As far as I can see it is not specified. But I don't think you can use your astral arms to grapple the enemies and use your normal arms to make more attacks without weapons. I don't think they can even handle items, much less weapons. But all this is not specified. The only thing that is clear is that you can use your spectral hands to make unarmed attacks and that the damage type is force.
Arms of the Astral Self
At 3rd level, 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.
You can, however, grapple with your normal arms using WIS instead of STR (only requires that the astral arms are active) and then unarmed strike with the astral arms. But it is true the astral arms can’t wield weapons or open doors etc.
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.
You can, however, grapple with your normal arms using WIS instead of STR (only requires that the astral arms are active) and then unarmed strike with the astral arms. But it is true the astral arms can’t wield weapons or open doors etc.
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.
Counterpoint, you can use your astral arms to open doors as long as you're trying to force the door open.
I wasn't even asking if they could hold weapons; i was more thinking about situations like if I was restrained (then could my astral form still move)
Here we have to define if the arms of the Astral Self are a material invocation or are like intangible arms. If I had to choose, I would be more on the second hypothesis since it is written that they are spectral arms. If this were the case, the monk would be restrained, but would not suffer disadvantage on attack rolls, as normally should be the case.
<<For 10 minutes, these spectral arms hover near your shoulders or surround your arms (your choice). >>
Restrained
A restrained creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls have disadvantage.
The creature has disadvantage on Dexterity Saving Throws.
But it is true the astral arms can’t wield weapons or open doors etc.
A one-level dip into a casting class to get mage hand, or a feat/racial feature (high elf, for instance) that gets you a cantrip, can help alleviate this. Still no wielding weapons, of course, but it's an easy enough reflavor to say the mage hand is actually one of your astral hands
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I wasn't even asking if they could hold weapons; i was more thinking about situations like if I was restrained (then could my astral form still move)
Ok. I only mentioned weapons as part of the manipulate objects part. You didn’t mention restrained but I would think that although the monk would be restrained, the arms wouldn’t. So you can still attack with them. It really would be DM’s call if you still had disadvantage to attack. I wouldn’t think so since the arms are spectral and don’t have to be attached to your body.
You can, however, grapple with your normal arms using WIS instead of STR (only requires that the astral arms are active) and then unarmed strike with the astral arms. But it is true the astral arms can’t wield weapons or open doors etc.
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.
Counterpoint, you can use your astral arms to open doors as long as you're trying to force the door open.
True. I guess if you wanted to punch a door with your astral arms until it breaks that works. Nothing in the feature says it cannot target objects so the monk can punch away.
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.
It explicitly states "You can use the spectral arms to make unarmed strikes." you could use them to break down a door with no issue. Now, this is not written anywhere and you could logically assume that since you can strike a creature or object with said arms, you could manipulate one as well like a handshake or holding a pen. However, this is subject to your DMs discretion.
In terms of Grappling. As stated above "You can use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Strength modifier when making Strength checks and Strength saving throws." Means at the very least you can choose to make all your grapple checks using Athletics (Wisdom) instead of the normal Athletics (Strength).
It could be inferred either way. Explicitly you make specifically "unarmed strikes" with your arms and that is as far as that would go. If you consider it a bit more deeply then your arms feature is augmenting the "Unarmed strike" attack that you make as part of your attack action. You could still replace any one such attack you would make with your action with the grapple special melee attack.
Grappling
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.
For Restrained with it stating the following
Restrained
A restrained creature's speed becomes 0, and it can't benefit from any bonus to its speed.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage.
Specifically, in this part "the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage." it mentions the creature meaning any attacks that creature regardless of source will have disadvantage. So that includes any spell attacks that may be made or any kind of weapons attacks natural or otherwise. The idea here is that even though the limb or object itself in question may not be "restrained" per se but being restrained in this manner is restricting/distracting enough that you cannot aim or target as usual without being disturbed in the process. Imagine trying to swing a sword but having your body jerked to the side throwing off your aim.
