
YuriP |

Depends from your GM. Only itens with Companion trait or that's authorized by GM are allowed:
You might want to acquire items that benefit an animal or beast that assists you. These items have the companion trait, meaning they function only for animal companions, familiars, and similar creatures. Normally these are the only items a companion can use. Other items can qualify, at the GM's discretion, but an animal can never Activate an Item.
The other restriction is that an Animal can't receive item bonuses except from speed and AC:
[url=https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=151]The following are the base statistics for a young animal companion, the first animal companion most characters get. You adjust these statistics depending on the type of animal you choose. A companion has the same level you do. As you gain levels, you might make further adjustments as your companion grows more powerful. Animal companions calculate their modifiers and DCs just as you do with one difference: the only item bonuses they can benefit from are to Speed and AC (their maximum item bonus to AC is +3).
So it's perfectly valid to a companion to receive benefits from itens that aren't activated or that isn't counts as item bonuses. So the usage of precious materials like silver/could iron to create a weapon that add uses them against opponents weakness are valid but needs that your GM allows their creation and usage.

Captain Morgan |

Except there's no way to add precious materials to unarmed attacks, even aside from animal companion rules. Even setting aside the lack of rules support... Claws are constantly growing so you couldn't adhere anything permeant to them. Teeth are not, but good luck getting your pet to stay still while you perform that level of dentistry to it.
The only plausible exception I can think of wood be horseshoes for hooved critters.

graystone |

You sure can but the catch is that they can't be in your animal companions mouth when you do it: several weapons are made with teeth, like the Leiomano, so you could rip out all it's teeth and make such a weapon and there are ways to make weapons count as Precious materials. I doubt that's the answer you're looking for though.
EDIT: I DID think of one way: Silver's Refrain: a bard cantrip that allows "Weapon and unarmed attacks by allies in the area are treated as silver."

graystone |
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Except there's no way to add precious materials to unarmed attacks, even aside from animal companion rules. Even setting aside the lack of rules support... Claws are constantly growing so you couldn't adhere anything permeant to them. Teeth are not, but good luck getting your pet to stay still while you perform that level of dentistry to it.
The only plausible exception I can think of wood be horseshoes for hooved critters.
A Consumable item, like Silversheen but for unarmed attacks, seems plausible too: just make it an oil that the owner activates.

Captain Morgan |

Captain Morgan wrote:A Consumable item, like Silversheen but for unarmed attacks, seems plausible too: just make it an oil that the owner activates.Except there's no way to add precious materials to unarmed attacks, even aside from animal companion rules. Even setting aside the lack of rules support... Claws are constantly growing so you couldn't adhere anything permeant to them. Teeth are not, but good luck getting your pet to stay still while you perform that level of dentistry to it.
The only plausible exception I can think of wood be horseshoes for hooved critters.
Would still be weird for bite attacks. Drinking liquid silver would not be good for you.

graystone |
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Would still be weird for bite attacks. Drinking liquid silver would not be good for you.
Would it? When does it ever say it's actually silver? You don't have to drink silver as a monk to have your unarmed attacks with Metal Strikes count as such so why would a consumable? As Metal Strikes mentions, there is a "mystic energy of rare metals" so why couldn't it be that instead of some pure silver liquid?

Captain Morgan |

Captain Morgan wrote:Would still be weird for bite attacks. Drinking liquid silver would not be good for you.Would it? When does it ever say it's actually silver? You don't have to drink silver as a monk to have your unarmed attacks with Metal Strikes count as such so why would a consumable? As Metal Strikes mentions, there is a "mystic energy of rare metals" so why couldn't it be that instead of some pure silver liquid?
Well you said it was like silversheen, which is alchemical, not mystical. If you're going to bring magic into it, then sure.

graystone |

graystone wrote:Well you said it was like silversheen, which is alchemical, not mystical. If you're going to bring magic into it, then sure.Captain Morgan wrote:Would still be weird for bite attacks. Drinking liquid silver would not be good for you.Would it? When does it ever say it's actually silver? You don't have to drink silver as a monk to have your unarmed attacks with Metal Strikes count as such so why would a consumable? As Metal Strikes mentions, there is a "mystic energy of rare metals" so why couldn't it be that instead of some pure silver liquid?
I said a CONSUMABLE like silversheen NOT an alchemical item...
Though if you take into account that elixirs are bring back the dead, grant immortality, suffuses your body with elemental energy and polymorph yourself, I'm not sure "mystic" couldn't be used to describe elixirs too especially as mystical covers more ground than magical as mystical isn't a keyword or limited to magical things. For instance, nothing indicates that a monks Metal Strikes ability is Magical.

graystone |
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Quote:You can adjust your body to make unarmed attacks infused with the mystic energy of rare metals.I feel like mystic energy is probably magical?
It's a different ability from the one that makes your unarmed attack Magical. *shrug* When a non-magic elixir can make you grow scales, fangs and claws [or adds elemental damage to your unarmed attacks], I don't see the change to something that acts like silver in a different category. I mean when you can use an Energy Mutagen to "suffuses your body" with "acid, cold, electricity, or fire" in a non-magic way, I'm not seeing the difference if you replace those elemental damages with the "energy of rare metals".

Claxon |
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I can totally imagine a magical items for animal companions which would give natural attacks a specific kind of metal for overcoming damage reduction.
But nothing like that currently exists.
But we probably find things that exist for weapons and extrapolate what the cost should be.
This isn't a crazy ask.

