Flurry Weapons

[Chu Li]

I am having a lively debate with my players. When the ninja-monk, who had recently relieved a villain of his trusty sidearm (a keen +3 dagger), wanted to use it as part of it's flurry attack I first ruled that this wasn't possible. If she wanted to pull that stunt i said, she'd have to invest into weapon focus (dagger) and a follow-up feat (just like the "serpent-school" and "whirling steel" feats in Ebberon, which allow you to treat one specific weapon as a special monk weapon, hence allowing you to use it as part of a flurry of blows).
Looking at the benefit this feat grants the wielder of a weapon such as a longspear (kickass) or two-bladed sword (okay) I have a bad conscience squeezing those requirements out of my player who wants to apply the effect to a dagger. if it weren't for the mojo knife, no-one would ever even think about taking such pains to get an extra attack with a 1d4 weapon, which is even less than a monk's 1st UA damage.
Furthermore my answer to her request is like "yeah, you can do that in 5 levels!".

That made me think about monk weapons in general. What makes those weapons unique and flurryable? is it just game balancing to restrict the monk to a very small set of weapons that nobody else can or would bother to use, including any monks beyond lvl 3?
I've also noticed, that kama and sickle are practically identical weapons/tools (statwise and in realworld-application). Additonally the siangham (or more correctly siangkam) is used almost like a dagger.

by the way...where's that good old rattan stick? is it a club? and if so, shouldn't a monk be able to flurry with one or two of those?

the monk's special weapons function much like simple weapons and in a respective setting are actually simple tools put to a different use.

ok. enough of that rant.

i feel inclined to allow monks to treat all simple & "monkish" exotic weapons he/she is proficient with as special monk weapons for the purpose of a flurry of blows.

now that's where you come into play. what do you think?

Thank you for your intellectual effort.

ChuLi

 

[Lord Zardoz]

As far as I can tell, its purely a flavour thing. I would let the monk do the Flurry with the dagger, and possibly any Simple Light weapon that they are not otherwise able to use.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[comrade raoul]

Consider an even bigger switch: monks can flurry with a quarterstaff or with any light weapon they're proficient with, but take an additional -2 penalty if they're not wielding a special monk weapon. (This doesn't make the monk any more powerful--monks who want to flurry with a top-tier light weapon like a handaxe or--if they have levels in another class, a shortsword--crit a bit more effectively, but lose the special features of their monk weapon and take a disproportionate hit to accuracy.) This would let your monk use the dagger in a sensible and balanced way, and it's a little bit more realistic--why shouldn't a monk be able to use equally easy-to-handle but slightly different weapons in a flurry?

I use this rule, and take it one step further with a few more changes. The effect is really fun for monks, especially multiclassed ones.

• First, consider dropping the kama and siangham, but classify the sickle and punching dagger as special monk weapons.
• Second, use the Eberron feats, but expand them a little bit, so that a given feat can apply to a bunch of different weapons (except that you still need to have taken Weapon Focus with whatever weapon you're wielding).

The first rule makes sense since, after all, a kama just is a sickle with an Asian name and design (they serve the same agricultural purpose and are statistically identical, after all), and the punching dagger is much less silly than the siangham, lets monks trade damage for crits if they want to, and has real-life martial arts cred. This streamlines the weapons list at no cost to anybody.

For the second rule, I use the following feats. This both streamlines available feats and gives monks more options. (Most of these are identical except for the weapons they cover--Falling Tree Strike applies to the simple and martial bludgeoning weapons, Scorpion Tail Strike applies to picks and flails, Serpent Strike applies to spears and the trident and halberd; Whirling Steel Strike applies to most daggers and one-handed swords, as well as the falchion and two-bladed sword.) Laughing Monkey Strike is a special case--it's there to facilitate Jackie Chan-style creative use of improvised weapons.

Falling Tree Strike
You can use your martial arts training to wield heavy crushing weapons with unusually speed.
Prerequisite: Weapon Focus, flurry of blows class ability, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: If you're proficient with, and have taken the Weapon Focus feat with, either the club, light mace, heavy mace, morningstar, warhammer, or greatclub, you can perform a flurry of blows with that weapon, at no additional penalty to your attack roll (as though the weapon were a special monk weapon.)
Special: A monk may select Falling Tree Strike as a bonus feat at 2nd or 6th level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites.

Scorpion Tail Strike
You can use your martial arts training to wield certain weapons like the striking end of a scorpion's tail, coming down swiftly and painfully.
Prerequisite: Weapon Focus, flurry of blows class ability, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: If you're proficient with, and have taken the Weapon Focus feat with, either the light pick, flail, heavy pick, heavy flail, or dire flail, you can perform a flurry of blows with that weapon, at no additional penalty to your attack roll (as though the weapon were a special monk weapon.)
Special: A monk may select Scorpion Tail Strike as a bonus feat at 2nd or 6th level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites.

Serpent Strike
You can use your martial arts training to wield polearms like a coiled serpent, making swift, surprising attacks.
Prerequisite: Weapon Focus, flurry of blows class ability, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: If you're proficient with, and have taken the Weapon Focus feat with, either the shortspear, spear, longspear, trident, or halberd, you can perform a flurry of blows with that weapon, at no additional penalty to your attack roll (as though the weapon were a special monk weapon.)
Special: A monk may select Serpent Strike as a bonus feat at 2nd or 6th level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites.

Whirling Steel Strike
You can apply your martial arts training to your swordsmanship.
Prerequisite: Weapon Focus, flurry of blows class ability, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: If you're proficient with, and have taken the Weapon Focus feat with, either the dagger, kukri, shortsword, longsword, scimitar, bastard sword, falchion, or two-bladed sword, you can perform a flurry of blows with that weapon, at no additional penalty to your attack roll (as though the weapon were a special monk weapon.)
Special: A monk may select Whirling Steel Strike as a bonus feat at 2nd or 6th level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites.

Laughing Monkey Strike
You can make inspired use of nearby, improvised weapons in combat.
Prerequisite: Int 13, flurry of blows class ability, base attack bonus +4.
Benefit: You can use improvised weapons as part of a flurry of blows, at no additional penalty to your attack roll (as though the weapon were a special monk weapon).

In addition, you're particularly effective when you're using objects that just happen to be on hand, and that you picked up in the middle of a fight. Thus, if the improvised weapon you wield is one that you didn't possess, and had never wielded, prior to the begnning of the encounter, you gain a number of other benefits. First, you may ignore the usual -4 nonproficiency penalty for wielding improvised weapons. Second, you can choose to use your base unarmed strike damage in place of the base damage of the weapon you're using. Third, you gain a +4 luck bonus on rolls to confirm critical hits with the weapon.
Special: A monk may select Laughing Monkey Strike as a bonus feat at 6th level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For the record, DCv1 has 2 feats for expanding the flurry list. One- Unusual Flurry(?)- adds a single one-handed or light weapon to the Monk's list, the other- Pole Fighter- allows the use of a polearm.