Now, we kind of already did this when the UA first came out, but I'm going to use the format I've been using for the other classes. This is the first we're seeing of the new Monk, so there's no previous playtest to compare it to. My initial impressions were that the class is very similar to its 2014 version.
I have heard some arguments that the subclass changes make it more powerful than it previously was - certainly that seems to be the case for the Four Elements, some like the Open Hand (now simply "Hand") felt, if anything, nerfed.
So let's take a look at the base Monk and see if we find this to be buff or a nerf.
1st level:
Martial Arts remains the central feature of the class, of course. And it's a complicated one, so let's break it down.
Monks lose proficiency with any Martial weapons, so the "Monk weapon" bonuses are now simply any Simple Weapon that isn't two-handed (in the case of melee weapons, that's only the Greatclub). Basically, you lose Shortswords.
The Martial Arts die has been upgraded one step - rather than starting with a d4 at level 1 and getting a d10 in tier 4, you now start with a d6 and go up to a d12. In terms of damage, this isn't a huge buff - basically you're doing one more damage per hit than you were previously.
However, there's also a change in that you no longer can replace the damage dice of weapons with your martial arts die. So, your Dagger will not be doing 1d12+Dex at level 18.
So, overall this is a somewhat subtle change. You're going to be doing a little more damage with your unarmed strikes, but at high levels you might be doing less damage with your weapons.
Unarmored Defense is unchanged.
However, Monks now get Weapon Mastery - which everyone who uses weapons basically gets (other than, like, Valor Bards). Unlike Barbarians and Fighters (the other "Warriors," assuming that class group are still a thing) you start with two masteries and never get any others (though you can swap them on a long rest).
There are no weapon masteries for unarmed strikes.
So, this is expected. And while it's sad that unarmed strikes don't get a mastery-like property, Monks will still get the same use out of these as any other weapon-using class, with two weapon attacks per round by level 5.
Now, with the presence of Nick weapons, I suspect you might do quite well with dual-wielding as a monk now - with +3 to Dex, you could fight with a Handaxe and a Dagger, doing 1d6+3 with the Handaxe, 1d4 with the dagger (at advantage thanks to Vex) and then 1d6+3 with an unarmed strike, giving you 15.5 damage per round at level 1 (and a bit more thanks to the greater chance to hit with the dagger) versus 13 damage per round with a Spear or Quarterstaff (using Flex) and an unarmed strike. And yeah, your hands aren't free, but surely you can kick as an unarmed strike, right?
With the class groups, I had suspected Monks might get to pick up a Fighting Style, but it does not appear that that's in the cards here.
2nd level:
Martial Discipline is the new name for Ki, in an effort I think to avoid calling out the Monk as "the Asian class." I think the intention here is probably good, and as someone who is not at all Asian in descent (well, not East Asian - I'm half Jewish, so technically I have ancestry from the very western edge of the Asian continent) I don't think I can comment with any particular insight into whether this is the right call.
Ki points have been renamed Discipline Points, and you learn Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind when you get this feature.
The only change here is that Step of the Wind now grants you both the Disengage and the Dash actions, rather than one or the other (also doubling jump distance).
So, obviously this is a buff, if only a small one. Still, coupling both Disengage and Dash together should make Step of the Wind a more powerful ability that will allow you to more easily get away from your foes. Granted, with Monks' enhanced movement speed, merely disengaging could often get you away from a foe and force them to dash to get to you - now they probably can't get to you even if they do dash.
Unarmored Movement goes live at level 2, and I believe is unchanged.
3rd level:
Deflect Missiles has been redesigned.
You can use your reaction when you are hit with a ranged attack that deals bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. The amount reduced is equal to 1d10 plus your Dexterity plus your Monk level - so this is unchanged.
If you reduce the damage to 0, you can spend 1 discipline point to redirect the attack to another creature. You choose a creature within 60 feet of yourself that is not behind total cover. The creature makes a Dexterity saving throw, and on a failure, they take damage equal to two rolls of your Martial Arts die. The damage is the same type as the attack.
