As far as I know, no other feat can increase or give more damage to unarmed strikes. Which is the point of this post. Since AS monk is pure unarmed strikes, talking about a weapon is pointless.
Sure there are more "useful to the party" feats but that not the topic at hand.
The unarmed fighting style gives a power boost to early level monks. (Making them 11th level monks) and as stated before, you can change it out. Blind sight is always useful.
AS is not purely unarmed. With your attack action you can attack with a weapon, although you would be using DEX for your attacks. Most likely you have both DEX and WIS high. Only your bonus action attack or FoB has to be unarmed and you can use the arms and WIS to attack, and have reach. Yes, it’s not optimal to split attacks between DEX and WIS, but you have to rely on DEX if you are not able to summon your arms anyway.
My example of Mercy was because hand of healing/harm requires unarmed attacks. Edit: I believe the HoHeal/Harm uses your martial arts die so isn’t affected by the feat though.
just depends on your subclass, build, and level of your campaign will go to that influences if the feat is good or not.
As far as I know, no other feat can increase or give more damage to unarmed strikes. Which is the point of this post. Since AS monk is pure unarmed strikes, talking about a weapon is pointless.
Sure there are more "useful to the party" feats but that not the topic at hand.
The unarmed fighting style gives a power boost to early level monks. (Making them 11th level monks) and as stated before, you can change it out. Blind sight is always useful.
AS is not purely unarmed. With your attack action you can attack with a weapon, although you would be using DEX for your attacks. Most likely you have both DEX and WIS high. Only your bonus action attack or FoB has to be unarmed and you can use the arms and WIS to attack, and have reach. Yes, it’s not optimal to split attacks between DEX and WIS, but you have to rely on DEX if you are not able to summon your arms anyway.
My example of Mercy was because hand of healing/harm requires unarmed attacks.
just depends on your subclass, build, and level of your campaign will go to that influences if the feat is good or not.
What part of the AS monk's attack is not unarmed strikes? The whole gimmick is conjuring a spirit form that punches. All of the benefits that the AS monk gets is for unarmed strikes.
As far as I know, no other feat can increase or give more damage to unarmed strikes. Which is the point of this post. Since AS monk is pure unarmed strikes, talking about a weapon is pointless.
Sure there are more "useful to the party" feats but that not the topic at hand.
The unarmed fighting style gives a power boost to early level monks. (Making them 11th level monks) and as stated before, you can change it out. Blind sight is always useful.
This would actually be wrong. Your only considering flat obviously written d-something damage and considering that the only damage increase. However things that would do things like provide advantage or pick up certain spells or position enemies into positions where they will be forced to take more damage can all be increases in damage when looked at in actual practical application and not purely in a white room situation with some very basic assumptions about where damage can come from.
Anything that gives you advantage on your attacks boosts your damge because more attacks are going to hit. It may not be the typical couple of damage on a couple of hits per turn but it can be easily enough to do as much or more damage over time.
Something like Fey Touched can let you pick up something like Hunters Mark or Hex. Which will flat grant extra damage to all of your hits and not just a couple of damage to 1 or 2 hits for as long as it lasts. this will even mitigate some of the damage loss from not being able to use your Bonus Action attack or FoB on the turn you use your bonus action to cast or move it.
Shadow Touched let's you pick up invisibility but you can also pick up something like inflict wounds or color spray, both of which are going to give you either decent damage at low level or advantage on attacks on one or more enemy. Or you can pick up ray of sickness which is somewhat situational because it does poison damage and the poisoned condition. But it can in place of that little bit more damage actually cause the opponent to have disadvantage on saving throws. Meaning that others in the party are more likely to do damage with their own saving throw based attacks and spells but it's also got a defensive benefit of their attacks are at disadvantage as well.
Fighting Initiate-Dueling can actually be done since monks are going to usually have at least one hand free for things like FoB or Bonus action Attack and is basically the same thing as Fighting Initiate-Unarmed Fighting. But on top of that it can actually be combined with the Kensei or the Dedicated Weapon Optional Ability from Tasha's with a weapon like the longsword to actually get just a little bit more damage out of it by adding 1 more average damage on top of the +2 from Dueling.
Pole Arm master potentially increases damage not because of it's bonus attack option but actually because it gives you another way to use your Reaction to injure opponents if they should close on you if your playing a more skirmisher style where you try to end rounds away from opponents when you can.
Crusher not only has minor repositioning that even Open Palm can potentially take advantage of. But any time you can crit with it it's actually going to potentially cause more damage by your party members by giving them advantage on their attacks. Which may mean at least one more Sharp Shooter or GWM attack with it's +10 damage boost that hits an enemy. It's best coupled with a little luck on your part with the dice and some ability to have advantage of your own, such as pack tactics, to get more crits and thus share the advantages around more often.
Some of these tactics can be used with Astral Arms very easily even if you only want to rely on Astral Arms as your only attack option. But others of these are good for any monk under different varying conditions when you get adaptable about your tactics and the battlefield from moment to moment. And some of them can actually be done in tandem with the help of other characters to basically chain effects together from the group to the advantage of the party.
>>Fighting Initiate-Dueling can actually be done since monks are going to usually have at least one hand free for things like FoB or Bonus action Attack and is basically the same thing as Fighting Initiate-Unarmed Fighting. But on top of that it can actually be combined with the Kensei or the Dedicated Weapon Optional Ability from Tasha's with a weapon like the longsword to actually get just a little bit more damage out of it by adding 1 more average damage on top of the +2 from Dueling.
Dueling only effects the weapon in hand not FoB. this whole thread is talking about unarmed strike and FoB.
The other feats you brought up do not interact with unarmed strikes. Those would be under the classification of "useful to the party"
As far as I know, no other feat can increase or give more damage to unarmed strikes. Which is the point of this post. Since AS monk is pure unarmed strikes, talking about a weapon is pointless.
Sure there are more "useful to the party" feats but that not the topic at hand.
The unarmed fighting style gives a power boost to early level monks. (Making them 11th level monks) and as stated before, you can change it out. Blind sight is always useful.
AS is not purely unarmed. With your attack action you can attack with a weapon, although you would be using DEX for your attacks. Most likely you have both DEX and WIS high. Only your bonus action attack or FoB has to be unarmed and you can use the arms and WIS to attack, and have reach. Yes, it’s not optimal to split attacks between DEX and WIS, but you have to rely on DEX if you are not able to summon your arms anyway.
My example of Mercy was because hand of healing/harm requires unarmed attacks.
just depends on your subclass, build, and level of your campaign will go to that influences if the feat is good or not.
What part of the AS monk's attack is not unarmed strikes? The whole gimmick is conjuring a spirit form that punches. All of the benefits that the AS monk gets is for unarmed strikes.
Any and every attack they can and will make without their Astral Arms out for Various reasons. Your so hung up on the gimmick your missing the reality that Astral Arms are not always either going to be available or a suitably viable form of attack.
The Gimmick is just an option. It's not all encompassing and trying to treat it like it is just happens to be the fatal mistake many monk players tend to make when playing a monk. They rely on a particular tactic or gimmick even to their own detriment just because it works just often enough or they've been told it is the most valuable and useful way to do things whether that's true or not. We see a lot of this revolving around Stunning Strike already even though Stunning Strike can be a poor use of ones Ki points and tactical ability.
Looking solely at the kit given to you by the AS monk, you are given nothing else. And when I say gimmick, I only refer to what the core of the subclass gives.
Example: mercy is healing and necrotic damage for ki. Beast barbarian is the transformations.
