Monk unarmed strike vs. TWF


Rules Questions


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

so... i have an odd question.

Unarmed Strike wrote:
At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A monk’s attacks may be with fist, elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may make unarmed strikes with his hands full. There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply his full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all his unarmed strikes.
two-weapon fighting wrote:
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon...

so, for a master of many styles, is it necessary to take two-weapon fighting to reduce the penalties for making two unarmed strikes during a full attack? it seems like that would have to be the case. otherwise, what would the penalties be? natural attacks are at the full attack bonus, but unarmed strikes are specifically separate from natural attacks.

the other thing that kind of muddies the waters is that the "unarmed strike applies full strength bonus on damage rolls", which either equates them to natural attacks or gives the monk the double slice feat (albeit circumstantially applied only to unarmed strikes).

any help? i'm sure my logic is ridiculously flawed.


If the master of many styles loses TWF then yes, if not then no.

The master of many styles does loses Fob so he has to take TWF.

If you take the normal of unarmed strikes allowed by your BAB then there are not penalties, but if you take extra attacks then you do take the TWF penalties.

PS:I see what you mean now. It seems you have found another developer issue that was overlooked. That sentence is assuming FoB is being using, and it was overlooked for archetypes. That is another reason why they should have just give the monk the TWF feat tree. I think you should FAQ it so it can be fixed.


wraithstrike wrote:

If the master of many styles loses TWF then yes, if not then no.

The master of many styles does loses Fob so he has to take TWF.

exactly. it's not that he loses TWF, its that he loses FoB, which isn't the same thing.

wraithstrike wrote:

PS:I see what you mean now. It seems you have found another developer issue that was overlooked. That sentence is assuming FoB is being using, and it was overlooked for archetypes. That is another reason why they should have just give the monk the TWF feat tree. I think you should FAQ it so it can be fixed.

thanks, i'll do that. i got swatted down by my GM a while back for trying spend a ki point to get an extra attack during a full attack with a MoMS monk, since it specifies "as part of a flurry of blows" and not "full attack". that needs to be errataed as well.

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