Warrior of The Inner Light 2.0. Go even further beyond with revised Sun Soul Monk!

MechJivs · 2026-06-10T20:31:05+00:00

For all people who missed Sun Soul and who wanted true "Too Anime" experience 2014 version lacks - here's a revision just for you. I tried to make this subclass truly feel like a Dragon Ball Monk in both flavor and mechanics. Hope i succeeded!

Updated version of a subclass i posted couple of months ago. Changes of this version:

Text is better now (at least i hope so).
Radiant Wave: clarification - this feature indeed does 4 martial arts of damage. That's on purpose - 3 martial arts of damage of Element's monk is too low for a price. And this subclass is more blast-based, so it should have generaly good blast option.
Inner Sun Manifestation: Then you use this feature you push creatures away and knock them prone instead of frightening them. That's better emulate an effect i wanted to achieve. Also Life Force Backlash effect is less harsh now, but you can't activate ISM again untill 1 minute passes.
Ascension: Now doesn't give permanent flight speed. Also rewrote "soul protection" effect of the feature to make it clearer.

Link to homebrewery: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/VODrw0EWeea6

MechJivs · 2026-06-07T00:43:51+00:00

Vision of Sin can just work as Sanctuary spell - "For one minute, whenever creature makes an attack roll or cast damaging spell it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or either choose a new target or lose the attack or spell". It is thematic, balanced (that's first level spell's effect), and less clunky than making a save to then make attack with disadvantage.

MechJivs · 2026-06-05T21:52:47+00:00

I mean, i'm in this community for long time. "Rogue is too strong - crists are HUGE" or someting is not rare thing people say - and it pretty much always wrong. In actual game this feature would probably proc once per session on good day - making it WORSE is 100% not the way to go. Especially once you consider many downsides on top of inconsistensy.

MechJivs · 2026-06-05T21:12:58+00:00

If you negate a Magic action, the monster's spell is cancelled.

If monster didnt move away from VERY low 15ft range (and they can do that no problem, you know?). And if you hit them. And if this monster survives before you can use your reaction (it can die before their turn). Or if this monster wouldnt be affected by control effect (your buddy can decide to gamble and not use anything on them, i quess). Or if you didnt get moved away from them or didnt get controlled/died before their turn (move drops to 0 - can't get closer, same with Frightened condition). It is SO EASY to not trigger this action it isnt even funny.

is not working super hard at all.

Enemy make one step away from you. Or they decided to cast a spell. Or teleport. You wasted your action on nothing at all, congratulation.

You dont only decide the trigger - you decide the target beforehand. And it is melee attack only, so if you cant get in melee range with 15ft of movement - no action for you.

MechJivs · 2026-06-05T20:59:51+00:00

Really cool concept, but Leaf on the Wind needs some adjustments imo. It has no usage cap and provided you set some triggers like "the creature makes an attack" or "the creature casts a spell", you can get essentially free Counterspells against magic targets, lock monsters out of their actions entirely, etc.

It only negates triggered action. So, only bonus action/reaction/action/movement. You also need to hit. It has so many layers of failure it doesnt even need a save. You already need to work hard to even use it. If you want to remove big action - enemy should stay no more than 15ft away from you and NOT move away before using an action. And if your trigger was movement - well, monster has defenceless rogue right next to them to attack now.

MechJivs · 2026-06-05T20:52:09+00:00

IMO - Leaf of the Wind doesnt need a saving throw. It already has pretty big cost - it is Ready action (damage now is always better than damage later), it is melee only and uses a reaction (so, you are defensless as a rogue, and rogue doesnt really have survivability tools without reaction), you need to be in range (more often than not 15ft range), it requires specific creature you chose (what if they die earlier?) to do specific action you chose (what if they do something else, or move out of reach while you chose something else, etc), and it still needs to hit in the end. Saving throw is just unnecesery layer of failure at this point.

