Are monk weapons supposed to be worse than non-monk weapons?

[Onkonk]

Looked through the weapon list and noticed that some monk weapons are almost identical to other weapons but lack a trait.

Kama 1d6 (agile, monk, trip) -> Kukri 1d6 (agile, finesse, trip): Loses the finesse trait for monk.

Sai 1d4 (agile, disarm, finesse, monk, versatile) -> Main-Gauche 1d4 (agile, disarm, finesse, parry, versatile): Loses the parry trait for monk.

Fighting Fan 1d4 (agile, backstabber, deadly d6, finesse, monk) -> Filcher's Fork 1d4 (agile, backstabber, deadly d6, finesse, thrown 20ft.): Loses thrown 20ft. for monk.

Is this intentional or an oversight?

[keftiu]

Monk weapons are kind of a mess. It's a weird relic of 3.5 that treats the Monk as the "Asian" class that I'm surprised made it into 2e.

[Blave]

The monk trait means you can potentially flurry with the weapon. Of course it comes at a price.

[Onkonk]

Blave wrote:

The monk trait means you can potentially flurry with the weapon. Of course it comes at a price.

For me the cost is not as obvious, you already pay with a feat to be able to use weapons, stances give even more powerful weapons, other classes than monks can also use the weapons and Rogue/Investigator/Swashbuckler don't get a tax on their weapons (as agile and finesse are traits that give benefits).

[Blave]

Other classes can also pick up flurry.

I'm no saying weapon traits are perfectly balanced. They are obviously not.

But if you gain a trait that can be an advantage, you have to lose something - or let the weapon become advanced. Compare the shortsword to the Dogslicer. Or the dagger to the throwing knife. The battle axe to the longsword and so on.

You shouldn't be able to fond two identical weapons except one of them has an additional trait, because it would make it outright superior. Maybe "just" potential superior with the right feats, but still superior.

[Arachnofiend]

For the Monk trait to matter, you must be a Monk who wants to flurry with weapons.

If you are a Monk who wants to flurry with weapons, then you must spend a feat to use Monk weapons.

If you spend a feat to use Monk weapons, then you must compare them to Monk unarmed stances, which are scaled to be advanced weapon quality.

The only Monk weapon that justifies itself is the bo staff, the rest are sitting in a weird quality bracket between simple and martial.

[HumbleGamer]

Overall, I think the monk unarmed attacks are better than weapons:

- You save a feat ( monastic weaponry )
- Your strikes counts as magic/silver/coldiron and endgame also adamantine.
- Plenty of stances which gives damage from 1d4 to 1d12, depends your character
-Being in a stance, unlocks class feats only usable in that stance

The only weapon I'd probably consider is the Bo Staff ( because of the staff acrobat dedication, which goes good with the monk, and also doesn't stop you from using unarmed attacks in addition to bo staff strikes ).

[Ubertron_X]

@OP: Yes! ;)

[Squiggit]

What's weird is the trait seems to be valued inconsistently. The Fighting Fan and Sai clearly 'spend' a trait slot to be counted as a monk weapon compared to their alternatives.

But then you look at the Temple Sword and it's a standard martial d8 weapon that also gets the monk trait. The Kusarigama and Nunchaku also seem to be comparable to their non-monk counterparts more or less without the Monk tag being a factor.

... and then the Monkey Fist is clearly built like a simple weapon and honestly just worse than your actual fists.

[Taja the Barbarian]

Squiggit wrote:

... and then the Monkey Fist is clearly built like a simple weapon and honestly just worse than your actual fists.

Monkey's Fist is a Flail, so it does get a nice critical specialization.

EDIT: I do have to admit I'm not certain why the Monkey's Fist is a martial weapon while the Poi is simple...

