How interesting is the monk class?

[Medivh]

For people who are more familiar with the monk class can you share how it plays? What about the 4 elements monk subclass? How durable in battle are the monks?

[Recjawjind]

4 elements is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in actual dnd, in this game we dont know yet.

In general, imagine monk like an 80s kung fu movie. You run around super fast and punch stuff real good and real often. They can also catch arrows from the air and throw them back. Basically monk is a very agile striker. Since they don't start with any armor proficiencies though, you *really* need to heavily invest in dex and wisdom (thats how their AC is calculated), else they'll eat a good few hits.

[Heu, Iterum Id Feci]

On the tabletop most seem to think that monk in general is kinda underwhelming.
However Larian already stated, that they buffed the monks to make them more comparable to other classes, kinda same as they buffed some of the ranger stuff, that didn't mesh well with a video game or was underwhelming....
However details are not known atm, so we can't give you any more detailed answer.

[ACS36]

Hard to say, but I'd guess it's not that interesting.

5e combat/class design leaves a lot to be desired to begin with.

[Swimfan]

Originally posted by Medivh:

For people who are more familiar with the monk class can you share how it plays? What about the 4 elements monk subclass? How durable in battle are the monks?

Haven't played real D&D but from what we've heard monk is a new favorite among Larian staff (including Swen the director of the game).
For that they had to hombew the class very hard tho as the class is supposed to be appaling in the official 5e ruleset.

[Foolswalkin]

Originally posted by Swimfan:

Originally posted by Medivh:

For people who are more familiar with the monk class can you share how it plays? What about the 4 elements monk subclass? How durable in battle are the monks?

Haven't played real D&D but from what we've heard monk is a new favorite among Larian staff (including Swen the director of the game).
For that they had to hombew the class very hard tho as the class is supposed to be appaling in the official 5e ruleset.

I kinda like Long Death, but they aren't in the game. We will have to wait to see what Larian did with the ones they added.

(For reference, the big Long Death draw is this bananas no-ki CC):

Hour of Reaping

At 6th level, you gain the ability to unsettle or terrify those around you as an action, for your soul has been touched by the shadow of death. When you take this action, each creature within 30 feet of you that can see you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn.

[.Master Jiren, The Strongest]

its not all that interesting. even damage wise its pretty meh.
your martial arts die starts as a d4. with your ki points of which you only have a couple to start with, you can make 2 martial arts attacks as a bonus action. So. thats 2d4 on top of your weapon attack.

compare that to a rogue, whose sneak attack starts at 2d6 on top of weapon damage. You can do this every round, doesnt cost a bonus action, and has no resource requirement so you can do it forever without needing a long rest. Additionally, it grows in power very quickly.

But when you ask if the class is interesting, I dont think you mean combat stats. Interesting to me has to do more with what sort of options the class has.

So, for a monk, at 5th level, you get stunning strike, which is ok. You also have unarmored defense like a barbarian, which is again, pretty meh, mostly cool for roleplay purposes. I do remember that monks can catch enemy projectiles and throw them back, and I think monks have step of the wind and patient defense to give them more defense and more speed, but they cost ki points. So, you have more options than any other martial class.

Until you start talking about magic. classes that prepare their spell list often have massive lists of spells to pick from, this gives them so many options that a monk could never compare.

If you want to know if the class is interesting, you have to decide what would be interesting to you. To me, having multiple options per turn is more interesting than "do I attack once..or twice?"

[jdpvagabond]

An element specific to this game that I think people are overlooking is just how useful things like trip, shove, and vertical movement can be and monk will excel at all of them, even more so dependent on subclass. On paper their damage might look pretty 'meh', but in practice being able to scale that cliff two or three turns before the rest of your party and shove the annoying archer to his death or keeping an enemy locked down prone while your friends mop up the support more than makes up for it.

[Choosing WHeel]

It's hard to say right now. In tabletop the monk is severely underpowered, but Larian is making a ton of changes to the class, all of which will be known when the game releases.

[Foolswalkin]

Originally posted by jdpvagabond:

An element specific to this game that I think people are overlooking is just how useful things like trip, shove, and vertical movement can be and monk will excel at all of them, even more so dependent on subclass. On paper their damage might look pretty 'meh', but in practice being able to scale that cliff two or three turns before the rest of your party and shove the annoying archer to his death or keeping an enemy locked down prone while your friends mop up the support more than makes up for it.

I guess I see them as competing in that regard with a Warlock, who has an unlimited use ranged no save push attack and other spellcasting and invocation utility and damage options besides. I agree there are (literal) edge cases where Way of the Open Hand is better, like if you climb a cliff and then get behind an enemy to knock them forwards off it rather than just driving them back onto the land, but all in all I don't think the default Monk pays rent compared to a Warlock.

[Detective Costeau]

Originally posted by .Master Jiren, The Strongest:

its not all that interesting.

compare that to a rogue, whose sneak attack starts at 2d6 on top of weapon damage.

I'm 90% sure it starts at 1d6, and goes up to 2d6 at level 3, actually.

[Foolswalkin]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

Originally posted by .Master Jiren, The Strongest:

its not all that interesting.

compare that to a rogue, whose sneak attack starts at 2d6 on top of weapon damage.

I'm 90% sure it starts at 1d6, and goes up to 2d6 at level 3, actually.

Jiren never uses a short, accurate post when a long, inaccurate one will do.

[Recjawjind]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

Originally posted by .Master Jiren, The Strongest:

its not all that interesting.

compare that to a rogue, whose sneak attack starts at 2d6 on top of weapon damage.

I'm 90% sure it starts at 1d6, and goes up to 2d6 at level 3, actually.

Starts at 1d6 and grows by one extra d6 every other level.