[RPG] Does a Monk’s Martial Arts die replace all of a magic weapon’s damage, or only the die portion of it

class-featurednd-5emagic-itemsmonk

I have a 5th-level Monk, whose martial arts die is a d6. I'm wielding a magic +1 dagger in my hand.

If I use my martial arts die in place of "the weapon's normal damage", does the dagger then deal 1d6 (replacing all of the weapon's damage), or 1d6+1 (replacing only the weapon's d4 damage die, but still including the +1 enchantment)?

Best Answer

The +1 Carries Forward

The martial arts class feature (PH page 78), at 5th level, allows you to

…roll a [d6] in place of the normal damage of [a]…monk weapon.

A dagger is a monk weapon, so its damage is changed.

What, then, is the "normal damage" of a weapon? We turn to page 146 of the Player's Handbook:

The Weapons table shows the most common weapons used in the worlds of D&D, their price and weight, the damage they deal when they hit, and any special properties they possess.

A +1 weapon (DMG page 213) adds

…a bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon.

Parsing these all together we can determine that:

  • The normal damage of a dagger is d4
  • Martial arts swaps the damage rolled from a d4 to a d6
  • A +1 dagger adds one to the damage rolled

The +1 is still added, since that's not part of the normal damage a dagger does.