What if Everyone Plays a Monk in D&D 5e?

greetings my name is Monty Martin and I'm Kelly mlin we are the dungeon dudes and today we're asking that wild question what would happen if every player in the party decided to roll up a monk the first thing that comes to my head is because we have tles in D and D that we should probably be playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles well let's queue Up Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting and dive into it there's a lot to discuss so let's get roll as you usual with our Everybody Plays a singular class videos we're looking at a party of four characters everyone has to play the same class there's no multiclassing allowed and no duplicate subclasses so we have to pick four different subclasses and we might talk about some different combinations that we might want to put together the party needs to be able to perform or at least we're going to discuss how they would perform in all three pillars of play from Level 1 to 20 so that's going to be combat exploration and social encounters then at the end we're going to rank them and see how they compare to all of the other single party classes throughout the series we've been super inspired thinking of all the ways that we could build the campaign concept around all the players choosing the same class and it is surprising just how much inspiration there is out there for an all monk party the idea of a group of martial artist Fighters all teaming up to take on a villain and save the world is a very very widespread Trope beyond the obvious Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which I think we definitely got to have a Toral in here as an homage at least if not all of all of our characters as Toral monks there's just a lot out there I think that if you did want to dive in and play the all Toral monk party you could really grab four different subclasses color coat yourselves and I'm I'm imagining that Shredder is an evil Shadow monk that's that's kind of the vibe that I get somehow you'd have to maybe tweak a few things so so that Shredder can wear armor and still do all of his martial arts stuff yeah but uh but I think that you could have the Ninja Turtles versus the Shredder somewhere in there with the Foot Clan of all of the different monk uh minions but on top of that there's there's so many monk Centric stories that I love the first other one that comes to mind is I'm a huge fan of avatar The Last Airbender yeah and yeah I think everybody would have to play a four elements Monk and we might have to tweak a few things but it's it's there well most most of them would play a four elements monk you could also have a Ki in there but you could you could or maybe everyone's going to play an astral self Monk and you're just going to uh really uh stand for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure uh and uh maybe uh play with Mercer uh at the same time so you can have uh um your your real classic I mean anime there's just so many examples that there's too many to list we could just be here all day talking about all all like and everything from the very very serious to the more campy and and and funny as well amongst those things um I mean I think of yeah I don't even know there's so many examples I don't know where to actually start as the most prominent anime example so I'm just going to go with the JoJo reference I grew up with Bruce Lee Jackie Chan even Chuck Norris has abilities there another one that I loved uh in in my teen years was the onback series oh yeah nice nice I also think of um again more more western films like maybe the Matrix or Kill Bill um as as really cool examples to draw some inspiration and of course that's the cycle of inspiration that that you get from this I actually even think that you could depending on how far you want to extend like your definition of a monk I think there's a lot of monastic elements to the Jedi from Star Wars um and and other universes and and Star Wars is more of a space fantasy thing than science fiction so the the parallels all all very much exist there the idea of whether you're doing the monastic order uh of all the the monks who are part of the same organization the same ninja Clan the same Monastery they all train together or you know what you could even draw inspiration from video games like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat as well for this too you could do a tournament Arc a Mortal Kombat tournament Arc where you're like they're sucked out of their plane of existence and brought into a realm where they have to battle to the death for yeah I guess perhaps in in the respect of the tournament Arc and all all the things we would be very remiss though if we didn't mention like drawing inspiration from Dragon Ball I think that that maybe it's just us as Canadians because we had YTV and like Dragon Ball was like Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon were the two animes that I think hit Canadian kids in the 90s yeah um and I guess there's even inspiration there too we talked about C for the warlocks but um there there's just so much there there I I think that um another one that pops into my head and I I want to distill this down mostly to its core usually when we think of something like Assassin's Creed we think of Rogues which makes a lot of sense