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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Viktyr Gehrig" data-source="post: 2141836" data-attributes="member: 9249">d20 Modern is my intended starting point-- it hadn't occurred to me yet to mine Oriental Adventures for martial arts mastery rules. Thank you for reminding me of it. My current thought is to use the Weapon Focus feat chain and the Combat Martial Arts feat chain and give a bonus feat from one or the other at any level when a Monk's unarmed damage would increase. With Greater Weapon Specialization and Advanced Martial Arts, the Monk does 1d4+4 (the equivalent of a d12) base damage, with a critical range of 19-20 and a critical multiplier of x3. At that level, the Monk is very much a respectable unarmed combatant, but might still prefer to wield a +5 kama if one is accessible. With a good range of Ki Strike special abilities, the Monk would also rely, at times, on their unarmed strikes, unless they possessed a ki focus weapon. I've been disallowing those feats in my games because of how they interact with the Gestalt rules, but I'll keep your suggestion in mind. See, I've seen this approach used effectively before, but it's not what I'm interested in. I like the Monk as a mystical warrior and therefore like the "mystical mumbo jumbo". As far as a non-mystical martial artist is concerned, that's what the Fighter is for-- and I've tried to make the Fighter capable of becoming as deadly in hand-to-hand combat as the Monk. (I'm still working on that.) I wouldn't allow the Monk to change the damage value on a Monk weapon-- there's nothing else in the game that allows this to work (except for changing the character's and weapon's sizes), and the fact that the Monk can do it with his hands bothers me somewhat. The latter, however, makes sense. It would emulate the fact that different styles of martial arts train in different weapons, and it would allow the Monk player to customize his character in an interesting fashion. Eberron's Monk feats also allow this with certain weapons-- the longsword, double-bladed sword, and longspear, if I remember correctly-- and I'd imagine that any Gith Monk would apply it to the Greatsword. The combination of this and the Oriental Adventures style masteries would allow for a simple, versatile way to differentiate different martial arts schools. Another neat trick is, with the way these rules make it possible for different approaches to martial arts, many monasteries or dojos would have a broad selection of classes associated with them-- Fighters, Monks, Psychic Warriors, and possibly even others. Now, all I have to do is apply this to d20 Modern's Martial Artist class.</blockquote>

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