D&D Monks are GOOD, Actually 

Ofc mr Pointy Hat

We would never!

I think there is something wrong the Google Doc link, it takes me to Oath of Love Paladin that you did.

Nu uh they started it!

I don’t want peace, I want problems always

Yeah, i think the fantasy of monk could be achieved better by replacing some of the most situational monk abilities with an increase in stats more frequently, maybe some levels give a bonus on dexterity, wisdom or even constitution in exchange of....as the video says "being naked".

They used to get 20 in every stat in the beta of dnd 5e

Yeah, it's strange that rogues get an additional asi but monks do not.

@@saparapatepete Maybe extra hp each level instead of a flat con buff (I mean they should also have a d10 hit die but that's a whole other issue)? It might fit the fantasy of these honed martial artists just wailing on each other and getting back up.

@@jettlucashayes8508 That should be the capstone. Perfect Self = Perfect stats.

Agreed, but frankly if you understand Japanese it's not much better. Kamehameha is roughly turtle destruction wave. Turtle because master Roshi was from the turtle clan.

We don't accept Schockwelle der alten Ahnen slander in this house!

@@Lilith_Harbingerthere was a Hawaiian Royal Family named Kamehameha after it’s founder, Kamehameha

Loved the “If the Monks sucks ass why doesn’t the Warlock suck too 😎?” Spells, they have spells, and let me tell you that 1 Hypnotic Pattern per every encounter is much better than 2-3 stun attempts lmao. Nevermind that Warlocks have good features that USUALLY don’t feed off their spells, and those that do suck ass anyways lol.

@@cattiston374they also have actually good features that dont over-rely on finite resources

I mean... Fly + eldritch blast = Win With all the ways you can increase the range of E.B, you can be outside the range of actually Ballista. Example; You can fly directly towards any encounter and always have both the range and high ground advantage.

@@crystallxix1493 i hear this argument alot even tho most of the argument is still the damage output even tho i feel people just don't know how to manage points because people think they always need to stun strike even tho no you don't and some of the subclasses who do use ki don't use much but people treat it like its the end of the world

@@dudejoe24 I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, there’s no commas or a clear line of thought xD. Could you rewrite that?

You can skip monk and take the unarmed fighting style

Made a character exactly like that and it was rough... Unarmed fighting style dropped like a month after the campaign started 😒

Or The Hulk, you know with rage and everything

Thts how i made karlach in bg3!!!She is super fun being played that way

rage monk with tavern brawler punch hard

This is what I have noticed a lot. The monks are great in campaigns that have dynamic combat or exploration.

That's not so much permissive as just letting the class do what it should be able to do.

And that's what the class is kinda built for. It irks me when some people adamantly claim a monk is a frontline class, but then go on listing all the reasons why it isn't, and get upset about it. Like, pick a lane, people. The monk is at their weakest when forced to stay locked in melee. A huge chunk of their suite is dedicated to getting out of melee, or to do things you wouldn't do in melee, like reducing damage from ranged weapons. What the monk player should do, tactically speaking, is run around the edges of the battle map, taking advantage of things like elevation, take out enemy ranged support, and generally get to places where an unspent action is needed - all of which monks can do even without magic or equipment.

​@@Dunybrook I meant more that it's always possible for the DM to nitpick the exact wording of the monk's movement rules in order to limit them, but my current DM is smart enough not to do that. He actually lets the monk get away with some stuff that she's technically not even supposed to be able to do going by RAW, but no one cares because the results are too much fun.

Ooooo I can see how a monk would be really useful in Curse of Strahd

Kensei monks remind me a lot of samurais tbh

@@TheDapperSaint honestly, both feel like they are trying to bring over some of the old eastern setting with the less than well aged name that abbreviats to OA, which had samurai, ninja and martial arts. which makes sense as there was kind of the forgotten realms version with kara-tur and the 3rd edition OA, but now its kind of baked in.

This, absolutely.

I used Way of Shadow monk/Assassin rogue multiclass as an NPC assassin against my players years ago. Oh, she was so powerful. In the end, they wound up letting her kill them before letting a contingency spell they'd set up revive them. They just couldn't pass the perception checks against her stealth abilities.