[Staffan Johansson]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Overall, I think the monk unarmed attacks are better than weapons:

- You save a feat ( monastic weaponry )
- Your strikes counts as magic/silver/coldiron and endgame also adamantine.
- Plenty of stances which gives damage from 1d4 to 1d12, depends your character
-Being in a stance, unlocks class feats only usable in that stance

The only weapon I'd probably consider is the Bo Staff ( because of the staff acrobat dedication, which goes good with the monk, and also doesn't stop you from using unarmed attacks in addition to bo staff strikes ).

You make a good point, but there's one thing to consider: Monastic Weaponry gives you options. While, say, a wolf jaw strike is individually superior to both butterfly sword, bo, or monkey's fist, Monastic Weaponry lets you use whichever of those suits the situation.

[HumbleGamer]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

Overall, I think the monk unarmed attacks are better than weapons:

- You save a feat ( monastic weaponry )
- Your strikes counts as magic/silver/coldiron and endgame also adamantine.
- Plenty of stances which gives damage from 1d4 to 1d12, depends your character
-Being in a stance, unlocks class feats only usable in that stance

The only weapon I'd probably consider is the Bo Staff ( because of the staff acrobat dedication, which goes good with the monk, and also doesn't stop you from using unarmed attacks in addition to bo staff strikes ).

You make a good point, but there's one thing to consider: Monastic Weaponry gives you options. While, say, a wolf jaw strike is individually superior to both butterfly sword, bo, or monkey's fist, Monastic Weaponry lets you use whichever of those suits the situation.

Couldn't that also be achieved by getting a second stance?

For example,

- normal fist deals 1d6 B agile, finesse, non-lethal,unarmed

- tiger claw ( tiger stance) deals 1d8 S agile, finesse, non-lethal unarmed

- wolf's jaw ( wolf stance ) deals 1d8 P agile, backstabber, finesse, non-lethal, unarmed

With 2 stances you get:

- all 3 kind of physical damage
- no need to have magic weapons ( less money )
- all your attacks are magic/silver/cold iron ( less money and more effective)
- no interact to draw ( no AoO trigger).

The bo staff may cover whether reach would be needed, but I'd probably wouldn't use it unless staff acrobat ( and the staff couldn't be made out of any metal, so wouldn't deal with weaknesses ).

[Djinn71]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Overall, I think the monk unarmed attacks are better than weapons:

- You save a feat ( monastic weaponry )
- Your strikes counts as magic/silver/coldiron and endgame also adamantine.
- Plenty of stances which gives damage from 1d4 to 1d12, depends your character
-Being in a stance, unlocks class feats only usable in that stance

The only weapon I'd probably consider is the Bo Staff ( because of the staff acrobat dedication, which goes good with the monk, and also doesn't stop you from using unarmed attacks in addition to bo staff strikes ).

Monastic Weaponry allows you to apply stuff like Metal Strikes to Monk weapons.

[HumbleGamer]

Djinn71 wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

Overall, I think the monk unarmed attacks are better than weapons:

- You save a feat ( monastic weaponry )
- Your strikes counts as magic/silver/coldiron and endgame also adamantine.
- Plenty of stances which gives damage from 1d4 to 1d12, depends your character
-Being in a stance, unlocks class feats only usable in that stance

The only weapon I'd probably consider is the Bo Staff ( because of the staff acrobat dedication, which goes good with the monk, and also doesn't stop you from using unarmed attacks in addition to bo staff strikes ).

Monastic Weaponry allows you to apply stuff like Metal Strikes to Monk weapons.

Can't find it in the feat description.

It only says you can use monk weapons to deliver attacks that would normally require you to use unarmed attacks.

[Guntermench]

Monastic Weaponry wrote:

You can use melee monk weapons with any of your monk feats or monk abilities that normally require unarmed attacks

Since the metal strikes stuff is a monk ability, it should(?) work.

[Onkonk]

Monkey's Fist might be designed after the Sap (d6, agile, nonlethal) which is another weapon that pays so much for being nonlethal when a lot of other weapons basically get it for free (fist, nightsticks, poi, whip).

