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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Christopher Lambert" data-source="post: 1867484" data-attributes="member: 25412">It doesn't help that DnD isn't very flexible, and Improved Unarmed Strike sucks <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> Furthermore light fighters (and any unarmored character who wants to melee) get hosed by the rules (you effectively give up three feats for nothing). A fighter who went unarmored, even if he took a PrC, and only used his unarmed attacks in combat will be much weaker than a typical heavy fighter. In D20 Modern (which works very well for a low-magic setting, too) you have to pay for your armor feats. You don't get them for free. If you choose not to spend up to three feats on armor, that means you have three feats to spend on other things like an unarmed damage feat.The monk is one of the least flexible and least supported classes out there. The lawful requirement is annnoying on it's own; what does being lawful have to do with unarmed combat?Part of the reason is that the monk isn't a martial artist, he's a mystic, with all kinds of semi-random (and often useless) ki abilities; that's why he only gets a 3/4 BAB. However, people who don't like the mystic angle will gravitate towards it anyway, since it's the only way in the core rules to have unarmed attacks that do decent damage. Well, sort of decent damage.Here we come to support. WotC goes out of it's way to nerf the ability to add magical effects to unarmed damage. Monks don't get a real enhancement bonus to their weapons on their own (they can't even do that at the cost of 5 feats slots!) ... they have to get a druid to cast greater magic fang on them (I suppose they'll go for the +1 "get every weapon" variety so you're not forced to count how many "weapons" you have on your body) or they have to buy a ridiculously expensive magical item to do so. There's no way of doing this on your own or for a reasonable price.I wish DnD monks did less base damage; not only would this not scare DMs, but more importantly it means WotC could hand out some more useful enhancement bonuses to monk attacks without fear of creating monks that deal way too much damage.There were a few tries in non-core products; my favorite was the bracers of striking. Unfortunately it turned your monk into a pugilist rather than a graceful martial artist, which is bad for at least some people.Even the psion-monk combo doesn't work very well. In some 3rd party sourcebooks that I read (in 3.0), there was no power that would enhance unarmed attacks. I was quite surprised to see this; what were the psi-monks doing during playtesting? Even in 3.5 there's no option either; the 3.5 version of metaphysical claw doesn't have the "affect every natural weapon" option either. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f621.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":mad:" title="Mad    :mad:"  data-smilie="4"data-shortname=":mad:" /> Psionics doesn't provide any options for making a good monk, either.I've seen Monte's oathbound; similar to a monk. Too similar. More of the same. Maybe AU has some "monk"-boosting spells that actually do their job properly, though. It has the "Hands as Weapons" feat that lets you turn yourself into a magical weapon. Very cool. I donb't have the book here (lent it to a friend) so I'm not sure if it affects all your magical weapons.The best martial artist class I've ever seen is D20 Modern's Martial Artist advanced class. Grim Tales and Spycraft also have very good methods of dealing with martial artists (neither of them use an advanced class, but both have their foibles as well). I don't believe DnD is capable of handling an unarmored warrior - there's no balanced way of boosting AC at low levels without boosting it at higher levels too (which is the source of some of the balance problems).</blockquote>

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