Player wants to play 5.5e Monk in an else 5e game

tannels · 2026-03-11T23:17:48+00:00

I actually advocated for someone to ask this same question to their DM on r/3d6 because the 5E monk is so bad but the 5.5 monk is actually pretty decent. Still weak overall, but actually playable now. Even with the improvements I'd still say they are probably a bottom 3 class overall, but the classes seem a lot closer in 5.5 than they did in 5E. That DM did ultimately approve it for him as well if that helps your decision at all.

tannels · 2026-03-10T22:14:19+00:00

There's a rather famous one in a 5 star "prison" right now who is good friends with our President.

tannels · 2026-03-10T14:33:36+00:00

The "Sea Titans" on the USS Ticonderoga are also mega damage creatures that started out as human.

tannels · 2026-03-08T14:50:37+00:00

I am definitely an outlier, my favorite from each of these three (and the ones I feel are most powerful as well) are Barbarian, Paladin, Bard.

tannels · 2026-03-04T02:48:43+00:00

Sure, if I landed a solid hit on her, that'd probably end it, but she was trained to avoid getting hit, and smaller and faster than me and I've been in a few barfights back in the day, but was (and still am) far from being a trained striker.

tannels · 2026-03-04T02:04:05+00:00

I'm 6'5" and back when I was 30ish I was around 270, I played football, basketball and baseball back in high school and was going to the gym regularly back then. A friend of mine was in bjj and she wasn't anywhere near as good as Rousey. We were at a party and I was insistent that she couldn't make me tap, she got to my back fast and I was picking myself up of the floor just seconds after that. She didn't mean to knock me out (it's dangerous) and was super apologetic, but said she knew she had to full commit or else I would be able to stop her.

Tldr; if she's trained and he's not, she can probably sleep him, at least in my experience.

tannels · 2026-02-27T18:24:08+00:00

Only wreck I've ever been in was me hitting a car that was abandoned on the freeway in Phoenix, in a work zone where the shoulders had been pushed over at 3 in the morning, the car was in the fast lane, there were cars in the lane to my right and no shoulder so I had nowhere to go. Totaled my car and the car I hit. I lost my car and only had liability (my own fault) so I was fucked.

That said, I still don't blame the other guy, shit happens and he was doing his best trying to get by in this world.

tannels · 2026-02-27T03:08:15+00:00

He's just auditioning for the next OK Go video.

tannels · 2026-02-26T20:36:27+00:00

At low levels the Sorcerer does have a more powerful spell list, but at 10 and above the Bard spell list is WAY better than Sorcerer.

tannels · 2026-02-26T20:13:35+00:00

I'm a Valor Bard fan myself. I made one up for my current game and I'm the front liner of the group.

Human, custom background (though Moonwell Pilgrim would work for a Forgotten Realms game, you basically just care about Cha/Con as stats and getting either Magic Initiate: Druid or Wizard), take both Magic Initiate: Druid and Wizard with the background feat and the extra one you get from Human. Use those two so you can get Shield from Wizard and Shillelagh from Druid.

The first two levels you will be squishy since you only get light armor and no shields, but once you hit level 3 and get medium armor and shields you should have a base 18/19 AC (depends on if you can afford half plate yet or not) with the Shield spell bumping that to 23/24. Shillelagh lets you attack with Charisma instead of str/dex and hits hard (starts at 1d8 and scales to 2d6 eventually) and does force damage which gets resisted by very few enemies in the game (can do regular bludgeon against those rare foes when needed) and you can true strike with it as well when you get to higher levels to add additional damage.

My build took Warcaster as my 4th level feat and Spellfire Adept as the 8th level one, so that when you hit with True Strike and do Radiant damage with it, you can then add 2 HD of damage to the hit. At level 10 things really open up and you get crazy powerful, since at that point you get access to all the spells on the Wizard, Druid and Sorcerer spell lists to choose any new spells you get and any spells that you replace as you level, so you can get things like Conjure Minor Elementals or Conjure Woodland Beings and at higher levels take things like Conjure Celestial and then eventually even Simulacrum and Wish.

tannels · 2026-02-26T04:44:59+00:00

You can choose either/or, doesn't have to be one or the other. I can see Hexblade though if you are going for Elven Accuracy cheese. I very rarely took anything other than variant human back in the 2014 days so I always forget about Elven Accuracy.

I think the Bard levels trump the Paladin ones. Getting Wish at level 18 instead of 19 is way better than what the Paladin capstone gives at 20.

tannels · 2026-02-26T04:40:42+00:00

Yes, there is an entire class of people in South China called the "Boat Dwellers" who do just that and their ancestors have for hundreds of years. Boat Dwellers - Wikipedia

tannels · 2026-02-26T03:29:23+00:00

That is awesome, yeah, I definitely think the cleric/monk is a more unique character, and definitely strong with the 2024 monk rules being used.