they're Assassins but the essence of Assassin's Creed is this secret organization that's trying to undo a tyrannical political Arc yeah and so having a Ninja Assassin Squad who's working in the shadows to try to overthrow a corrupt government very Assassin's Creed s uh but that's something that we see a lot in like classic ninja tropes did you ever play like any of the T true stealth assassin games they were hard those go away like they they were like Dark Souls Before Dark Soul like Dark Souls Elden ring uh or um sakiro before like way way back so the the long and short of it is there there's just so like I mean if you even wanted to extend the metaphor even further I'm sure that you could make an argument that Mario and Luigi are monks there is that uh there is the one video game that I absolutely loved ghost of tsushima uh had that sort of Samurai element to it and yes we do have the samurai fighter again but uh imagining that sort of narrative with a group of monks is is very po yeah I I do think that that is one of those things where as you go further a field in media because monks and martial artists and Fighters like there is a very much a strong overlap in the ven diagram of like who's a fighter who's a monk who has all these things and I think that it's worth having a very wide definition for what you draw your inspiration from and and what characters you yes we could go into the debate is is that character actually a fighter and that character actually a monk and the one archetype that I'd really like to be able to realize in an all mug party that is kind of challenging to make work mechanically in D andd 5 as we get into like how we build these characters is the strength-based Monk and I think that as we start looking across the spectrum of media that we can draw draw from inspiration from and then look at what is available mechanically in D and D 5 I really start to feel the limitation of the the what is available for for monks and find myself really wishing that there was an explicitly hey would you like to be a strength-based monk archetype um or would you perhaps want to be the more um like I I definitely like how um we're seeing maybe the this change from key points to discipline points because I do think that that widens it up and as we look into the future you know the future of D and I really hope that like there support for strength-based monks but not in the form of a subass in the form of alternative class features so you can graft that onto whatever monk you want to play I think it's like a final Point talking about the the overlap of of all things you know the first thing we mentioned was the Ninja Turtles but there's arguments out there that you build the Ninja Turtles by having uh Raphael be a ttal barbarian Leonardo be a ttal fighter Donatello is a ttal artificer and then Michelangelo's the monk or The Bard or The Bard so you could have the Ninja Turtles work without even playing a monk and that that's kind of the hard part is that like there's so many versions of martial artist artist that we've seen in media that you can actually adapt them to a lot of different classes but the monk the monk does bring the the the fists and kicks to Life Beyond even the Ninja Turtles like you you even look at any sort of superhero Batman is a is Batman not a way of Shadow monk right I I would argue that that's one of the closest ways to get to him but other people again have argued fighter artificer Rogue and maybe he's kind of in between all of those yeah and and so you know maybe there's other ones as well that are way closer for for example Daredevil right again there it just shows how prevalent the archetype of the unarmed combatant is in ac across our media so I I find with this one the the field is very large even though there are the ICONic examples for us to to to draw on I do think that if we're thinking of the campaign concept the tournament Arc is a really cool idea to explore especially if you wanted to do like the microcosm of of this whole thing but because again it's so prevalent across media you realize that literally every fantasy story archetype works with an all monk party yeah and I mean like a lot of a lot of these stories are either the Assassins versus a corrupt government or in the case of Ninja Turtles it's a group of ninjas versus an evil group of ninjas yes or like the Rival plans thing or of course like that shadowy underworld sort of organization where it's like there's several different families I mean I think there's also a lot of overlap here with Rogues too it's yeah there there there's so much but all that aside it's it's fertile ground it's really exciting the idea of the whole party playing them so what do we actually think our four monks are going to be elephant in the room first okay you and I created two monk sub classes in our book Sebastian Crow's guide to drenim which is available now for pre-order and coming soon physically um and those two monk sub classes were also you and I are love letter to the idea that we think that so far monk sub classes have been relatively weak for a class that is kind of middling in general and we wanted to create sub classes that put the on par with playing in a party with a paladin or gloomstalker Ranger or or those sorts of characters so right away the way of the Arcane hand Monk and the