Warforged and Shifter Monks

[luckystrike23]

Warforged and razorclaw shifters have natural attacks and are considered armed with these attacks, my understanding of the rules is that the monk's bonuses to unarmed attacks (increased damage and the ability to flurry) does not apply to these natural attacks.

I am planning on house ruling this so that warforged and shifter monks are a more playable option, anyone have a rule they've come up with that addresses this issue?

 

[Dracomeander]

Monks and those with natural attacks

From my understanding of the rules, there is no need for a houserule. Nothing prevents a being with natural attacks from taking monk levels and benefitting from Flurry of Blows. It just becomes the being's choice whether to use his natural attack routine or the monk attack routine. Whichever attack routine is used determines which damage values to use.

Warforged and Shifters both have 1d4 damage natural attacks. As medium-sized monks, their unarmed attacks will start at 1d6 damage. The unarmed damage for monks increases at the same rate as the shifter's damage does. Again, no need for a house rule.

 

[PallidPatience]

It is my understanding that creatures with both monk levels and natural attacks may substitute natural attacks in for unarmed attacks using the monk attack routine.

 

[Camarath]

In 3.5 there is nothing in the rules that allows one to use the properties of a Natrual Weapon when making an Unarmed Strike instead of the listed properties of an Unarmed Strike. Also Flurry of Blows only works with Monk Weapons and Unarmed Strikes so since a Natural Weapons are neither an Unarmed Strikes or Monk Weapons they can not be used as part of a Flurry of Blows (but may be used in the same attack action see FAQ).

Allowing the use of Natural Weapons in a Unarmed Strike would be a reasonable house rule in my opinion.

 

[Zephyrus]

I'd simple suggest if you wanted to realy house rule something for monks from races with natural attacks such as Warforged Slam and Razorclaw Shifters I'd suggest that they simple do +1 damage when a monk uses their unarmed strike. The ShifterMonk's would have the advantage of of adding additional +1 damage as the shifters natural attacks add damage. You might want to make the Warforged Monk do +2 damage since they dont gain any additional damage like the shifters would (that and their slam is base 1d6 vs 1d4's from razorclaws)