​@TheEnder515 I did too. And she is a Tabaxi. She is great at either sneak killing them or annoying them to no end. Or both.

Amestris???? 😳

@@carythacker8049 The world that I built for the players. Its got everything from an entire nation of Death worshipping necromancers who use the dead as militia, steampunk enthusiasts with a love for explosions and politics to the Dread Myre filled with eldritch aberrations and the pirate adventures of the Thousand Illes.

a campaign set in Amestris, full of Pointy Hat’s shenanigans sounds like an incredibly fun time!

Since you have play tested many of pointy hat's creations, can I ask how they feel on balance? I am pretty new to dnd. One of his class ideas I read sounded pretty overpowered but I imagine I wouldn't know unless I tried them. What do you think?

@@DerrickBarrows So, for reference, I've only gone through a few in session. In no particular order, one of my players uses the Phantasm Race (and no one knows yet, somehow, which we both find hilarious). The Sorceror Lich (Hierarch) is one of the BBEGs (there are several), the Blight is set up as a fallen nation on the border that no one wants to admit to, government secret style, the Restless is hunting one of the party members, and Hellish Adepts are working for the one of the BBEGs. On average, it all works, at least overall. Remember, I use lots of Homebrew to balance out the crazy, so take that with a dump truck of salt. In detail, the Hellish Adepts can be awkward if the party isn't RP savvy enough to unravel the weaknesses and strengths of the Adept they're fighting. The Phantasm is a little awkward RP-wise since it's hard to firmly say, 'This is against my goal,' so my player using it has to hash stuff out with me on that. The Blight run isn't for a while yet, but the Restless is GREAT for building tension and is currently driving our sorcerer up the wall trying to figure out why his exhaustion levels won't stop rising. The Hierarch can require some in-game tweaking to ensure they aren't too broken, like if the number of family members under him/her doesn't just steamroll the party. Overall though, this stuff is awesome.

Freaking... Hunter x Hunter Zoldyck subclass 😂

If I remember right can only be used one one opponent at a time

They saved and take 55 damage than kill the monk next round since they have bad armor and health.

​@@TieberiusVoidWalkerI rolled high so my monk has a 19 ac lol

@@sidneyrobinson18 Thats an anecdote, rolling for stats doesn't prove anything but luck. If you used point buy your AC would suffer a lot more. Doesn't really change the fact that monks have bad AC.

@@TieberiusVoidWalker even with point buy you can get ~16 ac at the start

@@sidneyrobinson18 16 AC is pretty bad. I would never enter melee with 16 AC. At about level 3 you're just gonna suffer unless the DM is being nice. Second of all your AC isn't going to improve all that much because even if you use all your ASIs into Wis and Dex (which isn't even worth it) you're ac will grow so slowly and monster's to hit will be so high that youre incredibly squishy

Asian culture is drilled into the monk class 💀

@@choking1668 i mean every character created by pointy hat

He must be writing from experience

They wouldn't have been adventurers otherwise.

Sometimes we write what we know. Pointy hat... i understand

Have you found way of the flesh anywhere else?

I refreshed the page and it's fixed now.

Talk about way of the "flesh" lol

Is the link to the fear monster still broken?

@@thehonestcompany867 way of (re)fresh :P

You forget: whips are martial weapons. Before the optional features (which, to remind, are STILL OPTIONAL) you couldn't get it without sacrificing an ASI or multiclassing. Also, monks martial arts die and low damage weapons: any archer build with sharpshooter, do the math. 2 unoptimized fighter archers with sharpshooter if they roll high on ini can kill Vecna before he acts. Give me the math for 2 monks (straight class unoptimized) and cry me a river.

@@momqabt that must have been one optimized sharpshooter archer build to manage to get that stick so far up your ass.

@@momqabt Local man misses point of comment and also entire point of video. More at 9

@@momqabt "unoptimized" "sharpshooter" Lol. That translates to your problem with monks is "can't use Sharpshooter." That barely has anything to do with the class.

@@momqabt *laughs in variant human and elven* but real talk bro the dude was just trying to be positive and you just came in like a piss baby for no reason and then talk about an unrelated topic

That definitely seems to help with the whole sustain vs. burst dichotomy between monks and rogues. I'd give the monks d10 Hit Die for that, too.

