A few monk questions and a L7 monk build looking for thoughts.

[Insight]

Monks are kinda poorly designed and have gotten little in the way of support since their release. Psionic Power may address some of their problems, but who knows?

I'll still play a Monk, but they have systemic problems that aren't easily resolved in the current rules (such as craptastic feat selection).

 

[mysticknight232]

I don't have the books in front of me, but I'd swear that a monk got to use his ki focus on unarmed attacks. I thought it was in the unarmed attack description.

I think I got lost in here somewhere, let me explain what I'm shooting for. The club's magical property is that when wielded it grants a +2 damage bonus to the flurry. I also have a feat that grants a similar +2 bonus to flurry damage if I'm wielding a mace. So that's a total of +4 to flurry damage. That's why I have the mace, not for it's actual properties. As it stands the item would be level 3 forever...

<clip>

Am I missing something? Does my plan not work for some reason?

I apologize, I guess it's been a while since I've read the unarmed combatant class feature since I never intended to use an unarmed attack. You and other people are certain right, your Ki Focus will add to your MBA. Apologies for telling you differently.

As far as the Ki weapon is concerned, you are certainly correct that it add +2 to your FoB power, however, you still cannot use both your Ki Club Magic Weapon and your Hammer Ki Focus for the same attack. Just be aware that you can only use one or the other, but not both for a single attack. Even if you still use your Hammer Ki Focus for your attacks, you will still gain the benefits of your Crashing Tempest Style feat since you can still deliver the attack with your club, you just won't gain the benefit of the Ki weapon (an additional +2 to FoB dmg) because you can't also use the magical portion of the weapon.

I think this is very confusing, but it breaks down like this. You can only use one magic item to deliver attacks (certain powers/feats/features excluded). However with a monk, you can use a Magical Ki Focus and still deliever the attack using a weapon (club or spear for example). You're not actually attacking with the weapon since a Monk's powers are implement based, but that's how you still gain the benefit from the "weapon" FoB feats because you're still wielding the weapon.

Hopefully this is a little more clear? I'm certainly not trying to tell you that you can only have one item or another, merely informing you that you can only use one magical property per attack, not a combination of the two.

Is that a little more clear?

 

[brehobit]

I think this is very confusing, but it breaks down like this. You can only use one magic item to deliver attacks (certain powers/feats/features excluded). However with a monk, you can use a Magical Ki Focus and still deliever the attack using a weapon (club or spear for example). You're not actually attacking with the weapon since a Monk's powers are implement based, but that's how you still gain the benefit from the "weapon" FoB feats because you're still wielding the weapon.

I'm thinking that this isn't actually true. Most weapon/implement powers say "when using this implement to attack...." but some don't. For those, I think that you treat them as you would any other item and you need not be attacking with them.

Thoughts?

 

[No Name]

I agree the versatile expertise could be improved, but I'm not sure club is the way to go. For a MBA won't I always be better off with the unarmed attack (more damage, better attack bonus as the totem applies?). Light blade for shuriken does seem like a good idea though, I'd not considered it.

You can make MBA attacks with a ki focused monk unarmed strike.

Finally, on Rain of Hammers. Say I'm surrounded by minions and drop one. I activate the (at-will!) power of the ki focus and do 4 points of damage (with the +2 focus) to a minion. He dies and I then get to activate it again and again and again. So this focus lets you kill every adjacent minion as long as you can hit (and thus kill) one? Seems handy. And just doing an extra 4 points of damage 1 or 2 times a combat (which seems likely) seems quite powerful even if there are no minions about. So I just thought I'd confirm that's what it does. The "bonus" at the end of the description made threw me and thus made me think that I might be missing something.

Yep, that's how it works.

 

[mysticknight232]

I'm thinking that this isn't actually true. Most weapon/implement powers say "when using this implement to attack...." but some don't. For those, I think that you treat them as you would any other item and you need not be attacking with them.

Thoughts?

I cannot imagine that holding onto a Ki Weapon but not using it to attack with would still grants you a +2 bonus to your FoB dmg. Eventho it's a static magical weapon property, you should still only gain the benefit from it if you are using it to attack with. If this is not the case, then every class would benefit from merely holding on to 2 weapons or implements. If you attack with Ki Club +1, then you'll gain +1 TH and dmg and an additional +2 to your FoB. If you attack with your Ki Focus +2, you'll get +2 TH and dmg and be able to trigger the ability of your Hammer Ki Focus. Just because you have both in your hands doesn't grant you a combined +3 TH and dmg and the ability to benefit from both the Ki Weapon and the Hammer Focus power on a single hit. If this is the case, than a dual-wielding rangers, fighters, rogues and barbarians would be broken when they made weapon attack. Heck, every class would be broken if they gained properties from merely holding two weapons or implements. That's why the dual implement feat exists, simply to gain a bonus to dmg equal to your offhand implement. You still do not gain any other benefits from it.

Since you can only attack with either your Ki Weapon or your Ki Focus, then you would only gain the +2 FoB dmg when you attack and hit with your Ki Weapon. Just because you're swinging your club around, doesn't mean your using it to attack with. If you use your Ki Focus to attack with, then your club (or hands or head or knees or feet) are just being used to "deliever" the attack, you're not actually attack with them. That's why most of the attacks are Melee Touch. You're focusing your Ki energy to deliver it via touch.