way of the serpent monk which is the two that we created for our book uh would probably be in my party if we were allowing those this is kind of the caveat yeah and I think with those two characters we with our design of both those classes the way of the Arcane hand being a monk with with spellcasting in the similar vein of the Arcane trickster or the eldrich Knight it uh it we did a whole video on that with Colby from D4 Deep dive which you can check out right over here where Colby did a full build on just how much fun that class can be and also he really made an amazing sustained damage dealer I think one of one of his top sustained damage dealers was based around that that class and we actually don't think that's inappropriate for the power level of a monk overall so we were quite PR of that uh and with the way of the serpent monk you've got a monk that can actually use pole arms and benefit from things like great weapon master and also be a really cool damage dealer and utility Battlefield controller so we but in the interest of being a little bit more objective we're going to give the honorable mention to our two sub classes set those aside and look at the official content so that we can actually dive dive dive into this I think that when we look at the official content the first one that jumps ahead of everybody else is going to be the way of Mercy monk I agree I I think the touch of life and death and bringing our way of Mercy monk actually is a pretty good damage dealer but it also brings that much needed support and very specifically the healing ability into the party just along with being most broadly I think probably the the strongest of the monk subclasses I I think that the it's contending for one other great damage dealer but the fact that it is a great damage dealer plus additional support in the way of healing and also it has that really cool ability to end effects on your allies yeah uh those two are going to come into play a lot especially if we're all monks you you do as a monk have like the ability to resist diseases and things like that um and you do get a lot of those but if you're frightened or Charmed or anything of that nature the way of Mercy monk can help out and and heal you if you need if you need it especially when those fear and charm effects also come with some form of incapacitating you because even though monks do have things like evasion and um and Stillness of mind and whatnot ultimately if there is if there is an effect that prevents you from acting it's much more difficult to get out of those effects on your own as a as a monk I also think and you've played this monk we've seen it in many of our campaigns the way of Shadow is brings so much utility and Mobility to the all monk party especially in the stealth and infiltration capacity just with that small list of spells that it can cast the way of Shadow monk later gets abilities to teleport if it's in darkness turn invisible in darkness you get all of your good monks stuff as well but on top of that this really doubles down on the stealth aspect of the monk so if you talk about the well-rounded party being like your fighter Rogue Wizard and cleric then the way of Shadows fills the the Rogue type of Monk it's the stealth yeah and and we're also going to have things like pass without trace and the the this monk can also turn themselves invisible and I do think that in as far as being able to have that wide utility for your party somebody that can teleport and somebody that can turn invisible just give you so many problemsolving Tools in party that those are are things that I look for really really early on when I'm building a party so we we get those those now and I do think that as well um pass without Trace giving that massive bonus to stealth is really going to help us with that whole Ninja slipping in under the cover of Darkness sort of thing which I I really like like I think everyone wants to take Proficiency in stealth yeah if you're doing like the nighttime um Ambush then the way of Shadow monk is leading that that mission um what are we going to put in next because I feel like after the way of Shadow and the way of Mercy I kind of don't know like for a long time the open hand was the strongest monk subass but it considered the strongest one but I feel like now the way of Shadow I like it more than the Open Hand certainly like it more than the four elements um so I I know what I would put next and that's um The Way of the astral self okay the the main reason not the main reason but one of the key things that jumped out to me when I was reading the way of the astral self is that one of the downfalls of the way of Shadow Monk Is they get the ability to cast Darkness but they can't see in their own Darkness yeah and that always bothered me I wish that they had given the way of Shadow monk ability to see in their own Darkness but the way of the astral self has an ability to see in magical darkness and of course it is it is star Platinum like I I whenever I yes it is Jo it is jotaro um so like that's just how you're going to play that character right and and do your best you know to to do mad Mercer's performance and I do think it's amazing though that like you you have a lot of options here for who the frontliner is but I think the way of the OST self is actually an excellent frontliner