I understand that others use that word different and I keep forgetting that fact.
Back to AS, if you are not using the astral arms then you basically have no subclass. Finding ways to make astral arms better is better than adding more stuff (like Fey/shadow touched). Pole arm master is just too good, so I tend to over look it to give others a chance, also because of what I said before it doesn't make the AS kit better. If you are using the opportunity attack feature, then you are just holding a stat stick (warframe reference)
Although crusher is good for monks I think it secondary to unarmed fighting.
>>Fighting Initiate-Dueling can actually be done since monks are going to usually have at least one hand free for things like FoB or Bonus action Attack and is basically the same thing as Fighting Initiate-Unarmed Fighting. But on top of that it can actually be combined with the Kensei or the Dedicated Weapon Optional Ability from Tasha's with a weapon like the longsword to actually get just a little bit more damage out of it by adding 1 more average damage on top of the +2 from Dueling.
Dueling only effects the weapon in hand not FoB. this whole thread is talking about unarmed strike and FoB.
The other feats you brought up do not interact with unarmed strikes. Those would be under the classification of "useful to the party"
Your thinking is much too narrow. They do actually interact with them in various ways either directly or indirectly. And useful to the Party is still a form of increased benefit and damage. To deny this fact is leading to outright failure.
And your Right. It doesn't interact with FoB. But here's the thing about monks. Not everything that is beneficial to the monk has to work with FoB or even Unarmed Strikes. not even for the Astral Self Monk. There are many things about the Monk and Even the Astral Self Subclass that do not at all interact with FoB or Unarmed strikes. The Closest it's other abilities, Visage of the Astral Self and Body of the Astral Self only interacts with those two things specifically is that they can be activated alongside Arms of the Astral self, With Awakened Astral Self only partially interacting with them, entirely through unarmed strikes and well after the fighting initiate effect would be useful, because it allows you to make 1 more attack with your attack action through a modification to the Extra Attack feature when using the Astral Arms. But it would take until this level 17 feature to invalidate usefulness of the Dueling Fighting Style and nothing about the Astral Arms ability at any point says that all attacks have to be made with the Astral Arms in your turn. So it is still a valid way to increase damage even while you are using your Astral Arms.
Astral Arms in fact doesn't even require you to be wisdom focused. With only one ability for them truly relying on Wisdom. That ability being Deflect Energy and effecting the amount of damage you can reduce certain types of incoming damage by with your reaction. Every other ability basically says that you can choose to use Wisdom in place of another attribute for other things. Not that you have to.
As far as I know, no other feat can increase or give more damage to unarmed strikes. Which is the point of this post. Since AS monk is pure unarmed strikes, talking about a weapon is pointless.
Sure there are more "useful to the party" feats but that not the topic at hand.
The unarmed fighting style gives a power boost to early level monks. (Making them 11th level monks) and as stated before, you can change it out. Blind sight is always useful.
AS is not purely unarmed. With your attack action you can attack with a weapon, although you would be using DEX for your attacks. Most likely you have both DEX and WIS high. Only your bonus action attack or FoB has to be unarmed and you can use the arms and WIS to attack, and have reach. Yes, it’s not optimal to split attacks between DEX and WIS, but you have to rely on DEX if you are not able to summon your arms anyway.
My example of Mercy was because hand of healing/harm requires unarmed attacks. Edit: I believe the HoHeal/Harm uses your martial arts die so isn’t affected by the feat though.
just depends on your subclass, build, and level of your campaign will go to that influences if the feat is good or not.
You would be correct. healing/harm is affected by marital arts die+ wisdom modifier specifically so there would be no benefit from the fighting style feat when it comes to how much those powers specifically would apply to something.
Looking solely at the kit given to you by the AS monk, you are given nothing else. And when I say gimmick, I only refer to what the core of the subclass gives.
Example: mercy is healing and necrotic damage for ki. Beast barbarian is the transformations.
I understand that others use that word different and I keep forgetting that fact.
Back to AS, if you are not using the astral arms then you basically have no subclass. Finding ways to make astral arms better is better than adding more stuff (like Fey/shadow touched). Pole arm master is just too good, so I tend to over look it to give others a chance, also because of what I said before it doesn't make the AS kit better. If you are using the opportunity attack feature, then you are just holding a stat stick (warframe reference)
Although crusher is good for monks I think it secondary to unarmed fighting.
Again your thinking much too narrow.
Fey Touched Adds to Astral Arms and the Astral Self Monk. Hunters Mark and Hex for example do not care what is dealing the damage. So they work completely with Astral Arms and FoB. They also have the advantage of raising your wisdom if your focusing on that as a primary stat because you are stuck on the Gimmick. And make no mistake. Astral Arms are a Gimmick whether somewhat core to the subclass or not. They are a useful gimmick, nobody said gimmicks couldn't be, but they are a gimmick. At the end of the day they are going to be doing monk stuff in monkish ways whether they use that gimmick or not. But when it comes to things like what you can gain from Fey Touched or Shadow Touched. They do indeed synergize with your gimmick and with monks in general. They can Increase your Wisdom and key off Wisdom which is one of the two primary stats for monks that Astral Self actually gives you the option of doubling down on a bit. Your percieved lack of synergy here is not actual reality.
As for Pole Arm. For Starters... It tends to be fairly over valued. There are plenty of builds that it gets stuck in that it just doesn't help at all and people build around it to the detriment of other things they are doing. But To use it's Reaction ability is not carrying around a stat stick as Warframe would like to put it. Because that means that you would never actually use it. But the simple fact is that For a decent part of your career that "stat stick" as you want tocall it, that you must be actually wielding and not just have stuck somewhere on your person like in Warframe. You might as well make the reaction attack with it because it's going to be doing some of the best damage you got anyway. Purposeful avoidance of using it when it is perfectly viable for use does not a stat-stick make. Not even in Warframe.
As for Crusher. Objectively it's actually better for monks. It boosts an important secondary stat in con which can end up giving you more hitpoints and thus survivability, and on top of that it's extra abilities work with a much larger portion of the Monks Arsenal than Unarmed Fighting actually does. Unarmed fighting only boosts very specific builds or very specific power usage that can be somewhat limited. Particularly at lower levels where it gives any advantage at all to begin with. But it's still mitigated or nullified by other part of the monks core kit. There is also only two Subclasses that can't make use of it as part of their subclass abilities to some extent. Those being Astral Self and Sun Soul. Both because they change damage types to something else. Mercy can still technically make use of Crusher because Hands of Harm is damage tacked onto a unarmed bludgeoning strike so it does still qualify.
Unarmed Fighting Style has 3 Subclasses that have issues with making use of it as part of their subclass. Kensei is the first and most obvious because it's based around weapons. Sun Soul is actually the second because it's special attacks are all either set damage based on their effects or specify their martial arts die and not unarmed strike. And 4 Elements can only make use of it with one elemental discipline which is Fangs of the Fire Snake, but since it has it's own damage adding mechanics to it, and it's alternate damage type has it's own potential issues on top of having to be one of your choices for the subclass for any syngergy there to work. 4 elements can also gain added damage through weapon attacks through Ki Fueled Strikes as well because of the way that it uses most of it's subclass abilities.
So speaking objectively... No it's not secondary. They are equal at worst and Crusher is potentially better.
In terms of which to get first I would say that unarmed Fighting is first on the list. Because of the power boosts it gives. Think of it like choosing a warhammer over a dagger. (Assuming you take the varient races) 2d8 at level one is strong.
