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This is a monk to effectively be a force user, as from the Star Wars universe.
I wanted to make this to try and emulate some of the powers and features from the Star Wars of universe. There is a spoiler from the The Last Jedi film. I thought that the ability to telekinetically affect your environment is too cool a concept to be left to mage hand, bigby's hand and the spell telekinesis, so I wanted to create a martial class that could utlisise these concepts.

My main concern is that is is a lot more flexible than most other monk subclasses, as well as having a lot of text (only slightly less than the base monk class).
So my questions are:
How does this compare to the published monk classes in terms of combat power and flexibility, and utility out of combat?
What language or mechanics in this homebrew aren't in a 5e style? (such as the use of contested checks instead of a save DC)

For balance, what I am most worried about is the range of flexibility the Telekinesis abilities give, from limited self-propulsion to grabbing objects and creatures from far away and moving them to anywhere else within a large radius.

Way of the Force

Monks that follow the Way of the Force have learnt how to use their ki to manipulate their surroundings with their mind, tapping into the energy that inhabits all things.

Telekinesis

Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you can use your ki to telekinetically manipulate the world around you. You gain the mage hand cantrip if you don’t already know it, and it is invisible.
Force Radius. A force radius of 30 ft that is centered on you defines where you can use ki specific force features. Your force radius increases to 60' at level 11, and increases to 120 ft at level 17.

When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can forgo one of your attacks to spend 1 ki point to achieve one of the following effects against a Large or smaller creature, or an object, in your force radius.

  • Force Shove. You make a Wisdom check (with proficiency) contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (their choice). If you win the contest, you can do one of the following: knock the target prone, push the target up to half your Force Radius directly away from you, or pull the target up to half your Force Radius directly towards you. Unattended objects automatically fail this contested check, and if an object is held by a creature the creature makes the check.

  • Force Grab. You make a contested Wisdom check against the target’s choice of Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics). If you win the contest(see Chapter 7) the target is grappled for one minute while you concentrate on the effect (as if concentrating on a spell). The target can use an action to try and break the grapple, forcing a repeated contested check.
    Unattended objects automatically fail this contested check, and if an object is held by a creature the creature makes the check. All objects held in this way can be moved anywhere within your Force Radius of you as an object interaction, and stay aloft in the air at the end of the move if you wish.
    You are proficient with both Force Grab and Force Shove.

Greater Force Connection

Mind Powers. At level 6 your connection to the Force grows. You gain the ability to cast Charm Person (1 ki point) and Suggestion (2 ki points) using Wisdom as your spellcasting ability modifier. You can cast Charm Person at higher levels by spending one ki point for every level above first level you wish to cast it at, to a maximum total number of ki points of your proficiency modifier.

  • Life Sense. You can concentrate for a minute and learn the number of creatures within double your force radius, as well as their locations relative to your own. This does not work against undead creatures nor constructs.

  • Greater Telekinesis. Your Telekinesis abilities now work on Huge or smaller creatures and objects, and you can move creatures with Force Grab as well as objects. When moved in this way, you must use an attack to repeat the contest check against a held creature, but they have disadvantage on the check and nothing happens if they succeed on the check. If they fail, they are moved to a location of your choice within your force radius.

Force Prowess

You can concentrate on any number of effects that you have created via your ki, losing the effects of all of them if you are forced to drop concentration on any of them. You only roll one concentration check for the purposes of maintaining concentration while using this feature.

Additionally, you can apply the effects of Telekinesis to additional creatures beyond the first by spending one ki point for each additional creature, up to a maximum of your proficiency modifier.
Your Telekinesis abilities now work on Gargantuan or smaller creatures and objects.
Finally, when you attempt to Force Grab a creature, you can increase the number of ki points you spend to 3 ki points and try to hold a creature more fully. Instead of being grappled when you succeed on the contested Force Grab check, a target is restrained, and repeats the contested check at the end of each of their turns. When you target additional creatures with this effect you must spend 3 additional ki points for each additional creature.

Force Mastery

At 17th level your mastery over your ki and the ki of others is legendary.

  • The radius of your life sense increases to 1 mile.
  • Creatures remain unaware of the effect you have had on their mind when you use Greater Force Connection abilities on them.

In addition to the features above, you can choose to gain one of the following features:

  • Force Choke. When a creature is held and restrained by your Force Grab, you can choose to start choking them. As an action on your turn, you can choose one creature that is under the effects of your Force Grab, and start choking them. All breath leaves them, they begin choking, and they become paralyzed. Additionally, you can use an action on following turns to crush the windpipe of any creature that has started choking in this way, reducing them to 0 hit points. Creatures that don't need to breath cannot be reduced to 0 hit points in this way, but can still be paralyzed by this feature. If a creature manages to escape your Force Grab, they are no longer choking.

  • Force Lightning. As an action on your turn, you can spend 5 ki points to start spewing lightning at your foes, concentrating on this effect for up to one minute. A beam of lightning flashes out from your hand in a 5-foot-wide, 120-foot-long line. Each creature in the line must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 10d6 lightning damage. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage. You can create a new line of lightning as your bonus action on any subsequent turn until your concentration ends, without having to spend further ki points. These lines of lightning vanish at the end of your turn.

