D&D 5E Grung skin vs monk fist

[rgoodbb]

Hey folks. How would you rule this?

So how would the fist/elbow/headbut of a monk interact with hitting the poisonous skin of a grung

Poisonous Skin.
Any creature that grapples the grung or otherwise comes into direct contact with the grung's skin must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for l minute. A poisoned creature no longer in direct contact with the grung can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Would this effect take place?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

If the monk is striking with an uncovered part of their body, then they are coming into direct contact with the Grung.

Kinda depends on the monk. Hopefully you should have a pretty good idea of what your players look like, so decide, or ask the player how their character is striking. After the first time they will probably be able to strike with a more protected area.

 

[gyor]

This is why monks should always wear gloves, no glove no love.

 

[Paraxis]

The monk would strike the grund in an area covered by clothes or armor, they would use a part of their body that is covered by clothes or gear to make the strikes, remember you can make an unarmed strike with any part of your body-hands, feet, knee, elbow, head, forearm, and so on.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In this situation, I personally would probably look at it from both story and mechanics to start the fight. I'd make it a point to know how the monk PC player describes what their monk wears, so I know at the beginning whether they are barefoot, barehanded etc. If they are, then I'd see if the monk PC (or anyone else in the group) knows anything about grungs-- either they already know about the poisonous skin, or someone asks to make a knowledge check and scores high enough to get that info. If not, then the first time the monk PC connected with an unarmed attack they'd get hit with the poisonous skin (unless by some slim chance of fate they described their unarmed attack as being made with a covered part of the body-- but unless they already knew the skin was poisonous I'd never expect them to just guess at that.) The monk PC would immediately know after their attack that touching skin to skin was why they were making the CON save for poison, and thus they'd be able to change up their story-based choices for attacking unarmed in later rounds (stating specifically that they were only throwing elbow smashes or knee strikes that were covered by their clothes for example.)

Once the monk player knew that skin to skin contact would cause potential poisoning, I'd never then force the monk to just assume that some of their unarmed attacks were going to be skin-to-skin anyway, because that's just being mean for the sake of it. Once that player says "I only want to attack with clothed parts of my body", then I'm good with that story decision and will abide by it for the rest of the fight,