Talk:Way of the Passive Hand (5e Subclass)

Ratings

	Ghostwheel likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	Needs a little work on capitalization, but apart from that this looks like a solid subclass that's both interesting and provides a number of options in a fight.

What makes Monk better? MORE POWER.

Monk is not a bad class. It's got a jumble of different abilities because that's how Monk life is, but it's not a bad class - the biggest complaint is about the number of Ki points that they get and the cost of abilities in relation to this. But, that's solved by making sure you have a good Short Rest throughout the day to recover them. If you partner yourself up with other Short Rest classes like a Warlock, you'll be golden really.

But, if you're this archetype, and you partner up with a Fighter, he's gonna be hell-a pissed because you're now in Fighter But Better land.

Passive Stance. Now, Monks by default get Patient Defense at level 2 so that they can use a Dodge as a bonus action. But, why am I going to do that when I can now take a Passive Stance and get free attacks for being hit - without even burning my Reaction! The only Archetype ability evens lightly similar to this is the Kensei's Agile Parry, which in comparison to this ability is terrible. This just negates attacks - and also fails to even specify melee attacks - with an additional damage added on!

Maybe this can be changed to something like; When you take the Attack action on your turn, you enter into a Passive Stance. Until the start of your next turn, if you are attacked within your unarmed attack's range, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage by 1d10 + your Dexterity modifier + your monk level. If you can reduce the damage to 0, you may spend 1 ki point to make an immediate unarmed melee attack.

So, what we've done here is take the wording for Deflect Missiles and we've made it for defense against melee attacks. We'll probably be trying to use the Passive Stance "condition" for later abilities.

Rapid Blow. oh lord why. A level 6 Monk can make 4 attacks per round (2 as per the Attack action, 2 as a Flurry of Blows). This is more attacks than anyone else can make outside of the Fighter, who can do it once per short rest. A Level 6 Monk can do this 6 times per short rest. Now, of course, a Monk isn't about large pangs of damage like a Fighter is, they're about that chip damage (smaller bits of damage); but 5e exists at a point where doing many hits is pretty good. So, yeah, a Monk is good; now you want to introduce Rapid Blow and just say "fuck me up bruh" because this ability is insane.

Ignoring the fact that Rapid Blow doesn't mention anything about how you can take multiple bonus actions per round, let's focus on just how silly this is. Instead of being able to do 4 attacks per round 6 times a short rest, they can now do 8 attacks per round 2 times a short rest. That's 1d6+DEX damage 8 times in one round. That's what a Basic Bitch Level 20 Fighter can do with Action Surge - twice per short rest.

Let's stop ignoring about Bonus Actions, because a Flurry of Blows requires a Bonus Action to use, so technically it's impossible for them to use Rapid Blow - but I don't think the intention here is to actually make an Omega Trap ability. I'm not even sure how to properly fix this because it gets even more and more ridiculous as things go on.

Maybe...? Rapid Blow. Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn, you can spend 2 ki points to make three unarmed strikes as a bonus action. If you target a different creature with each attack, you may make four unarmed strikes instead.

It's just an upgrade over Flurry of Blows with an additional ki point cost.

Equal Coverage. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? My example of Rapid Blow above has this wrapped into it instead, which is probably at least a bit better?

Enduring Times. Oh, okay, you can use 4 Ki Points to give yourself Haste. I'm not actually against this. Why do I gain the benefit of the Disengage action? Oh, I get an extra attack whenever I use it, okay so it's just gone down hill at this point. It started off so well; I actually like the idea that you can cast Haste on yourself, but why do they get an extra attack? If we take your archetype as an unfixed whole, that gives us (at level 11):

3 Attacks for my first action 3 Attacks for my second action 6 Flurry of Blow Attacks (3 ki points)

I have spent 7 Ki points to make 12 attacks. I could make even more if I was surrounded by people. I think increase my Haste for another 2 rounds, now I'm out of Ki points, but I'm pretty damn sure I'm out of enemies to kill as well. The Fighter is just standing there thinking "but lots of attack is my thing", but he's an impotent git because that little sucker can only do 6 attacks per round once per short rest.

Why is it called Enduring Times anyway? You're not enduring things, you're like... meat grinding.

Can we not just have this be: Enduring Times. As an action, you can spend 4 ki points to cast haste on yourself, without any material components, for a duration of 2 rounds. Until the spell ends, you may spend 4 ki points to increase the duration by 2 rounds.

Passively Offensive. idk man, like... Stunning Strike for free on your Flurry of Blows? Sure. Okay, why not at this point.

Like, I can see what you're going for, but you just need to not overpower things and make sure things work how they're meant to do. --TK-Squared (talk) 03:16, 25 April 2019 (MDT)

I would remove the level 6 upgrade from Passive Stance (that's a big bonus to defense as it is), and you'd probably be good. Also need to fix up the grammar/capitalization a bit. \

Another change I would suggest is to give some sort of cost to the level 3 monk "parry" ability, just because of how much common melee enemies are compared to ranged ones (for Deflect Missiles). For example, you could have a bonus action to "prepare" yourself to block a melee attack, or spend one ki point when using it without preparing it. --Ghostwheel (talk) 11:46, 25 April 2019 (MDT)