they have abilities that allow them to boost their AC deflect damage punch at range and deliver a lot more damage on their punches and on top of that if you are the way of the Shadow Monk and you drop Darkness on the uh astral self Monk and let them run in getting advantage on all of their attacks you actually have a great play here where the way of Mercy is kind of your Frontline skirmisher the astral self could be a heavy hitter the way of Shadows is stealth and utility I I think that that's a a good thir yeah I also think that it it brings one of those rare social features because it gives itself advantage on insight and intimidation checks that's something they may not be able not nothing they can't talk people into things but they can yell at people again again appropriate if you want to be jaro um okay so after the astral self I really would love to have like the Drunken Master in in here but I just I think the kensei is the last one that you got to get in the kensei I do I do agree I actually also was considering the Drunken Master because it's it's so fun but it I think the kensei is our strongest choice and I think one of the things that you could do as an option with the Ki is because you can use a longbow you could actually get a sharpshooter in here not only can they be the sort of backline firing in ranged attacks they also have a lot of abilities that add damage and precision to the range to yeah in ways that I think just work out better than say the sun Soul oh yeah yeah um so so I think that's the the four-person party we have we have our way of Mercy monk we have our shadow monk we have our astral self Monk and our Ki monk which one would you make the turle the k no they're arranged the astral self maybe this is one of the other ways that I think this party could diversify a little bit more and pick up some much needed extra attributes because depending on your ancestries like I think definitely with an all monk party I would be much more open as a DM to allowing people to play AAC cokas or allins and cuz that brings flight to the table um you could play other ancestries that are going to give you more spell-like abilities like fear bogs or maybe someone plays a fairy I don't know but this is another place where you can just pick up those much needed extra features that you're going to need depending on where the campaign is going to go as well so like maybe we do maybe we do that we have like the araoka do we just go full like animal person party and have a toxi monk an Eric CRA monk a torle monk what what what what there's the Allin there's the Heron yes the Heron yeah yeah oh that would be cool okay so we have a total Monk managerie yeah of a party that actually could work really really well I think um I do think that having the eroka monk in the party brings a really critical source of flight I would make the K say the ER Coker because then I raed a tack from the air that that could that could work yeah and because because the way of Shadow yeah the herroon is the way of shadow shadow bunny yeah and then our total astral self and then our of Mercy what was the other one that you said well the toi could also be the way of Shadow true right yeah that could work really really well as well dealer's Choice dealer's Choice way of Mercy somehow way of Mercy feels appropriate for the rabbit I don't know yeah that's I don't know there there's a lot of ways that you could do that but that could be a fun that is actually a fun you that feels like the premise for a great kid show you know how the way of Mercy wears a mask yeah they wear a rabbit mask and then finally after a while they take it off and they're actually just a rabbit it wasn't a mask behind the mask is another mask of course there could be other interesting things that you could do with this like playing some Elves to get Elven accuracy yeah that could be cool um especially if you're doing like some of the more the one of again we'll talk about this in in the the strategies but because we do have Darkness an interesting strategy for this party is for everybody to take the feat that gives you a fighting style to get blindsight and then you can all take advantage of the darkness which could be awesome a bunch of monks they throw down like basically it's throwing down a smoke bomb and fighting in it what is Raza ghoul's organization is it the League of Shadows the League of Shadows yeah I think they are the League of Shadows nope I'm spelling everything wrong here yeah I mean ultimately the thing that I'm still disappointed about here is I still don't know like my Temptation here is to take the tle and make them a strength-based monk we we we looked at this and giving giving them a big weapon doesn't work yeah you could make them a strength-based mon you you could but the the idea was is there a way to get a monk that can M maximize their use of their monk features while using a heavy weapon I don't think so and and the thing the the thing with it is is that a bunch of Monk features like your Martial Arts feature uh and on Armored defense which you might not necessarily need on Armored defense if you're going with a turtle they require you to be wielding like be fighting unarmed or wielding a monk weapon and we haven't been able to find a way to make a heavy weapon a monk weapon outside of our subclass