I am also not thinking to narrow, when you are focused on a certain task, increasing damage output, you have to consider all factors. Fey/shadow touched on a pure monk, although might be good for a single fight can only be used once per day/fight. Crusher is luck based, so it's not as reliable. Unarmed fighting is always "on." Pole arm master on a AS monk is a stat stick because of the ground we covered before. You are using the weapon to proc the reaction. Quarter staff does not have reach, but while astral arms is active your fists do. So when the foe enters within 10ft you use your arms for the attack. That makes it a stat stick. You are using the weapon to effect a different weapon.
You had mentioned that you would not have astral arms all the time. It's one ki point to activate and ki come back on a short rest. It's kinda the fault of the subclass for sure that you get nothing else when you run out, but that's also the problem with monks in the first place.
So let's look at base low level monk. Unarmed fighting, 2(1d8+mod) compared to a quarter staff 1d8+mod/1d4+mod. Do you see the damage difference?
Also ki fueled strike only activates when you spend a ki point on your action. So you will run out.
So if you want to look at a reliable form of damage increase, unarmed fighting is a great option.
In terms of which to get first I would say that unarmed Fighting is first on the list. Because of the power boosts it gives. Think of it like choosing a warhammer over a dagger. (Assuming you take the varient races) 2d8 at level one is strong.
I am also not thinking to narrow, when you are focused on a certain task, increasing damage output, you have to consider all factors. Fey/shadow touched on a pure monk, although might be good for a single fight can only be used once per day/fight. Crusher is luck based, so it's not as reliable. Unarmed fighting is always "on." Pole arm master on a AS monk is a stat stick because of the ground we covered before. You are using the weapon to proc the reaction. Quarter staff does not have reach, but while astral arms is active your fists do. So when the foe enters within 10ft you use your arms for the attack. That makes it a stat stick. You are using the weapon to effect a different weapon.
You had mentioned that you would not have astral arms all the time. It's one ki point to activate and ki come back on a short rest. It's kinda the fault of the subclass for sure that you get nothing else when you run out, but that's also the problem with monks in the first place.
So let's look at base low level monk. Unarmed fighting, 2(1d8+mod) compared to a quarter staff 1d8+mod/1d4+mod. Do you see the damage difference?
Also ki fueled strike only activates when you spend a ki point on your action. So you will run out.
So if you want to look at a reliable form of damage increase, unarmed fighting is a great option.
I have shown several ways that damage can come from more than simply the damage die on your sheet and your ignoring it. Again. this is not simply choosing a war hammer over a dagger. it's not even close to that. That again is a narrow way of thinking. Partly because the War Hammer doesn't have the hefty cost to choose, And partly because there are other weapons that the monk already has that are comparable to that "war hammer" that your obsessing over getting onto the character. And that is all ignoring the fact that the character in question can already be rather brutal with that dagger if you choose to build you character in certain ways... And surprisingly that doesn't necessarily mean more damage but with continued somewhat questionable accuracy.
Unarmed fighting is an ok damage increase at best. And it's a marginalized one even then. There are too many ways to cover most if not all of the gap even for a core monk or with optional features that can be picked up without actually worrying about trying to get a feat to get something like Unarmed Fighting.
All of which your entirely ignoring again because you've got a conclusion and you only care about information that proves it. Not any other information.
For example. Your complaint that something like hunters mark or hex only being able to be used in one fight. Well if you pick the right fight and the right targets. You are still going to get more damage than you will from the continuous tiny bits of damage from switching to 1d8 unarmed when considering all the other mitigating factors.
While reliable damage is important and can indeed be valuable it is not always the best choice. Specially if much, if not all, of that damage can be achieved in other ways reducing the value of the source of your reliable damage. Of which the monk can do with other reliable forms of damage. Which can actually be done for the combination your advocating.
But here's the thing. I'm not saying the combination doesn't work. Which you seem to be going all or nothing about that it either works or it doesn't. I'm just saying there are other options and other ways to do things that your throwing out the window. There are better ways to do damage even on an Astral Self Monk. My warning of do not get so caught up in the gimmick of the subclass that it blinds you to other possibilities. The whole idea that if your not using a particular subclasses way of doing things then your not really of that subclass is a lie. No Monk of any subclass is going to rely entirely on or always be using it's subclasses gimmick. this is even true of the Kensei which has one of the simplest gimmicks there is to it's subclass.
Okay let's look at hex/HM: one, it is once per day, so if you do hold out and wait for the right fight of the day;what if that fight never comes or you use it to early? The feat is wasted for the day. Two, it is also concentration and since you are a melee fighter you will be in the front lines and have to make concentration checks constantly. You will lose it eventually. The damage might be greater but you are ignoring the fact that it is not every fight.
You have mentioned other ways like gaining advantage from crusher and I have acknowledged the fact but I still think that for the first feat you should take the increased damage because it is more consistent.
Which is better? One massive blow or death by tiny cuts?
With unarmed fighting, your over all damage throughout the day will be higher than use of a single spell or potential advantage (when you had crit)
The kinsei monk is an example for my argument. The reason why it is so good is that it gives you a better damage die and it is "always on" so to speak. So having a better damage die at an even earlier level (if you take variant) is better would you not say?
You say that I am caught up on information that supports me, but the se could be said of you. You are fixated on hex/HM and I have made counter arguments to them. Your rebuttals to that still don't look at the larger picture. Which is over all damage.
Oh, I had forgotten. You mentioned that going from a d4 to a d8 was only a 2 point increase. Although mathematically correct you did forget one thing. It is technically 4 point increase because the monk can make two attacks at first level. And at early levels 4 points is a lot of damage.
Also if having advantage for you is important why not have best of both worlds. A 4th level kobold monk with unarmed fighting? Advantage and a d8. You may have mentioned this before, but that is a niche build and limiting on rp that some may not want.
The reason why I keep poking holes in your statements is that I have seen many others talk about what you mentioned and never once or "under thier breath" mention the downsides. Which to me, the downsides are major and not giving them the proper light of day is setting someone up. This is why I kept mentioning "always on" so that others would know what they are getting in for. That is why I mentioned "if you don't use it, it's like you don't have it." Again, bringing light to the downsides.
I think you are trying to do the same, and I think that we are in a tug of war with the reader trying to help them avoid a hole.
Okay let's look at hex/HM: one, it is once per day, so if you do hold out and wait for the right fight of the day;what if that fight never comes or you use it to early? The feat is wasted for the day. Two, it is also concentration and since you are a melee fighter you will be in the front lines and have to make concentration checks constantly. You will lose it eventually. The damage might be greater but you are ignoring the fact that it is not every fight.
You have mentioned other ways like gaining advantage from crusher and I have acknowledged the fact but I still think that for the first feat you should take the increased damage because it is more consistent.
Which is better? One massive blow or death by tiny cuts?
With unarmed fighting, your over all damage throughout the day will be higher than use of a single spell or potential advantage (when you had crit)
The kensei monk is an example for my argument. The reason why it is so good is that it gives you a better damage die and it is "always on" so to speak. So having a better damage die at an even earlier level (if you take variant) is better would you not say?
You say that I am caught up on information that supports me, but the se could be said of you. You are fixated on hex/HM and I have made counter arguments to them. Your rebuttals to that still don't look at the larger picture. Which is over all damage.
Oh, I had forgotten. You mentioned that going from a d4 to a d8 was only a 2 point increase. Although mathematically correct you did forget one thing. It is technically 4 point increase because the monk can make two attacks at first level. And at early levels 4 points is a lot of damage.
