So, caveat: the NDA on the copies of the Player's Handbook distributed to popular online content creators lifted today. That means a lot of stuff from the book (if not just about all of it) is going to be available to the public.
I don't have that - I'm a civilian like you presumably are, and so I'm basing this on the Unearthed Arcana Playtest 6 - notably, this is the playtest that first presented the nearly unchanged Monk class, which drew a lot of consternation from those who felt the class was underpowered, and it was in the final playtest, number 8, where the revisions were made that transformed the Monk into, I think, one of the most exciting classes in the 2024 book (the extent to which things are coming full circle is insane: I'm probably most excited to play two of my first three character concepts, the Great Old One Warlock and a Shadow Monk, and honestly wouldn't mind returning to my Eldritch Knight, who was character number 2).
Without the 2024 PHB in front of me, I'm basing this deep dive on Playtest 6's version of the Warrior of Elements subclass, and that is admittedly a document that could be a year old at this point. However, while the Monk class got significant changes in playtest 8 and the finished version, I don't believe that this subclass got very substantial changes from Playtest 6.
Now, I do have d4: D&D Deep Dive's giant video that lists every change for all the classes, and I'll try to use this to adjust the changes made since the playtest.
So, with those disclaimers out of the way, let's begin:
The Way of the Four Elements was one of the most unpopular subclasses in the whole of the 2014 PHB. The fantasy of the subclass was solid: a Monk who called upon primordial elements to charge their martial arts with magical power.
In terms of pop culture references, the parallels with Avatar: The Last Airbender obviously cannot be overlooked (a show that I think I only wound up seeing when it came to Netflix and I was in my mid 30s, but which I really thought was excellent). However, I think the idea of imbuing martial arts with magic can go beyond this one reference. For example, in the actually pretty awesome Big Trouble in Little China, the lieutenants of the movie's primary villain (who is himself essentially a lich) are called The Storms, and can shoot lightning or call upon powerful winds with their fighting ability.
The problem, however, was that the Way of Four Elements kind of... well, it kind of sucked.
Monks have always struggled a bit with their Ki Points (now being renamed Focus Points, which I'll be abbreviating to FP,) and the Four Elements essentially gave you magic on par with a 1/3 caster like an Eldritch Knight or an Arcane Trickster, but you had to spend your Ki Points in order to use any of that magic - magic that was already a little underpowered (EKs and ATs are Fighters and Rogues first, respectively, and the spells are there primarily for a little utility) and was now competing in resources with the main thing that you needed to make the class work at all.
Indeed, I sometimes wonder why they didn't just make the subclass work like other 1/3 casters and just give the Monk spell slots - it might have worked better if they had done it that way.
But the solution they came up with for 2024 was instead to essentially just toss out the Way of Four Elements and build something new with the same thematics but all new mechanics.
Is this one good? Let's take a look.
3rd level: Elemental Attunement
This gives two benefits. The first is that you get access to the Elementalism cantrip, which appears to be a new spell that combines a lot of the old cantrips based around the four elements like Mold Earth and Shape Water. Nice little utility when it comes in handy, but especially fun for flavor.
The real, primary thing here is that this will essentially allow you to go into "elemental mode," spending 1 FP when you start any turn to gain a few benefits for the next 10 minutes (or until you're incapacitated).
The first benefit is Elemental Strikes, which allows you to change the damage of your Unarmed Strikes to Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder (the latter of which was not in the playtest, and is probably going to be your most consistently useful option, though Acid could give it a run for its money).
This does come online a little earlier than the general Monk feature that lets your unarmed strikes deal Force damage, but does feel slightly redundant with it. The real question is if a bunch of monsters are going to start having vulnerabilities, or other drawback features triggered by certain damage types (like the Robots and Androids in one of the adventures in Quests from the Infinite Staircase potentially getting frotzed by lightning damage - their electronics getting overloaded). While full-on vulnerability can be a problem from a monster design perspective (you can't just double a creature's health if they have one because it's not like the entire party is going to be able to consistently deal that kind of damage) I still like features that make certain damage types do something extra cool. Hope we'll see more of them, and if we do, that makes this a very cool feature.
The other benefit is that your Unarmed Strikes now get a 10-foot boost to their reach, your elemental power shooting out of you.
Here's the interesting thing: because Unarmed Strikes now also include grappling and shoving, in theory this should allow you to grab a foe from 15 feet away. Extra reach is pretty great - if you think about it, if you have a reach of 5 feet there are 8 spots where foes are standing that you can hit. With 10 feet, you increase that area by 12 squares. With 15, you increase that by 16 squares, covering over four times as much area with your reach.
Actually, there's another benefit that was added since the UA: when you hit the target with an unarmed strike (and because it's a hit I think this means it's got to be the damage option), you can force them to make a Strength saving throw or be moved 10 feet toward or away from you.
This is actually pretty amazing - yeah, Monks don't get Weapon Mastery, but this allows you to pull some nasty Repelling Blast/Grasp of Hadar shenanigans. Get your Druid to cast Spike Growth, use your extended reach to hit someone in the middle of it, then move them back and forth with your strikes to get some of that cheese-grater damage.