If you want a strict ruling, then I'd say that Astral Arms are only ever described as "spectral arms", it never states anywhere that they include hands; you need "at least one free hand" to Grapple, so arguably RAW you can't use the astral arms to manipulate anything as such.
In terms of rules as intended if they were intended to be used as a second set of arms then they would state as much; the fact that they can appear as merely overlaying your own arms makes it clear they're only intended to be an enhancement, because otherwise overlaying your own arms would always be an objectively worse choice.
Meanwhile for Rules As Fun; ask your DM. Being able to grapple more targets is hardly overpowered, and could let you tank a bit more effectively if you want to. Manipulating objects is probably fine as well as it's unlikely to matter all that often.
Hey, uhm...might be off topic or not... On Lv. 18 as a monk you have Timeless body, so you can be invisible for 4 ki or for 8 ki you can do Astral Projection, Doctor Strange stile right? So my question is, when I'm in astral form, can I do a unarmed attack in astral form and what type of damage would that be?
This is something you would need to talk to your DM about.
RAW the ability to cast Astral Projection has no interaction with any of the subclass features from Way of the Astral Self. You still have access to those features, but you still need to activate them as normal.
Okay, but if you didn't pick Astral Self and you picked for example Open Hand and you wish to use Quivering Palm while being in astral form or just using a regular unarmed strike, would you still be able to deal damage to the creature and will still count as bludgeoning damage or force damage or necrotic (like if a ghost uses Withering Touch)?
As the spell states: "Your astral body resembles your mortal form in almost every way, replicating your game statistics and possessions."
There is no mechanical difference between your physical body and your astral projection.
I wouldn't worry to much about the specifics as very few campaigns make it all the way to level 18. The astral plane and the astral sea are essentially D&D's version of outer space.
Okay, but if you didn't pick Astral Self and you picked for example Open Hand and you wish to use Quivering Palm while being in astral form or just using a regular unarmed strike, would you still be able to deal damage to the creature and will still count as bludgeoning damage or force damage or necrotic (like if a ghost uses Withering Touch)?
Your unarmed strikes will do bludgeoning damage and Quivering Palm will do necrotic (per the feature) if they make the save. Astral Projection does not change that.
You can, however, grapple with your normal arms using WIS instead of STR (only requires that the astral arms are active) and then unarmed strike with the astral arms. But it is true the astral arms can’t wield weapons or open doors etc.
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.
Counterpoint, you can use your astral arms to open doors as long as you're trying to force the door open.
True. I guess if you wanted to punch a door with your astral arms until it breaks that works. Nothing in the feature says it cannot target objects so the monk can punch away.
Ofc, if the PC or NPC is Thri-Kreen, then you could use your lineage extra arms to open doors and pick stuff up while also punching people with your spectral arms on the same round.
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Or can they only punch things
As far as I can see it is not specified. But I don't think you can use your astral arms to grapple the enemies and use your normal arms to make more attacks without weapons. I don't think they can even handle items, much less weapons. But all this is not specified. The only thing that is clear is that you can use your spectral hands to make unarmed attacks and that the damage type is force.
Arms of the Astral Self
At 3rd level, 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, however, grapple with your normal arms using WIS instead of STR (only requires that the astral arms are active) and then unarmed strike with the astral arms. But it is true the astral arms can’t wield weapons or open doors etc.
I wasn't even asking if they could hold weapons; i was more thinking about situations like if I was restrained (then could my astral form still move)
Counterpoint, you can use your astral arms to open doors as long as you're trying to force the door open.
Here we have to define if the arms of the Astral Self are a material invocation or are like intangible arms. If I had to choose, I would be more on the second hypothesis since it is written that they are spectral arms. If this were the case, the monk would be restrained, but would not suffer disadvantage on attack rolls, as normally should be the case.
