D&D 5E Are monks proficient in Unarmed Strikes?

[I'm A Banana]

Because, ya know, there are lots of effects in the game that are obviously meant to apply only while a weapon--and not a fist--is wielded.

For me, part of the confusion is that I don't see a reason why a monk's fists shouldn't be treated, mechanically, as swords when they want them to be. "My fists are deadly weapons" has a much better sound to it than "my firsts are deadly exceptional nonweapons."

I've also never really seen a persuasive case that unarmed strikes-as-weapons is particularly game-breaking, but I might've just missed it.

 

[CapnZapp]

I am convinced there could be much less confusing jargon, if they only had taken the overall view instead of trying to change as little as possible.

 

[ClockworkNinja]

Here is an article from 6 years ago, discussing the US Ninth Circuit Court's discussion of this topic (do hands count as weapons?).

I considered the original unarmed rules (as a simple weapon you might or might not be proficient in) to be fine. It seemed perfectly reasonable that a rough-and-tumble fighter would know how to throw a punch, whereas a sheltered and academic wizard would not.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

To add to that, your proficiency bonus only applies to your attack roll, not damage.

It used to really irritate me how so many people missed this part. I mean, the text is clear.

Then I discovered that I accidentally added proficiency bonus to damage on a character sheet I made.

I have lost all right to be critical on that issue.

 

[Azurewraith]

I will never understand why fists are non weapons. My guess is to prevent sneak attack but would that really be so broken? To stop a monk trying to silver his fists?(in hospital no access to books for a week please correct me) isn't there a clause that says something to the effect of it needs to be made of metal.

 

[Al2O3]

If fists are weapons in every way then a fighter with the dueling fighting style NEEDS to carry a shield in order to use the style if I recall correctly. Dueling fighting style combined with a hand free for grappling or spellcasting would not work well. So I guess the "fists are not weapons" is intended to avoid problems along the lines of "am I wielding my fists?"

Also, unarmed strikes include more than fists, so suddenly elbows, feet and heads also count as weapons.

 

[Njall]

When you are proficient in a weapon you add your proficiency bonus to that weapons to-hit and damage, correct? If so, is monk considered to be proficient in Unarmed strikes, and is thus able to add their bonus to the to-hit and damage of such an attack?
If a monk is not proficient in Unarmed strikes does this mean they have less chance to hit than a fighter of equal capability that is using a sword, or less chance than the same monk would be using a weapon?

Or am I wrong about the use of proficiency in the first place?

To my knowledge, you don't get to add your proficiency bonus to damage rolls. To-hit rolls only.

 

[Iry]

Could have been one of the reasons. They also didn't want various things like Sneak Attack to work with Unarmed Strikes, which is why they declassified them as weapons.

Sneak Attacking with Unarmed Strikes is glorious, though! JUDO CHOP!

 

[Mercule]

Could have been one of the reasons. They also didn't want various things like Sneak Attack to work with Unarmed Strikes, which is why they declassified them as weapons.

Huh. I specifically do want Sneak Attack to work with unarmed strikes. I just have a picture in my head of the good guys sneaking up behind the guard and putting him in a sleeper hold and equate it to unarmed sneak attack. *shrug*

Maybe there should be a proficiency for "unarmed strike as weapons" to allow some folks (Monk, some kinds of Rogue) to stack.

 

[NeverLucky]

The reason not to treat unarmed strike as a weapon is to prevent potential future abilities from interacting problematically with it. If fists were weapons, any future ability or spell that refers to weapons (e.g. Magic Weapon type spells, disarming, etc) have to keep in mind specifically how they would interact with unarmed strike. And if the designers forget about UAS when writing one, bad things might happen ("I disarm the bad guy's head so he can't make headbutt attacks"). [Yes, I know Disarming Attack refers to objects rather than weapons, but future disarm effects might be worded differently.]