Lol, a melee monk with HP to spare? That's a good one!

as if the class needed to be more anime, Nande bayo

I just made all of their abilities free and removed ki points. They still don't even come close to the power of a mediocre full caster.

@@mrosskne valid

What link?

Monks are weird because their goal is to achieve immortality by absorbing qi from the environment..certain paths were extreme and involved stuff like eating poop

Yeah. The PHB is not clear enough on that. I had to use an external site to find out that any simple weapon qualified.

I always think of monks as jesuits. That or the bloke who has brawled in half the pubs of Manchester.

Some of my friends play at renaissance fairs and similar events and have a song about exactly this juxtaposition XD

The funny thing is, classic European monks during the dark ages actually *weren't bad at fighting*. That's actually what the "big walking stick" was for. They were traditionally staff fighters. Granted, it was only for self-defense, but the implication in Robin Hood when Robin Hood fights little John when they meet was that Friar Tuck taught Robin staff fighting.

@@NoAIStudios When you need to walk long distances and walking is normal, you need a staff. A lot of people have a small blade as a common tool. I read the bartitsu manuals, written much later on, where they suggest using things you got handy when out for a stroll in victorian London. An umbrella. A bicycle. A cloak.

Also way of Shadow. The "please multiclass me to Rogue" subclass.

@@crowbar_the_rogue Ah, yes, Batman

@MMPJ Cari You mean, Take two levels of Warlock so you can see jn your own darkness.

Way of the Long Death - a One Punch Man subclass?

I cannot believe you would call me with that Drunken Fist take! It's completely true and accurate, but still

My favorite way to use this is to dual weild a quarterstaff and be a lizardfolk- the unarmored defence thing is good if you get bad stat rolls, and you get excellent damage at low levels- when using Flurry of Blows at lvl 2, for example, assuming 16 dexterity, you would be able to do 2d6+1d8+9 dmg in a turn.

If you take an elf, you will gain proficiency with a long sword, which is can deal d10 damage. But yes, everything is bad at the monk’s base.

@@user-ubludok That's an optional class feature, so I decided to not go by that cuz there may be stingy DM's out there. But I disagree that the monk at base is bad. In the early levels the monk is fine, but it drops off the farther you go

Not just that, a greatclub is a monk weapon, and it has a base of a d8. It's just silly how a lil ghostwise halfling can swing a greatclub with dexterity

@@mihajloselmic476 Uhhh....a greatclub is not a monk weapon sir. It has the two-handed property, disqualifying it

@@ARC--5973 That's completely wrong. A weapon being two-handed does not in any way, shape or form disqualify it from being a monk weapon. Same goes for the Light Crossbow and Shortbow. I'm not sure where you got your info, but it's utterly incorrect

I play open hand without that and still do a shit ton of damage because of some really cool magic items you can get in the *admittedly later* game. Like the one you get for saving Hope, which allows you to add 1d6 force damage to unarmed strikes and either heal or do attacks at advantage. This works best because flurry of blows doubles this with 1 measly ki point. My monk currently does comparable damage to Karlach, both of whom are using the best weapon/equipment for them that I could find (not done with my playthrough). And is more effective DPS wise than my other teammates (although then again I'm using Wyll and Shadowheart, tho I did try Gale and other stuff at some point, like Jaheira. But in terms of steady DPS, Karlach and my monk are better)

@@tatsumiuchiha5559 yeahh you can typically find the ingredients for the elixir or the elixir itself by level 4 instead of needing to wait hours in. i made karlach my monk and she does the highest damage in my party turn after turn.

A whole party made from his twist characters would be really cool Though a lot of them seem to be running from their family XD

@@CadanL yeah its kind of a theme isn’t it?

@@cherechesalexdaniel811makes me wonder if there’s something Pointy doesn’t want to talk about?

@@noahlovato7331 its not our place to tell. It could as well just be that he consumed a lot of media with this idea in it as it is a pretty prevelant trope. Things like this (even if they are true) are between him and anyone he personally wants to tell.

