[ELH] Monk: My fists are useless!

[Kae'Yoss]

To many times I've seen players go "I could be a monk and fight with my fists!" As a character concept, it's pretty neat. They focus their feats on unarmed combat, but when it comes to fighting a creature with DR, there is nothing the character can do.

They could always draw their monk weapon who allows to fight on "unarmed": if you just want to hit that guy, that will be enough, and if you intend to use other tactics like stunning, disarming, tripping, you don't even have to worry about the DR.

If you desperately want to strike the bastard with your fists and hurt him, get some magic items that help you accomplish this. If your character concept is to "fight with your fists" and not "find a use for Ki-Strike", it's OK.

He only got three feats at Epic levels and he did not want to spend *all* of them on Improved Ki Strike.

Stupid to do. Penetrate DR will grant you +2 to overcome DR, so it's first stop before you take a single Improved Ki Strike.

Also, a Campaign where you only fight DR Monsters is quite boring. Get a decent DM who will also harry you enemy Characters, being humans or dwarves or elves and having levels in Fighter or Wizard (or whatever). And they don't tend to have DR (or if they have, it will be crappy and no obstacle to an epic monk).
You can't shine all the time, so sometimes your usefulness will be less than perfect. And somehow you'll have to do other things than reducing the HP of the enemy.

 

[Anubis]

A creature can bypass its own innate damage reduction. So something with a 10/+1 DR could hit another 10/+1 normally without invoking DR.

Wrong. The amount of damage reduction is irrelevant. See DMG74. The only thing that matters is the damage reduction itself.

In other words, a creature with DR 10/+1 would do full damage even to a creature with DR 1000000/+1.

 

[Anubis]

It's wrong; see DMG page 74 (bullet #4). Only innate DR helps.

Ah, I didn't see that before. Thanks for pointing it out. You're right.

The amount of damage reduction is still irrelevant, though, but that's a different issue.

 

[James McMurray]

A 21st level monk can have fists that bypass DR x/+5. At 24th you could have fists worth +6.

That mens at 21st you can overcome the DR of:
Brachyrus (CR23)
Juvenile Force Dragon (CR 25)
Juvenile Prismatic Dragon (CR 30)
Mithral Golem (CR 21)
Hunefer (CR 25)

And at 24th, the DR of:

Stone Colossus (CR24)
Adult Force Dragon (CR 31)
Gibbering Orb (CR 27)
Gloom (CR 25)
Hagunemnon (CR 29)
Hoary Hunter (CR 25)

I won't go farther, but you are welcome to check the rest yourself. Generally speaking, the Monk can easily keep up with creatures of his CR and their Damage Reduction.

 

[Stalker0]

Wrong. The amount of damage reduction is irrelevant. See DMG74. The only thing that matters is the damage reduction itself.

In other words, a creature with DR 10/+1 would do full damage even to a creature with DR 1000000/+1.

Not wrong, but you did say it better