D&D 5e Monk Subclasses (2014): All Ten Monastic Traditions Ranked

Introduction

Every Monk subclass decision in D&D 5e (2014) is the same question wearing ten different costumes: what does this tradition ask you to do with your ki, and is that better than spending it on Stunning Strike?

Stunning Strike is the benchmark. One ki point, on a hit, forces a Constitution save; on a failure the target is stunned until the end of its next turn, which means it loses its action, loses its reaction, and automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saves while everyone attacking it has advantage. That is the most powerful thing most Monks can do with one ki point at most levels. Every subclass feature with a ki cost is competing against it.

That framing sorts the ten traditions cleanly. The strongest ones either cost no ki at all - Open Hand Technique, Drunken Technique, Shadow Step - or they add a ki sink that genuinely outperforms a stun in the situations it is designed for. The weakest one, Way of the Four Elements, asks you to spend two to five ki casting low-level spells, which is a trade that almost never wins.

This guide covers all ten Monastic Traditions from the Player's Handbook through Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, feature by feature, with the shared build decisions - ability scores, races, feats, multiclassing - written once at the end rather than repeated ten times.

Verdict: Open Hand, Mercy and Astral Self are the top tier. Long Death is the most durable. Four Elements is the only one to actively avoid.

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The Ki Economy, Briefly

Before the subclasses, the shared resource all of them run on.

Your ki pool equals your Monk level and refreshes on a short rest, which is the most important word in the class. A Monk with 6 ki at level 6 who takes two short rests in an adventuring day effectively has 18 ki, not 6. Subclasses that lean on ki are therefore much stronger at tables that take short rests than at tables that do not, and that is a question about your DM, not about the subclass.

The standing costs you are always choosing between:

Two structural facts follow, and they explain most of the ratings below.

A feature that costs no ki is worth more than its raw numbers suggest, because it does not compete with the list above. Open Hand Technique adds a free control rider to Flurry. Drunken Technique adds a free Disengage to Flurry. Shadow Step is a free bonus-action teleport with advantage attached. All three are effectively pure profit.

A feature that competes for your bonus action is worth less than its raw numbers suggest. Flurry of Blows is usually the best thing you can do with a bonus action. Any subclass feature that wants that same bonus action has to beat two extra attacks, and several of them do not.

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The Ten Traditions at a Glance

Ranked by overall strength across a full campaign, with the level 3 feature weighted most heavily because that is the one you are most likely to actually play.

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Way of the Open Hand

Player's Handbook. ● Excellent.

The default recommendation, and the purest expression of what a Monk does. Open Hand does not ask you to learn a second resource system; it takes the ki you were already spending on Flurry of Blows and staples free value onto it. The marginal cost is zero. That is the whole argument, and it is a strong one.

Open Hand Technique - Level 3 ●

When you hit a creature with one of the attacks granted by Flurry of Blows, you can impose one of three effects on that target:

• Push 15 feet. Forced movement with no saving throw.
• Knock prone. No saving throw. Prone grants advantage on melee attacks from allies and costs the target half its movement to stand.
• Deny reactions until the end of your next turn.

The key structural fact is that none of these requires a saving throw and none costs additional ki. You were spending 1 ki on Flurry regardless. Everything above is free.

Each option has a real line of play. Prone is the most generally useful: it taxes the movement of melee-dependent enemies and hands advantage to every melee ally. In a party with two front-line strikers, knocking a single high-AC enemy prone early swings the damage maths for the whole round.

Push 15 feet opens up geometry. Shoving an enemy into difficult terrain or off a ledge can remove it from the encounter outright. Shoving an enemy caster away from its bodyguards isolates it. Shoving a creature away from your downed ally buys the round somebody needs to stabilise them.

Deny reactions is the one experienced players reach for and newer players overlook. Enemies with meaningful reactions - Counterspell on an enemy mage, Shield on anything arcane, Parry on a martial NPC, or simply opportunity attacks against your retreating party - become dramatically less dangerous. It also chains with Stunning Strike: stun with the Attack action, then reaction-lock on the Flurry hits, and the target contributes nothing at all for a full round.

Because each hit can trigger the effect independently, a two-hit Flurry can apply two different effects, or the same one twice.

Wholeness of Body - Level 6 ●

As an action, regain hit points equal to three times your Monk level, once per long rest. That is 18 at level 6, 30 at level 10, 45 at level 15, 60 at level 20.

These are not transformative numbers next to a Paladin's Lay on Hands pool, but the Monk has a d8 hit die, relies on Dexterity for AC, and has no other healing of any kind. Wholeness of Body exists to break the low-hit-point death spiral, and it does.

The action cost is the real tradeoff. Spending your action healing means no Stunning Strike, no Flurry, no offensive contribution that round. Against a mob where action economy decides the fight, think hard before taking the turn off. Against a solo boss, where your one turn matters less than staying upright, the trade is usually right.

Tranquility - Level 11 ●

At the end of a long rest you gain the effect of a sanctuary spell lasting until your next long rest. A creature that wants to attack you must make a Wisdom save (DC 8 + proficiency + Wisdom modifier) or pick a different target. It ends the moment you attack, cast a hostile spell, or use a feature against a hostile creature.

In combat, it ends on your own first turn in essentially every fight, so its practical ceiling is one round of protection - and only if something targets you before you act.

Read as an exploration feature it looks better. A scout Monk can walk into an occupied room and force the saving throw before hostilities start. A wandering monster may simply decline to engage. In a diplomatic standoff where the DM is willing to lean into it, Tranquility buys real time. It is not a bad feature; it is a narrow one that a combat-only evaluation rates too harshly and a generous one rates too kindly.

