Dragon Monk

[moritheil]

Mmm, the sweet, sweet taste of vindication after incredulity.

 

[Jdvn1]

If he makes his unarmed strikes with, say, his left forepaw, it would be consistent to rule that he cannot use that claw attack. So in that instance, he'd get four unarmed strikes with his left forepaw at +16/+11/+6/+1, plus one claw, two wings, a bite, and a tail slap at +11.

Note that any dragon can do this anyway, but the damage will be 1d3 non-lethal scaled up (so 1d6 for Huge, for example), and the unarmed strikes will provoke attacks of opportunity from threatening attackers.

Ah, a mitigating factor. That bit is good to know. That only lessens the number of attacks I'd be getting by one, but.

Why would you say it would be consistent to not let said dragon use his claw for his unarmed strike but not the natural attack?

 

[Jdvn1]

Mmm, the sweet, sweet taste of vindication after incredulity.

Hey, I believed you, I just wanted to know how it worked.

 

[moritheil]

Ah, a mitigating factor. That bit is good to know. That only lessens the number of attacks I'd be getting by one, but.

Why would you say it would be consistent to not let said dragon use his claw for his unarmed strike but not the natural attack?

If he's using his claw, it is no longer an unarmed strike.

That said, I'm curious about where Hyp is coming from with the idea that whichever limb made the unarmed strike is out for the natural attacks.

A monk’s attacks may be with either fist interchangeably or even from elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may even make unarmed strikes with her hands full.

If my dragon monk strikes with his elbows for unarmed strikes, he can then use his full complement of natural attacks, right?

 

[Jdvn1]

Unarmed strike follows the rules for manufactured weapons when it comes to iterative attacks and two-weapon fighting.

A Huge dragon monk with a BAB of +16, say, would make four iterative unarmed strike attacks using the damage progression for a monk of size Huge, at +16/+11/+6/+1.

Following the rules for mixing natural weapons and manufactured weapons, he could also use any of his natural weapons (Claw/Claw/Bite/Wing/Wing/Tail Slap, say) as secondary natural attacks at BAB -5 - that is to say, +11.

Forgot to ask something else: Why/why not would a Flurry work in conjunction with this?

 

[moritheil]

Hey, I believed you, I just wanted to know how it worked.

Oh, I'm not offended or anything, I just couldn't resist poking some fun.

 

[Jdvn1]

If he's using his claw, it is no longer an unarmed strike.

Well, you started off with a choice between using it as an unarmed strike and a natural attack anyway. You can't change midway?

 

[moritheil]

Forgot to ask something else: Why/why not would a Flurry work in conjunction with this?

When unarmored, a monk may strike with a flurry of blows at the expense of accuracy. When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round at her highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a -2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round. The resulting modified base attack bonuses are shown in the Flurry of Blows Attack Bonus column on Table: The Monk. This penalty applies for 1 round, so it also affects attacks of opportunity the monk might make before her next action. When a monk reaches 5th level, the penalty lessens to -1, and at 9th level it disappears. A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows.

Ah, hrm. I guess they can be used together, as long as you're making a full attack. The penalty, of course, would apply to all the attacks. I guess for some reason I thought flurry was a full-round action, but it's clearly not.

EDIT: There is, of course, this:

When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham).

However, it's easily answered by saying that one is only "using" flurry of blows for the actual IUS attacks, and that subsequently one is not in flurry (though the penalty remains).

 

[moritheil]

Well, you started off with a choice between using it as an unarmed strike and a natural attack anyway. You can't change midway?

Er, sorry. What did I start?

I'm saying that an unarmed strike is one made without the benefit of the claw. Dragons striking with their claws are making natural attacks, not unarmed strikes.

 

[Jdvn1]

Oh, I'm not offended or anything, I just couldn't resist poking some fun.

Are you poking with a natural weapon or an unarmed strike?