[Captain Morgan]

Onkonk wrote:

Monkey's Fist might be designed after the Sap (d6, agile, nonlethal) which is another weapon that pays so much for being nonlethal when a lot of other weapons basically get it for free (fist, nightsticks, poi, whip).

Monkey's Fist and Sap are both d6. Everything else you cited is d4. That still leaves monkey's Fist worse than just using powerful blows though.

[Djinn71]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Can't find it in the feat description.

It only says you can use monk weapons to deliver attacks that would normally require you to use unarmed attacks.

"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."

Metal Strikes is a monk ability that normally requires unarmed attacks, therefore you can use it with monk weapons instead if you have this feat.

[Squiggit]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

You make a good point, but there's one thing to consider: Monastic Weaponry gives you options. While, say, a wolf jaw strike is individually superior to both butterfly sword, bo, or monkey's fist, Monastic Weaponry lets you use whichever of those suits the situation.

I mean that sounds good on paper, but that's thousands upon thousands of gold to keep those various weapons relevant as you level up and even then I'm not really sure it's worth the action economy.

[Perpdepog]

Squiggit wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

You make a good point, but there's one thing to consider: Monastic Weaponry gives you options. While, say, a wolf jaw strike is individually superior to both butterfly sword, bo, or monkey's fist, Monastic Weaponry lets you use whichever of those suits the situation.

I mean that sounds good on paper, but that's thousands upon thousands of gold to keep those various weapons relevant as you level up and even then I'm not really sure it's worth the action economy.

Not if you have a shifting rune. Granted it doesn't work on the divide between one handed and two handed weapons.

Also I hadn't realized that some weapons were just not as good for being monk. I always liked the idea of a weapon using monk; this makes me kinda sad.

[HumbleGamer]

Just considered abilities as non purchasable feats, like flurry of blows.

That way it is really convenient and doesn't drag down the monk that much.

[Arachnofiend]

Perpdepog wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

You make a good point, but there's one thing to consider: Monastic Weaponry gives you options. While, say, a wolf jaw strike is individually superior to both butterfly sword, bo, or monkey's fist, Monastic Weaponry lets you use whichever of those suits the situation.

I mean that sounds good on paper, but that's thousands upon thousands of gold to keep those various weapons relevant as you level up and even then I'm not really sure it's worth the action economy.

Not if you have a shifting rune. Granted it doesn't work on the divide between one handed and two handed weapons.

Also I hadn't realized that some weapons were just not as good for being monk. I always liked the idea of a weapon using monk; this makes me kinda sad.

The Monk weapons with reach are quite good and definitely worth considering over stance feats.

[graystone]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

You make a good point, but there's one thing to consider: Monastic Weaponry gives you options. While, say, a wolf jaw strike is individually superior to both butterfly sword, bo, or monkey's fist, Monastic Weaponry lets you use whichever of those suits the situation.

I mean that sounds good on paper, but that's thousands upon thousands of gold to keep those various weapons relevant as you level up and even then I'm not really sure it's worth the action economy.

Not if you have a shifting rune. Granted it doesn't work on the divide between one handed and two handed weapons.

Also I hadn't realized that some weapons were just not as good for being monk. I always liked the idea of a weapon using monk; this makes me kinda sad.

The Monk weapons with reach are quite good and definitely worth considering over stance feats.

Having a ranged option that works with your abilities isn't too shabby either. you can throw 2 Shuriken for a action with all your abilities vs 2 actions for a crossbow without.

[Perpdepog]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

You make a good point, but there's one thing to consider: Monastic Weaponry gives you options. While, say, a wolf jaw strike is individually superior to both butterfly sword, bo, or monkey's fist, Monastic Weaponry lets you use whichever of those suits the situation.

I mean that sounds good on paper, but that's thousands upon thousands of gold to keep those various weapons relevant as you level up and even then I'm not really sure it's worth the action economy.

Not if you have a shifting rune. Granted it doesn't work on the divide between one handed and two handed weapons.