Quivering Palm - Level 17 ●

When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, spend 3 ki to set up imperceptible vibrations lasting a number of days equal to your Monk level. You can have only one creature affected at a time. Use your action to end them: the target makes a Constitution save, dropping to 0 hit points on a failure, or taking 10d10 necrotic on a success.

5th Edition hands out save-or-die effects very sparingly, and this is one of the cleanest. At level 17 the enemies worth using it on have hit point pools large enough that damage-based kills take several rounds; Quivering Palm ignores all of that.

The setup requirement is trivial for a class making four or more attacks a round. The 3 ki cost is real but affordable against a level 17 pool of 17. And the failure case is not a whiff: 10d10 averages 55 necrotic, which is a respectable turn on its own.

The standard play pattern is to spend a prior round landing Stunning Strike. Note the rules detail, because tables get it wrong: a stunned creature auto-fails Strength and Dexterity saves, not Constitution. Stunning does not guarantee Quivering Palm lands. What it does is strip the target's actions and reactions so it cannot escape, heal, or interrupt you before you pull the trigger.

Take it if: you want to be good at fighting without managing a second resource system. It is the most forgiving Monk subclass and close to the strongest.

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Way of Mercy

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. ● Excellent.

The only subclass that lets a Monk heal and harm out of the same bonus action, and the strongest reason to bring a Monk to a party with no dedicated healer.

Implements of Mercy - Level 3 ●

Proficiency in Insight and Medicine, proficiency with the herbalism kit, and a mask you craft yourself.

Insight is among the most useful skills in the game at a roleplay-heavy table. Medicine is thinner, though it stabilises the dying. The herbalism kit matters at tables that use downtime crafting, where it generates healing potion stock without spending gold. The mask is flavour; most tables treat it as a prop rather than a strict activation requirement, and the feature text is ambiguous enough that it is worth asking your DM once.

Hand of Harm - Level 3 ●

When you hit with an unarmed strike, spend 1 ki to deal extra necrotic damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die plus your Wisdom modifier. The target makes a Constitution save or is poisoned until the end of your next turn. Once per turn.

As a raw damage option it loses to Flurry. Compare the three things 1 ki buys at level 5:

• Flurry of Blows - two attacks, roughly 17 average damage if both land.
• Stunning Strike - one Constitution save; success removes the target's turn.
• Hand of Harm - about 6.5 extra necrotic, plus a Constitution save for poisoned.

The poisoned condition is the reason to take it. A poisoned creature has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. Applied to the enemy that actually threatens your party, that is a defensive swing roughly equivalent to everyone in the party gaining cover for the duration.

The once-per-turn limit matters: it applies to one attack, not to every Flurry hit. A Flurry turn with one Harm trigger costs 2 ki total until level 11 removes that overhead.

Hand of Harm is at its best at levels 3 and 4, before Extra Attack, when the extra necrotic is a large fraction of your output. After level 5, use it selectively on the target whose disadvantage would change the encounter.

Hand of Healing - Level 3 ●

Spend 1 ki as an action to touch a creature and restore hit points equal to a roll of your Martial Arts die plus your Wisdom modifier. And when you use Flurry of Blows, you can replace each of the strikes with a use of this feature without paying the ki cost.

That second sentence is the whole feature. On a Flurry turn you can heal two different creatures for a Martial Arts die plus Wisdom each, for the single ki you already spent on Flurry, while your action stays free to attack.

The raw numbers are modest - roughly 6.5 per touch at Wisdom 16 - and comparable to a 1st-level Cure Wounds. What makes it different is that it costs ki rather than a spell slot, recharges on a short rest, and belongs to a class that otherwise has no healing whatsoever. For a party without a cleric, healing 12 to 16 hit points across two characters per Flurry turn in tier 2 is excellent action economy.

Physician's Touch - Level 6 ●

Hand of Harm now poisons for 1 minute instead of one turn, and can impose one additional condition. Hand of Healing now also removes one condition from the target.

The condition removal is the headline. Ending paralysed, stunned, blinded or poisoned on an ally with a touch that also heals them replicates Lesser Restoration with no spell slot and no action - it rides on the Flurry you were making anyway. Un-paralysing an ally mid-combat converts what would have been a lost round, with auto-critical hits landing on them, into a full recovery.

The extended poison duration is nearly as strong in the other direction. A boss poisoned for a minute attacks at disadvantage for up to ten rounds.

Flurry of Healing and Harm - Level 11 ●

When you use Flurry of Blows, you can now use Hand of Harm or Hand of Healing with each strike without spending additional ki on those features.

This removes the ki overhead entirely. Previously a Flurry plus one Harm cost 2 ki; now it costs 1. A single bonus action can deliver two heals, or two harm triggers with extended conditions, or one of each.

The common pattern at this level: Attack action for damage and a Stunning Strike attempt, then Flurry for one Harm on the boss and one Healing on the wounded Rogue, all for 1 ki. No other subclass in the class produces that density of effect from one bonus action, and the ability to pivot between damage and support within a single turn without paying extra is the subclass's defining competency.

Hand of Ultimate Mercy - Level 17 ●

As an action, touch the corpse of a creature that died within the past 24 hours and expend 5 ki to return it to life with 4d10 + your Wisdom modifier hit points. Not usable on death by old age, and it restores no missing body parts.

Compare Revivify: a 3rd-level slot, 300 gp of diamonds consumed, a one-minute window, and the target returns at 1 hit point. Hand of Ultimate Mercy costs no gold, has a 24-hour window, and returns them at roughly 27 hit points, able to act meaningfully rather than immediately dropping again.

Five ki is about 30% of a level 17 pool, which is the correct price. The 24-hour window is the mechanical advantage that actually changes campaigns: a character who falls at the end of one session can be revived at the start of the next without a trip to a temple, which matters enormously in dungeon-delve play where returning to civilisation is not viable.

