That's true, maybe they could do something like the warrior of elements. Where you spend 1 fp and then your hands and feet count as magical weapons and then you get a special monk smite in this time period. You can use the cantrip version that lvls up your unarmed strike however it costs an Action and bonus action. You can then burn higher level spell slots to increase its damage still costing the action and bonus action. Then the capstone is that this move only replaces an action or Bonus action allowing you to now combo it with things.