Monks, Pugilists, City Brawlers... and bar fights.

[Maginomicon]

Just wanted to bring this up since I thought it's kinda neat:

It is technically true that monks don't have proficiency in unarmed strikes. Sad, but true. Unarmed strikes (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070327a) are not natural weapons (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070403a) except when you're dealing with weapon enhancements. Unarmed strikes are classified as simple weapons, and monks flat don't have proficiency in the simple weapons category. This puts them in the same boat as the wizard and the druid, which also don't have simple weapon proficiency. Realize that this is not that big a deal, as all that not having proficiency does is impose a -4 non-proficiency penalty on attack rolls. That's all. Plus, it kind-of makes sense for monks to be trained how to hit hard but not necessarily hit reliably since perhaps WotC wanted to flavor the monk as focusing its training on the special monk weapons.

Personally, I house-rule that they're also proficient in unarmed strikes as a class feature, but that's just me.

That said, consider the following:

Pugilist Fighter Variant: (Dragon 310 page 37)
Gets Improved Unarmed Strike, 1d4 unarmed strike damage, Endurance, and broad-category simple weapon proficiency. He's specifically a fist-fighter class, so it would make sense a little that he's better at fist-fighting than the standard monk. The pugilist gets an optional ACF called "Combo" (let's bask for a moment in the knowledge that a "combo" is a literal thing in D&D now... :smallbiggrin: ) that is similar to the monk's flurry of blows except that it works by instead averaging the iterative-based BABs of the first two unarmed strikes in the full attack. (so if you have a +6/+1 attack progression from iteratives, it's changed to +3/+3). It doesn't give you extra attacks, it just makes those two attacks have the same averaged BAB. Taking the Combo ACF more than once lets you add another unarmed strike from iteratives to the combo.

City Brawler Barbarian ACF: (Dragon 349 page 92)
The urban slums you grew up in were as dangerous as any barbarian wilderness.
Level: 1st.
Replaces: If you choose this ability, you do not gain proficiency with martial weapons, medium armor, or shields.
Benefit: You gain Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat, as well as the effects of Two-Weapon Fighting feat when fighting unarmed.
At 6th level, you gain the effects of Improved Two-Weapon Fighting when fighting unarmed and at 11th level you gain the effects of Greater Two-Weapon Fighting when fighting unarmed.
You only take a -2 penalty when using improvised weapons (instead of the usual -4 penalty).
(Barbarians by-default also have broad-category simple weapon proficiency.)

This might not mean a whole lot to many of you, but I see one major untapped potential for the Pugilist and City Brawler... bar fights (and other similar urban combat scenarios). No longer do we as GMs have to settle for weaksauce stale fighters or warriors or degrade a monk's asceticism if we want a good brawl on our hands.

EDIT: Personally I house-rule the following for the City Brawler ACF:
Replace every instance of “when fighting unarmed” with “when your full attack includes an unarmed strike”.

[Telonius]

Just wanted to bring this up since I thought it's kinda neat:

It is technically true that monks don't have proficiency in unarmed strikes. Sad, but true. Unarmed strikes (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070327a) are not natural weapons (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070403a) except when you're dealing with weapon enhancements. Unarmed strikes are classified as simple weapons, and monks flat don't have proficiency in the simple weapons category. This puts them in the same boat as the wizard and the druid, which also don't have simple weapon proficiency. Realize that this is not that big a deal, as all that not having proficiency does is impose a -4 non-proficiency penalty on attack rolls. That's all. Plus, it kind-of makes sense for monks to be trained how to hit hard but not necessarily hit reliably since perhaps WotC wanted to flavor the monk as focusing its training on the special monk weapons.

Personally, I house-rule that they're also proficient in unarmed strikes as a class feature, but that's just me.



So does WotC. There is not a single example character in the entire publication history that imposes a -4 nonproficiency penalty to Unarmed Strike on characters with Monk levels. I know example characters are notoriously inaccurate, but it's pretty clearly RAI that Monks get proficiency in their signature class ability.

Also, read on to Part Three (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070410a) of that series:


Monks and Natural Weapons

As we saw in Part Two, a creature with natural weapons can use them for secondary attacks when using the full attack action. A monk character with natural weaponry has the same option.

For example, an 8th-level lizardfolk monk with a Strength score of 17 has a base attack bonus of +7 (+1 for its 2 humanoid Hit Dice and +6 for its monk levels). The character has three natural weapons: two claws (1d4) and one bite (1d4). For this example, we'll assume the character also has the Multiattack feat.

With the full attack action, our example monk can make two unarmed attacks thanks to its +7 base attack bonus. After adding in the +3 bonus from the monk's Strength score of 17, our example character's unarmed attacks have the following attack bonuses: +10/+5. Thanks to the monk's class level and Strength score, damage for the unarmed strikes is 1d10+3.

The example monk also can attack with its claws and bite as secondary natural attacks at a -2 penalty (thanks to the character's Multiattack feat). Each natural weapon uses the character's +7 base attack bonus and +3 Strength modifier, except that the Strength bonus on damage is halved because these are secondary attacks: 2 claws +8 (1d4+1) and bite +8 (1d4+1).

As noted last week, there are no two-weapon or off-hand penalties for these attacks.

The example monk cannot use a flurry of blows because a flurry doesn't work with natural weaponry.

Note the lack of -4 proficiency penalty.

[Maginomicon]

So does WotC. There is not a single example character in the entire publication history that imposes a -4 nonproficiency penalty to Unarmed Strike on characters with Monk levels.
Just because they don't mention it specifically doesn't mean it's not technically true by RAW.

i.e. Just because it's not said that something's not the case doesn't mean that it is the case.