Way of Mercy Monk 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

A supportive, healing monk has some interesting potential. Monks as monastic healers trained in the body and holistic medicine makes sense to me, but implementing that can be tricky. While it isn't going to be the most powerful option at the table, I do think in groups full of melee allies throwing themselves into danger, Way of Mercy can deliver a combat medic-like fantasy that gets some supportive healing with other reasonable damage features to keep you with tools to engage with whenever healing isn't a priority. It's pretty solid.

3rd Level: Hands of Healing and Hands of Harm

Hands of Healing is elegant in its design; you can spend ki to heal, basically getting a Cure Wounds for a ki, but can mix that into a Flurry of Blows in place of an attack for free. It makes it extremely action efficient to get somebody off of zero when engaged with a baddy- you smack the enemy two to three times, then nudge your ally with your foot and get them back into the fray. As far as cheap, efficient healing options go, I adore this design, namely because it comes alongside something else.
Hands of Harm has more Way of the Long Death feeling to it than the majority of that monastic tradition does. Basically, you can smite with ki, dealing a bonus martial arts die + your Wisdom modifier damage per point which is very close to an extra hit against the target. It can be hard to justify this over Flurry of Blows early, as it directly competes with it (and subsequently, your Healing Hands), but alongside a reasonable healing feature and with the promise of more ki to burn in the upper tiers, this feature is at its best here.

6th Level: Physician's Touch

Physician's Touch further develops Hands of Healing and Hands of Harm, each receiving a small buff.

Hands of Healing now also doubles as a Lesser Restoration style effect, curing blind, deafened, paralyzed, poisoned, or stunned simultaneously, which is SUPERB. Normally, these effects aren't quite worth spending actions to remove; getting to remove them for one of your four attacks made with Flurry of Blows is an amazing deal. I'll gladly cure a poison over make my 4th attack in many circumstances. If you're ever ending a paralysis or stun condition, this feature will feel outrageous.
Hands of Harming, too, receives a buff by adding on a round-long poisoned condition to the damage which does change the math of how “worth it” it is to use. It's something now you use to set up a fight against a threatening foe, especially considering the creature gets no save against the poison. If you hit, they're poisoned. Guaranteed poison with 1d6+2 damage regularly is something I want to start out a fight against a big bad with.

I desperately wish there was a bonus proficiency or other small out-of-combat buff here, but as far as in-combat tools go, this option has had two banger features that give you powerful enhancements to punching.

11th Level: Flurry of Healing and Harm

The cracks start to show through by 11th level in that you're entirely relegated to expanding your 3rd-level feature with nothing to help you do anything new outside of this. Flurry of Healing and Harm starts to feel like it should be upper level text baked into the core option, leaving this empty space where a feature should be.

Now, you can replace either of your two bonus attacks made with Flurry of Blows with Hands of Healing which might sound great, but isn't a major improvement. Most of the time, you'd rather attack than heal, and the instances where you'd want to heal twice over heal once attack once are going to be incredibly few and far between.
Harming Hand's upgrade gives you a free poison and martial arts die + wisdom modifier now on every Flurry of Blows, but still locks it to once per turn, making this basically just a discount. There will be next to no scenarios moving forward where you'll opt to spend ki on Hands of Harm from this point forward. It's an upgrade for sure, as tacking on a no-save poison and free damage to Flurry of Blows is all upside. It's nothing new though. You could always use this ability, now you just basically use it for free instead of for 1 ki point.

Way of Mercy, like most monastic traditions, really wants some tools to engage in out-of-combat exploration, or at least have other ways to navigate in and out of combat. Flurry of Healing and Harm doubles down on the only thing you get to do is spam Flurry of Blows and Stunning Strike.

17th Level: Hand of Ultimate Mercy

A once-per-long rest Raise Dead with no downsides isn't the capstone feature it's being sold as. Hand of Ultimate Mercy competes with 9th-level spells like True Resurrection, and lower level effects like Revivify. It's nothing the party hasn't likely had access to in some form since 5th or 9th level. Getting a once-per-long rest use of what's roughly a 5th-level spell effect that also costs a quarter of your resources isn't going to impress anyone unless nobody else in the group has thought about resurrection magic until now.

All Together

I do like Way of Mercy, just primarily as a lower-tier option. Hands of Healing and Hands of Harm do offer a great supportive expansion for monk's core play pattern; it's a solid feature. The upgrades for it being the entire subclass leaves no room for other needed tools to get excited about. It doesn't help that the only one of those offered comes at 17th level and is a comparative joke by this point when you look at what paladins, clerics, druids, bards, and some warlocks and sorcerers can do.

You can probably do some fun stuff with six levels in Way of Mercy and levels in supportive casters like cleric or druid, though. I think this option lends itself well for multiclassing, as most of the best stuff comes early, and short rest recharging ki tends to feel good once you've got around five or six points to play with.

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