Monk Idealist by Daren Bader
Last time, we covered five of the nine monk subclasses. This week wraps up that list with the top four. As a reminder, there are three main categories I look at as I judge the power level of each subclass: combat strength, allowance for a range of powerful builds, and how it interacts with multiclassing. So let’s finish up the final four monk entries.
4. Open Hand
Once upon a time I would have said the Open Hand was the strongest subclass, but thanks to new material and a deeper understanding from writing these articles, its ranking has slipped.
Level 3 – Open Hand Technique
Whenever you hit a creature with one of the attacks granted by your Flurry of Blows, you can impose one of the following effects on that target.
- It must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone.
- It must make a Strength saving throw. If it fails, you can push it up to 15 feet away from you.
- It can’t take reactions until the end of your next turn.
This flexible feature is a good boost to Flurry of Blows, but it’s not without its issues. Knocking an opponent prone sounds like a good attack rider, as it would grant advantage to future attacks made against the prone target. Unfortunately, Flurry of Blows can only be used after the monk has made their normal attacks. This means that the monk will at most get one attack with advantage before the target has a chance to stand up. Of course the monk’s allies can also benefit, but that’s highly dependent on party composition and initiative order.
Thankfully the other options here are decent, if also situational. A large push can be very good if the party uses area of effect abilities or if the natural terrain includes something like a cliff. Unfortunately, neither of these are in the monk’s control, and the push targets a strong save on most monsters.
The ability to turn off the target’s reaction is a solid option if you plan on running in and out of combat to avoid damage. This isn’t a bad strategy, as the monk is weak on defense* and normally has to pay a ki point and their bonus action to disengage. All in all a solid feature, if a little frustrating in how its prone option fails to match how most people want to use it.
Level 6 – Wholeness of Body
As an action, you can regain hit points equal to three times your monk level. You must finish a long rest before you can use this feature again.
Eighteen whole hit points per long rest. This feature is arguably worse than the level 1 fighter ability Second Wind, as that feature refreshes on short rest and only requires a bonus action. Wholeness of Body does have decent scaling, but it’s too limited to be truly useful.
Level 11 – Tranquility
At the end of a long rest, you gain the effect of a sanctuary spell that lasts until the start of your next long rest (the spell can end early as normal). The saving throw DC for the spell equals 8 + your Wisdom modifier + your proficiency bonus.
Sanctuary is a very interesting spell that can be great protection for a support character who doesn’t want to take offensive actions. Unfortunately, Open Hand monks only have offensive actions, meaning that as soon as you want to use your character, this feature stops working. Redemption paladins get a massively improved version of this as their capstone, and the designers smartly made it so the effect worked on each enemy individually, so the paladin could still fight and benefit from its protection. Without a change like that, Tranquility is almost as bad as having no feature.
Level 17 – Quivering Palm
When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can spend 3 ki points to start these imperceptible vibrations, which last for a number of days equal to your monk level. The vibrations are harmless unless you use your action to end them. To do so, you and the target must be on the same plane of existence. When you use this action, the creature must make a Constitution saving throw. If it fails, it is reduced to 0 hit points. If it succeeds, it takes 10d10 necrotic damage.
You can have only one creature under the effect of this feature at a time. You can choose to end the vibrations harmlessly without using an action.
This ability is what initially drew me to this subclass. Having the only save-or-die ability available to players is certainly a tempting capstone. Even if the target saves, 10d10 damage five times per day is good damage, especially for a monk. However, there are some issues that anyone trying to use this feature has to contend with. The first is that without an extra attack from something like Haste or a reaction attack to trigger the vibrations, the monk has to spread this ability out over two turns, slowing down their damage significantly.
The second possible issue is that the enemies you most want to fail this save almost never will. Big bosses should have a good constitution save and legendary resistances. On top of that, I would wager most GMs will make sure their villain isn’t instantly killed, meaning this is best used on strong lieutenant enemies. Even with these limitations in mind, this is an extremely good ability, and if it were attached to a better class it would be very scary.
While not as relatively strong as it used to be, the Open Hand subclass has some decent abilities and a very good capstone. It’s still a monk, with all the problems that brings, but this is the first subclass I wouldn’t feel terrible recommending to a player looking to play the class. Fourth place.