Take it if: your party lacks a healer, or you want the most flexible turn structure in the class. This is the subclass that most changes what a Monk is for.

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Way of the Astral Self

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. ● Excellent.

The subclass that solves the Monk's structural problem. Monks are multiple-ability dependent - Dexterity for attacks and AC, Wisdom for AC and save DCs, Constitution for hit points - and no array covers all three. Astral Self collapses the problem by moving attacks onto Wisdom.

Arms of the Astral Self - Level 3 ●

Spend 1 ki to summon spectral arms. Each creature of your choice within 10 feet makes a Dexterity save or takes force damage equal to two rolls of your Martial Arts die. For 10 minutes thereafter:

• You can use your Wisdom modifier in place of Strength or Dexterity for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes.
• Your unarmed reach with the arms is 10 feet.
• When you take the Attack action, you can make two unarmed strikes with the arms as a bonus action.

The summoning burst is a genuine opening salvo - at level 5 that is 2d6 force to everything within 10 feet, for 1 ki and a bonus action.

The Wisdom conversion is the lasting value and the reason to pick the subclass. If your Wisdom modifier matches or beats your Dexterity, you lose nothing by summoning and you gain a ten-minute window where your primary defensive stat is also your attack stat. That frees your ability score improvements to go into Constitution instead of chasing two numbers at once.

The 10-foot reach is one of the best things on this page.

This also unlocks a stat array nothing else in the class supports: Wisdom primary, Strength secondary, Constitution third. Because the arms carry your attacks off Wisdom, Strength becomes free to serve grappling and Athletics rather than damage, and a Mountain Dwarf build with high Constitution becomes a durable front-liner. If your DM allows Athletics checks with the spectral arms to use Wisdom, the Grappler feat becomes unusually strong here - ask first, because the feature text does not say so outright. Reach is the practical limitation that defines unarmed combat, and removing it changes where a Monk can stand.

The bonus-action arm attacks are the awkward part: they occupy the same bonus action as Flurry of Blows. On rounds where you do not want to spend ki, they are free extra attacks. On rounds where Stunning Strike matters, you are choosing between them.

Visage of the Astral Self - Level 6 ●

Spend 1 ki to summon the visage for 10 minutes: darkvision out to 120 feet (or +30 feet to existing darkvision), advantage on Wisdom (Insight) and Charisma (Intimidation) checks, and a bonus action to force a creature within 30 feet to make a Wisdom save or be frightened of you until the visage ends.

120 feet is the best darkvision any Monk gets from their own features, and it matters in deep dungeons, Underdark play and night fighting. The Insight advantage is broadly useful socially. The frightened rider is an at-will soft lockdown for 1 ki.

The cost is bonus-action congestion. Activating the visage is a bonus action, so you cannot summon it and also make arm attacks or Flurry that round. Plan on spending an early round setting up rather than attacking.

Body of the Astral Self - Level 11 ●

With both Arms and Visage active:

• Deflect Energy - a reaction to reduce incoming acid, cold, fire, force, lightning or thunder damage by a roll of your Martial Arts die.
• Empowered Arms - once per turn, add one Martial Arts die of force damage to a hit.

Full activation costs 2 ki across two bonus actions, which is a real commitment. Deflect Energy covers the elemental damage types but not bludgeoning, piercing or slashing, which is what most melee monsters deal - so against a standard brute it does nothing, and against a spellcaster it is meaningful.

Empowered Arms is the reliable half: roughly 5.5 free damage per round at level 11, with no ongoing cost once the arms are up.

Awakened Astral Self - Level 17 ●

A bonus action and 5 ki summons arms, visage and body together for 10 minutes, upgrades the force rider to 2d10 per hit, lets you make two unarmed strikes with the arms as a bonus action, and grants one additional unarmed strike whenever you take the Attack action.

The extra Attack-action strike is the key benefit. At level 17 you already have Extra Attack; Awakened takes you to three attacks on the action plus two on the bonus action. Five attacks, each using Wisdom, each carrying 2d10 extra force. Across a boss fight the accumulated extra damage outpaces every other level 17 Monk feature except Quivering Palm and Touch of the Long Death.

Five ki is a steep entry cost, but the ten-minute duration means it covers an entire encounter.

Take it if: you want a Wisdom-based melee build, or the Monk's reach has been frustrating you. Map your first two rounds carefully - the bonus-action congestion is real.

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Way of the Long Death

Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. ● Good.

The durability subclass, and the owner of the best defensive feature in the class.

Touch of Death - Level 3 ●

When you reduce a creature of challenge rating 1 or higher to 0 hit points, gain temporary hit points equal to your Wisdom modifier plus your Monk level, minimum 1.

At level 3 with Wisdom 14 that is 5 temporary hit points - modest. It scales automatically with Monk level, so by level 10 with Wisdom 18 it is 14 per kill, and at level 20 with Wisdom 20 it is 25.

Two things make it stronger than the numbers suggest. It has no limit per encounter or per day, so in the multi-enemy fights 5e is built around it fires repeatedly. And it means a Long Death Monk gets tougher as a fight goes on, which inverts how attrition normally works. Where Open Hand spends a once-per-long-rest action to heal, Long Death just keeps killing and keeps a rolling buffer.

The CR 1 floor rarely bites. Most encounters past tier 1 include at least some CR 1+ creatures, and even goblin warbands tend to field a hobgoblin or bugbear.

Hour of Reaping - Level 6 ●

As an action, every creature within 30 feet that can see you makes a Wisdom save or is frightened of you until the end of your next turn. No ki cost, no limit per rest.

Frightened imposes disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks while the creature can see you, and prevents it moving closer to you. Used on a group that has surrounded you, it effectively freezes the encounter's geometry for a round.

