How does Flurry of Blows interact with the Power Attack feat?
Flurry: "A monk applies his full Strength bonus to his damage rolls for all successful attacks made with flurry of blows, whether the attacks are made with an off-hand or with a weapon wielded in both hands."
Power Attack: "This bonus to damage is halved (–50%) if you are making an attack with an off-hand weapon or secondary natural weapon."
Let's assume I'm fighting completely unarmed, and don't have any other special effects going on. I Flurry, and use Power Attack. Do I deal less damage with half my attacks?
[sarcasm]No, you likely hit nothing at all and deliver no damage.[/sarcasm]
Seriously, though, as there is no 'off hand' for flurry-of-blows, I would say that, in the unlikely event of a blow landing, you get the full bonus for Power Attacking with a one-handed weapon. However, I think that you would get the same bonus even if using a two-handed weapon (as you can with some variants), as FoB only ever grants the full normal strength bonus.
Yar!
Power Attack is not based off of how much strength damage you inflict unless you are attacking with a natural attack that is your only natural attack.
Power Attack IS based off of your base attack bonus, and HOW you are wielding your weapon.
No attack in a Flurry of Blows counts as an "off-hand" attack, so you will never deal the reduced Power Attack bonus.
Again: Power attack is NOT based off of how much strength bonus damage you inflict.
When you flurry, you get full (aka 1x) strength modifier bonus damage to your attacks. ALWAYS.
When you add in power attack, you get the basic -1 to hit for +2 to damage for every 4 points of BAB.
You calculate this with your Flurry of Blows BAB (as opposed to your regular BAB).
IF you wield a two-handed weapon or a one-handed weapon with both hands during a Flurry of Blows while Power Attacking, you STILL only get 1x your strength modifier to damage, but you DO get the increase to Power Attack (-1 to hit for +3 to damage) because of how you are wielding the weapon.
There are a few threads on this topic, and there is even an FAQ (about calculating Power Attack via BAB in a Flurry of Blows)... but I'm at work, and may not have time to find an link you to them.
~P
EDIT: if this is another offshoot of the recent "clarification" on FoB, no, you do not deal less damage from PA in a FoB even with the "clarification", as FoB still contains exceptions to the rules, which include "none of them counting as "off-hand" attacks".
Since you are unarmed, all of your attacks (primary, off-hand, whatever) get the full bonus damage. The same would apply if you used a special monk weapon is either your primary or off-hand (or both).
Remember as well that when a monk uses flurry of blows, his BAB is equal to his monk level + his BAB from other classes. That means that the monk takes a bigger penalty on attacks and receives larger bonus on damage when he flurries as oppossed to when he makes a standard attack.
For example:
A monk using flurry of blows gets the following penalties/bonuses at the listed levels (if he takes the Power Attack feat at 1st level): -1/+2 (1st); -2/+4 (4th); -3/+6 (8th); -4/+8 (12th); -5/+10 (16th); and -6/+12 (20th).
A monk that is not using flurry gets the following penalties/bonuses at the listed levels (once again, assuming he takes Power Attack at 1st level): -1/+2 (1st); -2/+4 (6th); -3/+6 (11th); and -4/+8 (16th).
The same applies to the feats Deadly Aim and Combat Expertise, if you use those feats in conjunction with flurry of blows.
EDIT: Ninja'd by a pirate! I want swashbucklers to come back!
Master Arminas
EDIT: if this is another offshoot of the recent "clarification" on FoB, no, you do not deal less damage from PA in a FoB even with the "clarification", as FoB still contains exceptions to the rules, which include "none of them counting as "off-hand" attacks".
My question was spawned by that recent/ongoing conversation, yes.
Where are those "exceptions" that you reference? In the text I quoted above, it clearly talks about attacks that are made with the off-hand.
By George sir it appears you are correct. It does clearly state off hand, and power attack does not care that you are adding full damage to your offhand or not (or else double slice would be much better).
By the "new math" a flurrying power attacking monk of 8th level is attacking at
+3/-2 for 1d10 + 6
and
+3/-2 for 1d10 + 3
instead of the more commonly thought of +3/+3/-2/-2 1d10 + 6 or +6/+6/+1/+1 1d10
Poor monks.
Poor monks.
Again.
Yar!
That exact exception is in reference to monks making Unarmed Strikes under their Unarmed Strike Ability, and as in your OP you were talking about unarmed strikes, it is relevant.
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.
Usually a monk's unarmed strikes deal lethal damage, but he can choose to deal nonlethal damage instead with no penalty on his attack roll. He has the same choice to deal lethal or nonlethal damage while grappling.
A monk's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons.
A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would, as shown above on Table: Monk. The unarmed damage values listed on Table: Monk 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 Small or Large Monk Unarmed Damage on the table given below.
I've bolded the exact line of text that matters here.
Glutton: For an unarmed FoB w/PA that is incorrect, as there is no such thing as an off-hand unarmed strike for monks. If he were using held weapons for his FoB... well, that's something different. With the new "clarifications" on FoB, the monk would get reduced PA on his off-hand attacks with weapons (not unarmed strikes)... but for a completely Unarmed FoB with Power Attack, he gets normal PA bonus on all attacks. (and if he two hands a one-handed weapon, or uses a two-handed weapon in a flurry, he gets the increased PA bonus on the two-handed attacks, and regular PA on any unarmed attacks that accompany it).
~P
oi that line and the inference that there ARE offhand twf attacks in the flurry thread muddy the waters enough to have catfish live in this thread. I'll go back to ignoring the flurry-as-twf-ruling as usual now.
RAW, a monk wielding a Temple Sword two-handed while flurrying gains 1.5x the Power Attack bonus.
No, they don't. Monks always gain their Strength modifier when using flurry of blows, whether they use a light weapon, a one-handed weapon, a two-handed weapon, an unarmed strike, an off-hand weapon, a thrown weapon, or a double weapon, so long as the weapon is a special monk weapon (that can be used in a flurry of blows) or an unarmed strike.
Master Arminas
Yar!
master arminas: he's talking about the Power Attack bonus, which, in that particular instance, would be at -1 to hit for +3 to damage per 4 BAB (aka: x1.5 PA bonus).
Strength bonus remains at x1.
~P
True, Pirate. I stand corrected; I thought the 1.5x was refering to . . . 1.5x Str. LOL
Master Arminas