Hey,
one of my players is a elf monk and has taken the improved natural attack feat, which treats him as a large character for his natural attack damage only. Then during a battle, the party's sorcerer cast enlarge person on the monk, making him large.
now the question is do those stack? and make his damage increase twice, and treat him as if he was huge,
or do they not stack, since theyre are both making him large (or treated as large)?
Improved Natural Attack doesn't treat him as large: it treats him as one size larger than he actually is. If he's Enlarged to Large size, then he deals damage as if he were Huge.
[quote="Tempest_Stormwind"]
Improved Natural Attack doesn't treat him as large: it treats him as one size larger than he actually is. If he's Enlarged to Large size, then he deals damage as if he were Huge.
Also, obligatory warning about monks in this role.
[/quote
could you please point out how that works in the rules?
It's right there in the link.
Choose one of the creature’s natural attack forms. The damage for this natural weapon increases by one step, as if the creature’s size had increased by one category:
Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
Letting him roll 3d6 is basically the same as pretending he is carrying a greatsword and has a low strength score. Like 14. 3d6 = 10.5 average. Greatsword of 2d6+3 = 10 on average.
Considering anyone who uses a greatsword probably has a higher strength, and will generally be a lot better than that... don't worry about it being too good. At all.
We're not even talking about Power Attack yet, and we probably shouldn't since it will make the unarmed damage look positively shameful next to a Greatsword wielding Power attacking Barbarian.
Sigh.
1) In answer to your question, The improved natural attack feat improves the monk's attacks by one step, the spell increases your base size. Think of it like natural armor. Some things give you natural armor and they don't stack with other natural armor because it's your BASE natural armor. Some things improve your natural armor and would stack with anything that does that because it's an IMPROVEMENT. Phrasing is very important.
2) Out of core, monks suck. No question. However, open up the other suppliments, and monks can quickly become broken. Examples:
- When you do a full attack you get your flurry of blows, but then you would get any other natural attacks you might have. Warforged get slam attacks, options for biting. Grafts really start to stack up, like the Maug spike stones. When you start stacking on extra damage to "natural weapons" they all boost up.
- Unlike anyone else, only Monks can use Feet, Knees, Elbows, Hands, and Head to attack. That is 9 different locations for "natural weapons". Take a Necklace of natural weaponry. You can have as many different "weapons" as you have natural weapons in a NoNW. So while a monk can only attack so many times with his various attack locations, you could have a "separate weapon" in each location and trust me, there are some really nice WSAs that you would want to have wielded all the time. You can wield them all from your NoNW and buy them separately to keep the cost down. 9 +3 weapons is cheaper then one +27 weapon.
- A monks FoB has more ways to stack WSAs on it then you can shake a stick at. Warforged componetes (UMD to pretend to be a warforged for an hour) have some nice perks. The Battle Gauntlet and Ward Cestus both by RAW use your Monk's FoB when attacking. The Battle Gauntlet is a One-handed weapon. That means you can two hand wield it and use Power Attack (for those of you who are so in LOVE with power attack.) You can use Body Modifications from Dragon #359 to put cold iron or silver caps in your knuckles and use them as a monk. No reason you can't make them masterwork and add EBs or WSAs. Also there are the Bracers of Striking (The more expensive of the methods) so there is no reason you can't:
Silver Knuckle Caps +1 (+9 WSAs)
Ward Cestus +1 (+9 WSAs)
Necklace of natural weapons (+10 WSAs)
Bracers of Striking +1 (+9 WSAs)
Then get hit with a greater magic fang for a +5 EB.
Plan your WSAs correctly and they will stack with each other. Theoretical Max: +5 EB, +37 WSA.
Nobody else using a weapon can do that. Nobody.
