D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook reveal: "New Monk"

Alot of these changes are good. I especially like changing deflect arrows into deflect melee to. My DMs never used arrows or if they did, it was just once a fight. This turned a pointless ability into a good one.

I am unhappy about the huge nerfage to stunning fist - specifically once a round. Monks are MAD, and even more so now because wis handles resists, and you can only stun once a round. Thus stun becomes FAR FAR less dependable. On top of that, stun is now worthless against big baddies, as they can just legendary save you away for several rounds. Yes some games might have alot of casters that can team up to burn legendary saves, but if you don't (small table or no casters) then the bbeg will save all legendary saves for the stuns.

Edit: I do have one question. Did monks lose a 2nd attack? If so thats a crazy nerf, having to wait until lvl 10 for the attack increase - which also has a bonus action charge as well.

deadman1204 said:

Alot of these changes are good. I especially like changing deflect arrows into deflect melee to. My DMs never used arrows or if they did, it was just once a fight. This turned a pointless ability into a good one.

I am unhappy about the huge nerfage to stunning fist - specifically once a round. Monks are MAD, and even more so now because wis handles resists, and you can only stun once a round.

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Stunning Strike was made the Monk too one note. Yes a failed Stunning Strike is like hitting something with a Weapon Mastery of Slow+Vex, but it does setup the opponent for another party member to do something else to them.

And I'd say they're less MAD than before, they don't need to invest in STR to grapple or shove anymore. They're as MAD as Paladins, Rangers, and some Bards and Clerics are now.

Kobold Avenger said:

Stunning Strike was made the Monk too one note. Yes a failed Stunning Strike is like hitting something with a Weapon Mastery of Slow+Vex, but it does setup the opponent for another party member to do something else to them.

And I'd say they're less MAD than before, they don't need to invest in STR to grapple or shove anymore. They're as MAD as Paladins, Rangers, and some Bards and Clerics are now.

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you do have a point that weapon mastery really detracts from monks in ways most do not realize yet. Alot of monk combat utility is now free for every melee to use, whereas monks need to spend class abilities to do those things.

deadman1204 said:

Alot of these changes are good. I especially like changing deflect arrows into deflect melee to. My DMs never used arrows or if they did, it was just once a fight. This turned a pointless ability into a good one.

I am unhappy about the huge nerfage to stunning fist - specifically once a round. Monks are MAD, and even more so now because wis handles resists, and you can only stun once a round. Thus stun becomes FAR FAR less dependable. On top of that, stun is now worthless against big baddies, as they can just legendary save you away for several rounds. Yes some games might have alot of casters that can team up to burn legendary saves, but if you don't (small table or no casters) then the bbeg will save all legendary saves for the stuns.

Edit: I do have one question. Did monks lose a 2nd attack? If so thats a crazy nerf, having to wait until lvl 10 for the attack increase - which also has a bonus action charge as well.

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No, they didn’t lose extra attack at level 5. Stuff that isn’t specifically addressed is more or less unchanged (some language changes and clarification).

re. Stunning strike: you make a valid point. I’m of the camp that it did make monks too one note. Also, note that with the new version, even if a mob uses a legendary save against it, they still get slowed and the next attack on them has advantage, which is a big upgrade in that circumstance.

I’ve been playing for months with this change, and haven’t missed it because there are now so many worthwhile options for using focus points that you don’t want to spam them all on stunning strike. So yeah, a nerf in some situations, but more than made up for by all the other goodies monks got, IMO.

Edit: Consider: currently, you can spam Stunning Strike, which has a pretty high failure rate. With nu monk, you can grapple them on your first attack, then just pound them with 3-4 punches with advantage while taking all the initiative from them. SS is still nice to have in the back pocket, but it’s no longer the go-to move.

deadman1204 said:

Alot of these changes are good. I especially like changing deflect arrows into deflect melee to. My DMs never used arrows or if they did, it was just once a fight. This turned a pointless ability into a good one.

I am unhappy about the huge nerfage to stunning fist - specifically once a round. Monks are MAD, and even more so now because wis handles resists, and you can only stun once a round. Thus stun becomes FAR FAR less dependable. On top of that, stun is now worthless against big baddies, as they can just legendary save you away for several rounds. Yes some games might have alot of casters that can team up to burn legendary saves, but if you don't (small table or no casters) then the bbeg will save all legendary saves for the stuns.

Edit: I do have one question. Did monks lose a 2nd attack? If so thats a crazy nerf, having to wait until lvl 10 for the attack increase - which also has a bonus action charge as well.

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Completely disagree.

Probably one of the most reliable "real world" measurements of Stunning strike in a campaign comes from Critical Role Stats, and the character of Beau. According to the meticulous (they have time stamps of the attempts) record keeping, Beau attempted Stunning Strike 116 times. She succeeded 33 times, three of those success were canceled by legendary resistance.

This gave her Stunning Strike a success rate of about 28%, which makes some sense, as the most common advice for a monk to land Stunning strike was "Use Flurry of Blows and apply stunning strike to every attack" so they would succeed about 1-in-4 times.

