Human Monks can take Improved Natural Attack?

[Artoomis]

...Of course, if unarmed strike were a natural weapon, it would be listed for every creature. This is the biggest single piece of evidence against the 'unamarmed strike are natural weapons' camp....

glass.

That's wrong. If every creature has it, then there's no need to list it. More importantly, it's not an ordinary natural weapon - it's special, with it's own subset of rules. Listing it as a natural weapon would only confuse matters, as ironic as that is.

 

[glass]

That's wrong. If every creature has it, then there's no need to list it. More importantly, it's not an ordinary natural weapon - it's special, with it's own subset of rules. Listing it as a natural weapon would only confuse matters, as ironic as that is.

Except that if it was special, with it's own subset of rule, it would have to actually have it's own subset of rules. If you're right, and it is a natural weapon, then there is nothing anywhere which tells you what these special rules are, which means that either:

1. It isn't a natural weapon.
2. It follows all the same rules as other natural weapons.
3. You have to make stuff up.

Personally, I prefer 1. You seem to prefer 3, which is fine, but you can hardly argue that it's the RAW.

EDIT: The MM is the primary source for monster statistics. If it it doesn't list a natural attack (and doesn't give a general note about it, which it doesn't), then a creature doesn't have it. Thus, if an unarned strike is a natural weapon, no creature has one!


glass.

 

[glass]

Not really, no. Unarmed attacks are natural weapons with most of the properties of manufactured weapons - that is, a special category. It's weird, but it's the only way to make ALL the rules work together and it works just fine.

As I have repeatedly demonstrated, it doesn't make all the rules work together. It doesn't matter how many time you repeat it, it won't make it true!


glass.

 

[Artoomis]

Except that if it was special, with it's own subset of rule, it would have to actually have it's own subset of rules. If you're right, and it is a natural weapon, then there is nothing anywhere which tells you what these special rules are, ...


glass.

See PHB page 139 and mutiple oft-repeated cites showing how they are referred to as natural weapons - though with special rules as codified on page 139.

 

[Artoomis]

As I have repeatedly demonstrated, it doesn't make all the rules work together. It doesn't matter how many time you repeat it, it won't make it true!


glass.

It doesn't matter how many time you ignore it, the fact that all rules work together my way is true as I have shown - no rules text needs be discarded. The fact that your way you have to actually ignore some printed material is also true. For my way of thinking, that makes my way closer to being RAW than yours.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That's wrong. If every creature has it, then there's no need to list it.

If every creature has it, how do you account for glass's point above:

A creature’s primary attack damage includes its full Strength modifier (1-1/2 times its Strength bonus if the attack is with the creature’s sole natural weapon) and is given first. Secondary attacks add only 1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus and are given second in the parentheses.

If we have an example of a creature gaining 1.5x Str bonus with its Bite attack, can we assume that Bite is the creature's 'sole natural weapon', and that it is therefore incapable of making an unarmed strike?

Or is Bite the creature's 'sole natural weapon except for the other one'?

-Hyp.

 

[Artoomis]

If every creature has it, how do you account for glass's point above:

A creature’s primary attack damage includes its full Strength modifier (1-1/2 times its Strength bonus if the attack is with the creature’s sole natural weapon) and is given first. Secondary attacks add only 1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus and are given second in the parentheses.

If we have an example of a creature gaining 1.5x Str bonus with its Bite attack, can we assume that Bite is the creature's 'sole natural weapon', and that it is therefore incapable of making an unarmed strike?

Or is Bite the creature's 'sole natural weapon except for the other one'?

-Hyp.

Once again, unarmed attacks are "special." I think they really are only considered natural weapons for enhancement of any sort and that's about it.

If you work with them that way, all the rules work just fine.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Except that if it was special, with it's own subset of rule, it would have to actually have it's own subset of rules. If you're right, and it is a natural weapon, then there is nothing anywhere which tells you what these special rules are, which means that either:

1. It isn't a natural weapon.
2. It follows all the same rules as other natural weapons.
3. You have to make stuff up.

Except that we have the section of the combat rules and tables that show us explicitly how unarmed strikes work, and we have ALL noted how they differ from both other natural weapons and manufactured weapons. To use an old, old phrase, they "are neither fish nor fowl."

As for us "making stuff up," we would counter that you are completely ignoring explicit text in the PHB. You SAY that the spells and other sections are wrong, but you don't have any explicit text to counter it. In other words, we would say your list should ACTUALLY read:

1. It isn't a natural weapon despite sections of the Core rules that explicitly call it a natural weapon.
2. It follows all the same rules as other natural weapons.
3. You infer that the designers had intended that unarmed strikes be considered a subset of natural weapons, but neglected to say so explicitly.

How does Occam's Razor cut?

First, 2 is clearly wrong- both sides have established that unarmed strikes have their own rules.

If 1 is correct, we would have to assume that the sections are wrong with only inferred (not direct) evidence. If the statement "unarmed strikes are natural weapons" is an error, it is one that has not only not been caught, but has been repeated. The fact that these sections some would excise made it through an initial printing of the core rules, a revision of the rules, and into subsequent releases of supporting material by this company, all while under the eyes of multiple editors, is an indicator that it is NOT an error.

If 3 is correct, the designers wanted unarmed strikes to be considered a subcategory of natural weapons with special rules. It is, as we have demonstrated, an inferrence supported by numerous explicit references to unarmed strikes as natural weapons in the Core rules.

I'm thinking Occam's Razor cuts in favor of 3. Instead of inferring that several sections of explicit text are simply wrong, position 3 inferrs that as little as 1 sentence was accidentally omitted, namely a stand-alone sentence that says "Unarmed Strikes are a subcategory of Natural Weapons" (like in the glossary, as opposed to in a spell description).

After all, RAW, there are NUMEROUS references that equate unarmed strikes with natural weapons, and we ARE (or were at some point) discussing this as a question of RAW.

 

[Artoomis]

...I'm thinking Occam's Razor cuts in favor of 3. Instead of inferring that several sections of explicit text are simply wrong, position 3 inferrs that as little as 1 sentence was accidentally omitted, namely a stand-alone sentence that says "Unarmed Strikes are a subcategory of Natural Weapons" (like in the glossary, as opposed to in a spell description).

After all, RAW, there are NUMEROUS references that equate unarmed strikes with natural weapons, and we ARE (or were at some point) discussing this as a question of RAW.

I'm glad I'm not the ONLY voice of reason.

 

[glass]

Once again, unarmed attacks are "special." I think they really are only considered natural weapons for enhancement of any sort and that's about it.

Are you still argueing that they are natural weapons, or that they considered natural weapons for certain purposes?


glass.