Monk/ Weapon Master

[Bastreff]

Hi Guys,

This is my first post, so please be patient.

I want to make the above character. You can obviously do this, but my question is, can you have a weapon master, whos weapon of choice is the unarmed strike? You can certainly make a monk/ WM with anoth weapon, but I'm having trouble with doing it with the fist. It is, of course a melee weapon, so it would make sense that you could.

Also, a monks attacks (at least a low level), all seem to come from the main hand. This also doesn't make much sense. So my second question is, does two-weapon fighting (and improved) and Ambidexterity have any effect on a Monks number of unarmed attackes?

Thanks in advance

[Rudar Dimble]

Answer on the second question:
Ambidex and Improved Two Weapon Fighting do not affect your number of attacks if you use the monk's Flurry of the Blows, which I (played through the OC and Hordes of the Underdark with a pure monk) strongly advice you to do.
If you just use your normal attacks, they are affected by Ambidex and TWF.

About the first question:
I have to look that one up. In the P&P version of D&D you aren't able to dual class with a monk, since you can not advance in the monk's class once you've left it for another (prestige)class. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but the WM isn't one of them.
But, I don't know how the game deals with this.

[Mirk]

Unfortunately, you cannot chose Unarmed Strike as a Weapon of Choice in NwN.

You can, however, chose Kama... (which, if used by a monk, uses the 'monk unarmed attack table' to determine your number of attacks per round)

Kamas will also be usable by a duel-weilding char. Actually, a char with a BAB of +13 or better, at least one monk level, and Improvred Two-Weapon Fighting will have the highest number of attacks possible in NwN:

+13/+10/+7/+4/+1 main hand, +13/+7 off hand.

When Hasted, and using Flurry of Blows, this char will have an amasing 7 main hand and 2 off-hand attacks/round, not counting Circle Kicks (which can theoretically DOUBLE the number of attacks) and Cleaves.

The problem with Kama as Weaponmaster's weapon of choice is it's low Critical Range and Critical Multiplier... but I guess it could be argued that all those extra attacks can balance things out a bit.

This sort of build (maybe with Fighter levels for Weapon Specializations) looks good enogh in paper - you can give it a try!

[Magrus]

I wanted to do that myself a while ago and was frustrated. A suggestion...toss a few fighter levels on, 4 before you hit level 20 will give you enough to get weapon specialization if you want it, AND you can get more H.P. and BAB than usual. You'll get some of your monk abilities later, but that can be helpful I found.

FYI when I did this build to level 20 (16/4, Monk/Fighter) I had 6 attacks with my main hand on my character sheet, and two with my off-hand with imp. 2 weapon fighting and no equipment or buffs. Now, I don't know if the game does or doesn't register that as 8 attacks, but thats what it said on my sheet. That ends up as 8 attacks at 1d20 damage + str. bonus and any damage bonus from gloves.

You'll want to have at least a 21 wisdom to get the feats to boost your Ki Strike to +5 though, or else keep other weapons on hand to use for those with damage reduction. If you have a 16 Wisdom from the start, you should be able to reach Ki strike +5 by 20th level monk (24th lvl) at the latest if you drop all 4 ability increases into Wisdom and use a feat to boost it with Great Wisdom.

The damage I was dishing out to generally everyone I came across was pretty high, improved critical is definately suggested with weapon specialization if you go that route. You won't critical all that often compared to some fighter builds. But...with 8 attacks a round without buffs, you'll get one roughly every 2 rounds and be dishing out the highest unarmed damage for a monk as well per strike.