Noob Monk Question

[IM_A_PIRATE_YAR]

I've done some searching, and I haven't quite found a definitive answer on on this yet.

If you are going to play a fists monk, should you get TWF, or is that only for double Kamas? And is going pure fists viable?

[sephiroth1084]

Yes, going primarily fist-monking is viable, and you should definitely pick up the entire TWF line. TWF w/ fists works slightly differently than with weapons, as you do not suffer the -2 penalty normally associated with TWF and you aren't treating as having an off-hand, so all of your attacks apply their full Str bonus to damage. In addition, unarmed damage scales up pretty well.

That said, you should still keep a few sets of kamas on you, both for monsters that require slashing to bypass their DR and for the effects you may want to use that cannot be found on wraps, such as vorpal.

[IM_A_PIRATE_YAR]

So I guess what I'm not quite understanding is what benefit does TWF give to fists?

[sephiroth1084]

So I guess what I'm not quite understanding is what benefit does TWF give to fists?

You gain up to 3 extra attacks at GTWF, which is a lot of extra damage.

[daiceman]

From what I've gathered:

TWF: Gives an additional attack on your first attack animation
iTWF: Gives an additional attack on your 2nd and 3rd animations
gTWF: Gives an additional attack on your 4th animation.

[Impatiens]

So I guess what I'm not quite understanding is what benefit does TWF give to fists?

You get a lot of extra attacks with it. You definitely want all three TWF feats if you are an unarmed monk (which is the best kind of pure monk to be in my opinion).

As a monk kamas are basically only good for when you need to vorpal, on almost every other occasion handwraps are better. I've seen some multiclass monk builds that use a staff to great effect, but as a pure monk handwraps are definitely the way to go even with the lack of greensteel ones.

[IM_A_PIRATE_YAR]

Awesome, thanks guys!