The action cost is the constraint, and it is a heavy one: no attacks, no Stunning Strike, no damage that turn. This is an emergency reset for when you are surrounded and allies are down, not a routine opener.

Wisdom is a moderate save for most monster types. Beasts, humanoids and constructs generally sit at 8 to 14 Wisdom, so a Long Death Monk with Wisdom 18 will land this on the majority of what they meet.

Mastery of Death - Level 11 ●

When you are reduced to 0 hit points, spend 1 ki to drop to 1 hit point instead.

There is no limit per rest. The only bound is your ki pool, which refreshes on a short rest. At level 11, a Monk holding 4 ki can cross the death threshold four times in one encounter and stay standing every time.

Compare the alternatives: the Fighter's Second Wind is once per short rest, the Barbarian's Relentless Rage is once per short rest with an escalating DC, the Paladin's Lay on Hands is a finite daily pool. Mastery of Death is the best version of this category in the 2014 rules because it is limited only by a resource you have a lot of.

It does not heal you. You are at 1 hit point and the next hit triggers it again. What it buys is that you remain conscious, upright, and able to act - a Long Death Monk who touches zero does not fall over, they turn around and stun whoever did it.

Touch of the Long Death - Level 17 ●

As an action, touch a creature within 5 feet and expend 1 to 10 ki. It makes a Constitution save, taking 2d10 necrotic per ki spent on a failure, half on a success. A full 10-ki dump is 20d10, averaging 110 on a failure and 55 on a success.

The Stunning Strike setup helps but is less automatic than people assume: stunned creatures auto-fail Strength and Dexterity saves, not Constitution. What stunning buys you is a target that cannot move away, cannot react, and cannot heal before your nova lands.

At 10 ki this empties your pool, so it is a one-shot boss tool rather than a rotation piece. The half-damage floor of 55 still beats a normal attack round.

Take it if: you want to be the Monk who does not go down. Mastery of Death alone justifies the pick, and Touch of Death makes long fights easier rather than harder.

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Way of Shadow

Player's Handbook. ● Good, and campaign-dependent.

The infiltration subclass. How good it is depends almost entirely on how dark your campaign is, and that is a question for your DM rather than for a ranking.

Shadow Arts - Level 3 ●

Spend 2 ki to cast Darkness, Darkvision, Pass Without Trace or Silence with no components and Wisdom as your casting modifier. You also gain Minor Illusion at will.

Pass Without Trace is the reason this feature exists. A +10 bonus to Stealth for you and up to ten creatures within 30 feet, for up to an hour, for 2 ki, available at level 3. It takes a party that cannot sneak - including the Fighter in plate with a -6 modifier - and makes them a party that can. That is not a combat buff, it is an access pass to a whole category of adventure.

Silence is a hard counter to enemy spellcasting: no verbal components inside a 20-foot radius. Placed on an enemy mage it removes them from the fight more thoroughly than most damage.

Darkness is a trap on its own, because you cannot see inside it either. With a source of Devil's Sight it becomes one of the strongest setups in the game - see the multiclass note below.

Darkvision is preparation rather than tactics. Minor Illusion at will is a genuine sleeper: an at-will 5-foot cube of sound or image has enormous distraction and misdirection value.

Shadow Step - Level 6 ●

When you are in dim light or darkness, use a bonus action to teleport up to 60 feet to another space in dim light or darkness, and gain advantage on the first melee attack you make before the end of the turn. No ki cost.

One of the strongest level 6 features in the class, for three reasons.

It costs no ki, so it does not compete with Stunning Strike the way Step of the Wind does. It grants advantage, which matters mechanically rather than cosmetically: the standard Monk optimisation is to confirm a hit before committing ki to a stun, and this hands you that for free. And 60 feet, stacked on a Monk's already high speed, reaches almost anything on a typical battle map without ever provoking.

The dim light or darkness requirement is real but rarely crippling indoors. Outdoor daytime fighting is where it goes quiet.

Cloak of Shadows - Level 11 ●

In dim light or darkness, use your action to become invisible until you attack or cast a spell.

Free, conditional invisibility. The combat application is setting up a guaranteed-advantage Stunning Strike on a boss: spend the action vanishing, then next round attack with advantage and a much better chance of landing the stun.

The action cost makes that a boss-fight play, not a routine one. Out of combat, Cloak of Shadows stacked with Pass Without Trace makes you close to undetectable, which is the real use.

Opportunist - Level 17 ●

Use your reaction to make a melee attack against a creature within 5 feet of you when it is hit by someone other than you.

Free, reliable, and unremarkable. In a melee-heavy party it is close to an extra attack every round; in a ranged party it does very little. Against Quivering Palm or Touch of the Long Death it is clearly the weakest level 17 feature in the class - it does not change what you can accomplish, it just adds a bit more of what you were already doing.

Take it if: your campaign happens underground, at night, or in places with guards to get past. In a daylight overland game, half the kit is inert.

Way of the Kensei

Xanathar's Guide to Everything. ● Good.

The weapon Monk, and the cleanest answer to the magic-weapon problem that bites every martial in tier 2.

Path of the Kensei - Level 3 ●

Choose two weapons as kensei weapons; they must lack the heavy and special properties, one may be ranged, and they count as monk weapons so you use Dexterity for attack and damage. You gain another at levels 6, 11 and 17. Alongside that:

• Agile Parry - if you make an unarmed strike as part of the Attack action while holding a kensei weapon, you gain +2 AC until the start of your next turn.
• Kensei's Shot - spend 1 ki as a bonus action to add 1d4 damage to every ranged kensei hit that turn.

Agile Parry is the quiet star of the subclass. You make unarmed strikes as part of the Attack action on essentially every combat turn, so the +2 AC is close to permanent. A level 1 Kensei with Dexterity 16 and Wisdom 14 sits at AC 17 before any equipment - the highest baseline in the class, and it costs nothing.

