D&D (2024) Does WotC view the Monk class as overtuned from their perspective?

[Neonchameleon]

I corrected it to doubled unless you swap out the extra weapon for a shield.

Not even that. But yes, more survivability. And the monk does lack durability options; my take is they need to get better at escaping at level 1.

But even with a shield and longsword a level 2 fighter is doing a base of 9.5 DPR/round compared to the monk's 12.5, with an AC of 18 and second wind.

That's still a substantial difference (almost 50% with a corrected 13 damage) - and the best control condition is dead. Yes the sword and board fighter outlasts the two weapon fighter or the monk. But a lot depends on the foes in question and damage breakpoints whether the multi attackers are almost twice as fast (vs 5hp kobolds which they normally one shot) or little faster (vs 7hp goblins they rarely one shot).

So put them up against, say, a goblin, and they can survive roughly 14 rounds, whereas the monk survives for roughly 5.

And this is very much a white room analysis that relies on an immortal goblin.

 

[Clint_L]

Okay, let's put them up against three goblins - pretty standard type of fight. Fighter will second wind and action surge, monk will FoB twice. Assuming the monk has 17 HP, AC 15, fighter has 20 HP, AC 18. Rounding to whole or half numbers.

Round 1: fighter takes 6 damage and does 11, using action surge, killing one goblin and injuring another. Monk takes 8 and does 10.5, killing one goblin. Fighter has 14 HP, monk, has 9.

Round 2: fighter takes 4, does 5.5, finishing second goblin, second wind for 7.5 healing. Monk takes 5.5 and does 10.5, finishing off goblins because I am assuming perfect damage distribution. Fighter has 17.5 HP, monk has 3.5.

Rounds 3-4: fighter takes 4, finishes off last goblin. Finishes with 13.5 HP.

This was a pretty perfect situation for the monk, as it allowed them to finish off the goblins through a perfect distribution of damage from their FoB - add one more goblin, or one critical hit, and they are dead. And even so, you can see that the fighter comes out in far better shape. Which I don't think is a surprise to anyone, is it? And this is at low levels where monk damage is competitive. Run a typical scenario at level 11 and see how it turns out.

That's the problem with monks: damage that fails to keep up, low survivability, often resource starved, and so often unable to ably fulfill their secondary niche. There's a reason they are popularly perceived as the most problematic class in 5e.

 

[Kinematics]

Okay, let's put them up against three goblins - pretty standard type of fight.

Yay, scenarios! I'll take things a bit further. I have no idea yet how things are going to turn out.

Three goblins staging an ambush on a forest path against a lone traveler. They are hidden (passive stealth = 16) at the start.

Spoiler: Scenarios

Fighter

I'll assume heavy armor (chain mail) plus shield for AC 18. No Dex needed, so I'll just put 10's in Dex/Int/Cha, and have 16 Str/Con and 13 Wis. HP is 22. Proficiency in Perception gives a passive perception of 13.

The fighter doesn't see the goblins, so they attack first. They have advantage from being hidden. With a +4 to hit, they have a 57.75% chance of hitting. There's a 92% chance of hitting at least once, and a 42% chance of hitting twice. There's also a 19% chance of landing a crit.

I'll take the two hits and no crit for the first round. Damage is 1d6+2 per arrow shot, for 11 total damage to the fighter. He's down to half health.

The goblins use Nimble Escape to run off and hide. With a +6 stealth vs the fighter's passive perception, 2 of them manage to hide, and 1 fails. That gives the fighter a target, at least.

The fighter runs for the exposed goblin. He also tries to position the tree the goblin was trying to hide behind so that it will provide partial cover against the other two goblins. He'll get a +2 AC for that.

The goblin has a listed AC of 15, but that includes a shield. Since the goblins are using bows, that drops to 13. The fighter has a +5 to hit, so a 2/3 hit chance. We'll give him the first hit here, which does 7.5 average damage against the goblin's 7 HP. 1 dead goblin.

The fighter pauses briefly to recover, using Second Wind for 7.5 HP. He's back up to 19 HP.