Oh god I adore this.

This and the subclass in the video feel a lot like things that Simic Hybrid should have.

So a ninja.

The double negation tripped me up, she carries only weapons she *has* seen as a threat?

@@Emma-Maze I don't think it's a double negation, but it could do with an extra comma for clarity: "since she is a small woman who carries no weapons, she's never seen as a threat."

@@stJules no, ninjas carry weapons

​@@stJules the whole deal of fantasy ninja is they carry way more weapons than you can ever expect, not the opposite

Grappling generally requires Strength unfortunately. Fun DM’s let you use Acrobatics or Dex-Athletics though.

Matador?

So basically you want to make different fighters from Street Fighter. Maybe the DM would let you use str/con or str/wis for your AC.

​@@sidecharacter7165 astral self lets you grapple with wisdom.

@@godsamongmen8003 Wasn't even thinking of Street Fighter, but that is a great idea. Maybe give the monk some fun combos they can do with unique weapons, like the meteor hammer (works as chain), so you can grab an enemy and drag them to you Scorpion style.

Fuck, I love this. It even adds to the fantasy of a "forbidden technique" in a way that the level-gated default doesn't.

But quivering palm can only affect one creature at a time. If you use it on somebody else, the effect ends on the first creature

@@miguelangelus959 Maybe this villain learned a diffent version of Quivering Palm or perhaps perfected the technique. As a NPC he can get away with doing stuff the players can't and there are many ways to explain it.

This is such a good idea for a villain. Maybe even an assassin guild master. Thank you master. I'm stealing this now. 🙏🫳🫴🖐️

The ability learned by the villan was actually the ancient, forbidden, "superprototype" version WITHOUT the "safety valve" that automatically releases the previous "cursed" target [so, it allows unlimited simultaneous "hostages"]. -> On the Endgame, he has managed to "curse" about half of the population of [country party cares about]; hence big Thanos Snap.

Reminds me of a character I played who was a lizard folk kensai monk/ranger having hunters mark really helped bring the damage up to where I was in tow with the fighter while delivering stunning strikes

The Pillar Men

The pillar man YES! I’d love to play as one in D&D

@@arthurmarcelino9838 How do you want to do this? I want to climb into his body, puppet him for a bit, then explode out. ...Okay,

AAAAYYAAAAYYAAAAYYAAAA!!!

MEZAMATAMAE! WAGA ARUJITACHI YO!

I just DMed it today as well. We played it at level 11 so I scaled it up a lot. They still thwarted everything in like 2 seconds (high level characters are really good at avoiding sleep and fear). At the end, they took half of the sleepers so that the pleasentries could survive, and struck a deal with them that they would bring new sleepers periodically. Then they went and established themselves mayor of Alacarn and turned the town into a sort of "country getaway retreat" for people from the big city who were stressed about their lives to "get away and clear your mind of the traumas of the everyday" (become sleepers). In return, the Pleasantry Queen granted the town a sort of calming aura, as well as a few other neato sleep boons to one of the players who was particularly antagonistic to her. I ran it as a one shot for my group who can't play Strahd whilst a player is on holiday but now they want to revisit it as an ongoing series of oneshots.

same

My first character may have been an air genasi monk named Gnaa... 😬

Naw gotta stick to my drunken monk style, hilarious for RP sessions

It’s honestly better to just go Storm Sorcerer because they learn every spell there and for less of a cost. Four Elements Monk is just a suboptimal choice

@@zach415 shhhhh, monk are fun

"okay damage level" Without action surge, a Warlock's default Eldritch Blast is stronger then a ranged fighter while also getting its multi-attack faster

@@ianaldridge7136 So, they do extremely good damage level. Strengthening my argument that it is a poor comparison to monks.

@@ODDnanref Yeah, I'm in agreement with you

Eh, I've seen people complain about Warlock being weak as well, but from a lot of the complaints I've seen it's more an issue with not giving a sufficient amount of short rests and/or giving too many long rests.

@@VestedUTuber This is so true. A lot of campaigns revolve around the day by day with a long rest between each day and usually only one short rest during the day. That essentially means short rest reliant classes like Warlock and Sorcerer can feel like just nerfed wizards since their known spells are smaller due to being balanced around being able to use them more often using short rests.

