I love this. Especially since I was disappointed by the Way of the Four Elements path for Monks. I think Way of the Ascended Sage not only surpasses it, but really stands on its own. If I could offer two minor suggestions, they would be in the "New Spells" section. First, I feel as though Spitfire Aura should be slightly higher level given the power of the spell. Second, I would have liked more melee based, elemental damage-on-hit spells (i.e. Green Flame Blade from Sword Coast Adventures) Despite those two minor greivances, I cannot recommend this product enough. Very clearly laid out and thoughtfully balanced. 9 out of 10! Would devote myself to the Way of the Ascended Sage!

To start, given WOTC's love of mix and match spellcasting in Unearthed Arcana, I'm surprised we don't already have a monk with true spellcasting. And now honestly, I don't want one because I think it'd be a let down compared to this. Ascended Sage does a great job of weaving spellcasting into the monk's repertoire of melee focused combat and use of ki points on top of being another class that makes intelligence actually feel important. The new spells are both fun and interesting and just from a few reads over the class and new spells I've got a few character ideas kicking around for future characters and some NPC's in the current campaign I'm running.

Spellcasting in handled much like the other 1/4 casters, only without the restraints of the classes like Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster making build diversity much better. Esoteric Knowledge is great for DM's like myself who tend to let players use Arcana as a way to explore the more magic oriented parts of the campaign. Martial Casting is similar to the EK's War Magic and is a great addition to a class that weaves martial attacks with spellcasting support. I find Spiritual Admixture to be quite powerful and it makes crowd control monks and single-target debuff strategies more viable than some spellcasters. The use of this feature being balanced by need of ki-points is great, more evidence that the archetype is well suited to the monk's core features. Arcane Ascension is quite exciting for the final feature and feels better than some of the vanilla capstones. The ability to mix and match spell buffs per long rest is quite powerful, however the lack of concentration spells is a good balance from making things too powerful. My only criticism of AA is the wording. I believe it's meant to be limited by the spells on your spells known list, however its wording is just vague enough to be also seen as taking spells from the entirety of the wizard’s spell list. So some clarification there could be good.

The new spells added along with the class are unique and don't seem like rehashes of older spells. Spirit Arrow is a nice addition to the list of "damage cantrips with a bonus" and the location awareness is something not many people think useful until it happens. Spiritfire Aura actually is surprisingly useful given the sheer amount of enemies at later levels that have resistances to multiple damage types. It's also a spell that can definitely be used with AA to great effect. Substitution is adorable in the fact that it is essentially Naruto's substitution jutsu in D&D and it's done right. It's not overly complicated and feels really smooth in practice. Animate WEapon is in my opinion the most powerful of the bunch and definitely has the potential to be overpowered with the right build, but it is just so much fun to use. For those that want more balance, I suggest making it unable to work on weapon's with the heavy property. FInally we come to Sage's Battle Meditation, which feels like something straight out of a Jedi training manual. It's a nice alternative to Haste for spells that give massive buffs in a short time.