Monk unarmed attack bonus action

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

despaws

Oct 19, 2014 10:50:05

New to D&D in general, and 5th in particilar, so bear with me - probably a stupid question, but:

 

On page 78 of the PHB, under the Martial Arts heading it has three bullet points next to each other:

 

• You can use dexterity instead of strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons.

• You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon.
• When you use the attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. For example, if you take the attack action and attack with a quarterstaff, you can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, assuming you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn.

 

Question:  because these three bullet points are grouped together under martial arts, it's not clear to us if the bullet points are seperate or related - e.g. using the example given on the third bullet point, would the quarterstaff attack be done using 1d8 or does taking the bonus action necessitate bullet point 2, requiring the quarterstaff hit to be calculated with 1d4?

 

So basically is it:

1. forcing the monk to make a choice between doing a 1d8 + mod on it's own, or two 1d4 + mod attacks, or

3. are the bullet points seperate and it would be a 1d8+mod attack and then a second seperate 1d4+mod attack?

 

Thanks for any help.

#2

Novacat

Oct 19, 2014 10:58:52

The three bullet points are all separate features of the Martial Arts feature. You are never required to use them, and you can use one without the others.

#3

Varden_Khol

Oct 19, 2014 20:12:59

The important part to look at is this:
"You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage"

Which means that, while you always have these abilities at your disposal, you choose when it takes effect.

 

I actually really like this mechanic because it means that low level monks are more effective when using their quarterstaff and epic monks can shift to fully unarmed when their power grows. It reinforces the theme and flavour perfectly in my mind.