Custom equipment/gear

[Clownblood]

Hey everyone, I have some ideas about incorporating/having the option for custom gear in the game I'm running (3.5). Just asking for some feedback or ideas anyone has. With all new rookie and first timers this concept can, and has, gone horribly awry real quick. The first idea that brought this up is the party monk who wants to be a barbarian, I told her I can look into trying to get a weapon or piece of gear that could still count as unarmed for her so the monk levels aren't completely wasted. I try to stay away from the "I'm the DM rule" at least till they're more accustomed to playing. Any ideas or thoughts?

[Hunter Noventa]

I don't think they ever produced a piece of gear or an enchantment that explicitly allowed you to utilize a monk's unarmed damage in place of the actual damage for some reason. I assume that's what you're after here, since the rest of a monk's abilities are, I believe, usable through and of the 'monk weapons' with which they proficient.

I THINK the 3.5 Arms and Equipment Guide had a Cestus available, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to allow a monk's unarmed damage to work through that, since it's basically a padded or plated glove used similarly to a boxing glove.

[Clownblood]

That's a good point. I'm just trying to "justify" the use of the feats and skills involving unarmed combat she already got from being a monk, but add some melee weapon dmg to make up for it as well. I just think that going from a monk doing ok dmg to a barbarian doing 1d4 or 1d6 dmg unarmed would make her not so interested in playing. I was thinking to bend the rules slightly and saying that if she had a custom pair of fighting gauntlets made up she could use a reasonable "weapon" dmg without dropping off too much?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

A ki focus weapon allows a monk to channel some of his abilities into that weapon. There's also the scorpion kama in the Magic Item Compendium that uses the monk's unarmed damage instead of its base damage, and the MIC has rules for combining item qualities from different items together. The aptitude weapon quality allows any feat that specifies a weapon type to work with it. And finally, the Unorthodox Flurry feat (Dragon Compendium) allows you to flurry with any light weapon (which in turn works with any aptitude weapon).

Combine these, and you can do pretty much any and every monky thing with whatever weapon you want. A ki focus aptitude scorpion long sword, for instance, will work just fine in the hands of a monk/barbarian with Unorthodox Flurry, both one-handed and two-handed.

[Clownblood]

That is some good source material, I appreciate that! Great idea, thanks! I'm gonna keep researching, and this is gonna help alot

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Add sizing (MIC), morphing, and metalline (both from Underdark), and you can change the above long sword to pretty much anything, even something as wonky as the MMIII's sand blaster (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444154-MM3-Sand-Blaster-Exotic-Weapon-Optimization).

[skunk3]

I also seem to recall an item called "ki straps" or something like that from the MIC which are basically just leather strips... like the kinda tape boxers put on their hands before they put on their gloves. The straps themselves don't add any damage from what I recall but you can enchant them as though they are magical weapons with a little houseruling (technically they are just hand slot items but why not allow them to be weapons?), so in addition to the monk doing their unarmed damage they can also have various +X or flat cost effects, like frost, flaming, holy, whatever. (In addition to the +2 to Stunning Fist save DC.) One could also easily houserule that monks can use spiked gauntlets as weapons, doing their unarmed damage + spike damage + anything enchanted added to it. MaxiDuRaritry pointed out a lot of good ideas as to how a monk can wield basically any weapon they want as long as they have the gold to buy it and get it enchanted properly. With custom magic item creation rules there's a lot of things that monks can use, but it of course depends on having access to those funds. There's also a lot of items that enhance unarmed attacks.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

This build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?285801-Tippy-s-Terrifically-Terrible-Trial/page25&p=15474863#post15474863) has a ton of ways to stack weapon properties onto an unarmed strike. Y'know, just so you know.