Goliath Monk: Which Unarmed Damage?

[Gnome]

If you have to be careful allowing it. The next logical step of the player is to see if the feat improve natural weapons will apply. Now you will have monk's hand damage 2 catagories larger. You have to look at it from all directions; allowing something is ok, but you have to make sure you do not end up introuble 3 levels from now.

Kayn

I'd definitely say that those would overlap rather than stack since the Goliath is still size medium.

 

[blargney the second]

Have they used Powerful Build on anything other than goliaths and .5-giants?

 

[frankthedm]

Have they used Powerful Build on anything other than goliaths and .5-giants?

Redcaps in the MM3 have it.

Powerful build does not give one larger natural attacks nor larger unarmed strikes.

 

[Hammerhead]

No, but it makes the decision to play a Goliath Monk pretty bad, compared to a Goliath Barbarian or the like. Why not allow it? If he were any kind of martial character except for a monk, he'd be doing more damage with his attacks.

 

[Arkhandus]

No, the letter of the rules is pretty clear. Goliaths deal unarmed damage as other Medium creatures do. They are able to wield larger weapons, but nowhere does it say that they are treated as Large for purposes of unarmed damage.

 

[findar]

It kind of seems like what I thought. It comes down to a judgement call. Some people say that it shouldn't. And some say it really isn't a big deal. The player that is playing the character is in no way a powergamer. She and I just trying to figure out if there was a clear wording or not.

 

[IanB]

No, but it makes the decision to play a Goliath Monk pretty bad, compared to a Goliath Barbarian or the like. Why not allow it? If he were any kind of martial character except for a monk, he'd be doing more damage with his attacks.

A goliath monk is getting plenty of extra power from his racial choice anyway, in the form of +4 on all his grapple checks and an extra +4 strength.

They make absolutely brutal grapplers already, I don't feel like they need increased monk damage as well.

 

[Arkhandus]

No, it's not. The rules are clear.

A half-giant can use weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty.

Nothing in the description says or implies that a race with Powerful Build would deal unarmed damage as a Large creature. The ability clearly describes the only ways in which a creature with Powerful Build is treated as being one size larger. Unarmed damage is not one of those ways listed.

I'm just trying to make certain it's clear. The rules are clear.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Of course, if a goliath found an ogre's unarmed strike lying around, he could use it at no penalty. A human would take a -2.

-Hyp.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

One could fairly easily slip in a substitution level to do that. Maybe exchange Still Mind for it, and note clearly that it overlaps with Improved Natural Attack (Monk), so it doesn't stack. That way, she's not out the feat, but she gets a benefit from the Powerful Build ability. I mean, she could use a Large Kama, but that's just silly.

Of course, a somewhat cheesier way would be to take 2 levels of barbarian, take the Brb-1 sub level that turns you large when raging (Mountain Rage, it's called), and then dig out that issue of Dragon with the Chaos Monk variant, and take that for the rest of the levels, making sure to take some Extra Rage feats once in a while.

Huh...that's all kinds of rude, potentially. I'll have to work on that some.

Brad