Monks: Multiattack?

[Keinnicht]

So, this might sound ridiculous, but given how crappy Monks are already, I don't think it'd be too unbalanced.

Humans have four limbs. In theory, a martial artist like a monk should be able to use all of these effectively. Basically meaning a monk should have four natural attacks: two involving legs, and two involving hands/arms.

So, why not let Monks take the multi-attack feat?

[tyckspoon]

Because Unarmed Strikes don't work that way, and that's it.

[Elric VIII]

Because Unarmed Strikes don't work that way, and that's it.

But monks don't use Unarmed Strikes, they're not proficient with them. They must use natural attacks. EDIT: /sarcasm

EDIT: As for Multiattack, that lessens the -5 secondary natural attack penalty to -2, since they don't actually have a secondary natural attack this doesn't work. Perhaps giving Monks the Snap Kick feat as a bonus?

[Flickerdart]

Humans do not have natural attacks, and would gain no benefit from the feat. The class they take has absolutely no bearing on this unless it grants them secondary natural attacks.

[Greenish]

Humans have four limbs. In theory, a martial artist like a monk should be able to use all of these effectively.

They do, for a given definition of "effective". They can attack with any of those, or with head butts, or with groin thrusts, or… well, you get the idea.

So, why not let Monks take the multi-attack feat?

That's not what you mean.

What you mean is "hey, why not give monks four natural weapons?" The answer is that they scale poorly, and fail to solve some of monk's core problems (improving weapons/armour is expensive, class features have no synergy, MAD).

[Keld Denar]

I think you mean Multiweapon Fighting?

Multiweapon Fighting explicitly requires 3+ hands. Just because you can make Unarmed Strikes with multiple body parts doesn't mean you qualify for Multiweapon Fighting. If you follow implied patterns in the Monstrous Manual stat blocks, a creature or character has a number of "sets" of iterative attacks equal to the number of limbs capable of wielding standard weapons (like daggers or swords). If you were trying to figure out how many UASs a creature with multiple arms would get, it would be the same as the number of sword attacks that creature would get.

For example, if you took your standard Marilith, and redid a few of her feats to give her Improved Unarmed Strike (along with the Improved and Greater Multiweapon Fighting feats she's missing...), she could make 6 sets of iterative UASs. One set would be "mainhand" at get full +str bonus to damage, and the other 5 sets would be "offhand". These attacks are not required to be with any specific hand or limb, but the NUMBER of attacks is hand dependant.

[Tvtyrant]

I think you mean Multiweapon Fighting?

Multiweapon Fighting explicitly requires 3+ hands. Just because you can make Unarmed Strikes with multiple body parts doesn't mean you qualify for Multiweapon Fighting. If you follow implied patterns in the Monstrous Manual stat blocks, a creature or character has a number of "sets" of iterative attacks equal to the number of limbs capable of wielding standard weapons (like daggers or swords). If you were trying to figure out how many UASs a creature with multiple arms would get, it would be the same as the number of sword attacks that creature would get.

For example, if you took your standard Marilith, and redid a few of her feats to give her Improved Unarmed Strike (along with the Improved and Greater Multiweapon Fighting feats she's missing...), she could make 6 sets of iterative UASs. One set would be "mainhand" at get full +str bonus to damage, and the other 5 sets would be "offhand". These attacks are not required to be with any specific hand or limb, but the NUMBER of attacks is hand dependant.

And it would be the worst Marilith in Demonic history.

[Reynard]

But monks don't use Unarmed Strikes, they're not proficient with them. They must use natural attacks. EDIT: /sarcasm

EDIT: As for Multiattack, that lessens the -5 secondary natural attack penalty to -2, since they don't actually have a secondary natural attack this doesn't work. Perhaps giving Monks the Snap Kick feat as a bonus?

Snap Kick instead of Flurry of Blows, and give the Monk Full BaB?

[Keld Denar]

And it would be the worst Marilith in Demonic history.

Not really. One thing to note is that UASs don't occupy any of those hands. That leaves the marilith open to make 6 slam attacks (at -5 due to the rules for Secondary Natural Weapons) on top of her UAS iteratives. A typical Marilith with JUST Imp UAS would go from 9 attacks (3 mainhand swords, 5 offhand swords and a tail slap) to 15 attacks per round (3 mainhand UASs, 5 offhand UASs, 6 slams, and a tail slap) by switching from swords to UASs. Sure, base damage on her UAS would only be 1d4, but even half +str damage on all those extra attacks would probably make up most of the difference, especially if she could get a Superior Magic Fang cast on her.

[Tvtyrant]

Not really. One thing to note is that UASs don't occupy any of those hands. That leaves the marilith open to make 6 slam attacks (at -5 due to the rules for Secondary Natural Weapons) on top of her UAS iteratives. A typical Marilith with JUST Imp UAS would go from 9 attacks (3 mainhand swords, 5 offhand swords and a tail slap) to 15 attacks per round (3 mainhand UASs, 5 offhand UASs, 6 slams, and a tail slap) by switching from swords to UASs. Sure, base damage on her UAS would only be 1d4, but even half +str damage on all those extra attacks would probably make up most of the difference, especially if she could get a Superior Magic Fang cast on her.