Also if having advantage for you is important why not have best of both worlds. A 4th level kobold monk with unarmed fighting? Advantage and a d8. You may have mentioned this before, but that is a niche build and limiting on rp that some may not want.
The reason why I keep poking holes in your statements is that I have seen many others talk about what you mentioned and never once or "under thier breath" mention the downsides. Which to me, the downsides are major and not giving them the proper light of day is setting someone up. This is why I kept mentioning "always on" so that others would know what they are getting in for. That is why I mentioned "if you don't use it, it's like you don't have it." Again, bringing light to the downsides.
I think you are trying to do the same, and I think that we are in a tug of war with the reader trying to help them avoid a hole.
Agree to disagree? Or truce?
The feat is not wasted if you use it on another fight. Let's get realistic and practical about htis. And I'll even explain the one base assumption that I'll use for my example here. That base assumption is that we don't have to worry about the attacks missing.
With this base assumption. For each full round of attacks you are going to achieve an average of 9-12 damage from the extra 1d6 from HM or Hex. And a Max extra Damage possible of 24.
So for Fighting Initiate to even break even at a rate of 2-4 damage a turn. Your looking at an average of 3 full turns of combat to equal the same damage to equal that same round.
So you don't need a perfectly optimal fight. You just need a decent fight where you can in some way reasonable get your attacks in on the right targets and limit downtime of your HM or Hex. The more turns you have to spend activating or moving HM/Hex the lower your damage is going to be but your still going to be gaining in damage over Fighting Initiate if you remember to move your HM/Hex to a new target before attacking them . So this is going to mean a little bit of luck combined with good target picking and to use them in fights that hopefully are not going to be over in just 1 or 2 rounds because then other options are far more preferable and even optimal. If your fights tend to be around reasonably the same number of turns then choose any of them, but if you know your going to be fighting a BBEG or a large number of people that's your better bet to choose. All of Which can be done even in practical application environments. Though it may take more work than in any white room application of the math. This also means that in the fight you use it on you want a decent amount of targets or one big target that you can hit for multiple turns, Potentially while your other party members are beating on it as well. But by doing this it can mean that it could take 2 to 3 full combats for Fighting Initiate to actually break even on damage as long as you don't use it on a really short fight and then the rest of your fights are significantly longer. This is how I'm not forgetting the bigger picture and how I'm not forgetting about Damage. I am perfectly aware of damage and aware of the factors that I'm talking about.
And that downside your saying that I'm not talking about? Let's talk about it. The downside to HM/Hex is that it's disruptable and monks don't necessarily have the best Con scores to be making concentration saves so there are chances that you are not going to get the full duration out of it. So there is a small risk reward component attached to using this tactic in that fashion. It's not the one combat usage that is actually the downside with this method however because of the gains that you can make with it.
When it comes to Monks overall though, surprisingly enough because of their large number of attacks actually benefit far more from such benefits like Hex than most of the classes that actually have and use them for components of their damage and are considered must have's on those classes. Particularly when you can take steps to minimize missed attacks. Monks overall are served far more from mitigating missed attacks more than almost anybody else in general. They're damage is also potentially more consistent while being competitive. So once the attacks are consistent various bursts actually become highly effective on Monks. Particularly if they are bursts that can be triggered multiple times a round for low resource and action cost such as the damage from HM or Hex, The Damage from the Eldritch Claws Tattoo, and other items of that nature. And these things do not actually require perfectly optimal usage to be a fairly dramatic increase, They actually work well and are a strong increase even when sub optimally used in average situations. There is even potential to find ones that you can stack for even bigger payoff, or activate over a succession of fights to prolong usefulness if you collect more than one of them for your usage.
As for the Kensei. It's not the perfect example your making out to be for your side of things. For One. It's a prime example of Why Fighting Initiate-Unarmed has other options and is only middling at best which is exactly my argument. For two there is an issue with them that you are ignoring. They have other ways to add damage that are baked right into them that you do not have with Astral Arms. Kensei Shot for example when they have a bow. Means that for sacrificing a little static damage from the bonuses actually still gets the d4 damage component that they can mix into their regular attacks and this automatically self scales when extra attack is obtained because now it applies to two attacks, which effectively can make them work a bit more like more traditional martial classes in adding more into fewer hits but also making their damage a bit more inconsistent because they win bigger when they hit but they lose bigger when they miss. And this only increases as they advance in levels and gain the rest of their abilities which do have costs but actually build on this same concept. or when they use alternate abilities to get a third weapon attack. While HM or Hex could be used on them. It's actually not going to be as effective as it would on other Monks because of HM and Hex's increases in damage being tied to number of attacks as a determining factor of just how strong it's going to be. 6 average damage and 12 maximum is not nearly as much as what these two abilities are providing other monks with more attacks and it would mean they would have to have them work for more turns to get the same kind of damage gains out of them.
Your not actually poking holes in what I'm saying. You may feel like you are. But your stubbornly holding on to one idea. And I grant you at a base level it's a strong idea. But there are factors, particularly in monks, that play out differently once you get past the basic structure. Overall for most static damage is going to be a very strong source of damage not only because many other classes have bursts that are somewhat risky or unreliable but also because those bursts are very limited in number. However, the Monk is almost exactly the opposite. It's Variability comes from a different source and it's far more in their consistancy with little burst to them. They can take advantage of several kinds of bursts very effectively when they are consistant and these bursts can be much more reliable because they are less all or nothing than with most other classes and a whole lot more smaller and more spread out meaning losses are not as severe.
As for my mentioning a 2 point increase. I meantion a 2 point increase because of the monks built in tools that do mitigate the Damage difference automatically such as the quaterstaff. Rdalistically the only increase over all other monks because of their core class abilities and features is primarily going to be found either in their bonus attack or in their FoB. So that 4 point increase. it's only going to be there when FoB is active. Which is limited and costs resources. Otherwise it's a 2point increase. And I tend to default to 2point increase because the BA is the only thing sustainable. Other calculations, Those are just for ease of use and/or gimmick stylings but they are only gains over others using the same ease of use and/or gimmick stylings. Not on the potential optimal damage of the monk itself.
level 1 is the only level where there is any true advantage for Unarmed Fighting and that's because this is when monks are at their weakest. They have basically nothing in their tool kit yet. Less than even other classes in fact. They don't even have their Ki or any of it's basic uses yet at this point. The only thing that they have at hand is their Martial Arts Feature. But this feature is only keeping them competitive if not potentially slightly better than any of the other martial classes when it comes to sustainable damage. This is also the point where even their very limited needs for equipment may cause them some issues. A monk at this level that can beef up their unarmed Strikes find themselves at a damage level that other classes won't reach until at least level 2 and so for pure damage they suddenly become king of the ant hill. But at level one Damage is also not the major deciding factor that everybody treats it as, Survivability will actually do far more for a character than damage because HP values are so low that even though the damage is low at this point significant amounts of health are lost per hit on even the sturdiest of characters where even a barbarian can potentially lose 1/4 of their hp in a single blow if not more and the squishy classes could be pushed near death. Between the issues of survivability and the lack of kit is why many people don't actually like to play level 1 and many prefer to actually start at more like level 2 or 3. I've seen many games all over the place purposely skip this level to the point that I find it stands out way more when I find a game that actually does play level 1. Even a number of streamed campaigns that i've watched, some of them are extremely popular, seem to skip the first and possibly the second level of play. But once the core class kits and the subclasses start coming into play the dynamic starts to change quite a bit.
