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Don't worry, there's nothing unclear about it.
Paizo is talking about abilities that require using attacks. Not simply having them
How doesn't Metal Strikes require an unarmed attack? Until you make an attack, what exactly counts as cold iron and silver? If you aren't currently attacking, which part of your body counts? Say you're hit with a Flinging Blow and get tossed into another creature: you don't count as cold iron and silver because Metal Strikes requires using an attack. "You can adjust your body to make unarmed attacks infused with the mystic energy of rare metals" SOUNDS like you're attacking in a way that allows you to do that instead of it just happening especially as it says 'can' so you could opt not to. Or Adamantine Strikes: "When you focus your will into your limbs, your blows are as unyielding as the hardest of metals." Again, sure SOUNDS like it's something that requires using an attack as you don't have any blows to focus on if you aren't attacking.
So I agree with Squiggit saying "Don't worry, there's nothing unclear about it." Without an attack, there isn't an unarmed attack. For instance, take the Eldritch Nails feat: the nails and the nails unarmed attack are different things: until you attack, there is no nails unarmed attack it's just a pair of nails.
It's English.
Seriously, it can be read both ways because of the use of generic verbs.
If read as: Use unarmed strike gets replaced with use weapon, then it's one way. If read as: any ability involving use of unarmed strikes applies with weapons, then it's the other.
The difference in phrasing matters, and it can be read either way.
:(
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Monastic Weaponry makes all your monk stuff that references "unarmed attacks" work with your monk weapon of choice (except for shuriken, you need a stance for that). This includes metal strikes.
It's English.
Seriously, it can be read both ways because of the use of generic verbs.
this
yes, yet another example of awful phrasingfrom a data management POV, aka an editing for zero ambiguity POV, if someone sent me a document with this
Your unarmed attacks are treated as cold iron and silver. This allows you to deal more damage to a variety of supernatural creatures, such as demons, devils, and fey.
and told me their intent was that the above was meant to function with this:
You can use melee monk weapons with any of your monk feats or monk abilities that normally require unarmed attacks, though not if the feat or ability requires you to use a single specific type of attack, such as Crane Stance.
I would send it back and tell them that it is not
Ready For Prime Timeand won’t be placed in our reference systems
and yes, I’ve done such within the past week
and no, they weren’t happy
but zero issues is my goal and, so far, zero is the number of issues which have arose that can be placed at my door step
I’m not arguing what the intent of Paizo was or was not here
just that I’d swear they must all be L2s or L3s because this type of written nonsense is pervasive in their PF2e publications
so either this is intentional or their lot are clueless about the written word
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Monastic Weaponry makes all your monk stuff that references "unarmed attacks" work with your monk weapon of choice (except for shuriken, you need a stance for that). This includes metal strikes.
If this were true it would say "You can replace Unarmed Attacks with Monk Weapons for any Monk ability or Feat." It doesn't say that, it says you can use melee Monk weapons for abilities and Feats that require you use an Unarmed Attack. The fact it goes on to specify that it doesn't work for abilities that use Specific attacks, and uses a Stance as an example, further proves the intent is to not allow modifications to extent to Monk weapons.
I know people will claim this is "just flavor text" but Metal Strikes states that you can "adjust your body" to replicate the effects of rare metals. This implies there's been much training in order to modify your body in such a way so that your unarmed strikes can bypass those weaknesses, and yet you expect us to believe they can simply pick up a random bo staff and suddenly that random staff can bypass those same weaknesses?
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I know people will claim this is "just flavor text" but Metal Strikes states that you can "adjust your body" to replicate the effects of rare metals. This implies there's been much training in order to modify your body in such a way so that your unarmed strikes can bypass those weaknesses, and yet you expect us to believe they can simply pick up a random bo staff and suddenly that random staff can bypass those same weaknesses?
You mean the same way you can use any of your other magic monk powers through that staff, which you took a feat specifically to be trained to use in that way?
Yep.
