MotEH treat all normal weapons as improvised weapons, so do they still need the Catch of Guard feat to avoid the -4 penalty for using improvised weapons? How about for normal improvised weapons (like a shovel)?
Relevant text:
Monk of the Empty Hand
The monk of the empty hand eschews normal weapons in favor of whatever is lying around—rocks, chair legs, flagons of ale, even a simple quill pen all become deadly weapons in the hands of such a monk. A monk of the empty hand draws on his own ki to infuse his improvised weapons with power, and can transform a broken bottle into a magical weapon.
Weapon and armor Proficiency
Monks of the empty hand are proficient with the shuriken only. A monk of the empty hand treats normal weapons as improvised weapons with the following equivalencies (substituting all of their statistics for the listed weapon): a light weapon functions as a light hammer, a one-handed weapon functions as a club, and a Two-handed weapon functions as a quarterstaff. This replaces the normal monk weapon proficiencies.
Flurry of Blows (Ex)
Starting at 1st level, a monk of the empty hand can make a flurry of blows using any combination of unarmed strikes or attacks with an improvised weapon. He may not make a flurry of blows with any other weapons, including special monk weapons. A monk of the empty hand’s flurry of blows otherwise functions as normal for a monk of his level.
By RAW, the monk is not actually proficient with improvised weapons and takes the penalty, but can flurry with them regardless. I halfway remember a developer post saying that the MotEH is supposed to not take the improvised weapon penalty, but I'm not sure.
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the best I could find right now is this:
James Jacobs answers that question here
The monk of the empty hand treats improvised weapons as if she were proficient in them, and can wield normal weapons as improvised weapons. This effectively has the same end effect as the Catch Off-Guard feat, but isn't a feat and thus doesn't use up a feat slot since it's a variant class ability. Thus, they do not take a nonproficient penalty when using improvised weapons. The text is not as clear as it could have been, I guess, but hopefully common sense can step in to bolster that if someone doesn't read this post?
(We COULD have simply said, "The monk of the empty hand gains "Catch Off-Guard" as a bonus feat, I guess, but that would have lost the flavor bit about how they often wield normal weapons as improvised weapons.)
the best I could find right now is this:
James Jacobs answers that question here
The monk of the empty hand treats improvised weapons as if she were proficient in them, and can wield normal weapons as improvised weapons. This effectively has the same end effect as the Catch Off-Guard feat, but isn't a feat and thus doesn't use up a feat slot since it's a variant class ability. Thus, they do not take a nonproficient penalty when using improvised weapons. The text is not as clear as it could have been, I guess, but hopefully common sense can step in to bolster that if someone doesn't read this post?
(We COULD have simply said, "The monk of the empty hand gains "Catch Off-Guard" as a bonus feat, I guess, but that would have lost the flavor bit about how they often wield normal weapons as improvised weapons.)
Yep, that was what I was thinking of. Note that Catch Off-Guard could still be useful, since it also makes them flatfooted if they're unarmed (which they will be after you disarm them of their weapon and start beating up with it).