D&D 5E Would you allow this if you were the DM

[The Crimson Binome]

Have you seen the Monster Manual?

Can you count all the other games, the mythologies, the novels and the short stories, which inspired its monsters, on the fingers of one hand?

Yes? I mean, at this point, D&D is a reflection of itself. Everything in the Monster Manual is... everything from the most popular Monster Manuals from previous editions.

Once, long ago, vampires and werewolves were different legends. By now, they are inextricably linked such that the presence of one (in any given media) practically guarantees the existence of the other. It's all just generic fantasy by now. Mummies, golems, orcs, goblins, vampires, sphynxes, manticores - all generic fantasy.

Furries aren't quite generic fantasy yet, though. You can't assume that D&D must allow furries, before they release a supplement for it. And we're not playing GURPS, where you can build anything - D&D includes a lot of very specific stuff, but the things that aren't in there (like furries), just aren't part of the game. A bear using martial arts is entirely out of genre for D&D.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

D&D includes a lot of very specific stuff, but the things that aren't in there (like furries), just aren't part of the game. A bear using martial arts is entirely out of genre for D&D.

We've had playable furries of some kind in D&D at least since the first Oriental Adventures and The Complete Book of Humanoids, and 3Ed & 4Ed continued with that. Moreover, in 3.X, The Improved Unarmed Strike feat was still usable if you were shapechanged/polymorphed.

If you count PCs infected with lycanthropy, you could even have a monk werebear in AD&D.

Soooo, rare, but not entirely out of genre.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Soooo, rare, but not entirely out of genre.

It's out of the purview of D&D 5E... for now. Someday, the game will expand out until that's an expected thing that might exist. For now, it's the realm of house rules for anyone who wants to add that to the game.

 

[Celtavian]

I wouldn't allow it. Unarmed strike and natural weapon seem to be very different in this game. This edition also encourages DM to decide based on verisimilitude over RAW. The monk ability is based on the idea they are doing unarmed martial arts. I can't see a brown bear doing martial arts. If you don't mind Kung Fu Panda, then go with it. Doesn't seem game-breaking to me beyond the early levels.

 

[SirAntoine]

This ability is fine. Unusual movements for a bear are not too much of a stretch for a fantasy RPG. The bear could be the Kung Fu Panda! I'd give experience to the player for creating such an innovative idea.

 

[Riley37]

No, not any of the sequels or revisions or editions of the Monster Manual. I mean the original, published in 1977, with cover art by David C. Sutherland III, and the illustration of the topless succubus. It didn't draw on previous Monster Manuals, because there are/were none. How many mythologies does it draw upon, and how many story settings established in the 20th century (eg Middle Earth) does it draw on? Dozens. It's totally a kitchen sink. If there has ever been D&D which was not a kitchen sink, it was before 1977.

"Once, long ago, vampires and werewolves were different legends."
You mean... some time before the 1977 Monster Manual, which includes both?

The post asked about a druid Wild Shaping into a bear. That ain't no anthropomorphic cartoon monster. That's a *bear*, Ursus arctos, with the mind of a (demi)human, and thus with all class abilities which don't require hands or speech. A bear which remembers training such as where a human's pressure points are, and thus where to strike a human for maximum effect; the effects of stance and footwork; and so forth. I don't see anything silly about that. It only has the implausibility inherent to ANY use of Wild Shape.

Given the things real-world bears have been trained to do, I would not be surprised if a bear with just a bear's mind could learn to effectively execute a rising block, a sweeping block, an elbow strike, an uppercut, etc. A human who learned those moves, and then Wild Shaped into a bear, might need a bit of practice to adapt to differences in joints, center of balance, stance, etc.; a bit of practice, and then she could execute them properly, at full strength.

There were some answers with furries from movies and from WOW. Kick those answers around, if you like. But the OP didn't specify a furry.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

No, not any of the sequels or revisions or editions of the Monster Manual. I mean the original, published in 1977, with cover art by David C. Sutherland III, and the illustration of the topless succubus.

This isn't 1977. It doesn't matter how kitchen-sink-y it was, back in the day, for the same book to include monsters from so many different sources. Today, all of that is considered to be the same genre - generic fantasy.

The post asked about a druid Wild Shaping into a bear. That ain't no anthropomorphic cartoon monster. That's a *bear*, Ursus arctos, with the mind of a (demi)human, and thus with all class abilities which don't require hands or speech.

Great. At least we can agree on that. Kung Fu Panda is irrelevant to the topic at hand, because druids can't turn into furries.

A bear which remembers training such as where a human's pressure points are, and thus where to strike a human for maximum effect; the effects of stance and footwork; and so forth. I don't see anything silly about that. It only has the implausibility inherent to ANY use of Wild Shape.

That's the point of this question. Can a bear use kung fu? If you become accomplished at moving your human body to anticipate blows and move in implausible ways, can you still do that in the body of a bear?

My answer is no, that wouldn't fly in my game. The ursine body does not lend itself to martial arts. Your muscle memory would be working against you at every turn, and there are motions which the human body can perform which are just physically impossible for a bear. The very idea of a bear using martial arts is ridiculous.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Can a bear use kung fu?

Maybe not kung fu- not without training- but there are thousands of martial arts forms in the world, some of which may be more suitable to an ursine physiology. Sumo, perhaps.

Besides, many humans who created those martial arts- especially ones like Kung fu- were adapting the attack, defense and evasive styles of animals to the human physiology. As Riley37 posted:

A human who learned those moves, and then Wild Shaped into a bear, might need a bit of practice to adapt to differences in joints, center of balance, stance, etc.; a bit of practice, and then she could execute them properly, at full strength.

IOW, it is not outside the realm of possibility* that an intelligent, trained martial artist could perform the same developmental process, and adapt certain human martial arts techniques to the ursine form. Call it...Jeet Bruin Do.





* Especially because dragons.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Maybe not kung fu- not without training- but there are thousands of martial arts forms in the world, some of which may be more suitable to an ursine physiology. Sumo, perhaps.

It might be possible that there's some obscure martial art that works well for bears. The Monk class is not that, though. There's no vague line about how the Monk class could represent any of a thousand different styles of martial artist. A D&D Monk is a very specific thing, with each of its powers modeling a discrete maneuver.

This isn't 4E, where you can change the flavor as long as you keep the fluff the same. The type of martial arts practiced by Monks simply does not translate to bear form, and it's ridiculous to think that it would. I'm sure that an intelligent bear could learn its own brand of martial arts, but that's not something which is covered by anything in the 5E world - you would need to invent a new class or something if you wanted to model that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Modeling martial arts has NEVER been D&D's strong suit. The original monks had very specific maneuvers, too- like quivering palm- drawn from a very narrow set of martial arts. And yet, anyone who wanted to model their PC after a martial artist who DIDN'T come from one of those traditions still used the monk class to do so, because it was "the only game in town," as they say. Shao Lin priests, karate black belts, capoierists, Savate specialists, sumo wrestlers- all were monks.

3Ed and 4Ed gave the game the ability to more closely model other martial arts, but games like HERO and GURPS still do it soooooo much better it isn't even funny.

That 5ed returned to a more 1Ed-like design on this is disappointing to me, but it does not change the fact that AD&D players didn't let a paucity of mechanical options prevent them from playing a variety of martial artists- in concept, if not in mechanics- and there is no reason why 5Ed players should be any more limited in imagination than their predecessors in the hobby.