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I know people will claim this is "just flavor text" but Metal Strikes states that you can "adjust your body" to replicate the effects of rare metals. This implies there's been much training in order to modify your body in such a way so that your unarmed strikes can bypass those weaknesses, and yet you expect us to believe they can simply pick up a random bo staff and suddenly that random staff can bypass those same weaknesses?You mean the same way you can use any of your other magic monk powers through that staff, which you took a feat specifically to be trained to use in that way?
Yep.
It's actively transferring Ki through a weapon in a short bust versus reconstructing your body on a fundamental level to emulate the effects certain metals have. I don't see how they're similar enough that it should automatically apply to weapons you pick up in a random shop.
Now if it were an action to activate Metal Strikes (Which honestly, it SHOULD be) we wouldn't be having this conversation, but since it's an automatic ability that makes your body innately carry the energy that emulates those metals, it makes no sense that it should just work.
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I know people will claim this is "just flavor text" but Metal Strikes states that you can "adjust your body" to replicate the effects of rare metals.
You skip over the "can" part of that flavor text: going by YOUR arguments, active abilities are good to go and that sentence says you "can" treat your unarmed attacks as silver/cold iron so it happens AT the attack. Your argument was that it didn't work because it was passive.
This implies there's been much training in order to modify your body in such a way so that your unarmed strikes can bypass those weaknesses, and yet you expect us to believe they can simply pick up a random bo staff and suddenly that random staff can bypass those same weaknesses?
You described the monk... It's all about training your body to do things you couldn't do before...
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Pathfinder 2 is the RAI edition. It's not about torturing the grammar of the abilities, it's about looking at "what is this supposed to do" and then it works this way.
Monastic Weaponry is clearly intended to let you use your "monk stuff" with monk weapons, unless that "monk stuff" is associated with specific strikes. Metal Strikes is clearly monk stuff and it doesn't invoke specific strikes.
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I know people will claim this is "just flavor text" but Metal Strikes states that you can "adjust your body" to replicate the effects of rare metals.You skip over the "can" part of that flavor text: going by YOUR arguments, active abilities are good to go and that sentence says you "can" treat your unarmed attacks as silver/cold iron so it happens AT the attack. Your argument was that it didn't work because it was passive.
I literally said can. Just because I didn't put it in the quotes doesn't mean I am ignoring it. Mechanically though, you can't turn it off. It's a permanent buff to your unarmed attacks, for better or worse.
This implies there's been much training in order to modify your body in such a way so that your unarmed strikes can bypass those weaknesses, and yet you expect us to believe they can simply pick up a random bo staff and suddenly that random staff can bypass those same weaknesses?You described the monk... It's all about training your body to do things you couldn't do before...
You can train with how to use a weapon all you want but that doesn't change what material the weapon is made out of. Your passive ability to modify your own flesh wouldn't apply to wood and metal.
I literally said can. Just because I didn't put it in the quotes doesn't mean I am ignoring it. Mechanically though, you can't turn it off. It's a permanent buff to your unarmed attacks, for better or worse.
Can means it's optional as logically you can not do so. So if you're putting stock into the rest of the sentence, you can't ignore the can: that was what I was pointing out you where ignoring.
You can train with how to use a weapon all you want but that doesn't change what material the weapon is made out of.
You aren't changing the material of your body either so what's your point. Try replacing unarmed attack with weapon and see if it works in the feats.
You're "Focusing your will into your physical attacks imbues them with mystical energy" which in NO way is incompatible with weapons as is. 'You can adjust your body to make weapon attacks infused with the mystic energy of rare metals' works fine. 'When you focus your will into your weapons, your blows are as unyielding as the hardest of metals' works too. You are NEVER EVER changing things into the metals, but infusing with the mystic energy of rare metals.
Your passive ability to modify your own flesh wouldn't apply to wood and metal.