Now, let's talk about the downside to all of this: this is a core feature that requires you to spend your precious FP just to have your subclass. I found this to be the downfall of the Way of the Astral Self subclass, which literally gave you no benefits if you were out of Ki Points. However, on the other side, this is the absolute minimum investment for several benefits. Focus Points are also a bit easier to recover now. I do still think that at the earliest levels, such as level 3, you might feel a little frustrated that you're spending what might have been a Flurry of Blows on activating this if its benefits are not clear in that particular encounter, but I think that, especially in what might be a more tactically dynamic game with the introduction of Weapon Mastery, it's probably pretty good.
6th level: Environmental Burst
As a Magic action (remember that actions are getting more explicitly defined in the revision, so this will be the same kind of action that you use to cast spells or activate magic items, and thus can be limited in ways like not letting you use the Magic action twice in a turn with something like Action Surge) you can spend 2 FP to make a burst of elemental damage (the same types as your elemental damage with your elemental attunement, your choice when you use the feature) centered on a point within 120 feet of yourself, and which has a 20-foot radius. Creatures inside the area make a Dex save, taking damage of the chosen type equal to three rolls of your martial arts die on a failed save or half as much on a success.
So, the size of this effect is the same as a Fireball, but the damage is more like Shatter. At this level at least, it'll be 3d8, going up to 3d10 at level 11 and 3d12 at level 17, so at most we're talking about 19.5 average damage. I think there are situations where this could be useful - naturally, if you're fighting a lot of weaker enemies, this is the best for that. If we think about the FP investment, let's consider that a level 6 Monk with, say, +4 to Dexterity, will be hitting for 1d8+4 on each unarmed strike (8.5 on average). With Flurry of Blows, at this level, we can do that four times to a single target, for a total average (assuming all hit) of 34, versus the 13.5 we get for this burst at this level, and for half the FP investment. Now, of course, that's misleading: in terms of action economy, we're really trading our action for this - so 2(1d8+4,) or 17, for 13.5 for each target we hit, meaning that we can actually make this worth it with just two targets. In terms of FP expense, I guess we have to remember that Flurry of Blows technically only gives us one addition attack (because we can always get that bonus action attack for free anyway). However, Flurry of Blows is half as expensive, so we need to double that, and wouldn't you know it, we're once again at that point where it's worth it only if we can hit more than one target.
Which, you know, for an AoE ability, is actually probably fine. I will say, however, that when we hit level 10 and our Flurry of Blows gets buffed to adding two additional attacks, we might want to start trying to get more than two targets in there as well.
11th level: Stride of the Elements
This changed from the UA, which used to be based on Step of the Wind. Now, when you have your Elemental Attunement active, you gain a swim speed and a fly speed, both equal to your walking speed.
While most adventures don't have underwater combat, if you do have it, especially as a martial character, having a swim speed can be super important. Most weapons have disadvantage when swung underwater by a creature without a swim speed (figures that my Triton character is a Wizard who basically never uses weapons) and so this solves it. Monks also, of course, have higher movement than other characters, so this will carry over. By the time you max out your bonus movement, you'll essentially be able to cast concentration-free Fly on yourself for one FP and no action.
17th level: Elemental Epitome
This once again buffs your Elemental Attunement. While it's active, you get the following benefits:
First, you get Resistance to your choice of the Attunement's damage types when you activate it, and you can swap this again at the start of each of your turns (oh, was that archmage tossing fireballs suddenly revealed to be a black dragon? Might want to swap that resistance from Fire to Acid).
Next, you get Destructive Stride - your Step of the Wind increases your speed by 20 feet until the end of the turn, and any creature of your choice (no friendly fire) you pass within 5 feet of takes damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die (so a d12 at this level) of the type you chose for your resistance (they can take this only once per turn, so no pingponging between two creatures to deal this damage multiple times).
Remember here that there's a free option for Step of the Wind now - you can always Dash as a bonus action, but it just costs an FP to also Disengage on top of that. Again, if we're trying to maximize damage, I think you'll need to hit a lot of targets to do better than a Flurry of Blows, but if we consider this a little bonus on top of accelerated movement (and consider that if we Step of the Wind before using our regular movement, that means we can run like... 160 feet a turn?) it's pretty fun.
Finally, you get Empowered Strikes, and deal extra damage of the chosen element when you hit with an attack once each turn.
This isn't going to be a ton of extra damage, but it does add up.
Overall Thoughts:
I think that the real power here is going to probably be the reach and the ability to push and pull targets. Unlike the Astral Self, the Warrior of Elements will not have to invest most of their resources just on getting into their "battle mode." Still, we must consider that the subclass effectively comes with a tax to get all of its subclass benefits.
Is this a massive improvement over the older version? For sure. I don't think you'll feel crippled by choosing this subclass. And again, with FP a little freer than it was as Ki Points, both thanks to Uncanny Metabolism and just the fact that Step of the Wind and Patient Defense have resource-free options, and the fact that it's just one FP to get into your elemental mode, it probably won't be too bad.
Tactically, you'll have a lot of flexibility on the battlefield, able to both move your foes around but also strike at them from out of their reach. While Deflect Attacks will do a lot to make Monks feel more all right striding up and brawling it out in melee, it's still pretty great to be able to hit someone from 15 feet away and just walk away without provoking opportunity attacks simply because you're too far away.
I'm not sure that I really think this is the subclass I'm inclined to go for, though. But not because I think it's a "trap choice" like the Four Elements was. I think this one is probably going to be a solid middle-of-the-pack option.
No comments:
Post a Comment