The goblins make their second attack. They have advantage, but the fighter now has 20 AC. A 44% hit chance will have 1 goblin hit for 5.5 damage. The fighter drops to 13 HP.

The goblins try to hide again (65% success chance). I tossed a die for the second one, and he failed. The fighter rushes for the exposed goblin again, but misses this time. He uses his second Second Wind for another 7.5 HP, putting him at 21.

The goblin can't get far enough away to feel safe, so he drops the shortbow and pulls out the scimitar and shield. His AC is now a 15. Unfortunately he doesn't have advantage, and, even without the fighter having cover, he misses on his attack.

The other goblin shoots from hiding and hits for another 5.5 damage, dropping the fighter to 16 HP. The goblin hides.

The fighter doesn't care about that one, though. He's just focusing on the one in front of him. Despite the goblin's shield, the fighter still hits, but only does 6 damage — 1 HP short of dead. Frustrating. On the upside, he applies Sap to the goblin, giving it disadvantage on its next attack.

And he lucks out there, because the goblin finally got its nat 20... and a 12. It misses, and the fighter avoids the crit.

The second goblin fires from hiding, but misses for the first time despite advantage. It also fails to hide, with the fighter seeing its movement out of the corner of his eye. However he doesn't have time to pursue that one yet.

The fighter attacks, and — crit! Against the 1 HP the goblin had left. Disappointing achievement. Well, he splatters the goblin against the tree, and then turns to locate the other goblin that was trying to hide. Unfortunately he can't reach the goblin with his movement, so instead finds a tree to hide behind for 3/4 cover.

The goblin doesn't know it's been spotted, so takes the attack. The arrow sticks in the tree, and the goblin rushes to find another hiding spot.

There's a bit of cat and mouse for a couple rounds, as the fighter has to use his action to Search, while the goblin fails to hit an AC 23 due to the cover the fighter is using. Eventually the goblin fails to properly hide, giving the fighter the opportunity to rush the creature and finish things off.

The fighter ends with 16 HP, and, taking a short rest after that harrowing attack, recovers his health (1 HD) and Second Wind, and is ready to face future threats.

Monk

I'll give the monk 16 Dex/Wis, 14 Con, 10 Str/Cha, 8 Int. 16 AC, 17 HP. Passive perception is 15.

Unfortunately the goblins still manage the ambush, given a passive stealth of 16. With advantage, they have a 70% chance to hit, so 2 of them land attacks, doing 11 damage. The monk is down to 6 HP. Two of the three goblins then manage to hide.

The monk could run. A double Dash would get him 120' away (outside the normal 80' range of the goblins' shortbows), and he'd have a better than 50% chance of not being hit if he used a large tree for cover. However we're trying to see what he could do in a fight.

He rushes the first goblin, and has a 65% chance to hit. We'll give him the first hit (just like the fighter), and with his 1d8 quarterstaff he's also averaging 7.5 damage. Goblin 1 down.

However he also has more movement, with his 40' speed. He's going to find a large tree to hide behind, and Dodge using his bonus action. He can't afford to take another hit, and the two hidden goblins currently have the advantage.

It's a bit close, but both goblins miss. If the monk hadn't used Dodge, one of them would have hit. The goblins try to hide again, and one succeeds while the other fails. We have a target.

The monk rushes the goblin, strikes... and misses. He now has to choose what to do with his bonus action. He could attack (or FOB) and hope he hits and does enough damage to kill the goblin (33% chance with MA attack, or 66% with FOB). He could disengage and run, but that would leave him back in a bad position of being sniped. Or he could dodge and hope that his defenses hold.

He decides to risk it with FOB. He delivers a roundhouse kick to the head, and hits! Coin toss says... kill! The goblin's neck snaps, and the monk throws himself against the nearby tree, breathing hard. The DP spent wasn't needed, but it was insurance against the dice being against him (which they very well could be).

The remaining goblin screeches angrily as it fires another arrow. It misses, and the goblin hides again.

Unfortunately the monk doesn't have the luxury of charging in now. He's out of DP, so can't negate the advantage of the hidden goblin. And while he has a better chance of spotting the goblin with Search than the fighter, he can't capitalize on that without risking taking an attack from the goblin that he can't afford, since Search uses up his action.