Kensei's Shot is modest: on a two-attack turn that is 2d4 extra for 1 ki. It does not compete with Flurry for the bonus action in the sense that matters, since you spend the ki as the bonus action rather than as part of the attacks.

Weapon selection matters more here than on any other subclass.

• Rapier (1d8 piercing, finesse) - the best melee pick. Finesse keeps it on Dexterity, and 1d8 beats your Martial Arts die until level 17.
• Longsword (1d8, or 1d10 versatile) - the two-handed option. 1d10 outpaces your unarmed die for most of the game, at the cost of never making an unarmed strike with a free hand, which is how Agile Parry triggers.
• Shortsword (1d6 finesse, light) - only if you specifically want a light weapon; the 1d6 is strictly worse than the rapier for a Monk.

Settle one ruling before you build. Kensei weapons cannot have the heavy property, which excludes the longbow by a strict reading. Many tables allow it anyway, since the restriction read as ambiguous on release. The shortbow is the RAW-legal ranged option at 1d6. Ask your DM before you commit an archer concept to it.

One with the Blade - Level 6 ●

• Magic Kensei Weapons - your attacks with kensei weapons count as magical for overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks.
• Deft Strike - spend 1 ki to add one Martial Arts die to a kensei weapon hit, once per turn.

The magical clause is why this subclass matters mechanically rather than thematically. Between levels 5 and 10 you start meeting creatures with resistance or immunity to nonmagical weapon damage constantly - werewolves and other lycanthropes, many constructs, a long tail of fiends. Every other Monk pays 1 ki per turn for Ki-Empowered Strikes to punch through that. Kensei gets it permanently and for free from level 6, which over a long campaign is an enormous amount of ki saved.

Deft Strike converts ki into damage at a fair but unexciting rate. In most rounds, Stunning Strike is the better use of that point. Against enemies with very high Constitution saves, where stuns rarely land, Deft Strike is the sensible fallback.

Sharpen the Blade - Level 11 ●

As a bonus action, spend up to 3 ki to grant a kensei weapon you touch a bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to the ki spent, for 1 minute, with no concentration required. It does not stack onto a weapon that already has such a bonus.

This is one of the strongest features in the class. Three ki produces a +3 weapon for an entire encounter, and +3 weapons are among the rarest items in the game. A Kensei manufactures one every fight.

The maths are straightforward and large. At level 11 you make three attacks per round between Extra Attack and Flurry. A +3 to hit moves you from roughly a 65% hit rate to over 80% against typical monsters of that tier, applied to every attack for ten rounds. That is a far bigger return than spending the same 3 ki on Flurry attacks.

The no-concentration clause is what makes it usable, since it leaves you free to hold anything else.

Unerring Accuracy - Level 17 ●

If you miss with a monk weapon attack on your turn, reroll it. Once per turn, no ki.

Free variance reduction. At level 17 with Sharpen the Blade running, maxed Dexterity and full proficiency, your attack bonus is around +14, so misses are uncommon against most targets but do happen against AC 19 to 22 bosses. The reroll is welcome when it fires.

It is also unglamorous. It does not raise your ceiling the way Quivering Palm or Intoxicated Frenzy does; it raises your floor. That is a real thing to value, just not an exciting one.

Take it if: you want a weapon-using Monk, the highest AC in the class, or a permanent answer to nonmagical resistance without spending ki on it.

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Way of the Drunken Master

Xanathar's Guide to Everything. ● Good.

The mobility subclass. It solves a problem Open Hand ignores entirely: getting back out again.

Bonus Proficiencies - Level 3 ●

Proficiency with brewer's supplies and the Performance skill, or another Monk skill if you already have Performance.

Performance is a niche social skill and brewer's supplies are downtime flavour. Free proficiencies are rarely bad and both fit the concept, but neither moves a combat needle.

Drunken Technique - Level 3 ●

When you use Flurry of Blows, you also gain the benefit of the Disengage action and your walking speed increases by 10 feet until the end of the turn.

This is the feature, and it is one of the best level 3 features in the class. The structural problem for every melee Monk is opportunity attack exposure: you end your turn next to three enemies, and repositioning next turn means eating attacks. Step of the Wind solves it for 1 ki and your bonus action - which is the same bonus action Flurry wants. Drunken Technique gives you both for the single ki point you were already spending.

In play, that means: close, Flurry for full damage, and walk out of the entire enemy formation without provoking. With 40 to 50 feet of movement after the bonus, you exit past most enemies' reach, and they spend their next turn walking rather than attacking. Converting an enemy's action into movement is one of the best outcomes available in 5e combat, and this subclass does it every round for free.

The 10 feet also fixes geometry that otherwise does not work - closing 15 feet, striking, and retreating needs the extra movement to be worth doing.

Tipsy Sway - Level 6 ●

• Leap to Your Feet - stand from prone using only 5 feet of movement instead of half your speed.
• Redirect Attack - when a creature misses you with a melee attack, spend your reaction to make that attack hit a different creature within 5 feet of the attacker instead, using the original attack roll.

Redirect Attack is the showy half and it is strong when you are surrounded. The original roll carries over, so a knight who rolled a 14 and missed your AC 16 will comfortably hit an adjacent goblin with AC 12. Let the mob swing at you and turn their misses into their own casualties.

Leap to Your Feet saves more rounds in practice. Being knocked prone normally costs half your movement; at level 6 that is 20 of your 40 feet. This reduces it to 5. Against anything that shoves - Cavaliers, Barbarians, many brutes - that is the difference between recovering cleanly and losing most of a turn.

The reaction cost means Redirect Attack competes with opportunity attacks and Sentinel, but since it triggers on a miss rather than on your choice, it fires often.