The damage would be similar sure, but the issue would be that everything a Marilith fights has DR. If it goes up and punches a Pit Fiend 35 times it just reduced its damage by a lot. The players may not see it that way, not having a lot of DR, but Mariliths specifically fight in the Blood War and wouldn't do to great with their fists.

[Elric VIII]

Snap Kick instead of Flurry of Blows, and give the Monk Full BaB?

This is actually a good place to start for reducing the suckiness of Monks. Although never implemented, I have thought that if a player of mine wanted to play a Monk, I would give them pounce. TBH, they deserve it more than Barbarians.

[Dusk Eclipse]

The damage would be similar sure, but the issue would be that everything a Marilith fights has DR. If it goes up and punches a Pit Fiend 35 times it just reduced its damage by a lot. The players may not see it that way, not having a lot of DR, but Mariliths specifically fight in the Blood War and wouldn't do to great with their fists.

Give them Superior unarmed striked and they will have an easier time fighting devils; besides I think that the "natural" enemies of the marilith would be the horned demon not pit-fiends.

[Keld Denar]

Eh, Marilith's aren't equipped to deal with Devils anway. The higher tiers all need Silver AND Good weapons. If a Marilith were to hold one Holy weapon, much less 6, she's be seriously nerfing herself with the negative levels imposed. So then, it really just breaks down the the base damage dice (1d4 UAS vs 1d6-1d8 shortsword/longsword) and any special abilities of the swords (such as Wounding would be effective vs Devils).

Unless she got herself one of those 6-handed swords suggested in Savage Species and performed some really unholy 6 handed Power Attacks!

[Tvtyrant]

I would agree except that DR works on each individual attack, so lots of weaker attacks don't add up to the same as less stronger attacks. So taking a 1d4+9 against DR 10 you get only 1-3 damage a hit. So giving the Marilith 15 of those you get 15-45 damage a full attack, as compared to 2d6+9x6, with each attack doing 1-11, so 6-66. Thats not counting her extra attacks with the main hand, which moves it up to a maximum of 99 damage without crits, compared to 45 damage with the fists. So the final total against a DR of 10 is 9-99 for the swords, and 15-45 for the fists.

Now on a normal full attack against none DR we get 150-195 damage on a full attack with the fists, to 99-189 with the swords. So the fists are actually better when not taking into account DR, but are considerable worse when DR is involved.

Someone else do the average damage, I am sticking with the ranges :P

[Keld Denar]

Oh, right...stupid large longswords are 2d6 base. Durr...

Superior Magic Fang vs Chained Greater Magic Weapon really helps a lot to close the gap though. The extra 6 extra attacks (from slams) at +5 damage after DR is 30 damage per round, for free, plus the SMF also affects the tail slap which results in another 5 damage per round.

Chained GMW would result in 8x5= +40 extra damage on your 9-99 range for a final range of 49-139 damage per round.

Superior Magic Fang would result in 15x5 = +75 extra damage on your 15-45 range for a final range of 80-110 damage per round.

Without DR, the numbers go to 225-270 with fists vs 139-229 with swords. Big difference there.

Lower max damage, but higher minimum damage as well. Of course, thats neglecting the doubled crit range of the longswords though, which makes the calcs a little more complicated, as would various magical properties of the magic swords Marilith's often carry, and abilities like Wounding really tip the numbers.

[Tvtyrant]

Actually I think your righter then your giving yourself credit for; I forgot to account for larger sized slams (1-8) and large unarmed strikes (?) which would tilt it more in your favor. On the other, other hand the swords let you apply lots of nasty stuff to them, and get crits (which you could apply the Power Crit feat to).

...Does TWFings iteratives apply to the extra hands? Say the Marilith got GTW would each off hand get two hits? Cause then the whole thing has to be moved again.

[Keld Denar]

It wouldn't be Two Weapon Fighting (Improved or Greater), it would be Multiweapon Fighting (Improved or Greater). Stupidly, the base MM Marilith doesn't have Improved or Greater MWF.

It wouldn't matter much though. If you gave IMWF or GMWF to the Marilith, it would gain more UAS attacks too.

Btw, base UAS damage for a Marilith would be 1d4 (since medium UAS damage is 1d3, and 1d3 sizes up to 1d4 at large). Now, if you reallotted another feat to give the Marilith Superior Unarmed Strike, she'd have 2d6 damage UASs.

Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Multiattack, Multiweapon Fighting, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (longsword)

Change WF(Longsword) to IUAS, Combat Expertese to SUAS would go a long way toward eqalling them.

EDIT: Thread hijack: Success!

[megabyter5]

Not one-hundred percent related to the topic, but I had a thought recently. Monk discussions always seem to bring up the fact that you can't move and use flurry of blows in the same round. Looking at FoB, I think the smartest way to improve it would be to let the extra attack(s) be added on to either a full attack or a single attack. Then, obviously, give them full BAB, and you've got a character that can actually hit something. Any thoughts?

