The Graceful Clothes are actually a little bit more complicated than that. They give the wearer 2 dex, but also limit the dex armour bonus to +2. So an attack and damage bonus for monks, but an AC penalty.
Depends on the monk's WIS score, as their Unarmored Defense feature adds their WIS bonus and their DEX bonus to AC. So for monks not focusing on DEX it's highly effective.
All in all I think there are way too many magic items, especially powerful ones. I just hope the game isn't balanced to strongly around them, as I have little to no inclination to use them.
Not at all. Monks *need* dex for attack and damage. The only way this is useful is if it stacks with the Gloves of Dexterity, in which case you can totally dump DEX, but that would be a complete respec trick, as you wouldn't want to play the early game like that.
It allows you to get 18 dex to 20 from 4 and then get your wis from 16 to 20 at levels 8 and 12. But before then you're still losing 2 points of ac from dex, so it will be a trade off most of the game . I think it's a fair one though. It will only balance out at level 12 when your wis is max. If it stacks with the gloves, it's incredible obviously.