So, let's break it down - first off, you don't need a free hand to catch the projectile (great if you're dual-wielding a handaxe and a dagger!) and you also now don't make an attack roll. This means that there's no "short range/long range" distinction here. You actually don't even need to see the target (as long as they're not behind total cover). The damage is also probably going to be a little better, though you can't crit (and at certain levels it might be worse). However, the Dex save is based on your Wisdom modifier, rather than an attack using your Dexterity, so...
Hopefully we'll have more monsters that use physical ranged attacks (though keep watching this feature when we get to higher levels). My friend who played a Monk from level 3 to 12 basically got to use this feature like once.
Also, of course, at 3 you get your first subclass feature.
4th level:
Well, you do get an ASI/Feat, but you also get Slow Fall. This feature is unchanged.
5th level:
You get Extra Attack, of course.
Stunning Strike works a little differently - it's been nerfed in two ways. First, you can only attempt to Stun a target once per turn. Then, if they are stunned, the condition ends at the beginning, rather than the end, of your next turn.
So, the good news is that you can still use this with an opportunity attack. I've said before I actually think I'd be open to nerfing this feature, but only if it meant giving Monks buffs in other places. The Monk will no longer benefit on their next turn from having advantage against a stunned enemy - though of course if they stun the target on their first attack, they'll have it for the rest of their turn.
I suspect that enemies will be stunned far less often thanks to the once-per-turn limit. Again, that might actually be good for the game, but this is unquestionably a painful nerf to the Monk's most powerful feature.
6th level:
Empowered Strikes is the new Ki-Empowered Strikes. Rather than letting your unarmed strikes "count as magical," you instead can deal Force damage with your unarmed strikes instead of bludgeoning (or whatever).
As they're clearly getting rid of "magical B/P/S damage" as a thing in the rules, this makes sense.
And you get your second subclass feature.
7th level:
Evasion is unchanged except that you don't gain its benefit while incapacitated - which actually makes logical sense.
Heightened Metabolism is a new feature. Once per long rest, you can spend one minute resting to gain the benefits of a short rest (so you'll recharge your Discipline Points and also be able to spend hit dice, etc.)
I realize the way I phrased this is kind of confusing, but basically you get a chance to get your Discipline back even if the party doesn't have the time for a Short Rest. One minute is usually pretty doable - I think most DMs will tend to be pretty generous with such a short period of time in the narrative.
8th level:
ASI/Feat
9th level:
Acrobatic Movement is the new version of Unarmored Movement Improvement, but it now specifies that you only get these benefits if you're not wearing armor or a shield - which always seemed implied, but was technically not part of the rules.
10th level:
Self-Restoration is a new feature that combines elements of Stillness of Mind, Purity of Body, and Timeless Body. As a bonus action, you can remove the Charmed, Frightened, or Poisoned condition from yourself. Additionally, you don't get exhaustion from lack of food or drink.
So, a couple things.
First off, making this a bonus action is cool, as it lets you do something on the turn after you use it. I do think we could use some clarification, however - can we use this when we're under the effects of something like Dominate Person, where the person who has us charmed can normally fully control our turn? Or does this let us just break it? Will we know to break our Charm when we are Charmed? This problem was there in the original version, but it persists.
Second of all, the old version of Purity of Body gave us immunity to disease, but disease as a thing is kind of being phased out of the rules, represented more by poison, which this lets us clear.
However, what Monks lose, quite painfully, is their full immunity to poison - both the condition and the damage. This Monk can't laugh in the phase of a Green Dragon's breath weapon, which the 2014 one can.
Finally, while it's more of a flavor thing, I liked that Timeless Body let you play a badass ancient grandpa/grandma/grandparent monk. There's not a ton of magical aging in the game either, so again - the feature never had much of a mechanical impact, but I liked it for the flavor.
11th level:
Subclass feature.
12th level:
ASI/Feat
13th level:
Deflect Energy enhances Deflect Missiles. You can now deflect any and all ranged attacks, regardless of what damage type they use.
This is actually one of the biggest deals, because ranged attacks are going to start being a big thing with spellcasters - the Monsters of the Multiverse versions of most spellcasters are now using things like Arcane Burst as their bread-and-butter damage-dealing abilities. You'll be able to toss these back at them. So, big fan.
