Monk is Broken | Dungeons and Dragons 5e Guide

Monk 5e Guide for Dungeons and Dragons! Today I explore all the current options for creating a broken monk character of your own!

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[Oddthebard]

I am going use 3 Ki points and now the DM is stunned. So no dice rolling.

[dylandugan]

If by "broken", you mean "in desperate need of a ground-up functional reform, even more so than Rangers and Artificers" then we can agree.

[unscathedhero]

I would like to say, in terms of production and presentation, this is a well made video and I definitely loved every minute of it. This being said, I fail to see how the Monk is overpowered in this video. You basically go through the Monk class and subclasses and adeptly describe their distinct flavors... but that's it. Monks are definetly cool, but overpowered? I must respectfully disagree with such heresy. If anything they are possibly the weakest class in the game, mechanically. Definetly the worst martial class in the game. While the Way of the Mercy and Astral Self monks are somewhat better than other monastic traditions, they are still rather weak. Despite Wizard's best efforts, the Monk remains weak for the following reasons:

-They continue to deal the least damage of all martial classes (no sneak attack, no great weapon master, weak base weapon die and forced to use their bonus action and limited ressources to deliver subpar damage). Sure Stunning Strike is decent but it targets the most resilient Monster Saving throw (Constitution), always targets 1 creature, and always lasts 1 round even at high levels. At the same level the monk gets this signature ability, other classes are casting spells like suggestion, Hold Person, Web, Fear and Hypnotic Pattern. And it just gets worse at higher levels, because Stunning Strike then competes with the likes of Otto's Irresistable Dance, Wall of Force and Forcecage. Wall of Force and Forcecage particularly drive this argument home since they can completely eliminate a threat and don't require the target to fail a single saving throw and they lost way longer than a round.
-They have the worst AC amongst all martial classes except the Rogue (which has better consistent mobility and ranged attack capabilities). They also have low HP compared to most martial classes that fight in melee (same as the rogue, but at least the Rogue is great from range). Yet, Monks must fight in melee...
-They make awful tanks, not only because of the aformentioned weak AC and HP, but because they have average saving throws until level...14! By that time, the fighter has so many feats he's probably proficient in 3 saving throws and can reroll some failed ones. Then you look at the paladin and it's just sad. They basically get a similar bonus to all their saving throws, but 8 levels earlier! To add insult to injury, they can extend this bonus to the whole party...
-And then there's the most problematic issue, the KI mechanic. With the exception of monks in TCE, too many of the classe's features cost KI, which means they burn them way to fast. Sure they regain them on a short rest but 1 KI point per level isn't huge, especially when they need to flurry of blows every round (1 KI) and potentially use stunning strike on most of their attacks each round (1-4 extra KI points). Add in the potential need to use patient defense and step of the wind sometimes and those points are gone faster than a bunch of twinkies at a weight watchers meeting.

Still, good video!

[korstkonest]

Subclasses:
Way of the astral self: 05:56
Way of the cobalt soul: 06:17
Way of the drunken master: 06:31
Way of the four elements: 06:46
Way of the kensei: 07:01
Way of the long death 07:14
Way of mercy: 07:42
Way of the open hand: 07:53
Way of shadow: 08:12
Way of the sun soul: 08:31
Way of the ascendent dragon: 08:45

[Sw-nnle]

Man, your delivery of the information is fantastic. You're speaking with awe in your voice instead of just shouting at us and that accompanied with the music is so inspiring. Now I want to play one even more.

[АлександрСудаков-си]

I see a problem with using the word "broken" for "can do something useful once or twice per game", that's not broken (at least not in a good way you are impliyng), that's working as intended at best. It's a bit silly to call this "broken", while there are shepherd druids, bearbarian druids, sorlocadins, and twilight clerics. Cmon, that's not even close.
At least you could propose a way to build your monk to be broken, not just read out the roolbook entry on monks

[daviddwodo]

Monk needs fist weapons like wraps and gloves for unarmed combat. So they can be magically infused and convert to other damage types.


Also, a hadoken-type cantrip wouldn't hurt; something that doesn't burn ki. Maybe make a class that makes hadokens scale and multiplies with ki usage. (Obviously less scale than other spells so it is not broken --- burning 8 ki with a scaled cantrip would be ridiculous)



Or maybe gain Ki from Crits; that would be dope. Imagine flurry of blows crits and ki flowing back from flawless execution.

