3.5 Monk Feedback

[Hikaru]

2. Your Ranger is paying for two weapons. If he goes the classic double shortsword route, he's dishing out twice the cash for roughly the same effect as the monk who is focusing on his single magic kama. Either the monk is going to buy a superior one handed weapon, boosting his overall peformance, or he'll get a staff for 1 1/2x Strength with every attack, or a fist enhancer to dish out superior base damage.

Now that the ranger can use his "twin weapons" feats with double weapons, his best choice will certainly be the two-bladed sword

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Yeah, it's been confirmed. Not only in that thread, but we were tipped off about it by Monk stat blocks in Dragon. Level 11 monk Bab with flurry at 8/8/8/3. Now if only You could do Barbarian/Monks without changing alignment....

Hee. Sweet.

 

[babomb]

Actually, in today's chat at Wizards, they said the extra attack is at -5.

 

[randomninja]

Really? Interesting.....
All right then, that would make 2oth level 15/15/10/10/5 compared to the old monk at 15/12/9/6/3(flurry was useless for him anyway) or a two-weapon weilder at 18/18/13/13/8/8/3/. Consistant -3 at 20th level compared to the dual-weilder then. Not as good obviously, but still not bad. As long as they get a cheaper alternative to the Amulet of Mighty Blows, I'll be satisfied.

 

[Tidus4444]

W00t! My Kama Dual Wielder Monk is a viable Option! YAY!

 

[SpiderMonkey]

This might just be some quibbling on my part, so take it for what it's worth

Does it seem a little weird to you that when the monk most needs the reduction in the flurry penalty, he doesn't get it (i.e. lower levels)? And when the penalty really stops hurting all that much at 5th level, it gets reduced. I'm not sure if I'm reading into it correctly, or simply being hypercritical. I've never been a monk player, so my knowledge of them is, admittedly, pretty limited. I dunno, what do you guys think of this?

 

[Jack Daniel]

Impressive as it is, I've always felt that monks should be the undisputed multiple attackers. Five unarmed strikes versus a ranger's seven weapon attacks is hardly how I see a monk. My house rule will look something like this:

The monk may use unarmed strikes with Two-Weapon Fighitng, though the normal penalties apply, and the off-hand attack not only recieves half strength bonus, it's also a normal Improved Unarmed Strike. So a 20th level monk using Improved Flurry and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting would attack at 13/13/11/11/3 with his normal unarmed attack pattern (2d10 damage), and he'd get make off-hand attacks at 13/11/3 (1d4 damage, half strength mod... at least, I'm assuming that Improved Unarmed Strike is 1d4 damage in 3.5, like it is in d20Mod). One more attack per round than a weapon-wielding two-weapon fighter. Seems appropriate to me.