Close Weapon Mastery (Ex): At 5th level, a brawler's damage with close weapons increases. When wielding a close weapon, she uses the unarmed strike damage of a brawler 4 levels lower instead of the base damage for that weapon (for example, a 5th-level Medium brawler wielding a punching dagger deals 1d6 points of damage instead of the weapon's normal 1d4). If the weapon normally deals more damage than this, its damage is unchanged. This ability does not affect any other aspect of the weapon. The brawler can decide to use the weapon's base damage instead of her adjusted unarmed strike damage—this must be declared before the attack roll is made.
Now...
Monk Weapon Mastery (Ex): At 5th level, a monk's damage with monk weapons increases. When wielding a monk weapon, she uses the unarmed strike damage of a monk 4 levels lower instead of the base damage for that weapon (for example, a 5th-level Medium monk wielding a sai deals 1d6 points of damage instead of the weapon's normal 1d4). If the weapon normally deals more damage than this, its damage is unchanged. This ability does not affect any other aspect of the weapon. The monk can decide to use the weapon's base damage instead of her adjusted unarmed strike damage—this must be declared before the attack roll is made.
That... or it should be a feature for the Weapon Adept archetype.
When the 3rd ed was enveiled, this is what I thought the monk's damage die did - except the 4 levels lower part. It certainly wouldn't break anything if you llowed it now.
When the 3rd ed was enveiled, this is what I thought the monk's damage die did - except the 4 levels lower part. It certainly wouldn't break anything if you llowed it now.
Well, to an extend, the 4-lower-levels part makes it balanced, because what you lose in damage, you gain in the following features:
- better critical threat range- different damage type
- different material
- the less risky gambit to use a manufactured weapon on, say, a fire elemental
Your temple sword is now equal, if not a little bit better, than your unarmed strike.
Any other opinion?
In 5e, Monks get special "martial arts damage" which works exactly like the monk unarmed damage chart, except it applies to ALL "martial arts weapons," which includes simple weapons and a select few others, like short swords (essentially, jians). It's pretty brilliant and I see no way it would harm the game to let the Pathfinder monk do the same thing.
They also can use dex to hit/damage for free with any martial arts attacks, but that might be too much for Pathfinder, since it would become an even better dip class.
I use this now actually, althoug it can further discourage monks from unarmed, though now pummeling style errata changes that.
Well, the worry is that you are going to pile on a bunch of enchantments and high critical chance onto your monk damage. As a deliberate balancing point, enchanting fists is somewhat weird and expensive (you sort of end up combining an amulet of mighty fists and body wraps of mighty strikes to get up to snuff). And of course, punches only crit on 20 for x2 while your katar or whatever is gonna crit for x4 and that is a weapon that qualifies for keen.
@mpl: If you want mechanically buffed dex-y monks then you could tag dex-to-damage or wis-to-damage (in place of strength or perhaps in addition to strength in the case of wis) as a ki fist ability at level 5 or 6 (it works as long as you have 1 ki point). This makes dipping a little less of a problem. I know that makes the monks a little weak at 1 through 4 but so are a lot of classes.