Hey everyone. So, I've been playing an astral monk for a while now and a thought occurred to me while my group is on break. I have been playing a monk very straightforward with very little creativity in what I've done, so I was trying to be more creative with my abilities and thought about this. The astral arms aren't connected to your character exactly, but they are physical or else they wouldn't be able to punch things, no? In my game anyway it was treated as such because I was able to drag people with it. Anyway, if I took a quarter staff and held it between the arms above my monk or even below him would the bar stay in place if I used it as something like an immovable rod's salmon ladder climb? My thinking is: the arms can't go 10 feet away from me, and they hold up the bar. Consequentially the bar would hold up my character and the arms can't move 10 feet away from my character so the staff would stay where I want it to. Would this work?

The arms aren't physical like normal arms. That's why they're described as "spectral" and deal radiant or necrotic damage (energy, not solid).

The only things you can do with the arms is what the feature specifically says: to attack with 10 ft reach, using Str, Dex or Wis as you want, dealing your choice in energy damage. They allow you to use Wisdom instead of Strength for checks/saves, and you can get extra attacks.

Nothing about the feature allows you to hold things with them. When not being used as the feature specifically dictates they are spectral, as described, which means they cannot be physically interacted with.

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It is playtest and you're free to change what you want subject to your DM's permission, but if you're asking about the feature as written: that be a nope.

Huh, that makes sense. I guess my DM unknowingly homebrewed the part where they allowed me to drag stuff. I appreciate the response Cyber.

So I have another question, thus the Astral arm consider as a magic weapon?

Do you consider radiant or necrotic damage as magic damage? If yes, then it is.

Nothing about the feature describes the arms as magical and no damage type is inherently magical. Just because the damage is radiant or necrotic does not make the damage magical. The strikes will become magical at 6th level due to the class feature Ki-Empowered Strikes.

From Sage Advice:

Determining whether a game feature is magical is straightforward. Ask yourself these questions about the feature:

• Is it a magic item?
• Is it a spell? Or does it let you create the effects of a spell that’s mentioned in its description?
• Is it a spell attack?
• Is it fueled by the use of spell slots?
• Does its description say it’s magical?

If your answer to any of those questions is yes, the feature is magical.

The astral arms feature is not described as magical, is not a magic item, is not a spell, does not use spell slots, and does not use spell attacks.

They are therefore not considered magical for purposes of rulings, so the attacks are not magical. The Ki-Empowered Strikes feature causes your unarmed attacks to become magical, which would include any unarmed attacks made using the astral arms.

Greatly disagree here. First off, it does Force damage not radiant or necrotic. Secondly, it does specify that when the astral arms are present that you can use your wisdom modifier for Strength checks and saving throws. Ask yourself what kinds of events require strength checks? Prying open doors, pushing a heavy rock off a ledge, contesting a grapple from an enemy, etc. All of these things that can be physically interacted with. The term spectral does not necessarily mean incorporeal and I think that’s where you are confused. You can absolutely grab things and use them as arms, as an extension of your physical arms in fact. Whether that be to topple a table, hold open a closing portcullis, or lifting your ally from the edge of a cliff. They have physical properties and CAN effect the physical world. 

Quote from danboswell13 >>

First off, it does Force damage not radiant or necrotic.  

Please pay attention to the dates of posts. These posts you're replying to were written before Astral Monk was made official and was still in Unearthed Arcana playtesting. During it's playtesting UA days it was written as dealing radiant or necrotic damage. It was changed to force when it was printed officially.

Quote from danboswell13 >>

Secondly, it does specify that when the astral arms are present that you can use your wisdom modifier for Strength checks and saving throws. Ask yourself what kinds of events require strength checks? Prying open doors, pushing a heavy rock off a ledge, contesting a grapple from an enemy, etc. All of these things that can be physically interacted with. The term spectral does not necessarily mean incorporeal and I think that’s where you are confused. You can absolutely grab things and use them as arms, as an extension of your physical arms in fact. Whether that be to topple a table, hold open a closing portcullis, or lifting your ally from the edge of a cliff. They have physical properties and CAN effect the physical world. 

