Monk's fists as weapons

[Wikid Klown]

A monk in my group (well, ex monk now thanks to a blue dragon) was arguing that, since the PHB states that a monk's fists count as both natural and manufactured weapons, he could enchant them with flaming or something like that (like ghost touch), and if he did something like flaming or shocking burst that he wouldn't take damage. Is he right? Also, with the Kensia PRC it states that they can enchangt their weapon, he was taking that as a PRC and was trying to say the same thing. I ruled that he couldn't, so he just did a Greater Magic Fang/Permanency combo on them, but it bothers me, since I wasn't sure. I'm sure it'll come up again in the future.

 

[Doomhawk]

The Kensai can enchant his natural weapons, since it specifically says he can. A Monk, however, cannot. A weapon has to be masterwork to be enchanted, and there is no way (that I know of) to obtain masterwork fists.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Incidentally, there's a feat in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed that lets you do just that.

 

[was]

Maybe magical gloves? (Not gauntlets)

 

[Liquidsabre]

Magical tatoos on the forearms would seem to be the way to go about enhcanting one's fists as weapons.

 

[saucercrab]

Bracers of striking from Magic of Faerun would work similarly (as they're a magic item that can add magic weapon properties to unarmed/natural attacks).

 

[Lamoni]

Your answer is Magic Weapon, Greater. Of course that doesn't help with any Flaming effects... but if you can find a spell that grants the flaming ability to a weapon, the spell will also work on the monk's unarmed strike (which is much more than his fists by the way). So with the proper spells, you can make the monk's fists just as enchanted as the dwarf's warhammer. The only problem is that they won't be permanent. With 1 hr/lvl duration of magic weapon, greater the enhancement can be pretty clost to permanent.

If you want ghost touch, find a spell that grants ghost touch to a weapon temporarily. It'll work just fine on the monk.

 

[Sejs]

A monk in my group (well, ex monk now thanks to a blue dragon) was arguing that, since the PHB states that a monk's fists count as both natural and manufactured weapons, he could enchant them with flaming or something like that (like ghost touch), and if he did something like flaming or shocking burst that he wouldn't take damage. Is he right?

Nope.


Because his fists arn't masterwork.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Alternately, you could treat the Amulet of Mighty Fists like a magic weapon, allowing it to be enhanced with the magic weapon qualities. An equivalent plus bonus on an Amulet is worth three times what it would be worth on a magic weapon. So a +1 flaming amulet would be worth 24,000 gp, which is what a +2 amulet is worth.