Drunkard's Luck - Level 11 ●

When you make an ability check, attack roll or saving throw with disadvantage, spend 2 ki to cancel the disadvantage.

Two ki is a steep price - the same points buy two Flurries. The right framing is insurance for moments where disadvantage would otherwise remove you from the fight: a blinded Monk who cannot land anything, or a save against paralysis where failure ends your encounter.

Use it sparingly. Do not spend it on skill checks where a bad result is merely inconvenient. Reserve it for an attack carrying a Stunning Strike you need to land, or a save you cannot afford to fail.

Intoxicated Frenzy - Level 17 ●

When you use Flurry of Blows, make up to three additional attacks with it, to a maximum of five, provided each Flurry attack targets a different creature.

Against five adjacent enemies you can distribute seven attacks across the turn, applying Stunning Strike wherever it matters most. That is spectacular in a wave fight or a large ambush.

The different-target requirement is the catch, and it is a hard one: against a single boss, which is where most level 17 fights actually happen, Intoxicated Frenzy does nothing at all. You get a normal two-attack Flurry. That conditionality is why it sits below Quivering Palm and Touch of the Long Death, both of which work regardless of how many enemies are present.

Take it if: you want to be impossible to pin down, or your DM favours large multi-enemy encounters over single-boss fights.

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Way of the Ascendant Dragon

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. ● Good.

The Monk's answer to grouped enemies, and notable for running on a proficiency-bonus budget rather than draining the ki pool.

Draconic Disciple - Level 3 ●

Three benefits at once. Draconic Presence: reroll a failed Intimidation or Persuasion check as a reaction, recharging on a long rest once it turns a failure into a success. Draconic Strike: when you damage a target with an unarmed strike, change the damage type to acid, cold, fire, lightning or poison. Tongue of Dragons: you learn Draconic.

Draconic Strike is the piece that earns its place. It is a free, permanent, unlimited answer to resistance against nonmagical bludgeoning damage - the exact problem Kensei solves with magical weapons and every other Monk solves by paying ki for Ki-Empowered Strikes. Skeletons, various constructs and some elementals stop being awkward.

Draconic Presence is a once-per-long-rest social insurance policy. Tongue of Dragons is flavour with a small edge in dragon-heavy campaigns.

Breath of the Dragon - Level 3 ●

When you take the Attack action, replace one attack with a 20-foot cone or a 30-foot by 5-foot line. Choose acid, cold, fire, lightning or poison. Each creature makes a Dexterity save against your ki save DC, taking two rolls of your Martial Arts die on a failure, half on a success. Three rolls at 11th level. Usable a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest, then 2 ki per use.

The critical word is replace. This substitutes for one Attack-action strike rather than adding a new action, so against a single target it is close to a downgrade - you trade a guaranteed hit for a saving-throw effect. The moment two or more enemies stand in the area, the maths inverts and keeps improving with each additional body.

The free-use budget is the underrated part: proficiency bonus per long rest means 2 uses at level 3 rising to 6 at level 17, none of which touch your ki. Spend the 2-ki conversion only when a second area burst genuinely decides a fight, because that ki is also your Stunning Strikes.

Wings Unfurled - Level 6 ●

When you use Step of the Wind, gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed until the end of your turn. Proficiency bonus uses per long rest.

Step of the Wind already costs 1 ki, so this bolts a full flying speed onto a bonus action you were spending anyway. Crossing a chasm, going straight up out of melee without provoking, or dropping onto a back-line caster all become routine. It lasts only the turn, so treat it as a mobility tool rather than sustained flight.

Aspect of the Wyrm - Level 11 ●

A bonus action creates a 10-foot aura for 1 minute. Choose one: Frightful Presence, letting you target a creature in the aura as a bonus action on later turns, forcing a Wisdom save or frightening it for the minute with a save at the end of each of its turns; or Resistance, naming a damage type that you and every ally in the aura resist. Once per long rest, or 3 ki thereafter.

The two modes solve different problems. Frightful Presence is repeatable single-target control with no per-use cost. Resistance is the sleeper: a party-wide halving of one damage type is enormous in a fight with a known, sustained source - a dragon's breath, an elemental, an area-denial caster.

The once-per-long-rest limit before the 3-ki conversion is steep for a feature you will want running for a whole boss fight. Reserve the free use for the encounter you know matters.

Ascendant Aspect - Level 17 ●

Augment Breath: 1 ki expands Breath of the Dragon to a 60-foot cone or 90-foot line and raises it to four Martial Arts dice. Blindsight out to 10 feet. Explosive Fury: when you activate Aspect of the Wyrm, choose any number of creatures you can see in the aura; each makes a Dexterity save or takes 3d10 of your chosen elemental type.

A strong stack. Augment Breath turns the signature feature into 4d10 across a 90-foot line for a single ki, which is efficient even against a generous level 17 pool. Explosive Fury is free damage riding on a bonus action you were already spending. Blindsight is small at 10 feet but closes the Monk's usual blind spot against invisible enemies.

Take it if: you want area damage, which essentially no other Monk subclass provides, or you want the party-wide resistance aura at level 11.

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Way of the Sun Soul

Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, revised in Xanathar's. ● Situational.

The ranged Monk. It gives the class something it genuinely lacks and overcharges for most of it.

Radiant Sun Bolt - Level 3 ●

A ranged spell attack at 30/60 feet dealing one Martial Arts die plus your Dexterity modifier in radiant damage. You can replace any Attack-action attacks with it, and you can replace Flurry of Blows strikes with it too.

Before Extra Attack this is roughly a shortbow shot that scales with your Martial Arts die. After level 5 it is four ranged attacks per turn for 1 ki, which is respectable output at range and the subclass's peak standard damage.

Radiant is one of the least-resisted damage types in the game and is actively strong against undead and fiends.