Thats literaly JoJo part one and two

@@lugusss Ah yeah, the Hamon. I forgot about that. Even better, the padre could be drawn in the JoJo style then.

This would actually be incredible. Also immediately made me think of Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda.

I mean I can see why it’s not in base. The way they’d have to write it all down in numbers and the specific situations it would have to be described as in order to be accessible would just be too difficult to not just leave it up to DM knowing when to “rule of cool” something.

@@Greenweeper1387I would write it as ‘Getting Advantage on Rolls when on difficult terrain’ or something

Cool idea

As a DM, I allowed my Four Elments monk to create ice platforms and run across them between ships in a multiple ship combat. The rules would have said hard no, but what a great cinematic and bad ass idea.

I made Goro Majima using the Drunken Master subclass and it worked great! Knife for a monk weapon, using the whole 'making foes underestimate you by weaving around drunkenly' to represent his fluid fighting style and general personality and the stealth and perception options are perfect for doing a 'Majima Everywhere' thing! I kinda want to pair them with a barbarian 'Taiga Saejima' partner and have Majima draw agro and be all dodgy and annoying while Taiga smashes, I think that would be super fun and flavorful.

Yep. The larger problem with Monks is that the stuff that they are supposed to be good at just wasn't thought out well in the system overall. Standing in one place is heavily encouraged during a fight as a melee fighter, and martial classes in general suffer from poor scaling, and specifically their martial arts die feels very similar to to piss poor barb rage scaling

3-4 attacks if you don't use your Disengage tool. So you better hope you land those Stunning Strikes, otherwise your fragile ass is gonna be eating some attacks of opportunity that you really can't afford.

​​​@@CJWproductionsnah, many monks have a ton of ways to deal with that. Astral Self has enought reach to stay out of Opportunity Attack range of most enemies, and Open Hand monk can straight up disable reactions on hit.

@@starhalv2427 Most monks have to choose something like that over getting a different benefit though, which ends up punishing them regardless for it

Building on what they said about the monk being able to have supernatural abilities from their own body. Imagine a subclass that sort of works like robocop, you are part machine and can use your robotic enhancements like a piston fist/or say you can create/attach to yourself any weapon that you then become proficient with (with the cost of having to make it attachable somehow/stuff for balance). Coming from that baseline of using your body to do incredible things gives a lot of potential ideas.

There are some monk prestige classes in 3.5 that would be cool as subclasses, like the tatooed monk(monk with tatoos that grants them unique abilities), reaping mauler(grappling specialist), enlightened fist(monk with arcane casting with some touch attack synergies),sacred fist (monk with divine casting which gives lots of buffs)

Give me a Boxer Monk, or something grappling focused. As much As IT does Not Look Like IT, 90 perfekt of Martial arts around the world are Wrestling focused, and even King of is a Lot of Wrestling, that got lost in Pop culture tho. So why dont expand on the Most Common Martial art that can BE found in almost any culture

Yeah, there's a lot of potential there. Maybe you could have a different kind of drunken master subclass that utilizes different brews as a resource onto themselves in combat to gain special, almost supernatural, effects. Maybe you could have a worshiper of some deity, so devoted, they forsake everything aside from their own body and spirituality, in turn gaining incredible deific abilities, almost like an avatar of their will (maybe even literally). How about a researcher who augmented their body through technological enhancements, installing different upgrades with level progression and maybe also juggling some form of "overheating" resource instead. Perhaps some manner of spirit or other supernatual entity posessed a person and it lends them their power in combat through some manner of shifting and body enhancement, sorta Parasyte or Venom style. Tons of stuff to consider.

yup, seems to be the wrong link

It is going to the right document now.

@@Heroltz998 Cool

DR/10 (Chaotic) means "Takes less damage unless it's from a Chaos Weapon"?

​@@llewelynshingler2173exactly. All damage was reduced by a flat 10 damage unless the weapon was a chaotic weapon OR the natural weapon of an enemy who had the same type of resistance.

1e Monk is so nice to play because the subclasses are actually good for once, who doesn´t wanna be a drunken master or a sensei?

