Two-Weapon Fighting and Unarmed Combat: Current ruling?

[Pax_Chi]

What's the current ruling on using Two Weapon Fighting in conjunction with unarmed combat? I seem to recall the original ruling being that a person's fists and feet weren't eligable for Two Weapon fighting since you couldn't consider one hand or the other an off-hand. I may have interpreted the original rule incorrectly tho.

Bottom line, can you combine Improved Unarmed Combat with Two Weapon Fighting effectively?

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Yes, a Monk could even use Flurry of Blows while he/she is TWF.

[Pax_Chi]

Outstanding, thank you for the reply. :)

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

NP, always glad to help if I can.
(Especially when it is good news I deliver ;-) )

[Latronis]

The RAW is unclear on the matter, the FAQ says you can. But i won't get into how i feel about that.

[Roderick_BR]

To do so, you'd be hitting normally with one hand, and using the other hand as a off-hand weapon, instead of the monk's "hit with anything" way.
The flurry is a simplified TWF for monks, but you could add both, only that you are considered to be hitting only with your hands.
A 20th level monk with greater TWF would hit for +13/+13/+13/+13/+8/+8/+3/+3 base attack, before applying strenght, magic, etc.
You could get those Bracers of Striking, that allows you to enchant them as double weapons, and add Hasted to them, to gain extra attacks, and some actual to hit bonuses.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

To do so, you'd be hitting normally with one hand, and using the other hand as a off-hand weapon, instead of the monk's "hit with anything" way.
The flurry is a simplified TWF for monks, but you could add both, only that you are considered to be hitting only with your hands.

Not according to the FAQ.

You can make off-hand attacks with non-hand unarmed strikes or even armor spikes.

[AtomicKitKat]

The whole "Monks have no off-hand" thing mainly refers to the fact that Monks always count their Unarmed Strikes as one-handed for everything(and light for Flurry), including Power Attack, Strength modifier multiplication, etc. Funnily enough, I vaguely remember being told that when used with TWF, the Unarmed Strike suddenly becomes a "Secondary Natural Attack", and gets relegated to 1/2 Str. I could be wrong.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

The monk's off-hand attacks only receive ½ STR etc. as normal for an off-hand, but it is not because it is a secondary natural attack (then it would have been made with a -5 to attack).

The no off-hand part in the monk's description refer to the ability to attack with other body parts even if the monk's hands are full, at least according to the FAQ.

[Matthew]

I always quite liked the idea of a Monk with Two Weapon Fighting using a Long Sword Two Handed (and flurrying via the appropriate Eberron Feat). Almost makes me want to play a Monk, just a pity you have to wait until Level 6 or something to do it (or start out as a Fighter).

[Tor the Fallen]

An eigth level monk with flurry and TWF, wielding a pair of light weapons, with a str of ten, no weapon finesse, and no enchantments/mw items, would have an attack iteration of what?

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Monk 8
FOB+TWF
BAB +6

+3/+3/+3/-2 :-(

[Starbuck_II]

An eigth level monk with flurry and TWF, wielding a pair of light weapons, with a str of ten, no weapon finesse, and no enchantments/mw items, would have an attack iteration of what?

TWFing adds 1 attack highest bab (both light means -2/-2 hit penalty).
BAb adds 2 at +6/+1
Flurry at level 8 adds 1 at highest bab (-1 hit penalty)
Total= Total Penalty-3 hit. Total attacks= 4

Attack sequence: +3/+3/+3/-2
So 4 attacks.

[the_tick_rules]

you can but without a huge attack bonus it's a questionable choice.

[Tor the Fallen]

So that would be weapon, weapon, elbow, headbutt?
That'd be cool, too bad it doesn't work very well.
Gestalt with a full BAB and some precision damage/precog offensive would get your damage up, or two level dip ranger for TWF/favored enemy. Not too terrible, and pretty stylin.

'Course, you could just go monk1/cleric19//druid20 and wildshape into something with a lot of limbs and get a full BAB. Maybe a fleshraker, and use power attack. Take intuitive strike. Ugh. Stooooopid.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

you can but without a huge attack bonus it's a questionable choice.

I will help against low ac foes at later levels, but there are a lot of other feats you could take instead.

However, if you are restricted to core it would not be the worst choice.

[Latronis]

The no off-hand part in the monk's description refer to the ability to attack with other body parts even if the monk's hands are full, at least according to the FAQ.

I thought that was obvious from the RAW anyway, it's more flavourful then having an actual effect. So you can attack with fist, fist, elbow, elbow, knee, knee, foot, foot, head (that would be the best parts of your body for striking) now you learn how to wield two weapons at once and become quite good at it (TWF, ITWF, GTWF) and suddenly you can make 3 extras attacks with no more parts of your body to hit with.

Ofc monks sucks so it might aswell be allowed, still makes no sense though.