3. Kensei
A subclass that focuses heavily on the monk’s weapon usage, the Kensei continues to suffer from the class’s split weapon/unarmed damage sources. The subclass does enough things right to be serviceable, but not enough to turn the monk into a competitive martial option.
Level 3 – Path of the Kensei
Kensei Weapons. Choose two types of weapons to be your kensei weapons: one melee weapon and one ranged weapon. Each of these weapons can be any simple or martial weapon that lacks the heavy and special properties. The longbow is also a valid choice. You gain proficiency with these weapons if you don’t already have it. Weapons of the chosen types are monk weapons for you. Many of this tradition’s features work only with your kensei weapons. When you reach 6th, 11th, and 17th level in this class, you can choose another type of weapon—either melee or ranged—to be a kensei weapon for you, following the criteria above.Agile Parry. If you make an unarmed strike as part of the Attack action on your turn and are holding a kensei weapon, you can use it to defend yourself if it is a melee weapon. You gain a +2 bonus to AC until the start of your next turn, while the weapon is in your hand and you aren’t incapacitated.Kensei’s Shot. You can use a bonus action on your turn to make your ranged attacks with a kensei weapon more deadly. When you do so, any target you hit with a ranged attack using a kensei weapon takes an extra 1d4 damage of the weapon’s type. You retain this benefit until the end of the current turn.
Way of the Brush. You gain proficiency with your choice of calligrapher’s supplies or painter’s supplies.
The expansion to monk weapons that this ability gives used to be a lot more unique before Tasha’s gave a similar ability to all monks. Kensei Weapons still grants some advantages, such as giving proficiency, but the upgrade to a 1d10 is no longer as special.
Agile Parry is the strongest part of this ability. Monks suffer from being unable to use a shield alongside their martial arts, so turning a weapon into a shield is great to have.
Kensei’s Shot is fine, if a weak alternative to the bonus action attack of Crossbow Expert. Spending a bonus action every round for a minor damage boost is extra expensive on a monk, as they have so many things they’d like to be doing with their bonus action.
Level 6 – One with the Blade
Magic Kensei Weapons. Your attacks with your kensei weapons count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
Deft Strike. When you hit a target with a kensei weapon, you can spend 1 ki point to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target equal to your Martial Arts die. You can use this feature only once on each of your turns.
Combined with Ki-Empowered Strikes, this feature ensures that every attack the Kensei makes is magical. If you already have a magical weapon, this portion of the feature is useless. Speaking of useless, Deft Strike is almost never a good expenditure of ki. Unless you know you’ll be resting after a fight, I would never recommend using this ability over saving your ki for something else.
Level 11 – Sharpen the Blade
As a bonus action, you can expend up to 3 ki points to grant one kensei weapon you touch a bonus to attack and damage rolls when you attack with it. The bonus equals the number of ki points you spent. This bonus lasts for 1 minute or until you use this feature again. This feature has no effect on a magic weapon that already has a bonus to attack and damage rolls.
Speaking of something else, here is an ability that is a decent use of ki if you don’t already have a +2 or +3 weapon. This feature does suffer from not improving your fists. This is a recurring problem the monk has and I think reflavoring this feature and expanding its bonuses to unarmed attacks would have made the Kensei significantly more viable.
Level 17 – Unerring Accuracy
If you miss with an attack roll using a monk weapon on your turn, you can reroll it. You can use this feature only once on each of your turns.
This is kinda like an extra attack, although it does require the sad occurrence of missing an attack. Not an exciting capstone, but it does add a noticeable chunk of damage per round.
Not the savior of the monk class some people originally hoped for, the Kensei is still a serviceable subclass. It was a difficult decision placing this entry above Open Hand, but in the end it was a comparison of better low-level features versus high-level features. Quivering Palm is better than anything the Kensei gets, but the earlier additions to both offense and defense Kensei monks receive mean that there are more levels where it’s better to play a Kensei than an Open Hand monk. Third place.
2. Mercy
The newest kid on the block, I’ve seen Mercy top a lot of monk power-ranking charts. While I don’t put it quite that high, it is definitely one of the better monk subclasses.
