The Revised Monk
Monks are not great. Their theme is fun but they're not the
best at any of the things they're supposed to be good at. While
the bard is a masterclass in being good at a range of things
without over-specialising, the monk is an example of that
concept falling flat.
Attacking
The monk feels like it's supposed to dish out attack after
attack, whittling away at the enemy through sustained
pressure. The RAW monk can't really do this. It doesn't throw
out enough attacks, and attempting to throw out enough
attacks to apply pressure rapidly drains their resources down
to nothing.
Tanking
Between their lower hit dice and their inability to do anything
to really draw focus outside of stunning strike, monks can't
really tank unless they can convince the enemy to attack only
them and then burn through their resources using patient
defense.
Control
Monks should be using their stunning strike or other class
features to control the battlefield. Stunning strike is good, but
one trick does not make a controller. Monks are already a
little bit MAD, so prioritising the save DC for stunning strike
is going to cost you either AC or damage output. Add to that
the fact that Constitution is well saved against by a lot of
monsters and this doesn't really work.
Movement
Monks actually excel in this area... but it doesn't really help
them out because once they get to their new position, they're
still not great at doing any of the other things.
Revision
My main approach with this Revised Monk was to start the
monk out with a level of damage output that is on par with
other damage dealing classes without any optimisation. From
that point I gave the monk options to spend their ki or use
their bonus action to fit more easily into one those three
roles.
I think what I've come up with feels suitably distinct from
the fighter or barbarian and gives the monk a position on the
battefield as a martial class that can plug holes in the party's
strategy without truly excelling in any of them.
Further Viewing
Treantmonk's Temple has a great video on the failings of the
monk from an optimisers point of view. You can find it here.
Class Features
As a monk, you gain the following class features
Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d8 per monk level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution
modifier per monk level after 1st
Proficiencies
Armor: None
Weapons: Simple weapons, shortswords
Tools: Choose one type of artisan's tools or one instrument
Saving Throws: Strength, Dexterity
Skills: Choose two from Acrobatics, Athletics, History,
Insight, Religion, and Stealth
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the
equipment granted by your background:
(a) a shortsword or (b) any simple weapon
(a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
10 darts
Unarmored Defense
Beginning at 1st level, while you are wearing no armor and
not wielding a shield, your AC equals 10 + your Dexterity
modifier + your Wisdom modifier.
Martial Arts
At 1st level, your practice of martial arts gives you mastery of
combat styles that use unarmed strikes and monk weapons,
which are shortswords and any simple melee weapons that
don’t have the two-handed or heavy property.
You gain the following benefits while you are unarmed or
wielding only monk weapons and you aren’t wearing armor
or wielding a shield:
You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack
and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk
weapons.
You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your
unarmed strike or monk weapon. This die changes as you
gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of
the Monk table.
Certain monasteries use specialized forms of the monk
weapons. For example, you might use a club that is two
lengths of wood connected by a short chain (called a
nunchaku) or a sickle with a shorter, straighter blade (called a
kama). Whatever name you use for a monk weapon, you can
use the game statistics provided for the weapon in the
Weapons section.
Flurry of Blows
From 1st level, you can focus your thoughts solely on striking
your foes, landing multiple blows in rapid succession. When
you take the Attack action, you may choose to make that
attack a flurry of blows. When attacking in this way, you make
a number of unarmed strikes determined by your monk level
(as shown in the Monk class feature table). You may replace
any of these strikes with a shove or grapple attempt.
If you have or gain the 'Extra Attack' feature, you must use
the attack action without flurry of blows to benefit from it's
effects.
Channeling Ki
Starting at 2nd level, your training allows you to harness the
mystic energy of ki. Your access to this energy is represented
by a number of ki points. Your monk level determines the
number of points you have, as shown in the Ki Points column
of the Monk table.
You can spend these points to fuel various ki features. You
start knowing three such features: Completing the Form,
Patient Defense, and Step of the Wind. You learn more ki
features as you gain levels in this class.
When you spend a ki point, it is unavailable until you finish
a short or long rest, at the end of which you draw all of your
expended ki back into yourself. You must spend at least 30
minutes of the rest meditating to regain your ki points.
Some of your ki features require your target to make a
saving throw to resist the feature’s effects. The saving throw
DC is calculated as follows:
Ki save DC ( 8 + your proficiency bonus + your
Wisdom modifier )
Completing the Form
Immediately after you use Flurry of Blows on your turn, you
can spend 1 ki point to make an additional unarmed strike or
weapon attack as a bonus action.