So that would be weapon, weapon, elbow, headbutt?
That'd be cool, too bad it doesn't work very well.
Gestalt with a full BAB and some precision damage/precog offensive would get your damage up, or two level dip ranger for TWF/favored enemy. Not too terrible, and pretty stylin.

hmm well if gestalt, what about you focus on strength and wisdom and take something like... 3 scout\17 ranger\\20 monk (to keep it simple) You'd want Swift Hunter to get those 17 ranger levels to count as scout levels for skirmish progression take favoured enemies normally immune to precision damage so your skirmish works on everything, and then get your feats to fullattack on a charge. And then well dash in and kill ****

[Person_Man]

Silvanos is correct. You can use TWF with Flurry.

The formula for whether or not you should use TWF, Flurry, or TWF+Flurry is simple.

X-Y=Z

Where:
X is equal to your enemy's AC
Y is equal to your total modified To-Hit before TWF and Flurry
And Z is what you need to roll in order to hit without TWF and Flurry.

If Z is equal to or greater than 20, then you should use TWF+Flurry. Since you will only hit if you roll natural 20's no matter what you do, you want to roll as many dice as possible.

If Z is 16-19, then you want to find the expected damage of your attacks. Expected damage is equal to (Average Damage*% chance of hitting)*number of attacks. Figure out your % chance of hitting and number of attacks for each possible variation of using or not using TWF and Flurry. The highest product is the option you should do.

If Z is equal to or less then 15, you should generally use both TWF and Flurry, because the expected result from 3 attacks with a 10% chance of hitting is equal to the expected result of 1 attack with a 30% chance of hitting (except with three rolls, you get three critical threats as well).

Of course, all of this can be modified further if you have iterative attacks, if your Flurry penalty goes down, if you use Stunning Fist, Knock-Down, Snap-Kick, etc.

But the math is always pretty straightforward. By writing down everyone's To-Hit rolls and using a calculator, I can usually figure out exactly what to do in less then a minute. Given the long waits in between some turns ("Hold on, I need to look up this spell...") I never hold up combat to do it.

You can also do something similar for Power Attack.

Yes, its metagaming. But if you're playing a 18 Wis Monk, I see no problem with it from a fluff perspective, and I'd say that they certainly need to squeeze out every last point of damage they can out of combat, since Monks are generally weak.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Silvanos is correct

And you say we never agree.

Yes, its metagaming. But if you're playing a 18 Wis Monk, I see no problem with it from a fluff perspective, and I'd say that they certainly need to squeeze out every last point of damage they can out of combat, since Monks are generally weak.

Again we agree. This kind of meta-gaming does not seem inappropriate for a monk. And as you say they really need all they can get to keep up.

[Person_Man]

And you say we never agree.

Yeah, for a long time I made the mistake of spouting off on what I though was the correct ruling, because thats the way me and dozens of other gamers I know have been playing for as long as I can remember. But you tend to take the far more intelligent step of pulling out the actual RAW, reading through the newest version of the FAQ and errata, and then posting exactly what the current rules say. So it used to lead to a lot of conversations like this:

Person_Man: You can do X.

Lord_Silvanos: Not necessarily. You can only do X if Y and Z are met. And since Y and Z are never met, you'll almost never accomplish X.

Person_Man: But that's retarded, it defeats the entire purpose of X!

Lord_Silvanos: Correct, that's how the rules are written.

Person_Man: [re-reads rules, again] WTF? That can't possibly be what they intended!

Lord_Silvanos: Probably. But that's the way its written.

Now I take the intelligent step of waiting for you or Bears or Shhalahr to post on rules questions first, then I just re-read the rules to double check and see if you missed something, and then 90% of the time I agree. It saves me a lot of time.

[Tor the Fallen]

This ability:

Sweeping Strike (Ex)

At 5th level, a war mind gains the ability to make great, sweeping swings with a melee weapon. On each melee attack a war mind makes, he can choose squares he threatens that are adjacent to each other, and his attacks apply to creatures in those two squares equally. A war mind can use this ability on any attack, even an attack of opportunity or a cleave attempt.

A war mind cannot use this ability if he has moved more than 10 feet since the end of his last turn. If a war mind drops one or both of his foes with a sweeping strike, he can attempt a cleave normally; however, he makes only one cleave attempt per sweeping strike, even if he drops more than one foe.

Would let me flurry/twf against two adjacent foes, using a full attack on the both of them?

[Zincorium]

This ability:


Would let me flurry/twf against two adjacent foes, using a full attack on the both of them?

Yes. According to the reading, letting you use attacks, full or otherwise, against two foes is the entire point and it has no restrictions other than the one on movement.

Considering that it does not actually add to your attacks, but simply applies each one to multiple targets, it'd be a good thing to take. War mind is just a spiffy class anyway, although not in any way overpowered.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

The ToB's swordsage unarmed variant and CS got me thinking on this- say you had a variant swordsage armed with a greatsword and a knee blade as well as improved unarmed strike. Could he thus get three attacks, two weapons and one unarmed? While one of them is being two-handed? What if we take away the knee blade and just leave it as the greatsword and kicking?

[Falconsflight]

As a full attack action with TWF you can attack with the Greatsword and teh knee blade. Then flurry would allow you to hit with your unarmed strike. But only if the greatsword or the knee blade has the "Ki strike" ability on it. (I think that's what it's called) the ability allows any weapon to be flurried with.