The awkwardness is identity. You are choosing each round between a melee round with unarmed strikes and a ranged round with bolts, and neither is clearly better. You buy flexibility and pay for it with focus.

Searing Arc Strike - Level 6 ●

Immediately after taking the Attack action, spend 2 ki to cast Burning Hands as a bonus action, with additional ki raising the spell level up to half your Monk level.

This is the weakest feature on the page outside Four Elements. Two ki buys a 1st-level spell, in the most commonly resisted damage type in the game, in a 15-foot cone that is awkward to aim from where a Monk stands, competing for the same ki as Stunning Strike. At level 8, spending 4 ki for a 3rd-level Burning Hands is worse than spending 1 ki on Flurry and attempting a stun.

There are narrow cases - tightly clustered enemies, a fire-vulnerable foe - but they are exceptions.

Searing Sunburst - Level 11 ●

As an action, create an orb at a point within 150 feet. Every creature in a 20-foot radius makes a Constitution save or takes 2d6 radiant, with no save required if behind opaque total cover. Spend up to 3 ki, each adding 2d6.

The best thing the subclass does, and the reason is the save type. Constitution saves are harder for most monsters than Dexterity saves, and a Dexterity-save area spell also gets shrugged off by anything with Evasion. Searing Sunburst sidesteps both problems.

The base version costs no ki at all, which makes it a free area option every round you want one. At 3 ki it is 8d6 radiant - about 28 average - to everything in the sphere with no attack roll. Against grouped enemies this competes well with anything else a Monk can do with 3 ki.

Sun Shield - Level 17 ●

You shed bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for 30 more, toggleable as a bonus action. When a creature hits you with a melee attack, use your reaction to deal 5 + your Wisdom modifier radiant damage to it.

At Wisdom 20 that is 10 radiant per triggering hit, with no saving throw. Against a mob making many attacks it accumulates - six attackers across a round is 60 radiant for no action spent. Against a boss making one or two attacks it is a rounding error.

The light aura actively harms stealth, and at level 17 the tactical value of illumination is close to nil.

Take it if: you specifically want a ranged Monk and accept Searing Arc Strike is a dead feature. Otherwise the class has better answers.

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Way of the Four Elements

Player's Handbook. ● Weak.

The weakest subclass in the class and one of the weakest in the 2014 rules. The concept is excellent. The pricing is broken.

Elemental Attunement - Level 3 ●

Use your action to produce a harmless sensory effect, light or snuff a small flame, chill or warm a pound of material, or shape a cubic foot of earth, fire, water or mist.

Cantrip-grade utility that costs a full action and produces no combat effect. It has genuine creative applications out of combat - snuffing torches to create darkness, shaping water to signal or misdirect. In a fight, spending an action on it is essentially always wrong.

Disciple of the Elements - Level 3 ●

Learn elemental disciplines at levels 3, 6, 11 and 17, swapping one out whenever you gain a Monk level. Each spends ki to produce an effect, usually replicating a spell, with no material components required.

This single feature is the entire subclass, and its problem is arithmetic rather than design. The disciplines cost 2 to 5 ki to replicate 1st and 2nd-level spells. That ki is the same ki that buys Flurry of Blows and Stunning Strike. Every point spent on a discipline is a stun you did not attempt, and the spells are not worth a stun.

The disciplines actually worth taking:

• Fangs of the Fire Snake ● - 1 ki extends your reach 10 feet and adds 1d10 fire to an unarmed strike, and a second ki deals the 1d10 even on a miss. The only 1-ki discipline and comfortably the best in the list, because it rides the Attack action rather than competing with your bonus action.
• Water Whip ● - 2 ki as a bonus action: a target within 30 feet makes a Dexterity save, taking 3d10 bludgeoning and either being knocked prone or pulled 25 feet toward you. The bonus-action timing means your Attack action stays free for Stunning Strike, and dragging an enemy archer or caster into your melee range is something no other Monk subclass can do.
• Ride the Wind ● - 4 ki for Fly on yourself for 10 minutes. Expensive up front, but the duration spreads the cost across an encounter or several.
• Clench of the North Wind ● - 3 ki for Hold Person. The worst rate in the list by raw exchange, but paralysis is strong enough - advantage on attacks, auto-crits from within 5 feet - that it sometimes justifies itself against a humanoid.
• Mist Stance ● - 4 ki for Gaseous Form on yourself. A real escape hatch for a class with few of them. You cannot attack in the form, so it is an exit, not a tactic.

The disciplines to avoid: Sweeping Cinder Strike (2 ki for Burning Hands), Fist of Four Thunders (2 ki for Thunderwave), Rush of the Gale Spirits (2 ki and your concentration for Gust of Wind), Wave of Rolling Earth (6 ki for Wall of Stone), Flames of the Phoenix (4 ki at level 17 for a 3rd-level Fireball that a 5th-level Wizard casts from a slot), and Siege of Stone (5 ki for a defensive buff you rarely have the ki to afford).

Take it if: the elemental fantasy matters more to you than effectiveness, or your DM will reduce every discipline cost by 1 ki - a small houserule that fixes the subclass outright. Otherwise Ascendant Dragon delivers the same theme at a fair price.

Ability Scores

Written once, because nine of the ten traditions want the same thing.

The standard priority is Dexterity, then Wisdom, then Constitution. Dexterity drives attack rolls, damage, AC through Unarmored Defense, and initiative. Push it to 20 first. Wisdom adds to AC and sets your ki save DC, which governs Stunning Strike - the most important roll you make. Constitution is hit points and concentration if you multiclass.

A defensible array: Dexterity 16, Wisdom 14, Constitution 14, then +2 Dexterity at your first two Ability Score Improvements and Wisdom after.

