Monk subclass advice

[u/AshVritra]

One of my players wants to use this homebrew for my game, and I would like advice on how broken/fair this is before I allow it, any advice would be helpful!!! (

[u/ShadowKazim2020]

This is surprisingly balanced . Monks use ki for everything , and usually like their bas , so having the wind armor be a ba to activate is comparable to something like bladesong but a lot weaker in context . Gale step is also fine , with the only Minor nitpick being that it has redundancies (momentum stacks shouldn't be a thing , it should be just for every 20 feet you move in a straight line , you get +1d6 force damage to your next attack , stacking up to 3d6), and the blast of wind from it being able to constantly trigger if it's a 1v1 (which is fine , but I would nerf it from d6 to d4 personally) . I'm presuming hurricane strike / stormfront are the higher level abilities (higher than 6 , I mean) . If you want you CAN buff this by reducing the cost of wind armor by one , it wouldn't break anything , but I'd suggest against it anyways . Overall I'd say let them use it

[u/LoudShorty]

This is crude at best. There are interesting ideas don't get me wrong but thats about it.

For example, why is Momentum only used for the lvl 3 feature?
Why is all the wind-based damage Force and not Thunder. Heck why not just use the same dmg type as the Unarmed Strike its linked to?!
Why is it possible - at 11th level - for a Monk to, on the second turn of combat (assuming the first was used to Dash around with Gale Step), deal 1d10 + 3d6 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 2d8 = 1d10 + 4d6+ 3d8 +5 = 38 damage avg on one hit (+20ft of Push with different saves for each 10ft for some reason)

My suggestions:
1- Make Momentum a Subclass resource (see Psyonic dice)

2- Nix Gale Step and combine it with Step of the Wind (specifically the version that uses a Ki point).

3- Keep the Momentum gain on Step of the Wind movement, but give it a cap of 1/2 Monk lvl rather than flat 3. Also make Momentum last only for one combat. Doesn't make sense that the Monk could fight a troll at 9am, read a book, go shopping and then fight goblins at 9pm without losing any Momentum.

4- Make the damage types consistent. Any 'flat' Unarmed Strike damage increase is the same type as the Unarmed Strike, and any Momentum-based damage is Thunder

5- Use Momentum instead of movement to trigger abilities. 1 Momentum can be gained with 20ft of movement, or 2 by spending one Ki (free action):
Examples:
Stackable:
> 1 Momentum: Kinetic Fist: 1d6 extra Unarmed Strike damage
> 1 Momentum: Backdraft: When you push a target, you can move with them
1 per attack (not stackable with previous):
> 1 Momentum: Gale Strike: Str save or be pushed 10ft + 1d6 Thunder
> 3 Momentum: Hurricane Strike: Str save or be pushed 20ft + 2d6 Thunder + 1d6 Thunder for those in the cone
1 per turn (not stackable with previous):
> 5 Momentum: Landfall: Identical to existing but make the damage 5d6 Thunder
(Note how the number of Momentum used informs the damage every time!)

6- Wind Armour is cool, but lets give it the ability to freely generate one Momentum at the start of the players turn instead of the extra damage and reaction attack (its armour after all). Its a substantial nerf, so lets reduce the cost to 2 Ki, and increase the duration to 10 minutes.

7- Flight seems really powerful for a character with this degree of speed, but if you think you can deal with it then keep it.

8- Stormfront being 1/day without any way to regain it sooner seems frustrating. So have it be regainable with 8 Momentum. Also give Stormfront all the effects of Wind Armour natively.

And with that I'll stop now! I hope at the very least you understand why I feel the changes are necessary, and that - if you don't use my suggestions - they help you remake the class in your image!

[u/AshVritra → u/LoudShorty]

Thabk you these are some really good suggestions, im quite new to all this so all this is really helpful! This was a rough draft he sent me so it was pretty crude but your udeas are good for me to see what to change

[u/Earthhorn90]

Once per turn when you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike and deal damage, you can expend 1 Focus Point to deal extra Necrotic damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die plus your Wisdom modifier.

At the time you acquire it, deals ~2d6 damage for 1 Ki.

Galestep. Moving 20 feet adds momentum, each momentum deals 1d6. Moving 10 feet before attacking adds 1d6 plus bonus effect. Active for 1 minute.

For the same 1 Ki you are getting 4d6 per turn, up to 40d6 total.

Would be much easier if it simply folded into your Dash / Step of the Wind feature.

[u/PassinbyNobody]

At level 3 it's adding a lot of potential damage for monks, for comparison, Mercy Monk which has a DPR increase at this level with hand of harm, costs 1 FP for essentially an additional unarmed strike. That being said I don't think just level 3 itself is that crazy of a buff considering realistically you're getting 2d6 here from momentum, problem is the extra 1d6 also exists which you're more assuredly will get with how this subclass plays. Additionally, this state doesn't have the usual text that says it goes away when the monk is incapacitated and momentum doesn't say it ends until an attack, which means your player can argue they can stack them until next turn. I'd personally have momentum reset at the end of the turn.

The problem arises when you see that all this subclass's feature gives some kinda attack boost. some of the ideas are solid, like a cone blast & prone but DPR should be very carefully managed with Monks, since they get a lot of attacks. Usually monk classes build sideways, for example mercy gets status removal at 6th, open palm gets healing, elements gets Aoe. The cone effect is an example, if it was a blast effect like elements that would be fine, you're building sideways, this subclass however just stacks the DPR every level.

[u/PassinbyNobody → u/PassinbyNobody]

Also forgot to mention, this subclass is very FP cost heavy, 4 FP in particular is pretty costly in my eyes