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    BlueWizardGirl

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    Default Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    Asking for a friend.

    This would be pretty ridiculous, but my question is as the title.
    Say a Gold Dragon became a Monk instead of a Paladin.

    Would he be able to use Flurry of Blows as well as his own Natural Attacks (as Secondary) in the same turn?

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    Titan in the Playground
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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    No.

    Here's what it says: "When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham)."

    Here's a series of articles that elaborates on this (specifically part two):
    Rules of the Game: Unarmed Attacks (Part One)
    Rules of the Game: Unarmed Attacks (Part Two)
    Rules of the Game: Unarmed Attacks (Part Three)

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    MaxiDuRaritry's Avatar

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    Quote Originally Posted by Biffoniacus_Furiou View Post
    No.

    Here's what it says: "When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham)."

    Here's a series of articles that elaborates on this (specifically part two):
    Rules of the Game: Unarmed Attacks (Part One)
    Rules of the Game: Unarmed Attacks (Part Two)
    Rules of the Game: Unarmed Attacks (Part Three)
    If you spent money enhancing your natural weapons to turn them into special monk weapons using a necklace of natural weaponry or somesuch (or use the Unorthodox Flurry feat?), you should be able to flurry with them, although I'm not 100% on whether the natural weapons take up attacks in your attack routine or are in addition to them (like with natural weapons in a normal non-flurry full attack).

    You're probably best off just not flurrying; instead, just do a full attack routine with Improved Unarmed Strike and add all those natural attacks on top.
    Last edited by MaxiDuRaritry; 2020-11-21 at 12:07 PM.

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    The Viscount's Avatar

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham).
    I would say no.
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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    i thought every class could do iterative attacks and follow up with natural ones though? i remember it coming up recently too.
    also, monks do get improved unarmed strikes which, would make the dragon's natural weapons secondary ones, no?
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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    i thought every class could do iterative attacks and follow up with natural ones though? i remember it coming up recently too.
    also, monks do get improved unarmed strikes which, would make the dragon's natural weapons secondary ones, no?
    Flurries are significantly more limited than regular full attacks.

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    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    I’ve been researching this myself for a (pf) dragon PC. In PF, they are still right, but there is a feat that makes a natural attack a monk weapon. But while that feat may be useful for someone it sucks for dragons because the feat makes a specific natural attack a monk weapon and requires weapon focus in that weapon so unless you have 6-10 feats to throw at it it’s rubbish.

    Therefore, my dragon monk will never flurry, but will confine himself to kick/iterative kick/iterative kick 2/claw/claw/bite/wing/wing/haste attack.

    Unorthodox flurry is a little better. Single weapon only but at least you aren’t stuck taking weapon focus wing. Still unlikely worth 3+ feats.
    Last edited by Gnaeus; 2020-11-21 at 03:27 PM.

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    ElfRangerGuy

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnaeus View Post
    Therefore, my dragon monk will never flurry, but will confine himself to kick/iterative kick/iterative kick 2/claw/claw/bite/wing/wing/haste attack.
    There's no reason to limit yourself to kicks when you could just as easily knee, elbow, or headbutt.
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    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    Quote Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye View Post
    There's no reason to limit yourself to kicks when you could just as easily knee, elbow, or headbutt.
    My understanding is that you cannot use the same limb to make a natural and iterative attack. So unsure about headbutt/bite or claw/elbow.

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    SolithKnightGuy

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    In 3.5? Yes you can. In Pathfinder? No - it's specifically called out as something that you can't do.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnaeus View Post
    Therefore, my dragon monk will never flurry, but will confine himself to kick/iterative kick/iterative kick 2/claw/claw/bite/wing/wing/haste attack.
    You could have him take the Master of Many Styles archetype, since the big thing that they give up is Flurry. I never ended up playing it, but I remember that right after they changed the Master of many Styles archetype I built out a tengu monk with the claw/claw/bite to combo with unarmed attacks. Might not be worth giving up full BAB now that Unchained Monk exists, though starting at 8 they get a major attack bonus, bringing them right about in line with full BAB aside from iteratives. (I'm pretty sure that remember the first errata gave attack bonuses starting at 4. *shrug*)

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnaeus View Post
    My understanding is that you cannot use the same limb to make a natural and iterative attack. So unsure about headbutt/bite or claw/elbow.
    In Pathfinder, it's specially mentioned in the monk description of Unarmed Strike that "A monk’s attacks may be with fist, elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may make unarmed strikes with his hands full." Which is handy (pun intended) for the first couple levels when torches/lamps are still a useful thing.


