Warforged and the Monk - doable?

[Plane Sailing]

4 - Purity of Body and Diamond Body (immunity to disease and poison) are redundant for WF monks. I'd take a page from the WF Paladin substitution level that exchanges Immunity to Disease for Immunity to Stunning.

I wouldn't allow this, personally. I think that the fact that a couple of monk abilities are useless for warforged is balanced out by the benefits that warforged are already getting (which Klaus talks about in his points 1-3... extra armour bonus that can be enchanted, cold iron/silver on your unarmed attacks... what monk of another race wouldn't happily swap out immunity to poison and disease for those wonderful abilities?

 

[Iku Rex]

You can combine a flurry of blows with natural weapon attacks. As people have pointed out you can't use natural weapons as part of a flurry. However, the natural attacks are in addition to, not part of, the flurry.

This is confirmed in the official FAQ.

Q: Can a monk who has natural weapon attacks (such as a
centaur monk) attack unarmed and still use his natural
weapons? For example, let’s say he’s an 8th-level monk.
Can he use a flurry of blows and attack at +5/+5/+0
unarmed (plus other bonuses) and then at +0/+0 for 2
hooves?

A: If the creature normally is allowed to make both weapon
attacks and natural weapon attacks as part of the same full
attack routine, the monk can do the same (making unarmed
strikes in place of weapon attacks). Since a centaur can make
two hoof attacks in addition to his longsword attack, a centaur
monk can make two hoof attacks in addition to his unarmed
strike attack (or attacks, depending on his base attack bonus).
The monk can’t use his natural weapon attacks as part of a
flurry of blows, but he may make natural weapon attacks in
addition to his flurry. Such attacks suffer the same –2 penalty
as the monk’s flurry attacks in addition to the normal –5
penalty for secondary natural attacks.An 8th-level centaur
monk has a base attack bonus of +10
(+4 from his 4 monstrous humanoid Hit Dice, and +6 from his
8 monk levels). If he performs a flurry of blows, he makes
three unarmed strikes, at +8/+8/+3. He can add two hoof
attacks at +1/+1 (–5 as secondary weapons, and –2 from the
flurry).

A warforged monk might want to look into feats like Jaws of Death (RoE) and Second Slam (also RoE). (Both grant an extra natural attack.)

 

[Bront]

First of all

A) The Warforged's natural armor plating is not considered armor (It does not specificly stat is is considered light armor), though it does act like armor in just about every regard, so from that respect, the Monk is in better shape.

B) Eberron specificly states that the Wholeness of Body heals fully, as it is a supernatural effect designed to repair the user's body specificly.

C) You need to take the Tracery feats to bypass DR, but you can, which is quite usefull.

D) It is significantly easier to enchant your unarmed attacks, muck like you can taker armor enchantments on your armor plating. Might require a DM rule, but I dont see why not.

E) Even without above, you have Battlefist, which you can enchant, and increases your effective size, so you gain bonuses for grappliing


I realise some of this has already been stated before, but still. Warforged Monks can be quite nasty.

 

[Klaus]

You can combine a flurry of blows with natural weapon attacks. As people have pointed out you can't use natural weapons as part of a flurry. However, the natural attacks are in addition to, not part of, the flurry.

This is confirmed in the official FAQ.



A warforged monk might want to look into feats like Jaws of Death (RoE) and Second Slam (also RoE). (Both grant an extra natural attack.)

This is what I meant. The natural attacks come after the flurry, not as part of it.

 

[Cactot]

You can combine a flurry of blows with natural weapon attacks. As people have pointed out you can't use natural weapons as part of a flurry. However, the natural attacks are in addition to, not part of, the flurry.

This is confirmed in the official FAQ.

A warforged monk might want to look into feats like Jaws of Death (RoE) and Second Slam (also RoE). (Both grant an extra natural attack.)

So in theory:
Warforged monk

+Battlefist
+Improved natural attack (MM)
+Jaws of Death (RoE)
+Second Slam (RoE)
+Cold Iron Tracery
+Silver Tracery
+Bracers of armor +8
+Amulets of mighty fists +5
+Monks belt

Plus you could enchant the battlefists and natural armor to have +10 in non-base attack bonuses (aka fortification, invulnerability, silent moves for armor, holy, shocking, frost, flame, ghost touch, and speed for the battlefists).

So for attacks you would have (at 12th lvl) (at which level you have the 5 feats that would be necessary)

4 (w/haste, 3 w/o) attacks at full bab, 1 attack at bab-5 for (2d8 -> (imp nat attack) 4d6 -> (battlefists) 4d8) 4d8 +str each
2 Slam attacks for 1d6 +str/2 at bab-5
1 Bite attack for 1d8 +str/2 at bab-5

If you can somehow get the Righteous Might spell cast on you:
Regular attacks at 8d6+str
Slams at 1d8 + str/2
Bite at 2d6 + str/2
as well as +8 str

wow, never thought about it before, but i am thinking a warforged monk could actually keep up with a fighter or barbarian with the right selections. If you put the rest of the levels as a fighter you could have an extra 5 feats to play with, for a total of 7 more feats, as well as full bab progression to get you 5 base attacks. and imho you wouldnt really be losing out on much other than the skill progression. Also, the tracery feats could easily be replaced as CI and silver would only really be useful till you got magic items with significant + to hit.

Is this correct? or is there something i am missing?

 

[Klaus]

Battlefist + Improved Natural Attack = no-no.

Battlefist only stacks with effects that grant an effective size increase, like righteous might.

 

[ARandomGod]

Battlefist + Improved Natural Attack = no-no.

Battlefist only stacks with effects that grant an effective size increase, like righteous might.

Seconded. These two don't stack.

Battlefist causes you to deal damage as if you are a size larger than you actually are.

IMA causes you to deal damage as if you are a size larger than you actually are.

Since neither increase your size, they'll both increase your damage to the same amount. They will overlap, but that's rather redundant as you can't be disarmed of a gauntlet-like weapon (as I understand it anyway), and there's nothing that I know of that would remove your INA feat.

 

[Enkhidu]

Battlefist + Improved Natural Attack = no-no.

Battlefist only stacks with effects that grant an effective size increase, like righteous might.

/me files this one away and contemplates Sacred Fisty goodness...

 

[Enamel_32]

Plus, I'm not sure about using both the battlefist and bracers of armor at the same time...

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Seconded. These two don't stack.

Battlefist causes you to deal damage as if you are a size larger than you actually are.

Not having my ECS with me, being as I'm at work, but I believe that is incorrect.

IIRC, the battlefist changes the warforged's slam from a d4 to a d8. I do not believe that it says that it acts as Improved Natural Attack or that it makes the warforged do damage as if it were two sizes larger, just that it makes the slam do more damage.

IMA causes you to deal damage as if you are a size larger than you actually are.

Which would put the warforged's slam at d6.

Personally, I think they do stack.

Plus, I'm not sure about using both the battlefist and bracers of armor at the same time...

Why? They're different slots.

Brad