Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 3210426" data-attributes="member: 19675">Not quite, though it may seem like it.What I'm saying is that:1)  By definition, an unarmed strike is the result of a successful combat roll when using an unarmed attack.2)  However, as is obvious from both the CustServ answer and the rest of the text of the book in general is that the terms "unarmed strike" and "unarmed attack" are not used with any real precision, and are, in fact, used rather interchangeably.Just as you point out, if they are truly synonyms, FoB becomes quite powerful- automatic multiple hits?  Who wouldn't want that?  But that is clearly not what is intended.OTOH, just a few paragraphs away, if they are not treated the way the PHB glossary defines them, Ki Strike becomes the description of of a power that overcomes DR for attacks that don't do damage...except for unarmed strikes (the only unarmed attacks defined as doing damage).  Again...not what is intended.The imprecision I describe in "2" shouldn't come as a surprise- while the game defines natural weapons as something seperate from unarmed attacks/strikes, there are sections of text within the PHB and other WotC products that clearly equate normal human fists with natural weapons, which I know from past experience on these boards is definitely NOT the predominant opinion as to their nature.  Heck, even WotC CustServ doesn't equate the two.Similarly "precision damage" and "vital area" that are crucial to a Rogue's sneak attack are   only vaguely delineated and open to interpretation- the phrases don't have any game mechanical meaning.Which, BTW, does give the "No grapple w/FoB" crowd something different to work with.  FoB is described as sacrificing precision of attacks for an increase in the amount of attacks.  There is nothing to prevent a ruling that Grappling requires a certain measure of accuracy that cannot be achieved in a Flurry.Of course, going that way leads to its own problems- if Grappling requires precision, surely Stunning blows, Disarms, Sunders, Trips and other special combat maneuvers do as well.</blockquote>

Verification