 
A feature only does what it says it can do. It does not say you can use them like any arms, it just says you get to use Wisdom instead of Strength for checks and saves. The reason for this distinction is to avoid the character basically having 4 fully functional arms , which is not the design intent, because that would mean your monk would now be able to grapple four creatures at once instead of two. That, on top of everything else, is very powerful and combined with the other bonuses would make it the most powerful base subclass ability so far presented in all of D&D 5th edition. So, no, I don't think going down exploity road is the best way. Better to stick to what the feature actually says.

Now I would personally have a talk to the player and say I would allow the astral arms to be used for physical interaction beyond the scope of the feature for flavouring - like pushing over the table and helping to lift allies. But, I would not allow it to break limitations like grapple limits or being able to wield extra shields or hold multiple weapons or such as. 

Quote from danboswell13 >>

The term spectral does not necessarily mean incorporeal and I think that’s where you are confused. 

 
Spectral means like a ghost or spectre or relating to one. A ghost is the incorporeal spirit of a dead person. It is a synonym of words like ghostly and illusory. 

The intent is very much to describe the arms as incorporeal when not being used for the specific purposes described in the feature. They can extend from the shoulders - passing through anything you might be wearing, hence incorporeal - or around your own arms, again confirming their incorporeal nature. They only have substance , a "force", when used within the limits of the feature. This is similar to aasimar wings which are also described as spectral - they pass through clothing yet can still grant flight.

Remember, features and traits work within the rulings of the fantasy nature of D&D which is based on magic not physics. Reality is raw magic, not atoms. To determine "how something works" you use the text of the feature or trait which just does what it says: no more or less. If you could use the astral arms like real physical arms it would say so. It doesn't. 

Part of the issue with Spectral Arms holding things is that for various reasons including pure flavor the Spectral arms do not necessarily have to have hands. They could just as easily be paws or claws or even function like tentacles.

If you need a visual representation of this then think about some kung fu movies. While some do things like sprout a bunch of spiritual buddha hands to go along with their physical forms. Just as many others will have dragons, Tigers, Monkeys, or other creatures that do not have hands that are fully applicable to Astral Arms and the rest of Astral Self.

As for the Original Question. Think about physics. With your real arms they can't reach beyond a certain point with your body. You can hold that same staff and you can climb on it. But unless there is something else to stop it from falling then you will fall with it. The same is true of the staff with the Astral arms. The Astral arms do not have magical properties to hold you up just because your at a physical point in space and they can't get from you. The Staff, You on top of it, and your Astral arms would all be subject to gravity unlike the magical nature of the immovable rod and so you all would fall together without the Astra Arms actually reaching any farther from you.  There needs to be some kind of physical support structure in the equation.

My DM decided that, since the arms are an extension of your soul (ki), the Arms could interact with weapons attuned to the character. I think that was a good compromise between "Can't touch anything" and "Haha four arms go brrrrr".

Quote from Great_Axeblade >>

My DM decided that, since the arms are an extension of your soul (ki), the Arms could interact with weapons attuned to the character. I think that was a good compromise between "Can't touch anything" and "Haha four arms go brrrrr".

 I can accept that as a fairly decent homebrew middle ground.  Particularly since it's not really adding a whole lot to what most other monks can do.

Another thing we need to point out, there isn't any written statement that the Astral Arm can touch or hold item.

Whenever you attack using Astral Arm, you are not physically punch / slap / tentacle whip the creature, your attack with spiritual energy (again spiritual is not direct translate to magical). That why the damage is force and not bludgeoning.

Arms of the Astral Self

Your mastery of your ki allows you to summon a portion of your astral self. As a bonus action, you can spend 1 ki point to summon the arms of your astral self. When you do so, each creature of your choice that you can see within 10 feet of you must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take force damage equal to two rolls of your Martial Arts die.

