Origins

This subclass was born of two desires: to translate the 4e Paragon Path ‘Radiant Fist’ to 5e and to also address the inherent (forgive me) mediocrity of the 5e monk class in general.

One of the very few times I’ve been able to drop the DM hat and just play was during the 4e days. The character I played was a Monk/Radiant Fist and it was one of the most enjoyable characters I’ve ever created. I loved that the paragon path leaned hard into the spiritual/religious aspects of the monk that, in my humble opinion, is often downplayed in favor of a pure martial artist theme. It’s a fine alternative non-paladin take on the holy warrior concept.

I also, like many others, found the 5e monk a bit underwhelming. They don’t seem to do anything well, whether it be tanking, damage, support, utility, etc. I’ve found that people in my games that are playing monks (and rangers for that matter) in 5e are doing so for the theme and not the mechanics. This is something that I think WotC is attempting to address with their new subclasses, such as the Astral Self monk, which gives the monk quite a bit more ‘oomph’, as it were. I’ve kept that design philosophy in mind with this subclass.

Design

I’ve taken the Radiant Fist abilities as presented in the 4e Player's Handbook 3 and translated them into 5e mechanics. While I attempted to remain faithful to the original concepts, I did have to massage them a bit in order to create a subclass that is both balanced, interesting, and fun to play. I also modified the names so that they would fit the translated abilities a bit more snuggly. Example: “Undimmed Sun” became “Touch of the Undimmed Sun”, “Divine Sun” became “Divine Sun Burst”. Etc.

As I said above, I also took into consideration WotC recent attempts to boost lackluster classes like the monk and ranger with more powerful subclasses. The Horizon Walker and Astral Self subclasses in particular are great examples of this approach. Power creep is always an understandable danger in creating homebrew content, but I don’t believe that I’ve exceeded the more recent precedents that WotC has set.

Example: ‘Radiant Fist’. This is an ability that grows as the monk gains levels. The enhancement of adding 1/2 of your wisdom modifier to attack rolls is my attempt to patch the almost complete lack of items that enhance the attack rolls of unarmed strikes. I believe there’s a total of one official item that’s does so. It’s also a feature that increases as you increase your stats and should roughly keep the monk’s unarmed strike attacks on par with other character’s magic weapons.

In keeping with the precedent of Fey Wanderer rangers and Astral Self monks gaining damage increases as they level up, I decided to lean into the monk’s role as a striker and incorporated the same concepts with the 3rd and 11th level enhancement. A Radiant Fist monk should produce equivalent damage to what a Fey Wander would produce at 3rd level and what an Astral Self monk can produce at 11th level.

I would also like to point out that Radiant Fist paired with the 17th level ability ‘Blinding Sun Technique’ only turns you into a murder machine until the end of your next turn, unlike the Astral monk’s 17th level ability which lasts for a full 10 minutes.

One more note: Perfect Self (Enhances 20th level monk feature ‘Perfect Soul’). This was a purely personal addition that harkens back to the 3e 20th level monk feature. I loved that the ultimate goal of a monk was to transcend the mortal plane and become something other than humanoid, namely an ‘Outsider’, 3e’s category for celestials, demons, etc. I chose 5e’s celestial creature type because it fits the subclass’ divine theme and the real-world concept of monks of certain religions ultimately ascending into a higher state of being.

The best D&D cannon of this is the human monk Kane, Grandmaster of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, as he is presented in R.A Salvatore’s more recent Drizzt novels. He is consistently described as someone who has transcended the mortal coil to have become something more than human. Considering that during the Forgotten Realms setting’s current time period, he is sitting pretty at 187 years of age and able to take out the infamous Drizzt Do’Urden in a dual speaks to his more than mortal status.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy!