Monk magic item

[Hawkeye]

I just spend about 30 to 45 mins looking through the DMG, Sword and Fist, FRCs and MOF looking for an item that would allow a monk to perform their unarmed attacks as though they were one category larger. Small monk to medium. Medium to large. Is there one? I primarily see this item for small sized monks. If there isn't one, any idea how to price one out? Thank you in advance.

Hawkeye

 

[kreynolds]

I made a pair of bracers a good while back for an NPC that treated him as two size categories larger than normal (Huge) for purposes of combat-related opposed checks that apply a modifier based on size, such as bull rush, grapple, and trip (+8 size bonus).

I priced this one ability at 60,000gp (120,000gp in total because it was a secondary function on the bracers). The primary function was an epic Strength enhancement bonus. This ability didn't do anything except what is listed above, so I figured the price wasn't too low. Some might think it's too high though.

 

[Corwin]

I priced this one ability at 60,000gp (120,000gp in total because it was a secondary function on the bracers). The primary function was an epic Strength enhancement bonus. This ability didn't do anything except what is listed above, so I figured the price wasn't too low. Some might think it's too high though.

Yikes, expensive. Yeah, ever since I say the item in ELH, I've wanted that ability for my monk. He's a trip specialist. But even at 60,000 gp for just tat one ability, I'm going to be epic before I can afford it. I guess I'll just wait until I rach epic and hope my DM is favorable towards me and gives me the full bracers.

 

[kreynolds]

Yikes, expensive.

60K? Expensive? Nah. Stick it on a pair of Bracers of Strength +4, and the Size ability becomes the primary power, with the Strength bonus becoming the secondary power because its the next most costly ability. The total will be 92,000gp. That's not bad at all.

By the way, I figured an effective increase in only 1 size category, instead of 2, would only be about 20,000 to 25,000.

 

[Artoomis]

How would you do this?

I'd view this as a sort of specialized use on Enlarge. Given what effect we want, I'd say you could possibly make a spell to do this (stay with me - we'll use the spell to create an item):

Power Fist:
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 minute/level
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes

When cast, this spell causes the unarmed attacks of the target to be one die category higher (as in a small monk getting damage like a medium monk).

Okay, now let's look at an item based on this. We want a continous effect magic item based on the spell. You should adjust the price based on what level you think the above spell should be.

3rd level caster x 2nd level spell x 2,000 (use-activated) = 12,000 gp

Does that seem reasonable? Or perhaps it should be more like a 3rd level spell, in which case we are talking about 5th level caster x 3rd level spell x 2,000 gp, or a total of 30,000 gp.

 

[jlhorner1974]

There's no item per se that increases unarmed damage by one size category.

In MoF, there is a magic item called a Monk's Tattoo that does not take an item slot that allows you to treat your effective Monk level as 4 higher than normal for purposes of unarmed damage, fast movement, and Monk AC bonus. This effectively increases your damage up to the next die size (d6 > d8 > d10 > d12 > d20 for Medium sized characters), adds 10 ft to your base speed (20 ft if you're lucky) and +1 AC.

This isn't the same as a size category increase, but it's close (actually it ends up being a little better in terms of damage than a size increase). This is probably the closest you can get with existing items.

Mastery of one of the martial arts styles in OA gives increases your damage by one size category according to the DMG tables.

You can probably start with the Monk's Tattoo as a reference point and design something yourself. IIRC, The Tattoo went for about 80,000 gp if I remember, which I think is a lot for +10 ft speed, +1 AC, and +1 die type for unarmed damage. The d12 > d20 increase is pretty big (avg 6.5 -> avg 10.5, difference of 4 pts), but the others are not very significant.

A +1 size category increase for unarmed damage item is difficult to price since there are no good items to compare with. The extra damage is not very big at all until you get up to about the 2d8 range. Even a 1d8 (avg 4.5) to 2d6 (avg 7) is only about +2.5 points of extra damage. Definitely nice, but hardly worth writing home about. But 2d8 (avg 9) -> 4d6 (avg 14) adds about +5 damage average which gets doubled on a crit. Very nice, but still, probably not worth a huge sum of money.

This is hard to price since the benefit you get is more the larger your current unarmed damage die is. I do agree with the previous estimates -- probably about 20,000 to 30,000 is fine.

We need more monk items, kind of like what they did in Neverwinter Nights....