Monks with ranged weapons

[polymphus]

I've noticed a lot of people in various threads saying monks are awesome because they can take a shortbow and make it deal d10s by level 17.

Am I going crazy, or is this totally wrong?


Your practice of martial arts gives you mastery of Combat styles that use unarmed strikes and monk Weapons, which are shortswords and any simple Melee Weapons that don't have the Two-Handed or heavy property.

monk Weapons [...] are shortswords and any simple Melee Weapons
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You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the monk table.

My reading seems pretty clear -- shortswords and simple melee weapons are the only things that qualify as monk weapons, so they're the only thing (+unarmed) that scales with the martial arts damage table. Has there been an errata changing this? I'd love to run around with a shortbow on my monk but my reading of the PHB doesn't really gel with it.

I guess it would work under the revised Way of the Kensei, but this point about ranged weapons comes up a lot and I've never seen anybody mention Kensei in those discussions -- it's always just 'monks'.

[Vaz]

First I've heard of it.

[Spiderguy24]

If it was Way of the Kenesai, then yes. But for every other monk type out there, it doesn't work that way. You CAN still use the shortbow as a monk, you just don't get to use the MA damage die, or make an unarmed attack as a bonus action. One interesting thing to note, is that you CAN spend a Ki point as a bonus action even if you are using a shortbow, so you can get two unarmed strikes doing it that way.

[ZorroGames]

I've noticed a lot of people in various threads saying monks are awesome because they can take a shortbow and make it deal d10s by level 17.

Am I going crazy, or is this totally wrong?



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My reading seems pretty clear -- shortswords and simple melee weapons are the only things that qualify as monk weapons, so they're the only thing (+unarmed) that scales with the martial arts damage table. Has there been an errata changing this? I'd love to run around with a shortbow on my monk but my reading of the PHB doesn't really gel with it.

I guess it would work under the revised Way of the Kensei, but this point about ranged weapons comes up a lot and I've never seen anybody mention Kensei in those discussions -- it's always just 'monks'.

I think you are right in that you can probably use the sbow as a stand alone (no MA adds) but once you start getting your MA skills it seems more efective to hit and run...

[Rfkannen]

Monks can't increase damage on a bow, it is smart to carry one around to have some ranged options, but they aren't as good at it as say a fighter, there speciality is melee (except so soul and sometimes kenasi)