14th level:
Disciplined Survivor is just a new name for Diamond Soul, but works the same.
15th level:
Perfect Discipline is the same as Perfect Self, but now comes 5 levels earlier.
16th level:
ASI/Feat
17th level:
Subclass feature.
18th level:
Superior Defense shares some DNA with Empty Body, but works a bit differently.
As a bonus action, you can spend 3 Discipline Points to gain resistance to all damage other than Force for 1 minute or until you're incapacitated.
So, the good news is that we get a discount - only 3, rather than 4 Discipline/Ki Points. And it only takes a bonus action, rather than an action, so we can get some attacks in there on that turn.
The bad news is that we no longer turn invisible when we use this feature. We also lose this if we get knocked out in the middle of it (easier to happen given we're not invisible anymore.)
Finally, we fully lose the ability to cast Astral Projection on ourselves. Now, I get that a planar travel spell you can't cast on the rest of your party is maybe... hard to use in a campaign, the flavor of it was freaking amazing.
I really want some cosmic, astral, mind-bending thing to replace this if they aren't going to let Monks travel the planes on their spiritual journey.
19th level:
ASI/Feat
20th level:
Defy Death is a new capstone. If you hit 0 HP, you can spend 4 Discipline Points and roll 4 Martial Arts dice, and your HP is now set to the total rolled instead. Each time you use the feature, the number of Discipline Points you must spend increases by 2 (and does not increase the number of dice rolled). When you finish a short or long rest, the cost resets to 4.
So, this is a worthy capstone. This is epic and cool, and by level 20, you have enough Discipline Points that you'll probably have 4 left by the time you hit this point. And an average of 26 HP means you can probably take another hit. Also, this should work against instant-death effects as well, as long as they require you to hit 0 HP first.
Ok, let's do our overall analysis:
The only feature we overall lose is Tongue of the Sun and Moon (not counting the extra ones from Tasha's like Dedicated Weapon). The general impression of the Monk as a class was that it needed a buff. Looking at just the base class, is this a buff?
On a feature-by-feature basis, here's how I break it down:
Buffs: Martial Arts, Martial Discipline, Deflect Energy, Heightened Metabolism, Defy Death, Self-Restoration (the Stillness of Mind part), Weapon Mastery
Nerfs: Stunning Strike, Self-Restoration (the Purity of Body part), Tongue of Sun and Moon (the lack thereof)
Mixed Bags: Superior Defense, Deflect Missiles (this one leans buff)
So, all in all, we're seeing more buffs than nerfs. I think the survival aspects of the class get a lot better at level 18, but prior to that point, you're still really relying on running away from foes to survive rather than standing toe-to-toe with them.
I think what I was hoping for with this playtest was a Monk who can stand their ground against the monster they're fighting, and we don't really see that.
It's definitely easier to get Discipline Points back with Heightened Metabolism, but I also think that the Monk is going to be gasping for them in most situations. Stunning Strike's once-per-turn nerf will cut down on that a little, but that's more of an enforced conservatism than actually addressing the issue.
Now, in all fairness, I don't think the Monk is as "terrible" as some theorycrafters claim it to be - I've seen Monks perform very well in a lot of situations (I played a Drunken Master in Adventurer's League for a while) but there are some clear mathematical disadvantages that they have, particularly when it comes to defense - having less HP and lower AC than most melee classes.
Unlike the previous Druid, of course, this version is not dramatically debilitated compared to its 2014 version. If you like the current Monk, you'll probably be ok with this version (give me back my Astral Projection, though!) but I think most of us were expecting to see a more powerful Monk.
The lack of Poison immunity is also pretty sad, even if I get why WotC might want to dial back on any full immunities for player characters (especially Poison, which I think they're trying to rehabilitate as a viable damage type).
This is our first look at the new Monk, but given the way this sort of testing process works, I usually expect a bold approach before dialing it back in the process of revision. Indeed, I think that's what we saw with the Warlock and the Druid, and we saw the Druid did get reined in a bit (and we're waiting for another crack at the Warlock).
I do think this is a stronger Monk than the old version, in general. But how is it comparing with the Fighter or the Barbarian, its Warrior brethren?
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