Spoilered feature below

Additional Force Mastery feature (17th level) option:
Force Projection. As an action on your turn, you can cast Mislead by spending 5 ki points. Instead of the duplicate appearing where you are, however, you can choose to make the duplicate appear within 30ft of an ally you are aware of on the same plane of existence as yourself.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Related, I guess: Is this homebrew Oath of the Jedi paladin subclass balanced compared to the official subclasses? \$\endgroup\$
    – Someone_Evil
    Dec 29, 2019 at 18:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ The word "Alternatively" in Telekinesis makes it sounds like you either get mage hand or those options. I think changing it to "Additionally" would help, unless that was what you were going for of course. Also do the telekinesis options replace the unarmed strike, meaning they can only be used against creatures within 5 feet? Similarly, does Greater Telekinesis use up an attack? The Pact of the Chain has something somewhat similar: "Additionally, when you take the Attack action, you can forgo one of your own attacks to allow your familiar to use its reaction to make one attack of its own." \$\endgroup\$ Dec 29, 2019 at 18:42
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    \$\begingroup\$ The objective for the telekinesis features is whenever you could make an unarmed attack (with the attack action or flurry of blows attacks) you can instead try the grab or the shove; however, the range of each is more than just 5ft. Each movement of a creature is meant to take an attack to do, yes; that secondary wording is better (I currently can't do a proper edit for these, so leave my comment here for now) \$\endgroup\$
    – L0neGamer
    Dec 29, 2019 at 18:51
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    \$\begingroup\$ Possibly useful to you for comparing your homebrew class features against is the Fighter, Rogue and Wizard Unearthed Arcana \$\endgroup\$ Dec 30, 2019 at 13:24
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    \$\begingroup\$ I edited your question for ease of reading, and to pull out the force radius bit up front. That force radius is a limitation/feature of most of the sub class features. Please review it to make sure your meaning is retained. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 30, 2019 at 15:05

1 Answer 1

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There are two overpowered bits to this Monk Subclass

First off, I want to say how I really like where you are going with this. I suggest that you do some play testing after you have toned down a couple of the features. There are two that are of concern.

  1. Automatic "I Win" Ability

    Additionally, you can use an action on following turns to crush the windpipe of any creature that has started choking in this way, reducing them to 0 hit points.

    Here's how this gets exploited to be game breaking. Between Guidance from an ally, and a Bard's inspiration at these levels, the fact that you are using an ability check to apply this means that you can add an average of +10 (and a max of +16) to this ability check. If your bard then casts enhance ability

    ... Owl’s Wisdom. The target has advantage on Wisdom Checks.

    There you are: a +10 (average) bump, +5 for Wisdom modifier, and +6 for Profiency bonus, making this +21 with advantage versus an opposed strength check. This wind pipe crush on a gargantuan creature is a two round kill of, for example, an ancient red dragon (+10 str check example).
    Relevant Stats

    STR 30 (+10) DEX 10 (+0)
    Saving Throws Dex +7, Con +16, Wis +9, Cha +13 Skills Perception +16, Stealth +7

    Not using a saving throw means that "legendary saves' are voided. Something to consider.

    Suggest you change the scale of this to be closer to the Quivering Palm ability of the Way of the Open Hand monk.

    Quivering Palm

    {snip} When you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike, you can spend 3 ki points to start these imperceptible vibrations, which last for a number of days equal to your monk level. The vibrations are harmless unless you use your action to end them. To do so, you and the target must be on the same plane of existence. When you use this action, the creature must make a Constitution saving throw. If it fails, it is reduced to 0 Hit Points. If it succeeds, it takes 10d10 necrotic damage. You can have only one creature under the effect of this feature at a time. You can choose to end the vibrations harmlessly without using an action.

  2. Concentration on multiple spell like abilities at once

    You can concentrate on any number of effects that you have created via your ki, losing the effects of all of them if you are forced to drop concentration on any of them. You only roll one concentration check for the purposes of maintaining concentration while using this feature.

    This needs to be revised. One of the core mechanical limitations of this edition is that you can only concentrate on one spell/magical ability at one time. Offering multiple concentration options is not just potentially OP, it is OP if you combine the grapple with the lightning storm.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ "There you are: a +10, +5 for Wisdom prof and +6 for Profiency bonus" You should reword 'wisdom prof' to 'modifier', it took me a while to understand what you meant. +1 otherwise for the answer \$\endgroup\$
    – 3C273
    Dec 30, 2019 at 17:31
  • \$\begingroup\$ With regards to your second concern, do you think that the issue is specifically with the subclass's ability's that multiple concentration is an issue, or in general it's a bad idea? The intent is that, for example, a high level monk of this subclass could force grab multiple individuals then blast them all with lightning - do you think this is too overpowered, or should the phrasing be fixed with regards to the concentration effect? Good points re: Force Choke. \$\endgroup\$
    – L0neGamer
    Dec 30, 2019 at 17:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ @L0neGamer Both. In the DMG and in various dev commentary on home brew, two things to not mess with lest balance get damaged are (1) number of attunement slots and (2) concentration on one spell/effect at a time. by holding them still, requiring concentration? and pouring lightning onto them requiring concentration, the one at a time model breaks. Given the generous range of the lightning strikes, yes, it's a balance issue. Now, if you have two Jedi ... hehehe, shennanigans aplenty! \$\endgroup\$ Dec 30, 2019 at 18:47
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    \$\begingroup\$ @L0neGamer to add more details on the concentration deal. Problem usually are said to arise because of the ease of maintaining multiple buffs and/or battlefield control to break the numbers. Or potentially one of those AND a damage spell, which usually do not break anything, but is very very strong. In yiur case, yoy may have a case of the later. Wether this will be a problem at lvl 17 is arguable, but I am not in any way apt to coment on this \$\endgroup\$
    – 3C273
    Dec 31, 2019 at 0:35
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    \$\begingroup\$ Oh, right. Yeah even +15 with advantage would have been a lot, but that is ludicrous. \$\endgroup\$
    – ammut
    Dec 31, 2019 at 7:49

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