For monks this means their static damage actually tends to be more important than the size of dice that they roll at low levels. Variable numbers on their damage only really matter if they are either significantly huge, which is very difficult, or is better when you can apply it to as many hits as possible. This tends to mean that because of the style and the way they can do things like mix weapon damage and unarmed damage that any bonuses to either one or the other are mainly only of middling value and basically interchangable. And that's all that Unarmed Fighting Does. It facilitates a few low level builds, but it doesn't add on any significant bonus over other possibilities that do the same thing. Feats tend to do more with your flavor and adding options than with your power, but you can just as easily go against that flavor with most monks and amplify it's opposite and get overall basically the same results, Suiting more to potentially facilitate a build over adding real power.
This is true even for something like the Kensei which everybody tries to maximise their weapon usage as much as possible. But you could actually take something like Unarmed Fighting and actually get a very similar result in choosing to beef up their unarmed strikes. Particularly for those that have the combined obsessions of making as many attacks as possible every round and insist that Agile Parry must always be used for better AC.
But Feats are ALWAYS heavy costs for Monks. A higher Cost than for most other classes and builds and it's a cost that people should be aware of. Even when it's gained through things like VHuman. Many races have various bonuses and advantages that can't just be replicated and picked up elsewhere or indiscriminately stack with those bonuses to be even more powerful if they are replicatable in many instances.
Even your 4th level Kobold is an example of this. One of the reasons to take Kobold is Pack Tactics. If you take Pack Tactics away to get the feat through the whole Variant Race system in Tasha's, then you might as well not bother with Kobold at all. Your no longer gaining anything significant or worthy out of it. If your dex ends up odd your just shifting aruond your ASI's at some future level. And if it ends up even the mostly likely reasons are because you either chose to go less than maximum on your point buy/stat array placement or you got extremely good rolls that potentially gives you some power advantage that you may not have needed that +2 dex anyway but it's just facilitating your preferred primary stat a little faster by effectively acting like an ASI at first level for the character. Because at the end of the Day. That 4th level Kobold. He can still wield a quarterstaff for a D8 that still works off of his dexterity, because that d8 isn't something only magically attained through Unarmed Fighting. There are plenty of other ways to get it. Static bonuses that he can add to both his unarmed and his weapon are actually going to be the most valuable thing the kobold can find when it comes to damage because it's going to be more sustainable than the bit of extra damage gained to only one type of damage that it can do.
And this is all coming from a person that actually likes to just do Unarmed fighting through Martial Arts on his monks because it's easy and straight forward and still takes advantage of the monks true strength in static damage applied each turn while being different in feel and flavor from other classes. Which does mean that yes I do have a Kobold monk that I do play in one of my games. But I don't do it because it's perfectly optimal for Damage, Much of the time I don't even worry or care that I'm rolling smaller damage dice than others. That particular character is only rolling D6's in fact. I prefer to get things like pack tactics or other advantage gaining things in my favor because not missing tends to add more damage because every hit that I do hit instead of missing is another 7 damage to my total for the turn because of the 3 average and the 4 from my static modifiers, and for each crit I end up getting that's another 3 base on average (and sometimes more) despite the fact that in my groups I'm not known for having luck that is all that good so the dice tend to not be in my favor very often. I've also picked up some abilities that are saving throw based instead of to hit based because I've wandered off the beaten path and taken 4 elements monk.
You are fixated on one fight while I'm talking about throughout the day. And you accuse me of being fixated.
I also noticed how you did not even address that hex is a once per fight per day ability.
I am not fixated on one fight. I showed how one fight can potentially equal multiple fights throughout the day with other abilities. I addressed the issue your speaking of about hex in my explanation by pointing out that with picking just a decent fight to use it on. The damage is so much higher that through the simple mathematics of typical rounds in a fight stretching out over multiple fights. That one fight is going to be the equivalent in extra damage to 3 fights on average with something like Hunter's Mark and hex. This both covers multiple fights throughout the day and addresses your concern about it only working for one fight throughout the day. I also addressed it by the fact that the monk has more than one way to pick up abilities that work similarly, not all of them through Feats either mind you because Eldritch Claw Tattoo is a magical item with the same effective damage burst effect and style to hunters mark and Hex that could either be stacked into a single fight or used in the next decent fight that you get for effectively what ends up being a second use of the same kind of power in a differnt fight in the same day. Your outright ignoring this.
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AS is not purely unarmed. With your attack action you can attack with a weapon, although you would be using DEX for your attacks. Most likely you have both DEX and WIS high. Only your bonus action attack or FoB has to be unarmed and you can use the arms and WIS to attack, and have reach. Yes, it’s not optimal to split attacks between DEX and WIS, but you have to rely on DEX if you are not able to summon your arms anyway.
My example of Mercy was because hand of healing/harm requires unarmed attacks. Edit: I believe the HoHeal/Harm uses your martial arts die so isn’t affected by the feat though.
just depends on your subclass, build, and level of your campaign will go to that influences if the feat is good or not.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
What part of the AS monk's attack is not unarmed strikes? The whole gimmick is conjuring a spirit form that punches. All of the benefits that the AS monk gets is for unarmed strikes.
This would actually be wrong. Your only considering flat obviously written d-something damage and considering that the only damage increase. However things that would do things like provide advantage or pick up certain spells or position enemies into positions where they will be forced to take more damage can all be increases in damage when looked at in actual practical application and not purely in a white room situation with some very basic assumptions about where damage can come from.
Anything that gives you advantage on your attacks boosts your damge because more attacks are going to hit. It may not be the typical couple of damage on a couple of hits per turn but it can be easily enough to do as much or more damage over time.
Something like Fey Touched can let you pick up something like Hunters Mark or Hex. Which will flat grant extra damage to all of your hits and not just a couple of damage to 1 or 2 hits for as long as it lasts. this will even mitigate some of the damage loss from not being able to use your Bonus Action attack or FoB on the turn you use your bonus action to cast or move it.
Shadow Touched let's you pick up invisibility but you can also pick up something like inflict wounds or color spray, both of which are going to give you either decent damage at low level or advantage on attacks on one or more enemy. Or you can pick up ray of sickness which is somewhat situational because it does poison damage and the poisoned condition. But it can in place of that little bit more damage actually cause the opponent to have disadvantage on saving throws. Meaning that others in the party are more likely to do damage with their own saving throw based attacks and spells but it's also got a defensive benefit of their attacks are at disadvantage as well.
Fighting Initiate-Dueling can actually be done since monks are going to usually have at least one hand free for things like FoB or Bonus action Attack and is basically the same thing as Fighting Initiate-Unarmed Fighting. But on top of that it can actually be combined with the Kensei or the Dedicated Weapon Optional Ability from Tasha's with a weapon like the longsword to actually get just a little bit more damage out of it by adding 1 more average damage on top of the +2 from Dueling.
Pole Arm master potentially increases damage not because of it's bonus attack option but actually because it gives you another way to use your Reaction to injure opponents if they should close on you if your playing a more skirmisher style where you try to end rounds away from opponents when you can.
Crusher not only has minor repositioning that even Open Palm can potentially take advantage of. But any time you can crit with it it's actually going to potentially cause more damage by your party members by giving them advantage on their attacks. Which may mean at least one more Sharp Shooter or GWM attack with it's +10 damage boost that hits an enemy. It's best coupled with a little luck on your part with the dice and some ability to have advantage of your own, such as pack tactics, to get more crits and thus share the advantages around more often.