We use the sentence YOU referenced to prove it's an active ability ["can"] and where do you come up with mystical energy only works on flesh when you agree it works with wood and metal other places like Ki Strike [Your study of the flow of mystical energy allows you to harness it into your physical strikes.] the wording of the first sentence in Mystic Strikes and Ki Strike are almost identical but you say that wood and metal matter in one and not in the other.
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If this were true it would say "You can replace Unarmed Attacks with Monk Weapons for any Monk ability or Feat."
It's not phrased that way because that phrasing does not exclude feats like Tiger Slash that required a specific kind of unarmed strike.
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If this were true it would say "You can replace Unarmed Attacks with Monk Weapons for any Monk ability or Feat."It's not phrased that way because that phrasing does not exclude feats like Tiger Slash that required a specific kind of unarmed strike.
No one is contesting that part... Why would I include it in my hypothetical wording when everyone accepts it works as intended? They can obviously keep that in to exclude those, you just have no other arguments of my point and have to claim I'm trying to say something I'm not.
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I dunno, you're including stuff other people agree works and saying it doesn't, so who knows why you include or don't include things. More helpfully, that was brought up because your own counterpoint can't exist due to the agreed-upon primary intention of Monastic Weaponry's wording, rendering it a pointless rebuttal.
There's nothing new to argue your point with, just refutations to make in hopes that hapless passerby don't take your wacky interpretation as correct. You haven't been super successful at convincing threadgoers, so they might as well poke at you overlooking your own looseness with words while bringing up hypothetical new wording, I imagine. (Heaven forbid any of us claim text is trying to say something it isn't.)
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I dunno, you're including stuff other people agree works and saying it doesn't, so who knows why you include or don't include things. There's nothing new to argue your point with, you haven't been super successful at convincing others, so they might as well poke at you overlooking your own looseness with words while proposing new wording, I imagine. (Heaven forbid any of us claim text is trying to say something it isn't.)
Sure, maybe I'm not too good at putting my thoughts down in words, I didn't major in English after all, but it doesn't mean you all have to be jerks about it. All I see are people rebutting my points with no evidence to back them up. The only argument FOR it working is "Well, because it says it works!" while I'm trying to give examples, references, and theoretical situations supporting my view point. I have way more experience in 2e as a GM over as a player, so I always try to think things like this to their logical extremes to see how crazy they become. I can see that people who have more experience as players are more inclined to argue in favor of buffing players more, while I am inclined to reign in things I see as overpowered as a way to keep things balanced. The whole reason I quit playing 1e was because players were TOO powerful, and it killed any fun I might have had. I don't want to see that happen to 2e as well.
The words are obviously unclear enough that people can read it in two ways. The difference here is even thought I vehemently believe it doesn't work, I can agree that it needs to be even more specific in it's wording so this disagreement can't exist.
The devs have new content to make to keep the lights on, Cordell, I'd rather they spend their time on old content fixing explicitly bad or broken mechanics rather than changing or clarifying every slightly ambiguous word in the book so that a few less GMs jump out of their skins thinking players are trying to steal the sunset by using their neat class feature with a subpar option that allows such things to happen with almost everything else. There's a reason the book encourages reading with an open mind rather than sticking to the tyranny of plain-text rules in one of the world's squishiest languages, and it's not to shut everything down when it really isn't "too good to be true". Almost nothing in PF2 even approaches the raw power levels of PF1.
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You claim this isn't a big issue, but this thread has 70 replies about this topic. There's obviously a bigger issue here. Monastic Weaponry is very commonly asked about, to say otherwise is just wrong. Monastic Weaponry needs to be re-written with clearer wording, or an FAQ needs to be made to clarify how it works. Otherwise there will be another thread asking about the same question in a couple months, and this same argument will spark up AGAIN.
I have way more experience in 2e as a GM over as a player, so I always try to think things like this to their logical extremes to see how crazy they become. I can see that people who have more experience as players are more inclined to argue in favor of buffing players more, while I am inclined to reign in things I see as overpowered as a way to keep things balanced.