Level 3 – Implements of Mercy
You gain proficiency in the Insight and Medicine skills, and you gain proficiency with the herbalism kit.
You also gain a special mask, which you often wear when using the features of this subclass. You determine its appearance, or generate it randomly by rolling on the Merciful Mask table.
Merciful Mask d6 Mask Appearance 1 Raven 2 Blank and white 3 Crying visage 4 Laughing visage 5 Skull 6 Butterfly
One of the designers really wanted to play a plague doctor, and no one had the heart to tell them no. This is a very weird flavor feature that is never referenced again, despite something called the Implement of Mercy sounding important to the Mercy monk. The tool proficiency isn’t totally useless, but it’s not far off.
Level 3 – Hand of Healing
As an action, you can spend 1 ki point to touch a creature and restore a number of hit points equal to a roll of your Martial Arts die + your Wisdom modifier.
When you use your Flurry of Blows, you can replace one of the unarmed strikes with a use of this feature without spending a ki point for the healing.
This is a handy tool for anyone looking to add some support options to the monk’s kit. Replacing an attack with a heal hurts the monk’s already low damage, but being able to get an unconscious ally back on their feet for half a bonus action is nice. There is the major restriction that the ally must be within five feet of you, so if you want to punch someone and then heal a friend, they need to be right next to each other.
Level 3 – Hand of Harm
When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can spend 1 ki point to deal extra necrotic damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die + your Wisdom modifier. You can use this feature only once per turn.
Since Flurry of Blows allows the monk to convert one ki point into two attacks and uses dexterity, generally a higher stat on monks than wisdom, this ability feels redundant. If the Mercy monk needed to deal as much burst damage as possible, this could be stacked with Flurry, but most monks won’t want to spend their ki points so quickly for such a minor bonus.
Level 6 – Physician’s Touch
When you use Hand of Healing on a creature, you can also end one disease or one of the following conditions affecting the creature: blinded, deafened, paralyzed, poisoned, or stunned.
When you use Hand of Harm on a creature, you can subject that creature to the poisoned condition until the end of your next turn.
If this feature’s buff to Hand of Healing dealt with the most common conditions of charmed and frightened, I’d say it was really good. Without those inclusions, this buff is niche at best.
The Hand of Harm buff changes it from being a slightly worse Flurry of Blows to a slightly better Flurry of Blows. Combining Hand of Harm with the Ki-Fueled Attack feature added to all monks in Tasha’s nets almost as much damage as Flurry of Blows but also poisons the target, which is a good defense buff.
Level 11 – Flurry of Healing and Harm
When you use Flurry of Blows, you can now replace each of the unarmed strikes with a use of your Hand of Healing, without spending ki points for the healing.
In addition, when you make an unarmed strike with Flurry of Blows, you can use Hand of Harm with that strike without spending the ki point for Hand of Harm. You can still use Hand of Harm only once per turn.
Now you can help two friends up if they’re both within five feet of you. Besides that scenario, this upgrade to Hand of Healing probably won’t see much use.
Thankfully the improvement to Hand of Harm is a straight buff, allowing you to combine it with Flurry of Blows for no additional ki cost. This damage boost is almost as good as an additional unarmed attack, and it is definitely welcome.
Level 17 – Hand of Ultimate Mercy
Your mastery of life energy opens the door to the ultimate mercy. As an action, you can touch the corpse of a creature that died within the past 24 hours and expend 5 ki points. The creature then returns to life, regaining a number of hit points equal to 4d10 + your Wisdom modifier. If the creature died while subject to any of the following conditions, it revives with them removed: blinded, deafened, paralyzed, poisoned, and stunned.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
If your party has reached level 17 without a proper resurrection spell, then this ability is great. If not, it’s middling. The lack of casting time, component cost, and immediate healing is nice, but not enough for a level 17 feature.
I think the Mercy monk is a step in the right direction for monks, but it doesn’t go far enough. Its healing options are heavily restricted by range, and its damage boost clashes with existing monk options until level 11. It’s one of the best monks, but it’s still a monk. Second place.