    Though of note for OP - the monk levels might work for a gold dragon, but how many class levels are they going to get on top of their racial HD? A 1 level dip into monk could be crazy good - but mainly for the AC boost to get their WIS to AC since armor can cause them arcane spell failure. They wouldn't gain a ton after that that they don't already get from being a dragon.

    Actually - the most crazy OP 3 class levels would probably be a 1 level dip into monk (for WIS to AC) and a 2 level dip into paladin (for CHA to saves). In Pathfinder they could get CHA to both with the Scaled Fist monk archetype.
    Last edited by CharonsHelper; 2020-11-22 at 10:36 AM.

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    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    Quote Originally Posted by CharonsHelper View Post
    You could have him take the Master of Many Styles archetype, since the big thing that they give up is Flurry. I never ended up playing it, but I remember that right after they changed the Master of many Styles archetype I built out a tengu monk with the claw/claw/bite to combo with unarmed attacks. Might not be worth giving up full BAB now that Unchained Monk exists, though starting at 8 they get a major attack bonus, bringing them right about in line with full BAB aside from iteratives. (I'm pretty sure that remember the first errata gave attack bonuses starting at 4. *shrug*)

    Actually - the most crazy OP 3 class levels would probably be a 1 level dip into monk (for WIS to AC) and a 2 level dip into paladin (for CHA to saves). In Pathfinder they could get CHA to both with the Scaled Fist monk archetype.
    Yeah I’m using Scaled Fist and Dragon Style. But we use DSP so my dragon is 11 levels in the dragon racial class, with a feat to give him half dragon form, and once I have my one or two level monk dip I’ll be taking initiator classes. Unchained just gives me +1 bab instead of +2 will, which is bad because wis is my dump stat.

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    BlueWizardGirl

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    Quote Originally Posted by CharonsHelper View Post
    In 3.5? Yes you can. In Pathfinder? No - it's specifically called out as something that you can't do.



    You could have him take the Master of Many Styles archetype, since the big thing that they give up is Flurry. I never ended up playing it, but I remember that right after they changed the Master of many Styles archetype I built out a tengu monk with the claw/claw/bite to combo with unarmed attacks. Might not be worth giving up full BAB now that Unchained Monk exists, though starting at 8 they get a major attack bonus, bringing them right about in line with full BAB aside from iteratives. (I'm pretty sure that remember the first errata gave attack bonuses starting at 4. *shrug*)



    In Pathfinder, it's specially mentioned in the monk description of Unarmed Strike that "A monk’s attacks may be with fist, elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may make unarmed strikes with his hands full." Which is handy (pun intended) for the first couple levels when torches/lamps are still a useful thing.


    Though of note for OP - the monk levels might work for a gold dragon, but how many class levels are they going to get on top of their racial HD? A 1 level dip into monk could be crazy good - but mainly for the AC boost to get their WIS to AC since armor can cause them arcane spell failure. They wouldn't gain a ton after that that they don't already get from being a dragon.

    Actually - the most crazy OP 3 class levels would probably be a 1 level dip into monk (for WIS to AC) and a 2 level dip into paladin (for CHA to saves). In Pathfinder they could get CHA to both with the Scaled Fist monk archetype.
    That's basically the case. 1 Level of Monk, 2 of Paladin. It's a Young Gold Dragon, not a Great Wyrm or anything like that, so he's not gonna be super strong, but still pack a punch! ^^

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    The RAW is unclear.

    The rules for flurry say you can only use monk weapons "when using flurry of blows". The murky part is the rules never really specify when exactly flurry starts, ends, or what happens to attacks that you make "outside" of the flurry. If you get another attack via a different ability/feat, does that attack still have to follow the rules for a flurry, or can it happen "after" your flurry attacks? RAW doesn't say, so you'll have to discuss with the DM what works best for your game.

    If you want a RAW work-around, you can take Unorthodox Flurry (Dragon Compendium) for each of your natural weapons, which allows them to be considered monk weapons.

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    Default Re: Could a Dragon with Monk Levels Flurry AND Attack with Natural Weapons same turn?

    The RAW answer is actually yes... if you are willing to use flurry as your primary attack and a natural attack routine as a secondary attack and probably take all the penalties thereof for both two weapon fighting and secondary attacks. not too likely to actually hit anything... more like a flurry of misses, but technically you can do it RAW, if I recall correctly.
    Last edited by nijineko; 2020-11-24 at 09:10 PM.
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