Patient Defense
You may spend 1 ki point to adopt a defensive stance as a
bonus action. Until the start of your next turn, any attack roll
made against you has disadvantage if you can see the
attacker, and you make Dexterity saving throws with
advantage. You lose this benefit if you are incapacitated or if
your speed drops to 0.
Step of the Wind
You may use a bonus action or spend 1 ki point to move like
the wind. Until the end of the turn, your movement speed is
doubled and you do not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Unarmored Movement
Starting at 2nd level, your speed increases by 10 feet while
you are not wearing armor or wielding a shield. This bonus
increases when you reach certain monk levels, as shown in
the Monk table.
At 9th level, you gain the ability to move along vertical
surfaces and across liquids on your turn without falling
during the move.
Monastic Tradition
When you reach 3rd level, you commit yourself to a monastic
tradition. Your tradition grants you features at 3rd level and
again at 6th, 11th, and 17th level.
Deflect Attacks
Starting at 3rd level, you can use your reaction to deflect and
mitigate damage when you are hit by an attack. When you do
so, the damage you take from the attack is reduced by a roll
of your Martial Arts die + your monk level.
If you reduce the damage from a ranged weapon attack to
0, you may use a free hand to catch the missile. You may then
spend 1 ki point to hurl the missile at a target of your choice
within 60 feet, the missile counts as a monk weapon for you
and deals damage equal to your martial arts die.
If you reduce the damage from a melee weapon attack to 0,
you may spend 1 ki point to make an unarmed strike against
the attacker.
Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and
19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice
by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by
1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20
using this feature.
Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this
feature to take a feat of your choice instead.
Slow Fall
Beginning at 4th level, you can use your reaction when you
fall to reduce any falling damage you take by an amount equal
to five times your monk level.
When you do so you may extend this effect to any creatures
of your choice within 10 feet. For each creature affected this
way, you must spend 1 ki point or reduce the amount of
damage prevented by one times your monk level.
Ki Empowered Strikes
Beginning at 5th level, your unarmed strikes count as magical
for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to
nonmagical attacks and damage. You can use this ki
empowerment to interfere with the flow of ki in an
opponent's body, granting you the follow options which you
may use one of each time you hit a creature with an unarmed
strike or a monk weapon:
Slowing Strike
You may spend 1 ki to slow the flow of their ki. The target
must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be affected as if
by the Slow spell. This effect requires your concentration to
maintain, a creature affected by slowing strike makes an
additional saving throw at the end of each of their turns,
ending the effect on a success.
Stunning Strike
You may spend 1 ki to freeze the flow of their ki. The target
must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be Stunned
until the end of your next turn.
Silencing Strike
You may spend 1 ki to mute the flow of their ki. The target
must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or be muted,
unable to speak or cast spells with verbal components. This
effect requires your concentration to maintain, a creature
affected by silencing strike makes an additional saving throw
at the end of each of their turns, ending the effect on a
success.
Unarmored Movement
At 6th level, your Unarmored Speed speed bonus increases to
15 feet while you are not wearing armor or wielding a shield.
Iron Soul
From 6th level, your ability to endure and react to threats is
enhanced. You may add half your proficiency bonus, rounded
down, to saving throws that you are not proficient in.
Evasion
At 7th level, your instinctive agility lets you dodge out of the
way of certain area effects, such as a blue dragon’s lightning
breath or a fireball spell. When you are subjected to an effect
that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only
half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on
the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.
Stillness of Mind
Starting at 7th level, you can find a moment of calm in the
midst of chaos. As a reaction, you may spend 1 ki point to end
the effects of any charmed or frightened conditions that are
affecting you.
Unarmored Movement
Improvement
At 9th level, you gain the ability to move along vertical
surfaces and across liquids on your turn without falling
during your move.
Purity of Body
At 10th level, mastering your ki makes you immune to
disease, poison and poison damage.
Unarmored Movement
At 10th level, your Unarmored Speed speed bonus increases
to 20 feet while you are not wearing armor or wielding a
shield.
Tongue of the Sun and
Moon
Starting at 13th level, you learn to touch the ki of other minds
so that you understand all spoken languages. Moreover, any
creature that can understand a language can understand
what you say.
Diamond Soul
Beginning at 14th level, your mastery of ki grants you
protection. Instead of half-proficiency, you now have full
proficiency in all saving throws.
Additionally, whenever you make a saving throw and fail,
you can spend 1 ki point to reroll it and take the second
result.
Unarmored Movement
At 14th level, your Unarmored Speed speed bonus increases
to 25 feet while you are not wearing armor or wielding a
shield.