<<For 10 minutes, these spectral arms hover near your shoulders or surround your arms (your choice). >>
Restrained
A one-level dip into a casting class to get mage hand, or a feat/racial feature (high elf, for instance) that gets you a cantrip, can help alleviate this. Still no wielding weapons, of course, but it's an easy enough reflavor to say the mage hand is actually one of your astral hands
Active characters:
Askatu, hyperfocused vedalken freedom fighter in Wildspace (Zealot barb/Swashbuckler rogue/Battle Master fighter)
Green Hill Sunrise, jaded tabaxi mercenary trapped in the Dark Domains (Battle Master fighter)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Ok. I only mentioned weapons as part of the manipulate objects part. You didn’t mention restrained but I would think that although the monk would be restrained, the arms wouldn’t. So you can still attack with them. It really would be DM’s call if you still had disadvantage to attack. I wouldn’t think so since the arms are spectral and don’t have to be attached to your body.
True. I guess if you wanted to punch a door with your astral arms until it breaks that works. Nothing in the feature says it cannot target objects so the monk can punch away.
Firstly the Arms feature.
It explicitly states "You can use the spectral arms to make unarmed strikes." you could use them to break down a door with no issue. Now, this is not written anywhere and you could logically assume that since you can strike a creature or object with said arms, you could manipulate one as well like a handshake or holding a pen. However, this is subject to your DMs discretion.
In terms of Grappling. As stated above "You can use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Strength modifier when making Strength checks and Strength saving throws." Means at the very least you can choose to make all your grapple checks using Athletics (Wisdom) instead of the normal Athletics (Strength).
It could be inferred either way. Explicitly you make specifically "unarmed strikes" with your arms and that is as far as that would go. If you consider it a bit more deeply then your arms feature is augmenting the "Unarmed strike" attack that you make as part of your attack action. You could still replace any one such attack you would make with your action with the grapple special melee attack.
For Restrained with it stating the following
Specifically, in this part "the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage." it mentions the creature meaning any attacks that creature regardless of source will have disadvantage. So that includes any spell attacks that may be made or any kind of weapons attacks natural or otherwise. The idea here is that even though the limb or object itself in question may not be "restrained" per se but being restrained in this manner is restricting/distracting enough that you cannot aim or target as usual without being disturbed in the process. Imagine trying to swing a sword but having your body jerked to the side throwing off your aim.
If you want a strict ruling, then I'd say that Astral Arms are only ever described as "spectral arms", it never states anywhere that they include hands; you need "at least one free hand" to Grapple, so arguably RAW you can't use the astral arms to manipulate anything as such.
In terms of rules as intended if they were intended to be used as a second set of arms then they would state as much; the fact that they can appear as merely overlaying your own arms makes it clear they're only intended to be an enhancement, because otherwise overlaying your own arms would always be an objectively worse choice.
Meanwhile for Rules As Fun; ask your DM. Being able to grapple more targets is hardly overpowered, and could let you tank a bit more effectively if you want to. Manipulating objects is probably fine as well as it's unlikely to matter all that often.
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Hey, uhm...might be off topic or not...
On Lv. 18 as a monk you have Timeless body, so you can be invisible for 4 ki or for 8 ki you can do Astral Projection, Doctor Strange stile right?
So my question is, when I'm in astral form, can I do a unarmed attack in astral form and what type of damage would that be?
This is something you would need to talk to your DM about.
RAW the ability to cast Astral Projection has no interaction with any of the subclass features from Way of the Astral Self. You still have access to those features, but you still need to activate them as normal.
Okay, but if you didn't pick Astral Self and you picked for example Open Hand and you wish to use Quivering Palm while being in astral form or just using a regular unarmed strike,
would you still be able to deal damage to the creature and will still count as bludgeoning damage or force damage or necrotic (like if a ghost uses Withering Touch)?
As the spell states: "Your astral body resembles your mortal form in almost every way, replicating your game statistics and possessions."
There is no mechanical difference between your physical body and your astral projection.
I wouldn't worry to much about the specifics as very few campaigns make it all the way to level 18. The astral plane and the astral sea are essentially D&D's version of outer space.
Your unarmed strikes will do bludgeoning damage and Quivering Palm will do necrotic (per the feature) if they make the save. Astral Projection does not change that.
Ofc, if the PC or NPC is Thri-Kreen, then you could use your lineage extra arms to open doors and pick stuff up while also punching people with your spectral arms on the same round.