Neither of these ways of thinking matter even a little bit in figuring out what the actual rules are unless it's ambiguous which brings us to:
The words are obviously unclear enough that people can read it in two ways.
I don't see the obvious or unclear parts so I never got to the phase where I have to figure out which reading was better as I only see one reading.
The difference here is even thought I vehemently believe it doesn't work, I can agree that it needs to be even more specific in it's wording so this disagreement can't exist.
The difference for me is that I "vehemently believe" the reading is clear unless you horrible convolute the meaning of the words and I went through all the points you brought up as not changing that, like replacing 'weapon' for 'unarmed' in all the abilities and they make sense or that the inclusion of 'can' makes the ability an active one or the fact that your body itself doesn't count as iron, magic, silver or adamantine meaning that it's only when an attack happens that it counts as such.
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You claim this isn't a big issue, but this thread has 70 replies about this topic. There's obviously a bigger issue here.
Most of those replies were yours. :v
Sometimes there isn't a bigger issue and it's just a small handful of vocal people being very, very insistent. A phenomenon I'll stop contributing to in this one.
You claim this isn't a big issue, but this thread has 70 replies about this topic. There's obviously a bigger issue here.Most of those replies were yours. :v
Sometimes there isn't a bigger issue and it's just a small handful of vocal people being very, very insistent. A phenomenon I'll stop contributing to in this one.
Yep, if we removed Cordell Kintner's posts and replies to them, this would be a very short thread.
It's pretty clear dating back even to the PF2 playtest, the devs are not interested in giving you specific "this interpretation is the right one" answers.
Since there is no "correct" reading and the devs aren't bothered by table variation, it suggests that taking an extremely strict reading of the game's language is not the most useful lens.
So if you want to make Monastic Weaponry not work with metal strikes at your table, go ahead, but mostly what that's going to accomplish is "discourage weapon monks" (which are already not the strongest monk builds).
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It's pretty clear dating back even to the PF2 playtest, the devs are not interested in giving you specific "this interpretation is the right one" answers.
That's not exactly correct: it's more that they are VERY inconstant, wildly vacillating between seeming to not care about a correct answer and making a ruling that requires a very specific parsing of the wording like attack rolls are different that a roll with an attack action.
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I’ve commented on this before.
To me, a major turn off of PF2e is the lack of support, especially in areas that are very ambiguous or vague.
I know I’m only speaking for my group but we truly want to know what the designers’ intent was in each of these cases.
Because we presume they had a specific idea for each one.
And not some, “we don’t know how this should exactly be, let’s leave it vague and let our consumers figure it out for themselves”.
A few years back I got a board game.
Interesting theme and we had high hopes but the rules were mush with lots of ambiguity.
Even worse, almost every query to the designer was met with a
“did your group try it in the different ways you mentioned in your question? what did they think? which did they like best?”
type of answer.
To this day we still have no idea what the designer’s vision was.
And no, that’s not what we’re interested in - a product which feels incomplete, unfinished.
We want to know what the plan was.
And if they didn’t have one in a specific area, we’d like to be told that upfront and not in some, “uh, hey you buyer of our product, use what you like, don’t use what you don’t, and uh, oh yeah, some assembly required in some places” kind of seemingly tossed in after it was clear there would be a lot of uncertainties so ‘we had best add something before we go to print’ way.
Because that’s our general consensus on what happened ‘behind the scenes’.
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As I stated and you ignored, the ability is to balance the fact Unarmed Attacks can't gain those traits normally. Weapons can, you shouldn't be giving it away for free on an item that can get it normally.
I don't really want to touch on the RAW argument in this thread, but this point doesn't really track. Other classes have unarmed builds-- animal barbarians, feral mutagenists, draconic sorcerers,or anyone who focused on certain ancestry feats. None of them get the option to give their unarmed strikes metal properties.
Metal strikes is a specific advantage monks get over these other classes. It is part of how their damage winds up competitive in actual play despite having no inherent white room boosts like rage or sneak attack or hunter's edge. They get to deal extra damage against creatures with metallic weakness or resistance.