For 10 minutes, these spectral arms hover near your shoulders or surround your arms (your choice). You determine the arms' appearance, and they vanish early if you are incapacitated or die.

While the spectral arms are present, you gain the following benefits:

• You can use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Strength modifier when making Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
• You can use the spectral arms to make unarmed strikes.
• When you make an unarmed strike with the arms on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal.
• The unarmed strikes you make with the arms can use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Strength or Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls, and their damage type is force.

In addition, there no weight limit set for the Astral Arm to carry item (unless your DM homebrew it using your Wisdom instead of Strength). Hence proving the Astral Arm cannot carry anything.

It would have been quite nice to have an intermediate ruling that the astral arms could do minimal things (like a mage hand) for flavour. Admittedly, the ruling where the astral arms allow the monk to replace STR with WIS for STR checks/saves strongly suggests the ability to physically interact (consider an amputee monk that has suprassed their physical limitations entirely by bamfing out their Astral arms if they need to fight, do a handstand, or tie their complicated sandal ties). That said, the RAW allow for a flavour interpretation that whilst the Astral arms themselves are incorporeal, the monk can use them to buff their physical arms in STR checks/saves. Kinda neat, but I did want to see a cool force-based Ming-Hua (a la Avatar Korra series)!

Quote from GLaDOS_Labrat >>

It would have been quite nice to have an intermediate ruling that the astral arms could do minimal things (like a mage hand) for flavour. Admittedly, the ruling where the astral arms allow the monk to replace STR with WIS for STR checks/saves strongly suggests the ability to physically interact (consider an amputee monk that has suprassed their physical limitations entirely by bamfing out their Astral arms if they need to fight, do a handstand, or tie their complicated sandal ties). That said, the RAW allow for a flavour interpretation that whilst the Astral arms themselves are incorporeal, the monk can use them to buff their physical arms in STR checks/saves. Kinda neat, but I did want to see a cool force-based Ming-Hua (a la Avatar Korra series)!

 Exactly!

Quote from GLaDOS_Labrat >>

It would have been quite nice to have an intermediate ruling that the astral arms could do minimal things (like a mage hand) for flavour. Admittedly, the ruling where the astral arms allow the monk to replace STR with WIS for STR checks/saves strongly suggests the ability to physically interact (consider an amputee monk that has suprassed their physical limitations entirely by bamfing out their Astral arms if they need to fight, do a handstand, or tie their complicated sandal ties). That said, the RAW allow for a flavour interpretation that whilst the Astral arms themselves are incorporeal, the monk can use them to buff their physical arms in STR checks/saves. Kinda neat, but I did want to see a cool force-based Ming-Hua (a la Avatar Korra series)!

 Things like shoves and bashing down doors are strength saves/checks that can be made without actually the need for hands.  And tieing your shoes strongly does not make for good shoe tieing. That's more dexterity based.

Quote from Fateless >>

Quote from GLaDOS_Labrat >>

It would have been quite nice to have an intermediate ruling that the astral arms could do minimal things (like a mage hand) for flavour. Admittedly, the ruling where the astral arms allow the monk to replace STR with WIS for STR checks/saves strongly suggests the ability to physically interact (consider an amputee monk that has suprassed their physical limitations entirely by bamfing out their Astral arms if they need to fight, do a handstand, or tie their complicated sandal ties). That said, the RAW allow for a flavour interpretation that whilst the Astral arms themselves are incorporeal, the monk can use them to buff their physical arms in STR checks/saves. Kinda neat, but I did want to see a cool force-based Ming-Hua (a la Avatar Korra series)!

 Things like shoves and bashing down doors are strength saves/checks that can be made without actually the need for hands.  And tieing your shoes strongly does not make for good shoe tieing. That's more dexterity based.

 RRRIIP go the shoelaces!