Lizardfolk Monk - unarmed attacks and attacks with weapon traits

[ESttt]

I'm making an Iruxi Monk with focus on grapple and there are several things I'm confused about (some of which have already been answered in the forum I've seen).

Question 1 (Regards the monk stance attacks and weapons with traits):
Monks can take Monastic Weaponry, which basically lets you use strange weapons, including using them for Monk stance attacks, except if they require a specific attack. Since the monk stance attacks have weapon traits and various damage types that might differ from the weapon you use, do you select which of them you use the traits/damage type for, do you get all of them, or can you mix and as you would like? Note that most of the monk stance attacks don't specify what you actually attack with. They usually give a description on how you stand, and then it says "You can make this attack"
Example1: A monk with a Kama (Slashing, Agile, trip) uses a Dragons Tail attack (Bludgeoning, Backswing, nonlethal) with the Kama. They miss, and then try the same attack again. How to interpret this?
1.1a: Which damage type does the attack have (slashing, bludgeoning, both, or choose one)?
1.1b: Which damage dice is used (I would assume 1d10, because it's higher)?
1.2 What are your modifiers for the second attack, given MAP? Do you get both the +1 for agile, and +1 for missing with a backswing.
1.2b) What would have happened if your first was NOT a Dragon Tail attack? Would you still get your +1 for missing the first attack, because Dragons Tail has backswing (which only specifies that a miss with this WEAPON gives you a +1 bonus)
1.3: If this attack crits, which would be the critical specialization (provided the monk has the Brawling Focus feat)? Would it be Brawling (slow) or Knife (1d6 bleed)?

Question 2 (regards the Iruxi unarmed attacks/bodyparts and synergy with monk attacks):
For all the Iruxi unarmed attacks (claws, bite, tail whip) it's stated that the attacks have a weapon trait and a specific damage type.
Examples:
Claws: "You have a claw unarmed attack that deals 1d4 slashing damage and has the agile and finesse traits."
Tail: "By birth or through training, your tail is strong enough to make for a powerful melee weapon. You gain a tail unarmed attack that deals 1d6 bludgeoning damage and has the sweep trait."

What I wonder is if it's the weapon used (your actual claws, teeth, tail) or the attack (the specific action of clawing, biting, or beating someone with the tail) has the traits? Pathfinder 2 really doesn't have any clear rules for attacks with traits. When reading the weapon trait summary, some of these seems kinda weird.
Reading the explanation for Sweep (which the tail has) makes it kinda weird:
"Sweep: This weapon makes wide sweeping or spinning attacks, making it easier to attack multiple enemies. When you attack with this weapon, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to your attack roll if you already attempted to attack a different target this turn using this weapon."
Example 1: An Iruxi monk uses the Dragon tail attack, utilizing their natural tail for flavour (it totally makes sense to perform the Dragon Tail with an actual large tail!). This attack misses. The monk then tries to perform this same attack again, but on a different enemy. What happens here?
2.1 What damage will be dealt? (again, I assume that the 1d10 damage).
2.2 Will the monk gain the attack bonus for both backswing (dragon tail) and sweep (actual tail)?
Example 2: An Iruxi monk uses a standard strike with their claws. They miss and then go on to use their claws(hands) again to make a Dragon Tail attack (There's nothing that says which body part the Dragon tail must be made with).
3.1 Which damage type does this second attack do?
3.2 Do they get the agile bonus from the claws, considering the claws made the attack? Do they get the backswing bonus, due to missing with the same weapon (the claws) as before?

Question 3, Regarding actions other than attacks using Iruxi natural weapons:
How does the natural weapons work together with other attack actions such as grapple, trip, shove etc considering their traits? None of these natural weapons have any such traits (except for a case with Wolf Stance, which I'll come back to), but it's only logical that you would use your hands (which have claws) to grapple, or your tail for trip, considering they are a part of you. Would you get your natural weapon attack traits for these skill-attacks too (such as agile for the claws or sweep for the tail).

Question 4, regarding the weirdness of the Wolf Stance (which I know has been a very debated subject)
The Wolf Stance gives your wolf jaw unarmed strike trip. What the actual f? Why can't I just trip exactly as effeiciently by just using the standard trip action? The only benefit we could come up with here would be that if I attempt to trip and critically fail, I could drop my stance, instead of dropping prone. It would of course take an action to re-take the stance, which is better than ending up prone. But it still feels like a very small, circumstantial bonus.

In general, it feels like there's something missing regarding how to handle attacks with weapon traits. I'm going to suggest to my DM that it's easiest to just handle the Iruxi appendages as weapons with the traits the have, and be able to use them for things/attacks that make sense flavourvise. That will solve one of the problems...

(Boy, this turned out to be quite an essay)

[Squiggit]

The biggest trip up here I think is that you're assuming you're making Dragon Tail attacks with something. But you don't. Dragon Tail attacks are functionally weapons in their own right (although unarmed strikes aren't actually weapons, that's another issue).

You don't make a Dragon Tail attack with your Tail. Or with a Kama. You just make a Strike using your Dragon Tail (or any other attack).

