Monk Weapons

[Cogidubnus]

Why would a monk use a weapon, especially after the first few levels? His Unarmed Strike damage scales far beyond the monk weapons, and he gets no benefits from using a weapon other than it being slightly easier to enchant (but Necklace of Natural Attacks effectively finishes off that bugbear).

So, why would you do it? And is there anything that can be house-ruled to make them more useful? I mean, it makes sense for a monk to be able to do unarmed strike damage through a quarterstaff, maybe even unarmed strike + staff damage, but then you make unarmed strikes useless. So, what do you do?

[Daftendirekt]

Why would a monk use a weapon, especially after the first few levels?

He wouldn't.

Unless he was a Drunken Master using improvised weapons, then he's doing his unarmed PLUS MORE!

[Miscast_Mage]

One reason I can think of for monks to use weapons isn't damage, but rather the weapons special abilities; for example: kama for trip attacks, nunchaku and sai for disarming, quarterstaff for TWF, shuriken just... to do more than scratch their rear if they can't reach an enemy?

Also, some monk weapons do damage other than blunt, which a monk's unarmed strike can't do without Versatile Strike. So to overcome some types of DR as well.

If i'm not mistaken, I think Pathfinder monks can do their unarmed damage with special monk weapons. Those piddly little shuriken are doin' more than scratch damage now, aren't they?

[Curmudgeon]

Some opponents you just don't want to touch. If the enemy has cast Babau Slime you'll take acid damage on every hit, and if they've cast Balor Nimbus you definitely won't want to grapple them.

Plus unarmed strikes are no good if you can't reach your opponent. A simple sling gives you something better to do than just stand around twiddling your thumbs.

[Cogidubnus]

Some opponents you just don't want to touch. If the enemy has cast Babau Slime you'll take acid damage on every hit, and if they've cast Balor Nimbus you definitely won't want to grapple them.

Plus unarmed strikes are no good if you can't reach your opponent. A simple sling gives you something better to do than just stand around twiddling your thumbs.

Sling isn't a Monk Weapon though, just a weapon they're proficient with. Still, the point stands.

[Curmudgeon]

Sling isn't a Monk Weapon though, just a weapon they're proficient with.

I know that, but realistically the combination of shuriken + flurry of blows is pretty ludicrous. Your maximum range is going to be 50', and with a -10 range penalty to each shot at that distance. Include your flurry of blows penalty (if under level 9) and you might as well aim all those shurikens directly for the trash heap.

Among many other lacks, Monks definitely need a better ranged attack option.

[ericgrau]

Magic monk weapons deal more damage than unarmed strikes. Half of them have special options (unless you get into "not good at what it's good at" RAW debates). Heck with ki focus monk weapons there's no reason to even use unarmed strikes with a stunning fist. Depending on the build, there's often little point to using unarmed strikes over monk weapons.

Shuriken tangent (short version: never take as a focus, always carry as a backup option):

Spoiler

Show

Shurikens are pretty lousy most of the time compared to a bow, but they do have the advantage of being both ammo and thrown. That means you get strength to damage even at low levels, and if you drop someone in a melee full attack you can use your remaining attacks on shurikens without blowing a feat on anything like quick draw. And since you're in melee it means the next opponent is probably close to the dead one. You can likewise do some bow-specific things like carrying shurikens of various metal types for DR, all while still focusing on being melee not an archer. So they're backup, mostly, never a focus but almost free to tack on to an existing build. And since they're only backup and ammo you can enchant a few magically for not too much money, unlike, say, thrown daggers. If you wanted to focus range then ya a bow is better. Basically bows > shurikens > other thrown weapons. I've likewise used other thrown weapons as backup options on melee builds before, especially at low levels.

[Urpriest]

Necklace of Natural Attacks is 3.0 content, so many DMs won't allow it. Plus, without the MIC you're not going to get to combine it with all the other neck slot items monks want.

Monk weapons can pierce metal-based DR, plus the aforementioned DR/slashing or piercing.

They're supposed to be just-in-case weapons, that's why they're not very good to begin with.

[Curmudgeon]

Necklace of Natural Attacks is 3.0 content, so many DMs won't allow it.

Actually, the Necklace of Natural Attacks is 3.5 content from here (bottom of the page). This item is updated from the Savage Species Necklace of Natural Weapons (page 58). With the new name and new date (2006) it's fully official 3.5 content.

[Urpriest]

Actually, the Necklace of Natural Attacks is 3.5 content from here (bottom of the page). This item is updated from the Savage Species Necklace of Natural Weapons (page 58). With the new name and new date (2006) it's fully official 3.5 content.

Ooh nice catch. I will have to use that the next time a DM tries to keep that Necklace from me.

