Question on Monk Weapons and Flurry of Blows

[Brian Turner 355]

I have a Monk for the Core Campaigns. I am trying to find a way to increase the crit range of my natural attacks but so far I haven't been able to find a way. So JI am thinking of buying two short swords since their damage is comparable to my unarmed strikes (at least for now) and their crit range is 16-20/x2 vs just a natural attack of X2.

But I was also wondering how a Short spear would work with Flurry of Blows since its a two handed weapon I know the crit range is the same as my own but the damage is 1d8 vx my natural 1d6. So would I hit with the short spear once for a d8 dmg and then with like my elbows or feet for a normal d6 dmg or woul I actually get two d8 damages when using flurry of blows.

Thanks for the help.

[WiseWolfOfYoitsu]

You cannot flurry with weapons unless they have the monk special property. Neither shortsword or short spear can be used with flurry. Also, flagging as double post.

[Muser]

In Core this is the list you can flurry with: kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, siangham and unarmed strike.

I suggest picking Improved Critical as your 10th level monk bonus feat.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

... short swords don't crit 16-20/x2.

In my experience, in core, increasing the crit range of your flurry options.. is not really the most effective way to go - unfortunately the temple sword isn't available in core.

My advice would be to get a quarterstaff and a wand of Shillelagh - suddenly you can flurry with a +1 weapon that does 2d6 damage. (You just have to find a ways to reliably use the wand.

EDIT: I recently played a scenario, that had the 2000 GP ioun stone that works as a ring of spell storing for first level spells on the chronicle sheet.

[Nefreet]

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

My advice would be to get a quarterstaff and a wand of Shillelagh - suddenly you can flurry with a +1 weapon that does 2d6 damage. (You just have to find a ways to reliably use the wand.

Or just spend 50gp on an Oil.

And there's at least one Chronicle with a Temple Sword as loot. IIRC, it's just a +2 weapon.