I will be running a campaign and one of my players wants to play specifically a Kensei Monk with a polearm weapon that has reach and is not heavy or special, so he can use it as kensei weapon. He wants to play variant human with the sentinel and polearm master feats. At level one I presume he would pick one of those. To balance a weapon for him I read this question and they say it would be balanced with either a 1d6 long quarterstaff or 1d8 long spear. But it seems to me that the combinations with feats is still too strong especially with the sentinel feat at level 1. I wanted to allow either a 1d6 weapon with any starting feat, or a 1d8 weapon with the condition that the first feat cannot be sentinel. My reasoning is that the character would have too much damage and too good control at level 1. Reducing the movement speed to 0 on a wrong move seems very strong.
So I see two possible solutions:
- The answer to the linked question applies to this one regardless of feats, in which case sorry to bother.
- My reasoning would be a better balance and can be applied.
Which of the two proposed solutions is correct?
Let me know if any more information is necessary.
Thank you for your time!