In the Pathfinder Beta, Gauntlets are listed as unarmed weapons. With Improved Unarmed Strike, a monk does bonus damage with unarmed attacks.
My question: Can a Monk use gauntlets (for example Masterwork) to gain a +1 bonus to unarmed attacks and apply their bonus monk damage?
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What is the difference between gloves and gauntlets?
A monk wearing gauntlets can't use them unless he uses a feat to learn how to use them, a monk wearing gloves doesn’t. Have you monk enchant a regular pair of gloves to +1 and then he has +1 to attack and damage without having to spend a feat to use a weapon that he should be able to use anyway.
So this is slightly more complicated than that.
In the PRPG, gauntlets are listed as unarmed attacks (p 102), which everyone is proficient in.
In the gauntlet description it says: (p. 104) "This metal glove lets you deal lethal damage rather than nonlethal damage with unarmed strikes. A strike with a gauntlet is otherwise considered an unarmed attack. The cost and weight given are for a single gauntlet. Medium and heavy armors (except breastplate) come with gauntlets."
Under the Monk class features for Unarmed Strike it says: "At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A monk’s attacks may be with either fist or with 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."
Also, "A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would, as shown on Table 4–8. The unarmed damage on Table 4–8 is for Medium monks. A Small monk deals less damage than the amount given there with his unarmed attacks, while a Large monk deals more damage; see Table: Small or Large Monk Unarmed Damage."
So what's the deal? Monks hypothetically could use gauntlets with enchantment bonuses and still gain their improved damage for unarmed strikes. Is this a big deal? Not sure.
Some fixes:
- Make gauntlets apart of the armor, not separate.
- Perhaps just clarify that gauntlets can't be enchanted like weapons.
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Like enchanting clothing for an armor bonus. Something I think should be allowed as well. You can not enchant Gloves to a weapon Bonus.
EDIT: and if I am wrong, and I would love to be, please show me the text.
I couldn't find any rule that you couldn't enchant regular clothing to give and attack bonus so it could be done but the regular clothing has a hardness of 1 or 2 so the gloves would only last maybe one or two combats at best.
I'm not sure it's a big deal, I just think it's a bit ineffective because you lose access to flurry of blows, and you can gain the same bonus abilities simply by holding a monk weapon while attacking with unarmed strikes (i.e. if you want a defending + 5 kama you just hold the kama and attack with your other hand and feet).
I guess if you absolutely must have a holy, flaming, wounding unarmed strike it is up to the player...
but at that point just get the kama so you can make up to 4 attacks at your full BAB bonus, and I imagine the damage will average out near the same.
I know that the magic vestment spell specifically states you can enchant your clothing for an enhancement bonus to armor (the clothes are treated as non armor with + 0 armor AC bonus). That's the closest to being able to enchant regular clothing that I can find.
I'm not sure it's a big deal, I just think it's a bit ineffective because you lose access to flurry of blows...
Well, depends on what you understand the gauntlet attack to be. If it counts as an "unarmed strike" (as it says it counts as in the description) then as per Flurry of Blows (p 28):
"When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham). He may attack with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons interchangeably as desired."
Therefore you would still have access to flurry of blows.
See, unlike the monk weapons (which you can use with flurry of blows and have an enchantment bonus), the gauntlet problem lets you have flurry of blows, an enchantment bonus and scaling damage rolls (i.e. 1d6, 2d6, 2d10, etc).
I'm not sure it's a big deal, I just think it's a bit ineffective because you lose access to flurry of blows...Well, depends on what you understand the gauntlet attack to be. If it counts as an "unarmed strike" (as it says it counts as in the description) then as per Flurry of Blows (p 28):
"When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham). He may attack with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons interchangeably as desired."
Therefore you would still have access to flurry of blows.
See, unlike the monk weapons (which you can use with flurry of blows and have an enchantment bonus), the gauntlet problem lets you have flurry of blows, an enchantment bonus and scaling damage rolls (i.e. 1d6, 2d6, 2d10, etc).
I understand the gauntlet to be a weapon that the original designers where too lazy to type in a damage for, that also provokes AoO's if you don't have an additional feat.
The gauntlet is a weapon, hence the fact it is in the weapon charts, it is not a special monk weapon, so even if proficient with it, the monk is attacking with a weapon that is not a special monk weapon and therefore doesn't get flury of blows... now his damage is based off of his special unarmed strike damage becuase of the discription of the gauntlet, and he gets the gauntlet's magic bonuses, but the gauntlet is still a weapon...
after all if it isn't a weapon then you couldn't enchant it like a weapon.
Otherwise I demand to have back my +3 vicious flame burst Throwing Returning Beer Stine. :D
I understand the gauntlet to be a weapon that the original designers where too lazy to type in a damage for, that also provokes AoO's if you don't have an additional feat.The gauntlet is a weapon, hence the fact it is in the weapon charts, it is not a special monk weapon, so even if proficient with it, the monk is attacking with a weapon that is not a special monk weapon and therefore doesn't get flury of blows... now his damage is based off of his special unarmed strike damage becuase of the discription of the gauntlet, and he gets the gauntlet's magic bonuses, but the gauntlet is still a weapon...
after all if it isn't a weapon then you couldn't enchant it like a weapon.
Otherwise I demand to have back my +3 vicious flame burst Throwing Returning Beer Stine. :D
See what is confusing is that gauntlet is listed under "unarmed attacks" right above "unarmed strike" in the PFRPG. So is a gauntlet a type of unarmed strike or is a special weapon that lets us make unarmed strikes. Even if is a weapon that lets you make unarmed strikes, the quality of being an unarmed strike is the whole ambiguous part. As per p 98:
"Simple, Martial, and Exotic Weapons: Anybody but a druid, monk, rogue, or wizard is proficient with all simple weapons (although all creatures are proficient with unarmed strikes)." More so, it would work for flurry of blows, since you can use unarmed strikes in FoB.
I agree that it is a weapon and not a monk weapon, per se, but I still think the rule is pretty ambiguous for gauntlets.
And then there is this: An "unarmed strike" is described under the Improved Unarmed Strike (p. 29) as "A monk’s attacks may be with either fist or with elbows, knees, and feet." With flurry of blows, one can use "unarmed strikes" as a weapon. If a monk is wearing gauntlets, why can't a monk just use flurry of blows that are all kicks?
Put another way: If gauntlets are unarmed strikes for the purposes of getting more damage from the Monk ability, then it should be an unarmed strike for purposes of flurry of blows, right?
I figured that if you wanted to let a monk use enchanted gauntlets as part of a flurry of blows they will need the "ki focus" special property.
Technically, you could just give them any slotted item enchanted with a +1 attack bonus. The monk's body counts as a weapon, and there is a flat value for enhancement bonuses for weapons. Just like casting magic weapon or magic fang on him.
