Ruin Explorer
Legend
Sure, but it's still once per short rest and requires you to be an otherwise unimpressive race and to be a Barbarian or two level dip in one (which is a big deal, in practice). Its a cute trick rather than a game breaker.
I will never understand that thinking. The players will literally spend hundreds of dollars to get access to all the books to find every loophole to exploit it to the Nth degree, with entire forums dedicated to character and strategic optimisation...and that’s a perfectly valid and reasonable and good way to play. But the DM avoids a melee powerhouse and attacks from range and he’s a snip profanity DM?
The smite spells require a weapon. The smite ability requires a melee weapon attack, and unarmed strikes count as a melee weapon attacks (as opposed to "an attack with a melee weapon"). So RAW you can smite (or use battlemaster abilities etc) with the bite.
https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf"The game often makes exceptions to general rules, and this is an important exception: that unarmed strikes count as melee weapon attacks despite not being weapons."
yeah, and see Jeremy's tweet above, that is the most recent. It also clarifies that just because it's a melee weapon attack, it's not a melee weapon, which is what is required for divine smite (according to Jeremy)
The designer is contradicting himself - AKA he doesn't know.yeah, and see Jeremy's tweet above, that is the most recent. It also clarifies that just because it's a melee weapon attack, it's not a melee weapon, which is what is required for divine smite.
Look, do what you want in your game, but when the designer says it should be working a certain way, we can be sure the intent was that it worked a certain way.
The designer is contradicting himself - AKA he doesn't know.
In fact, the quote from the compendium is in the context of monks' stunning strike ability, which uses the exact same wording as paladin's Divine Smite ability. Ergo, if you rule that you can't use divine smite with an unarmed attack, it follows that a monk cannot use stunning strike with an unarmed attack, which I think most people would agree makes a nonsense of the ability.
No, he's not contradicting himself. There is a difference between what counts as a "melee weapon attack", and and a melee weapon.
True. However the PHB entry for Divine Smite uses the wording "melee weapon attack", not "attack with a melee weapon".
It's not ambiguous, I imagine I imagine JC has forgotten how the PHB entry is worded.
You can infer that the intent is that a weapon be used, but an inference is not a fact. What is a fact is that Divine Smite uses the same wording as stunning strike - you cannot rule one way for one ability and the other way for the other.It also says, "In addition to the weapon's damage..", which infers you need an actual weapon since the smite damage in in addition to that.