[Cogidubnus]

Ooh nice catch. I will have to use that the next time a DM tries to keep that Necklace from me.

My necklace. All mine... Mwahahaha. I've personally always played with 3.0/3.5 transparency, but I know some don't.

[Arutema]

Some opponents you just don't want to touch. If the enemy has cast Babau Slime you'll take acid damage on every hit, and if they've cast Balor Nimbus you definitely won't want to grapple them.

This. One of my games saw out monk trying to punch out a leper priest.

One failed Fort save and a Remove Disease later, he bought a weapon.

Also, good luck making your fists Cold Iron or Silver.

[jpreem]

Silversheen oil might actually work on monks fists (you are applying a spell effect from an item to a weapon(monk's unarmed strikes work also as a manufactured weapon for this purpose)). But yes with a cold iron you are just out of luck I guess.

[Rasman]

If you're LUCKY enough to be playing Pathfinder, Paizo saw it fit to fix the whole "Monk can't enchant his fists" problem.

Look at the Brass Knuckles at the top of the page under "Unarmed" weapons. The See Text part is particularly important. If you're in a 3.5 game, I don't see why you couldn't at least ask your DM if you can get a pair of these since Pathfinder and 3.5 are conversion compatible.

It's an easy fix to a long standing problem for Monks and it solves all those "I can get past this DR" BS problems, along with the "can't enchant my fists" issues.

[RebelRogue]

Plus unarmed strikes are no good if you can't reach your opponent. A simple sling gives you something better to do than just stand around twiddling your thumbs.

Most of the time flurry of blows with shuriken is better than the single stone you can fire with a sling in a round:

Sling

Your Strength modifier applies to damage rolls when you use a sling, just as it does for thrown weapons. You can fire, but not load, a sling with one hand. Loading a sling is a move action that requires two hands and provokes attacks of opportunity.

[MeeposFire]

This. One of my games saw out monk trying to punch out a leper priest.

One failed Fort save and a Remove Disease later, he bought a weapon.

Also, good luck making your fists Cold Iron or Silver.

Well silver can be found in a set of magic gloves (gloves of magic might or something, it gives you the ability to pierce magic and silver damage reduction).

Cold iron is a little harder to get though I admit without using a battlefist or being warforged. Ah Eberron without you monks would have almost nothing.

[Curmudgeon]

I know that, but realistically the combination of shuriken + flurry of blows is pretty ludicrous. Your maximum range is going to be 50', and with a -10 range penalty to each shot at that distance. Include your flurry of blows penalty (if under level 9) and you might as well aim all those shurikens directly for the trash heap.

Most of the time flurry of blows with shuriken is better than the single stone you can fire with a sling in a round:

I already covered this, and I disagree for the reason noted above. With their enhanced movement the Monk can close that 50' gap in one move. That's got to be more effective than taking a -10 range penalty, flurry of blows penalty, iterative attack penalties, and maybe TWF penalty with shurikens.

[Draconi Redfir]

If i'm not mistaken, I think Pathfinder monks can do their unarmed damage with special monk weapons. Those piddly little shuriken are doin' more than scratch damage now, aren't they?

Yup it's true. and i'm not 100%, but i think weapons that are treated as unarmed (such as brass knuckles, possibly punching dagger and quarterstaff) can be used as one of the attacks in flurry of blows. However this might just be a special rule i made for myself and forgot about.

[Dalek-K]

Some opponents you just don't want to touch. If the enemy has cast Babau Slime you'll take acid damage on every hit, and if they've cast Balor Nimbus you definitely won't want to grapple them.

Plus unarmed strikes are no good if you can't reach your opponent. A simple sling gives you something better to do than just stand around twiddling your thumbs.

HEY! Grappling the balor was the plan (originally back up plan but it was cooler than the plan) .... Along with bull rushing/pushing it into a prismatic wall.... Yeah that monk died but so did the balor XD (we were on it's native plane).

But yeah I think Monk weapons should have been beefed up a bit and really the whole class seems like they said "HEY THIS IS COOOL... oh wait we need to make the wizard more awesome" and then forgot to fix the monk when t got published.

[MeeposFire]

If i'm not mistaken, I think Pathfinder monks can do their unarmed damage with special monk weapons. Those piddly little shuriken are doin' more than scratch damage now, aren't they?

I am just curious on where it says that since I cannot find it in the class description. Is it a feat or something? All I can see is that it says that monk weapons can be used with a flurry of blows.

[Ashram]

Luckily if you're doing Pathfinder, once you get to a certain enhancement bonus on weapons, they start counting as metals or alignments for purposes of bypassing DR.

