Can a monk....

[finaldooms]

So...one of my players wants to be a monk..which im ok with honestly.

My question is though can a monk dual wield his unarmed strikes? If so how does flurry of blows work with that?

Can a monk dual wield weapons and use flurry for all of them? ( quarterstaff uses each end once i belive right? What about a quarterstaff and fist? Or kama?)

Can a monk ignore some stats since he is sp MAD anyways? If so what? ( or even a feat or two to help)

Aside from that ..the player wants to be a half dragon ( something large with low la and rd) any ideas?

[SirNibbles]

A lot of people will argue about this but here are my answers to your questions:

1. Yes.
2. Yes, and the penalties from TWF/Flurry stack.
3. As long as a monk is using UAS/Monk Weapons, he can use Flurry. However, Flurry adds a static number of extra attacks. You don't get extra attacks with your main hand weapon and your off-hand weapon.
4. Intuitive Attack (Book of Exalted Deeds) gives you Wis to hit.
Weapon Finesse (PHB) gives you Dex to hit with light weapons.
Martial Monk ACF from Dragon #310, page 45 allows you to pick up any Fighter Bonus feat at levels 1/2/6 instead of the usual monk choices. RAW varies from person to person but some say the Monk's ability to qualify without meeting feat requirements still applies, allowing you to pick up good Monk/Fighter feats without the high STR/BAB requirements instead of just Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip/Grapple/Disarm, Stunning Fist, or Deflect Arrows.

I'll edit to add in explanations for the rulings in a bit.

EDIT: Here's a thread about this very topic made recently.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?510897-3-5-Monk-Unarmed-TWF

The FAQ says you can Flurry and TWF.
The TWF feat explicitly refers to Unarmed Strikes in the off-hand.
The City Brawler Barbarian ACF from Dragon #349 pg 92 gives you the benefits of TWF/ITWF/GTWF only while fighting unarmed.

[Darrin]

My question is though can a monk dual wield his unarmed strikes? If so how does flurry of blows work with that?


The TWF OffHandbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?279079-3-5-The-TWF-OffHandbook) discusses this. Briefly:

The rules are unclear on this. Although the D&D FAQ discusses mixing TWF with Flurry, all the examples given include a manufactured weapon and an unarmed strike. In Pathfinder, I believe it's explicitly allowed to mix TWF with Flurry. In 3.5, it's more or less a "DM's Call".



Can a monk dual wield weapons and use flurry for all of them? ( quarterstaff uses each end once i belive right? What about a quarterstaff and fist? Or kama?)


Yes, this is explicitly allowed, and the FAQ supports this. You can mix Flurry with offhand attacks so long as you're using a monk weapon and an unarmed strike.



Can a monk ignore some stats since he is sp MAD anyways? If so what? ( or even a feat or two to help)

The only dump stats for monks are Intelligence and Charisma. Deciding whether to focus on Str, Dex, or Wis is more of a style choice. There are a few feats that can help:

Intuitive Attack (Book of Exalted Deeds). Switches your attack bonus from Str to Wis. Doesn't help damage. A one-level dip into Shiba Protector (Oriental Adventures p. 222) gets Wisdom to both attack and damage.

Shadow Blade (Tome of Battle). Adds Dex bonus to damage when you're in a Shadow Hand stance and using a Shadow Hand weapon. Fortunately, the sai, siangham, and unarmed strike are Shadow Hand weapons. If you're not playing a Swordsage, you'll have to take Martial Study and Martial Stance first. If you are playing a Swordsage... the monk levels are kinda unnecessary.

Kung Fu Genius (Dragon Compendium). Switches some of your monk abilities from Wisdom to Intelligence. There's also Carmendine Monk (Champions of Valor) which does something similar.

Ascetic Mage (Complete Adventurer). Add Charisma bonus to AC instead of Wisdom. Also, sacrifice spells to gain a bonus on attack/damage to unarmed strikes.



Aside from that ..the player wants to be a half dragon ( something large with low la and rd) any ideas?

There are several different methods to add half-dragon... and they all stink pretty hard. LA +3 means you're sacrificing three class levels, which pretty much cripples the character. Added on top of the poorly designed monk class... it sounds like a formula for epic suckage.

That being said, there are a few ways to play a "dragon-like" character without horribly crippling it:


Dragonborn of Bahamut (Races of the Dragon) is dragon-ish enough that you look like a half-dragon.
Dragonwrought Kobold (Races of the Dragon) is a bit of a toss-up... gets claw/claw/bite which is nice to have on an unarmed scrapper, but the small size and Str penalty hurts. There's also some epic cheese you can get into, which kinda counterbalances the fact that you're a small-sized wannabe dragon, but carries with it the stigma of epic cheese.
Dragon Devotee (Races of the Dragon) manages to give you some of the half-dragon stuff while still giving you some decent class features.