Also I hadn't realized that some weapons were just not as good for being monk. I always liked the idea of a weapon using monk; this makes me kinda sad.

The Monk weapons with reach are quite good and definitely worth considering over stance feats.

That's mostly what I had considered. The ever-loved bo staff monk, or a temple sword monk with Peafowl Stance, or possibly a two weapon using monk with doubling rings and shifting runes.

[lemeres]

There are some nice monk weapons, like the bo staff and kusarigama. Both are reach, and the latter is one of the few weapons to get both of the useful damage types (bludgeoning and slashing).

Of course, we don't have anything that is nice AND finesse capable. All good weapon using monk builds have to be fairly MAD str/dex builds right now.

I think the issue is that they grandfathered the "weapon trait is a trade off for damage" mindset without considering how characters have to spend a resource to get weapons, and they also made unarmed strikes extremely attractive and powerful this edition. The only thing that really competes is reach at this point.

[Dargath]

Man I'm bummed that there's no way to rock a Katana or Wakizashi as a Monk because you could make a really cool Ninja type fellow. Like https://tensura.fandom.com/wiki/Souei This dude, for one example, but there are loads of such type characters in anime and manga.

[YuriP]

The main problem of monk weapons are basically the feat. If monks was able to use their weapons from class chasis they would be a good alternative option to do diferent attacks when they are not limited by their stance but once the monk weapons requires a class feat to be used they become basically useless because you are probably wasting a feat "slot" that would be more useful for many others feats like stances than allow you to just use monk weapons.

[Tender Tendrils]

The Kama is notable in that it costs a feat to unlock, it's only trait that fists don't have is trip which you can do with an empty hand, and does the same damage as your fist. It also doesn't work with stances.

On a dex monk, it even has less to hit bonus than your fist because it doesn't have finesse.

I built a monk recently and gave her a kama because that is what the miniature had, and very quickly realised using the kama would almost always be worse than using a fist attack (unless I find an enemy that is vulnerable to slashing enough to make it worth not using a stance and being less likely to hit)

[citricking]

Monk weapons are not supposed to be worse. Some monk weapons are worse, but that's just some. You also have some monk weapons at the upper end of traits, like the temple sword. And I'm pretty sure there are non monk weapons that are also strictly worse than other weapons, so it's not just a monk trait thing.

In conclusion, the monk trait doesn't count towards a weapons power budget, but some weapons are below the maximum power budget.

[Seisho]

I believe you that they are not supposed to be worse but...

-Katar is a dagger for critfishing (also if its simple why does it have to be a monk weapon?)
-Bo Staff <- the good one
-Fighting Fan is a slightly better (but still barely notable) Katar
-Kama is very baseline
-Kusarigama seems reasonable but I would have loved to see it as finesse weapon
-Monkeys fist is another case of 'why would I waste time picking this up?'
-Nunchaku trades worse agile for disarm
-Sai is a blunt dagger with disarm
-Temple sword is also a worse Bo, the damage type is the only (circumstancial) advantage
-Butterfly sword seems nice but again has very low damage
-Hook sword seems to be decent to be fair
-Wind and fire wheel too
-Shuriken are a okay-ish ranged option but need a stance to work
-Daikyu* I think this one was supposed to have the monk trait but we all know how broken it is

And if you add Ancestral Weaponry (which increases the investment to 3 feats (2 monk, 1 Racial)) you got about 0.8 weapons per ancestry
some of them which are decent but barely validate
-Elven Curveblade is decent
-Doglicer: I dunno what you think but I would not trade a die size for backstabber
-Filchers fork does not seem to be very good in the first place
-(Catfolk) Claw blades exchanges lower damage for deadly d8 and versatility, so its rather situational and to clean out trash
-The Whipclaw seems okay
-The Hand Adze is again very low damage
-The Rungu offers a little of ranged versatility but that's it again
-Fangwire seems similar to the claw blades
-The Orc Knucke Dagger offers only disarm
-The Tengu Gale Blade while very flavorful also is just a disarm sword with a d6, but still better then many others here
-The Buugeng is another weapon that trades their damage dice for twin
-and finally the wishknife which is obviously more useful if you can cast spells but, well, focus spells

but the last three are advanced so you cant advance in prophiciency barring the butterfly sword archetype (and those are (imo) the worst of these three)

those are 13 weapons on 28 ancestries (not counting versatile heritages)
those are on average 0,46 weapons for the investment of 3 feats (which can theoretically become better of course)

