Monk Subclass Tier Ranking (Part 1) in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

this week's episode is sponsored by easy roller dice rpg players can never have enough dice and these affordable and high quality dice are perfect for building a personalized collection on a lightweight budget their dice come in a huge range of colors materials and fonts so you can have the perfect set to match your characters spells and monsters we've been using their awesome dice trays at our own game table to keep all of our dice in one place for years now visit easyrollerdice.com or follow the links in the description below to visit their online store you'll also find below our discount code which you can use to save on select purchases and now onto this week's episode greetings my name is monty martin and i'm kelly mclaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes welcome to our channel where we cover everything dungeons and dragons including advice for players and guides for dungeon masters we upload new videos on tuesdays and thursdays so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode today we are ranking these subclasses available to monks in dungeons and dragons 5th edition this is part 1 of our two-part series today we're gonna be looking at the three monk subclasses found in the player's handbook the way of shadow the way of the elements and the way of the open hand in part two of this video we're going to be looking at the subclasses introduced in the sword coast adventures guide and xanathar's guide to everything as two points of order before we go any further though we have filmed this episode before the release of tasha's cauldron of everything so we will be making a follow-up video where we look at the subclasses introduced in that video and finally we don't look at subclasses that have been released in unearthed arcana but have not been published in a book yet because those are play test classes and are still subject to revisions changes and might not even make full publication so in order to keep our videos current and correct we do not cover unarthricanna in this ranking series up on the screen right now you're going to see our criteria for ranking the monk subclasses we have pitted the subclasses against each other not against those of other classes also we're taking into account all the pillars of dungeons and dragons in our ranking how the subclasses perform in combat exploration and social interactions however we don't consider role playing and flavor as one of the criteria as we believe that every subclass has a great opportunity to be well role played we may discuss multi-classing but it is not a major component of our ranking in general monks are widely considered one of the weaker classes as a whole in dungeons and dragons 5th edition speaking from personal experience i have played a monk up to 15th level and thoroughly enjoyed it the monks ability to stunning strike paired with their maneuverability and some really awesome features like their abilities to move up walls or catch arrows altogether they make this really unique package that i think a lot of people look at and hope that they will be a primary damage dealer when really they fit this unique category of utility marshall class they may not be the easiest class to jump into but i do think that they have a place and are a really powerful choice in the right party dynamic that said the monkey is overall a combat and exploration focused class and its key resource qi regenerates on a short rest so as we rank these subclasses we are going to assume that the monk gets at least one short rest per day and will probably be facing roughly four encounters of some kind across the adventuring day the monk class overall is packed with features and so the subclasses themselves only grant features at third sixth eleventh and seventeenth level meaning that some of the subclasses are actually a pretty small part of the monks overall kit but some have larger impacts there's a lot to discuss so let's get rolling we're going to kick things off today with the way of the shadow monk this monk subclass takes elements of stealth and subterfuge adding them into the monk class as a whole using shadows and darkness to augment the class in meaningful ways let's take a look at some of the key abilities that you get as a way of shadow monk right away at third level the way of shadow monk gains the ability to spend two key points to cast darkness dark vision pass without trace or silence spells they can also gain the minor illusion cantrip which they can use at will these are some very potent and useful spells that will really aid the monks ability to infiltrate and use darkness and shadow to their advantage at sixth level you're going to gain shadow step if you're in an area of dim light or darkness you can use a bonus action to teleport to another area of dim light or darkness up to 60 feet away and gain advantage on your next attack at 11th level you gain the cloak of shadow's ability when you are in the area of dim light or darkness you can use your action to become invisible this invisibility lasts as long as you remain outside of bright light or until you attack or cast a spell at 17th level you gain the ability opportunist whenever a creature within five feet of you attacks a creature other than you you can use your reaction to attack that creature when i played a monk it was a way of the shadow monk and i thoroughly enjoyed a lot of the features presented in this subclass the ability to teleport from one shadow to another was one of the key features that really made me gravitate towards this subclass in general and was useful in many ways i will say however that the monk class is already extremely mobile however there were situations where getting behind enemy lines or sneaking into areas that were harder to get to became