You don't make a Dragon Tail attack with a kama, any more than you can punch someone with a longbow. So the properties on a dragon tail attack are just the ones the dragon tail itself gives you (unless you have another ability adding properties).

Your GM might be cool with you flavoring your Dragon Tail as using your character's real tail, or as using a version of Dragon Tail that involves a kama, but it's still a Dragon Tail attack and nothing else.

[OrochiFuror]

As Squiggit said, your trying to combine things that don't combine. Dragon stance tail attack is an unarmed attack. Iruxi claws are an unarmed attack. Iruxi razor claws are an unarmed attack. Iruxi tail strike is an unarmed attack. A strike with a kama is a weapon attack. None of these can be combined in anyway. They each have their own traits. Using any of these is a single action strike unless you use flurry of blows.
Haven't used wolf stance but it likely let's you make a trip with your attack instead of as an attack. Trip as an attack just attempts to knock the opponent down, trip as an extra in another attack (barbarians and fighters have options similar to this) let's you hit for damage and try to trip.

[Gisher]

ESttt wrote:

Question 4, regarding the weirdness of the Wolf Stance (which I know has been a very debated subject)

The Wolf Stance gives your wolf jaw unarmed strike trip. What the actual f? Why can't I just trip exactly as effeiciently by just using the standard trip action?

The benefit of having the trip weapon trait is that it allows you to add the item bonus from your Handwraps to the athletics check.

[ESttt]

Squiggit wrote:

The biggest trip up here I think is that you're assuming you're making Dragon Tail attacks with something. But you don't. Dragon Tail attacks are functionally weapons in their own right (although unarmed strikes aren't actually weapons, that's another issue).

You don't make a Dragon Tail attack with your Tail. Or with a Kama. You just make a Strike using your Dragon Tail (or any other attack).

You don't make a Dragon Tail attack with a kama, any more than you can punch someone with a longbow. So the properties on a dragon tail attack are just the ones the dragon tail itself gives you (unless you have another ability adding properties).

Your GM might be cool with you flavoring your Dragon Tail as using your character's real tail, or as using a version of Dragon Tail that involves a kama, but it's still a Dragon Tail attack and nothing else.

I guess I'm slightly confused from playing DnD 4E for quite some time (where you have attacks you can make with various weapons) and also having experience of martial arts with various weapons.

So, one way to look at it look at it might be to assume that the Dragon Tail stance (or the other stances) are to be considered weapons I can make Strikes with. When I assume a stance, I arm myself with the corresponding weapon, in addition to other weapons I happen to be carrying (be it Unarmed, Kama, Longsword). Just like a Kama, Longsword, or Longbow are weapons with certain traits you can make Strikes with. This would make sense from the point of the traits and it's flavour.
For example Backswing on the Dragon Tail attack would give you +1 attack if you've already missed with the Dragon Tail attack. Flavourvise, if you miss with that attack, it might be easy to re-direct the already moving swing and provide a stronger strike.
The same interpreation also holds for the Iruxi natural weapons. It's basically weapons with specific traits (Sweep for tail, agile and finesse for the claws) you can use to Strike with, just like a Longsword.

OrochiFuror wrote:

Haven't used wolf stance but it likely let's you make a trip with your attack instead of as an attack. Trip as an attack just attempts to knock the opponent down, trip as an extra in another attack (barbarians and fighters have options similar to this) let's you hit for damage and try to trip.

The interpretation of "A monk stance arms you with a weapon of this trait" also holds for the Wolf Stance and the trip trait. For one, it will let you add the bonus your Handwraps of Might Blows, as well as being helped by the other traits (Finesse lets you use dex to trip and Agile reduces MAP by 1 for your trip action).

What makes the "A stance and and nautural weapon is a weapon you are armed with and can make Strikes with" is the description of Monestic weapons:
"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."
However, the stance attacks do not require you to be unarmed, nor do they specify with what you attack. There are other monk feats that requires you to use an unarmed attack (such as Flurry of Blows or Flying Kick). With this, the "stances are weapons" interpretation still holds.
With that, I guess you could use any stance attack (except for the exclusive ones) with the Flying Kick i.e?

I guess one of the main benefits of the Iruxi unarmed attacks is that you're always armed and can perform attack, even if your hands might be occupied. And also that since the monk provides profiencey and bonus for unarmed attacks, the Iruxi natural weapons should also gain this bonus.

We usually joke that monks have a separate rulebook. Seems like still holds true for PF2 :P

[OrochiFuror]

Iruxi monks are great because they have better natural weapons, razor claws can do slash or pierce and tail can do blunt, allows you to get around resistances.
All those rules are just telling you that you can use monk weapons instead of unarmed attacks for things that require unarmed attacks, like flurry of blows, disrupt Ki, and knockback strike. Unarmed attacks and weapons don't work together, they aren't interchangeable without the monastic weapon feat. Like a ranger can't use natural weapons with twin takedown and fighters can't use them with brutal finish, double strike or lunge.
I don't think monks themselves have ever had their own rulebook, it's just that PF and D&D have always had separate rules for weapons and unarmed attacks, so a class using one to take the place of the other or mixing them together has always had to make rules to fix the innate problem of separating those attacks.