Timeless Body
At 15th level, your ki sustains you so that you suffer none of
the frailty of old age, and you can’t be aged magically. You can
still die of old age, however. In addition, you no longer need
food or water.
Empty Body
Beginning at 18th level, you can use your action to spend 4 ki
points to become invisible for 1 minute. During that time, you
also have resistance to all damage but force damage.
Additionally, you can spend 8 ki points to cast the astral
projection spell, without needing material components. When
you do so, you can’t take any other creatures with you.
Unarmored Movement Perfect Self
At 18th level, your Unarmored Speed speed bonus increases At 20th level, when you roll for initiative and have fewer than
to 30 feet while you are not wearing armor or wielding a 20 ki points, you gain a number of ki points equal to your
shield. wisdom modifier.

The Monk
Proficiency Martial Arts Flurry of Blows Ki Unarmored
Level Bonus Class Features Die Attacks Points Movement
1st +2 Martial Arts, Flurry of Blows 1d4 2 - -
2nd +2 Channeling Ki, Unarmored 1d4 2 2 +10 ft.
Movement
3rd +2 Monastic Tradition, Deflect 1d4 2 3 +10 ft.
Attacks
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement, Slow 1d4 2 4 +10 ft.
Fall
5th +3 Ki Empowered Strikes 1d6 3 5 +10 ft.
6th +3 Monastic Tradition Feature 1d6 3 6 +15 ft.
7th +3 Evasion, Stillness of Mind 1d6 3 7 +15 ft.
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement 1d6 3 8 +15 ft.
9th +4 Unarmored Movement 1d6 4 9 +15 ft.
Improvement
10th +4 Purity of Body 1d6 4 10 +20 ft.
11th +4 Monastic Tradition Feature 1d8 4 11 +20 ft.
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement 1d8 4 12 +20 ft.
13th +5 Tongue of the Sun and Moon 1d8 5 13 +20 ft.
14th +5 - 1d8 5 14 +25 ft.
15th +5 Timeless Body 1d8 5 15 +25 ft.
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement 1d8 5 16 +25 ft.
17th +6 Monastic Tradition Feature 1d10 6 17 +25 ft.
18th +6 Empty Body 1d10 6 18 +30 ft.
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement 1d10 6 19 +30 ft.
20th +6 Perfect Self 1d10 6 20 +30 ft.
Monastic Traditions
Obviously, restructuring the core of the monk class to make
flurry of blows central has a knock on affect on the various
monastic traditions. Especially affected are those traditions
that have abilities triggered by flurry of blows or that rely on
the existence of extra attack. Below are my suggestions for
how to tweak monastic traditions to suit the Revised Monk.
Way of the Drunken
Master
The drunken master leans on the RAW monk's Flurry of
Blows to trigger their abilities. Luckily, these abilities do not
hinge on it being two attacks specifically.
Drunken Technique
At 3rd level, you learn how to twist and turn quickly as part of
your Flurry of Blows. Whenever you Complete the , you gain
the benefit of the Disengage action, and your walking speed
increases by 10 feet until the end of the current turn.
Intoxicated Frenzy
At 17th level, you gain the ability to make an overwhelming
number of attacks against a group of enemies. Immediately
after you perform a Flurry of Blows, you may spend 1 ki point
to perform another Flurry of Blows as a bonus action
provided that each attack in the additional flurry targets a
different creature.
Way of the Kensei
Kensei monks take proficiency in specific types of weapons to
complement their martial arts. The Revised Kensei without
tweaks will find themselves (depending on your reading)
either skipping out on Flurry of Blows entirely, or easily
triggering Agile Parry every round at no cost.
The choice for tweaks here was how much to integrate the
Kensei's weapon abilities into the core Flurry. My current
recommended tweaks are:
At 3rd level, add "When you perform a Flurry of Blows, you
may replace one unarmed strike with a Kensei Weapon
Attack." to the Kensei Weapons feature. Additionally, use
these tweaked versions of Agile Parry and Kensei's Shot.
Agile Parry
When you perform a Flurry of Blows on your turn and are
holding a melee kensei weapon, you may sacrifice one of your
unarmed strikes to defend yourself with the 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 extra damage of the weapon’s type equal to a roll of
your martial arts die. You retain this benefit until the end of
the current turn.
At 17th level, replace Unerring Accuracy with:
Flurry of Blades
At 17th level, you wield weapons with a speed and accuracy
that cannot be rivaled. When you perform a Flurry of Blows
you may replace as many of the unarmed strikes as you wish
with Kensei Weapon Attacks.