- A monk can get A Illithid Weapon Graft and turn a useless arm into a natural weapon by grafting a magical weapon to it for a mere +1,000 gp. Say ah... light Ballista with the modification that turns it into a dwarven mauler (You can only graft Melee weapons, after all. Doesn't say it can't be a melee weapon AND a ranged weapon.) Any by the rules, grafts add no weight so, you now have a 400 pound Crossbow where your left arm used to be and... get this... IT'S A NATURAL WEAPON and you get to use it as part of your full attack for a mere -5 to hit! (I won't reprint my other threads on how to make the ultimate BFG, including a crossbow that shoots exploding swords.) It also gets all your bonuses to natural weapons. For example, your Ballista arm would gain +1d4 damage from the Spike Stones graft if you shoot someone with it. Yes, stupid as hell, but RAW. I won't even go into the convoluted way it might be possible to flurry of blow with your ballista arm. I personally disagree with the chain of logic, even if the RAW of the matter would allow it.
- If your DM won't allow the Ballista arm, just get an elvencrafted shortbow (it's a club and a bow) and then enchant it like Hank's Energy Bow. 2d6 ranged force damage as a natural attack is still impressive.
- Now, you might say that anyone can graft a Ballista arm. But monks can graft Elbow blades and they become natural attacks. They can graft Knee blades to their knees. Boot blades to your feet. Other classes can't do that because they don't have those slots availible as natural attacks. Everyone else it limited to switching out arms, but the monk can switch out arms, elbows, knees and feet because you can switch out natural attacks for Illithid weapon grafts. A monk can have so many more extra attacks it's not funny. And then Magic fang boosts EVERY ATTACK. Use that NoNW to add WSA perks to each one.
- A flurry of Blows sucks when you only have 4 attacks. Now spend the cash (a mere 1,304 for each elbow/boot/knee blade graft) and now you have 10 attacks on a Full Attack Action. I'm not even getting into the extra tentacles and what not you can have grafted to your body.
- Any WSAs you put in that weapon graft becomes an extraordinary ability. Did you know you can put Bracers of Armor in a Weapon? Did you know Bracers of armor (Even a 1,000 gp AC 1) can have an additional +5 ASAs added to it, according to the rules from A&EG? Did you know you can wear an AC 1 BoA as bracers and add an additional +5 ASAs on top of that? Did you know that the Beekeeper's Outfit is the only suit of clothing by RAW that is also Armor and thus can be enchanted like it was a suit of +0 armor, yet will not interfere with your Monk's Class abilities?
- Oh, and don't forget Greater Mighty Whallop. The single most broken spell ever. Switch your your arms for Warforged Arms (and gain a slam attack in the process) and then add the Warforged Component Wand Sheath. Figure out how to UMD that wand and make sure to keep your damage around 16d6 for all your natural weapons and unarmed strikes.
I could go on, but the point is, By Core, Monk's Suck. But monks have some wierd things that let them break the rules that other classes have to follow. If you dumpster dive, you can use those wierd exceptions to just turn yourself into a little bundle of whirling death. Sure, you might need to replace some body parts, or graft some living stone to your body, or Infect yourself repeatedly with Warp Touch so you can grow some extra tentacles to swap out for extra natural attacks, but you can't make an omelet without having alien rock mercenaries mounting rock launching natural weaponry bazookas on your shoulders for only 2,000 gp.
Just buy a hat of disguise and you'll be fine.
From the SRD: "A monk’s attacks may be with either fist interchangeably or even from elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may even make unarmed strikes with her hands full."
I'm not quite following your logic on how the srd text turns into a bunch of extra natural weapons. Technically I think that's just a bit of flavour text in the first sentance and the second one is the crunch but it's so hard to tell with some of the WotC material.
From the SRD:
"When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham). She may attack with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons interchangeably as desired. When using weapons as part of a flurry of blows, a monk applies her Strength bonus (not Str bonus × 1½ or ×½) to her damage rolls for all successful attacks, whether she wields a weapon in one or both hands. The monk can’t use any weapon other than a special monk weapon as part of a flurry of blows."
Then there's the whole two-handed power attack option you mention, which SRD has some more issues with, it's mututaly exclusive with Flurry of Blows so I'm assuming by this point you've said "LOL FLurry, no."
Captnq wrote:
Andarious and Luna Trigger beat me to it.
