D&D 4E 4e Unarmed Combat Weapons

[clydesdale4437]

I was kind of upset when I discovered that the 4e Player's Handbook would not have any exciting unarmed combat options. After reading through the rules and playing around with a few implementations, I found this to be the quickest, easiest way that I could come up with to add an unarmed combat option to the game.

SUPERIOR MELEE WEAPONS
[I]One-Handed[/I] 
[U]Weapon               Prof.   Damage   Range   Price   Weight   Group                  Properties_________[/U]
Brawling knuckles    +3      1d6      -       1 gp    1 lb.    Hammer, unarmed        Off-hand, free-hand
Focus wrap           +3      1d6      -       1 gp    1 lb.    Light blade, unarmed   Off-hand, free-hand

Weapon Property
Free-hand: A free-hand weapon occupies your hand in such a way that you may use that hand as though it were not holding anything. However, if you are holding something in that hand while you make an attack with the weapon, you do not gain any proficiency bonus to attack rolls that you would normally gain.

That's it! My goal was to create something that plugged into and took advantage of existing character building options so that it would require no further material (and to have place-holder mechanics till an official unarmed combatant class comes out). Think about how it interacts with Fighter, Ranger, and Rogue powers, as well as magic item qualifications and feats. I invite constructive critique.

(Also, please let me know if I've violated any message board formatting taboos. I don't post on boards very often, so I don't know all of the norms.)

 

[runnerXL]

Good idea, but I would cut down the prof. bonus to +2 for the Brawling Knuckles. +3 appears to be reserved for light and heavy blades (and spiked chains).

What is a focus wrap btw?

Edit: perhaps also include a penalty on certain skill checks while holding these weapons, ie -2 to theivery. Fine movement of your fingers would be restricted for picking locks, disabling traps, etc.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Although you can use weapon exploits with unarmed, can't you?

Why not just leave it at 1d4 damage (and a possible +1 for proficiency) and allow powers to take the strain?

 

[clydesdale4437]

runnerXL
I wanted to give both weapons a +3 proficiency bonus to keep them competitive with other Superior Weapons. I couldn't find a weapon property that I thought would distinguish the wraps from the knuckles. I suppose I could drop the knuckles back to +2 and give them high crit or something. I'll mull it over...

As for focus wrap, I kind of made the name up, but I imagine a focus wrap to be long, narrow strip of leather or strong fabric that is wrapped from just below the fingers to halfway to the elbow. As you may notice from the description, this doesn't include a blade anywhere, and that's intentional. I was hoping that it would model swift, lethal strikes of martial artists by allowing people to use focus wraps with all of those rogue powers that require a light blade.

The free-hand property was also made up to keep these items competitive with other superior weapons. Did I go too far? Perhaps the brawling knuckles would be better re-concepted to look less like brass knuckles, and more like a pair of studded gloves or gauntlets. But even then I suppose either of those could restrict movement as well. Another thing for me to think on...

Plane Sailing
As far as the weapon exploits question, I wanted to let unarmed strikers benefit from the following across class boundaries.

-Fighter powers that gain a benefit if the attacker uses a hammer
-Rogue powers that demand you wield a light blade
-Ranger powers that demand you wield two weapons as well as two-weapon fighting feats for non-rangers

The way I have it in the original post, I achieve all three of the above design goals.

On the point of proficiency bonuses, you'll notice that none of the weapons on the weapon tables have a proficiency bonus lower than +2, and I'm hoping I'm right in guessing that this was a deliberate design decision to keep martial combatants a few steps ahead of spell and prayer casters in accuracy to compensate for the fact that spells and prayers are often targeting more foes, doing more damage, or having more potent status effects at comparative levels.

Regarding damage, if I were to leave the damage at 1d4, the weapons simply wouldn't be appealing enough. Taking weapon proficiency with one of these weapons is supposed to represent the difference between a tough guy who throws a punch when deprived of his weapon, and a guy whose punch is the weapon.



Lastly, on a potential question that I failed to answer in the original post, I created these options as weapons (as opposed to feats that made your strikes like hammers/light blades that did more damage) to leave the possibility of accepting weapon enhancements open. I didn't want to have to put together rules for enchanting your limbs as weapons and the like. Also, the game's statistical assumptions account for the attack and damage bonuses of enchanted weapons, so these options had to be able to keep up across all 30 levels.

 

[Hokahej]

Shouldn't these be simple weapons instead? I really don't see how brass knuckles are supposed to be comparable with say a bastard sword.

If I wanted to implement unarmed combat, I'd just invent a feat that gives you a +3 proficiency bonus with unarmed attacks.

 

[Anabstercorian]

Given that most powers do multiples of your weapon die, having a d6 instead of a d4 is really significant.

 

[Hellzon]

Also, these "weapons" can be enchanted, so a pugilist doesn't miss out on expected enchantment bonuses (regular plusses, and bonus damage on crits).

 

[RandomCitizenX]

I like this ideas since the brawling knuckles allows the unarmed fighter to take advantage of the hammer based kicker effects. One thing to consider to make the two fist weapons have a greater difference is giving the knuckles +2 prof but make their damage 1d8 and keep the wraps as is (helps show the wraps as the finesse weapon and the knuckles as the bruiser weapon)

 

[rbingham2000]

I like the basic concept in general, and it would go really well in a Wuxia campaign where you can pretty much define your gear however you want to.

 

[LupisLacertus]

Well I like these but I was planning on introducing two feats in my games (Based on the conversions at Wizards.)

Martial Arts
Prereq: Dex 13, or Wis 13
You gain an unarmed strike that has a prof bonus of +3 and deals 1d8 damage. It also has the off hand property.

Defensive Martial Arts
Prereq: Martial Arts, and Dex 13 or Wis 13
While wearing no armor and as long as you have one hand free you gain a +3 bonus to AC.

Of course if I drop the 1d8 down to 1d4, and add that the wielder treats the focus wrap and brawling knuckles as simple weapons then they would mesh together. Of course no one would ever, in my games anyway, take the weapon prof over the martial arts if it did all that.