Question about Monks and Base attacks per round

[Angelisrafel]

So, i saw in the rule book "A Monks attacks may be used with either fist interchangeably..." "There is no such thing as an off hand attack for a monk striking unarmed" Then in Two Weapon Fighting "If you wield a second weapon in your off hand you get one extra attack per round with that weapon"

So does that mean that technically i get 2 attacks per round (One for each hand), 4 (One extra attack per hand) with Flurry of blows at my FULL Base attack bonus (Minus the two points for Flurry of blows) even if i DIDN'T have Two Weapon Fighting?

[FMArthur]

Your separate hands are not separate weapons for unarmed strike, and not having an off-hand makes every TWF rule fall apart and not work. When it says that you can use your fists and other parts of your body interchangeably, it means they would all come out of your regular attack routine as if they had all been one weapon - you do not get to assign an arbitrary number of attacks to split each individual attack into. Flurry gives you one extra attack until it specifically gives you another, and was probably intended to be the unarmed strike version of TWF to begin with.

[Keld Denar]

Additional attacks are addative, not multaplicative. If your BAB gives you say...3 attacks. You have Flurry of Blows, which gives you 2 more, and you have TWFing which gives you 3 more, and you have Haste which gives you one more. You have 3 + 2 + 3 +1 = 9 attacks per round, and all penalties are cumulative.

Whether or not you can TWF with just your UAS is a matter of some contention on these boards, and most boards. There is a bit of proof for each side, but none of it is definative enough to rule the other out. Its one of those "consult your DM" kinda situations.

[Angelisrafel]

Well this is like the first real campaign i'm being run through (All on the fly with some friends) but i have been having a lot of trouble trying to figure out my class.

Right now i am a level 4 monk, i forget what most of my stats are (Chracter sheet isn't handy) But with Flurry of Blows i am only making 2 attacks per round total

I have a BAB of +3, Dex +4 (Weapon Finesse Unarmed), and +3 for unarmed attack bonuses (Weapon focus, something else i forget at the moment)

I deal 1D8 damage + 4 for my Dex mod (Have the Weapon Finesse (Unarmed) feat, or does that only work on the attack bonus?)

So should i be doing 2 attacks per round (With Flurry of blows) at +8 with a damage of 1D8+4 damage or am i doing everything wrong?

[FMArthur]

Additional attacks are addative, not multaplicative. If your BAB gives you say...3 attacks. You have Flurry of Blows, which gives you 2 more, and you have TWFing which gives you 3 more, and you have Haste which gives you one more. You have 3 + 2 + 3 +1 = 9 attacks per round, and all penalties are cumulative.

Whether or not you can TWF with just your UAS is a matter of some contention on these boards, and most boards. There is a bit of proof for each side, but none of it is definative enough to rule the other out. Its one of those "consult your DM" kinda situations.

Adding to this, the official FAQ from Wizards did say you could TWF with unarmed strikes, and IIRC mentioned FoB as well. Using their ruling, a first-level Monk using TWF would make 3 attacks, all at a -4 penalty. In this case it is logical to houserule a fist to be a regular weapon and a Monk's unarmed strike to just improve damage with the fist weapon; doing this lets you avoid someone bringing up Multiattack at the table and using the same logic as that ruling to try to make an arbitrary number of unarmed strikes.


Well this is like the first real campaign i'm being run through (All on the fly with some friends) but i have been having a lot of trouble trying to figure out my class.

Right now i am a level 4 monk, i forget what most of my stats are (Chracter sheet isn't handy) But with Flurry of Blows i am only making 2 attacks per round total

I have a BAB of +3, Dex +4 (Weapon Finesse Unarmed), and +3 for unarmed attack bonuses (Weapon focus, something else i forget at the moment)

I deal 1D8 damage + 4 for my Dex mod (Have the Weapon Finesse (Unarmed) feat, or does that only work on the attack bonus?)

So should i be doing 2 attacks per round (With Flurry of blows) at +8 with a damage of 1D8+4 damage or am i doing everything wrong?

Yes, a fourth-level Monk gets two attacks when they use Flurry of Blows (this must be a full attack action, which eats both your Standard action and Move action; you can't take more than a 5ft step and full attack at once, just FYI).

Your regular attack is this: +10 attack, dealing damage of 1d8 + your Strength. You can do this with your Standard action. Weapon Finesse unfortunately doesn't give you your Dexterity to damage, only the attack roll to see if you hit.

Your Flurry of Blows attack is this: +8/+8 attacks, each dealing 1d8 + your Strength mod. Full-round action. When your BAB reaches +6 at 8th level, you will get to add just one more attack to your full attack with an attack bonus 5 less than your main ones. Greater Flurry at 11th level gives you a second attack in your Flurry of Blows.

[KillianHawkeye]

Note: In 3.5, you don't need to select a specific weapon for Weapon Finesse. It just applies to all light weapons (and those specific ones that work with WF, like the rapier).

[Angelisrafel]

Awesome, i am kinda hoping to make my character a bit more powerful and learning more about him with the few resources i have. Unfortunately we have a DM who has recently gone on a power trip, giving creatures abilities they can't have at their level, ridiculously high AC and attack bonuses, even feats and skills, so sadly i have to be slightly OP just to help the rest of my party survive.

[NNescio]

Awesome, i am kinda hoping to make my character a bit more powerful and learning more about him with the few resources i have. Unfortunately we have a DM who has recently gone on a power trip, giving creatures abilities they can't have at their level, ridiculously high AC and attack bonuses, even feats and skills, so sadly i have to be slightly OP just to help the rest of my party survive.

It's... hard to do so with a Monk.

[Angelisrafel]

I manage pretty well. I rarely get hit by spells because of my high reflex save and Evasion, because of that my DM rarely has spells cast at me if ever. My dodge allows me to only dodge a single arrow that would otherwise hit me, but the attack bonuses on any creature he has with ranged weapons is usually fairly low (Like +3 at best), coupled with my AC of like 21 and my attack bonus of around +10 lets me hit enemies pretty hard (At 1D6 i was still pulling +3 for my Str bonus at twice a round with Flurry allowing me to deal a max of 18 damage a turn) Sadly my DM has put me in a position where i am not ALLOWED to use my Stunning Fist ability, but the Bard and Ranger can use poison berries they magically found to poison their weapons and cause Blurry vision that for some reason doesn't effect spell casting accuracy XD.

[Greenish]

Ah, yes, everything is relative.