much easier when there were shadows involved the spell casting feature that you gain right off the bat when you choose the way of the shadow monk is really really useful spells like pass without trace and silence were applicable in many instances in the campaign we played in and really made me feel like i was able to sneak around and do things that other monk subclasses might have had a hard time doing overall a lot of the features here give a new and interesting way to use the monk and i will admit that i may be a little biased because of my 15 levels that i've experienced with this particular subclass but i was very much willing to give this the s tier right off the bat because i found it endlessly useful meaningful in multiple ways both in infiltration exploration and combat so with all of that in mind i gravitated towards giving it an s tier i'm not going to dispute that you played your way of shadow monk in our red hand of doom campaign really really well kelly i think that you did but that said there were opportunities when i as the dungeon master felt that you had more mobility than you needed particularly your monk took the mobile feet and there were several instances in the campaign where you could have simply used flurry of blows along with mobile to navigate to the spot that you needed to be instead of using shadowstep and so because shadowstep is used as a bonus action it impairs your ability to use it alongside martial arts and flurry of blows it's using up your bonus action and while you do get advantage on an attack to compensate for that getting advantage on a single attack is not as good as being able to simply make a full-on extra attack i also noticed that it was really hard to make effective use of the invisibility power as well it came online at a high enough level that you had so many tools at your disposal with past without trace silence and darkness for getting in there that you already had everything you needed to infiltrate and using invisibility as an action means that it's difficult to use it in combat alongside your other abilities you played a human and i really felt the way of shadow monk should have the ability to see in magical darkness or should gain dark vision innately that was definitely a thing that this overall subclass is lacking so while i agree with you that i think the subclass is great there's just enough difficulty in the synergy of the class features to make it so that there's a couple problems that have to be solved i'm willing to give this subclass an a i just really wish that the way the shadow step ability worked was that you got to teleport like 30 feet when your flurry of blows that would have been super cool to be able to use both the teleportation and fleury blows at the same time and i don't think that that would be overpowered at all there's actually some monsters inspired by the way of shadow monk that have appeared in other source books that can actually teleport between their monk attacks i i will again admittedly say that i am biased because i went into the monk concerned that it wasn't going to please me and playing the way of the shadow monks surpassed all of my expectations so my bias might be that i had so much fun playing this character that i immediately want to give this particular subclass the highest ranking and an a does feel appropriate i i hear what you're saying i do think that this is an excellent subclass that adds a lot of really useful and unique tools to the monk and it's a really strong choice yeah i think that if it gave you the ability to see in magical darkness and allowed you to steal flurry of blows when you teleported it would totally be asked here next up we come to the way of the four elements monk for those of you who are huge fans of avatar the last airbender and set out into the worlds of dungeons and dragons with hopes of bending the elements to your will prepare to be horribly disappointed as a way of the four elements monk you will gain the disciple of the element's ability this ability allows you to channel your key points into casting spells and activating other elemental abilities known as elemental disciplines when you take the subclass you gain one elemental discipline of your choice in addition to the elemental attunement discipline at level 6 level 11 and level 17 when other monks gain their other subclass features you get to pick up new elemental disciplines which are broken into tiers as well most of these elemental disciplines give you the ability to use your key points to cast a spell in some way shape or form we see spells on the spell list like burning hands and thunder wave available right away and then ones like hold person becoming available at sixth level spells like fly and fireball becoming available at 11th and spells like stonestakin and cone of cold becoming available at 17th level there are other non-spell disciplines that you can take like water whip and fang of the fire snake that are pretty interesting and you can use additional key points to up cast the spells although there is a limit on that the wave for elements mug is actually a little bit like an eldritch knight or an arcane trickster in disguise it is transforming the monk's ability to use their key points to giving them the ability to cast spells from an extraordinarily limited spell list that advances roughly in the same progression as what we would see from an elders knight or arcane trickster getting up to fifth level spells in general the way of the four elements monk is something that on paper seems really exciting especially as somebody who is a huge fan of avatar the last airbender and really wishes that they could play that sort of thing in dungeons and dragons however when you look at the key points cost of casting a lot of these spells it ends up actually being a detriment to the monk class as a whole with the monk already gaining the ability to use key points on things like flurry of blows or stunning strike spending half or a third of your key points to cast a spell doesn't really seem as valuable as just running around and stunning striking everybody and although there are some clutch moments where dropping a fireball might be game changing it doesn't really happen often enough that it's worth the value of the key points that you would be putting into it not to mention when you're looking at something like casting cone of cold at 17th level that doesn't really seem as cool as casting cone of cold when other spellcasters are able to cast it overall the features presented by choosing the way of the four elements monk almost don't feel worth it to use over the features already presented to the monk class in general which means that i have to give this a d ranking because it doesn't really add anything useful and the features that it does add although cool cost too much to make them valuable i completely agree with kelly's assessment the key point cost for these spells is simply too high look at an example like the ability to cast whole person whole person produces a relatively similar effect to stunning them paralyzation is a little bit more powerful because you automatically crit the target but a monk can still take an enemy out of the fight for a couple rounds by stunning them or by stunning multiple enemies at once the damage that they can gain with some of these damage dealing powers particularly the lower level ones like burning hands and thunder wave is pretty comparable to what they can get in extra damage from just using flurry of blows and making melee attacks i can't help but feel that it would have been a smarter implementation for this class to just given the monk spell slots and a much larger spell list that is far less restrictive than what has been presented here this is a subclass that really is conservative and is in many ways emblematic of a worry that by giving monks too many fun cool toys and tools it's going to take them over the top it's not this subclass could have gone a lot more further and been a lot more ambitious with the spells and abilities and aggressively costed the key points of these spells and it would have been fine but with the way that the numbers shake out and the spells available it's just not worth using these powers compared to what the monk already gains just for being a monk i give this a d as well we could have seen something really cool here that did speak to that airbender waterbender firebender sort of mentality but instead what we get is something lackluster that actually takes away from the core class as a whole the slow accumulation of when the monk accumulates these spells again getting cone of cold at 17th level and getting fireball at 11th level is not quite as valuable as getting those spells at earlier levels of play especially considering just how much of a chunk of key points these spells are going to ask of you it just doesn't feel like a valuable trade finally from the player's handbook we come to the way of the open hand monk this one is the classic martial artist who focuses on honing their body and mind into a weapon of mass destruction against their enemies right out the gate they gain the open hand technique power when they hit a creature with one of the unarmed strikes granted by their flurry of blows ability they can choose one of three additional effects to impose on that creature they can either make it take a dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone a strength saving throw or be knocked back 15 feet or they can force the target to be unable to take reactions until the end of the mug's next turn at sixth level you gain wholeness of body which allows you to once per day as an action heal up to three times your monk level at 11th level you gain the tranquility power at the end of a long rest you can enter a meditative state where you gain the effects of a sanctuary spell until your next long rest or until the conditions of the spell end as they normally would at 17th level you gain the quivering palm feature which allows you to use three key points to put subtle vibrations into an enemy target when you hit them for a number of days equal to your monk level the vibrations stay within that target and you can use an action at any point causing them to make a constitution saving throw if they fail the saving throw they drop immediately to zero hit points if they succeed on the saving throw they take 10 d10 necrotic damage after you take this action the vibrations end and you can only have one creature at a time affected by your quivering palm ability and you can also choose as an action to end it harmlessly if you so desire the way of the open hand monk is really all about the open hand technique quivering palm is amazing but it doesn't happen until 17th level it's basically a save or diability one of the few abilities of its kind in the entire game and it deserves to be noted for that power but it also deserves to be recognized as a 17th level ability that for most of your monks career you're not going to have and if you play 17 17 levels as a monk you deserve to have an ability like this it's incredible tranquility and wholeness of body are kind of just okay i think tranquility is almost entirely useless in a lot of circumstances because as soon as you start fighting you lose its benefits and being able to heal yourself is nice but it's not a lot of healing and it's only once per day the real gravy here is open hand technique and it really lets you rag doll your enemies you get it at no extra cost every time you fleury of blows and monks want to be flurrying as many blows as they possibly can and now you're going to be able to stun somebody knock them prone and rag doll them off a cliff it's basically the only thing