So he tries to counter the goblin at its own game, by hiding until he can spot the goblin failing its own attempt. It becomes a Stealth vs Perception game. This favors the monk, since he has proficiency in Stealth (+5), but the goblin is awful at Perception (-1).

The goblin has a 20% chance of spotting the monk, while the monk has a 45% chance of spotting the goblin. The odds favor the monk, and eventually the goblin slips up. The monk easily has the speed to reach the goblin, and between the staff (with Topple knocking the goblin down) and the followup kick, the goblin is down.

He'll want to use both hit dice during his short rest to recover to full HP and be ready for the next battle.

Review

Both succeeded, though a bit worse dice luck could have turned the tables, especially for the monk. The fighter had enough HP buffer to weather a couple bad rolls, but the monk was one hit away from dead basically the entire fight.

The fighter survived using heavy armor and cover, while the monk used Dodge or stealth on top of cover to compensate for his squishiness.

The monk's DP were definitely needed, as both uses helped tip the fight in the monk's favor. The fighter's Second Wind was similar, as he would have been down to like 1 HP (possibly even knocked out) without it.

The fighter was largely able to charge in and bash heads without too much worry about anything else. The monk needed to use a few other tricks to win the fight, but also could have just run and had a good chance of getting away. The fighter would have been pincushioned long before he outranged the bows if he tried to run.

A fighter would be able to repeat this and be ready for yet another fight after a second short rest. The monk is out of hit dice, though, so wouldn't be able to manage a third fight.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yay, scenarios! I'll take things a bit further. I have no idea yet how things are going to turn out.

Three goblins staging an ambush on a forest path against a lone traveler. They are hidden (passive stealth = 16) at the start.

Spoiler: Scenarios

Fighter

I'll assume heavy armor (chain mail) plus shield for AC 18. No Dex needed, so I'll just put 10's in Dex/Int/Cha, and have 16 Str/Con and 13 Wis. HP is 22. Proficiency in Perception gives a passive perception of 13.

The fighter doesn't see the goblins, so they attack first. They have advantage from being hidden. With a +4 to hit, they have a 57.75% chance of hitting. There's a 92% chance of hitting at least once, and a 42% chance of hitting twice. There's also a 19% chance of landing a crit.

I'll take the two hits and no crit for the first round. Damage is 1d6+2 per arrow shot, for 11 total damage to the fighter. He's down to half health.

The goblins use Nimble Escape to run off and hide. With a +6 stealth vs the fighter's passive perception, 2 of them manage to hide, and 1 fails. That gives the fighter a target, at least.

The fighter runs for the exposed goblin. He also tries to position the tree the goblin was trying to hide behind so that it will provide partial cover against the other two goblins. He'll get a +2 AC for that.

The goblin has a listed AC of 15, but that includes a shield. Since the goblins are using bows, that drops to 13. The fighter has a +5 to hit, so a 2/3 hit chance. We'll give him the first hit here, which does 7.5 average damage against the goblin's 7 HP. 1 dead goblin.

The fighter pauses briefly to recover, using Second Wind for 7.5 HP. He's back up to 19 HP.

The goblins make their second attack. They have advantage, but the fighter now has 20 AC. A 44% hit chance will have 1 goblin hit for 5.5 damage. The fighter drops to 13 HP.

The goblins try to hide again (65% success chance). I tossed a die for the second one, and he failed. The fighter rushes for the exposed goblin again, but misses this time. He uses his second Second Wind for another 7.5 HP, putting him at 21.

The goblin can't get far enough away to feel safe, so he drops the shortbow and pulls out the scimitar and shield. His AC is now a 15. Unfortunately he doesn't have advantage, and, even without the fighter having cover, he misses on his attack.

The other goblin shoots from hiding and hits for another 5.5 damage, dropping the fighter to 16 HP. The goblin hides.

The fighter doesn't care about that one, though. He's just focusing on the one in front of him. Despite the goblin's shield, the fighter still hits, but only does 6 damage — 1 HP short of dead. Frustrating. On the upside, he applies Sap to the goblin, giving it disadvantage on its next attack.