@@WizoIstGott 3.5 was excellent as well. Flurry of blows was an always on ability that gave up to 3 additional attacks at maximum BAB, you got spell resistance (which in 3e meant the caster had to beat your resistance DC with a check or spells just didn't work on you at all), your AC could get to ludicrous levels and you could deal up to like 40d12 damage per hit if built correctly. I had a monk in 3.5 that was SO good and could make theoretically infinite attacks per round with panther style feats.

i remember when i first played dnd 5e a power gamer said monks really sucked. i just got done dming 3.5, pathfinder to where monks had a million punches. so i didn't believe him. then i built one and realized they really nerfed the poor class d8 class. even when multiclassing to maximixe a monk, 2 levels warlock cantrip will scale just as hard with no uber class planing. monks gotta spend a ki just to match match a free warlock cantrip. they should of given monk 3 attack actions and 3 furry of blows hits. at the higher levels. since it has less hp and ac then all the other front row martial classes. basically they can get extra hits but they absorb less damage before dropping. 3rd furry of blows strike at 11th and extra attack (2) around 17-20th level. so monks would always one punch/hit more then everyone else except for when fighter action surges.

You mean a sociopath

I think you mean Darth Vader without the swordsmanship?

Look at all the shenanigans they get up to in manhwa with “cultivation” if you want good ideas. Some swordsman can part mountains and seas with single swings of their sword.

​@@sidecharacter7165 yeah. If we take abit more from general Cultivation genre than just Martial films and some anime. All martial artists are basically Magicians(wizards) who learned magic with their bodies. Some use it enhance their physical bodies and others use it to basically cast spells. Monks if they wanted to embrace the Wuxia fantasy should be half casters or more access to magical abilities.

My martial characters dont just attack, they grapple, drag, dodge, shove, search, take cover, interact with objects, and all kinds of other stuff. And I dont just do them for the heck of it, they are tactical choices that can really pay off. People say oh there is nothing to do but attack, i think that is more of a self imposed limitation than a true statement about the game. I also cant help but notice how many popular builds are based around spamming the same cantrip or spell over and over. If there really is a problem with repetitive action it is not apparently limited to martials

@@drsnugglesfan Grapple and Shove are attacks. Realistically speaking, if you are doing anything but attacking unless there are specific scenarios in battle, you are misplaying it. People have done the math, besides, everything you just said can be done too with non martials. it's not the repetitiveness that hurts martial, is that they are only allowed to attack, nothing else, that's why things like battlemaster are so good. Yeah, Warlocks spam Eldritch Blast, but they have access to Hypnotic Pattern, Darkness, Invisibility, Command, Find Familiar etc. Even if they only had the spells I mentioned, they are instantly so much better than what any martial can do.

@@YolkieYolk i gave examples of actions that aren't attacking which are valid. Everything in the game is made of "specific scenarios." So tell me what's the real criticism? You do have options beside attacking, but often the best move in a fight is an attack. So what? If you're a spellcaster the best move might usually be the same old "cast a spell."

Isn't that how unarmored defense works by default?

@@pistaalkohol No, its 10+dex+wis

​@@pistaalkohol no, because what the mod does is allow the monks to wear armor on top of having extra defence. Which works in campaigns with no magical items because then the max AC would be 26

​@@pistaalkohol yeah idk what OP thinks they're changing with dex+wis unless if the base number is higher than 10

I slightly over-justified, but I went with: Allow Martial Arts features in light/medium armor; Martial Arts die is d6@3rd, d8@6th, d10@11th, and d12@17th level; Step of the Wind is a 0-ki bonus-action Dash and, only if you're not wearing armor, 1 ki to Disengage and double your jump dist; Slow Fall is only 4x monk level but works as long as you're not incapacitated; Stunning Strike costs 2 ki *but* shares a free usage pool, prof. bonus/any rest, along with Focused Aim; Timeless Body gets the previous Perfect Self feature; Perfect Self is just 2 +2 ASI's into any two ability scores you want. And some tiny tweaks not worth mentioning, but there's more QoL you can add

agreed, I saw someone make Gambit from X-Men a kensei monk using the cards as a monk weapon which I thought was pretty inspired

A Europe style monk....?