About the closest you can get to that without any real jujutsu would be using non-spiked gauntlets and "dual-wielding" unarmed strikes. The former still count as unarmed attacks (allowing them, presumably, to benefit from monk unarmed damage and from flurry), and yet can be enhanced as a normal weapon (read: cheaper than a necklace of natural attacks) and fitted with wand chambers if you wish. The latter would be subject to full TWF penalties and are contentious, but would (strictly speaking) allow more attacks than normal (if at horrific attack bonuses and for pinprick damage).
Incidentally, that second bit is pretty much the only mechanical consequence of the interchangeability of unarmed strike limbs - you can use a two-hander and still kick without it counting, technically, as an off-hand weapon. Of course, the only two-hander that's flurry-compatible (without an Exotic Weapon feat) is the quarterstaff, which, while better than nothing, is still somewhat less than awesome.
Captnq wrote:
I'm not going to really address the rest of it right now, because other areas of Captnq's reasoning appear unsound, but the idea of a monk having extra unarmed strikes actually has some merit. Luna Trigger's response includes some statements, but while I might agree on certain points, those statements need to be supported by reasoning in order to convince someone who doesn't already agree with them. "Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes."
Looking into examples like the kensai (whose example must pay for both fists with an unarmed strike), and the assumption that we're okay with humans using two-weapon fighting (with or without the feat) to punch someone with both fists, I'd have to conclude that Captnq is essentially correct about the monk and the number of unarmed strikes. A commoner has two unarmed strikes available, even if they can't use them very well because they function like manufactured weapons (relying on BAB for extra attacks), while the monk has at least eight that are specifically stated (fists, elbows, knees, and feet), and may have an arbitrarily large number of them if the DM is more permissive. The flurry of blows doesn't make any real difference to the number of potential weapons, since it allows an extra attack that can be made regardless of which valid weapon is used, rather than describing another location that can be considered as an unarmed strike.
But, actually using those extra unarmed strike weapons for attacks isn't enabled by the monk class; her unarmed strike functions as a manufactured weapon as far as delivering attacks goes (which is why she gets extra unarmed attacks from BAB, before counting the extra attacks from flurry of blows) so she's in the same position as a character who has extra weapons available due to something like wearing spiked armour, carrying a shield (spiked or regular). Multiweapon Fighting is the feat she'd need to make use of her extra unarmed strikes without suffering severe penalties, but it's not designed with monks in mind and requires three arms as a prerequisite, putting it out of the reach of most characters.
There are some other questionable ideas there, like using Use Magic Device to count as a warforged, and attaching illithid weapon grafts to non-hand locations, but the basic idea of a monk having more unarmed strikes doesn't appear to be incorrect.
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Fire shield and Stoneskin, even if this DOES work, which I'm of the camp it REALLY doesn't it STILL fails hard against damage reflection and damage reduction. Death by one thousand cuts this way is just a bad idea.
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Just two chip in my two pence, in our play group we've always allowed two weapon fighting in conjuction with unarmed strikes. Why?
"An unarmed strike is always considered a light weapon. "
Now with two weapon fighting you can weild another weapon, light or one handed, in your off hand. Since human anatomy dictates that the body has two hands, even when it comes down to punching alone you can effectively dual weild your fists. Or elbows, or knees, shins, head... you can use multiple limbs, and strike with them together too.
In my opinion the rules support being able to two weapon fight with unarmed strikes purely because they are a listed weapon that isn't two handed
Also Luna_Trigger, you remind me of someone also... strange
Two-Weapon fighting also means 1/2 Str bonus to off-hand attacks and -2 to all attacks. Snap kick is virtually another (stacking) Two-Weapon fighting that's for unarmed only. Don't see any reason someone should get bent out of shape about Two-Weapon+IUS. The Multi-Weapon Fighting or Multiattack option using the clearly fluff list of monk weapons is more than slight cheese, but to be honest probably still not "OMG IT'S SO BROKEN!". So what, you make a LOT of attacks and can do it realy early level, your attack bonus probably sucks, and even with all those dice the damage per attack is fairly low. A charger build will still probably win on damage and has more reach with that damage.