So ruling it doesn't work on weapons just deprives monks of one of their coolest tools. The only way to justify that in balance is if weapon monks were already better than stance monks, and that's certainly not the consensus here. The weapon will often be less cost effective too-- a stance that deals slashing or piercing can always fallback on powerful fist for bludgeoning, effectively giving them two maxed weapons for the price of one hand wrap.
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Arguing that one feat should allow all Monks the ability it ignore all the special weapon requirements that all weapon using classes have to contend with, does not remotely seem inline with PF2's over-balalnced, stay-in-your-lane, feat-locking, nerf-bat approach to feats.
Luckily no one has argued a single feat lets a monk ignore special material requirements.
It's a class feature that gives you "free" special materials. And it still does that even if we use your version of the feat, just with fists and stance strikes instead of the uh, katar. Which I guess would be really overpowered even though it's just outright worse than using your fists...
There's nothing that requires that a Monk who forgoes stances and only uses weapons should be on par with all stance Monks.
So the feat's bad on purpose and written to mean something you can only infer by squinting at the rules a certain way? IDK.
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Arguing that one feat should allow all Monks the ability it ignore all the special weapon requirements that all weapon using classes have to contend with, does not remotely seem inline with PF2's over-balalnced, stay-in-your-lane, feat-locking, nerf-bat approach to feats.
Ignoring the fact that this isn't actually how the game is designed outside of your imagination, you do understand that monk stances are also feats, yes?
Insisting that Monastic Weaponry must be designed on purpose to be worse than other feats because feats are designed to be bad (ignore all those ones you just said are better than it) doesn't actually make any sense, and is based on absolutely nothing.
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I mean if you think weapon Monks are designed to have one less class feature than unarmed monks then I guess that's your right. You can be as wrong as you want to be
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I mean if you think weapon Monks are designed to have one less class feature than unarmed monks then I guess that's your right. You can be as wrong as you want to be
I don't know why you would think MW was intended to completely replace unarmed attacks. From the limited Feat support, it's obvious it's only supposed to be a side thing, not a complete replacement. Instead you all keep insisting everyone who has a different opinion than you is wrong.
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"The limited feat support" literally every feat that doesn't call for a specific kind of unarmed strike supports monastic weaponry what are you talking about
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"The limited feat support" literally every feat that doesn't call for a specific kind of unarmed strike supports monastic weaponry what are you talking about
Those feats don't support MW... MW just piggybacks off existing feats. There's only four feats that make use of Monastic Weaponry: one that unlocks your racial weapons as monk weapons, and three different stances.
Standard Monk stances only get two feats per stance, the base Feat and an additional feat to make it a bit better. The whole point of the Monk is to be flexible. You are supposed to have multiple stances, multiple Ki Spells, be unpredictable in combat. Who knows if this monk is going to do slashing or piercing, or maybe pull poison damage out of nowhere.
Monastic Weaponry is supposed to be a supplement to the stances. You have a weapon, but you're also insanely good with unarmed attacks. You could carry a Bo Staff and make dragon tail strikes perfectly fine for example, since they use your legs.
Furthermore, with actual physical weapons, you can get access to special materials at level 2, when a monk without weapons has to wait until level 9 to get it at all. Same with adamantine, with weapons getting it at 11 instead of 17.
It's obvious this feat isn't supposed to completely replace Unarmed Attacks in your rotation, but rather give you access to special traits as well as earlier access to a class feature for a little bit of money.
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@Cordell, let me ask you a question. If a Monk takes MW is there anything that prevents them from using an Unarmed Attack whenever they need to? My understanding is that taking MW doesn't deny a Monk any of the benefits of its unarmed attacks, but many of the responses directed at you seem to suggest otherwise.
Again, not that this changes how I read the rules, just not getting where the hyperbole is coming from.
