Fangs of the Fire Snake - Monk - Class Forums - D&D Beyond Forums (2024)

Quote from TDog84 >>

If I choose a Way of the Four Elements Monk and use Fangs of the Fire Snake could I spend 3 ki points to extend the reach of my unarmed strike by 30 ft?

No. That is not the Way Fangs of the fire Snake Works. You spend 1 to activate it. Which gives you reach and fire damage.

The other ki you spend which can be up to 4 more. Is spent at a rate of 1 per attack to add 1d10 to the damage of that attack. Which means if you spend 5 ki on it. You can not only have reach and do fire damage but each of your 4 attacks from Martial arts and Flurry of Blows will have 1d10 more damage.

If you want to spend just 3 ki. You would have reach and fire damage, But two of your attacks would also each have 1d10 damage. Whether that is the two attacks from your attack action with extra attack, A regular attack and a bonus action/FoB Attack, or on both of your FoB attacks.

Of course to have it apply to FoB attacks you will have to spend 1 ki to use FoB seperately.

it's also the only ability that technically doesn't scale up to the full 6ki points on it. Because of the way it works the 1 ki for FoB is technically that 6th ki point when maxed out.

Edit Note: Keep in mind that you do not have to pre-spend the ki to add the 1d10 extra damage on an attack. You can do this when the attack hits. So you don't have to worry about wasting ki on an attack that misses for Fangs of the fire Snake.

Fangs of the Fire Snake

When you use theAttackaction on your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to cause tendrils of flame to stretch out from your fists and feet. Your reach with your unarmed strikes increases by 10 feet for that action, as well as the rest of the turn. A hit with such an attack deals fire damage instead of bludgeoning damage, and if you spend 1 ki point when the attack hits, it also deals an extra1d10fire damage.

You can spend 1 ki point per hit, for as many hits you can make during that turn. I don't see any limit other than the number of attacks you can make and how many ki points you have to spend. But as bolded in the quote above, it only says you can spend 1 ki point to add 1d10 damage to one attack that hits. So you can't hit once and dump 10 ki points into that one hit to do 10d10 extra damage.

Quote from Rikilious >>

This ability is pretty strong because at level 3 it can let the monk at level 3 deal 1d4 (unarmed damage) +3 (dex bonus)+ 10 (if you spend 1 ki) and then use flurry of blows for an additional 2d4 damage. The total average damage damage is 14 fire damage...assuming all attacks hit and not including critical hit calculations. And you would have a spare ki point left for the encounter. You can use it to deal and extra 1d10 to boost your average damage to 19 or you can save it for round 2. What this discipline lacks in raw damage it makes up for in flexibility.

Where is the +10 coming from? Unless I’m forgetting something. If you attack it’s d4+Dex (+3 in your example, avg 5.5) With FoB it would be 3*(1d4+3) which is 16.5 avg if all three attacks hit. Then you can get the extra d10 with another Ki point (2 total) which would add 5.5 avg damage.

I just touched on this in my article about the Monk at Level 5. In it, I do describe how Way of the Four Elements works in terms of features and what you can do. I hope this could help.

http://dungeonswithdragons.blog/2023/09/10/the-monk-at-level-5-kung-fury/

To specifically answer your question:

Fangs of the Fire Snake:

• Using 1 ki point, your range of unarmed strikes increases by 10 ft on your turn. They also deal fire damage.
• If you spend an additional ki point on an attack that hits, you deal another 1d10 fire damage.

So, the range only increases 10 ft by using 1 ki point. The only thing that you can adjust is how much damage you can do.

3 ki points means:

• Using 1 ki point, your range of unarmed strikes increases 10 ft. And you can deal fire damage.
• By spending 2 ki points (on an unarmed strike that hits), you can do an additional 2d10 fire damage.