HumbleGamer |
I can totally imagine a magical items for animal companions which would give natural attacks a specific kind of metal for overcoming damage reduction.
But nothing like that currently exists.
But we probably find things that exist for weapons and extrapolate what the cost should be.
This isn't a crazy ask.
Except players that use unarmed attacks don't have any way to do that, as it's a monk exclusive class feature.
Giving it to animal companions would increase their power by a lot, being aware that having an animal companion is already a safe choice in terms of "getting damage from class feats".
I think there's no need to push it even further, but this can be a nice homebrew addition if the players prefer flavor and innovation rather than balance.

Guntermench |
Guntermench wrote:It's a different ability from the one that makes your unarmed attack Magical. *shrug* When a non-magic elixir can make you grow scales, fangs and claws [or adds elemental damage to your unarmed attacks], I don't see the change to something that acts like silver in a different category. I mean when you can use an Energy Mutagen to "suffuses your body" with "acid, cold, electricity, or fire" in a non-magic way, I'm not seeing the difference if you replace those elemental damages with the "energy of rare metals".Quote:You can adjust your body to make unarmed attacks infused with the mystic energy of rare metals.I feel like mystic energy is probably magical?
It's got roughly the same fluff sentence, so it looks definitely magical to me. The one that isn't is Adamantine Strikes, which is just hitting really hard.

Claxon |

Claxon wrote:I can totally imagine a magical items for animal companions which would give natural attacks a specific kind of metal for overcoming damage reduction.
But nothing like that currently exists.
But we probably find things that exist for weapons and extrapolate what the cost should be.
This isn't a crazy ask.
Except players that use unarmed attacks don't have any way to do that, as it's a monk exclusive class feature.
Giving it to animal companions would increase their power by a lot, being aware that having an animal companion is already a safe choice in terms of "getting damage from class feats".
I think there's no need to push it even further, but this can be a nice homebrew addition if the players prefer flavor and innovation rather than balance.
Sorry, guess I should have worded things a bit differently, I support magical items that would be able to applied to any sort of natural attack/unarmed strike to add material to it, for the purposes of overcoming DR. I don't believe balance is predicated upon natural attacks and unarmed strikes being unable to access materials, compared to weapons.

Captain Morgan |
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Regardless, there's no way to do this currently in print. You can homebrew a solution and it will probably be fine.
Claxon wrote:I can totally imagine a magical items for animal companions which would give natural attacks a specific kind of metal for overcoming damage reduction.
But nothing like that currently exists.
But we probably find things that exist for weapons and extrapolate what the cost should be.
This isn't a crazy ask.
Except players that use unarmed attacks don't have any way to do that, as it's a monk exclusive class feature.
Giving it to animal companions would increase their power by a lot, being aware that having an animal companion is already a safe choice in terms of "getting damage from class feats".
I think there's no need to push it even further, but this can be a nice homebrew addition if the players prefer flavor and innovation rather than balance.
Presumably the item could work for player characters as well.

graystone |

It's got roughly the same fluff sentence, so it looks definitely magical to me. The one that isn't is Adamantine Strikes, which is just hitting really hard.
I can say the same thing with the Energy Mutagen.
"You can adjust your body to make unarmed attacks infused with the mystic energy of rare metals" isn't substantially different from "the mutagen suffuses your body with energy that spills out of you whenever you attack" IMO. "Mystic" is a non-sequitur to me as it's undefined in game and has non-magic common languages uses. It can mean mysterious, obscure, enigmatic, inducing a feeling of awe or wonder or relating to mysteries or esoteric rites. [so says merriam-webster]
There is only SO much you can debate about the "fluff sentence" when talking about rules when 'natural language' is assumed for non-defined words.

HumbleGamer |
Regardless, there's no way to do this currently in print. You can homebrew a solution and it will probably be fine.
HumbleGamer wrote:Presumably the item could work for player characters as well.Claxon wrote:I can totally imagine a magical items for animal companions which would give natural attacks a specific kind of metal for overcoming damage reduction.
But nothing like that currently exists.
But we probably find things that exist for weapons and extrapolate what the cost should be.
This isn't a crazy ask.
Except players that use unarmed attacks don't have any way to do that, as it's a monk exclusive class feature.
Giving it to animal companions would increase their power by a lot, being aware that having an animal companion is already a safe choice in terms of "getting damage from class feats".
I think there's no need to push it even further, but this can be a nice homebrew addition if the players prefer flavor and innovation rather than balance.
Regardless the target, it would indeed make the monk even less unique.
The class is already exploited because of the flurry of blows, and the only thing that may make them better than other classes is having unarmed attacks made of precious materials.
Whether it's DR or Weakness, moving from unarmed attacks which are just magic to new ones that bypass a resistance ( or trigger a weakness ) would drastically improve the combat effectiveness of any other unarmed character but monks.
Indeed any character could get the same benefits using weapons ( made of special materials ), but this is where flurry of blows kicks in, requiring unarmed strikes.
What's left is investing also into a specific stance ( renouncing to other stances ) to enable flurry of blows for specific weapons:
- Monastic Archer > Bows ( special material ammunitions- Require the user to be unarmored )
- Shooting Star Stance > Shurikens ( 1d4 thrown weapon )
- Peafowl Stance > Swords with the monk trait ( temple sword )
So in the end, no current chance to get either flurry of blows while exploiting precious materials ( I can think of a fighter or a barbarian ), which makes things balanced ( and the monk still an alternative ).
As a homebrew it may be appreciated, but I can see balance ( whether it's intended or not ) with the current situation.