Unarmed fighting - how to introduce it via feats?

[Pbartender]

Thanks.

I actually had this exact brain storm almost immediately after I posted.

I replaced the Rogue Weapon Talent with Unarmed Fighting. I gave it a +3 proficiency bonus though as I felt it was about right to do so given daggers get an extra +1 with this ability on top of their proficiency bonus.

I also allowed (as the players idea) for gloves to be a stand-in for weapons. This works well since it both denies the character a weapon (well, not really, but...) and therefore an extra power, and it takes up a slot that would normally grant an extra power.

With two feats to up the dice damage, one to 1d6 and the next to 1d8, I think that works rather well within the current system. It's an extra feat so again it feels balanced to me against the advantage of not requiring a weapon.

This may be too late, Kzach, but...

There seems to be two main pronblems, first that Improvised Weapons do not get proficiency bonuses (making it more difficult to hit with them), and second that they do not fall into any useful weapon groups (making it difficult for many classes to use them as a part of a power).

Here's what I'd do...

The first feat (call it Brawling) adds a proficiency bonus of +2 to unarmed attacks, and also gives them the "off-hand" property (it may not seem like much, but techically it allows a character to hold a regular melee weapon in one hand and still be able to punch with the other without putting the weapon away). That puts his fists on par with a dagger-sized version of a Club or Mace that cannot be disarmed... I don't see any need to increase the damage -- powers will be doing enough of that, when necessary.

The second feat (we'll call this one Living Weapon) allows the character to a single melee weapon group (Axe, Flail, Hammer, Heavy Blade, Light Blade, Mace, Pick, Polearm, Spear or Staff), allowing a character to use feats and powers related to that weapon group.

Last, add two more feats that each add, respectively, the Versatile and High-Crit properties to unarmed attacks.

That's gives a total of four feats specifically for improving Unarmed attacks. Plenty enough, especially when taken in conjunction with all the otehr more generic feats that can improve attacks or damage.

 

[Pbartender]

Curious. How do you handle someone making an unarmed attack in combat?

I fall back to 3E, where it provoked an (edit: opportunity) melee attack, and did zip for damage, like d4.

4E already has rules for it... Unarmed strikes are treated as any other attack, and they are treated as Improvised Weapons, with no proficiency bonus, the "Unarmed" weapon group, no special properties, and dealing 1d4 damage. Otherwise, it's an attack like attacking with any other weapon, can be used with any power that allows it (it counts as a melee weapon), and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

See pages 216 and 219 in the 4E PHB.

 

[Auronite]

Aha. That does indeed explain that...

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

The interesting thing about unarmed attacks and proficiency bonuses is that they are mostly un-needed. The usual proficiency bonuses approximately equal that armor bonus most characters get. See, characters with light armor get +2-3 armor bonus, plus an atribute mod. Characters with heavy armor get no atribute mod, but the armor bonus makes up for that atribute mod about equally throughout the 30 levels.

So for a normal weapon attach you get +2-3 proficiency bonus, plus an atribute mod. This equals the +2-3 armor bonus plus atribute mod. Heavy armor is only slightly higher than this, and it all equals out to about a 50% chance of hitting.

If characters only attack armored opponents with weapons, they get a 50% chance of hitting. If they only attack unarmored opponenets while unarmed, they get a 50% chance of hitting. Interesting. Seems like the rules put things about right for people who aren't being stupid about who they attack.

Of course, this doesn't help the guy who wants to punch the guy in full plate.

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

If he just wants the flavor of it... give him fistwraps (or something of that nature) that act as weapons. That allows you to have "unarmed" attacks that work as well as normal weapons and lets you give proficiency bonuses and magical effects to the attacks. Probably just give the fistwraps (or whatever item you come up with) the same stats as daggers and have them count as daggers for class feature purposes. Having free hands essentially makes it like having daggers with Quick Draw, though, so making it cost a feat if you want is balanced (outside of not being able to throw your fists... hell, just force him to take Quick Draw and don't even houserule a feat).

It's a simple solution that doesn't require all kinds of tinkering. Now, if you wanted some elaborate and fancy unarmed method... wait for Monks to be released

 

[Pbartender]

Probably just give the fistwraps (or whatever item you come up with)...

FYI: An historically appropriate item -- especially if you want to keep a "western" flavor to your game -- would be the cestus, the greco-roman version of brass knuckles. Cestus were essentially leather gauntlet made of straps wrapped around the hands. Later variations included metal studs, spikes, plates or blades to make them more dangerous.

Whcih reminds me that one of these days I want to make a monk-like character based off of Pankration, a combination of boxing and wrestling used by the ancient Greeks.

 

[DEFCON 1]

There was the Monk character conversion that WotC did from back in June. They did it using the Ranger two-weapon build and made several class ability swaps... but it also resulted in a 1d8 +2 prof unarmed dual combatant. Now granted it's not the rogue like the OP needed to fill, but it might have some ability conversion ideas that could be used the same way for the rogue.

Converting Your Character: PH

 

[Triangleman27]

Instead of designing class builds and elaborate skill trees I offer this simple alternative:

Make an Improved Unarmed Fighting feat (feel free to call it something else for the sake of flavor) that raises your unarmed attack damage to 1d6 along with a +3 proficiency bonus (and perhaps even assign the Mace weapon group to his fists).

Then create gloves that provide a PC's unarmed attack with the same enhancements as magical weapons.