Can a monk take Improved Natural Attack? - Official answer

[Borlon]

Reading this thread and the other one (theEvil's Poll on the same subject) has led me to change my mind.

Monks' unarmed attacks are treated as natural weapons for the purpose of spells and other effects. A feat is an effect. Therefore, a feat treats a monk's unarmed attack as a natural weapon. Therefore a feat's prerequisites treat a monk's unarmed attack as a natural weapon. Therefore a human monk with sufficiently high BAB qualifies for INA.

The key point of the argument is determining that a feat is an effect. What convinced me of this is the observation that a feat is a result of leveling up. The term "effect" is loosely enough defined that it is permissible to consider a "result" to be a kind of effect. I also hold that if a feat is an effect of leveling up, so are all the parts of a feat; in particular, any pre-requisites of the feat. The prerequisites are not the effect of a feat in the way that the benefits of a feat are, but they have to originate from something (the event that resulted in the feat is the most plausible origin), and so are the result/effect of something.

This interpretation of "effect" might lead to other problems, and so I might have to revise my opinion yet again, but this is where I stand at the moment. Specifically, if it makes the monk's unarmed attacks count as a natural weapon for all purposes, then there would be a problem; the rules on iterative attacks would kick in, etc.. But I don't see the rules governing iterative attacks as being an effect of anything, so they shouldn't kick in. And if they were an effect, then there remains the point that a monk's unarmed attacks are also considered manufactured weapons, and so the manufactured weapons rule could be followed if it was in the monk's best interests.

 

[Legildur]

Edit: Legildur, please read the moderator comments upthread. Folks, please don't respond to flames with more flames; report a bad post instead of responding to it, and check the rest of the thread to see if a moderator has already responded to the bad post. Thanks!
-Pielorinho

Gotcha. Sorry, I read over Hypersmurf's use of the term 'vacation'. At least I wasn't too insulting. But you still spoiled my fun.

 

[Artoomis]

"The victim seems to have been attacked by an unknown animal, though the inspector thinks that it is probably a wolf, bear, lion, tiger, panther, or other feline."

Now, I am not an english major, but to me this just 'feels' wrong. Can anyone explain why it is correct or incorrect by english standards?Now, I am not an english major, but to me this just 'feels' wrong. Can anyone explain why it is correct or incorrect by english standards?

This is an incorrect listing. A correct way would be:

"...probably a wolf or bear, or a lion, tiger, panther, or other feline." The method of listing done originally makes wolves and bears appear to be felines.

In the same way:

"Must have spell resistance from a feat, class feature, or other permanent effect, " as written, means that feats are permanent effects. Re-writing it to separate "feats" from "class features and other permanent effect" would require something like:

"Must have spell resistance from a class feature or other permanent effect, or a feat. "

Mind you, I think the key point is whether the bonus to the natural weapon is an effect - whether or not the feats itself is an effect does not really matter - at least not to my way of thinking.

 

[glass]

How about because the Sage shouldn't have even had to address the issue. It's clear as day. The text under the Monk says its unarmed strike is a natural weapon and the feat requires a natural weapon. It's as plain as 2+2=4.

Except that it quite blatently doesn't say that, and indeed the monks unarmed strike quite simply can't be a natural weapon without intorducing serious inconsistancies elsewhere.

For all the arguments in this thread, noone else has argued that a monk unarmed strike is a natural weapon -not even the people on 'your' side of the debate.

EDIT: I put 'your' in inverted commas. I doubt the INA allowed side of the debate really want to be associated with you.

2ND EDIT: Posted this before I saw Hyp's post about Anubis's absence. I'm leaving it in because I responded to his point not his insults, bit the mods think it's a problem I'd be happy to edit it.


glass.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Note that WotC customer service has instructions to unequivocally state that the rule is that monks qualify for INA. I have that from a reliable source within WotC customer service. Take that for whatever it is worth to you.

It's nice to see that someone is finally trying to get customer service to give consistent answers on at least one subject. I hope they expand this to cover the rest of the rules as well.

 

[Pielorinho]

EDIT: I put 'your' in inverted commas. I doubt the INA allowed side of the debate really want to be associated with you.

Moderator's Notes:
Sometimes I despair of persuading people that the "no insults" rule means what it says. If you have any advice on how we can communicate this concept more effectively without having to lock threads, please let us know.

Meanwhile, locked.
Daniel