And he lucks out there, because the goblin finally got its nat 20... and a 12. It misses, and the fighter avoids the crit.

The second goblin fires from hiding, but misses for the first time despite advantage. It also fails to hide, with the fighter seeing its movement out of the corner of his eye. However he doesn't have time to pursue that one yet.

The fighter attacks, and — crit! Against the 1 HP the goblin had left. Disappointing achievement. Well, he splatters the goblin against the tree, and then turns to locate the other goblin that was trying to hide. Unfortunately he can't reach the goblin with his movement, so instead finds a tree to hide behind for 3/4 cover.

The goblin doesn't know it's been spotted, so takes the attack. The arrow sticks in the tree, and the goblin rushes to find another hiding spot.

There's a bit of cat and mouse for a couple rounds, as the fighter has to use his action to Search, while the goblin fails to hit an AC 23 due to the cover the fighter is using. Eventually the goblin fails to properly hide, giving the fighter the opportunity to rush the creature and finish things off.

The fighter ends with 16 HP, and, taking a short rest after that harrowing attack, recovers his health (1 HD) and Second Wind, and is ready to face future threats.

Monk

I'll give the monk 16 Dex/Wis, 14 Con, 10 Str/Cha, 8 Int. 16 AC, 17 HP. Passive perception is 15.

Unfortunately the goblins still manage the ambush, given a passive stealth of 16. With advantage, they have a 70% chance to hit, so 2 of them land attacks, doing 11 damage. The monk is down to 6 HP. Two of the three goblins then manage to hide.

The monk could run. A double Dash would get him 120' away (outside the normal 80' range of the goblins' shortbows), and he'd have a better than 50% chance of not being hit if he used a large tree for cover. However we're trying to see what he could do in a fight.

He rushes the first goblin, and has a 65% chance to hit. We'll give him the first hit (just like the fighter), and with his 1d8 quarterstaff he's also averaging 7.5 damage. Goblin 1 down.

However he also has more movement, with his 40' speed. He's going to find a large tree to hide behind, and Dodge using his bonus action. He can't afford to take another hit, and the two hidden goblins currently have the advantage.

It's a bit close, but both goblins miss. If the monk hadn't used Dodge, one of them would have hit. The goblins try to hide again, and one succeeds while the other fails. We have a target.

The monk rushes the goblin, strikes... and misses. He now has to choose what to do with his bonus action. He could attack (or FOB) and hope he hits and does enough damage to kill the goblin (33% chance with MA attack, or 66% with FOB). He could disengage and run, but that would leave him back in a bad position of being sniped. Or he could dodge and hope that his defenses hold.

He decides to risk it with FOB. He delivers a roundhouse kick to the head, and hits! Coin toss says... kill! The goblin's neck snaps, and the monk throws himself against the nearby tree, breathing hard. The DP spent wasn't needed, but it was insurance against the dice being against him (which they very well could be).

The remaining goblin screeches angrily as it fires another arrow. It misses, and the goblin hides again.

Unfortunately the monk doesn't have the luxury of charging in now. He's out of DP, so can't negate the advantage of the hidden goblin. And while he has a better chance of spotting the goblin with Search than the fighter, he can't capitalize on that without risking taking an attack from the goblin that he can't afford, since Search uses up his action.

So he tries to counter the goblin at its own game, by hiding until he can spot the goblin failing its own attempt. It becomes a Stealth vs Perception game. This favors the monk, since he has proficiency in Stealth (+5), but the goblin is awful at Perception (-1).

The goblin has a 20% chance of spotting the monk, while the monk has a 45% chance of spotting the goblin. The odds favor the monk, and eventually the goblin slips up. The monk easily has the speed to reach the goblin, and between the staff (with Topple knocking the goblin down) and the followup kick, the goblin is down.

He'll want to use both hit dice during his short rest to recover to full HP and be ready for the next battle.

Review

Both succeeded, though a bit worse dice luck could have turned the tables, especially for the monk. The fighter had enough HP buffer to weather a couple bad rolls, but the monk was one hit away from dead basically the entire fight.

The fighter survived using heavy armor and cover, while the monk used Dodge or stealth on top of cover to compensate for his squishiness.

