Monks are famous for their use of exotic weapons. While historically, warrior monks like the Shaolin or Japan’s sohei were often proficient in the same swords and spears that secular warriors used, the Shaolin in particular were also known for a variety of complex and strange implements. Because the Shaolin and their incarnations in classic kung-fu movies are the backbone of the Monk fantasy class, one of the mechanical niches of the class, along with unarmed attacks, mobility, light/no armor, and qi/ki, is the exotic weapon. One of the few things I really like about the 5e monk is the Martial Arts feature that allows them to deal the same damage with a weapon as with their unarmed progression. In older editions, you can use an exotic weapon alongside your fists in a flurry to switch up the combat maneuvers, reach, or damage types you do.
An exotic weapon is usually a weapon considered too complex, too foreign by the standards of a pan-European medieval fantasy, or too fantastic (read: made up by game developers and not historical) to be usable by the average warrior. This includes many of the weapons of Eastern martial arts that are not universal (like the spear.) When you train in weapons a bit you quickly develop a feel for whether or not an exotic weapon is that way because it’s hard, because it’s too Asian, or because it’s garbage and the game developer didn’t think it through (looking at you, dire flail.)
In Chinese martial arts as well as some other comprehensive traditions, like the Indian ones, a warrior begins with the bare hands. The first weapon they are taught is the staff. The movements for the staff translate to the spear, of course, but also any type of sword or polearm or flexible weapon. Think of it as an unlock tree in a game - skill ranks for barehand or staff unlock weapons or better techniques in later weapons. A warrior using a flashy, exotic weapon like the chainwhip or guandao is, then a warrior who has mastered other more common weapons.
Consider, if you are playing a character who uses an exotic weapon that they should not be a beginner and that it should not be the only weapon they know. When using a character or NPC wielding an exotic weapon, you can play up the variety of their training. Perhaps they got bored with the spear and wanted a challenge, or perhaps they ran into a foe their sword could not match and got creative (this scene happens in the 36 Chambers of Shaolin where the protagonist invents the three section staff to defeat an opponent he cannot overcome.) For a less serious NPC you can subvert the idea of comprehensive training: perhaps they use the emei piercers because they were trained wrong and don’t know how to use unarmed flurry?
In summary: Monks are strongly associated with the weapons too strange for Fighters. This is because they’re part of a training program that includes a wide variety of sometimes specialized weapons. I’m going to do a series of posts highlighting the various weapons of the Monk class, their uses and what makes them special.
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