aripockily
patreon
[Skies] Monk - Way of the Dancing Wind
🕑 Added 2023-02-20 15:04:59 +0000 UTCMonks of the Way of Dancing Wind hone their discipline from observing the flow of the wind, unrestrained in its freedom yet devastating when properly shaped and harnessed.
---
Monk was a natural choice for a sky theme, the other being the Druid. Most other full casters were not Wisdom-based, and those that were already had some sort of existing sky flavored subclass. And I already did a ton of rangers in September. Monks already had a bunch of movement-based features in their kit that allowed for vertical traversal and fall protection.
While approaching this subclass, I was cognizant of the variety of features and options I could implement. In the end, I decided to avoid magical effects like gust of wind, as ki-casting was already a niche occupied by a dedicated Four Elements monk. I focused on the more mystical embodiment rather than arcane - to learn from wind rather than absorb its power.
Subclass design was actually quite the challenge. As the 5e gamespace developed, monks slowly began to fall behind, causing designers to add different types of features and focuses to newer subclass iterations. I wanted to address some of those issues without diverging too far from the core rulebook. The monk follows a typical design: a moderately strong 3rd-level feature that benefits the existing monk kit, a roleplay or utility-focused feature for 6th level, and a strong boost at 11th level and even stronger one at 17th level to coincide with the power spikes.
Overall, this monk is designed to excel at mobility and avoiding damage, as the wind does. Whereas the base monk requires steady ki expenditure to augment either the hit or run tactics, the Way of the Dancing Wind offers some free alternatives.
Let's take a look at the features and their break-downs:
- Disciple of Air (1). The first part is a flavor feature for the Dancing Wind monk, allowing you to excel at Nature or Performance (since you either study or embody the wind). The Wisdom bonus helps mitigate that both skills don't use Wisdom.
- Disciple of Air (2). The second part is a moderate addition that allows you to attack while you Dash or Dodge. There's a couple ways to use this: either use your action to Dodge/Dash and make 1 attack for low damage and long-term sustain because there's no ki cost, or use Step of the Wind after attacking to leave while squeezing in an extra strike (instead of using Flurry of Blows to maximize damage).
Note that because Disengage is not part of this feature, you'd still risk an opportunity attack; note that the monk must be within melee range to make this strike when they Dodge or Dash; note that this unarmed strike does not count as an Attack action and would not trigger the monk's off-hand bonus action unarmed strike when used, and therefore ends up trading offense for evasion.
In practice, this works best as a tanking feature, forcing enemies to attack you at disadvantage while you Dodge, though tactics that reduces your damage dealt don't quite help in combat because most of the time, your party benefits more from the enemy dying faster. - Strike of the Gale. This is primarily a damage feature and most closely matches the Mercy monk (due to its extra damage), but with an important distinction: the Wind monk must use the ki point before making the attack, meaning a missed attack wastes the ki point.
This feature combos well with Disciple of Air, since you'd be able to extend your reach if you're too far from an enemy when you use that feature. It's also good for the hit-and-run build, since you don't need to Disengage. - Step of the Nimbus. This feature is similar to the Dragon Monk's Wings Unfurled, granting a "flight" until the end of your turn (the Wind monk can do something similar, but flavored as literal multiple "steps on the wind"). The flaw of a single-turn flight is you'd rarely get to use it for exploration purposes, so I also added bonus movement whenever you use this feature. The bonus is minor, but again helps the hit-and-run build since you'd also benefit if you Disengaged via SotW.
- Path of the Wayward Breeze. This feature lets attacks push you away. It helps you disengage and move even more than you already do, at the cost of damage. If you're lucky enough that an enemy has spent all their movement reaching you, you could prevent the rest of its multiattacks.
- Zephyr Ascendant. A couple of improvements to help your monk do well. Dance of Storms help you truly run a hit-and-run monk, allowing you to Disengage and hit for free every turn (with your bonus action intact). Flurry of the Gale grants efficiency and a guarantee to your Strike of the Gale expenditure.
I didn't have much playtest for this (who has the time to do that in a month anyway?) so I'd love to hear some feedback. Some features scrapped to avoid overbloat included improvements to Slow Fall (extending these benefits to allies), Deflect Missile, and a climb speed.
If you used this in a game, please comment here and let me know how it went! How does it compare?
![[Skies] Monk - Way of the Dancing Wind](https://img5.patrefans.com/storage/1/gm/ph/563145-019e84be-95f3-7f58-a92d-bf1197a85e76.png)
