Quote Originally Posted by Aeryr View Post
Q130
I was asking because I saw that. Then they are manufactured weapons? (doesn't make sense to me)
A manufactured weapon is an object which you intentionally use to do more damage than is normally possible for your body, while a natural weapon is part of your body. A monk uses training and mystical secrets to refine his body into a more deadly implement than is natural, so he's sort of conceptually in a gray area; his fist has been tempered to strike harder than fists normally do, the way one tempers a sword with a forge to make it sharper. If your body naturally had a length of metal on the end of your arm, whanging someone with that length of metal would be a natural attack, but sticking your arm into a forge and then hammering it on an anvil until it was a sword would (conceptually at least; I don't know how the rules would handle this for a Warforged or something) transform it into a manufactured weapon.

In game terms, the fact that a monk's unarmed strike is treated as both natural and manufactured has several possible effects, but one of the most obvious is that either of the spells Magic Weapon or Magic Fang can benefit it. (They don't stack with each other, but it doesn't matter which one you get.) A sword can't be improved with Magic Fang because it's not a natural weapon, and a normal person's fists or a half-dragon's claws can't be improved with Magic Weapon because they aren't manufactured weapons. But a monk's Unarmed Strike can receive either buff.