[MeeposFire]

I gave monks a variant of the snap kick feat for a class feature...

At level one you can take an extra attack by taking a -2 on attacks this round. Notice this is not just full attacks.

You then got a second attack at the same time as the second attack in flurry and you get a smaller penalty at the same rate as well. I then call this the new flurry of blows.

This made the classic bad combo of spring attack actually good and kept the class mobile which allows it to have much greater synergy. Also is much less confusing than what they did in PF.

Still debating whether monks should still be able to take the original snap kick on top of this new flurry ability...

Favorite monk items and abilities are in Eberron with the mighty arms graft, battlefists, and warforged. Solves problems with magic weaponry (also PF does fix this in an ok fashion as well).

What do mean armor does not scale well bracers of armor are cheap and can be made to have armor enchantments like fortification (Arms and equipment guide). Combo this with the robes that give armor bonuses you can do very well especially with incorporeal attackers.

EDIT: To the above poster that is essentially what I did.

[Tvtyrant]

Right, but increasing them by the same amount increases the swords stats more then it does the UAS's. The reason the UAS does more damage as is from the natural attacks you can stack on top of it. Adding them in equal proportions doesn't help the UAS very much. Apparently you can't add extra iterative that way. So stupid.

And if you get to change feats to optimize so do I! :P Curse you!

And I would go IUAS and Improved Natural Attack [slam] so that your slam attacks move up to 2d6 as well.

[Keld Denar]

Apparently you can't add extra iterative that way. So stupid.

Why not? If you changed WF(Longsword) to Improved MWF, the Marilith would gain 5 more attacks (at -5). If you changed Combat Expertese to Greater MWF, she would gain another 5 attacks (at -10).

And if you get to change feats to optimize so do I! :P Curse you!

And I would go IUAS and Improved Natural Attack [slam] so that your slam attacks move up to 2d6 as well.

Its more of an advantage to use real weapons, as you don't have to burn a feat on IUAS. Then again, you could always just buy a Fang Ring (Draconomnomnomnomnomnomicon) for IUAS, Imp Natural Attack(UAS) and a point of Con damage on a critical hit. Not bad for 10,000g, eh? That would bump her up to 1d6 UASs (or 3d6 with SUAS)

[megabyter5]

EDIT: To the above poster that is essentially what I did.

Oh. Well, you used a lot more words than me, so I'll just forget my idea and go with yours.

I also had the idea that monks would get plenty of mileage with skirmish as a class feature. If we do alternate FoB, full BAB and skirmish, that might just bump it up to T4.

[Tvtyrant]

I mismisreread the feat. lol

I gotta get ready for class, but I'll run up the extra attacks versus the fist damage attacks when I get back for a better comparison. Are you using the INA on the UAS or the Slams?

EDIT: We are the God-Kings of derailment!

[MeeposFire]

Oh. Well, you used a lot more words than me, so I'll just forget my idea and go with yours.

I also had the idea that monks would get plenty of mileage with skirmish as a class feature. If we do alternate FoB, full BAB and skirmish, that might just bump it up to T4.

Sorry I meant that in a more "it can be done and works well" manner not "I did this already". So I was trying to say your idea is a good one and one that you are not alone in sharing! Go monk ideas!

[Runestar]

It's not that strong an idea. I mean, totemists already get 4 claw attacks at 2nd lv.

[AtomicKitKat]

Just have Flurry of Blows grant 1(2) bonus attacks whenever the Monk would be doing a single Attack(even an Attack of Opportunity, if you'd like).

[Rainbownaga]

Getting back to the OP, technically the monk qualifies for Multiattack (since its unarmed attacks are natural weapons and it can use any part of its body as a natural weapon) but unless you're a creature that has a secondary natural attack it's pretty pointless.

[Admiral Squish]

Hmm... would it help monks, if you counted them as having four unarmed strikes (two hands, two feet), or even go with the muay thai interpretation and say eight (hands, feet, knees and elbows)?

[Flickerdart]

Hmm... would it help monks, if you counted them as having four unarmed strikes (two hands, two feet), or even go with the muay thai interpretation and say eight (hands, feet, knees and elbows)?

No, because unarmed strikes still obey the regular weapon progression for bonus attacks, and are reliant on BAB rather than the amount you physically have. Physically, a Monk has infinity unarmed strikes (since she can strike with any part of her body).

[Admiral Squish]

No, because unarmed strikes still obey the regular weapon progression for bonus attacks, and are reliant on BAB rather than the amount you physically have. Physically, a Monk has infinity unarmed strikes (since she can strike with any part of her body).

Look, I'm not asking if that is currently the case. I was asking if it would help if it were the case. And that's why I went with a specific number as opposed to saying 'infinity armed strikes'. If I make it, via houserule or homebrew, that the monk, in addition to having his usual iteratives, could add in extra limbs on a full attack as secondary natural weapons.