The UA 8 Monk is... actually really really good #dnd #onednd

it took a long time to get here but it finally feels like the design team has delivered the monk that fifth edition always deserved like everything else I'm not going to sit here and say that it's perfect and that there's nothing else that they could do to conceivably make it better but that's kind of going to be the case for any class it really feels like what we have here in the newest iteration of the monk is a version of the class that truly embodies what I believe many people think of when they imagine a monk a mobile agile attacker proficient in hand-to-hand combat and with the ability to chel their inner strength and peace to execute nearly Supernatural Feats oh yeah and have a bang in Capstone but we'll get to all that I went on record in my video about the UA 6 monk that the class just felt unfair it was almost like the team saw all the problems that the class has had since 2014 and thought to themselves I wonder how we can show everyone that we are aware of the features but not actually fix any of them and sometimes let's make them a little bit worse suffice it to say that the ua6 monk wasn't great but in an amazing Twist of face it seems that nearly every complaint I and many other people have had about it have been addressed at first level monks still get their martial arts feature which has been improved and changed in a multitude of ways firstly in a reversion from ua6 monk weapons have made a return and include simple melee weapons and Marshall weapons with the light property this is a nice Improvement both mechanically and thematically as the ua6 version only allowed simple weapons to be used with the martial arts die though I also would possibly like to see the inclusion of some or all martial weapons that have the reach property but I'm not so on that Additionally the bonus unarmed strike that monks could always make before but was tied to already having made an attack using the attack action has been changed to Simply allow a monk to make an unarmed strike just by using their bonus action regardless of whether they attacked previously on the turn or not this is the start of a common Trend we will see in the class which has significantly improved his action economy Dexter's attacks has also been improved in addition to still allowing the player to useed their dexterity modifier for attack and damage roles of their monk weapons and unarmed strikes it now allows them to use dexterity to set the DC for the grapple and shove portions of an unarmed strike in my last video I spoke at length about how the monk is probably the most multi- ability score dependent class in the entire game as they almost needed a reasonable score in strength dexterity Constitution and wisdom to effectively utilize the features that the class has available to it however with this change the team has seemingly entirely removed one of the those as a requirement as now monks don't really need to have a reasonable strength scorer at all sure this was probably the least impactful of the four main scores anyway but I'll gladly take any Improvement that we can get if you like what I do and would like to help me reach a goal of 5,000 subscribers by the end of the year a sub to the channel would be incredibly appreciated thank you so much one notable Omission from ua6 is that now monks no longer have immediate access to the weapon Mastery feature within their class progression what's interesting about this is that many people including myself were really happy to see it included in the previous UA but found the fact that it didn't work with unarmed strikes to be a little bit confusing however now after seeing the class rework in its entirety I'm not so sure its removal is actually a problem the monk has access to some amazing features with their attacks many of which have been significantly improved that I can see why they removed it they would have added an additional layer of complication that probably just doesn't need to be there in the base class and kind of overlaps and might detract from some of the classes identity but remember if you really want it it will still be available as a feat that you can take it's also worth mentioning that I can definitely see a world where certain monk subclasses might still get access to weapon Mastery speaking of improvements to attacks though let's take a look at the second level feature monks discipline this used to be called Marshall discipline in ua6 and was known as keyi back in the 2014 version of the player handbook first up is Flurry of Blows which has received an improvement as the result of a change to the martial arts feature Flurry of Blows used to also require the prior use of the attack action on your turn to be able to use it however that is no longer the case you now just need to use your bonus action and spend one discipline point to make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action your main action is now freed up for anything else that you wanted to do with it this is a really really nice quality of life Improvement patient defense has also been changed in a really nice way the base effect of the feature is still the same in that you can still take the disengage action as a bonus action but notably it no longer requires the expenditure of any displine points the only cost is the bonus action however you can still opt to spend a discipline point to empower the feature which then allows you to take the Dodge action in addition to the disengage action as a bonus action I love this change a really big complaint of the monk in basically all previous versions of the class was how quickly you could deplete your discipline or key points it resulted in this really tough situation where you wouldn't want to actually use so many of your features since it would leave you with nothing left since your resources were so constrained changes like this combined with some new features that we'll see shortly really opens up the functionality of the class to actually let you feel like you can use the features that are available to you step of the win receed the same treatment using step of the win now lets you take the dash action as just a bonus action but it also lets you spend one discipline point to take both the disengage and dash actions as a bonus action and it also doubles your jump distance further reducing the Reliance on your strength score second level C is the feature that we were all begging for from ua6 uncanny metabolism the previous version of the monku way had a seventh level feature called heightened metabolism which granted you the benefits of a short rest but only took 1 minute the primary use of this was really to restore your discipline points however it arrives so late in the game and nearly at the point when discipline starvation was naturally solving itself that it almost felt undone before even getting there so many of us pleaded to have this feature drop to a much much lower level like second or third and here we are uncanny metabolism now lets you when you roll initiative to restore all of your discipline points Additionally you can roll your Martial Arts diey and add your monk level and restore that many hit points this feature can only be used once per long rest but I think that's honestly more than sufficient to help offset so so much of the discipline Point wo that we used to suffer from especially when you consider the fact that so many things that used to cost points now simply don't I'm not even bothered by the fact that it's tied to Rolling initiative that's the primary