of which can stun if I spend a ki point. So although I don't have a huge amount of hit points if I play her as a hit and run assassin type she is really good. The stun effect lets me duck out of melee if I need to without triggering an attack of opportunity, and the high move rate plus teleport plus invisibility let me get out of Dodge pretty easily.

Out of combat I have Dex 20, the rogue expertise bonus, minor illusion, the ability to walk up walls, near immunity to falling damage, and a few other utility spells, so I am rarely short of options or unable to contribute.

Monks are pretty good.

Just read over a players replay notes of a fight between her monk and some NPC fighter of the same level in a one on one due to a sliding trap separating her fron the party. Both created with point buy. The monk was a relatively balanced in stats, the fighter min-maxed. Both were level 7.

Monk had an AC of 17 and 47 HP. Fighter had an AC of 19 (half plate and shield) and 60 HP. Fighter went with duelist.

Round 1.
Fighter gets initiative, action surges for 3 attacks with longsword. 2 hits doing a total of 22 damage. Monk attacks, flurry of blows for 4 attacks unarmed. 3 hits for 22 damage. Fighter makes his DEX save just bare.
Round 2
Fighter gets 1 hit for for 9 damage. Monk flurrys again, 1 hit for 10 damage. Fighter makes his CON vs being knocked back 10ft into a wall. (He would have taken 6 damage.)
Round 3
Fighter hits 1 time for 12 damage. Monk flurrys and hits 3 times for 25 damage and spends a Ki to try an stun. Fighter makes his push Con save handily. But just bare fails his CON save and is stunned.
Round 4
Monk finally gets first go and of course flurrys. 4 hits via advantage for 28 damage. Fighter goes down messily. Taken to 0 HP and then 2 automatic crits due to being at 0 HP splatter him like a bug.

The monk is down to 4 HP, but can recover 21 right there. She could have disengaged and used it during the fight, and then back at it. The NPC fighter could have used second wind. But got stunned on the round he was going to. (Apparently he would have got the max 17 back as they rolled after the fight to see and of course got a 10. figures.)

Apparently normally she teams up with a rogue for flanking, sneak attacks  and other tricks and the two are enjoying the teamwork. Sounds much like me and Kefra there as we do much the same.

Not yet having much personal action with a Monk, some thoughts.

Seemed pretty close overall. Both were about 1 more hit from going down. But the monks status effect attacks proved to be the key here. She probably should have opened with stun attempts, but was trying to conserve Ki she stated. "7 points goes pretty quick. Had I been with the others at the time then I would have just used bonus attacks." She stated that she did not bother trying to knock him prone because since he had perpetual initiative he could just get up before she could take advantage of it.

Anyone else have ideas?

Quote from: RPGPundit;842842To me, that's always been the problem with the Monk.  People hear "monk" and they think "Kung Fu" movie, and think that the monk SHOULD be the class that can totally kick ass.  But it just doesn't hold up.

This is exactly it!  Most of the people I've anecdotally encountered, all they ever want out of a Monk is the ability to 'Kung Fu' people, and often, over the years, every single player I've encountered just want to punch people for justice in D&D.  And very rarely does it work out that way.  Simply because they focus on the Punching For Justice, and completely ignore and don't care about any of the other powers that the Monk comes with.  Except for maybe the boosted Speed, but that's only for getting into the combat so that they can Punch People For Justice.

Sometimes the Class itself IS the failure (Like the 3.x Monk) but often it's the what both the players and the books give as to what the class is written as.

Quote from: Omega;842897Anyone else have ideas?

Flanking with a Rogue (A Monk isn't that good a Damage Dealer at that level yet) and engaging and disengaging as often as possible is the way to go with a Monk, you want to dart in and out of combat.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;842929This is exactly it!  Most of the people I've anecdotally encountered, all they ever want out of a Monk is the ability to 'Kung Fu' people, and often, over the years, every single player I've encountered just want to punch people for justice in D&D.  And very rarely does it work out that way.  Simply because they focus on the Punching For Justice, and completely ignore and don't care about any of the other powers that the Monk comes with.  Except for maybe the boosted Speed, but that's only for getting into the combat so that they can Punch People For Justice.

Yeah, but I would say the error here is a design error.  It's not people's fault for wanting the monk to be what they envision the 'monk' archetype to be like.

So if you wanted to homebrew the monk into a punch guy, what would you change then?

Quote from: RPGPundit;843278Yeah, but I would say the error here is a design error.  It's not people's fault for wanting the monk to be what they envision the 'monk' archetype to be like.

That is my point:  The way the class is built and then described is misleading, unless you really get into the math, and very few people care enough to do so.  They claim to have other responsibilities, like kids and stuff, so what they're presented, they work with, and the monk doesn't work as described.

It's not as bad as the 3.x version, but it's still not as versatile as people want/expect.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;843283So if you wanted to homebrew the monk into a punch guy, what would you change then?

Make it into a 5e styled Feat.  Something the Fighter could pick up, because quite frankly, the Shaolin Monk really is a Fighter, but is equally skilled bare handed and lightly armoured as they are with swords, axes and other normal weapons.

But at the same time, if you want to be a Kung Fu Wizards, that feat is there for that.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;843286Make it into a 5e styled Feat.  Something the Fighter could pick up, because quite frankly, the Shaolin Monk really is a Fighter, but is equally skilled bare handed and lightly armoured as they are with swords, axes and other normal weapons.

But at the same time, if you want to be a Kung Fu Wizards, that feat is there for that.

A fighter that takes some of Champion adds some Eldritch knight powers as Qi effects, removes armour and adds a sprikle of thief type ability at some level points.

This is similar to my dislike of the Barbarian as a class.

The Shaolin monk is a fighter. He trains every day to fight and he fights. He simply comes from a different culture to the Knight or the Sellsword or the Barbarian. All of these are just flavours of fighter.

You can expand this sideways and say why does a monk get a higher natural AC. The reason is because they have trained to fight unarmoured. Couldn't a gladiator or a swashbuckler have similar training?

Quote from: RPGPundit;843278Yeah, but I would say the error here is a design error.  It's not people's fault for wanting the monk to be what they envision the 'monk' archetype to be like.

Uh. No?

If the game presents a hard science fiction setting with tower ships and no anti-gravity or psi powers. And the player wants Star Wars. That is not the designs error. It is the player wanting something from a game that was not intended for that. Why not play the setting as is?

Same with the monk. It is more patterend on standard martial-arts movies instead of wuxia and mystic ones. If the player was expecting for some god unknown reason to be playing Avatar instead of Bruce Lee. Then that is their problem and they can either walk or, I dont know, maybe try playing the class as is?