monk flurry (or not)

[Particle_Man]

I have tried to work this out on my own and was hoping that some better mathematician than I could confirm.

For 3.0 it seems to make sense to flurry all the time if one is unarmed, unless one knows that one's primary non-flurried attack needs a natural 18 to hit (i.e. an 18 will hit but a 17 will miss (by natural, I mean the number that actually has to appear face-up on the d20 die, before modifiers of any kind are applied to it)). But when and if one gets Improved Critical (unarmed) the exceptions to flurrying grow to indicate that one should not flurry if one needs a natural 15-19 to hit.

For 3.5 it makes sense to flurry as above while one has a -2 penalty for flurrying, but to flurry all the time without exception once that penalty is reduced to -1.

All of the above assumes that flurrying is an option (i.e. that the monk can make a full attack).

Am I right or have I messed up somehow?

 

[dcollins]

I don't believe it's that simple. It is generally better to flurry against lower ACs, but the exact cutoff point varies by the monk's level, attack bonus, and number of attacks. Perhaps someone with more time will present an example at two different levels, or a whole spreadsheet analysis.

 

[Christian]

No, PM has it right. I'm not going to dig out my spreadsheet right now, but the only relevant variable is the number needed to hit. If it's exactly an 18, you're better off not flurrying; otherwise, a flurry is at least as good as a non-flurry attack, in terms of average damage output. Unless you happen to know that an 18 is what you need, your monk should always flurry when he gets a full attack. (And in 3.5, once the character reaches the 'flurry at -1' level, the disclaimer no longer applies.)

I didn't do the analysis with the Improved Critical feat; however, I don't see where that would be relevant, as the flurry penalty doesn't affect your critical range ...

 

[dcollins]

All right, I just ran some numbers myself and it looks that may in fact be the case (didn't account fully for criticals myself).

 

[Particle_Man]

I didn't do the analysis with the Improved Critical feat; however, I don't see where that would be relevant, as the flurry penalty doesn't affect your critical range ...

The only time it makes a difference is when a non-flurry attack would hit on a 19 or 20 but a flurried version of that attack (that particular attack) would only hit on a 20.

In those cases the damage multiplier is ever-so-slightly higher for one of the non-flurried attacks vs. one (or two if it was the primary attack) of the flurried attacks, because a 19 that is not a hit does not get the chance for double damage even if the critical for the unarmed attack is 19-20/x2 (so one of the attacks get a damage multiplier of 1.05 vs. 1.10). This change is so minor that it only affects the "ties", the 15-17 and the 19. That is, if I have not messed up my math-fu.