Ehhh... Yes and no. Yes, the monk is poorly designed. No, I honestly don't think that grappling is part of the monk class fantasy, so its kind of ignored. Because of that, I don't think we can say "master of unarmed combat" is the monk's niche.
Grappling is absolutely part of the class fantasy. Grabbing, redirecting, or otherwise entangling your opponent is a key part of many films and shows featuring monk-like characters. Grappling is usually horrendous in DnD and is currently designed to exclude monks, but that doesn't mean it isn't iconic for many such characters. In fact, it is so iconic it is often added on to with special techniques and moves.
Plus, it is grabbing someone. If you can't find someone grabbing on to someone else during a fight choreography, there is something weird going on.
Fists should be on par with weapons with the monk. I believe we do agree on that much. I just feel that it should be a choice - fisting for those who like fisting, and weapons for those who like weapons.
Sure, it can be a choice... but at that point, why not drop them as a class and put a d8 "fist" weapon on the weapon list? If they are not defined by HOW they fight... they are just fighters.
And as much as you keep denying it, the Monk is the class that comes to mind when people ask for an unarmed combatant. So the design should focus on that, then have weapon use as an option, but not the focus.
I'm arguing that their particular brand of mysticism is actually central to the fantasy of the monk. More so than just fist and no armor.
No, that brand of mysticism is the EXCUSE used to JUSTIFY the fist and no armor. Why are monks mystical? Because they are mysterious, why are they mysterious, because an unarmed, unarmored man can take down a man in armor who is wielding weapons. The two go hand in hand, but the execution of the "mystical" element is in service to the way they fight.
We just need to agree on what said niche is.
Well, it seems our two choices are "magical fighter" or "unarmed fighter" and frankly since everyone should be supernatural in DnD and magic is covered by the majority of other classes... I don't understand why this is a discussion. No one else has the primary fantasy of fighting unarmored and with their fists. Plenty of other people have "strange magical powers" or "religious beliefs"
Heck, the UA paladin of Redemption had abilities to go unarmored and use simple weapons, and would fit the aesthetic some of those characters would go for.
Here's the thing. You are creating an arbitrary line between what happens narratively and what happens mathematically. When, in truth, they are linked.
Meanwhile, sending energy inside of an enemy does have a parallel in the game - the Mercy monk spending ki to deal extra damage on a hit. That subclass is the one meant to embody the fantasy of monks sending energy into an opponent to heal or harm them. Indeed, this is very similar to a smite. There's quite a bit of overlap with paladins and Mercy monks.
This is fundamentally different from how monks based on Avatar, or the like, act. Or should have mechanically represented. A smite feels fundamentally different from hitting someone with a blow to the head to stun them when you're playing a game.
As I've said elsewhere, vibes matter.
They are linked in the final product by context. Seriously, this is very very simple. Let's try again.
My character uses an action to make a ranged attack that deals fire damage. Which class am I? Elemental Monks can do this, wizards can do this. Sorcerers can do this. Warlocks can do this. Druids can do this. Clerics can do this.
Fire damage is a flavor of story, the fantasy of dealing fire damage is reached from many different angle. And while the Mercy Monk does deal poison damage on a hit, that actually isn't the fantasy I was talking about, because the damage type I'm talking about would be better represented by Force damage. Because it turns out, even if mechanically identical, the damage creates a context. After all, hitting someone with thunder damage is different than hitting them with psychic damage. Not because the mechanics have to change at all, the mechanics can be identical, but the damage type changes the feel.
PArt of the issue seems to be, you are looking at the finished product, then declaring that that is how you start, with a finished product. No. When doing design work, you start with an unfinished product. The "vibes" of the story and fluff, like whether or not they deal fire or psychic damage, comes later. First you have to make them actually mechanically vibe in a useful way.
Well, lets ask this. Where does that +2 ac come from? Like, if its coming from picking up a shield... you are NOT getting it from precognition or growing scales. You don't randomly get +AC out of nowhere. The fiction comes first (picking up a shield), which gives you a mathematical bonus. There's implications to holding a shield that are different from supernatural dodging or growing scales.
You want to strip all the numbers of any meaning, which is not how the game works at a base level. There's some wiggle room, sure, not everything is set in stone, but you're advocating for an extreme. An extreme that has ripple effects not intended.
Monk AC is based in part on wisdom because that's the attribtue that governs perception and esoteric insight. As a result, monks have insight into physiology and awareness of the world around them.
Dragon sorcerer AC is the result of scales growing on their skin, and are tied to the idea of elemental resistance they get later on. You cannot peel scales off a monk to make dragonscale armor. There's a very strong argument that you can with the sorcerer.
If someone is arguing that they should get AC from seeing the future, I would not allow them to sit at a roulette table and see the future of where the ball will land, even if it fits the rationale they have with AC. Assuming no other divination-based abilities at least. "I can see the future, so dodge well" has implications.
There are limits to "flavor is free."
You almost get it, then you veer off in another direction. Yes, different expressions are different expressions. Here, let's try this.
How do you calculate AC? 10 + Dex. If you have a different AC calculation, it is generally 10 + Dex + another score. Here are four versions of that. Actually, let's do five, because there is another one that is easy to get
10 + Dex + Cha
10 + Dex + Wis
10 + Dex + Con
10 + Dex + Cha
10 + Dex + Int
Now, according to you, all five of these are completely different mechanics. They share almost nothing in common, according to your view, because the flavor is completely different for all of these.
But... two of them are literally identical. And mechanically... they are all the same thing. Sure, there is a different inherent in wisdom versus consitution, but mechanically this distinction doesn't matter. I even have a variant of a class that does 10 + Dex + STR to round it out and have one for every single other ability score.
The mechanic is the same. The logic behind it is largely the same. Don't wear armor, instead use a second score. Now, one of them cheats and does wear armor, but that is because it is a temporary ability, but just looking at this, if you didn't know exactly which class each of these belonged to... would you honestly be able to tell?
There is no "extreme ripple effect" here. There is an acknowledgement of how design works. "Make an attack as a bonus action" represents both extreme skill and training, and divine providence, and unbridled fury. Same mechanic, but put a different name and a different trigger, and you have created a different story.
The collection of mechanics exist to create a certain fantasy - a certain vibe, if you will. Your arguments center around completely ignoring that vibe, which... the vast majority of players and DMs do not do. You say its not hard. In truth? Most people don't like doing that, as it completely ruins the feel of the class.
And the feel, the vibe, the fantasy? Its EVERYTHING in a TTRPG like this. You might be fine with taking "flavor is free" to an extreme that the majority of gamers balk at. Others aren't. Indeed, we tend to see the opposite - large amounts of backlash when something is mechanically stepping beyond the class fantasy.
Hells, we have the phrase "class fantasy" and "tropes" specifically because they're so important.
You are arguing that you can erase the class fantasy and just use the mechanics to recreate whatever fantasy you want. But you are missing that a perfect bleaching of mechanics like that is impossible. There are always implications to mechancis that, in order for this to work that you have to just ignore. Mechanics don't just exist in a vacuum.
Of course they don't exist in a vaccuum. But you don't design a class by saying "I need the story of..." exclusively. The Monk has a story, it has a context, we agree on this. But you keep arguing that we have to only focus on that and we can't set that aside, look at the absolute garbage fire of mechanics we are dealing with and say "okay, mechanically, what do I want this to do"
We need "what does a baseline monk DO in a fight? What do they do in a social situation?" Not, what is the story of the avatar who does Z,X,Y, A,B C because that's a subclass, and we are looking at the base class, trying to figure out what it can do first.