that the monk of the open hand has going for them for most of their career but fortunately it's really good and it just builds on what the monk gets i personally kind of think it's the best monk subclass but i'm really hesitant to give it an s-tier ranking because it feels so empty beyond the open hand technique it it feels like wholeness of body and tranquility might as well just not be there like yeah they're fine it's it's great like a bit of self-healing is fine drink a healing potion i think i'm gonna give it an a because i think open hand technique is that good and i think it's an s tier as soon as you get to 17th level and you can just end people with your quivering palm it's a kill bill style exploding heart technique i love it it's eightier until 17th level then it crosses into esteer i agree with the assessment of giving this an a although i do want to give some love to wholeness of body i do think that any ability to heal yourself is very valuable in a dnd game i do agree though that that and tranquility could have been replaced with other abilities that felt more like they had to do with martial arts more ways to augment your key points to enhance your attacks would have made this an s tier i think that even saying quivering palm makes it a nest here at 17th level quivering palm is one of the greatest capstone abilities that you can gain it's really really amazing but if we're talking about the class overall it doesn't quite scratch that s here it it's going to land in the a tier nothing here is bad maybe tranquility is but even if tranquility is not the most useful ability luckily the other abilities that you gain from this class more than make up for that lackluster option at 11th level all in all the class we're giving it the eights here because overall we love what this subclass offers it's it you know we love what open hand technique does like that's what is making this a for us that's all it is that's all it needs to be to make it great and stunning strike is amazing and it can shut down an entire encounter when it is well played so i feel like all the monk subclasses are coping with the fact that stunning strike is so good but meanwhile like other subclasses and other spell casting classes are doing things like hypnotic pattern and banishment so like the crowd control is good but it's not so mind-blowing that we need to make all the subclasses so lackluster overall but they really are why don't we see what the community thought so when we look at the community poll for the way of the shadow monk we land very safely in the a tier category sitting at 46.3 percent with a equal spattering of people giving it both vs and the b tier we have 20.7 percent with s and 26.5 with b so it really does land in that a category a very small amount of people gave it the c and d tier meaning that overall this is a great subclass oh the way of the four elements how thou art reviled by the community with 47.2 percent getting giving it a d tier ranking this is one of the most reviled and poorly rated classes across all classes in our community survey not quite the worst i think but almost there got worse to receive than the purple dragon knight for the record with the remaining 26.6 percent uh get it giving a c ranking and only 17 giving it a b with the smallest slivers giving it the a and s tier ranking the community does not like the subclass on the other hand the way of the open hand monk is well loved by the community with the largest amount of s-tier rankings of any of the monk subclasses landing at 40.4 percent with 45.1 percent giving it the a and b tier landing at 11.6 this is safely an a plus tier ranked subclass for the monk so up on screen right now again you're going to see our rankings of the three players handbook subclasses for the monk next to that you will now see the community votes on those three subclasses as well it looks like us and the community are in complete agreement on these three subclasses way of the open hand and shadow land near the top and the way of the four elements is down right at the bottom i think the community rankings are very revealing even the best received monk subclass in the player's handbook did not have a conclusive s-tier ranking and i think that for ourselves not giving out an s-tier ranking at all from the player's handbook is appropriate considering the power level and our metrics for the s tiers i don't think anything here is over the top even though the way of shadow and the way of the open hand are amongst the best there's no one subclass that stands out as head and shoulders over the others so this has been a look at part one of our subclass tier rankings for monks in dungeons and dragons fifth edition today we looked at the subclasses offered in the players handbook stay tuned for part two where we will look at the other subclasses offered in xanathar's guide to everything as well as other officially released source books if you have any opinions on these subclasses or you think we should have ranked them differently let us know about your experiences with them in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters if you enjoy the work that we create here on youtube twitch and otherwise please consider becoming a supporter of our channel by following the links in the description below don't forget to check out our live play shadows of drakenheim which is tuesday nights at 6pm eastern at twitch.tv slash dungeon underscored dudes you can find all the previous episodes of that show right up over here and we're ranking all the subclasses for dungeons and dragons fifth edition check out the other videos in the series right over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 457,912

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: JhVZ8QeC4O8

Length: 25min 5sec (1505 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 03 2020