D&D 5E Natural Attacks

[DND_Reborn]

In what way is "unarmed attacks and natural attacks do not count as weapons" ambiguous? That seems pretty clear. And it's been repeated many times. So what part of THAT sentence is confusing you, exactly?

I think people are confusing "I don't like the rule" with "it's not clear".

I mean, if all we had was the first printing of the PHB, then yeah, it can be ambiguous. Be we've had clarification many times, so it's not ambiguous at all any longer. They aren't counted as weapons.

I think a whole LOT of people were confused by the rule, played incorrectly until being informed of JC's intent, and roll their eyes (some of them anyway) at his decision.

I mean, honestly, how many threads, tweets, posts, etc. whatever have been about this crap? When new groups begin play, even with newer printings of the PHB, it still comes up.

Maybe it is time for the next printing to include revised text that clearly differentiates between weapons, unarmed strikes, etc. in a better fashion.

Then, for those of us to don't like it, we can ignore it.

 

[Sacrosanct]

But it's not vague or ambiguous now. It's settled. We all know the rule. Agree or disagree, the rule has been clearly stated. So it's settled.

 

[DND_Reborn]

As I said, but you chose to ignore, it IS still an issue when new players with newly printed books still have confusion about it. Then they get presented with SA via tweets and such and find out they've been doing it wrong.

Now, 5E is supposed to be about natural language, so if someone without the JC ruling knowledge is "naturally reading" the rule in a way not intended, there is still an issue. You say "We all know the rule." but obviously the rule as written is creating some confusion even now.

Not settled.

The worst part is, given this issue and others that are still commonplace, it seems like WotC would update the newer printings with better verbiage to make it completely and undeniably clear. But, there is no sign of it happening yet (hopefully it is in the works).

 

[NotAYakk]

But it's not vague or ambiguous now. It's settled. We all know the rule. Agree or disagree, the rule has been clearly stated. So it's settled.

No, we have a book and websites that really, honestly doesn't say what the designers said on twitter through any reasonable reading.

You can force the reading. You can expect everyone to keep up with developer twitter accounts and FAQs. But if you expect players to read the book (or the website) and understand the rules, the twitter tweets are utterly useless.

I do not expect players of D&D to keep up with developer twitter accounts. I don't want my D&D play to be restricted to people who keep up with developer twitter accounts.

Does anyone have a clear, obvious, not-tiny problem with the gameplay if we just consider "things you make melee weapon attacks with are melee weapons" outside of AL? Or rather, what is the biggest problem you know of, because "tiny" is very subjective.

The biggest problem I know of is that someone can cast magic weapon on a druid in beast form, or on a monk's fists, or a beast companion, or the like, and let do damage in some cases they could not.

That looks like a tiny "problem" to me. Is there a bigger one?

 

[Sacrosanct]

No, we have a book and websites that really, honestly doesn't say what the designers said on twitter through any reasonable reading.

You can force the reading. You can expect everyone to keep up with developer twitter accounts and FAQs. But if you expect players to read the book (or the website) and understand the rules, the twitter tweets are utterly useless.

I do not expect players of D&D to keep up with developer twitter accounts. I don't want my D&D play to be restricted to people who keep up with developer twitter accounts.

Does anyone have a clear, obvious, not-tiny problem with the gameplay if we just consider "things you make melee weapon attacks with are melee weapons" outside of AL? Or rather, what is the biggest problem you know of, because "tiny" is very subjective.

The biggest problem I know of is that someone can cast magic weapon on a druid in beast form, or on a monk's fists, or a beast companion, or the like, and let do damage in some cases they could not.

That looks like a tiny "problem" to me. Is there a bigger one?

We literally have the designer saying, on multiple formats, how the rule works.

That means it's settled. We know what the rule is. You have been literally shown the designer saying what it is. There is no ambiguity there. I get how you don't like it, but the fact is, is that you know for a fact that unarmed attacks and natural attacks don't count as weapons because youve seen the designer saying literally those words. There is no forced reading. There's just reading.

What other interpretations of "unarmed attacks aren't weapons" is there? How is that statement vague or ambiguous or needs to be forced to read it the way that means unarmed attacks don't count as weapons?

 

[NotAYakk]

We literally have the designer saying, on multiple formats, how the rule works.

That means it's settled. We know what the rule is. You have been literally shown the designer saying what it is. There is no ambiguity there. I get how you don't like it, but the fact is, is that you know for a fact that unarmed attacks and natural attacks don't count as weapons because youve seen the designer saying literally those words.

There is no ambiguity to people who read twitter and equivalent.

There is plenty of ambiguity to people who read the rulebooks.

D&D is more than just people who read twitter.

The rulebooks have words. Those words are ambiguous. People playing the game without consulting twitter (or similar) for errata are stuck with rules that really, really don't say that. The rules written in the books are an actual thing, they don't exist merely as an expression of the wishes of the author. When those rules disagree with the wishes of the author, it means that there will be active confusion among players.

The path you choose to interpret the D&D game rules -- that what the author says on twitter, and not in the books, should override the books -- means that everyone playing with you who read the books only gets overridden by you saying "it doesn't work that way".

This sucks and is a bad play experience for people who aren't reading the author of the game on twitter.

That is my position. It has nothing to do with disagreeing that the author intended for the rules to say X or not.

There is a question that would impact the situation that you quoted, and apparently refused to answer. I'll repeat it.

Assuming we treat all things that can do melee weapon attacks as melee weapons (unarmed strikes, natural weapons), what is the biggest problem that occurs in gameplay?

The biggest problem I know of is that someone can cast magic weapon on a druid in beast form, or on a monk's fists, or a beast companion, or the like, and let do damage in some cases they could not.

That looks like a tiny "problem" to me. Is there a bigger one that you know of?

That would be useful information.

 

[Sacrosanct]

None of that means the rule isn't settled. So...ok then? Not sure why you're arguing with me, since my only point is that the rule is settled. We know how it's supposed to work. Not being aware of a rule doesn't mean the rule doesn't exist, and not being aware of a clarification doesn't mean the clarification doesn't exist. Ignorance of A doesn't mean A doesn't exist.

The fact is, is that the rule is that unarmed attacks don't count as weapons. You can complain all you want, but that fact doesn't change about what the rule is.

 

[NotAYakk]

Repeating yourself while ignoring direct questions is a waste of everyone's time.

Have a nice day.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Don't feel badly @NotAYakk , my last post was ignored as well. I guess there is simply "the rule" and those who do not tweet must remain the poor, wretched souls they are.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Repeating yourself while ignoring direct questions is a waste of everyone's time.

Have a nice day.

Speaking of ignoring questions, no one has bothered to answer the one I've posed this entire time.

What part of "unarmed attacks are not considered weapons" is vague, or ambiguous. Because every time I say the rule is settled because Jeremy has said that SEVERAL times on various forms of communication, folks keep disagreeing.

So why not answer it ? All you do is complain how you don't agree with it, or how not everyone is on Twitter, which isn't the point I've argued at all. The only thing I've said is that it's a settled rule. Because it is. That is not under dispute, and your inference that it is because some people haven't seen it is fundamentally flawed for reasons I gave above.

So how about answering my question I've been asking for a long time, if you want people to answer questions.