My advice would be... if the player wants a half-dragon monk, then give them the half-dragon template for free, and let them mix claws/bite with Flurry.

[ShaneMRoth]

Naturally, as the DM, your decision shall prevail.

I concur with the recommendations made by SirNibbles.

[finaldooms]

Im trying to teach the guy how la and rd works for making a none base class or else i would just wave it off lol..it hurts alot i know, and wow i didnt realize there was so much...controversy over monks even now -.- ...
Personally idont. Allow tome of battle due to limited and bad experiences with it ( i had help making a storm giants urpriest rkv and even after forgettimg he had more than heal spells and forgetting his armor ..he had just a great sword >> ...i nearly slaughtered my party of 6 lvl 19 players with just him ....ended up doing a tpk and then he got blasted by my epic wizard wjo showed up a round late )

Alot of good ideas i will try to help him with though so thanks alot! He wants large for the wings btw..

[Uncle Pine]

Urpriest's Monstrous Monster Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?207928-Urpriest-s-Monstrous-Monster-Handbook): something that's always nice to link to anyone who's having troubles with LA and racial HD.

[ShurikVch]

The main problem with "unarmed TWF" is: you have only one Unarmed Strike.
No matter if you strike with your fist, elbow, foot, knee, headbutt, or even Belly Bounce - those all are the same Unarmed Strike
And you can't TWF with just one weapon, unless it's double weapon (Unarmed Strike isn't)
City Brawler Barbarian is a rather specific exception, thus doesn't prove anything in general

About the Half-Dragon: how about the krynnish Dragonspawns?
White Dragonspawn is only LA +1, and Sea Dragonspawn for LA +2 gets +6 Str, +4 Con, +2 Wis, and +4 Cha (sadly, Sea Dragonspawns doesn't fly - they're amphibious)



The only dump stats for monks are Intelligence and Charisma. Deciding whether to focus on Str, Dex, or Wis is more of a style choice. There are a few feats that can help:

Intuitive Attack (Book of Exalted Deeds). Switches your attack bonus from Str to Wis. Doesn't help damage. A one-level dip into Shiba Protector (Oriental Adventures p. 222) gets Wisdom to both attack and damage.

Shadow Blade (Tome of Battle). Adds Dex bonus to damage when you're in a Shadow Hand stance and using a Shadow Hand weapon. Fortunately, the sai, siangham, and unarmed strike are Shadow Hand weapons. If you're not playing a Swordsage, you'll have to take Martial Study and Martial Stance first. If you are playing a Swordsage... the monk levels are kinda unnecessary.

Kung Fu Genius (Dragon Compendium). Switches some of your monk abilities from Wisdom to Intelligence. There's also Carmendine Monk (Champions of Valor) which does something similar.

Ascetic Mage (Complete Adventurer). Add Charisma bonus to AC instead of Wisdom. Also, sacrifice spells to gain a bonus on attack/damage to unarmed strikes.Hey, how about the Con-heavy build?
Dwarf with Mineral Warrior (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e) template, 2 level dip into Deepwarden, 1 level - in Fist of the Forest (renamed into Fist of the Cave), take Steadfast Determination, pick bunch of maneuvers from Diamond Mind discipline (Insightful Strike, Mind Over Body, Moment of Perfect Mind, Action Before Thought)...

[emeraldstreak]

The main problem with "unarmed TWF" is: you have only one Unarmed Strike.
No matter if you strike with your fist, elbow, foot, knee, headbutt, or even Belly Bounce - those all are the same Unarmed Strike
And you can't TWF with just one weapon, unless it's double weapon (Unarmed Strike isn't)
City Brawler Barbarian is a rather specific exception, thus doesn't prove anything in general

About the Half-Dragon: how about the krynnish Dragonspawns?
White Dragonspawn is only LA +1, and Sea Dragonspawn for LA +2 gets +6 Str, +4 Con, +2 Wis, and +4 Cha (sadly, Sea Dragonspawns doesn't fly - they're amphibious)


Hey, how about the Con-heavy build?
Dwarf with Mineral Warrior (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e) template, 2 level dip into Deepwarden, 1 level - in Fist of the Forest (renamed into Fist of the Cave), take Steadfast Determination, pick bunch of maneuvers from Diamond Mind discipline (Insightful Strike, Mind Over Body, Moment of Perfect Mind, Action Before Thought)...