that we madeit yeah um and so that limitation where the and basically everything like the Ki and the dedicated weapons features the optional class feature all basically say it can't be a heavy weapon like the the rules are kind of baked to say hey monks you can never benefit from great weapon master and what we what I would like to be able to do is is have a ttal monk that wields a great sword and takes great weapon master and can hit people with their sword and then still kick them like let us know if if you found a way to do this and Colby if you're watching this video you can come on back here and help us build a heavy weapon using monk because somehow I just assume that you're going to have a way to do it yeah and and it's also where like I I feel like with balers Gate 3 there were so many ways to do like the way they changed Tavern brawler that made this all more viable you can actually use a shield as a and wear armor as a monk and still benefit for most of your abilities whereas in in current fifth edition you you can't so ultimately I think we're going to go with our oure the the core four everyone's still going to be your pretty classic dexterity wisdom based monks we're not going to try to do anything to super fancy by going the strength based route we're still going to have a Toral for style points though yeah yeah so looking at the pillars of play the first one is combat and actually an all whole monk party is not going to be too bad in combat we talk a lot when we're comparing the monk to other classes about how they aren't as great in combat as a paladin or a fighter but when you have four monks the mobility and ability to be where you need to be like Battlefield positioning and Mobility yeah is off the charts no mon is stuck where they don't want to be yes because every one in your party is probably faster than your foes especially if a bunch of you take the mobile feet you'll really be able to navigate around and well a single monk can blow through their key points really really quickly if they're spamming stunning strike a party of monks that all can take short rests together and meditate together and get their key points back reliably that are all on like that same monk Rhythm I actually think that the all monk party can basically overwhelm the opposition with stunning strikes like eventually every enemy is going to fail that that saving throw and that can kind of be your party-wide strategy is just get everybody completely stun locked and are you going to burst down your enemies super fast you're not going to action surge on everybody like the fighters you're not going to drop a ton of smites like the paladins are you're not going to have the bunch of sneak attacks up front like the Rogues will but you're going to be able to get in close the distance and stun everybody you know okay I've never seen an all monk party in play but what I have experienced is when you did a group of enemy monks versus our party and one of us got stunned surrounded and punched like 20 times in a single round of combat by four or five monk enemies and to reverse that if they focus fire and they stun an ogre and then all the monks just let loose on it that ogre's dead yeah because they're getting a lot of attacks with Advantage again are their individual attacks maybe doing a lot of damage no but it's still a lot of attacks coming in and I I actually think that the the inverse might work here I think my combat strategy with the all monk party would be whoever's acting first their job is to stun as many foes as they can and then whatever foe doesn't necessarily get stunned the rest of the party gangs up on them and because you know that you're going to be able to like the it's almost a counteraction to that normal strategy of focusing fire where when it comes around to your turn you're going to know okay my my allies stunned that enemy so we don't need to worry about them for this turn so I'm going to go over to somebody who isn't stunned and try to stun them and if it doesn't work out for me then the next party member is going to try that too so I think that your your group can actually assess are you all going to gang up on a single foe or are you all going to spread things out and keep everybody incapacitated not to mention another thing that this party excels at we we talked about the mobility but just to actually lay out an example if you have a big enemy let's say let's say you have like an ogre and then there's people in Towers firing down at you monks can run up walls y monks have extreme Mobility so one monk runs forward stuns the ogre two more monks run up the towers and are taking care of the ranged enemies that you were like oh they're in Towers they're fine they're not fine from the monk the monk can run up those walls get to the top of the tower and beat the heck out of The Archers or the whatever so like no matter where the enemies are on the battlefield the monks can get there and handle the situation well and this is where as well a as soon as you start getting to the point where the monks in your party have movement speeds of 50 60 70 feet um which is pretty attainable especially if people are taking the mo mobile feet if your monk has that movement speed that has been boosted up in that that way you end up in a situation where you can run up to somebody punch them