Little rules-tweak to encourage monks to use weapons occasionally

[Aaron L]

If you want to see monks wielding weapons, make it effective for them to do so. As it is now, monks are penalized if they wish to portray a sword wielding tai chi monk. This could easily be fixed with one new feat:


Kung Fu Action Grip (general)
prerequisites: flurry of blows class ability, special (see below)

Choose one melee weapon. You may treat this weapon as a special monk weapon, allowing you to use a flurry of blows with it. Your base unarmed damage must equal or exceed the weapons base damage before you make take this feat. This feat may be taken more than once, each time applying to a new weapon.

The addition of a new feat is much easier and less disruptive of the rules than an alteration of an existing core feat, and it fixes a problem I have had with monkes for a long time. Thier are similiar feats in the Eberron CS, but really only one is needed.

 

[Pielorinho]

Ooooh, Aaron. I like!

That may be just what I'm looking for.
Daniel

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Kung Fu Action Grip (general)
prerequisites: special (see below)

Your base unarmed damage must equal or exceed the weapons base damage before you make take this feat.

This part is brilliant.

AR

 

[JimAde]

That feat's a great idea, but I don't think it solves the underlying problem. Since your unarmed damage is, by definition, as good or better why waste an action getting the weapon? It gives you no advantage unless it's magical (or a reach weapon, of course) But why pick up a sword from the wall-rack?

 

[Aaron L]

That feat's a great idea, but I don't think it solves the underlying problem. Since your unarmed damage is, by definition, as good or better why waste an action getting the weapon? It gives you no advantage unless it's magical (or a reach weapon, of course) But why pick up a sword from the wall-rack?

Style, baybee.

 

[JimAde]

Style, baybee.

See, for me, that's a perfectly good answer.

But the original poster was looking for a good in-game reason. Some advantage to be gained so that the typical kung-fu movie scenario would naturally play out in the game, but still keep monks empty-handed most of the time. Part of this is role-playing, of course.

In the real world (and kung fu movies) tromping around with weapons is asking for trouble. So most people are unarmed most of the time. But people who are expecting a life-or-death fight pick up weapons, even if they're martial artists.

But in the game monks do better without weapons, in any kind of fight. So why use them?

If monks got DR vs. bludgeoning, I think it would work very well. They would resort to weapons against each other in order to get through the DR, but wouldn't bother against other opponents. The Kung Fu Action Grip feat is a great way to personalize a monk with a non-standard monk weapon (though I'd probably limit it to light and one-handed weapons). Combined with a little monk DR, I think it will give the exact effect desired.

 

[Pielorinho]

That feat's a great idea, but I don't think it solves the underlying problem. Since your unarmed damage is, by definition, as good or better why waste an action getting the weapon? It gives you no advantage unless it's magical (or a reach weapon, of course) But why pick up a sword from the wall-rack?

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I agree that it doesn't achieve what I want. Most likely someone is going to use this feat to be able to FOB with a funky-power weapon: a reach weapon, a bonus to trip weapon, a bonus to disarm weapon, etc. They'll take the feat, and they'll get the weapon to carry around with them.

It's a cool idea, but it doesn't provide an impetus for two monks to start off kung fu fighting and then switch to weapons during the fight. I'm leaning back toward my original idea; as I understand it, it slightly weakens monks when facing anti-monk fighters, but has no other real disadvantages.

That might actually allow me to make another ruling that I've wanted to make for awhile: when disarming opponents with your bare hands, your hands are treated as one-handed or two-handed weapons for the purposes of disarming attempts, instead of being treated as light weapons. If I'm trying to get someone to drop their greatsword, and I'm trained in unarmed combat, it seems to me that it should be easier to effect this outcome with my hands than with a dagger.

I've not made this change because it gives monks an advantage over fighter-types, but this might make things balance out.

Daniel

 

[Aaron L]

Well, I'd really say that the possibility of having a mastertwok bonus to hit would be reason enough. Or magic enchancement bonuses. Or special material qualities. Or alignment other than lawful. Or reach. Or magic weapon enhancements. Or you don't want to touch what you're attacking. Or you want to do slashing or peircing damage instead of bludgeoning. You said you were looking for a rules light method, but the things you have proposed are pretty rules heavy with far reaching consequences.

If you give anyone with IAS AOO's againts unarmed attacks from those with IAS, you're DESTROYING monks. Any fighter with a decent dex can use 2 feats to become a monk killer. IAS and Combat Reflexes means with a 14 dex you get 3 AOO's a round. Monk attacks that fighter unarmed and gets hammered.

Monks with Combat Reflexes fight each other unarmed and get AOO's every attack. It becomes a mess.

In fact, you are pretty much requiring monks to use weapons instead of unarmed attacks, instead of making weapons a valid choice.

 

[S'mon]

I'm thinking of letting Monks substitute their unarmed damage for a weapon's base damage if they're not using Power Attack...

 

[Aaron L]

Another reason, inspired by the bonus monks gained from using a weapon in 1E:


Improved Kung Fu Action Grip (general)
prerequisites: Kung Fu Action Grip, base attack bonus +6

When using a weapon designated as a special monk weapon, you gain a +1 bonus to hit and +1 bonus to damage with the weapon. The damage bonus increases by +1 for every 5 monk levels after 1st. IE: +2 at 5th, +3 at 10th, +4 at 15th, and +5 at 20th.