[Cook] Monk - Way of the Gourmand (Patreon)

A cooking themed subclass is a little open-ended since the profession is quite broad, but it's also tough to avoid making something too specific. I eventually arrived at the Gourmand monk, who drew a lot of inspiration from Jackie's Chan role as a chef in the Shaolin movie, where he succeeds in combat thanks to his culinary training.

Here is how a typical monk is designed:

The monk follows a typical design: a moderately strong 3rd-level feature that benefits the existing monk kit, a roleplay or utility-focused feature for 6th level, and a strong boost at 11th level and even stronger one at 17th level to coincide with the power spikes.

Let's take a look:

Culinary Training provides a couple roleplay, flavor, and combat abilities. Tools of the Trade allows you to mechanically replace unarmed strikes with cookware (like forks) and Honed Senses makes you a better chef, which are minor benefits. Kneading Hands is a consistent minor utility benefit (similar to Open Hand monks), while Thousand Cuts grants a bonus damage boost at the cost of an additional ki point. It is slightly inferior damage-wise aside from the ki-intensive Thousand Cuts. On the other hand, gaining one additional unarmed strike is very useful, from getting new chances to land stunning strikes, move creatures, and more.

Comfort Dish is a nice healing and charm feature. The healing is modeled after the Mercy Monk's Hands of Healing feature, but with less ki consumption to avoid consuming uses of Thousand Cuts. The charm is a slightly stronger charm person spell, as the treats can charm non humans too!

Kitchen Forged grants a pretty straightforward fire resistance (to add to the poison resistance), and grants a damage bonus to keep it on par with other monks.

Master Chef is a great capstone, improving all of the Level 3 features. I'm less worried about the balance at this point because it's a capstone, but none of these features are any stronger than Open Hand monks 10d10 necrotic damage. The Tools of the Trade improvement is also intended to allow monks to throw a bunch of cookware at creatures in place of their unarmed strikes! Combine this with Thousand Cuts, you can throw up to five forks at one target. Kneading Hands also combos with Thousand Cuts, allowing you to move creatures up to 20 feet!

Have fun with the monk! If anyone plays this in a game, please let me know!