time where you'd be concerned about your resource availability anyway and more importantly it doesn't require you to have none left this feature arrives early enough to really let mon players get to truly experience everything that their class has to offer and I love it the third level feature deflect attacks is largely the same as the old deflect missiles the key difference being that you can now apply that same deflection to melee attacks and not just exclusively ranged ones you can even still deflect the melee attack to another creature within 5 ft of you if you happen to reduce the damage below zero through the use of this feature this is so cool and just feels so on brand for what a monk should have always been able to do seeing this I'm honestly kind of Blown Away by the fact that it didn't used to always work on melee attacks it just feels so obvious it's also worth noting that the 13th level feature deflect energy still functions the same as it did in ua6 which is to say that it works against attacks of any damage type not just bludgeoning slashing or piercing but now it also includes melee attacks at fifth level stunning strike has received yet another revision and I have to say that I am a fan of it in my video on the ua6 monk I mentioned how even when I was playing a monk I always hated using stunning strike when it worked it was debilitating particularly if you could chain it for a few turns in a row and when it didn't work it felt like a huge waste and like you accomplish nothing the feature always felt far too swingy for me and I never enjoyed its use this rework version still retains many of the same changes that we saw in ua6 in that you can still only perform it once per turn now whereas in the 2014 version you could potentially just Spam it until it inevitably worked provided that you had the available key points now however it feels way less bad if the feature doesn't work since the creature now takes Force damage equal to a roll of your Martial Arts die plus your wisdom modifier on a successful save now I can certainly see how this change might feel a little bit weird there aren't many if any effects in Dungeons and Dragons that deal no damage when a Target fails but deal damage when the target succeeds it feels a little bit counterintuitive but honestly I'm kind of here for it the stun condition is profoundly effective there are surprisingly very few ways around it and honestly I would rather impart the stun condition on a creature than deal damage the force damage to me thematically feels like you made the punch but maybe just didn't quite land it in exactly the correct spot so you still hit the creature and the strike was still channeled with magical energy hence the force damage but since it was slightly offt Target it ended up hurting the target rather than stunning them while it's not really my area of true expertise I do feel like dealing both the damage and stunning the creature on a failed save would have just been too much and led to a situation where this is essentially used every turn if available one interesting Quirk or feature that has seemingly survived through from ua6 is that you can actually still technically use stunning strike at range the feature allows you to use it with either an unarmed strike or with a monk weapon monk weapons include Marshall weapons with the light property and a hand crossbow is a marshall weapon with the Light Property just like last time I'm not sure if this was an oversight or not I feel like it is since stunning with a light crossbow from 120 ft away doesn't really aesthetically mesh with the class for me I kind of hope they put in an explicit exclusion for hand crossbows in the final printed version though but who knows the new 10th level feature heighten discipline functions as an improvement to your primary discipline Spenders those being Flurry of Blows patient defense and step of the wind it's important to note that none of the discipline costs have increased for any of these only their effects have improved but they only do take effect if you decide to spend the discipline point rather than simply use the base effect Flurry of Blows now grants three additional strikes rather than two patient defense now lets you gain temporary hit points equal to two roles of your Martial Arts die and step of the wind allows you to take a willing creature along with you as you move without provoking opportunity attacks while all of these are relatively small changes it is so nice to see them not be forgotten and receive improvements as you take additional levels in the class which again helps combat the feeling of needing to multiclass something I've talked about quite a few times already at 15th level monks receive a revised version of the perfect discipline feature I kind of railed into this in my previous monk video since I loathe the features that restore a resource only if you have none left it's an unnecessary restriction that's self-defeating and that it encourages you in order to get value from the feature to have to use all of her resource only to receive just such a meager return I hated it the new version is a nice Improvement on this though now if you have three discipline points or fewer and roll initiative you you gain points until you have four this now serves more of a safety net it's not encouraging you to just Spam your points out just to get value from the feature but rather it's there just in case you do happen to run out you'll at least get some additional staying power for the combat it's not perfect but it's getting there it's also a really nice touch that the feature isn't limited by short or long rests this in a vacuum isn't all that great but combined with all the other adjustments to discipline Point management that we have seen it is truly fantastic finally the cap St and what a cap Stone the new 20th level feature body and mind lets you increase both your dexterity and wisdom scores by four to a new maximum of 26 firstly damn secondly yeah I admit it I am a total sucker for hilariously High ability scores as someone who's been running a 3 and 1 half year long campaign with characters now at 18th level I totally appreciate the insanity I also like that the limit is now 26 as there was a recent change which allowed the ability score Improvement taken at 19th level to ex seed the cap of 20 and go to 22 this is just so cool I love it it feels so fun and Powerful overall I really do like the changes to the newest monk this time they recognized the downfalls of the class and actually took immediate steps to help resolve some of the primary concerns it's not perfect there's still some changes I think that could really push it over the top but on the whole I'm a huge fan and finally the class feels Fair thanks for taking the time to watch this video let me know your thoughts on the newest version of the monk subscribe to help me hit my goal of 5,000 subscribers by the end of the year but otherwise take care

Channel: Insight Check

Views: 21,739

Keywords: insight check, dnd, dnd5e, d&d, dungeons and dragons, d&d5e, rpg, ttrpg, dm tips, dm advice, dungeon master, dungeon master tips, roll20, dndbeyond, dynamic lighting, new dm, how to play dnd, new dnd, dnd help, dnd advice, one dnd, one d&d, dnd one, d&d one, one dnd ranger, one d&d ranger, one dnd bard, one d&d bard, one dnd monk, one d&d monk, new monk, dnd monk, onednd, stunning strike, ua8, ua 8, ua 9, unearthed arcana, unearthed arcana 8, unearthed arcana 9

Id: EUhrpk4OPB4

Length: 12min 35sec (755 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 27 2023