This wasted a lot of Ki, on an ability that often did nothing. [Except when it landed and ruined someone's day]

Now, you go in to Stunning Strike, and you have a real decision to make... do you attempt to stun on your FIRST strike or your LAST strike? IF you do it on your first strike, you are guaranteed to give yourself advantage on your second. IF you do it on your last strike, you are guaranteed to give an ally advantage. And this is a guarantee, even if the enemy uses Legendary Resistance to automatically succeed on the save, they are reduced to half speed and the next attack against them has advantage.

The Monk can disengage and move away from the enemy as well, as since they have half movement, even if the enemy dashes they are far more likely to not be able of getting away from the monk, or getting to the monk.

And this is the FAILURE state of Stunning Strike. This is the BAD outcome, at the cost of 1 Focus. Whereas the previous bad outcome was -5 ki and nothing happened. Sure, you might be less likely to land the stun, since you can't spam it, but you will ALWAYS grant advantage on the next attack against the enemy, and that's not shabby.

Chaosmancer said:

Completely disagree.

Probably one of the most reliable "real world" measurements of Stunning strike in a campaign comes from Critical Role Stats, and the character of Beau. According to the meticulous (they have time stamps of the attempts) record keeping, Beau attempted Stunning Strike 116 times. She succeeded 33 times, three of those success were canceled by legendary resistance.

This gave her Stunning Strike a success rate of about 28%, which makes some sense, as the most common advice for a monk to land Stunning strike was "Use Flurry of Blows and apply stunning strike to every attack" so they would succeed about 1-in-4 times.

This wasted a lot of Ki, on an ability that often did nothing. [Except when it landed and ruined someone's day]

Now, you go in to Stunning Strike, and you have a real decision to make... do you attempt to stun on your FIRST strike or your LAST strike? IF you do it on your first strike, you are guaranteed to give yourself advantage on your second. IF you do it on your last strike, you are guaranteed to give an ally advantage. And this is a guarantee, even if the enemy uses Legendary Resistance to automatically succeed on the save, they are reduced to half speed and the next attack against them has advantage.

The Monk can disengage and move away from the enemy as well, as since they have half movement, even if the enemy dashes they are far more likely to not be able of getting away from the monk, or getting to the monk.

And this is the FAILURE state of Stunning Strike. This is the BAD outcome, at the cost of 1 Focus. Whereas the previous bad outcome was -5 ki and nothing happened. Sure, you might be less likely to land the stun, since you can't spam it, but you will ALWAYS grant advantage on the next attack against the enemy, and that's not shabby.

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One game with 1 dm is a poor way to measure it. CR has a very specific running and play style of the character. I will often run up and try to stun important things to keep them under control, so I see alot of legendary resists. If that CR player didnt, then you get a different ratio. MAybe CR campaigns have less stunnable important bad guys for example.

As well, a 30% success rate only enforces my point. If its gonna fail alot then you must use it more than once a round to be useful. The 5.5 monk cannot, so stunning fist becomes a garbage ability.

Clint_L said:

No, they didn’t lose extra attack at level 5. Stuff that isn’t specifically addressed is more or less unchanged (some language changes and clarification).

re. Stunning strike: you make a valid point. I’m of the camp that it did make monks too one note. Also, note that with the new version, even if a mob uses a legendary save against it, they still get slowed and the next attack on them has advantage, which is a big upgrade in that circumstance.

I’ve been playing for months with this change, and haven’t missed it because there are now so many worthwhile options for using focus points that you don’t want to spam them all on stunning strike. So yeah, a nerf in some situations, but more than made up for by all the other goodies monks got, IMO.

Edit: Consider: currently, you can spam Stunning Strike, which has a pretty high failure rate. With nu monk, you can grapple them on your first attack, then just pound them with 3-4 punches with advantage while taking all the initiative from them. SS is still nice to have in the back pocket, but it’s no longer the go-to move.

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you do have a point that stunning strike did have the problem of "why should I use anything else instead".

deadman1204 said:

One game with 1 dm is a poor way to measure it. CR has a very specific running and play style of the character. I will often run up and try to stun important things to keep them under control, so I see alot of legendary resists. If that CR player didnt, then you get a different ratio. MAybe CR campaigns have less stunnable important bad guys for example.

As well, a 30% success rate only enforces my point. If its gonna fail alot then you must use it more than once a round to be useful. The 5.5 monk cannot, so stunning fist becomes a garbage ability.

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Please explain to me why halving the enemies speed and granting advantage to your allies next attack against the enemy is garbage.

Chaosmancer said:

Please explain to me why halving the enemies speed and granting advantage to your allies next attack against the enemy is garbage.

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Its not in a vacuum, its in comparison to what was lost.
Also, you choose stunning fist over a different option so there is an opportunity cost. Is stunning fist worthless? OF course not. Is the monk a reliable class to lock down a caster? Laughably no now, monks are no long capable of CC.
Thats the problem, monks had non-magical cc and now its effectively gone.

deadman1204 said:

Its not in a vacuum, its in comparison to what was lost.
Also, you choose stunning fist over a different option so there is an opportunity cost. Is stunning fist worthless? OF course not. Is the monk a reliable class to lock down a caster? Laughably no now, monks are no long capable of CC.
Thats the problem, monks had non-magical cc and now its effectively gone.

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They'll still stun on 50%+ of their attempts against a typical caster, taking them out of half of all rounds and when they don't, can set up a Paladin, Rogue or Battle Master fighter for a nasty crit on the next attack.