Two traditions genuinely invert this:

• Way of Mercy scales Hand of Harm, Hand of Healing and its save DCs on Wisdom. Wisdom 16 / Dexterity 15 with early Wisdom investment is correct.
• Way of the Astral Self moves attack and damage onto Wisdom outright, which frees you to treat Dexterity as an AC stat and put the difference into Constitution. It also enables a genuine Wisdom/Strength build, which nothing else in the class supports.

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Races

The Monk's multi-ability problem means races granting both Dexterity and Wisdom are disproportionately strong.

• Wood Elf ● - Dexterity and Wisdom together, +5 movement stacking with Unarmored Movement, and Mask of the Wild. The default best pick for nearly every tradition.
• Variant Human ● - A feat at level 1. Monks have high feat demand and this is the only way to get one before level 4.
• Tabaxi ● - Feline Agility doubles your movement for a turn, which on a Drunken Master produces absurd hit-and-run range. Stealth proficiency and a climb speed on top.
• Kalashtar ● - Wisdom, telepathy, and advantage on Wisdom saves. Excellent on Mercy and Ascendant Dragon, whose save DCs run on Wisdom.
• Githzerai ● - Wisdom plus innate Shield, which is a remarkable fit for Astral Self both mechanically and thematically.
• Lightfoot Halfling ● - Lucky is universally good; Naturally Stealthy pairs with Shadow.
• Aasimar (Protector) ● - Wisdom, plus Healing Hands as a second healing source. The natural fit for Mercy, and thematically pointed on a subclass that deals necrotic damage.
• Shadar-Kai ● - Blessing of the Raven Queen grants resistance to all damage as a bonus action once per short rest, which pairs directly with Long Death: survive the halved hit rather than spending ki on Mastery of Death.
• Dragonborn ● - Thematically obvious on Ascendant Dragon and mechanically redundant, since you already have a breath weapon and a resistance. Take it for the concept, not the numbers.
• High Elf ● - Dexterity plus a free wizard cantrip, which on Kensei can mean Booming Blade on a kensei weapon.
• Aarakocra ● - A flying speed removes the single biggest limitation on a melee Monk. Check your DM allows it before planning around it.
• Tortle ● - A natural AC 17 that beats most low-level Monk AC outright. Strongest on Long Death, where durability is the plan.

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Feats

See the full Best Feats for Monk guide for the level-banded plan. These are the ones whose value a subclass choice actually changes.

• Lucky ● - Three rerolls a long rest, no action cost, useful to every tradition. Rerolling a failed Stunning Strike save is the standard use.
• Sentinel ● - Excellent on Open Hand and Long Death, which want enemies to stay adjacent. Actively wrong on Drunken Master, which wants to leave.
• Mobile ● on Drunken Master, ● elsewhere - Stacking +10 speed on top of Drunken Technique's +10 produces a character nothing can catch.
• Skulker ● on Shadow - Hiding while lightly obscured is what makes Shadow Step reliable. Near-mandatory there, useless elsewhere.
• Elemental Adept ● on Ascendant Dragon and Four Elements - Ignoring resistance to your chosen damage type patches the one failure mode both share.
• Tough ● on Long Death - A bigger hit point pool extends the window in which Mastery of Death keeps working.
• Sharpshooter ● on ranged Kensei - Sharpen the Blade's +3 to hit partly pays for the -5 penalty.
• Alert ● - +5 initiative and immunity to surprise. Strongest on the subclasses whose opening turn shapes the fight: Mercy landing a poison before anything acts, Shadow stepping into position first, Kensei getting Sharpen the Blade up before initiative matters.
• Resilient (Wisdom) ● - Proficiency on Wisdom saves closes the standard weakness of Wisdom-primary builds, which is why it belongs on Astral Self before Diamond Soul arrives at 14.
• Tavern Brawler ● on Drunken Master - Improvised weapons count as monk weapons and a hit enables a free grapple. Peak aesthetics, and a real tactical option.
• War Caster ● - Only relevant if you multiclass into concentration spells. No pure Monk needs it.

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Multiclassing

• Monk / Fighter (2) ● - Action Surge is a full extra action, and it is the best two-level dip for every tradition on this page. On Mercy it means extra Hand of Harm triggers; on Ascendant Dragon, a second Breath of the Dragon in one turn.
• Shadow / Warlock (2) ● - Devil's Sight lets you see through your own Darkness. That single Invocation converts Shadow Arts' weakest option into a one-sided advantage bubble, and it is the strongest multiclass on this page.
• Monk / Rogue (3) ● - Cunning Action competes with Flurry of Blows for the bonus action, which blunts most of the appeal. Sneak Attack is real on a Shadow Monk who has advantage every turn from Shadow Step.
• Long Death / Barbarian (2) ● - Bear Totem resistance stacks with Mastery of Death into something very hard to kill. Note Unarmored Defense does not stack; use the better of the two.
• Mercy / Cleric (1, Life) ● - Disciple of Life boosts your healing spells, though not Hand of Healing itself, which is a feature rather than a spell.

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Choosing by Campaign

The single most useful question is not "which is strongest" but "what are the next twenty sessions going to look like."

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Hot Take: Way of the Four Elements is not badly designed, it is badly priced. Every discipline would be a reasonable option at one ki less than it costs, and the subclass would sit comfortably mid-table. As written, it is the only Monk subclass where the correct play is frequently to ignore your own subclass features and just Flurry. If your DM will knock 1 ki off every discipline, it becomes fun and fair overnight - and that is a much smaller houserule than most tables assume.

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Related Guides

• D&D 5e Monk Guide - the base class, ki, Stunning Strike, and level 1-20 progression.
• Best Feats for Monk
• D&D 5e 2014 Class Guides hub
• Cantrips - relevant if you dip for Booming Blade.

Ready to put a monastic tradition to the test? Find a D&D 5e game on The Role Players Guild.