The monk's DP were definitely needed, as both uses helped tip the fight in the monk's favor. The fighter's Second Wind was similar, as he would have been down to like 1 HP (possibly even knocked out) without it.

The fighter was largely able to charge in and bash heads without too much worry about anything else. The monk needed to use a few other tricks to win the fight, but also could have just run and had a good chance of getting away. The fighter would have been pincushioned long before he outranged the bows if he tried to run.

A fighter would be able to repeat this and be ready for yet another fight after a second short rest. The monk is out of hit dice, though, so wouldn't be able to manage a third fight.

Are you trying to claim that one to one gm to player ratio is normal? Generally there will be other players in the group & I'd say that's common enough to make your entire "scenario" where one PC needs to handle the encounter in isolation rather pointless

 

[Kinematics]

Are you trying to claim that one to one gm to player ratio is normal? Generally there will be other players in the group & I'd say that's common enough to make your entire "scenario" where one PC needs to handle the encounter in isolation rather pointless

The original scenario was one character vs three goblins. I just expanded on that by adding environmental factors.

 

[Clint_L]

The original scenario was one character vs three goblins. I just expanded on that by adding environmental factors.

Note that the fighter should be averaging 9.5 damage OR have an AC of 19, since they are going to either take defence or duelling as their fighting style. Also, they never had an opportunity to use their action surge. I quite enjoyed reading your scenarios!

 

[Stalker0]

The fighter with shield/defense isn't as useful a scenario to me. The monk is a DPS glass cannon at these low levels (especially if you are using FoB instead of PD), we know this... so you aren't comparing classes as much as your comparing whether a glass cannon style is better than a tank style. We should be looking more at the DPS fighter (aka GWF) than the sword/board fighter who is more of a tank.

I still think the fighter is ahead, but to me that is more an apples to apples comparison.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I'm going to be honest, unless you know you aren't playing to high levels, I wouldn't pick GWF on a fighter even if I were going DPS (a paladin or hexadin or something that gets a bunch of extra damage dice, perhaps). Moving average damage up 1.33* per attack just isn't compelling. Even with a 2H, GWM-feat build, I tend to pick defensive** instead to offset the lack of a shield.
*for greatsword, .83 for greataxe, .8 for halberd
**actually I pick blind fighting, but that's a personal preference issue related to opening up new opportunities trumping mild improvements in numbers

Would that be a good comparison? Monk vs. defensive fighting style greatsword or halberd* fighter?
*with PAM, and then give Monk appropriate feat.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm going to be honest, unless you know you aren't playing to high levels, I wouldn't pick GWF on a fighter even if I were going DPS (a paladin or hexadin or something that gets a bunch of extra damage dice, perhaps). Moving average damage up 1.33* per attack just isn't compelling. Even with a 2H, GWM-feat build, I tend to pick defensive** instead to offset the lack of a shield.
*for greatsword, .83 for greataxe, .8 for halberd
**actually I pick blind fighting, but that's a personal preference issue related to opening up new opportunities trumping mild improvements in numbers

Would that be a good comparison? Monk vs. defensive fighting style greatsword or halberd* fighter?
*with PAM, and then give Monk appropriate feat.

I think actually it was clarified that GWM only works on weapon damage dice, not bonus damage, making it even worse, lol. The Style isn't useless, but it would have been a lot better if it worked like 4e's Brutal (just take rolls of 1 and 2 off the die entirely).

 

[SteveC]

Oh my, the monk. I talk about the problem with the fighter a lot, but the poor monk. I don't think I've even seen a player try one in any game I've played. I've looked at it but, the class just seems to have too many problems to even attempt something with it.

I have been following Treantmonk's analysis of the playtest, so I don't think it's really been addressed yet. Hopefully there will be some last minute adjustments I'd say.

The most interesting thing to me about the monk, like the fighter, is that there's a great example of this class working well in Pathfinder 2. I have played a lot of PF2 games recently (Gamehole Con for the win!) and I ran into multiple monk characters who really shone and played well. Like the fighter, the class really can work (I'm playing a PF2 fighter so I have first hand experience).