Is the "Way of the Astral Self" Monk's extra punch useless?

Question

Martial arts for monks states that when you take the attack action you can make 1 unarmed strike as a bonus action. However UA 2019 Astral monks at third level says the same thing: “you can make 1 unarmed strike as a bonus action.”

I know at higher levels that increases but I'm asking about only level 3. Because you only get 1 bonus action does that make that extra attack feature from one or the other useless?

Also, flurry of blows makes 2 strikes as a bonus action so if you use that are both these abilities rendered pointless. Finally, at level 11 of astral monk you can make 2 strikes as a bonus action. Would this make flurry of blows a pointless ability? Have I understood this correctly or would all these abilities stack on top of each other?

Answer 1

No, they are not useless

You’re missing a paragraph right above that:

The arms are monk weapons and have a reach of 10 feet. The arms deal radiant or necrotic damage (your choice). When you attack with the arms, you can use your Wisdom modifier instead of your Strength or Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls.

So you get extra reach, you can deal your choice of necrotic or radiant damage instead of bludgeoning and you can use wisdom for attack and damage. Now these aren’t all going to be useful in all circumstances, but for example radiant damage is good against zombies, reach can be useful if you’re dealing with multiple targets and are out of movement, and using wisdom for your attack is good if you prioritised wisdom over dexterity (and Way of the Astral Self wants you to prioritise Wisdom even more than other subclasses).

It is not a very strong feature compared to what other Monk subclasses get IMHO, but that’s true of the whole class in general aside from its 17th level features.

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To address the comparison with Flurry of Blows and Martial Arts:

Martial Arts is always available. Flurry Of Blows is always available as long as you spend a Ki point, which you might be out of or conserving for another reason. The bonus action attacks you get from Arms Of The Astral Self require you to to spend 2 Ki points and a Bonus Action in a prior turn – you can not use them the turn that you summon them on (one of the primary weaknesses in this subclass actually), so realistically unless you face only one big encounter per day (not unusual, but not necessarily a situation the rules are optimised for) you’ll still sometimes use Martial Arts or Flurry just because they’re more convenient even if your astral arms are technically more powerful.

Keep in mind that even at level 11 once you can perform 2 extra attacks with your Astral Arms, you you still only break even in terms of total attacks done on your second turn vs. a monk that just uses Martial Arts every turn. Only at the third turn and up do you actually start dealing more damage. Vs. someone who just uses Flurry two times you’re actually still going to be behind in damage for the same amount of Ki points spent, and you can’t catch up in terms of damage to a Monk that Flurry’s every turn – you only get to deal comparable amounts of damage for less Ki points essentially. This often isn’t ideal because many smaller encounters barely last 3 turns.

As such, if your goal is to deal the maximum amount of damage in a useful way you should actually not use your Astral Arms at all unless you can prepare them before the fight starts. The Astral arms are mostly useful for their non-damage benefits, and if you're not going to be making use of those you’re better off without them until level 17.

Answer 2

While you must choose which bonus action to use, using the bonus action attack from Astral Arms benefits from the second feature of Astral Arms.

The second feature applies when making the unarmed strike with Astral Arms:

The arms are monk weapons and have a reach of 10 feet. The arms deal radiant or necrotic damage (your choice). When you attack with the arms, you can use your Wisdom modifier instead of your Strength or Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls.

A reach of 10 feet is a significant advantage, and if your wisdom modifier is your highest modifier, it means more damage.

Since you only get 1 bonus action per turn, you may not use flurry of blows if you use the astral arms to attack with your bonus action.

You must choose: do I want two regular strikes from flurry of blows, or do I want the benefits from the astral arms bonus action attack.

Answer 3

I'll start with the usual caveat that Way of the Astral Self is Unearthed Arcana, hence considered play-test material. Such material is typically not as "polished" as official material so is often rather more ambiguous and loose in places.

This "Arms of the Astral Self" feature states: "The arms are monk weapons...". This does not mean that they are considered to be unarmed strikes (it doesn't actually give a specific damage die, leaving me to assume you must use the general monk "Martial Arts" feature allowing you to use the unarmed damage die in place of any monk weapon damage).

Hence, when you use this feature you get to choose:

• Use your bonus action to get a normal unarmed strike OR
• Use the bonus action granted by this feature to get an additional strike with your astral arms.

If you use the first option and don't use your astral arms feature, you could spend a ki point to use Flurry of Blows.

If, instead, you use your bonus action to use your astral arms to attack, you get to use your Wisdom modifier instead plus the additional reach (and radiant or necrotic damage).

Answer 4

So I used The way of the astral self as such: I would before 1 attack and as a bonus, I would spend a ki point to summon the arms of the astral self - ending my turn. On my next turn, I would attack, then attack with the arms of the astral self (as the last 10 minutes and don't require another bonus action to activate) then as a bonus action, I would spend a ki point to perform Flurry of blows and do to two unarmed strikes.

Overall, on your first turn - attack and summon the arms, then on your second turn attack, attack with the arms, and then perform a flurry of blows as a bonus (5 attacks over 2 turns) - this can be extended if you have more ki points allowing you to make four attacks on the following turns.

If you interpret it this way, the arms of the astral self can be useful.