I love 5E Monks, even if the theorycrafters say that even with the 5.5 update, they're still lagging behind in terms of power. Monks just get so many cool features (and I also think people are underselling how good Deflect Attacks is as a defensive feature, second probably only to Barbarians' Rage).
While the Monk as a class focuses on the East Asian martial arts of, like, the Shao Lin tradition, Monks more broadly speaking are, of course, people who dedicate their lives to spiritual practice, often eschewing traditional lifestyles in favor of one focused on the discipline of their practice. This does open the door to mysticism and potentially some really weird stuff.
Right off the bat, "Venom" as a theme implies Poison damage, which is notoriously one of the least reliable damage types in D&D, as multiple creature types are often fully immune to it (Undead, Fiends, Constructs). So, can they make a good subclass themed around it? And is that even what this is? Let's read through and find out.
Level 3:
Envenom Weapon
At the start of your turn, you can expend 1 Focus Point to apply a toxin produced from your blood to one Monk Weapon that you're holding. A creature that takes damage from the weapon is subjected to one of the following effects (you choose when you apply the toxin).
The toxin lasts 1 minute or until a creature takes damage from the Toxin.
Slowing Toxin: Until the start of your next turn, the target's speed is halved, it cannot take reactions, and it can take either an action or bonus action on its turn, not both.
This is pretty strong - while not all monsters have an interesting bonus action, some - especially those higher-level legendary monsters - do, and given that this is a no-save effect, that's really potent.
Venom: The target takes Poison damage equal to two rolls of your Martial Arts die.
Unfortunately we cannot crit-smite with this, as we need to do this ahead of time. Is this enough damage? A Focus Point will net us an additional attack with Flurry of Blows, which at level 3 is 1d6+3, probably, which is comparable damage. By tier 3, we're doing two extra attacks for 1d10+5 (probably,) at which point this certainly falls behind (though to be fair I haven't seen the other features). We could blow a bunch of FP to get a bunch of extra damage out, but I don't know that Venom feels powerful enough to really make it an optimal choice, even if you're fighting something you're confident takes poison damage.
Overall, I think that allowing you to spend the FP on a hit, rather than at the start of your turn, would make this a more exciting and powerful ability - not only for Crit-Smite potential but also just to make the effect more of a fun surprise. It'll suck if you apply this and then miss on that turn.
Also, interesting that this forces the Monk to stick with a weapon - not unprecedented (see the Kensei) but it does mean that our Monk is probably going to want both a magic weapon and Wraps of Unarmed Prowess.
Potent Arsenal:
You gain a Poisoner's Kit, and you have proficiency with it. When creating a Basic Poison, you can do the work over the course of 1 day (8 hours of work). Additionally, whenever you deal Poison damage with a Monk feature or Monk weapon, you can change that damage to Acid damage.
Bam! There we go. That's what makes this work. As long as we're not fighting Yugoloths or Black Dragons (or I guess many oozes) we are now going to be able to make everything work pretty reliably. Fantastic. Basic Poison is worth 100g, so it would typically take I believe 50g and two full work weeks to make, so this is actually amazing for turning you into a poison factory. At low levels this could honestly be a pretty solid downtime activity to generate revenue (not that a Monk needs much in the way of money, but for the party). But the main thing here is getting to do Acid damage, which is just so much more reliable than Poison.
Level 6:
Toxic Touch:
As a magic action, you can expend 1 FP to apply a potent toxin to a creature you touch. The target makes a Con save. On a failure, they are poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned, they are also affected by one of the following effects of your choice.
Intoxicant: The target is Charmed for the duration or until you or your allies deal damage to it.
Sedative: The creature falls asleep and has the Unconscious condition for the duration. Another creature can use an action to shake the creature awake and end the condition.
Truth Serum: The target can't knowingly communicate a lie for the duration.
These are solid effects, assuming you can poison the target. I like that the Truth Serum effect gives the Monk a bit of cool utility in non-combat scenarios. I might like the duration to be a little longer, at least for the Truth Serum one, as I can imagine having to apply this several times during an interrogation to get all the right questions asked.
Level 11:
Toxin Refiner:
You gain immunity to Poison damage. When you are subjected to poison damage, your Envenom Weapon options each deal extra Poison damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die, and you can't get this benefit again until the end of your next turn. Additionally, whenever you ingest a poison, you regain a number of HP equal to a roll of your Martial Arts die.
Thematically, I love this. Sadly, 5.5 Monks lost their poison immunity, but this gives it back. Once again, remember that we can change our Poison damage to Acid, so even if we get a big breath in the face by a Green Dragon, we can turn that poison breath into acid to strike back at them (if we're fighitng a Black dragon, well, we will stick to poison damage). Funnily enough, the "ingest poison" thing turns those Basic Poisons we're making into kind of less-powerful healing potions. I do think we need to define what it means to ingest a poison: if we're in a poisonous swamp, how much swamp water do we need to drink in order for it to count?
Toxic Blood:
Whenever a creature hits you with a melee attack roll, the attacker takes 1d6 Poison damage. I fyou are bloodied, they instead take Poison damage equal to one of your Martial Arts dice.
Punishing attackers is actually probably good for a Monk's survival. I think they can simplify this and just have it always do your Martial Arts die. A this level that's a d10, which is only two more damage on average than a d6. If we wanted it to be more powerful when Bloodied, just make it two martial arts dice then.
Level 17:
Hallucinogenic Breath
When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can expend 2 FP and replace one of your attacks with an exhalation of hallucinogenic vapors at one creature within 30 feet of you. The creature makes a Con save, and on a failure, they take Poison (or, again, Acid) damage equal to three rolls of your Martial Arts die and become Frightened for 1 minute or until they take damage. While frightened, they take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest route on each turn unless there's nowhere to move. On a success, the take half damage only.
Real quick, obviously the initial damage doesn't break the frightened condition there. This notably circumvents immunity to the poisoned condition. The damage here is a side-feature - the main thing is that this is a single-target crowd control for potentially the entire encounter. And, notably, you can use this on multiple creatures, as using it on a second one doesn't cancel the effect on the first.
That said, it's a Con save, so there's a fair chance they succeed against it. Still, I really like the flavor of this. Is it powerful? Is it worth 2 FP? I'm not entirely sure, though at least FP is pretty cheap by level 17. How many foes that we face are immune to being Frightened, though, at this level?
Overall Thoughts:
I honestly think this is a pretty solid attempt at making a subclass based around Poisoning things, and accomplishes this largely by allowing you to swap in a different damage type (though weirdly, do we all think of both Poison and Acid as "green" damage types?)
I'd love to allow you to Envenom your own unarmed strikes, as the subclass doesn't really do anything interesting with the fact that you need to fight with a weapon. But yeah, there are some cool ideas here, and overall these "villainous options" have demonstrated a lot of originality that I'm here for.
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