Unarmed Strike Question

[Hands of the King]

I do have a Rules Question as well. If a Monk has no offhands when using a unarmed strike then should my Kasatha be throwing out his attacks at a penalty at all? I mean when fighting unarmed all of his unarmed strikes are considered primary handed attacks according to that ruling.

[Byronus]

Hands of the King wrote:

I do have a Rules Question as well. If a Monk has no offhands when using a unarmed strike then should my Kasatha be throwing out his attacks at a penalty at all? I mean when fighting unarmed all of his unarmed strikes are considered primary handed attacks according to that ruling.

I believe there are no off-hands during a Flurry of Blows. For all other attacks, the off-hand penalties apply.

[Skylancer4]

Hands of the King wrote:

I do have a Rules Question as well. If a Monk has no offhands when using a unarmed strike then should my Kasatha be throwing out his attacks at a penalty at all? I mean when fighting unarmed all of his unarmed strikes are considered primary handed attacks according to that ruling.

Even with 4 arms you would be limited to the number of attacks in the flurry or have an abysmal attack routine without Multiweapon Fighting.

[Hands of the King]

Unarmed Strike
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.
Emphasis mine. This is not declared as only for the flurry.

Well I mean if you made attacks without Flurry, and that is why I was asking. Multiweapon Fighting reduces penalty for Off-hand attacks. If there is no off-hand attacks...what does it reduce?

[Michael Sayre]

Hands of the King wrote:

Well I mean if you made attacks without Flurry, and that is why I was asking. Multiweapon Fighting reduces penalty for Off-hand attacks. If there is no off-hand attacks...what does it reduce?

Nothing. You can't reduce something you have none of. Of course though, since TWF and MWF allow you to make additional attacks with your off-hand(s) and the monk doesn't ever have an off-hand with his unarmed strike, the most literal reading of that line would mean that monks can't TWF or MWF at all witb unarmed strikes, they can only get additional attacks with Flurry.

[Komoda]

Most seem to agree that the line you emphasized means that monks get full strength bonus on damage rolls and does not affect attacks.

It is extremely poorly written and causes contention.

[Claxon]

Yeah, that line is actually only about your damage not being reduced to half strength. That is to say all your unarmed attacks deal full strength damage. It does nothing for your attack bonus.

What worse, flurry sets your attack bonus with each attack, and you don't get additional attacks for TWF, ITWF, GTWF, or multiattack because they are mutually incompatible.

While a Kastaha monk seems like a cool idea, it actually works pretty poorly because you can't make additional attacks beyond what Flurry of Blows allows.

[Archaeik]

Hands of the King wrote:

I do have a Rules Question as well. If a Monk has no offhands when using a unarmed strike then should my Kasatha be throwing out his attacks at a penalty at all? I mean when fighting unarmed all of his unarmed strikes are considered primary handed attacks according to that ruling.

If you are attempting to justify removing the -2 during FoB, that penalty is baked-in and not avoidable if you choose to take the action.

Two-Weapon Fighting wrote:

If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. You suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand when you fight this way. You can reduce these penalties in two ways. First, if your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. An unarmed strike is always considered light. Second, the Two-Weapon Fighting feat lessens the primary hand penalty by 2, and the off-hand penalty by 6.

Bottom line, even if the attacks are never "offhand", the primary hand still takes penalties during an action where you gain extra attacks in this way.

In fact, it makes the penalties a bit worse if you can't keep your "offhand is light" reduction based on not having one. (-6/-6 vs -4/-8; and this is ignoring the loss of BAB for not using FoB)

I agree with Ssalarn that the most literal reading suggests TWF is not available at all.

[Hands of the King]

Claxon wrote:

Yeah, that line is actually only about your damage not being reduced to half strength. That is to say all your unarmed attacks deal full strength damage. It does nothing for your attack bonus.

What worse, flurry sets your attack bonus with each attack, and you don't get additional attacks for TWF, ITWF, GTWF, or multiattack because they are mutually incompatible.

While a Kastaha monk seems like a cool idea, it actually works pretty poorly because you can't make additional attacks beyond what Flurry of Blows allows.

A Kasatha who is full attacking, not FOB, deals 4 attacks at level 1. With Multiweapon Fighting this is at the same penalty as FoB but you get 2 additional attacks. You add an additional attack at level 8 for 5 attacks a round and according to James Jacob you can use ITWF to stack onto Multiweapon Fighting.

[Michael Sayre]

Hands of the King wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Yeah, that line is actually only about your damage not being reduced to half strength. That is to say all your unarmed attacks deal full strength damage. It does nothing for your attack bonus.

What worse, flurry sets your attack bonus with each attack, and you don't get additional attacks for TWF, ITWF, GTWF, or multiattack because they are mutually incompatible.

While a Kastaha monk seems like a cool idea, it actually works pretty poorly because you can't make additional attacks beyond what Flurry of Blows allows.

A Kasatha who is full attacking, not FOB, deals 4 attacks at level 1. With Multiweapon Fighting this is at the same penalty as FoB but you get 2 additional attacks. You add an additional attack at level 8 for 5 attacks a round and according to James Jacob you can use ITWF to stack onto Multiweapon Fighting.

With a regular kasatha, yeah, but kasatha monk's never have an off hand with their unarmed strikes and thus can't use TWF/MWF at all since those give you additional attacks with your off hand (which you lost when you took your first level of monk).

[Archaeik]

RAW, FoB is what it is, no more, no less. You won't get the additional 2 offhand attacks for being Kasatha.
RAI, you might get the 2 extra attacks, since you could normally get them during a full attack.

I agree with James that MWF should also replace TWF as a prerequisite, but keep in mind that ITWF only grants one additional offhand attack, not one for each offhand. IMWF/GMWF were cut from PFRPG.

You cannot stack TWF and FoB in the same full attack action it is 'either or'.

[Hands of the King]

Archaeik wrote:

RAW, FoB is what it is, no more, no less. You won't get the additional 2 offhand attacks for being Kasatha.

RAI, you might get the 2 extra attacks, since you could normally get them during a full attack.

I agree with James that MWF should also replace TWF as a prerequisite, but keep in mind that ITWF only grants one additional offhand attack, not one for each offhand. IMWF/GMWF were cut from PFRPG.

You cannot stack TWF and FoB in the same full attack action it is 'either or'.

Well I never believed the Flurry and TWF Stacked.

[Kazaan]

You need to look at the entire statement, not just over-focus on a small phrase.

PRD wrote:

Unarmed Strike: 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.

"A monk may thus apply his full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all his unarmed strikes." This clarifies exactly what 'no off-hand attack' means in the rules; that all attacks that would otherwise be considered off-hand are treated as if they were main-hand. That doesn't mean that you cannot make off-hand attacks if not using FoB, that does not mean that you can't take reduced penalties for using a light off-hand on account of not having an off-hand at all. What it means is that you apply full Str to damage, full Power Attack, full Piranha Strike, etc. where these things would normally be halved when applied to an off-hand attack. If you don't have the TWF feat which brings the TWF penlties down, then instead of -4/-8 attack penalties, you apply the -4 to your off-hand as well because it is treated as main-hand.

So the Kathasa Monk in question can deliver four unarmed strikes, each with full Str to damage, each with full Power Attack bonus, each using main-hand attack penalties, etc., at least as a normal Full-Attack. FoB follows a progression and was also written without multi-armed characters in mind, so the jury is still a bit out as to whether FoB allows a Kathasa additional bonus attacks. However, given the manner in which Unchained Monk's flurry works, I'd say that it'd be better to err on the side of FoB being a set number of attacks agnostic to how many potential off-hand attacks from extra limbs the character may have.