| ESttt |
I'm making an Iruxi Monk with focus on grapple and there are several things I'm confused about (some of which have already been answered in the forum I've seen).
Question 1 (Regards the monk stance attacks and weapons with traits):
Monks can take Monastic Weaponry, which basically lets you use strange weapons, including using them for Monk stance attacks, except if they require a specific attack. Since the monk stance attacks have weapon traits and various damage types that might differ from the weapon you use, do you select which of them you use the traits/damage type for, do you get all of them, or can you mix and as you would like? Note that most of the monk stance attacks don't specify what you actually attack with. They usually give a description on how you stand, and then it says "You can make this attack"
Example1: A monk with a Kama (Slashing, Agile, trip) uses a Dragons Tail attack (Bludgeoning, Backswing, nonlethal) with the Kama. They miss, and then try the same attack again. How to interpret this?
1.1a: Which damage type does the attack have (slashing, bludgeoning, both, or choose one)?
1.1b: Which damage dice is used (I would assume 1d10, because it's higher)?
1.2 What are your modifiers for the second attack, given MAP? Do you get both the +1 for agile, and +1 for missing with a backswing.
1.2b) What would have happened if your first was NOT a Dragon Tail attack? Would you still get your +1 for missing the first attack, because Dragons Tail has backswing (which only specifies that a miss with this WEAPON gives you a +1 bonus)
1.3: If this attack crits, which would be the critical specialization (provided the monk has the Brawling Focus feat)? Would it be Brawling (slow) or Knife (1d6 bleed)?
Question 2 (regards the Iruxi unarmed attacks/bodyparts and synergy with monk attacks):
For all the Iruxi unarmed attacks (claws, bite, tail whip) it's stated that the attacks have a weapon trait and a specific damage type.
Examples:
Claws: "You have a claw unarmed attack that deals 1d4 slashing damage and has the agile and finesse traits."
Tail: "By birth or through training, your tail is strong enough to make for a powerful melee weapon. You gain a tail unarmed attack that deals 1d6 bludgeoning damage and has the sweep trait."
What I wonder is if it's the weapon used (your actual claws, teeth, tail) or the attack (the specific action of clawing, biting, or beating someone with the tail) has the traits? Pathfinder 2 really doesn't have any clear rules for attacks with traits. When reading the weapon trait summary, some of these seems kinda weird.
Reading the explanation for Sweep (which the tail has) makes it kinda weird:
"Sweep: This weapon makes wide sweeping or spinning attacks, making it easier to attack multiple enemies. When you attack with this weapon, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to your attack roll if you already attempted to attack a different target this turn using this weapon."
Example 1: An Iruxi monk uses the Dragon tail attack, utilizing their natural tail for flavour (it totally makes sense to perform the Dragon Tail with an actual large tail!). This attack misses. The monk then tries to perform this same attack again, but on a different enemy. What happens here?
2.1 What damage will be dealt? (again, I assume that the 1d10 damage).
2.2 Will the monk gain the attack bonus for both backswing (dragon tail) and sweep (actual tail)?
Example 2: An Iruxi monk uses a standard strike with their claws. They miss and then go on to use their claws(hands) again to make a Dragon Tail attack (There's nothing that says which body part the Dragon tail must be made with).
3.1 Which damage type does this second attack do?
3.2 Do they get the agile bonus from the claws, considering the claws made the attack? Do they get the backswing bonus, due to missing with the same weapon (the claws) as before?
Question 3, Regarding actions other than attacks using Iruxi natural weapons:
How does the natural weapons work together with other attack actions such as grapple, trip, shove etc considering their traits? None of these natural weapons have any such traits (except for a case with Wolf Stance, which I'll come back to), but it's only logical that you would use your hands (which have claws) to grapple, or your tail for trip, considering they are a part of you. Would you get your natural weapon attack traits for these skill-attacks too (such as agile for the claws or sweep for the tail).
Question 4, regarding the weirdness of the Wolf Stance (which I know has been a very debated subject)
The Wolf Stance gives your wolf jaw unarmed strike trip. What the actual f? Why can't I just trip exactly as effeiciently by just using the standard trip action? The only benefit we could come up with here would be that if I attempt to trip and critically fail, I could drop my stance, instead of dropping prone. It would of course take an action to re-take the stance, which is better than ending up prone. But it still feels like a very small, circumstantial bonus.
In general, it feels like there's something missing regarding how to handle attacks with weapon traits. I'm going to suggest to my DM that it's easiest to just handle the Iruxi appendages as weapons with the traits the have, and be able to use them for things/attacks that make sense flavourvise. That will solve one of the problems...
(Boy, this turned out to be quite an essay)