@@Decaliyon like, a Christian monk. You know... Praying, living in a monastery... Kinda like a male nun?

Holy shit. You're a genius. Now I need to make cybernetic monks!

As a matter of fact, I'll try outlining a vague character idea for each premise you described. Body Horror: Person with an aberrant bloodline learns to find power by leaning into their inhuman nature. Cybernetics: Literally every cyborg ninja. Surpass human limitations by adding stronger hardware. The flesh is weak. Divine Guidance: This one is kinda tricky, but I imagine that rigidly sticking to a path of righteous observance could grant a person boons which make them far more capable and resilient than the average person. There's a Force User parallel here, maybe. Genetic Tinkering: See Cybernetics. But this gives a lot of rooms for unique flavor. (e.g., Quivering Palm becomes a sting of long-acting poison released from a talon on your pinky finger) Mutations: See Genetic Tinkering. You'd just have to make all the features feel less deliberate and more fucked up. (e.g., Quivering Palm is a touch of the character's blood, which is radioactive enough to kill when used appropriately) Psychic Powers: I think this has a lot of overlap with the Jedi/Force Users from Star Wars. Use your psychic powers to perfect your physical form and enhance your abilities beyond normal limits. Soul Devouring: Your once-feeble form has grown strong by feeding on a healthy stream of fresh souls. The souls impart their strength to you, and now you are stronger, lighter, faster, and tougher than you ever were in your past life. You could even learn new abilities by consuming the souls of powerful adversaries! (Like the Dragonborn in Skyrim.) But the hunger still grows...

Exactly, kinda peeved that when I planned to make a Batman or Spider-Man in DnD, monk fits them aesthetically but mechanically other class can do them better. Monk concept should be loosened to "Using your body" instead of just ascetic martial artist

That’s basically Street Fighter, lol.

Cyber monks sounds like depriving yourself of earthly needs, like food or water, air.. and certainly no pp cause you're the opposite of Bard.

That sounds fantastic

A catholic monk inspired monk!

@@coolgreenbug7551 that’s a Paladin 😂

@@coolgreenbug7551 I was thinking orthodox (cause Rasputin was orthodox), but that could be really cool too! I realize maybe a different t name for the way might be good... I was just thinking because they called him “The Mad Monk”

@@plasmawolf7960 I'll be honest I'm not up to date on my monk history, I just like the idea of fury of blows coming from someone who looks like friar tuck

that doesn't mean they are not mechanically weaker.

Holy shit, six years?! Not bad.

Still mechanically the weakest class by far

@@louiesatterwhite3885I mean really? Most campaigns end at early levels where they are still useful. Everyone I have played with or talked to has a lot of uses for their monks in and out of combat f

Every cool thing you did was in spite of the rules, not because of them. D&D is a shit system.

I just loved the idea of someone who beat things with their bare hands when everyone else relies on weapons and magic XD

Monks are a tank and do the jon pretty well. Would be nice if there was a way to use Dex to Grapple or Shove like in the movies.

Unarmed fighters do not do more damage than monks. That's straight up wrong (except maybe at level 1). They do have higher survivability though since they can wear heavy armor and invest in Con instead of Wis. The comparison to rogue is on point though. The monk abilities are a joke, rogue also get evasion and don't stop being useful in the middle of the encounter because they are out of ki points.

@@Lilith_Harbingerunarmed fighting style let’s fighters have a d6 for unarmed strike from lvl1

@@user-uv6qu3wb5d And monks get a bonus action unarmed attack at level 2, for 1d4+mod. Plus monks can also use this fighting style, if they are V.human or the DM gives feat, or just pick a race with natural weapons with d6. That's why i said unarmed fighters don't do more damage at any level other than maybe 1.

@@Lilith_Harbinger *Fighting Style:* [...] *Unarmed Fighting.* Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren't wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8. At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by you.

@@Lilith_Harbinger *if* they are Variant Human of *if* the DM giver a feat. both of which give an extra feat for the Fighter, & both of which can give this Feat to anyone who fulfils the prerequisite: "Proficiency with a martial weapon".