And the charger can move more than 5 feet while delivering their attack.
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Set your OCD aside for a moment, and realize that this is all based on something slightly less coherant than Leagalese in regards to the language the writers used. It's usually pretty obvious, but some of the rules are pretty hard to interperite. For a normal non-Monk it's pretty easy to accept that Two-Weapon Fighting works for Unarmed, you need to have a hand free and you attack with that hand, it's a weapon, you therefore have two weapons because you have two hands.
The fact that it's even given a Weapon entry on the table and discribed as acting as a light weapon is simple enough grounds to say "Okay, yes it's a natural weapon" except for a monk who's got all these weird rules that call is as a manufactured weapon OR a natural weapon whichever would be better for the Monk in question. The fact is however that the rules are fairly clearly designed for the Monk to treat their natural attack as a SINGLE natural weapon, rather than each limb/striker as a seperate one. Then however certain random exceptions to this creep up in various non-core sources. The easy interpritation is that no none of these attack options (Feats aside) work with Unarmed strike. The easy solution's often the right one, but it's certainly not always the case.
Some GM's are going to rule it one way, some the other, weather you agree with it or not, that's a fact. I suggest this particular conversation end on the "Clearly we don't agree" note rather than continuing on this back and forth between two people who are obviously not going to agree on the subject.
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Andarious-Rosethorn wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
I have a hard time reading Luna's posts. If your stance that monks can't TWF?
Why are you kicking a dude while he is down? 1 Rules support it. 2 Monks are terrible, if the rules didn't support it, let them anyway.
TWF
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. You suffer a -6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a -10 penalty to the attack with your off hand when you fight this way. You can reduce these penalties in two ways:
If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)
The Two-Weapon Fighting feat lessens the primary hand penalty by 2, and the off-hand penalty by 6.
Table: Two-Weapon Fighting Penalties summarizes the interaction of all these factors.
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
What are our thoughts on (non-spiked) gauntlets? Do they count as a weapon in their own right, an upgrade to unarmed strikes (changing normally nonlethal damage into lethal damage), or something else?
For the purpose of this discussion, what would we consider to be the effect of donning gauntlets on an unarmed strike?
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
You seem needlessly hostile and wildely inaccurate. One of the two is generally something you can get by with. Both just doesn't work.
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
I assume we are after any statistics blocks from official WotC sources that show an appropriate example (using unarmed strike with TWF or the equivalent), but do we have any other specific conditions? Based on the responses given, I can safely skip gauntlet examples as invalid (since they wouldn't be representative of unarmed strikes due to being gauntlet attacks).
There's a substantial amount of material to check, and while I may check the other sources of evidence at my leisure, it would make sense to leave those that aren't going to fit our current search criteria until later on.
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Why I am getting the impression that Luna_Trigger is the reincarnation of one of the many rabble rousers who have ventured here in the past? Someone who comes it to the game late, at least late as determined by their join date, and then tries to tell those of use who have been here since the rules first came out that we don't have a clue what we are talking about. How about this:
THESE THINGS DO NOT WORK TOGETHER ALL THE TIME.
Just to be clear I'm not even sure what "things" we are talking about anymore because all I'm seeing are walls of text that go back and forth. If you want to know how many "unarmed" attack styles the monk has it is ONE. The monk IS the weapon from head to toe although how the weapon gets used may vary but the effect remains the same. The only exception to this is when something like two weapon fighting comes into play and allows an extra attack.
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
StevenO wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Oh I see this venturing into alignment issues now. Although it may prevent a character from being Exhaulted and Sainted there is nothing about having the EVIL subtype that would prevent the character from being LG. It may be rare and such a character IS still vulnerable to thing that affect "evil" characters by virtue of type but as far as actions are concerned it could almost be a saint. To say a creature with an Evil subtype could not have a LG alignment is like saying a creature with an elemental subtype could NOT use the opposite energy type.
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
There is no rules problem with paying 0 gold for something.
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Luna_Trigger wrote: