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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zorku" data-source="post: 6718534" data-attributes="member: 6799940">I'm unable to point to the source of this ruling, but as I understand it you cannot have two equations for your AC, so there would be none of this combination natural armor and unarmored defense stuff from recent posts. Makes enough sense from a gamist perspective, but if you prefer flavor I'd be iffy about combining the effects anyway- with the monk at least I see the unarmored situation as being a matter of thick enough skin and muscle preparation, so that's verging on incompatible with having a layer of scales that softens a blow already.For other Tai Chi Tiger antics I'd speculate that an unarmed humanoid attacks that martial artists make are like a small mace with the finesse property- lots of wriggle room for maneuvering the impact right into a soft spot. With that kind of thinking you'd have to judge the natural weapons of beasts on a case by case basis, with a majority of the attacks being clubs or claws. Something like a snake has almost all of the right properties except that they're making a bite attack or constricting around the target. Your various deer shaped beasts have something like the right thing going on when they duel each other with those horns, but using your neck like that might be so different that I don't know if I'd let martial arts knowledge apply to it. Overall there's not anything in the beasts lists (with an admittedly cursory scan over it,) that I think quite maps to the art of really utilizing a fist. This is fine for some of the features as these things often reasonably map to simple melee weapons. Because the unarmed strike makes no mention of needing a free hand to use it (sure it competes with the bonus action, but it's not a strict requirement,) I'm assuming this includes smacking your opponent with the back of your hand, elbow, or maybe getting a foot involved. As the class feature already has a defined damage equation for that this is all smooth enough for the table, unless you rule that something like a bear's arm counts as a two handed club- there's clearly only the one hand there, but allowing that attack with a dex modifier seems questionable.</blockquote>

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