At that point better be an Unarmed Swordsage.

@OP there's a difference between playing a monk with many attacks and a monk actually good at something. Which one does your player want?

[Jay R]

I strongly urge the player not to play a character he needs the DM to build. Building is a significant part of playing the game.

One example of why this is important is that a half-dragon monk is a poor build; those options don't help each other, as documented above.

[Jormengand]

My question is though can a monk dual wield his unarmed strikes? If so how does flurry of blows work with that?
No. The monk class clarifies that "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed," therefore there is no way to two weapon fight with an unarmed strike.


Can a monk dual wield weapons and use flurry for all of them? ( quarterstaff uses each end once i belive right? What about a quarterstaff and fist? Or kama?)
No. Flurry states the number of extra attacks you make, not extra attacks per weapon. "When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round at her highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a -2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round." The quarterstaff is treated as two weapons when flurrying, meaning that you can attack with both ends interchangeably as desired but not much else.

[QUOTE]Can a monk ignore some stats since he is sp MAD anyways? If so what? ( or even a feat or two to help)[/SPOILER]
Intelligence and charisma aren't useful for a monk in general.

[Eldariel]

The only dump stats for monks are Intelligence and Charisma. Deciding whether to focus on Str, Dex, or Wis is more of a style choice.

Even of the two, Intelligence can't really be considered a dump stat on a class with low skill point allotment, whose shtick still revolves around skills such as Hide/Move Silently/Tumble/Spot/mobility skills/etc. It's very painful to play a Monk with mere 10 Int; I'd optimally want 14 or higher in lieu of high everything else. Particularly if I wanted to make anything out of their Diplomacy class skill. Practically you usually have to settle for 10.


That said, one thing that really improves Monks a lot is the "Invisible Fist" alternative class feature from Exemplars of Evil. Losing Evasion hurts but the Invisibility basically "at will" is actually quite strong on low levels. I would know, I gave it to the normally unthreatening Doom Fist Monks from RHoD and almost caused a TPK (they were Monk 2/Unarmed Swordsage 2s). You still need to find a way to move and full attack (Sphinx Claws Soulmeld from Magic of Incarnum is a good one, as are some martial maneuvers), but it at least gives the Monk something special. Combine that with well selected bonus feats and it can at least do some stuff.

[Psyren]

The TWF OffHandbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?279079-3-5-The-TWF-OffHandbook) discusses this. Briefly:

The rules are unclear on this. Although the D&D FAQ discusses mixing TWF with Flurry, all the examples given include a manufactured weapon and an unarmed strike. In Pathfinder, I believe it's explicitly allowed to mix TWF with Flurry. In 3.5, it's more or less a "DM's Call".

In PF, you can mix TWF with Unarmed Strike. However, Flurry basically does this, but better, so there's no reason to use regular TWF.

It appears OP is playing 3.5 however as they mentioned LA.

[SirNibbles]

No. The monk class clarifies that "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed," therefore there is no way to two weapon fight with an unarmed strike.


I was waiting for someone to take that out of context.

"There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply her full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes."

That means when you use UAS in the off-hand as a Monk, you get to apply your full STR bonus.

From Wizards ROTG:
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070403a


Most often, the character will use the unarmed attack as the off-hand weapon. The character makes one extra attack with the off-hand unarmed attack and gets the benefit of a light off-hand weapon; see the excerpt presented on this page for more details concerning two-weapon fighting. If the character does not have the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, the unarmed off-hand attack provokes an attack of opportunity from the foe the character attacks. The attacker gains only half his Strength bonus to damage for the off-hand attack.


PHB 160, Two Weapon Fighting Mechanics
"If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)"

[HurinTheCursed]

I had the feeling that the only way to play pure monk in a semi competitive group was to do an AOO / stunning / tripping monk with Decisive Strike. TWF is already considered subpar for a fighter.

To add something, not in regard to the rules but with the group balance in mind:

In a non optimized group, I think he can make any choice, the monk can be polyvalent enough to bring something in many situations (but will probably never better the best in any situation).
If the group is somewhat optimized, the pure monk needs DM love even more than the other mundanes. Don't rule RAW if you think being more leniant can bring more balance and more fun. If he has a cool concept, it will not ruin the encounter or the group balance to let him go and have his moment of light.
The unarmed swordsage is often a better monk than the monk, I would be more flexible with this kind of characters than with full casters, but nowhere as I would be for a pure monk in a strong group.