I've already stated my opinion about Ancestral Weaponry in the past so I'll leave it at that

If we compare that to the fighting styles

if they are d4 they deal elemental damage (fire, poison, negative)
if they deal d6 they have some advantage (+ac for crane stance, ranged for crashing winds)
Most of them deal d8 and are straightup better then the monk weapons through more traits/better trait combinations and usually something on top of it
And there is a monk stance with d10, but no monk weapon

In (my personal) conclusion the only thing that monastic weaponry offers is flexibility for damage types and crit effects
But in terms of efficiency they are subpar, especially if you want to make a dextertity based monk

[jimthegray]

there's always a longbow monk

[Guntermench]

I am so disappointed that kusarigama isn't finesse.

[oholoko]

Well kind of? It seems as expensive as a simple trait so i do think they value the monk trait as one of them.

[Perpdepog]

Seisho wrote:

-Temple sword is also a worse Bo, the damage type is the only (circumstancial) advantage

It's also a one-handed rather than a two-handed weapon, don't forget that. I guess it's also one less bulk but even tracking bulk is a hit or miss aspect of games so eh.

Also, I just realized something. Why isn't the monkey's fist Reach? It's a thing you swing around on a long rope.

[egindar]

I'd assume because they wanted reach weapon monks siloed into bo staff. Even assuming it traded some of its current traits in exchange for getting reach, a 1d6 reach flail is very good as a 1-handed martial weapon.

[SatiricalBard]

Guntermench wrote:

I am so disappointed that kusarigama isn't finesse.

Apologies for the thread necro, but I just wanted to echo this. If you look at any videos demonstrating the kusarigama, it's clearly dexterity-based rather than strength-based.

In fact, the only monk weapons that are as good or better than common martial weapons (bo staff, temple sword and kusarigama) are strength based, which just seems weird to me, much as I like pf2e's expectation that monks will be strong as well as dextrous.

[Seisho]

I totally agree with you, of one is a Monk and wants to use dexterity AND weapons one is forever damned to Deal second rate damage

[keftiu]

I was stunned to find out a little while back that there's no real way to use any axes on a Monk. My dreams of a Frozen Shadow viking-ninja were dashed.

[graystone]

keftiu wrote:

I was stunned to find out a little while back that there's no real way to use any axes on a Monk. My dreams of a Frozen Shadow viking-ninja were dashed.

Ancestral Weaponry, Azarketi Weapon Familiarity and Monastic Weaponry gets you Boarding Axe as a monk weapon [and uses simple], while the same with Grippli Weapon Familiarity gets you the Hand Adze. This means that you can get monk axes by 2nd level.

[HumbleGamer]

But not being Monk weapons, you are forbidden from using flurry of blows, is it right?

[graystone]

HumbleGamer wrote:

But not being Monk weapons, you are forbidden from using flurry of blows, is it right?

Ancestral Weaponry makes them monk weapons as they have agile and an ancestry trait:

"Choose an ancestry for which you have access to all weapons with that trait. For you, melee weapons with that ancestry trait and either the agile or finesse trait gain the monk trait."

[HumbleGamer]

Oh, cool!

Thanks.

[Lollerabe]

Honestly you could remove monastic weaponry entirely. And just allow monks to use flurry etc with any weapon in which they are proficient, with a d8 or below die.

Hell make it any weapon but the die is a d8 as long as you are using it as monk weapon.

Maul monk ? Sure, it's a d8 maul now.