[cgrandall]

While I totally agree with the capstone being lackluster I think the real capstone is Empty Body. Monk invisibility is super broken. Your invisibility isn't a spell so it cannot be dispelled, and it isn't broken by combat so you are just invisible for 1 minute. Which means all your attacks are at advantage, while all attacks against you are at disadvantage and you have resistance to all damage but force. I think the intention of the capstone was to immediately turn invisible and run away if you found yourself in a situation where you really didn't want to be.

[TheNanoNinja]

A 3.5 Monk I played, with feats in Grapple, Disarm and Trip. Martial Arts meant a Monk is always considered armed. Disarming an opponent would then allow an Opportunity Attack (OA). Getting up from prone, OA. If an opponent was grappled, disarmed and prone. There was little chance of getting out alive. Great against spell casters too.

[SolusEclipse]

I play a kensei monk dragonborn and let me say the vibe of the subclass is really great but my dm had to buff the subclass a little with homebrew

[thatsimbalanced]

I don't understand one thing u say about Stunning Strike. How can you use stunning strike after UNARMED STRIKE from Flurry of Blows when Stunning Strike says you have to hit another creature with a MELEE WEAPON ATTACK?

[neroblood]

I love the monk class. I made a kenku monk, wanting to go way of the four elements. The dm threw a super strong enemy at us, a group of five, and I was the only one still alive at the end cos it couldn't hit me. The dm then threw me out of the game because it turns out he wanted a tpk for "story reasons" straight away.

[couver]

I think the one thing that's keeping the Monk from being able to keep up with other martial classes in the game is the issue with unarmed strikes itself: very little customization options. So if anything else, it's not that monks are necessarily weak, it's just the fact that they are only weak by association with the least realized aspect of 5e's combat. Hell, in Pathfinder you can use Sneak Attack on unarmed strikes in certain cases. I think Wizards got so worried of making unarmed strikes overpowered that they made it useless.

[Watertrotter-geyp]

The level 20 ability is actually a great ability if you are rolling initiative at the beginning of every combat encounter, which is suggested in the DMG as a way to keep combat from being too predictable. The ability only say “when you roll for initiative and have no ki points remaining, ” it doesn’t say that it has to be at the beginning of the combat encounter.

[cheesedemon]

I played a Way of Mercy monk up to level 10, compared to the other classes I felt underpowered, especially in the damage category. And since 5e doesn’t let you “downgrade” actions, like dropping a move action to do two bonus actions, I never felt I got to do everything I actually wanted. The stunning strike is cool, but any monster worth stunning, usually have enough con save to not be affected.

THAT SAID, the Healing hand ability is one of the few healing abilities in game that doesn’t have the limitation that it doesn’t work on undead or constructs, so the fact that we had a dampir in the party actually made my character somewhat vital.

[bronchiel]

In my opinion, Way of the Kensei monk is probably the most useful, yet unfortunately subpar compared to other martials.

The monk desperately needs a way to regain Ki points, and the only enemies worthy of spending Ki points to try to stun are the ones that are most likely to succeed on them.

I usually change these to try and make the gameplay more fluid - spending up to 2 hit die as a bonus action to "take a moment" and regain Ki points, as well as having the Stunning Strike now impose disadvantage on the next attempt if the current one fails to stun.

I also want to touch on the class features. They are really not that well put together. The slight movement speed increase at those high levels is absurd, barely any defensive options, and a horrible level 20 feature. WotC really thought they had something going on with this class, but they really screwed up.

[jakeholmes]

Just subscribed. Surprised you don’t have more subscribers. These videos are so nicely written, filmed and edited! Great work

[Atmoseeker]

I haven't played a monk before...but now i want to 😂 Thanks for breaking this down!

[argentumvulpus]

Always nice to see monk getting some love anx appreciation

[bradbradfordson]

Bro, I dont know... Fun? Yes. Thematic? For sure. But broken?

In the context of other classes the monk is honestly a little under powered. It's damage is weirdly held back compared to other classes, especially since the fighter got the unarmed style in tashas. Stunning strike is great, but my expirience playing a few monks is that the save can really screw either the attacker or defender depending on the dice. Spending your last ki and theyake the save.... doesn't feel good.