1. Shadow
I find it humorous that the subclass that gained the most from Tasha’s wasn’t the one introduced in the book. Instead, it was the humble Shadow monk that went from weaker than average to head of the pack. What made this change possible was the introduction of Blind Fighting. Through either a level of fighter or the Fighting Initiate feat, the Shadow monk can finally see through the thing its subclass is named after.
Level 3 – Shadow Arts
You can use your ki to duplicate the effects of certain spells. As an action, you can spend 2 ki points to cast darkness, darkvision, pass without trace, or silence, without providing material components. Additionally, you gain the minor illusion cantrip if you don’t already know it.
Speaking of darkness, here is the ability that was incredibly disappointing prior to Tasha’s. The ability to cast 2nd-level spells for two ki points is pretty good. Compared to the Four Elements, these spells are cheaper for their level and generally stronger. Unfortunately, someone forgot to give Shadow monks the ability to see through their own Darkness spell, severely hampering the subclass’s offense. Now that this can be fixed through a fighting style, this feature goes from fine to great, allowing for powerful options both in and out of combat that monks normally have no way of getting.
Level 6 – Shadow Step
When you are in dim light or darkness, as a bonus action you can teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space you can see that is also in dim light or darkness. You then have advantage on the first melee attack you make before the end of the turn.
In what is quickly becoming a running theme for this subclass, Shadow Step is another feature that was severely hampered by not being able to see through magical darkness. The sight requirement on this feature meant that Shadow monks couldn’t cast the Darkness spell to teleport into. Even with Blind Fighting, this is only a 10-foot teleport in darkness, but that is still useful in combat and costs no resources. Shadow Step is also helpful outside of combat, as many 5E environments have plenty of dimly lit spots to teleport into.
Level 11 – Cloak of Shadows
When you are in an area of dim light or darkness, you can use your action to become invisible. You remain invisible until you make an attack, cast a spell, or are in an area of bright light.
Though not suitable for combat due to its action cost and how easy it is to break, this feature allows the Shadow monk to operate safely as the party’s scout. I would have loved some more additions to the subclass’s combat power, but this ability is decent.
Level 17 – Opportunist
Whenever a creature within 5 feet of you is hit by an attack made by a creature other than you, you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against that creature.
Assuming other members of your party make use of attacks, this feature should be netting the Shadow monk one additional attack per round. Since monks don’t have a lot to do with their reaction, this is a great use for it.
Even using the newly empowered Shadow subclass, the monk still has problems competing with other optimized builds, but it’s a heck of a lot closer to being legitimately good than anything else the class has on offer. Without a shadow of a doubt, this takes first place.
That wraps up monks. Tune in next time as I look at paladin subclasses to better understand the many flavors of smite on offer.
I have also created a tier list for those of you who are interested.
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Two things to note about Hand of Healing. First: you are a creature, and thus you are a valid target. If you have no allies nearby, you still can use this to patch yourself up a bit – very similar to the fighter’s Second Wind in this regard, but you can use it more often (albeit for less healing) and also make an attack with the same bonus action. This consideration of self-targeting also adds a little bit more utility to the level 11 ability to target two creatures (since you don’t need two damaged allies nearby – just yourself and one other creature). Second: the restriction on being adjacent in order to heal is not really problematic. In my experience, allies tend to go unconscious as a result of getting hit – if you need to wake up an ally, it is overwhelmingly likely that they are already adjacent to something you want to punch. Even in the rare case that an ally is unconscious and alone, monks have the speed to be able to get to wherever they need to be – and you are allowed to move in between your attacks. You can always just punch the enemy in front of you with the first flurry attack (and poison them with Hand of Harm) and then use your monk speed to run over to your ally and heal them with your second flurry attack. Sure, you’ll get an opportunity attack, but fortunately it will be at disadvantage.
Those are definitely tactics you can use to get some more value out of hand of healing/harm. Sadly having to cover so many abilities means I don’t have space to mention all the in-depth tactics like these ones.
Hey, I think you forgot to update the link for the tier list. It doesn’t show the fighter and monk subclasses.
Also, I watch D&D more than I play it, but I still like reading these. For me, it’s like having in-depth analysis of fantasy writing inspiration :)
Thanks for reminding me to upload the updated tier list, should be good to go now =).