Dosent seem to break a thing

[HumbleGamer]

Lollerabe wrote:

Honestly you could remove monastic weaponry entirely. And just allow monks to use flurry etc with any weapon in which they are proficient, with a d8 or below die.

Hell make it any weapon but the die is a d8 as long as you are using it as monk weapon.

Maul monk ? Sure, it's a d8 maul now.

Dosent seem to break a thing

They can already flurry with dragon stance, dealing d12 damage with their attacks.

I am not quite sure about the limit on flurry.

[Lollerabe]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Lollerabe wrote:

Honestly you could remove monastic weaponry entirely. And just allow monks to use flurry etc with any weapon in which they are proficient, with a d8 or below die.

Hell make it any weapon but the die is a d8 as long as you are using it as monk weapon.

Maul monk ? Sure, it's a d8 maul now.

Dosent seem to break a thing

They can already flurry with dragon stance, dealing d12 damage with their attacks.

I am not quite sure about the limit on flurry.

I'm not sure I understand what your writing.

I am saying screw the weapon restrictions, remove the feat and allow all monks to use whatever weapon they want as a monk weapon. As long as they are proficient and the die is /gets reduced to - a d8

[Lucerious]

graystone wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I was stunned to find out a little while back that there's no real way to use any axes on a Monk. My dreams of a Frozen Shadow viking-ninja were dashed.

Ancestral Weaponry, Azarketi Weapon Familiarity and Monastic Weaponry gets you Boarding Axe as a monk weapon [and uses simple], while the same with Grippli Weapon Familiarity gets you the Hand Adze. This means that you can get monk axes by 2nd level.

Catfolk get hatches as well.

[graystone]

Lucerious wrote:

graystone wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I was stunned to find out a little while back that there's no real way to use any axes on a Monk. My dreams of a Frozen Shadow viking-ninja were dashed.

Ancestral Weaponry, Azarketi Weapon Familiarity and Monastic Weaponry gets you Boarding Axe as a monk weapon [and uses simple], while the same with Grippli Weapon Familiarity gets you the Hand Adze. This means that you can get monk axes by 2nd level.

Catfolk get hatches as well.

"For you, melee weapons with that ancestry trait and either the agile or finesse trait gain the monk trait." While Catfolk Weapon Familiarity does give you Trained in the hatchet, the weapon doesn't have the ancestry trait and therefor doesn't qualify for Ancestral Weaponry so it can't gain the monk trait.

[aobst128]

Ancestral weaponry is a missed opportunity. Requiring agile and finesse cuts the possible weapons a lot so there's barely a handful that qualify. Doesn't help that there's non agile/finesse monk weapons already so it's not a balance thing. Maybe they were worried about using d12 weapons through it but they could have just limited it to a d8 and we would have almost every ancestry weapon with that.

[YuriP]

IMO Monks deserve an errata adding Monastic Weaponry to class chassis similar that was done for Alchemist's Powerful Alchemy in 2º print.

[Seisho]

graystone wrote:

Lucerious wrote:

graystone wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I was stunned to find out a little while back that there's no real way to use any axes on a Monk. My dreams of a Frozen Shadow viking-ninja were dashed.

Ancestral Weaponry, Azarketi Weapon Familiarity and Monastic Weaponry gets you Boarding Axe as a monk weapon [and uses simple], while the same with Grippli Weapon Familiarity gets you the Hand Adze. This means that you can get monk axes by 2nd level.

Catfolk get hatches as well.

"For you, melee weapons with that ancestry trait and either the agile or finesse trait gain the monk trait." While Catfolk Weapon Familiarity does give you Trained in the hatchet, the weapon doesn't have the ancestry trait and therefor doesn't qualify for Ancestral Weaponry so it can't gain the monk trait.

This is also a fine point I really hate

that causes the ancestral weaponry to be AT MOST one weapon per ancestry
and I fall flat on my face when I was considering a rapier wielding elf monk