Certain stances would allow it, Dragon Stance, Tiger Stance, Wolf Stance, Ironblood Stance, and Tangled Forest Stance.
For Weapon stances, if you use Peafowl Stance, you would be locked into Sword Strikes, since the feat specifically says you are locked in, but Shooting Star and Whirling Blade stance don't lock you in, so you can still punch.
Monastic Archer stance locks you in to only Bow Attacks, but they also get the most support feats of any stance.
Depending on your stance and weapon, most monks would be perfectly fine.
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"The limited feat support" literally every feat that doesn't call for a specific kind of unarmed strike supports monastic weaponry what are you talking aboutThose feats don't support MW... MW just piggybacks off existing feats. There's only three feats that make use of Monastic Weaponry: one that lets you use shuriken as well, one that unlocks your racial weapons as monk weapons, and two different stances.
Allow me to help you out with your math a little bit: this is more feat support than any given stance, since every other stance is 'piggybacking' off of feats that don't explicitly require them just as much as Monastic Weaponry does.
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Allow me to help you out with your math a little bit: this is more feat support than any given stance, since every other stance is 'piggybacking' off of feats that don't explicitly require them just as much as Monastic Weaponry does."The limited feat support" literally every feat that doesn't call for a specific kind of unarmed strike supports monastic weaponry what are you talking aboutThose feats don't support MW... MW just piggybacks off existing feats. There's only three feats that make use of Monastic Weaponry: one that lets you use shuriken as well, one that unlocks your racial weapons as monk weapons, and two different stances.
MW isn't a stance, but it unlocks three different stances, only one of which have additional feats but also locks you into Swords only.
Monastic Archer has 3 additional feats to build off the Stance.
Meanwhile Unarmed Attacks have 13 different Stances, ALL of which have an additional feat, one with TWO additional feats, and only 6 of which lock you into that specific attack.
But sure, keep insisting that Monastic Weaponry is supposed to replace unarmed attacks completely.
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But sure, keep insisting that Monastic Weaponry is supposed to replace unarmed attacks completely.
Well that IS what it says for any non-specific unarmed attack so yeah, that's what I'd expect people to insist on.
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I don't buy that in the game that gave us doubling rings-- items created to specifically let certain builds work without paying twice as much for weapons-- Paizo wants a build to have to pay for both hand wraps and a weapon to actually utilize their inherent features. Using multiple enchanted weapons is a thing you can use do when the opportunity presents itself, but I don't think any other class or build has that as a requirement.
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If Monastic Weaponry is not supposed to replace unarmed attacks completely (barring contexts where you lack your equipment), what is it for?
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I don't buy that in the game that gave us doubling rings-- items created to specifically let certain builds work without paying twice as much for weapons-- Paizo wants a build to have to pay for both hand wraps and a weapon to actually utilize their inherent features. Using multiple enchanted weapons is a thing you can use do when the opportunity presents itself, but I don't think any other class or build has that as a requirement.
Every item wasn't made with Monks in mind. They are supposed to be unarmed fighters. Wraps already affect every unarmed attack you have, that's a huge cost saving right there. Having a single enchanted Monk weapon along side it isn't going to break the bank.
If Monastic Weaponry is not supposed to replace unarmed attacks completely (barring contexts where you lack your equipment), what is it for?
Please refer to:
Monastic Weaponry is supposed to be a supplement to the stances. You have a weapon, but you're also insanely good with unarmed attacks. You could carry a Bo Staff and make dragon tail strikes perfectly fine for example, since they use your legs.
Furthermore, with actual physical weapons, you can get access to special materials at level 2, when a monk without weapons has to wait until level 9 to get it at all. Same with adamantine, with weapons getting it at 11 instead of 17.
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That would make Monastic Weaponry one of the weakest feats in the entire game. Particularly since doubling rings don't work with handwraps (as they are not weapons) so you're wasting a feat in order to be extra cash strapped.
It's already not a great feat if you assume it replaces unarmed attacks completely (since unarmed stances are generally *better* than weapons).