I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Now days I spend a lot more time writing about DnD than playing it.
Great analysis! But I have one worry about the Shadow Monk strategy of combining Blind Fighting with Darkness, which is that Blind Fighting has a range of 10 feet (as you note), but Darkness has a radius of 15 feet. So if you were to cast Darkness on yourself, you would see for 10 feet but beyond that your vision is completely blocked by the Darkness that extends 5 feet further, which is a significant problem (though this wouldn’t be a problem if you had Devil’s Sight instead). You could cast Darkness on the opponents, but that has the drawback that the rest of the party is unlikely to be able to target them. Does this seem like a legitimate worry?
5e has very weird vision rules. Even though the monk can’t see through all of the darkness they’re aware of the locations of all enemies, so it doesn’t impede their abilities to find someone to murder. Attacks against the monk from outside their blindsight range wouldn’t suffer disadvantage, but that’s the only issue.
Thanks, that helps. I’m still a bit on the fence as to whether the ki would still be better spent on more stunning strikes. But Tasha’s also made it easier for Monks to pick up Devils Sight. Be Human and at level 1 take Cleric (say, Twilight domain), and the feat Eldritch Adept. It can be whatever invocation helps you best survive initially, but start leveling up in Monk after that, and once you reach 3rd you can switch it to Devils Sight. Only takes a 1 level dip, without any need to raise Cha, and you get some domain features, spells, and 3 cantrips (guidance, maybe sacred flame for range, thaumaturgy for tricks).
Stunning strike is ki intensive and unreliable due to targeting a strong save and the monk’s generally lower save DC. Darkness is a single investment for an entire encounter that makes your attacks more likely to hit and enemy melee combatants less likely to hit you.
Devil Sight would be nice if your build allows for it. If I’m going into monk it’s to make a dedicated monk with as few dips as possible so grabbing the required spell casting for the Eldritch Adept feat would be tough.
Good points about Stunning Strike vs Darkness. I’m convinced now it’s worth investing in Blind Fighting or Devil Sight.
Devil Sight only takes a 1 level dip into Cleric (or Druid – though that seems a weaker combo) if you’re Human – no other dips seem needed. While that does mean passing up getting the Mobile feat as Human, or being a Bugbear to get reach, that would seem to be mitigated when Darkness is active as you can still move around without worrying about drawing opportunity attacks.
I’m working on a fighter 1/monk 19 build, start out with the fighting initiate feat for unarmed fighting, swapping it to blind fighting at level 4. Take 1 level of fighter at level 9 for the archery fighting style. If your campaign allows for guns then you use a musket with the gunner feat and if not you can use a heavy crossbow with xbow expert.
It seems to me that if we’re building around Darkness, which requires concentration, the Shadow Monk could really use a boost to concentration checks at early levels. Fortunately, another advantage of a 1 level dip for fighter for Blind Fighting, when taken as your 1st level, is that you get Constitution saving throws (instead of Dex). Sadly, you’ll miss out on any Con bonus with the idea of going Human Cleric that I suggested earlier. Instead Devil’s Sight with a Con bonus would require being a Human Sorcerer (Shadow for theme) at 1st. Or start Monk, as any lineage, and later on dip 2 levels into Warlock for Devil’s Sight and Eldritch Mind.
If I were building a higher level character I would take fighter at 1 then 19 monk. The character I’m envisioning starts from 1st level so delaying things like extra attack for features I won’t be using for a while wasn’t worth it.
I am unconvinced that Kensei is not better than Mercy. Higher AC, higher damage, and more accuracy (Not counting level 17s because that rarely happens)
I have to point out Poison is the most common immunity, so much that all monks are immune to it by level 10. And there are many enemies who are immune to it before such high levels as well.
I am in a a game right now with a Mercy Monk, and while only level 5, he is constantly feeling overshadowed by the rest of us in terms of damage and survivability and there have been a surprising number of enemies immune to poison.
At level 3-5 I’d rank the Kensei higher than the Mercy, levels 6 and up the added features to the hands of healing and harm give Mercy the upper hand. If you’re running into tons of poison immune creatures then I agree Mercy loses a lot of its power, but the same can be said if a Kensei finds a magic weapon as that significantly weakens their Sharpen the Blade.