Some of these tactics can be used with Astral Arms very easily even if you only want to rely on Astral Arms as your only attack option. But others of these are good for any monk under different varying conditions when you get adaptable about your tactics and the battlefield from moment to moment. And some of them can actually be done in tandem with the help of other characters to basically chain effects together from the group to the advantage of the party.
Dueling only effects the weapon in hand not FoB. this whole thread is talking about unarmed strike and FoB.
The other feats you brought up do not interact with unarmed strikes. Those would be under the classification of "useful to the party"
Any and every attack they can and will make without their Astral Arms out for Various reasons. Your so hung up on the gimmick your missing the reality that Astral Arms are not always either going to be available or a suitably viable form of attack.
The Gimmick is just an option. It's not all encompassing and trying to treat it like it is just happens to be the fatal mistake many monk players tend to make when playing a monk. They rely on a particular tactic or gimmick even to their own detriment just because it works just often enough or they've been told it is the most valuable and useful way to do things whether that's true or not. We see a lot of this revolving around Stunning Strike already even though Stunning Strike can be a poor use of ones Ki points and tactical ability.
Looking solely at the kit given to you by the AS monk, you are given nothing else. And when I say gimmick, I only refer to what the core of the subclass gives.
Example: mercy is healing and necrotic damage for ki. Beast barbarian is the transformations.
I understand that others use that word different and I keep forgetting that fact.
Back to AS, if you are not using the astral arms then you basically have no subclass. Finding ways to make astral arms better is better than adding more stuff (like Fey/shadow touched). Pole arm master is just too good, so I tend to over look it to give others a chance, also because of what I said before it doesn't make the AS kit better. If you are using the opportunity attack feature, then you are just holding a stat stick (warframe reference)
Although crusher is good for monks I think it secondary to unarmed fighting.
Your thinking is much too narrow. They do actually interact with them in various ways either directly or indirectly. And useful to the Party is still a form of increased benefit and damage. To deny this fact is leading to outright failure.
And your Right. It doesn't interact with FoB. But here's the thing about monks. Not everything that is beneficial to the monk has to work with FoB or even Unarmed Strikes. not even for the Astral Self Monk. There are many things about the Monk and Even the Astral Self Subclass that do not at all interact with FoB or Unarmed strikes. The Closest it's other abilities, Visage of the Astral Self and Body of the Astral Self only interacts with those two things specifically is that they can be activated alongside Arms of the Astral self, With Awakened Astral Self only partially interacting with them, entirely through unarmed strikes and well after the fighting initiate effect would be useful, because it allows you to make 1 more attack with your attack action through a modification to the Extra Attack feature when using the Astral Arms. But it would take until this level 17 feature to invalidate usefulness of the Dueling Fighting Style and nothing about the Astral Arms ability at any point says that all attacks have to be made with the Astral Arms in your turn. So it is still a valid way to increase damage even while you are using your Astral Arms.
Astral Arms in fact doesn't even require you to be wisdom focused. With only one ability for them truly relying on Wisdom. That ability being Deflect Energy and effecting the amount of damage you can reduce certain types of incoming damage by with your reaction. Every other ability basically says that you can choose to use Wisdom in place of another attribute for other things. Not that you have to.
You would be correct. healing/harm is affected by marital arts die+ wisdom modifier specifically so there would be no benefit from the fighting style feat when it comes to how much those powers specifically would apply to something.
Again your thinking much too narrow.
Fey Touched Adds to Astral Arms and the Astral Self Monk. Hunters Mark and Hex for example do not care what is dealing the damage. So they work completely with Astral Arms and FoB. They also have the advantage of raising your wisdom if your focusing on that as a primary stat because you are stuck on the Gimmick. And make no mistake. Astral Arms are a Gimmick whether somewhat core to the subclass or not. They are a useful gimmick, nobody said gimmicks couldn't be, but they are a gimmick. At the end of the day they are going to be doing monk stuff in monkish ways whether they use that gimmick or not. But when it comes to things like what you can gain from Fey Touched or Shadow Touched. They do indeed synergize with your gimmick and with monks in general. They can Increase your Wisdom and key off Wisdom which is one of the two primary stats for monks that Astral Self actually gives you the option of doubling down on a bit. Your percieved lack of synergy here is not actual reality.
As for Pole Arm. For Starters... It tends to be fairly over valued. There are plenty of builds that it gets stuck in that it just doesn't help at all and people build around it to the detriment of other things they are doing. But To use it's Reaction ability is not carrying around a stat stick as Warframe would like to put it. Because that means that you would never actually use it. But the simple fact is that For a decent part of your career that "stat stick" as you want tocall it, that you must be actually wielding and not just have stuck somewhere on your person like in Warframe. You might as well make the reaction attack with it because it's going to be doing some of the best damage you got anyway. Purposeful avoidance of using it when it is perfectly viable for use does not a stat-stick make. Not even in Warframe.
As for Crusher. Objectively it's actually better for monks. It boosts an important secondary stat in con which can end up giving you more hitpoints and thus survivability, and on top of that it's extra abilities work with a much larger portion of the Monks Arsenal than Unarmed Fighting actually does. Unarmed fighting only boosts very specific builds or very specific power usage that can be somewhat limited. Particularly at lower levels where it gives any advantage at all to begin with. But it's still mitigated or nullified by other part of the monks core kit. There is also only two Subclasses that can't make use of it as part of their subclass abilities to some extent. Those being Astral Self and Sun Soul. Both because they change damage types to something else. Mercy can still technically make use of Crusher because Hands of Harm is damage tacked onto a unarmed bludgeoning strike so it does still qualify.
Unarmed Fighting Style has 3 Subclasses that have issues with making use of it as part of their subclass. Kensei is the first and most obvious because it's based around weapons. Sun Soul is actually the second because it's special attacks are all either set damage based on their effects or specify their martial arts die and not unarmed strike. And 4 Elements can only make use of it with one elemental discipline which is Fangs of the Fire Snake, but since it has it's own damage adding mechanics to it, and it's alternate damage type has it's own potential issues on top of having to be one of your choices for the subclass for any syngergy there to work. 4 elements can also gain added damage through weapon attacks through Ki Fueled Strikes as well because of the way that it uses most of it's subclass abilities.
So speaking objectively... No it's not secondary. They are equal at worst and Crusher is potentially better.
In terms of which to get first I would say that unarmed Fighting is first on the list. Because of the power boosts it gives. Think of it like choosing a warhammer over a dagger. (Assuming you take the varient races) 2d8 at level one is strong.
I am also not thinking to narrow, when you are focused on a certain task, increasing damage output, you have to consider all factors. Fey/shadow touched on a pure monk, although might be good for a single fight can only be used once per day/fight. Crusher is luck based, so it's not as reliable. Unarmed fighting is always "on." Pole arm master on a AS monk is a stat stick because of the ground we covered before. You are using the weapon to proc the reaction. Quarter staff does not have reach, but while astral arms is active your fists do. So when the foe enters within 10ft you use your arms for the attack. That makes it a stat stick. You are using the weapon to effect a different weapon.
You had mentioned that you would not have astral arms all the time. It's one ki point to activate and ki come back on a short rest. It's kinda the fault of the subclass for sure that you get nothing else when you run out, but that's also the problem with monks in the first place.
So let's look at base low level monk. Unarmed fighting, 2(1d8+mod) compared to a quarter staff 1d8+mod/1d4+mod. Do you see the damage difference?
Also ki fueled strike only activates when you spend a ki point on your action. So you will run out.
So if you want to look at a reliable form of damage increase, unarmed fighting is a great option.