[Pleh]

In PF, you can mix TWF with Unarmed Strike. However, Flurry basically does this, but better, so there's no reason to use regular TWF.

It appears OP is playing 3.5 however as they mentioned LA.

Depending on your interpretation of 3.5, the FAQ says you can use Flurry and TWF together, even with unarmed strikes. You just take normal penalties for both if you pair them.

But not too many people have a deep trust of the FAQ

[Psyren]

Depending on your interpretation of 3.5, the FAQ says you can use Flurry and TWF together, even with unarmed strikes. You just take normal penalties for both if you pair them.

But not too many people have a deep trust of the FAQ

The 3.5 debate is extensive and I have neither the ability nor desire to contribute beyond what has already been argued.

My personal opinion is that TWF and flurry together result in a lot of extra rolls, so it should be up to each DM whether they want to deal with that each round.

[Pleh]

The 3.5 debate is extensive and I have neither the ability nor desire to contribute beyond what has already been argued.

My personal opinion is that TWF and flurry together result in a lot of extra rolls, so it should be up to each DM whether they want to deal with that each round.

I wasn't trying to argue, just add some supplemental information.

I used to play L5R. Most of that game was heavy role>roll play, but you haven't seen lots of rolls til you've played with exploding dice.

[Jormengand]

I was waiting for someone to take that out of context.

"There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply her full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes."

That means when you use UAS in the off-hand as a Monk, you get to apply your full STR bonus.

Yes. It also means that there is no such thing as an offhand attack for a monk striking unarmed. If it said "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed for the purpose of applying the monk's strength modifier", then the context would be relevant.


PHB 160, Two Weapon Fighting Mechanics
"If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)"

Yes, this is relevant if a creature chooses to make an unarmed strike while fighting armed. The character uses their unarmed strike as the offhand attack. However, while fighting completely unarmed, there is no such thing as an offhand attack.

[Dagroth]

Yes. It also means that there is no such thing as an offhand attack for a monk striking unarmed. If it said "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed for the purpose of applying the monk's strength modifier", then the context would be relevant.

Yes, this is relevant if a creature chooses to make an unarmed strike while fighting armed. The character uses their unarmed strike as the offhand attack. However, while fighting completely unarmed, there is no such thing as an offhand attack.

Why won't you let the poor Monk have something?

Everyone knows that TWF isn't terribly great (unless you throw a lot of feats at it).

A 9th level Monk with Flurry is +6/+6/+1 for 1d10. With Two-Weapon Fighting, he'd be +4/+4/+4/-1. With Improved Two-Weapon Fighting he'd be at +4/+4/+4/-1/-1.

Oh, and Snap-kick does the exact same game effect as Two-Weapon Fighting does for a Monk... but doesn't have the higher-level feats.

So the same 9th level Monk with Flurry, Two-Weapon Fighting & Snap Kick would be at +2/+2/+2/+2/-3

Unless he's got Wraithstrike going somehow, that's a really long Flurry of Misses.

[Pleh]

Why won't you let the poor Monk have something?

I think he's just stating RAW. I think most people know that there is nothing wrong with interpreting the rules in the poor monk's favor.

[emeraldstreak]

Monk gets enough good stuff (for noncaster), but a lot of people have difficulty optimizing it, and there aren't any good guides.

For example, OP's friend will be better served not by allowing twf, but by allowing the chaos monk from DM and a level of spirit lion - and possibly whirling frenzy - barbarian multiclass. Build for Str, not Dex, get mad foam rager; and you have a proper 'hit lots' character for a low opt. campaign.

[Jormengand]

Why won't you let the poor Monk have something?

You're talking to the person who rewrote the monk into one of the most powerful classes in the game. I never said that the rules should be that way, they just are.

[Rebel7284]

A monk gets a little bit better with ACFs.

- Invisible Fist has already been mentioned and is great.
- Dark Moon Disciple from the Champions of Valor web enhancement is amazing due to shadow blend.

In general though, the best monks are those that take the least levels of monk.
Monk 2/Psychic Warrior 18 with Tashalatora feat is nice and Monk 2/Psion X/Slayer Y is similar.

For large draconic races, there are a bunch of options.

Kobold + Half Ogre template from dragon + Half Minotaur template from dragon gets you a large Kobold which can then take Dragonwraught to be a dragon. +2 LA.

There is always the draconic template for +1 LA that can be applies to any large creature.

Dragonborn of Bahammut can also be used with many races, but it's inconsistent whether it can be applies to humanoids or all living creatures, so take that how you will.