and because you've got the mobile feet you have enough movement speed to still attack them the mobile feet prevents them from making an opportunity attack against you and now you have the movement speed to get away from them and they would have to spend their entire movement to get up to you it's it it was a great tactic for my shadow Monk Is I took the mobile feet and I was able to get in punch punch punch stun and the mental image of that like I feel like I've seen that scene in anime like hear all the ninjas they jump out they punch somebody and then they're they're scattered immediately that's a cool strategy and so I I do think that this party has the cap like it has the chops to beat some monsters and I and I do think that like if you're doing a solo monster even one with a really good con saave you're just going to get drowned in stunning strikes and it only takes one failure for the the battle to be over not only that but we talked earlier about the darkness Plus astral self and if people take blind fighting yeah you also have all of the monk features like diamond Soul purity of body Stillness of Mind evasion in combat they're actually surprisingly robust considering how much we we neag on on them us yeah like I think that here here's the thing is it's it's this is a clear example of like why the monk is only bad in comparison to everybody else because I think that's where where all all these things are really really cool but you see how much it's almost like the monks have to work so much harder and do all these cool strategies because if it was the fighters they just would have action surged and attacked with like the fighters just would have like laid out the enemy already and the paladins just would have smoted them into the ground and and the Wizards just would have banished them so like that's where where the the the gulf and power is it's like here's the monks doing all these really really cool moves and all these cool things and that's great but the other classes have already won when it comes to exploration I actually think that we're pretty strong here as well we're going to have high wisdom so we're going to have good perception we also have incredible acrobatics we can jump we can run up walls so the ability to Scout and spy and see things the mobility not only that but again the shadow monk Comes Out Swinging here for exploration it it does once again our monks do have to play exploration honestly for the most part aside from some Shenanigans with the shadow monk giving us invisibility and some limited forms of teleportation we had to play on erra to get a reliable source of flight but do you need flight if you can run straight up a wall uh yes for all those times when you're fighting in floating islands and environments where it's not about the wall it's about just there's nothing between you and the enemy right like if the dragon is flying in the air there's no walls for you to run up just give me boots of striding and springing right which is a great magic item to give a monk or flying carpets flying boots so you do have to rely on Magic item you you really you really will there I we do have pass without Trace we do have great maneuverability and we do have Wall running and water running I I don't think we're like we're not failing of exploration yeah but it is kind of surprising you you know another thing that like is common in a lot of martial arts movies is like the the notion of like the monks actually having that astral experience or Consulting with with some sort of spiritual force or having some sort of access to divination magic and we don't have a lot of that either so we're really Limited in that way there there are some ways that monks can get some of these abilities but that's a big limitation another thing that we kind of lack in the exploration front is like that bleeds over into comment we don't a lot of ways to buff ourselves up we don't have nothing yeah right I I think that we come out ahead of the fighters yeah we're definitely like middle to high end on exploration I and I think that aside from the fact that the Rogues have better skill proficiency I think the monks actually have I think the monks can keep Pace with the Rogues yeah to a certain extent but they they just lack the full-blown power of the spellcasters in this respect what about social interaction this is where we're going to struggle this Bleak um we don't have a lot of Charisma a lot of the mon classes don't have any abilities that help us out with social interactions we don't have even like manipulation of the mind like some of our other weaker classes had we could have had a Cobalt soul in here true right but it's still and that would have given us like a zone of Truth like like thing but I but still like monks gaining social abilities is sparse most monks you want to dump your charisma and many monks don't really have much incentive to take a lot of the Charisma based skills we don't readily have access to spells that help us in social interactions sometimes we can get things that give us advantage on individual checks but it's not really a reliable measure um so you're really going to have to go outside and look at what you might grab through Feats and what you might grab through uh ancestry traits to make up for it at least we have some insight yeah I mean that's