Expansion of Unorthodox Flurry

[Pav]

Hey! It's me again.

Today I would like to bring attention to the Unorthodox Flurry Monk feat. For those who are not aware, it bestows the following benefit:

Unorthodox Flurry

Type of Feat: General
Prerequisite: Flurry of Blows.
Specifics: The character is trained in a monastic tradition that uses nontraditional weapons. He can use any light melee weapon for his flurry of blows, not just Kamas.
Note: A light weapon is one that is at least one size category smaller than its wielder.
Use: Automatic.

Unorthodox flurry currently doesn't work with rapiers.

Firstly, the word "currently" strikes me as phrasing meant for emphasis that this will, in the future, be a possibility. While this is interesting by itself, I would like to separately discuss the possibility of adding another feat that, with the added Prerequisite of a Weapon Focus in a Medium Weapon and Unorthodox Flurry, grants you Unorthodox Flurry to that weapon.

For example, a traditional eastern monk may choose to use a spear, as pointed out in the developer chat on Discord. He picks Unorthodox Flurry, Simple Weapon Proficiency, Weapon Focus: Spear, and this as of yet unnamed feat, to gain an extra attack at a -2 to hit. Mechanically, this is almost always a tremendous investment of feats for a weaker damage output than fists or dual wielded small weapons (that come at lighter feat expenditure).  It would serve only as an aesthetic choice and would help in giving people more incentive to not always use their fists.

Other things to consider are the fact that the only ones to make use of this are Strength Monks, which already trade off a decent chunk of AC for damage. While this is not a canon feat for NWN or D&D, we have others of its like made for purposes of build diversity (such as the one-handed parry feats), and the Kensai class from Complete Warrior exists to support such a character existing in our world. It would serve as a cheap but welcome replication, as it is more similar to the Monk than the Weapon Master in its interpretation and roleplay.

Thoughts and feedback on the topic are appreciated.

[EO]

Unorthodox Flurry is hardcoded.

[Itikar]

The real question is whether Unorthodox Flurry allows to get also monk unarmed attack bonus progression for those weapons. Because if it does not, honestly, I do not think it is a really useful feat for a pure monk.

The description above however is incorrect, since flurry can currently be used in game not just with kamas but with most monk weapons, including: sai, tonfa, staff and nunchaku.

The only monk weapon I tested so far that does not work with flurry is, sadly, the wind and fire wheel. :/

[Pav]

Unorthodox Flurry is hardcoded.

Why does that prevent the addition of a new feat that behaves similarly and relies upon its base structure?

The real question is whether Unorthodox Flurry allows to get also monk unarmed attack bonus progression for those weapons. Because if it does not, honestly, I do not think it is a really useful feat for a pure monk.

The description above however is incorrect, since flurry can currently be used in game not just with kamas but with most monk weapons, including: sai, tonfa, staff and nunchaku.

The only monk weapon I tested so far that does not work with unorthodox flurry is, sadly, the wind and fire wheel. :/

An extra attack is very useful - and I am not sure how the description is wrong.

[Itikar]

The description is wrong because it implies that without such feat the only weapon that lets a monk benefit from flurry is the kama, i.e. not just Kamas.

This is not the case.

[EO]

The description is wrong because it implies that without such feat the only weapon that lets a monk benefit from flurry is the kama, i.e. not just Kamas.

This is not the case.

Only the kama works for Flurry of Blows according to this:
https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Flurry_of_blows

Why does that prevent the addition of a new feat that behaves similarly and relies upon its base structure?

Because it’s hardcoded. Hardcoded means built in the game engine. Unorthodox Flurry is a NwN feat that was disabled (was meant for Disciple of Shou); I found it and reenabled it. There’s another frat that works like it that lets monks use Flurry of Blow with all weapons but I preferred not to add it. It may be possible to associate more weapons to Unorthodox Flurry via NwNx but that request should be made to the NwNx team not us.

[Itikar]

Only the kama works for Flurry of Blows according to this:
https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Flurry_of_blows

On the server I can activate it with several other monk weapons, such as the staff in this example:
https://imgur.com/RqYKWTV

edit:

I suggest editing the description of unorthodox flurry according to its PnP version, replacing "not just Kamas" with "not just special monk weapons". Source: http://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/shou-disciple/index.html

To expand on that it seems that on the server regular flurry works with the same weapons that allow its use in 3.5 srd (i.e. unarmed, kama, quarterstaff, sai, nunchaku) plus shuriken and tonfa.

[EO]

Only the kama works for Flurry of Blows according to this:
https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Flurry_of_blows

On the server I can activate it with several other monk weapons, such as the staff in this example:
https://imgur.com/RqYKWTV

edit:

I suggest editing the description of unorthodox flurry according to its PnP version, replacing "not just Kamas" with "not just special monk weapons". Source: http://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/shou-disciple/index.html

To expand on that it seems that on the server regular flurry works with the same weapons that allow its use in 3.5 srd (i.e. unarmed, kama, quarterstaff, sai, nunchaku) plus shuriken and tonfa.

Ah, interesting. It's a recent NwNx development; initially NWNX_Weapon_SetWeaponIsMonkWeapon function didn't apply to Flurry of Blow. We'll update the tlk next hak update, whenever that is.

In any case, that list of weapons are what are categorized as monk weapons in PnP. Unorthodox Flurry expands the list to all weapons smaller than the character (small for medium characters, tiny for small characters), that part is hardcoded.

[Phantasia]

Nice, so we'll see a few more weapons added for UF in future updates?

[EO]

Nice, so we'll see a few more weapons added for UF in future updates?

No, not short term and it's not a priority for us either so we won't ask the NwNx team to add support for expanding Unorthodox Flurry. If you want to make a request for a new NwNx function, be my guest; you can even make your own plugins. If the feature is in we'll evaluate the possibility of expanding it (which is not a definite either).

[Thundron]

Shurikens work with normal flurry, which is amazing!