I have shown several ways that damage can come from more than simply the damage die on your sheet and your ignoring it. Again. this is not simply choosing a war hammer over a dagger. it's not even close to that. That again is a narrow way of thinking. Partly because the War Hammer doesn't have the hefty cost to choose, And partly because there are other weapons that the monk already has that are comparable to that "war hammer" that your obsessing over getting onto the character. And that is all ignoring the fact that the character in question can already be rather brutal with that dagger if you choose to build you character in certain ways... And surprisingly that doesn't necessarily mean more damage but with continued somewhat questionable accuracy.
Unarmed fighting is an ok damage increase at best. And it's a marginalized one even then. There are too many ways to cover most if not all of the gap even for a core monk or with optional features that can be picked up without actually worrying about trying to get a feat to get something like Unarmed Fighting.
All of which your entirely ignoring again because you've got a conclusion and you only care about information that proves it. Not any other information.
For example. Your complaint that something like hunters mark or hex only being able to be used in one fight. Well if you pick the right fight and the right targets. You are still going to get more damage than you will from the continuous tiny bits of damage from switching to 1d8 unarmed when considering all the other mitigating factors.
While reliable damage is important and can indeed be valuable it is not always the best choice. Specially if much, if not all, of that damage can be achieved in other ways reducing the value of the source of your reliable damage. Of which the monk can do with other reliable forms of damage. Which can actually be done for the combination your advocating.
But here's the thing. I'm not saying the combination doesn't work. Which you seem to be going all or nothing about that it either works or it doesn't. I'm just saying there are other options and other ways to do things that your throwing out the window. There are better ways to do damage even on an Astral Self Monk. My warning of do not get so caught up in the gimmick of the subclass that it blinds you to other possibilities. The whole idea that if your not using a particular subclasses way of doing things then your not really of that subclass is a lie. No Monk of any subclass is going to rely entirely on or always be using it's subclasses gimmick. this is even true of the Kensei which has one of the simplest gimmicks there is to it's subclass.
Okay let's look at hex/HM: one, it is once per day, so if you do hold out and wait for the right fight of the day;what if that fight never comes or you use it to early? The feat is wasted for the day. Two, it is also concentration and since you are a melee fighter you will be in the front lines and have to make concentration checks constantly. You will lose it eventually. The damage might be greater but you are ignoring the fact that it is not every fight.
You have mentioned other ways like gaining advantage from crusher and I have acknowledged the fact but I still think that for the first feat you should take the increased damage because it is more consistent.
Which is better? One massive blow or death by tiny cuts?
With unarmed fighting, your over all damage throughout the day will be higher than use of a single spell or potential advantage (when you had crit)
The kinsei monk is an example for my argument. The reason why it is so good is that it gives you a better damage die and it is "always on" so to speak. So having a better damage die at an even earlier level (if you take variant) is better would you not say?
You say that I am caught up on information that supports me, but the se could be said of you. You are fixated on hex/HM and I have made counter arguments to them. Your rebuttals to that still don't look at the larger picture. Which is over all damage.
Oh, I had forgotten. You mentioned that going from a d4 to a d8 was only a 2 point increase. Although mathematically correct you did forget one thing. It is technically 4 point increase because the monk can make two attacks at first level. And at early levels 4 points is a lot of damage.
Also if having advantage for you is important why not have best of both worlds. A 4th level kobold monk with unarmed fighting? Advantage and a d8. You may have mentioned this before, but that is a niche build and limiting on rp that some may not want.
The reason why I keep poking holes in your statements is that I have seen many others talk about what you mentioned and never once or "under thier breath" mention the downsides. Which to me, the downsides are major and not giving them the proper light of day is setting someone up. This is why I kept mentioning "always on" so that others would know what they are getting in for. That is why I mentioned "if you don't use it, it's like you don't have it." Again, bringing light to the downsides.
I think you are trying to do the same, and I think that we are in a tug of war with the reader trying to help them avoid a hole.
Agree to disagree? Or truce?
The feat is not wasted if you use it on another fight. Let's get realistic and practical about htis. And I'll even explain the one base assumption that I'll use for my example here. That base assumption is that we don't have to worry about the attacks missing.
With this base assumption. For each full round of attacks you are going to achieve an average of 9-12 damage from the extra 1d6 from HM or Hex. And a Max extra Damage possible of 24.
So for Fighting Initiate to even break even at a rate of 2-4 damage a turn. Your looking at an average of 3 full turns of combat to equal the same damage to equal that same round.
So you don't need a perfectly optimal fight. You just need a decent fight where you can in some way reasonable get your attacks in on the right targets and limit downtime of your HM or Hex. The more turns you have to spend activating or moving HM/Hex the lower your damage is going to be but your still going to be gaining in damage over Fighting Initiate if you remember to move your HM/Hex to a new target before attacking them . So this is going to mean a little bit of luck combined with good target picking and to use them in fights that hopefully are not going to be over in just 1 or 2 rounds because then other options are far more preferable and even optimal. If your fights tend to be around reasonably the same number of turns then choose any of them, but if you know your going to be fighting a BBEG or a large number of people that's your better bet to choose. All of Which can be done even in practical application environments. Though it may take more work than in any white room application of the math. This also means that in the fight you use it on you want a decent amount of targets or one big target that you can hit for multiple turns, Potentially while your other party members are beating on it as well. But by doing this it can mean that it could take 2 to 3 full combats for Fighting Initiate to actually break even on damage as long as you don't use it on a really short fight and then the rest of your fights are significantly longer. This is how I'm not forgetting the bigger picture and how I'm not forgetting about Damage. I am perfectly aware of damage and aware of the factors that I'm talking about.
And that downside your saying that I'm not talking about? Let's talk about it. The downside to HM/Hex is that it's disruptable and monks don't necessarily have the best Con scores to be making concentration saves so there are chances that you are not going to get the full duration out of it. So there is a small risk reward component attached to using this tactic in that fashion. It's not the one combat usage that is actually the downside with this method however because of the gains that you can make with it.
When it comes to Monks overall though, surprisingly enough because of their large number of attacks actually benefit far more from such benefits like Hex than most of the classes that actually have and use them for components of their damage and are considered must have's on those classes. Particularly when you can take steps to minimize missed attacks. Monks overall are served far more from mitigating missed attacks more than almost anybody else in general. They're damage is also potentially more consistent while being competitive. So once the attacks are consistent various bursts actually become highly effective on Monks. Particularly if they are bursts that can be triggered multiple times a round for low resource and action cost such as the damage from HM or Hex, The Damage from the Eldritch Claws Tattoo, and other items of that nature. And these things do not actually require perfectly optimal usage to be a fairly dramatic increase, They actually work well and are a strong increase even when sub optimally used in average situations. There is even potential to find ones that you can stack for even bigger payoff, or activate over a succession of fights to prolong usefulness if you collect more than one of them for your usage.
As for the Kensei. It's not the perfect example your making out to be for your side of things. For One. It's a prime example of Why Fighting Initiate-Unarmed has other options and is only middling at best which is exactly my argument. For two there is an issue with them that you are ignoring. They have other ways to add damage that are baked right into them that you do not have with Astral Arms. Kensei Shot for example when they have a bow. Means that for sacrificing a little static damage from the bonuses actually still gets the d4 damage component that they can mix into their regular attacks and this automatically self scales when extra attack is obtained because now it applies to two attacks, which effectively can make them work a bit more like more traditional martial classes in adding more into fewer hits but also making their damage a bit more inconsistent because they win bigger when they hit but they lose bigger when they miss. And this only increases as they advance in levels and gain the rest of their abilities which do have costs but actually build on this same concept. or when they use alternate abilities to get a third weapon attack. While HM or Hex could be used on them. It's actually not going to be as effective as it would on other Monks because of HM and Hex's increases in damage being tied to number of attacks as a determining factor of just how strong it's going to be. 6 average damage and 12 maximum is not nearly as much as what these two abilities are providing other monks with more attacks and it would mean they would have to have them work for more turns to get the same kind of damage gains out of them.
