When I first got my hands on the Player's Handbook when I bought the core D&D rulebooks in 2015, I found myself surprised that some classes that I'd never been all to excited about in other RPGs were actually very exciting to me - the Warlock was probably the biggest case, but the Monk was another. I'd never been a huge fan of unarmed combatants in other games, but the Monk in D&D has so many cool things - fast movement, deflect missiles, timeless body, etc.
But as a class, they don't always perform the way you'd expect them to. There's a perception that Monks aren't really strong enough.
The extent to which this is true is up for debate - I haven't done the math, and I think the three attacks per turn for free is honestly not bad - though it falls behind the Fighter.
But I wanted to talk about my vision for the Monk moving forward.
First, let's discuss the elephant in the room - Stunning Strike.
This is the most powerful Monk ability, but that might actually be the problem. I think that WotC is afraid to make the Monk a really powerful tank or damage-dealer because of Stunning Strike's power. While monsters often succeed on their saves against it, a stunned enemy is a really insane shift in the battlefield, especially in fights with only a few monsters.
Stun means advantage on attacks and the monster cannot do anything on their next turn - a devastating blow to their action economy.
I would suggest that we rein this in - either apply something like the new Slowed condition, or perhaps give the monster disadvantage on attacks and give others advantage on attacks against it. This is undeniably a nerf, but it frees us up for the buffs that I'm going to propose beyond.
Let's talk about what we think the Monk should be best at. As I see it, the real fantasy of a martial arts master is the idea that they can face tons of opponents and never go down. Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and other martial arts stars often come off as the most badass when they trounce an entire crowd of foes - something that is extremely unlikely in a real-life scenario (fun fact, one of the mooks that Bruce Lee beats down in Enter the Dragon is actually Jackie Chan, before he was famous).
As such, I think that reinforcing the Monk's tanky-ness makes a lot of sense. Monks should be able to wade into a crowded battlefield and hand everyone's ass to them.
The first way to reinforce this is that Monks should have a d12 hit die.
Frankly, I think it's absurd that Monks only have a d8 hit die right now. They are the only class that is obligated to fight in melee (the others being Paladins and Barbarians - Fighters can choose to go for a ranged, dex build) that has less than a d10 (Rangers probably don't need a d10, to be frank.) Now, why a d12? Well, as someone else pointed out (unfortunately I can't remember who) Monks have trained their bodies more than any other class to be resilient. I realize some might say that giving any non-Barbarian a d12 could be stepping on their territory, in which case I might concede a mere d10, but I really think that a d12 makes sense flavor-wise for the Monk
The second is to give them some sort of damage mitigation. Having relatively low AC compared to a plate wearer, I think that they should have some way to survive an influx of damage.
Flavor-wise, I see this as knowing how to deflect and block attacks, not fully avoiding them, but reducing the damage and pain they inflict. Unlike the Barbarian's rage, where the Barbarian is just going into an adrenaline-fueled state where they can ignore pain and rely on the meatiness of their muscles, I think the Monk is doing this in a more active way.
The proposal I'll put forward is that relatively early on - maybe as soon as level 1, or perhaps at 2 or 3, you get a feature called "Deflect Blows." This reduces the damage you take from attacks (and maybe we'd say only weapon attacks and unarmed strikes) by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus.
The intent here is that the Monk becomes really strong when tanking large groups of mooks. A group of zombies striking at the Monk might see some of their attacks not even wind up doing anything - 1d6+1 can give you 2-7 damage, and so an average hit of 4.5 winds up getting reduced at tier 1 to 2.5 - almost but not quite halving it.
But a Monk is not as good as a Barbarian when it comes to the blows of some massive creature - a giant's sword cannot so easily be absorbed.
The exact amount absorbed would obviously be a question of balance, but this would further reinforce the notion of a Monk being a front-liner, who can stay in the thick of combat (which feels like where they should be).
Honestly, these changes would, I think be enough to really give Monks a clear role, and make them a really appealing tank for the group. But what about their capabilities as a damage dealer?
First off, it's a small change, but I might just bump all their martial arts die up a step - tier 1 give them a d6, then d8 at tier 2, d10 at tier 3, and d12 in tier 4. This only comes out to an average of one more damage per attack.
The thing that I think gets frustrating for Monks is that your unarmed strikes cannot benefit from the +X bonus from most magic weapons. Even if you get a +1 Quarterstaff, your unarmed strikes are never going to get beyond 1d10+5. I might introduce some item that boosts unarmed strikes in the same way to help with this.
Actually, the changes to Unarmed Strikes in the Rules Glossary does a lot to give Monks new tools - they can be really effective grapplers and shovers. It strikes me, of course, that this makes some of the Open Hand Monk's abilities redundant.
Part of me wonders if Monks should just get a bit of extra damage on their hits - maybe adding their proficiency bonus (or half of it) to damage, though that might seem too similar to Rage.
The rest of the changes might need to happen through subclasses. My hope is that by nerfing Stunning Strike, one could be more generous with features like the Ascendant Dragon's breath weapon (something I think everyone was disappointed by).
Given that Monks have three stats they really want to maximize, they really don't have a lot of room for feats, which means that customizing the class is a bit tougher to do. I don't know how I'd fix that, but at the very least, the class design should come with an expectation that it needs to work without a ton of feats.
I love the Monk, and I would be very happy to see it get a lot more play in D&D. I'll be very eager to see what they come up with for the One D&D update.
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