that's about all we got Insight in acrobatics there there there you go so as we talked about in in combat chain stunning is a big strategy and trick for this party as well as their very fast Mobility um I think that the the ninja infiltration scene where the shadow Monk cast past without trace and we get the darkness rolling and they come all in and just both these things is your best way of winning a fight that scene of like the group of Ninjas without making a sound climbing up onto the rooftops surrounding their enemy and then all at once they yeah dive in Everybody Dies yeah I just hope that you're the right side of the crazy 888 fight on that one as the the right side is um Thurman yes yeah yeah yeah cuz cuz you know what that's actually the problem is have have youever heard of that theory of the conservation of ninjitsu that like one ninja is very deadly 20 ninjas not so much so where does four ninjas lie on that side uh well I mean that's where you get the Ninja Turtles right like yeah like it it's kind of like that idea of like the fewer ninjas there are the more dangerous they become the individual ninja is and the more ninjas you've got the the weaker they are I mean yeah the Crazy 88 were actually terrible at fighting yes they were they they ran in one at a time and were not good but yeah and so just in terms of that don't do that martial arts movie thing where everybody goes one-on-one like gang up chain stun one enemy like definitely work together I I I think because I do think that that that is the biggest thing with it with this party in particular is that you are going to have to do the teamwork thing to survive with with with this group because you nobody really really has the Hail Mary move no it's it's a lot of teamwork yeah yeah yeah you know it's probably even worthwhile for somebody in this party to take magic initiate to get something like bless I mean that could be a really handy having a bless spell on yeah or just having something like even maybe having something like take somebody take the telekinetic feet or somebody take telepathic or taking Feats like Shadow touched and Fay touched to fill in the gaps and at least give you some tricks I think that yeah when we come to the weaknesses of this party we've already talked a lot about them and we've kind of already mentioned that similar to the Rogue party they want to be stealthy we talked in the Rogue video about how they work best when nobody knows they're about to attack I think the monks benefit from this as well the difference is I actually think the monks come out ahead of the Rogues if their Ambush falls apart cuz the monks actually have a lot to do in combat but I still think they're best move is to remain unseen as much as possible they're great for infiltration or Espionage sort of missions their weakness is that if a group of enemies knows that they're there they have to work real hard to pull off their stuns you know another weakness of this party and we haven't talked about this much for the other parties it's slim Pickin for magic items for monks in the core rules of D and D it really is and it feels like the ones that you really want to have like a fighter can slap on magic armor and a shield and that doesn't use up their Attunement they can get a magic weapon that doesn't require Attunement and use that whereas virtually every option that monks have for boosting their stats or their AC or giving them flight or Mobility or something useful is going to require them to use up attunements the first few that pop into my head boots of striding and springing are great the Cape of the Mont bank and um the cloak of invisibility is really good ring of protection you you you definitely want those things but it's amazing how quickly they they just chew rate through up all all the Attunement slots and a lot of monks there there are those sort of magic Fang Style Like The Amulet of the Fang I think which gives the plus one plus two plus three to your unarmed strikes which a lot of monks really want to have and you kind of all want to have one and that's one of your attunements just burned right up there there are some of the magical tattoos which can offer some interesting things for monks but yeah you really want like a magic item that's going to compensate for your lack of mobility and this is where again home brewing things and being generous as a DM can give the party a little bit more to work with here but it is kind of like if you look at the core rules like what magic item do you want like yeah you know for for me early on I remember giving them like a flam tongue shortsword and that worked pretty well for boosting their damage there's like the staff of thunder and lightning but it does feel like there's not a lot of options I do think as a final weakness we talked about this as well but at Social encounters they're just going to crumble so so this party does actually do well in the exploration and combat better than the social but they want to they want to have they want to be able to ambush and you need to be picky with your magic items yeah I I also think ultimately well the monks do have a surprising amount of defenses like when you stack up the fact that everybody has evasion everybody has Stillness of Mind they've got the wholeness of body thing so there's a lot of ways to resist charm