Interesting quote from the WoTC site pertaining to monks in 3.5E...

[Belenus]

"Special: A monk may select Deflect Arrows as a bonus feat at 2nd level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites."

Monks..select..bonus feats...? hrmmm

[Hawkstrike]

Misc Monk info:

Many of the Monk’s feat replacement special abilities (Stunning Fist, Deflect Arrows) have been changed into bonus Feats with 2 options as to what to take. For example at 1st level a Monk can take either Stunning Fist (results in target at –2 AC) or Improved Grapple (no AoO when starting a Grapple), at 2nd: Combat Reflexes/Deflect Arrows; 6th: Improved Disarm/Improved Trip. Flurry of Blows at 1st level works like Two-Weapon Fighting; you get a single extra attack with a -2 Penalty to each attack. At 5th level it becomes a -1 Penalty and at 9th the penalty goes away completely (basically you get a free extra attack). At 11th level the Monk gets another attack at his full BAB. New Ki Strike works like: at 4th level it counts as a Magic weapon, at 10th it counts as a Lawful weapon, and at 16th it counts as a Adamantine weapon. Quarterstaff and Sai are both on the monks weapon list now. Monk armed and unarmed BAB stack; there is no longer a separate BAB for armed and un-armed monks.

Monk damage values (for medium monks) are:
1-3: 1d6
4-7: 1d8
8-11: 1d10
12-15: 2d6
16-19: 2d8
20: 2d10

Empty Body at 19th allows your monk to become Ethereal for 1 round/monk level/day.

Perfect Self: At 20th level, a monk has tuned her body with skill and quasi-magical abilities to the point that she becomes a magical creature. She is forevermore treated as an outsider (an extraplanar creature) rather than as a humanoid for the purpose of spells and magical effects. For instance, charm person does not affect her. Additionally, the monk gains damage reduction 10/magic, which allows her to ignore (instantly regenerate) the first 10 points of damage from any attack made by a creature that dosn't have similar damage reduction. Unlike other outsiders, the monk can still be brought back from the dead as if she were a member of her previous creature type.

[Belenus]

Wait a minute...Adamantine? +2 right? I dunno, it used to go up to +3....I was hoping monk fists would become true striking at higher levels not get worse than +3....Any word if Amulets of the Mighty Fists are in the 3.5E DMG? Adamantine isnt all bad though, there is something to be said for +2 to hit and damage...

[Hawkstrike]

Originally posted by Belenus
Wait a minute...Adamantine? +2 right?

While Adamantine weapons are considered a non-magical +2, the monks fists are considered adamantine only for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction ... they don't get a bonus to hit/damage.

DR works differently in 3.5 ... a +5 weapon won't pierce the DR of a creature that has silver or adamantine DR -- you need a silver or adamantine weapon to do that (or do sufficient damage to overcome the DR damage cap).

[Belenus]

OIC, so there wont be anymore 20/5. Instead, it'll be 20/lawful or 20/adamantine or what not. Man, that makes barefisted monks really really suck. Hell, fighters will probably have to carry a set of 2 or 3 weapons now. Jesus, this damage reduction change really blows! This is ten times worse than what they did to gnomes!

[Hawkstrike]

Not really. Yes, you may want to carry a few more weapons (or enchant a +2 silver longsword or +1 adamantine mace), but it gives a reason to have the other items in the game (compared to before when sufficient plusses trumped everything).

They've also lowered the DR damage caps across the board -- the highest it goes is 15 (so an Iron golem is now something like 15/magic or 15/adamantine instead of 50/+3). What that means is that even if you don't have the right weapon, you can still inflict damage by overcoming that cap -- you'll just take the critter down at a slower rate. Note that some undead have revised DR, too -- skeletons have DR 5/blunt, for example -- carry a blunt weapon or do more than 5 hp damage to hurt them.

It actually gets easier for fighters, since 2H fighters get 2-for-1 damage from Power Attack. The monk gets damage-reducing fists at about the appropriate levels he should be encountering those creatures with DR.

IMO, the change adds more flavor to the game, without excessively hampering PCs.

[Belenus]

I dont see it that way. Finese warriors, barefisted monks, combative priests, archers, and defensive warriors are far too penalized by this change. This blows pure and simple. If this adds flavor - it tastes bad.

I think the new DR works a lot better in Pen and Paper campaigns that are normally very focused and where the party has an idea of what it might encounter. ToEE, with its huge scale is quite the exception, but still the name alone suggest alot. Still for your average DnD CRPG, the DR system might force the carry one of everthing syndrome, which can become a hinderance.

[Hawkstrike]

Wait until you see it in play before you judge.

[seanly]

Actually, the rule seems like it wouldn't require you to carry one of everything. Low level characters would still need to run away from a werewolf - odds are low that they would be able to do enough damage to last in combat against it. Medium level characters might have a couple of main and 2ndary weapons in the group that could easily harm it. High level characters would have main weapons, magic & feats/skills/etc that would allow them to overcome the DR or directly damage the werewolf.

When I still played 1st Ed AD&D, our fighter-types usually had their preferred weapon (usually a long or ******* sword), a missle weapon, a dagger and a mace. On their mount they would also have a spear or light lance. In the new rules and assuming 6th lvl characters, it seems that there wouldn't be much that they wouldn't be able to attack. How long they would survive & how successful they would be is, of course, a different matter.

I'd rather have a game that lets me stand a chance with normal weapons than forces the DM to throw in lots of magic weapons. The more magic items, the more Monty Haul it gets.

I like the change...
definitely adds more character.
particularly things like silver and cold iron (which I understand they are adding as a material type) It works a lot better with the legends of creatures associated with such materials.
Don't have to focus on the +5 longsword of uber slaughter (which, eh, lacked class, style and standards), but can now branch out an focus on the uniqueness of each weapon and the various quirks of different creatures.

