Shuriken: The key thing with shuriken is that you can perform a Flurry of Blows with them. Combine this with enchanted shuriken (or an item that enchants shuriken for you, to make up for the fact that they're the only "ammunition" in the game without a weapon that enchants them on launch) with some enhancement like "flaming", and you're in nice shape.
Oh, and the number one reason to flurry with shuriken: rogue/monk.
Anyway: I've actually been thinking about using the Weapon Group Feats rules from UA--and trying to think how to fit weapon groups, monks, and Eberron let-monk-flurry-with-new-weapons stuff together. (Described here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/weaponGroupFeats.htm)
Every special monk weapon in the PHB is a 1H, 1d6/20x2 weapon. Most are exotic.
Eberron provides feats for the longsword (martial, 1H, slashing, 1d8/19-20x2) and long spear (simple, 2H, piercing, 1d8/20x3).
The Weapon Group Feats provide monks by default with access to Basic weapons (club, dagger, quarterstaff) and any one other weapon group. The description in UA says nothing about what weapons a monk should be able to flurry with, but does provide a Monk Weapons weapon group (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, siangham) with a prerequisite of Improved Unarmed Strike.
Finally, the WGF rules suggest that feats that require you to choose a specific weapon (Weapon Focus, etc.) could be applied instead to a weapon group. It notes that this doesn't increase power too too much, since it's rare for someone to carry umpteen weapons all from the same weapon group around.
Okay: So, the reason I like the WGF rules is that they both expand and limit the available weapons for characters at the same time. They limit the available weapons in that you don't get the broad coverage of all families of weapons that you get in the core rules. The expand the selection in that within a single family of weapons, you can use all of the weapons equally well.
As an example of limitations, Clerics in the PHB get proficiency with all simple weapons. We have daggers, spiked gauntlets, maces, sickles, clubs, spears, staves, crossbows, slings... A wide range of weapons that are totally unrelated except that they are "simple" (which sets limits on their damage and critical ranges.) War clerics also get access to their deity's favored martial weapon, if any.
In the WGF rules, Clerics get proficiency with basic weapons (club, dagger, quarterstaff), which are related in that they're all items that you can genreally find laying around any old place. (Chair leg, eating knife, random trimmed down tree-branch.) They also get any other two weapon groups. For example, a cleric could pick up maces and clubs (club, light mace, heavy mace, greatclub, quarterstaff, sap, warmace (2H)) and also crossbows (the obvious). But that would leave out the slings, the throwing knives, the spears, etc. So the cleric has gained more access to powerful weapons (the martial weapons in the chosen groups) at the expense of losing a bit more breadth into more kinds of weapons.
And if he wanted to, the cleric could get the maces and clubs group, and then get the exotic weapons group, giving access to the warmace (1H) and tonfa (if he later adds another weapon group, he'll get the exotic weapons for that group as well automatically). This guy is a real specialist in clubbing things.
So, I really like this because it allows people to customize their specialities more, because it means people will tend to be proficient in weapons that are actually *related* to each other, and because it also means that I can dangle a larger variety of magic loot in front of the players.
Now, back to the monk problem. The question is: how to make monk weapons more sane in this context of weapon groups. Also, how to make weapons more appealing to monks *at all*, since in the core rules, the only time I've ever seen a monk use weapons is when facing an enemy with DR/bludgeoning. Bare hands are just that much better for monks, even when you start factoring in magic kama and the like.
The approach I'm considering taking is the following:
Expanded Flurry [General]
Choose a weapon group with which your are proficient and for which you have the Weapon Focus feat. Through monastic weapon training, you have mastered a fighting style that uses this type of weapons with blinding speed.
Prerequisites: Weapon Group (chosen group), Weapon Focus (chosen group), flurry of blows class feature.
Benefit: You can treat any weapon in this weapon group as a special monk weapon, allowing you to perform a flurry of blows with it.
Special: Flurry of blows can only be performed with melee and thrown weapons (including whips). If the chosen weapon group includes other types of ranged weapon, you still cannot use flurry of blows with those weapons.
If you have the Weapon Group (Exotic Weapons) or Weapon Group (Exotic Double Weapons) feats, you can perform a flurry of blows with exotic weapons or exotic double weapons (respectively) in your weapon group. Remember that flurry of blows only applies to main-hand attacks when fighting with two weapons (or a double weapon).
And for the monk class, the monk automatically can by default flurry only with unarmed attacks and with weapons in the Basic weapon group, but nothing else (not even old-fashioned monk weapons.)
So, based on this model, a monk can normally flurry with unarmed attacks, daggers, clubs, and quarterstaves. The monk is also proficient with any single other weapon group.
By taking two additional feats, the monk can flurry with the first weapon group he chose. (And, of course, the monk could gain proficiency in another group and gain the flurry ability with it.)
So... A monk could take Weapon Group (Heavy Blades) to get access to longswords (as well as bastard swords (2H), and greatswords, and the like.) At level one, the monk cannot take Weapon Focus (Heavy Blades), because he does not satisfy the +1 BAB prerequisite. At level three, the monk takes Weapon Focus (Heavy Blades), and at level six, the monk takes Expanded Flurry (Heavy Blades). So at six level, a monk could potentially be flurrying with a 2d6/19-20x2 damage two-handed sword instead of 1d8/20x2 fists--but that monk has given up two feats to reach that ability. I will admit that this is rather powerful--which is why I worry.
With the Eberron rules, a monk could take the Martial Weapon Proficiency (longsword) feat at first level, then Weapon Focus (longsword) at third level, then Whirling Steel Strike at sixth level. This gives access to the 1d8/19-20x2 longsword at the same level the monk would normally be doing 1d8/20x2 damage, at the cost of three feats. On the flip side of the above, this seems rather weak.
And spears work out pretty much the same way, only no weapon from the Spears weapon group is as powerful as the greatsword.
So--if anybody has read my long spiel all the way through, how would people suggest improving on this model? Perhaps placing a level-based limit on the weapon damage of the weapon the monk flurries with (to represent the difficulty of flurrying with a heavier weapon?) With that constraint, would it make sense to say that the monk automatically has Expanded Flurry with the weapon group chosen at first level? (So, if the monk chooses Weapon Group (Heavy Blades) at first level, he is able to flurry with a longsword at level 4, a bastard sword (2H) at level 8, and a greatsword at level 12?)
Any other ideas?
