Mostly it's party tricks, as the class strongly lacks what other forms of 1/3 casters have: Abilities to synergize with the core class and abilities to amplify basic casting. You feel more like a Monk with a couple levels in Wizard, but no cantrips or ritual casting. For what you actually get, you do not feel like a master of the four elements. Their abilities are far too expensive for what they are (Remember that from level 5 onwards, 1 ki is worth a Stun or what's basically a second attack action), lack effective scaling or synergy with the class features, and overall I feel it holds you back far too much. I believe this link is the latest version: ДЄs a personal note, I am not too happy with some of the design decisions this latest revision (I like the one previous to this one) of the 4-Elements Remaster took (mostly with the lvl-17 stuff), but it is still far better than whats in the PHB.Д®xcellent concept, Subpar design seems to be the issue. This means you won't be using much of your 4-elements ability, because you will be saving your Ki for Stun instead.ДЄll of that being said, the consensus is that to help make the 4-elements monk more viable is to allow the different Elemental Disciplines to have a 1 ki pt discount (yes, this make some abilities have 0 ki cost, and this is intended) or to use the Homebrew you mentioned I believe the only other class that can Stun is the Cleric with its Power Word: Stun using an 8th level spell at class level 15. Oh, I can use this water tentacle to lash at a foe at a distance, or I can Stun this guy infront of me, and then still possibly have enough movement to run up and Stun the guy I want to lash. The next issue is that when the monk reaches 5 level, the Stunning Strike that the base class gets, tends to trump your Ki spending choices. This makes the 4-element monk seem costly when it comes to Ki use. The Shadow Monk is viewed as the better designed of the 2 subclasses. When it comes to comparing the two sub-classes Shadow Monk and 4-Elements Monk, it seems that the Shadow Monk somehow gets a 1 Ki pt discount on the spells it cast with Ki. This is more an implication into exactly what he said, but looking at the results, this makes a lot of sense. Additionally, the recent AMA Mike Mearls did over on the r/DnD, when asked about the seeming different takes between the 4 Elements and Shadow Monk, it was hinted that it was done by two different designers. While you can make debates on this, its just to point out that overall the Monk when being designed got really trigger-happy tieing all most its features to KI. To compare, the Rogue (a much better designed class imo), with its Cunning Action can Dash and Disengage with a bonus action, without spending any other resource, except its action economy. That issue is that to make Ki feel relevant, it ties nearly everything a monk can do to the Ki resource.

The monk as a class in general has a slight design issue.

4 elements ii special edition level