DM: The werewolf sneers at your magic sword, but edges nervously away from the rogue with a smirk and a silver dagger.

Meanwhile, wandering the forest of the Fey with a cold iron battle ax in his hand, the fighter is attracting a lot of unfriendly attention. Bwahaha.

can someone explain "Monk armed and unarmed BAB stack; there is no longer a separate BAB for armed and un-armed monks."

So if I make a Monk 1 / Fighter 9, what the hell will happen?

The bab will be +9

Will it get unarmed attacks of +9/+6/+3 ?

Currently the character would get either +0 (monk unarmed) or +9/+4 (normal armed bab)


I do like the changes to flurry of blows...

It sounds like that the 9/6/3 is gone
Instead the monk gets
9/4.
Can flurry for
7/7/2
and when he hits that level (11th) mentioned above
he'd be (assuming still BAB 9 off the top of my head)
9/9/4
or flurrying for
7/7/7/2

Basically it stops the monk from kicking to much donkey at low levels.

Hopefully this will get rid of the stupid monk BAB does not stack with other classes BAB for purposes of unarmed attacks

Actually, it gets even better for the monk, but doesn't work quite like you would like for monk/fighter. It is a *lot* more clear though. The monk has no special "Unarmed Attack Bonus", just a base attack bonus, which includes the full normal sum of all your base attack bonuses for the iterative attacks. Instead of using the special unarmed iterative attacks, flurry of blows has been extended and improved to support the monk. This makes multiclass monks much more reasonable, clears up some confusion, and also means that the monk's maximum number of attacks just plain hits better than before. Here's the progression:

Level 1, flurry 1 extra at -2.
Level 5, penalty reduced to -1.
Level 9, penalty removed completely.
Level 11, greater flurry adds another attack.

So the flurry's highest attack bonus proceeds at +1 per level from -2 at level 1 to +9 at level 12 (after which you start to see the effects of the BAB skipping levels). And from level 11 on, the monk gets three attacks at the highest bonus with a flurry. He can also flurry with a quarterstaff now (whee!)

A monk 1/fighter 9, however, won't see these effects, since they're based on monk level, not fighter level. A monk 1/fighter 9 would have a +9 base attack bonus, and a flurry that provides one extra attack with all attacks at -2, so: +7/+7/+2. However, if you have a monk 8/fighter 2, the base attack bonus would be +8 with the removed penalty, for flurry at +8/+8/+3. And a monk 10 would be +7 BAB for +7/+7/+2. At post-11 it gets fun with the extra attack. And the most frightening monk/fighter combo for raw attack power at level 20 is:

Monk 11/Fighter 9: Base attack bonus +17 (+8 monk, +9 fighter), with a non-flurry doing +17/+12/+7/+2 and a flurry doing +17/+17/+17/+12/+7/+2. That gives up many fun high level monk abilities, of course, in exchange for the extra attack. A multiclass monk/fighter can go up to 13 monk levels and still get that extra attack. Of course, the trailing attack at +2 is pretty feeble. :> It's the up-front ones that matter.

Anyway, enough min-maxing for now...

Take a look at http://www.gamingreport.com/modules....p=html/dd4.htm
for the 3.5 monk chart, which is part of a review of the 3.5 books.

Nice link.
They gave the archmage a much needed nerf.
No more +6 to spell DCs.

Wonder if Wizards is going to smack those guys for posting pages copied directly from the books though.

I wonder if 3.5 will clarify for once and all what happens when a monk uses two monk weapons.

some people seem to think a monk can get 3 lots of bonus attacks in 3rd ed:

a) from fighting unarmed
b) from flurry of blows
c) from two weapon fighting.

ie, a level 20 monk with 2 kamas using improved two weapon fighting, two weapon fighting, ambidexterity, monk unarmed bab and flurry of blows getting attacks of:

+11/+11/+11/+8/+6/+5/+2/-1

which is pretty silly :-/

[Sword of Cyric]

A monk does not get extra attacks from two weapon fighting while using his unarmed BAB.

The PHB says this even twice.

In NWN a monk can get all the penalties, but that's a confirmed error, it just has yet to be fixed.

Amazing what people can come up with when they're looking to power-game isn't it? Just between the flurry and the 3 vs 5 on the iterative attacks it was clear that monks were using everything they had already.

On a side note, I never did figure why NWN gave monks cleave for free.

I fully agree with you, but I haven't seen it clarified anywhere, it's not in the phb, nor any faq or errata.

it says a monk fighting unarmed can't use two weapon fighting.

it says a monk using monk weapons fights as if unarmed.

that to me is proof enough.

but a lot of people need it to say "a monk using 2 monk weapons gets none of the two weapon fighting benefits or penalties".

ie, a monk using 2 kamas gets no penalties and full str damage to all attacks, but no extra attacks. the only benefit is that they have the option to swap in a kama attack from either kama as part of their unarmed attacks, combined with kicks, elbows and head butts.

but there are some confusing things in the errata about when a monk can use their 2nd kama to attack.

In answer to your original question, 3.5 cleared it up. There is a long section on flurry of blows (a full page column). With the flurry rules the monk weapons are fully integrated into the flurry, to the point that you can designate your attacks in any combination- unarmed, left monk weapon, right monk weapon, unarmed etc... (and different ends of a quarterstaff can be specified.) It specifically mentions that you can make unarmed attacks even when your hands are full.

A monk also gets his full strength bonus with all attacks- off hand essentially does not exist for monks. Also, the penalty for flurry of blows applies for a full round and affects all attacks of opportunity.