Quick and dirty sword Monks?


Homebrew and House Rules


I'm still getting used to 2e over 1e. I just whipped up a quick and easy Monk feat, want to check it for balance. The basic idea is to enable the unarmored katana weilding expert swordspeople of anime, whom Monk abilities fit very well. Just need Monks to be able to use two-handed swords. So I want to have a feat called Kensai that is available from level 1, and makes the Monk proficient with the katana, which is then treated as a Monk weapon and finessable. However, I prefer to stat katanas the same as bastard swords, rather than as their own thing, so this would be 1d12 damage two handed or 1d8 one handed. Is that actually balanced, or is 1d12 kind of extreme for Monks to be dealing?


1) Enables the feat to use monk abilities which usually require unarmed strikes with the Katana? (Especially Flurry of Blows)
2) Does the Feat itself require Monastic Weaponry?
3) Is your homebrewed Katana still a Martial Weapon or advanced?

Besides that it is probably not horribly unbalanced, in the end the gm should decide (that is, if you are not the gm)

1d12 is of course strong for monk but they can reach 1d10 on themselves, I don't think that the additional damage from a d12 would throw balance out of the window


1) It allows the use of a katana with any ability that a Monk with Monastic Weaponry could use a Monk weapon for.

2) The feat does not require Monastic Weaponry. It functions the same way as Monastic Weaponry, but only for the katana. I should clarify that in writing the feat. The katana becomes a Monk weapon with this feat, and you gain the benefits of Monastic Weaponry, but only for the katana. Katanas also become finessable (I do wonder about balance for this. Flavorwise, it works. A lot of anime katana use could be argued to be the epitome of finesse based fighting. Balancewise, though?). You can count this feat as Monastic Weaponry for the purposes of meeting prerequisites, unless meeting said prerequisite with a katana wouldn't make sense (Like, something revolving specifically around quarterstaff Monks?).

3) This katana is martial. My thing is, I don't want to have a bunch of different swords, especially in a setting as diverse as mine. IMO, the katana is fine just being a bastard sword. In my option, the game only really needs 3 types of one handed sword and 2 types of two handed sword, bastard sword being one of the two handed types, and everything should fit into one of those categories. I don't even have light swords, because I do think shortswords should do d8 damage (Short sword vs long sword is about reach, not which one is going to hurt you worse. A leaf shaped gladius is absolutely devastating if used properly.). A long dagger with the same stats as a shortsword now exists, to represent something like a seax or pugio that is particularly long or wide, and fill that mechanical niche.


1)a whole feat for a single weapon is a hefty cost, which in turn should validify a little more power that seems fine to me (but I am honestly no game designer so...)

2) I think d12 with finesse would be a bit much (event though I am considering something around katanas and finesse for my games)

The highest in finesse is usually d8 and those are either two-handed or need a apecial archetype, so THAT would probably be a balance problem

Maybe not of the damage itself so much, but the overall - the higher damage weapons usually require higher strength which often leads to heavier armor which in turn slows you down (a little) and influences your tactical capabilities
you on the other hand have increased speed from monk, an excellent unarmored defense, good hit chance & very high damage through a single stat

3) for a diverse setting more swords would be actually more fitting imo
And it actually makes a lot of sense to diiferentiate the different swords
I can perfectly understand to homebrew a Katana in a somewhat different way, but saying its just a bastard sword is a little bland

3 is just my personal opinion though

As advanced weapon I would consider d8 as basic damage and d10 as 2-handed damage okay


Well, my issue with 3 is, swords are a very, very diverse and ill defined topic. I mean, try defining the word rapier in any historically reasonable fashion. It's actually very hard, as there isn't really consistency with the word. And a longsword in the Medieval sense isn't really what a longsword is in a D&D sense. That's not even getting into Middle Eastern, Chinese, Indian, or Japanese swords, among other things. And all of this is present in my setting. If I try to stat out all these swords, it turns into a mechanically complex, bloated rules monster that I don't actually want. And Pathfinder combat is already so inherently unrealistic that how would I differentiate all these blades? It's easier to me to introduce a long knife to replace the shortsword mechanically, then split swords into one handed cutting, one handed thrusting (these two being the finesse weapons), one handed cut and thrust (basic sword), two handed sword (long sword/bastard sword/katana), and greatsword (advanced weapon, has reach). Since PF 2e already allows bastard swords to deal 1d12 damage, they fit well as the average two handed sword, with a doppelhander like a greatsword being something altogether more specialized. I don't even really see why one would want a greatsword over a bastard sword with the rules as written, since both are martial. I don't know that reach is the best way to show them as special pike breaking swords, but it at least emphasizes that swords that big aren't really for use outside open warfare.

Also, a reason to make katanas bastard swords is that it allows this feat to apply to non-Japanese characters. If a katana is a bastard sword, then this feat applies to any Monks with a basic tso-handed sword rules-wise, and that's how I want it. I don't like the Oriental Adventures style of having a seperate mechanical thing for each Japanese concept, and that does give me pause with 1e's Samurai and Ninja. Especially since the Ninja was flat better than a Rogue, and could have just itself been the core Rogue class. The task at hand right now is to bring Samurai Champloo style fighting into Pathfinder, and my gut really says that a Monk who can weild a two handed sword as a Monk weapon with all that entails would accomplish exactly that task pretty well, but I don't want to restrict the future applications of this feat.

What if they just don't get finesse at all? Abandon this whole idea of a seperate feat. I already eliminated the temple sword (in keeping with my desire to only have a few categories of sword), and just made all three categories of one handed sword Monk weapons to replace the temple sword (Which does create the suggestion that a super skilled Italian duelist who runs schools and writes treateses could be a Monk by character class. I can support Syrio type characters being Monks, as one among multiple class options for building the character.) So why not just make basic two handed swords Monk weapons as part of Martial Tradition? While we're at that, also make glaives and spears Monk weapons. That guy is totally a glaive Monk, and that should be super easy to create.

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