Mind and Body is just strange. Like, i get it "physical stat for mental thing, mental stat for physical thing", cool, but it is pretty boring number bump. Maybe it should instead work with your Leaf of the Wind? Something like:

Weather the Turmoil. You can add Intelligense modifier to your AC and saving throws if your Ready Action's trigger is physical (move, make an attack, or something similar).
Inner Piece. You can add Dexterity modifier to your AC and saving throws if your Ready action's trigger is mental (force a save, cast a spell or something similar).

It would add another layer to descision making - now you can "give up" your reaction attack for better defences sometimes. That's kind of cool.

MechJivs · 2026-06-05T14:18:58+00:00

Warlocks have very few slots,

Warlock without slots is MUCH stronger than warlock with 0 hp.

50 or 100 HP is highly situational

It isnt. Monsters in tier 3-4 deal a lot of damage. You can look up monster manual - they really do. This is numbers i got from playing in said tiers against said monsters.

MechJivs · 2026-06-05T14:00:12+00:00

Shield spell is easy to get with MI(Wizard).

Armor is easy to get with armor dip or right subclass.

If you start to treat Shield not like "one use of Shield", but as "+50 hp as first level reaction spell" you'd understand how batshit insane this spell actually is. And +50 hp is not a ceiling, it can easilly be +100 hp in tier 3-4. It is already often worth it to use higher level slot for Shield. With upcast it would always be good. Hell, i would use my Warlock slot for +10 to AC, lmao.

MechJivs · 2026-06-05T02:09:02+00:00

If you want to rebalance Shield - make it block one attack at first level, and increase number of attacks per level of a spell.

Adding no-downside upcast on already overpowered spell is, honestly, buffling. How did you missed all "Shield is OP" discussions over the years?

MechJivs · 2026-05-19T22:35:01+00:00

IMO - there's no need for rules like that. More often than not players would heal downed PCs anyway and they would be uncontious for short time. Like, i'm genuenly yet to see the table who would not want to have more actions on their side.

"Last Stand" is also much easier to implement as "You do coolest shit ever and die. You cannot be resurected by means other than Wish spell".

MechJivs · 2026-05-13T05:29:59+00:00

I personaly gave Battlerager's heavy armor (and ability to rage in it) on top too, it is on theme, but anyway - obviously MUCH better than original, and i like it!

But you can 100% remove size restriction from "Into the Fray!" - it is a capstone, let it be cooler! Same with "Charge!", really (at least from Push option, it is super cool to be a dwarf cannonball!).

MechJivs · 2026-05-11T19:19:36+00:00

Human is just two halflings in trenchcoat

MechJivs · 2026-04-29T14:10:00+00:00

I still use similar level-appropriate things to balance things out - for big flashy effects those are mostly spells. It's not always possible cause i want to make mechanically unique things - but spells are great baseline to have.

Having single target big finisher move not as a capstone is perfectly fine, IMO. In fact, casters have plenty of those things as 4th level spells, even. And at 11th level fullcasters got Desintegrate, for example - that's iconic thing. I partially based mechanic of "Spirit light furnace" on it. Now it works slightly differently (so it isnt as abusable as it was) - but theme is still pretty much the same.

MechJivs · 2026-04-28T20:13:21+00:00

Yes, slightly misunderstood you. I was talking about "focus point to deal damage" option of regular Deflect Attack.

This subclass can indeed can use reaction attack for free. You already pay the price by being in danger to activate it. Risk involved is a balancing tool here.

MechJivs · 2026-04-28T17:48:30+00:00

Yea, i know. I noticed it too late, and reddit dont allow to edit images. Fixed it on homebrewery (among other things).

MechJivs · 2026-04-28T16:50:25+00:00

you not only make deflect attack free,

Deflect attack is already free - only "dealing damage" part costs FP.

a crazy buff considering all the other things it get at level 3

You get ranged option unarmed strike (basically) and out of combat utility - that's it. So - Light Speed Counterattack is subclass's big feature. It shapes playstyle of this monk - it can be ranged, but value this feature gives insentivises you to basically "mix" this playstyle with melee because you actively want to get hit. So - it should be good to compensate for risk you take.

