The strong fighter and flurry of blows?

[Plane Sailing]

I had an interesting thought today:

Fighters multiclassing with monks generally don't get much out of it - there is that whole thing about Monk beneficial iterative attacks not stacking with the fighters BAB. All well and good.

One of the little recognised features of "flurry of blows" though, is that it lets you attack with two monk weapons (kama/nunchak etc), one in each hand, and allows you to get full str bonus on both attacks!.

(I wonder if rangers get annoyed that the Monk actually outdoes them on their own turf... 2weapon fighting with full str on both attacks )

If anyone wants to play a very strong 2-weapon wielding fighter, the route of taking a level of monk could be very interesting.

Cheers

 

[Corwin]

Keep in mind that in order for this to work, your strong fighter has to use the special monk weapons: Siangham, nunchuku, kama and 3-section staff (from S&F). Otherwise, he can't flurry of blows or get full strength with both hands.

But yeah, if you are willing to stick with those relatively lame weapons, go for it.

 

[Ranger REG]

I had an interesting thought today:

Fighters multiclassing with monks generally don't get much out of it - there is that whole thing about Monk beneficial iterative attacks not stacking with the fighters BAB. All well and good.

At least you can stack Monk's BAB with Fighter's BAB. Most DM's have allowed multiclass monk to use the better of two attack bonuses when it comes to unarmed attack.

One of the little recognised features of "flurry of blows" though, is that it lets you attack with two monk weapons (kama/nunchak etc), one in each hand, and allows you to get full str bonus on both attacks!.

Under the PH, only three monk's special weapon and his unarmed attack are allowed to use Flurry of Blows.

(I wonder if rangers get annoyed that the Monk actually outdoes them on their own turf... 2weapon fighting with full str on both attacks )

Rangers are not just warriors but trackers, so their talents lies elsewhere. Besides, they can use any combination of weapons with their free feats, even a pair of bastard swords (assuming he acquire Exotic Weapon Proficiency).

If anyone wants to play a very strong 2-weapon wielding fighter, the route of taking a level of monk could be very interesting.

Cheers

If you wish to limit yourself to the three weapons (sorry, only unarmed attack gains increasing unarmed damage), by all means go ahead.

NOTE: Oriental Adventures expands the monk's special weapons list to use with Monk's UBAB.

 

[Zhure]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this is cool.

BTW, Oriental Adventures included a number of other weapons which can be used with flurry of blows. Doing this from memory, but it includes: unarmed, kama, nunchaku, siangham, three-section staff, club, quarterstaff, butterfly sword... and some more.

If I get unlazy I will look it up. It's under the monk description in OA.

Greg

 

[Christian]

Another side to this is that Strength is an underappreciated stat for monks. My monk character started with a 16 in strength, and that's where I'm dumping my stat increases. At 8th level, he'll have 3 attacks per round (on a flurry) doing 1d10+4 damage apiece (unarmed). Plus, my Jump rolls are already irritating my DM, and I haven't even hit 7th level & gotten 'Leap of the Clouds' yet.

 

[Plane Sailing]

In all of the "is 2H superior to TWF" threads I've ever seen, the calculation is made with a 2h sword wielder with a fighter wielding two shortswords. Instead of a ranger level with two shortswords, a monk level with two Kama suddenly looks a lot more attractive

 

[novyet]

That is actually a pretty darn interesting point you make, and the butterfly sword isn't that bad a weapon either. Very cool.

 

[Mordekai]

No Armor

A word of warning regarding this interesting idea:

In order to use most Monk abilities (and I'm pretty sure that all of the Monk's unarmed combat bonuses--including the option to flurry--are included in this category), the character must be unarmored. That would likely put a crimp in the character's AC, to be sure.

Other than that, it seems like a grand idea.