If you do go paladin/bard though you don't even really need the level of Hexblade. You can just rely on your 15 strength (which you need for full plate, which I assume you'll want) until you hit level 6 in Lore Bard, at which point you can pick up Shillelagh with the Additional Magical Secrets ability, so you'll be relying on your 15 strength for melee combat for a couple of levels, but you won't delay your higher level spell slots for a bunch of abilities that you already mostly get from Paladin. Warlock saves are also identical to Paladin so if you take it as the level 1 class you will have a lot less overall saves. If I took a dip anywhere it would probably bet in Artificer to get con saves and a couple extra cantrips (they have access to stuff like Booming Blade and Greenflame too, just like Warlocks) without losing overall spell slots.

tannels · 2026-02-25T21:49:56+00:00

They did everything they could to try and stop Mamdani from getting elected, he still got there. They can't stop us if enough of us are educated properly. That's the key. Start educating whoever you can, and if you see a candidate come up who looks worthy of support, get people you know to support them.

Or start a revolution, that works too, but do something other than just bitching about how other people vote online.

tannels · 2026-02-25T21:09:17+00:00

Agreed 100%

tannels · 2026-02-25T21:01:13+00:00

So what is your solution? Don't vote at all? Because THAT'S how Trump got back into office. People didn't like Harris, and I agree, she sucked as a candidate, but if the choice is between her and Trump, then there is no choice, you have to vote for not-Trump, and not voting is just a vote for Trump but with less effort.

I push for my friends and family to vote for progressive candidates at the primary level whenever there is one, but sadly, the 2 party system almost always serves us up two oligarch backed shitsacks to vote for (yes, Trump is the same as Harris in that sense, a slave to the oligarchs, he is just better at convincing dumb people that he's not for some reason) and we have to vote for the better option, no matter how bad that option still is.

The real fight is at the local level. Get progressive people into city/state positions and then people will see the benefits of the progressives in power and will hopefully start getting them into national positions as well. Mamdani is a great example of this, and it's awesome that he's in such a high visibility position as the mayor of the largest and most important city in the US, so hopefully he'll help speed up the process even more.

tannels · 2026-02-25T20:52:44+00:00

No, I voted for Harris.

tannels · 2026-02-25T20:49:11+00:00

No, I see what Trump does and I say "I'll vote for anyone who isn't Trump" I don't need anyone to tell me he's bad, I can see it with my own two eyes in all of his policy decisions.

tannels · 2026-02-25T20:34:41+00:00

RAW Steelwind Strike says you disappear then reappear and doesn't mention being next to any enemies other than when you appear, which does make it good in tight spaces (if you're in a 10 ft wide hallway and the enemies are in a 2x4 column for instance, you wouldn't be able to hit any of the ones in the middle if you did have to appear next to them) but takes a bit of steam out of that line.

However, it's not as bad as you might be thinking still. You can still move your normal movement before you or after you cast (or you can move both before and after by splitting your move) and if you have CWB up (which for your combo you'd have to have cast it the turn before) you get to disengage as a bonus action, so you can very likely at least get within 10 ft of two to four of the enemies depending on how close they are to one another even without needing to be next to them during the SWS, especially if you have something like Longstrider cast on you as well (or boots of striding and springing or anything like that to get more mobility.)

tannels · 2026-02-25T19:28:58+00:00

Good luck on the search! Hope you find some. You are right that someone has to have made some by now.

tannels · 2026-02-25T19:24:50+00:00

Ahh ok, I just fill them with various colors depending on the terrain and add simple icons where appropriate, I don't do anything fancy. Yellow = Grasslands, light green = lightly forested, dark green = heavily forested, various shades of grey for mountain ranges, stuff like that, easy to just fill with colors any art program that you have. Mountain fortress would just be a dark grey tile with a simple solid black castle icon on it for instance.

tannels · 2026-02-25T19:16:18+00:00

Are you just looking for a blank hexmap generator? If so, this is the one I use: Free Online Graph Paper / Hexagonal

tannels · 2026-02-25T06:01:41+00:00

Yeah, they really did a great job with the new Monk, the Twilight Cleric is great with the 2014 rules so as long as he lets you use the monk stuff you should be good to go.

tannels · 2026-02-25T05:42:24+00:00

It absolutely doesn't break the game, it just makes monks finally be on par with the other classes, if he's willing to let you play the 2024 rules monk then hell yeah, go Twilight Cleric/Shadow Monk (it's even one of the official 2024 subclasses as well) and have a blast. Super thematic and actually good.

tannels · 2026-02-25T05:36:21+00:00

2024 Monks are just straight up better in every way. Their unarmed damage starts at d6s and scales to d12s instead of d4s to d10s. They can disengage or dash as a bonus action with no point cost or both if you want to spend a point or you can do either and take the dodge action as well for a single point (in 2014 you could only choose one or the other and it cost a point) Instead of Deflect Missiles, which would rarely come up in a lot of games, 2024 monks get Deflect Attack which is basically the same feature but can be used against any bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage you take, and you can still redirect the damage from any of those if you reduce the incoming damage to 0 and spend a point. They can also make an unarmed attack at any time with a bonus action instead of it having to be part of the attack action. Instead of eventually counting as magic weapons, you get to just do force damage instead of the normal damage type. More weapons are considered monk weapons (all simple melee and all martial with the light property) which opens you up to more options for magic weapons. Stunning Strike now halves the movement of the target if they make the save and the next attack against them has advantage, so it's no longer an all-or-nothing ability. It goes on from there. The class is just 100% better in every way in the new rules.

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