Enchant a monks hands

[msnowman]

Hi guys,

I'm new to the HLab thing and fairly new to pathfinder for that matter. Anyway I like what I see so far (just wish they had a Mac version) but I digress...

I'm trying to figure out how to do enchants for Monk hands. Is this already in the product and I'm just missing it? I thought I would try to mess around with the editor to see if I could figure something out. I added a +1 sai to kinda see what that was doing and noticed that doing so didn't affect the + to hit on Flurry of Blows. Maybe I'm misunderstanding and it's not supposed to as I said I'm new and still learning. But then I had the thought... Maybe someone on the forums has already gone through the editor to add the ability to enchant monk hands and would be willing to share how they did it or the .user file to save me some time trying to figure it out.

[ShadowChemosh]

Well you can't actually Enchant a monks hands like a weapon. That is not possible within 3.5 or PFRPG rules. In the 3.5 MIC they had wraps that sort of allowed it, but by core PFRPG they don't exist.

You may be thinking of spells like Magic Weapon or Magic Fang. These spells can be cast on the monks hands and will temporally make them into magic weapons. In other bad news the designers have come out and said that Monks can no longer even take the Improved Natural Attack feat in PFRPG.

As for the Sai it doesn't directly increase Flurry of Blows. It only would give its bonus when used to attack and sense a Flurry of Blows can interchange feat, hands, head, and sai I think its more up to the player to figure out when to apply the Sai's enchantment bonus.

Of course if you disagree you could always write a new script on a Sai for example that applies its + bonus to the Flurry of Blows ability. Which is part of the great fun of HL.

[msnowman]

Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh

Well you can't actually Enchant a monks hands like a weapon. That is not possible within 3.5 or PFRPG rules. In the 3.5 MIC they had wraps that sort of allowed it, but by core PFRPG they don't exist.

Oh. I took this to mean that you can. If you really treat them like manufactured weapons...

"A monk’s unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons."

[msnowman]

I went and hit the paizo message boards. Looks like enchanting monk's body parts is something that people say you can and people say you can't. It seems the rules aren't clear about this (people arguing both ways) and I couldn't find an "official reply" guess I'll have to get my GM to make a ruling and go from there. I still might have figure something out with hero lab though.

[Maidhc O Casain]

This (from the Core Rules):

Magic fang gives one natural weapon or unarmed strike of the
subject a +1 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls. The
spell can affect a slam attack, fist, bite, or other natural weapon.
The spell does not change an unarmed strike’s damage from
nonlethal damage to lethal damage.
Magic fang can be made permanent with a permanency spell.

If permanently giving a fist a +1 magical bonus to hit and damage isn't enchanting a fist, I'm not exactly sure what would qualify.

[Mathias]

By enchanting, I presume he means treating them as a magic item - that's what the Amulet of Mighty Fists does.

[hazardjsimpson]

Originally Posted by Mathias

By enchanting, I presume he means treating them as a magic item - that's what the Amulet of Mighty Fists does.

Incorrect, the amulet doesn't actually treat your anything as a magic item - it adds effects to specific types of attacks. In fact, the Amulet of Mighty Fists in the current version of Hero Lab (Pathfinder) is totally wrong. The tooltip only shows the +1 to +5 enhancement bonuses.

In 3.5, the Amulet acted as a magic weapon for the purpose of determining enchant costs / slots and then added those effects to any natural attacks that the wearer has. 'Unarmed Strike' is a type of natural attack a character gets when they have the Improved Unarmed Strike feat - a character without this feat is not considered to have a natural weapon when just punching someone.

So, in 3.5, you could get an Amulet enchanted to a base +1 enhancement bonus and then add other effects , like +1d6 fire (+1 weapon cost) , shocking burst (+2 weapon cost) , etc - up to a max of +5.

In Pathfinder, the Amulet gives you a total of +5 bonus in usable enchantment spaces, but it specifically says that you do NOT have to give it the base +1 enhancement bonus any more.

From the PF SRD:
This amulet grants an enhancement bonus of +1 to +5 on attack and damage rolls with unarmed attacks and natural weapons.

Alternatively, this amulet can grant melee weapon special abilities, so long as they can be applied to unarmed attacks. See Table: Melee Weapon Special Abilities for a list of abilities. Special abilities count as additional bonuses for determining the market value of the item, but do not modify attack or damage bonuses. An amulet of mighty fists cannot have a modified bonus (enhancement bonus plus special ability bonus equivalents) higher than +5. An amulet of mighty fists does not need to have a +1 enhancement bonus to grant a melee weapon special ability.


So, how would you in HL apply the effects with no enhancement bonuses? I believe that the design change here is to allow the Monk/Fighter/whoever to add enhancement bonuses using Magic Fang / Greater Magic Fang + Permanency to give enh. bonuses and use the Amulet to allow another +5 in effects from the Amulet, which brinks the Monk/ etc closer in line with the ideal of 'enchanted fists.'

[msnowman]

Yeah that is the conclusion that my group came to as well.

Unfortunately I haven't found a nice way to handle this (maybe you are better with the editor then I?)

I thought that maybe the easiest way to hack a solution would be to copy the unarmed strike and call it Amulet of Mighty Fists (or whatever) and use the "Custom/Magic Weapon" to customize it. Then you could add flaming or whatever without having a +1 but I haven't been able to get it to show up in the "Click to Choose Weapon" list of the "Create Custom Weapon" window. Nor have I been able to get it to reflect the proper damage. I can get the right attack bonus but that's it so far.

[hazardjsimpson]

Originally Posted by msnowman

Yeah that is the conclusion that my group came to as well.

Unfortunately I haven't found a nice way to handle this (maybe you are better with the editor then I?)

I thought that maybe the easiest way to hack a solution would be to copy the unarmed strike and call it Amulet of Mighty Fists (or whatever) and use the "Custom/Magic Weapon" to customize it. Then you could add flaming or whatever without having a +1 but I haven't been able to get it to show up in the "Click to Choose Weapon" list of the "Create Custom Weapon" window. Nor have I been able to get it to reflect the proper damage. I can get the right attack bonus but that's it so far.

Right, and the other factor here is it needs to be able to be applied to Flurry of Blows per the Monk abilities, or be able to be applied to Natural Weapons like claws, tails, and all the obvious related ones. Making it as a custom weapon might work as a workaround (I haven't even touched the editor yet) as I can't think of any other way - but it does mean that it will have to be custom built each time there's any difference in the spells / bonuses on it.

Is there a way to apply conditions to attacks rather than the whole character? If there way, it seems like it might be an easy way to track whether an attack has temporary magic bonuses (magic fang for example, the amulet for another) or easily add/remove weapon effects.

[Mathias]

Modifying the amulet of mighty fists to allow weapon powers (and the bracers of armor to allow armor powers) are already on my to-do list.

That the amulet of mighty fists does not add to natural attacks is a bug that's already been reported, and is also on my to-do list.