+3: Cold iron and silver
+4: Adamantine
+5: All alignments (Good/evil/law/chaos)

Also, I never knew PF monks could do unarmed strike damage with monk weapons. Awesome. =o

[MeeposFire]

As far as I can tell they can't. I have checked the monk section and the weapon section in the online SRD for PF and have not seen anything that alludes to this. I could be missing it every time but as far as I can tell PF monks use standard weapon damage for the typical monk weapon like the staff.

[OracleofWuffing]

Well silver can be found in a set of magic gloves (gloves of magic might or something, it gives you the ability to pierce magic and silver damage reduction).

I'd like to track down the wording on that item, but I can't find anything fitting that description (I want to check if it's a gauntlet or a glove, for silly reasons)... There's a feat in Champions of Valor for piercing silver, and the Argent Fist in Faiths of Eberron gets class features for silver and cold iron, but the closest thing I can find for that sort of thing is the Metalline weapon enhancement.

[Ashram]

As far as I can tell they can't. I have checked the monk section and the weapon section in the online SRD for PF and have not seen anything that alludes to this. I could be missing it every time but as far as I can tell PF monks use standard weapon damage for the typical monk weapon like the staff.

Hmm, I think someone confused monk's unarmed strike with their flurry of blows.

[MeeposFire]

Hmm, I think someone confused monk's unarmed strike with their flurry of blows.

Perhaps though that makes little sense in context since the poster said no longer doing piddly damage with shuriken and extra attacks do not cause damage of the individual weapon to go up.

Gauntlets of weaponry arcane are what I was thinking. Apparently you will need to hold your unarmed attack to use them since it uses an odd wording.

[Cogidubnus]

Perhaps though that makes little sense in context since the poster said no longer doing piddly damage with shuriken and extra attacks do not cause damage of the individual weapon to go up.

Gauntlets of weaponry arcane are what I was thinking. Apparently you will need to hold your unarmed attack to use them since it uses an odd wording.

So you cut your leg off, use Regenerate to grow a new one, and beat your opponents with your own foot? Pretty awesome.

As for shruiken, if they confused unarmed strike damage and being able to Flurry, then it makes perfect sense they thought you could use unarmed strike damage with Monk weapons.

[Miscast_Mage]

Hmm, I think someone confused monk's unarmed strike with their flurry of blows.

Yeah, I was mis-remembering this, which I read ages ago. I don't know why I thought it said somewhere that you could do unarmed strike damage with monk weapons, I really don't. Though to be fair, it would be an interesting power boost to the monk.

[Cogidubnus]

Yeah, I was mis-remembering this, which I read ages ago. I don't know why I thought it said somewhere that you could do unarmed strike damage with monk weapons, I really don't. Though to be fair, it would be an interesting power boost to the monk.

It would also make a great deal of sense. I do martial arts and I can tell you, I'd do a lot more damage with a staff than just my bare hands.

[Leon]

Why would a monk use a weapon, especially after the first few levels? His Unarmed Strike damage scales far beyond the monk weapons, and he gets no benefits from using a weapon other than it being slightly easier to enchant (but Necklace of Natural Attacks effectively finishes off that bugbear).

So, why would you do it? And is there anything that can be house-ruled to make them more useful? I mean, it makes sense for a monk to be able to do unarmed strike damage through a quarterstaff, maybe even unarmed strike + staff damage, but then you make unarmed strikes useless. So, what do you do?

Because there are some things you just don't want to touch and sometimes a different damage type is needed and if you don't want to use a feat to make your unarmed strike do slashing or piercing then a back up weapon is a very good idea.

[Miscast_Mage]

It would also make a great deal of sense. I do martial arts and I can tell you, I'd do a lot more damage with a staff than just my bare hands.

What bugs me about it is how unarmed strike are dynamic; growing more powerful with increased monk levels; whereas monk weapons are static; just staying as is. Why does a master martial artist do 2d10(same as two greatswords. What.) damage with his fists/kicks/general body but instantly reverts to a 1d6 when he starts hitting someone with a stick? Hells, even anyone with 4+ monk levels starts doing more damage with his fists than with *double check* every monk-proficient weapon in the SRD except the crossbows.

Oh, and an interesting little tidbit I found; according to the "Larger and Smaller Weapon Damage" table in the SRD, there is no way to get a 2d10 weapon.

Because there are some things you just don't want to touch and sometimes a different damage type is needed and if you don't want to use a feat to make your unarmed strike do slashing or piercing then a back up weapon is a very good idea.

Expanding on this: You can also carry back-up weapons to have 'useful-in-certain-situations' only weapon enhancements, such as bane or disruption off the top of my head. Maybe 'fire once and forget' enhancements like spellstoring, to a lesser degree.