Monk Unarmed BAB Fix

[FireLance]

I was thinking about how to enable a multiclass monk to use his more favourable unarmed rate of attacks without losing the BAB from his other classes. It occured to me that we could give monks another class ability "Iterative Unarmed Attack" at 6th level that would enable the monk to make an iterative unarmed attack at -3 to hit. The monk would gain another iterative unarmed attack at 10th, 14th, and 18th level.

This way, a Mnk6/Ftr2 would have a BAB of +6 and be able to attack unarmed at +6/+3.

However, a Mnk4/Ftr4 would have a BAB of +7, but only be able to attack unarmed at +7/+2 as he does not gain the iterative unarmed attack of a 6th level monk.

A Mnk6/Ftr6 would have a BAB of +10, and would be able to attack unarmed at +10/+7/+2. The first unarmed iterative attack is made at -3 to hit, and the second at -5 to hit, as normal.

However, the cap of 4 iterative attacks should still remain, except for monks of 18th and higher level. Hence, a Mnk14/Ftr6 would have a BAB of +16, and would attack unarmed at +16/+13/+10/+7. He would not get a fifth iterative unarmed attack at +2.

Comments?

 

[Jack Daniel]

It's far quicker to just figgure iterative attacks based on monk levels only, and then add BAB from other classes to all attacks instead of the first attack alone as the core rules do it.

Observe: In the standard rules, the Mnk10/Ftr10 typically used for illustration has a total BAB of +17/+12/+7/+2, four attacks and usually advantageous over the "monk only" unarmed BAB of +17/+4/+1. But if you add the fighter attack bonus to all these attacks, you get +17/+14/+11, which is actually more advantageous against high-AC enemies than the full four-attack pattern. Going any further risks overpowering the monk's unarmed attacks.

Still, if you want unarmed attacks to generally outnumber armed attacks (which is just fine for a martial arts focused campaing), then after you figgure the monk's attacks as I've shown, you can go on to add -5 iterations to a maximum of five total unarmed attacks (+17/+14/+11/+6/+1) in this case. There's no reason to cap unarmed attacks at 4 until monk level 18, because the last attack will invariably have a low enough bonus to hit that it's not going to hurt anything (the very reason epic characters actually stop gaining iterative attacks).

 

[Balgus]

Why would you ever MC a monk? It is so different from the other classes that I cannot see how someone can reason making the jump from monk to any other class.

 

[Bean 2.0]

a monastary of fighter monks focused on exotic weapons and unarmored fighting

 

[Jack Daniel]

Why would you ever MC a monk? It is so different from the other classes that I cannot see how someone can reason making the jump from monk to any other class.

A class is your level of training in a given skillset, not some life's profession that you can never leave (not even monks and paladins; that rule is disappearing in 3.5). If you can't see rouges, priests, mages, or fighters (!) studying the martial arts to improve their combat ability, you don't know what multiclassing is for.

 

[Thain]

"If you can't see rouges, priests, mages, or fighters (!) studying the martial arts...."

Let me just add that: "....and you haven't watched nearly enough wuxia or samurai films coming out of Hong Kong, Dollywood or Tokyo."

Li Mu Bai? (Crourching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) a good Monk/Cleric, imho.

Zaitoichi (Blind Swordsman series) a good Samurai/Monk, imo.

Ryu Hyabusa (Ninja Gaiden) a Monk/Rogue/Sorcerer, imo.

Ryu/Ken (Street Fighter) an epic Fighter/Monk, with some FCTF thrown in!

Bruce Lee (in anything!) a defiante Monk, maybe a Monk/Rogue in some roles...

Multiclassing can really make a character concept... which is why I think they've esaied up on it in 3.5 -and in OA, first. Not to mention what they did with d20 Modern.