I did a bit of googling and I’ll be damned, looks like even the official Roddenberry Productions Facebook/Instagram account picked it up. OK, that’s it, I peaked, my life is all downhill from there.
Or: Monks have 3 stances: aggressive, defensive, and mobile. Switching stances costs a bonus action, and you can assume one stance freely when you roll initiative.
In aggressive stance Flurry of Blows is free.
In defensive stance Patient Defense is free.
In mobile stance Step of the Wind is free.
This way monks are not just a worse rogue, their basic abilities are now actual basic abilities.
My players have been having an easy time with the enemies so far, thanks to literally half of the 6-player party being paladins with 20+ AC and a cleric with also 20+. Tomorrow they are fighting a really nasty homebrew fire giant lord with a special armor and shield, legendary actions, and legendary resistances. I gave them an out because defeat will just mean losing a bunch of newly-found magic items and being sworn to the service of said fire giant lord for 10 years, but we’ll see how much of a reality check this will be for them.
Edit: they nuked him in less than two rounds. The giant got out a fireball as a legendary action, and rolled really high… except all but one of them saved (with +2 to saves because fucking paladins) and then all but one of them also took half damage (because fucking Ancients paladin). Then he managed to do two attacks which did pretty good damage against a paladin, but not enough to take her out. Then he got out a stomp attack as a legendary action but everybody made the DEX save because, again, fucking paladins so it was useless. Then he got out a Circle of Death… that everybody managed to save against because fucking paladins, and everybody took half damage above that because, again, fucking paladins, so it did a whopping 9 damage to a bunch of them which amounted to jack fucking shit. And meanwhile he got blasted with divine smites, including a critical one (with some assist from a hexblade’s critical eldritch smite and a crit from a ranger with a powerful homebrew bow (about as powerful as a Dragon Wing bow) combined with Hunter’s Mark and Hail of Thorns (edit2: I see one of my mistakes now, they are both concentration spells and I neglected to enforce this; will do the next time but it wasn’t really the deciding factor)).
I don’t know what I hate more, paladins or WotC’s game design philosophy. Seems like the only way to challenge a level 5+ party in combat is to make it a horrible slog through a dozen enemies. Or, y’know, the FromSoftware design philosophy of slapping down an enemy with 20000 HP and an enormous weapon that deals 20d12 damage in a 90 foot cone or a 90 foot long 15 foot wide line.
The problem with Redemption is that it’s an externally-focused oath, trying to redeem others. A conquest paladin having an “am I the baddy” moment and turning into a redemption paladin is like a douchy bully who suddenly finds Jesus then tries to convert people without apologizing for the years of bullying.
D&D needs an Oath of Atonement which would be specifically focused on making up for the shit you did as a previous less-than-moral paladin subclass (mostly conquest, sometimes revenge, occasionally crown or devotion).
Consider the Werewolf and the Owlbear. They are both CR3, so they should be equally challenging, right? WRONG.
The owlbear could be considered the baseline CR3 monster. It’s got a big bag o’HP, an AC of 13 that will be hit by a third level character ~65% of the time, and two +7 attacks that can hit level 3 characters with a similar hit probability (50% vs. chainmail and shield, 75% vs. a squishy caster with decent dexterity) dealing 24 damage per round on average assuming both hit. Party composition barely matters, 4 level 3s with competently-distributed ability scores, spells, etc… will take it out (barring a series of shitty rolls).
The werewolf though… on paper, it’s easier than an owlbear. They have similar HP, a smidgen lower AC in hybrid form (12), and much weaker attacks (+4, with 12 average DPR). But this is where the CR system gets swingy depending on the party. If your party is a melee fighter, a ranged rogue, a barbarian and a monk then the werewolf might as well be CR999999 because it’s immune to nonmagical non-silvered damage. But if the party is a paladin, a soulknife, a cleric and sorcerer then its effective CR will be basically 1.5.