fear poison disease eventually monks all they they they get Proficiency in every saving throw combined with evasion that's pretty good right but their AC a monk's AC does not necessarily get that high like a monk with a maxed out dexterity and wisdom ends up with an AC of 20 which is fine but that's equivalent to a fighter with full plate and a shield and that takes a lot to Max that's maxing out your ability scores right um so you can get higher than that but you're but again you have to it's relyant on magic items uh or taking some Feats and and other things so I do think that this this party isn't it isn't the flimsiest and the way of Mercy gives you some recovery methods but it's not like its defenses are amazing so ranking the all monk party is it the worst party no I actually so this this so okay so the question is which all Class party is worse than monks when we're ranking none of them need to be deer no but is the all monk party the worst party is it the weakest one in all pillars of play I I really struggle to think of which party is weaker do you think the all Rogue party is stronger I think the all Rogue party I like the all Rogue party too like this is the thing I like them all conceptually and I actually would love to run any of these campaigns but if we're looking at an objective measuring stick of which one are the monks weaker than the Rogues are the monks weaker than an all artificer party I think an all artificer party actually has a lot more going for than that I mean we haven't done that video yet so I analyzed it I'm just trying to think all barbarians all barbarians are all fight no exploration no so I mean they got they got they got something they got a little bit it's look it I'll give them a c conceptually everything is s tier yeah this is the in every one of these videos I love it and the thing but but but let me put it this way if you were in a competitive D and game and your team was going through the tomb of Horrors and you had to play the all monk party would you be feeling really good about your chances no no what I okay what I want to say I'm I'm giving the all monk party a c I don't think any part is a d because one thing one thing that I think is interesting that I'm realizing as we continue this series is that one of the benefits you have is that if all the players at the party are playing the same class the DM gets to build the entire concept around that tot totally and and and that's the whole thing it's like and everyone is on a pretty Level Playing Field so you don't like and that's one of those things like the monk the monk really feels behind the other characters but you see how in a vacuum on its own like monks together actually they play they're great yeah a lot there's a game there and and I think that's the problem is like we talk about the imbalance of having your monk in a party next to a oath of Vengeance Paladin a Gloom soccer Ranger a tricky domain cleric and a battl master fighter and then the monk feels kind of behind all of those yeah um but when you're playing all monks none of that matters the the DM gets to design a campaign that's about martial art yeah and probably in the case of the DM you the the broken challenge rating calculations probably don't matter so much with the Monk because you could probably it's it's closer to the expected because there's a lot less like there's monks just I I feel like monks perform so much closer to what they are on the page compared to other classes like Wizards and Fighters and paladins where it's just like they can just get keyed up so much more than what the assumptions of the book are yeah yeah I really like this party and I love some of the concepts we came up with and as usual I would love to be in an mon yeah short campaign or something Ninja Turtles I I would play it I I I I would surprisingly I I think I'm more interested in playing in an all monk party in that campaign than I ever would be a playing a monk in any other cont do we play the um middleaged martial artist Turles middle-aged martial artist tles middle martial artist Turtles um going to have a life crisis by a boat [Laughter] um uh yeah yeah let's do it all right yeah so that's our look at the all monk party if you have played in an all monk campaign or have ideas on what you imagine an all monk campaign looking like please tell us about that in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible with the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters if you enjoy the work that we do here on YouTube please consider becoming a patron of the show by following the links right down below and if you want to see us getting punched by monks in an actual play Campaign it happens from time to time in our world of drenim which airs Tuesday evenings on Twitch you can find all the previous episodes right up over here Kelly and I have had a ton of fun asking what would happen if all the players played the same class in D and D5 and you can find all the other videos we've made on that right up over here please subscribe to our Channel like this video and ring that Bell so that you never miss an episode thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 72,970

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: lg9L5UmKKdQ

Length: 46min 26sec (2786 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024