AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Monks have access to Kama's and a few other interesting monk weapons, but I have to wonder - since they don't grow in damage like your fists do, what's the point? Are monk melee weapons useful at all? I could see enchanting them, but you could just as easily enchant your gloves and make them extra potent too. I suppose using them gives you an extra equipment slot to put stuff into (your gloves) but is it worth the trade?

I'm not too familiar with the monk class. What are your thoughts?

Weapons give you more total mythal slots than gloves.

It's worth it, sure, for the mythal slots. Plus, with dual kama's you can get 10/11 APR which is nasty. STR based monks with quarterstaffs are nasty, too! But fist monks are still awesome.

OMG, a build question I can answer!!! Omg omg omg!

You can't take 2-weapon fighting feats with fists, so you'll get way fewer attacks per round.

EDIT: damn filthy ninja, Naivy.

Wow that was fast. Alright, thanks for the clarification.

Not so fast!

Quarterstaff and kamas are superior for a multitude of reasons: 1) Kamas can be dualwielded for extra attacks; 2) quarterstaff multiplies STR bonus damage by 1.5; 3) having weapon slots opens up glove slots for more favourable bonuses, such as +8 Discipline from the friendly Abyss salesghost or +30 Discipline if you're OCD enough to grind for a drop or other epicz (the orthodox spelling) to be traded in exchange for it.

Yes, good friend, you're being shit in the eye reading your Marvel comics, trying to fashion a protagonist with a granite punch that would easily show, say, a shotgun or indeed a stick who's who.

TLDR: Master Splinter versus The Thing; Master Splinter wins.

Yeah, but Iron Fist beats Splinter.

But who cares about that guy, right?

If you want a decent build, do not go unarmed. You can find ways to make them work, sure, but an armed Monk is vastly superior.

Even though unarmed is way cooler.

The only exception to this that I've found is to go for a Stunning Fist specialized monk, but it's a very restrictive, sort of dubiously RP-able set of stats for the build.

... Now, if you're more concerned with theme and concept, there's no beating an unarmed Monk :3

As much as these guys say weapons are better, both have their +/-, I prefer fists.
1D20 is huge 5 times a round, 6 w/FoB, 7 w/Haste.

Though it's true, mythal slots are a big aspect, as are the attacks a round of a kama, or the damage of a STR Q-staff monk.
My only dissaproval of this is Kama's get less AB due to dual weilding on an already 3/4 AB class. Meaning AB is kind of trash.

My answer is that it's flavour. Because they get higher APR as a kama, but that means they miss more due to lower AB. You get more damage per hit on fists, and let's face it, 7APR is nothing to turn your nose up at. When any none-monk (excluding Barb) gets a max of 5 attacks. 7 if hasted with Imp TWF.

Not to mention, however, kama's have piss-weak damage per strike.

There's a set of kama's that have on hit blind, so with 10 APR you have a nice chance to land that blind.

Now, I also add, monk is actually a nice class because it's not entirely dependant on the stats, like WM's. They have utility for kiting in their mechanics, use it and don't let it get cut off from you. It's a monks heart and soul if you use it well.

Well said, Broldi. I concede.

Kamas get 8 more slots and quarter staves get 5 more slots. Both get the added benefit of being able to have keen. Going unarmed has the benefit of being always armed and able to kick people in the mouth.

Technically even if you focus in a weapon you are still badass with your fists, too ;p

Akhlys wrote:

Kamas get 8 more slots and quarter staves get 5 more slots. Both get the added benefit of being able to have keen. Going unarmed has the benefit of being always armed and able to kick people in the mouth.

there is nothing more important than being able to kick people in the mouth

If you're going high enough level to do 1d20 damage, you should always go unarmed. Epic monk golves can get up to +6 ab, and there's belt that gives you weapon specialization for your unarmed strike.

Plus you get to kick people in the mouth.

There's another factor on Amia in the form of the Master's Belt and the lowbie versions. They grant Weapon Specialisation(unarmed) as a feat, so that puts 2 dmg/strike onto any Monk builds without Ftr4+ in the mix.

The big plus to gloves that is another custom Amia thang is the ability to cast GMW on them.

Broadly speaking, you're looking at:

Kama:
+4 enhancement
+3.5 base weapon average
+4.5 physical bonus (assuming enemy is Evil)
=12, with +1 from a CL15+ GMW.

Glove:
+10.5 base physical for non-small Monk20+ folks.
+7 of various types of bonus. There's 2d6 of enough variety to sting just about all the mobs and bosses.
+2 Weapon Spec
=19.5, with +1 to +5 from any old source of GMW, including scrolls or wands for +3.

With multiclassing to less than Monk20 in mind, you have to go down to 1d4 fists before you get more base damage from a kama, and only small races with Monk3 or less suffer that. Keen doesn't really add that much to your damage because it's on shitty ol' 20x2; 5% maximum.

For quarterstaves:
+4 enhancement
+5.5 bonus from non-epic staves
+3.5 base damage
= 13, same story as kama with GMW

Really, though, all the juice from quarterstaff comes from the 1.5x STR mod, which you can assume to be 14, and therefore gets you +21, which makes it a harder hitter than even a Monk20. The Warforged quarterstaff is a brute that the epic gloves just can't compete with.

There is also a pair of Blinding gloves, so that is less of a plus point for kamae. The kamae do however get twice as many chances for the enemy to roll a 1. It really is rolling for 1's, though; by the time you can equip/afford/reach-the-right-shop to get them, just about everything you hit has more than 15 Fort, and the DC for both is a humble 16.

I would counter Broldi's point about AB with kama by mentioned that you can always just unequip one. Bingo: +2AB. It's rarely worth losing a whole extra attack for it, though, but for landing those tricky IKD's, for example, it's an option.

What kama and quarterstaves can't do, however, is give you +5AB that you can buy from Rashad for the price of a decent trawl through the Shekat caves and put on your mitts at level 12 or something stupid-low like that.

Nor can they(or any other weapon) give +6AB as an uberloot. All the above damage calculation ignores the rather important detail that Misses Do Zero Damage, so every point of AB is precious. I went gloves on a Monk9/Rogue10/Cleric11 (design brief: make an Epic Dodger with tonnes of AB) for this reason.

Thus, I would say gloves are actually on equal footing for a PvM kung fu panda.

The loss of Mythal slots fucks it in PvP for anything but the DEX-base Monk20+ builds, though. They don't have to worry about Will or Reflex and DEX+WIS Monk gear is so gross that getting those two at +10 or so is fine as well. That does mean that Monk20+ kama DEXers have a ludicrously easy time, but using fists won't break you.

Akhlys wrote:

Going unarmed has the benefit of being always armed and able to kick people in the mouth.

Which is a very useful thing on an RP server, for a variety of reasons and situations!

The singular biggest awesome thing about being an unarmed monk is the combat animations you can get through the ACP download. The unarmed fighting styles all look so fantastic they're worth making a king fu monk just to watch the combat alone!

Makes me want to spend more time on mine now.

MightNMagic wrote:

Makes me want to spend more time on mine now.

Do. It.

The main reason I played my unarmed STR monk was for the RP it gave (and to shamelessly ripoff DBZ and Fist of the North Star). Sure, lotsa people can kill enemies with a weapon. But have you ever pimp-slapped a man so hard that he just died?

The merits of both weapons and unarmed have already been stated better than I could. But the RP was the main reason for me choosing unarmed for both of mine. Punch things, dammit, it's even cooler now with the ACP.

Monk Weapon usefulness?

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