Unfortunately I’m not surprised by your experience. Even the better monk subclasses are still monks so its highly likely they’ll be outpaced by other well built characters. Shadow is the only monk I’d feel comfortable bringing to a game.
Kensei only get AP if they make an unarmed strike. Which is kinda dumb, IMO it should be a reaction.
honestly focusing on melee monk builds is a mistake, with the combo of focused aim and ki fueled attack, plus sharpshooter, ranged monks are significantly better than melee monks. A Kensai in particular can use focused aim (if they miss) or deft strike if they dont to put out 3 sharpshooter longbow attacks per round, other monks can do this as well but Kensai seems to do it best, and can use Kensai shot against weak enemies to save Ki. melee monks just cant keep up in damage with great weapon master/and or polearm master builds. Dip 2 levels of ranger and you can combo fighting style archery and hunters mark.
I agree, ranged attacks are generally stronger than melee due to the archery fighting style, and the same holds true for monks. I found the shadow monk to be better then kensei, as advantage from darkness + blind fighting beats out focused aim.
Fair but 10ft range limit seems to waste the natural range of the longbow. The ability to actually use a monks boosted movement speed to stay out of melee range, and potentially combo that with other boosts like longstrider can be surprisingly useful. The big reason to be a Kensai for an archer monk is use a combo of deft strike and focused aim to reliably trigger ki fueled attack. You need an ability to trigger it every round. Focused aim is only usable when you miss an attack, so if you want to keep your 3 attacks a round up you need an abillity than can trigger during your ranged attack sequence whether you miss or not. Shadow monk cannot do so unless they miss.
It does reduce range but monk has mobility to dodge in and out of the fight, and darkness should make them immune to most opportunity attacks. Alternatively you could take 2 levels of ranger then pick up devil sight with the feat and preserve all of your range.
If you are fighting up close then you have the option to bonus action unarmed strike. It’s not as good as a sharpshooter attack but it doesn’t cost you ki either
It is nice always having a way to trigger ki-fueled, but you’ll burn through ki pretty quickly, whereas the darkness build can more easily utilize the bonus action attack if you need to, and sharpshooting means you’ll be missing enough that focus aim will be triggerable.
To directly compare a shadow monk needs two fighting styles and 2 feats to put out 3 guaranteed ranged attacks per round with a hand crossbow, crossbow expert and sharpshooter. And if willing to only attack from 10 feet away can use darkness for free advantage.They need blind fighting and archery style. A kensai needs sharpshooter and archery only to put out 3 longbow attacks per round but at a cost of 1 ki per round. While shadow monk may pull ahead once everything is online the inability to reliably make 3 attacks per round should cause the kensai to be better up till maybe tier 3 even. And the lvl 17 Kensai feature works for archery while shadows does not. Meaning Kensai probably wins again after lvl 17. Please check my assumptions but I’d argue kensai needs to take second place given it’s far higher performance than mercy monk. Since mercy works poorly with a sharpshooter build (the most optimal way to play a monk overall). Archer shadow monks also lack a particularly good use for their bonus action. Unless I’m missing something.
One of the things that makes monk optimization so interesting is that there are a bunch of ways you could go about achieving your goals. You could build a Shadow monk that mutlicalsses fighter/ranger for the 2 fighting style meaning it only needs 1-2 feats to start outputting the sharpshooting/darkness combo. Mapping out all of these is a huge headache so I’ve only done one so far, but it’s definitely cool to think about =P.
You’ve made a good argument for Kensei. If I made this list again I might bump it to 2nd, although the flexibility of healing that Mercy offers is appealing.
Archer Shadow monks can use their bonus action to make an unarmed strike if they’re the close ranged option. If you’re not then you’d probably want to go hand crossbow/crossbow expert to make sure you get that bonus action attack.
I will admit shadow is overall better but I think damage wise Kensai should win at tier 1-2 and is similar at lvl 17. While shadow wins damage wise once mid lvls are hit and you have all the feats and fighting styles. I admit the defensive benefits of darkness certainly make shadow better overall and shadow is more like efficient. Sorry for the multiple posts, but I feel I’ve made a good case for Kensai beating mercy at least.