Way of the Open Hand
The only real issue for the Open Hand is the application of
their Open Hand Technique. Allowing it to apply to all attacks
in a flurry would be a powerful upgrade, but applying it to
only Completing the Form would half its potential
effectiveness. I decided to aim for reliability.
Open Hand Technique
Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, your
martial arts naturally benefit from the flow of ki within you.
The first time you hit a creature with an unarmed strike on
your turn, you may impose one of the following effects on
them:
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.
Way of the Sun Soul
The Sun Soul needs very little tweaking when you consider
that Flurry of Blows is still the 'Attack' action. None-the-less,
the Revised Monk makes their capstone ability unexciting,
and Radiant Sun Bolt contains a lot of unnecessary words for
a Revised Monk.
Radiant Sun Bolt
Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you can
hurl searing bolts of magical radiance.
This special attack is a ranged spell attack with a range of
30 feet. You are proficient with it, and you add your Dexterity
modifier to its attack and damage rolls. Its damage is radiant,
and its damage die is a d4. This die changes as you gain
monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the
Monk table.
This special attack may replace any unarmed strikes you
make, including those of your flurry of blows.
Sun Shield
At 17th level, you become wreathed in a luminous, magical
aura. You shed bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light
for an additional 30 feet. You can extinguish or restore the
light as a bonus action.
If a creature hits you with a melee attack while this light
shines, you can use your reaction to attempt to blind that
creature. They must succeed on a Constitution saving throw
or be blinded until the end of your next turn.
 Monastic Traditions
Changes from Raw (Update since 2.2) Added tweaks and alternate abilities for
Martial Arts some Monastic Traditions; the Drunken Master, Kensei, Open
Removed the glorified dual weapon fighting aspect of martial Hand, and Sun Soul.
arts, in favour of the next change.
Flurry of Blows The Boring Bits
The core of the revision, Flurry of Blows is now a class Revisions and New Design
feature that allows the monk to put out a sensible amount of
damage with reasonable scaling. This change makes them DarkAbyssKeeper
feel distinct from other martials by focusing them on a
greater number of weaker strikes. Cover Art
Channeling Ki DM's Guild Creator Content
Changed Step of the Wind to bring it more in line with the
intended purpose of battlefield mobility for a purpose.
Requiring a bonus action or a ki point, the monk can combine Layout
it with other options, at a cost. Completing the Form is the Eternally grateful to use the Homebrewery.
thematic counter to RAW flurry of blows, allowing monk
weapons to be used to finish a round of attacks.
Deflect Attacks
Comments and Critique
Pretty simple change here. Retaliatory strikes just feel 100% The discord communities of The Dungeon Coach and
in the monk's wheelhouse, spending ki to use them is a Treantmonk.
limiting factor. (Update since 2.2, changed to martial arts + Special thanks to pagnabros and DMTip.
level in consideration of the damage output of creatures
you're likely to fight at each level.) Playtesting
Extra Attack If you decide to give this revised class a go in your games,
Removed from the class, its inclusion would muddy up the please let me know how it performs. Feedback is always
new Flurry of Blows feature. This is potentially more appreciated.
detrimental to a Kensei than other sub-classes.
Ki Empowered Strikes Legal
Moved the magical damage down one level. Added more DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, Wizards of the Coast,
options for the types of strikes to use against enemies, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Eberron, the dragon
providing more options than 'hope the target has poor ampersand, Ravnica and all other Wizards of the Coast
constitution'. The incentive for using these strikes over product names, and their respective logos are trademarks of
stunning strikes is that they last longer and target more Wizards of the Coast in the USA and other countries.
reliably exploited saves. This work contains material that is copyright Wizards of
the Coast and/or other authors. Such material is used with
Slow Fall permission under the Community Content Agreement for
Another potential outlet for ki points. Dungeon Masters Guild.
All other original material in this work is copyright 2020 by
Iron Soul DarkAbyssKeeper and published under the Community
Gives monks their untouchable feel sooner than 14th level. Content Agreement for Dungeon Masters Guild.
Stillness of Mind
Stillness of mind costs your action to trigger and generally
feels a little bad, even when it's relevant. For this situational
ability, I've added a ki cost but made it something that can be
done without expending much action economy.
Purity of Body
Less of a change and more of a wording clarification.
According to sage advice, this feature grants immunity to
poison damage. This is now spelled out explicityly.
Perfect Self
Now regains ki if you have less than maximum, rather than
actually literally zero.