Your not actually poking holes in what I'm saying. You may feel like you are. But your stubbornly holding on to one idea. And I grant you at a base level it's a strong idea. But there are factors, particularly in monks, that play out differently once you get past the basic structure. Overall for most static damage is going to be a very strong source of damage not only because many other classes have bursts that are somewhat risky or unreliable but also because those bursts are very limited in number. However, the Monk is almost exactly the opposite. It's Variability comes from a different source and it's far more in their consistancy with little burst to them. They can take advantage of several kinds of bursts very effectively when they are consistant and these bursts can be much more reliable because they are less all or nothing than with most other classes and a whole lot more smaller and more spread out meaning losses are not as severe.
As for my mentioning a 2 point increase. I meantion a 2 point increase because of the monks built in tools that do mitigate the Damage difference automatically such as the quaterstaff. Rdalistically the only increase over all other monks because of their core class abilities and features is primarily going to be found either in their bonus attack or in their FoB. So that 4 point increase. it's only going to be there when FoB is active. Which is limited and costs resources. Otherwise it's a 2point increase. And I tend to default to 2point increase because the BA is the only thing sustainable. Other calculations, Those are just for ease of use and/or gimmick stylings but they are only gains over others using the same ease of use and/or gimmick stylings. Not on the potential optimal damage of the monk itself.
level 1 is the only level where there is any true advantage for Unarmed Fighting and that's because this is when monks are at their weakest. They have basically nothing in their tool kit yet. Less than even other classes in fact. They don't even have their Ki or any of it's basic uses yet at this point. The only thing that they have at hand is their Martial Arts Feature. But this feature is only keeping them competitive if not potentially slightly better than any of the other martial classes when it comes to sustainable damage. This is also the point where even their very limited needs for equipment may cause them some issues. A monk at this level that can beef up their unarmed Strikes find themselves at a damage level that other classes won't reach until at least level 2 and so for pure damage they suddenly become king of the ant hill. But at level one Damage is also not the major deciding factor that everybody treats it as, Survivability will actually do far more for a character than damage because HP values are so low that even though the damage is low at this point significant amounts of health are lost per hit on even the sturdiest of characters where even a barbarian can potentially lose 1/4 of their hp in a single blow if not more and the squishy classes could be pushed near death. Between the issues of survivability and the lack of kit is why many people don't actually like to play level 1 and many prefer to actually start at more like level 2 or 3. I've seen many games all over the place purposely skip this level to the point that I find it stands out way more when I find a game that actually does play level 1. Even a number of streamed campaigns that i've watched, some of them are extremely popular, seem to skip the first and possibly the second level of play. But once the core class kits and the subclasses start coming into play the dynamic starts to change quite a bit.
For monks this means their static damage actually tends to be more important than the size of dice that they roll at low levels. Variable numbers on their damage only really matter if they are either significantly huge, which is very difficult, or is better when you can apply it to as many hits as possible. This tends to mean that because of the style and the way they can do things like mix weapon damage and unarmed damage that any bonuses to either one or the other are mainly only of middling value and basically interchangable. And that's all that Unarmed Fighting Does. It facilitates a few low level builds, but it doesn't add on any significant bonus over other possibilities that do the same thing. Feats tend to do more with your flavor and adding options than with your power, but you can just as easily go against that flavor with most monks and amplify it's opposite and get overall basically the same results, Suiting more to potentially facilitate a build over adding real power.
This is true even for something like the Kensei which everybody tries to maximise their weapon usage as much as possible. But you could actually take something like Unarmed Fighting and actually get a very similar result in choosing to beef up their unarmed strikes. Particularly for those that have the combined obsessions of making as many attacks as possible every round and insist that Agile Parry must always be used for better AC.
But Feats are ALWAYS heavy costs for Monks. A higher Cost than for most other classes and builds and it's a cost that people should be aware of. Even when it's gained through things like VHuman. Many races have various bonuses and advantages that can't just be replicated and picked up elsewhere or indiscriminately stack with those bonuses to be even more powerful if they are replicatable in many instances.
Even your 4th level Kobold is an example of this. One of the reasons to take Kobold is Pack Tactics. If you take Pack Tactics away to get the feat through the whole Variant Race system in Tasha's, then you might as well not bother with Kobold at all. Your no longer gaining anything significant or worthy out of it. If your dex ends up odd your just shifting aruond your ASI's at some future level. And if it ends up even the mostly likely reasons are because you either chose to go less than maximum on your point buy/stat array placement or you got extremely good rolls that potentially gives you some power advantage that you may not have needed that +2 dex anyway but it's just facilitating your preferred primary stat a little faster by effectively acting like an ASI at first level for the character. Because at the end of the Day. That 4th level Kobold. He can still wield a quarterstaff for a D8 that still works off of his dexterity, because that d8 isn't something only magically attained through Unarmed Fighting. There are plenty of other ways to get it. Static bonuses that he can add to both his unarmed and his weapon are actually going to be the most valuable thing the kobold can find when it comes to damage because it's going to be more sustainable than the bit of extra damage gained to only one type of damage that it can do.
And this is all coming from a person that actually likes to just do Unarmed fighting through Martial Arts on his monks because it's easy and straight forward and still takes advantage of the monks true strength in static damage applied each turn while being different in feel and flavor from other classes. Which does mean that yes I do have a Kobold monk that I do play in one of my games. But I don't do it because it's perfectly optimal for Damage, Much of the time I don't even worry or care that I'm rolling smaller damage dice than others. That particular character is only rolling D6's in fact. I prefer to get things like pack tactics or other advantage gaining things in my favor because not missing tends to add more damage because every hit that I do hit instead of missing is another 7 damage to my total for the turn because of the 3 average and the 4 from my static modifiers, and for each crit I end up getting that's another 3 base on average (and sometimes more) despite the fact that in my groups I'm not known for having luck that is all that good so the dice tend to not be in my favor very often. I've also picked up some abilities that are saving throw based instead of to hit based because I've wandered off the beaten path and taken 4 elements monk.
You are fixated on one fight while I'm talking about throughout the day. And you accuse me of being fixated.
I also noticed how you did not even address that hex is a once per fight per day ability.
I am not fixated on one fight. I showed how one fight can potentially equal multiple fights throughout the day with other abilities. I addressed the issue your speaking of about hex in my explanation by pointing out that with picking just a decent fight to use it on. The damage is so much higher that through the simple mathematics of typical rounds in a fight stretching out over multiple fights. That one fight is going to be the equivalent in extra damage to 3 fights on average with something like Hunter's Mark and hex. This both covers multiple fights throughout the day and addresses your concern about it only working for one fight throughout the day. I also addressed it by the fact that the monk has more than one way to pick up abilities that work similarly, not all of them through Feats either mind you because Eldritch Claw Tattoo is a magical item with the same effective damage burst effect and style to hunters mark and Hex that could either be stacked into a single fight or used in the next decent fight that you get for effectively what ends up being a second use of the same kind of power in a differnt fight in the same day. Your outright ignoring this.