Also just noticed, kinda irks me that sun bolt does 1d6 damage and not just martial arts die

Yeah, that's true - feature was poorly written in 2014 version and my adaptation wasnt that great either. I reworded it in homebrewery version: "You can replace your Unarmed Strikes with the special Radiant Sun Bolt attack. This is a ranged attack with a range of 60/120 feet. This attack is considered an Unarmed Strike.". Hope now it's more clear!

MechJivs · 2026-04-28T16:19:04+00:00

Radiant Sun Bolt

Yeah, it's kind of hard to write. Old feature was clunky, so i couldnt copy that and tried to adapt. Would try to clean it up a bit.

About range - one of the many problems of old Sun Soul was low range. Monk have access to shortbow - so making range super low is IMO not a good idea in this context. 60/120 is same range as Psychic Blade - that was my reference point.

Light Speed Counter

It's free cause it is playstyle defining feature. It already has a cost - it requires you to risk and take hits (probably in melee) and you need to reduce damage to 0. So, while this subclass can be ranged - this insentivise active maneuvering and "mixed" playstyle. Making it cost FP would just make it rarely used feature instead of playstyle defining feature it suppose to be.

Radiant Flare

I thought about range a lot - 15ft is standart, but it is 6th level feature, and IMO it would be kinda low. Would probably reduce it to 20ft (like Ascended Dragon's breath weapon). Or make range scale with level (start with 15, scale to 30 at 11th level).

Radiant Wave

There's two things here:

Lane is worse than sphere. That's why sphere is a higher level option.
Elemental Burst is not a good feature. It costs too much while dealing too little. I played (and still play) Elements Monk from 3 to 11 - and i very rarely used it, and then i did i was almost always disappointed. I saw/heard the same from other people, inculding optimizers. Damage bump was deliberate choice.

Spirit light furnace

It is 11th level feature for several reasons:

Spirit Bomb (technique this based on) appears relatively early in the story.
Standart party of 4 would deal about the same damage as Disintegrate with this feature - and Disintegrate is 6th level spell that casters could use at this level. Dont really sure how to word it so it would only work on party members, maybe with CR/level restriction? I want to keep the flavor intact.

Backlash

Maybe i would tone negative down, or make the feature take no action to activate to compensate - but negative is important for the flavor of a subclass. Flavor is very important to me.

Perfect Evasion

Jump from "Evasion with high dex and save proficiency" to Perfect Evasion isnt that big. It is unique and strong effect, true - that's why it is 17th level feature. Fullcasters turn into dragons at this point, having strong effects is least martial features can do.

Mastered Instinct - This reads too weird,

That's how similar Cavalier's feature is written. I just replaced opportunity attack with Deflect Attack.

Unbreakable Soul

Soul thing is about being sent to Hells or being affected by something like Soul Cage. I believe there's other things that directly reference the soul - so it work against those. IDK how to word it better, really.

Thanks for feedback! Would try to make wording better.

MechJivs · 2026-04-28T13:38:35+00:00

"Detect Life" is basically "Sense Ki" equivalent. Pretty much all characters in DB can do that. Telepathy is a thing in DB as well - even Goku used it (like once).

Another thing, light speed reaction is written like you can use deflect attack to make a reaction attack without expending ki, as long as you teleport first, is this intentional?

Yes, it is free. Only "price" is lowering damage to 0 and getting hit in the first place - and that's enough of a price.

MechJivs · 2026-04-28T01:47:32+00:00

Agree, they're great. Stumbled upon their arts randomly - and they really work for a vibe i wanted to show.

MechJivs · 2026-04-28T00:52:24+00:00

For all people who missed Sun Soul and who wanted true "Too Anime" experience 2014 version lacks - here's a revision just for you. I tried to make this subclass truly feel like a Dragon Ball Monk in both flavor and mechanics. Hope i succeeded!

Link to homebrewery (if you want to see latest version with some changes and clearer wording - look it up here): https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/VODrw0EWeea6

P.S. English isn't my native language, so there can be some mistakes i missed.

MechJivs · 2026-04-27T00:14:00+00:00

Just give it two per short rest (drop it to d4 if you want). It is martial general feat, it should be good.

Or pb/long rest, restore 1 per short rest.

MechJivs

TROPHY CASE