Human Monks can take Improved Natural Attack?

[Artoomis]

Don't forget about the various dissimilarities between other natural attacks (claws vs bite vs gore vs ...).

I have not forgotten. Take ALL the rules regarding unarmed attacks and natural weapons together and ask yourself if there is any easy way to reconcile them all without tossing out any text printed in the PHB.

Answer: Yes. Consider unarmed attacks to be natural weapons that follow special rules as indicated on page 139 of the PHB. In other words, they are enhanced just as are natural weapons, but you get iterative attacks, etc., etc. per the unarmed attack rules on page 139.

 

[Artoomis]

...Anyways, I think I'm going to say goodbye to this thread now. It has been a lot of fun! Thanks to everyone else who participated, and do have fun without me!

-Borlon

I'll miss you. <sniff>.

Do you really have the willpower not to chime in again?

 

[Caliban]

It's already been pointed out in this thread that it (this "mistake") appears in the core books (PHB, to be specific) in spell descriptions, at least.

See:

* Align Weapon: "...You can t cast this spell on a natural weapon, such as an unarmed strike..."
* Magic Weapon "...You can t cast this spell on a natural weapon, such as an unarmed strike..."
* Magic Fang "...The spell can affect a slam attack, fist, bite, or other natural weapon..."
* Protection from Evil" "...Third, the spell prevents bodily contact by summoned creatures. This causes the natural weapon attacks of such creatures to fail and the creatures to recoil if such attacks require touching the warded creature..." (By implication otherwise one could use a unarmed attack here even though touching is disallowed)

There you have it. At least 3 direct references and one indirect. Plus references in other, later books.

Now your just trying to get your post count up.

 

[Artoomis]

Now your just trying to get your post count up.

Who? Me?

Actually I was just showing off how well I can use the Hyperlinked SRD.

 

[glass]

You can take two approaches:

1. They are NOT natural weapons in any sense and every place that refers to them as such is in error.

2. They ARE natural weapon but do NOT follow all the natural weapon rules because of page 139 in the PHB which specifcally says they do not follow all the natural weapon rules.

My way (number 2) is quite elegant and preserves ALL the rules.

Your way throws out some rules in deference to others.

My way reconciles the rules together.

Your way does not reconcile the rules together but tosses out some PHB (and other source books) text out the window.

Argh! I swore to myself I was going to let this thread die, but I just had to respond to this.

Your way is no better than my way in terms of reconciling all the rules, just because it reconciles the ones you prefer. For example, Power Attack refers to 'natural weapons or unarmed strikes'. If they are the same thing, PA is wrong. Why should PA be given less credenc than Magic Weapon, especially since the former complies with the primary source and the latter doesn't?

EDIT: You have also studiously ignored the fact that elves, dwarves, halflings, etc (who all have unarmed strikes) are not listed as having any natural weapons in the MM. How do you reconcile that one?


glass.

 

[glass]

It's already been pointed out in this thread that it (this "mistake") appears in the core books (PHB, to be specific) in spell descriptions, at least.

See:

* Align Weapon: "...You can t cast this spell on a natural weapon, such as an unarmed strike..."
* Magic Weapon "...You can t cast this spell on a natural weapon, such as an unarmed strike..."
* Magic Fang "...The spell can affect a slam attack, fist, bite, or other natural weapon..."
* Protection from Evil" "...Third, the spell prevents bodily contact by summoned creatures. This causes the natural weapon attacks of such creatures to fail and the creatures to recoil if such attacks require touching the warded creature..." (By implication otherwise one could use a unarmed attack here even though touching is disallowed)

There you have it. At least 3 direct references and one indirect. Plus references in other, later books.

I make that two direct references, and two total absences of mention of unarmed strikes.


glass.

 

[Artoomis]

Argh! I swore to myself I was going to let this thread die, but I just had to respond to this.

Your way is no better than my way in terms of reconciling all the rules, just because it reconciles the ones you prefer. For example, Power Attack refers to 'natural weapons or unarmed strikes'. If they are the same thing, PA is wrong. Why should PA be given less credenc than Magic Weapon, especially since the former complies with the primary source and the latter doesn't?

EDIT: You have also studiously ignored the fact that elves, dwarves, halflings, etc (who all have unarmed strikes) are not listed as having any natural weapons in the MM. How do you reconcile that one?


glass.

Once again, I have ignored nothing.

To reconcile ALL the rules together, ignoring none and favoring none over others, you have simply to call unarmed attacks/unarmed strikes (and fist, too, I think) a special case of natural weapons. They would NOT be called out for elves, dwarves, etc. in the MM because, once again, it's a SPECIAL CASE.

PA is NOT given less credence that MW - that fact that makes it look like natural weapons and unarmed attacks are two different things does NOT necessarily mean they really are. It's only suggestive of that - as a special case subset of natural weapons, sometimes they'll be referred to as natural weapon and sometimes not.

This is all consistent with my approach of considering unarmed attacks a SPECIAL CASE of natural weapons.

In this way, one can reconcile ALL the rules about unarmed attacks. You're approach requires that one favor one rule over another, which is simply not needed to ge to a satifactory solution here.

If an approach can be devised that is not to strenously far-fetched, then meshing rules together is better than favoring one rule over another.

 

[Artoomis]

I make that two direct references, and two total absences of mention of unarmed strikes.


glass.

For Magic Fist: I don't believe that "fist" is one of the normal categories of natural weapons, but it is used more generically to mean unarmed attack. This is further evidenced by the sentence that follows:

"The spell can affect a slam attack, fist, bite, or other natural weapon. (The spell does not change an unarmed strike’s damage from nonlethal damage to lethal damage.) "

If the spell can ONLY affect a natural weapon and yet can affect an unarmed strike, an unarmed strike MUST be a natural weapon.

For Protection from Evil: It causes natural weapon attacks to fail. If unarmed attacks were NOT natural wepoan, they could succeed, then, but we know they cannot possibly because a touch of any sort cannot happen. Okay, this one is a lttle weak and I'll give you this one.

So, three direct, strong references that cleary state that unarmed strike/attacks are natural weapon and one that's a bit weak - plus many references in later books that continue to state that unarmed attacks are a form of natural weapon.

You either have to state that ALL those references are in error or reconcile them as I have, allowing all the rules to stand as written.

I prefer an approach that keeps all the rules intact, if possible.

To tell you the truth, before this argument I though unarmed attacks and unarmed strikes were different from each other (which it turns out is not the case) and were definately NOT natural weapons (which also turns out to not be the case).

 

[glass]

For Magic Fist: I don't believe that "fist" is one of the normal categories of natural weapons, but it is used more generically to mean unarmed attack. This is further evidenced by the sentence that follows:

"The spell can affect a slam attack, fist, bite, or other natural weapon. (The spell does not change an unarmed strike’s damage from nonlethal damage to lethal damage.) "

You are begging the question. Your argument that 'fist' is synonymous with 'unarmed strike' assumes it's own conculsion.

You either have to state that ALL those references are in error or reconcile them as I have, allowing all the rules to stand as written. I prefer an approach that keeps all the rules intact, if possible.

So do I, but where you have references to unarmed strikes in spells that direcctly contradict the primary source (either the combat chapter or the equipment chapter, take you pick), it isn't possible.

To tell you the truth, before this argument I though unarmed attacks and unarmed strikes were different from each other (which it turns out is not the case) and were definately NOT natural weapons (which also turns out to not be the case).

You won't be surprised to learn, I think you were right first time.


glass.

 

[glass]

One last question for the 'natural weapons = unarmed strikes' crowd:

Is a grapple a natural weapon? After all, you use your body, right?


glass.