Monks and Power Attack...what gives?

[Caliban]

Ask the GM to House Rule around Power Attack and Monks.

It seems like a good idea- allow the Monk to use Power Attack with Unarmed attacks, but no weapons that are light.

Just my thoughts on it.

Um, that's the way it works normally.

 

[Hypersmurf]

"When using weapons as part of a flurry of blows, a monk applies her Strength bonus (not Str bonus × 1½ or ×½) to her damage rolls for all successful attacks, whether she wields a weapon in one or both hands."

Right.

A monk attacking unarmed adds Str bonus to damage, with 1-for-1 Power Attack.
A monk Flurrying unarmed adds Str bonus to damage, with 1-for-1 Power Attack.
A monk attacking with a quarterstaff adds 1.5x Str bonus to damage, with 2-for-1 Power Attack (assuming she isn't using it as a double weapon).
A monk Flurrying with a quarterstaff adds Str bonus to damage (per Flurry rules), with 2-for-1 Power Attack (since nothing about Flurry changes that).

-Hyp.

 

[Doctor Shaft]

And yet, 1d6 with 2-1 still isn't that hot. And with rogue BAB. Eh, it's just not really worth the investment.

Monks. Gotta love em. What core feats are especially useful to a monk, besides maybe spring attack, again?

 

[Legildur]

And yet, 1d6 with 2-1 still isn't that hot. And with rogue BAB. Eh, it's just not really worth the investment.

Gee, I dunno. I keep having thoughts about a human or half-orc Monk wielding a quartstaff as a disarm specialist.

I really hadn't considered the 2-for-1 Power Attack issue for quartstaves - it could make for an interesting tactic (if not as devastating with a Barbarian build) where you full power attack all of the time.

 

[Timely Drought]

Power attack isnt too hot for monks anyway...

The way I got around that with my high-level monk NPC villain enforcer was to give her a brilliant energy wounding quarterstaff. Brilliant energy gets around low AB and wounding (with flurry and TWF) gets around low damage. Hiddeously expensive gear (paying twice for enchantments), but fun.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Given the adamantine quote, the rules seem to assume that a quarterstaff is uncapped. However, since the rules do not preclude it, I'd rule that they can be capped, and a capped quarterstaff would then qualify to be made adamantine, cold iron, or silvered, but not mithral (which requires most of the weapon be metal, rather than merely that the weapon have metal parts.)

This may be a House Rule, though, since the adamantine rule does seem to indicate the designers assumed a quarterstaff to be naked wood.

Yep. Oh, I agree with you that they should have caps. I haven't had one of my PCs use a quarterstaff in years, so I haven't asked the DM about it.

Oh, and the Staff of Mastery from Complete Arcane is the one made of "4 twisted rods of adamantine." Of course, since that's over 200k in price, it should technically require Craft Epic Staff, too, but hey...

Brad

 

[Plane Sailing]

And yet, 1d6 with 2-1 still isn't that hot. And with rogue BAB. Eh, it's just not really worth the investment.

Don't you believe it! My monk loves his power attack goodness (even though our DM house rules it so that it is 1-1 even for 2H weapons). Every time you get a flank, or charge, or get higher ground you can convert the hit bonus to damage. If you charge into a flanking position with higher ground you could turn your +5 to hit into +10 damage with the standard rules (as long as your BAB is 5+.

Works cinematically with Cleave too.


Regarding other good Monk feats:

Improved Grapple is fantastic, especially for low level strong monks, since their BAB is only a point below fighters... this really gives them the edge.

Martial Weapon Proficiency. Shouldn't be overlooked. My human Monk started at 1st level with MWP-Glaive (for big 2H reach damage) and he could used his unarmed attack on those who closed to within 5ft. It also meant that archers couldn't just 5ft step away from him and shoot with impunity