Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback A polite suggestion for monk.

My proposed rework for monk in Baldurs gate 3

After taking in many complaints about monk as a player and a DM and playing dungeons and dragons for over 30 years now. I have a balance suggestion for monk.
Change Martial arts as follows:
Flurry of Blows: When taking the attack action if a monk is wielding a monk weapon they may make an additional attack with that monk weapon OR if unarmed may make 2 additional unarmed strikes as a bonus action. These additional attacks do not add their attribute bonus to damage.
Evasive Maneuvers: you may use a bonus action to give yourself +2 AC and give all attackers disadvantage to hit you until the end of your next turn.
Efficient footwork: you may use your bonus action to Dash and choose one enemy that cannot perform attacks of opportunity on you.

Monk unarmed damage no longer scales past 1d8 (one handed weapons) have it scale at the same rate to 1d6 to match rogue but double the time they spend at 1d6 and have 1d8 replace the 1d10 levels for scaling.
Monks can wear hand wraps that can affect or alter unarmed damage allowing them to interact fairly with magic weapon and such spells. Monks unarmed strikes are once again considered weapons for spell interactions and wraps can be enchanted just like any other weapon. And can now interact with many other class features and feats allowing for drastically more build diversity.

Change stunning fist as follows:
(2ki) for the rest of this turn your attacks gain the stunning quality. At the end of your turn each enemy you have successfully hit must make a constitution savings throw against your monk save DC with a +1 to that DC for each time you struck them this turn or be stunned until the end of your next turn.

Allow monks to choose an archetype at lvl 1 much like a cleric with the following changes and provide them with 1 ki point every other level rounding up.
Open hand(lvl1) : your unarmed strikes add their attribute bonus (choose strength or dexterity whichever is higher) and you may spend one ki point when making a flurry of blows to add one additional unarmed strike attack to the effect.

Way of the four elements(lvl1): Make them full spellcasters based on wisdom, and their unarmed damage does not scale higher than a d6 and scales to it slower. However, provide them with lvl 1 spells that are bonus actions that include martial arts bonus attacks / attacks and add +1d4 elemental damage to each hit for that round and the next the dice scale up if cast at higher levels. Theme their other spells on the elemental spells from each type of spellcaster. (burning hands, searing smite ect.) including cantrips. or spells that could be explained by an elemental effect like jump being linked to wind.

Way of Shadow(lvl1) Gain proficiency in stealth or if already proficient from skill selection gain expertise in stealth, you can see in normal and magical darkness without penalty. At higher levels (maybe 4-5) give them access to sneak attack as a lvl 1 rogue(Stacking with any rogue levels aka 5 shadow+2 rogue is the same as a lvl 3 rogue for sneak attack).

The main problem I have seen with monk on a grand scale is that they are presently designed to interact with other classes at an absolute minimum. The builds due to this are very limited. Monk ac is basically capped much lower than other classes and other classes have much quicker access to ac buffing and damage buffing items, and at maximum level they suffer from not being able to obtain extra damage dice from weapon enchantments and spells like magic weapon drastically enhancing hit chance.
These changes are designed to allow drastically more monk builds by allowing interaction with other classes for multiclassing, and also with spells from themselves or allies. As well as causing more feat interactions such as dual wielder, fighting styles, and many others.
I would as a suggestion if you are going to go to lvl 20 in a sequel also maybe provide monk with a capstone like barbarian where wisdom and dexterity can move their cap up to 24 and they gain 4 of each. and have quivering palm work like my outlined stunning fist allowing it to work as a crowd clearer or as a single target takedown.

Some suggestions for equipment you may want to put in the game :
(Wraps are one handed weapons and a different wrap can be added to each hand your primary hand does any extra attacks past the “offhand” attack. Or alternatively you could program it to alternate back and forth)
Katars/Spiked wraps: causes 1 bleed from each hit of an unarmed strike capping at 3 each +1 to these weapons add to hit/damage and bleed cap. Changes unarmed damage type to Piercing/slashing
Cestus/Dastanas: Provides +1 ac and changes damage type to bludgeoning/Slashing respectively and raises the difficulty to disarm the monk by 2.
Ninja Claws: Provides a +2 to climb and changes as well as a +2 to disarm checks. Changes damage type to slashing for unarmed strikes. Enchanting these wraps provides attack damage and +1 to the skills it affects.
Longdeath wraps: Delivers 1 cold damage on each unarmed strike +1 and higher versions of this wrap add cold damage instead of physical damage.
Yellow rose Monastery wraps : delivers 1 thunder damage per unarmed strike +1 and higher versions of this item add thunder damage instead of physical damage.
Spiritual Cloth wraps : +2dc to the save difficulty of monk abilities and proficiency in wisdom saving throws.

Clothes:
Padded Gi: reduce the damage you receive from slashing/piercing/bludgeoning by 1, increase your AC by +1
Weighted sleeve Gi : Changes the reach of unarmed strikes to 10 feet. And adds 1 damage to those unarmed strikes. They can be considered ranged attacks.

The main idea I have here is to allow monk some cheap mundane ac if they want it but they have to trade damage for it. Also the weapons by default do not really add much to the monks damage, this also makes more of a meaningful choice between wielding a bigger damage monk weapon like a staff for versatile vs unarmed combat where in the current system there is no reason to not use a staff and unarmed afterwards in the bonus attacks. This also provides more of a “Thematic or sensible reason” for unarmed strikes to be “enchantable”, if completely unable to have their weapons (fancy party) just provide them a default handwrap that has no effect on hit or damage or damage type. Presently monk is very pidgeon holed into being either pure monk, monk/barb, monk/warlock, monk/pal, or monk/druid and really only specific subsets of these classes interact positively many of the class combo archetypes are actually much worse than just playing a pure version of the class being multiclass into(tavern brawler barbarian being one of the most obvious). Now with these changes warrior becomes much more interesting, as do many other archetypes, such as four elements mixing with cleric as more of a spellcaster support. There is no longer a reason to make monks abilities separated from other class abilities. Might be better for clarity to change the name of dual wielder to ambidextrous fighting style or something similar. With more equipment options mundanely affecting the monk a monk could choose to be a much bulkier front line fighter in trade for damage.
Also due to the differences between sneak attack and flurry it should put the monk solidly between normal front liners like barbarian and fighter but still below the rogue for damage. As the monk will have to successfully hit each time times whereas each time the rogue connects a sneak attack they get “their extra hits for free”. Although a little durability is available it shouldn’t overshadow fighter with heavy armor master, or a raging barbarian. Multiclassing options should allow the monk to “do what they want” by moving into say warlock to be a damage dealer (hex+ unarmed flurry), interacting better with smites, and cleric spells. Or going for fighter to benefit from fighting styles on attack or defense. Since shadow monks gain expertise, they can interact with and combo with rogue better but not overshadow the rogue itself as the “sneak attack and skill guy”. possibly see some green flame blade quarterstaff monks running around too ....