Monks and Gauntlets

[Drathir]

alright i was looking at the monk the other day and different weapon ideas instead unarmed. I then realized that gauntlets, and brass knuckles, are considered unarmed attacks, a little more reading and based on wording of text i came to the conclusion that since they are unarmed attacks they could be used with flurry of blows and monk fist damage this of course lead me to reading up things and realizing that if that was true the amulet of mighty fists would officially be useless as monks are proficient with brass knuckles and since they are also a weapon could be enhanced normally.

I then decided that they would not gain monk damage in any of the campaigns i run as monks can deal insane sums of damage (damage speced with no flaming etc but +5 amulet on a lvl 20 monk can deal 175 damage with a full flurry and no str bonus while a 2weapon fighter with two "+5 large longswords" gets around 119 with no str... and a further minus two for using large weapons) and because its the monk a relatively insane ac and godly movement. however i wanted to know other peoples opinions none the less.

 

[Dandu]

In 3.5, the monk could not flurry with gauntlets because gauntlets were not a monk weapon, unlike Quarterstaffs, Unarmed Strikes, etc.

Likewise, they only did 1d3 damage instead of the monk's unarmed strike damage, because again, you're using the gauntlet as a weapon.

They may have changed the way things work in Pathfinder. If they did not, you'd be better off assuming that a Gauntlet can in fact be flurried with, enchanted, and deal damage as an unarmed strike from a balance point of view.

And you are quite correct in thinking that the Amulet of Mighty Fists sucks.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Depending upon which sources you use, you actually can have Monks (or close simulants) that can use gauntlets with their FoB, etc.

The easiest way would be using Dragon Compendium v. 1's Unorthodox Flurry, which lets the Monk pick and use a single kind of light weapon as a Monk Weapon.

There is also the OA PrCl Shou Disciple that adds some weapons to the FoB list, and (eventually) allows FoB with ALL weapons.

Check out the link in my sig for more.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Be cool if you could use gauntlets in that fashion. Might overpower monks and make gauntlet monks more powerful than other types. But that's easy to smooth over by making gauntlets function like the amulet of mighty fists.

 

[Dandu]

Might overpower monks

No.