D&D 5E Natural Attacks

[NotAYakk]

Furthermore, if you are dissatisfied with the text because it doesn’t (in your opinion) effectively convey the intent, then the rational thing to do is to rewrite the text so that it does effectively convey the intent. Choosing instead to ignore the intent in favor of a strict reading of what you consider a faulty text would indicate to me that you just don’t like the intent.

Rewrite the text? How? It is a book. It has words in it.

I am not going to go and install browser extensions in everyone's webbrowser to fix D&D website spell and rule descriptions, nor take a sharpie to everyone's rulebooks. Nor waste player time with errata.

I am fine with their intent. Had the books said "basic melee attack" in place of "melee weapon attack" (and ditto for range), and magic weapon read "simple and martial weapon" everything would be clear and would (as far as I can tell) match their intent.

But they didn't. And the books and website don't say that. And I am not a one man sharpie army.

The text is faulty in that they didn't write what (at least one of the authors) intended to mean. The text isn't faulty in the sense that using the words as written causes harm to playing D&D. Weapons are weapons is quite playable and breaks nothing.

So at that point you decide if warping the words/errata/etc is worth preserving the intent. As the cost of ignoring intent here is tiny, and warping words/errata is high, nevermind their intent.

 

[Hriston]

Rewrite the text? How? It is a book. It has words in it.

I am not going to go and install browser extensions in everyone's webbrowser to fix D&D website spell and rule descriptions, nor take a sharpie to everyone's rulebooks. Nor waste player time with errata.

I am fine with their intent. Had the books said "basic melee attack" in place of "melee weapon attack" (and ditto for range), and magic weapon read "simple and martial weapon" everything would be clear and would (as far as I can tell) match their intent.

But they didn't. And the books and website don't say that. And I am not a one man sharpie army.

The text is faulty in that they didn't write what (at least one of the authors) intended to mean. The text isn't faulty in the sense that using the words as written causes harm to playing D&D. Weapons are weapons is quite playable and breaks nothing.

So at that point you decide if warping the words/errata/etc is worth preserving the intent. As the cost of ignoring intent here is tiny, and warping words/errata is high, nevermind their intent.

OK, I would just suggest to you that your problem isn’t with what the words say, it’s with what you think they say. Your position seems to rely on a belief that words can have meaning independent of a person’s ability to interpret them, which is something I completely disagree with.

 

[Seramus]

Side note. AL games also disagree on this rule. You would think they are monolithically aligned with sage advice to provide a consistent experience... But it doesn't work out that way in actual AL.

They are as factious and divided as anywhere else. Like any group of people.

 

[Fenris-77]

Everyone likes a chance to display their system mastery. Personally, I really dislike Sage advice as an errata mechanic, I don't really think the replies are as thought out and comprehensive as people seem to think. I'd much rather just work with the RAW. Errata should be thoroughly play tested and then officially released, if it's going to be done at all.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Sacrosanct, I understand you disagree with my position, perhaps even vehemently disagree, which is cool, but to make an assertion like :

But to say it strains the faith is simply wrong. Or rediculously selective.

Is essentially claiming that I am acting in bad faith, or misrepresenting my testimony regarding how something makes me feel.

Sacro, with no malice at all, but with all seriousness, you have absolutely no authority, expertise, or special insight into my psychological/Emotional feelings.

Since you have no way of knowing, of feeling exactly what I feel, your declaration about what does or does not strain my faith is incorrect. You can tell me how you feel, but please do not tell me how I feel....it is a bit presumptuous.

To be honest I don’t know what this means:
“The game is full of rules that require faith without necessarily adhering to suspension of disbelief. Hit points anyone?”

Would you clarify? If I have faith in something then I can suspend disbelief. The Hit Point does not model reality, but over 40 years has proven it can model something fun, and easy to understand.

Are you claiming the venerable Hit Point is the same sort of rule as “Unarmed Strikes are not weapons”

How many other systems outside of D&D 3e tell Bruce Lee he can not register his hands as lethal weapons?

as for this:
And yes, it is fundamentally flawed to look at how a rule is written for a completely different game and base 5e's assumptions on that. 5e is a separate game and rules need to viewed through a 5e lens

Pose this question as a separate topic, and let us see what the board thinks. I fundamentally disagree, but I am curious as to others opinions and evidence.

I (good naturally) throw down the gauntlet!

 

[NotAYakk]

OK, I would just suggest to you that your problem isn’t with what the words say, it’s with what you think they say. Your position seems to rely on a belief that words can have meaning independent of a person’s ability to interpret them, which is something I completely disagree with.

Of course words have meaning separate from author's intent. Linguistics has advanced in the last 100 years mate.

If I type a bunch of words that are frankly abusive and rude about you, but inform you that they are intended as love and cuddles, my intention doesn't remove the existence of abusive words and make them love and cuddles. Only if every reader agrees with the intention over the plain text does the fact they are, in plain text, "abusive words" not matter at all.

Words are tools. Words that don't say what they intend to are poor tools. Educating every single player what the words really mean based off the intention of the original authors is a waste of resources here.

Game rules are tools. Game rules that don't say, in plain text, what they are supposed to say are poor tools. When the game you get from reading the plain text has issues, going to intention is a great plan! When the game you get from reading the plain text works just fine, ignoring the plain text because the author didn't intend to say that is a waste. Especially in a social game, where the rules are a common touchstone.

Use intention as a guide when rules have problems. Use updated versions if available. But it is madness to not read the words as written when the intention was different than what they wrote, when reading the words as written doesn't cause a problem.

I cannot identify a problem with treating weapons as weapons that matters much.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Sacrosanct, I understand you disagree with my position, perhaps even vehemently disagree, which is cool, but to make an assertion like :


Is essentially claiming that I am acting in bad faith, or misrepresenting my testimony regarding how something makes me feel.

Sacro, with no malice at all, but with all seriousness, you have absolutely no authority, expertise, or special insight into my psychological/Emotional feelings.

Since you have no way of knowing, of feeling exactly what I feel, your declaration about what does or does not strain my faith is incorrect. You can tell me how you feel, but please do not tell me how I feel....it is a bit presumptuous.

To be honest I don’t know what this means:
“The game is full of rules that require faith without necessarily adhering to suspension of disbelief. Hit points anyone?”

Would you clarify? If I have faith in something then I can suspend disbelief. The Hit Point does not model reality, but over 40 years has proven it can model something fun, and easy to understand.

Are you claiming the venerable Hit Point is the same sort of rule as “Unarmed Strikes are not weapons”

How many other systems outside of D&D 3e tell Bruce Lee he can not register his hands as lethal weapons?

as for this:
And yes, it is fundamentally flawed to look at how a rule is written for a completely different game and base 5e's assumptions on that. 5e is a separate game and rules need to viewed through a 5e lens

Pose this question as a separate topic, and let us see what the board thinks. I fundamentally disagree, but I am curious as to others opinions and evidence.

I (good naturally) throw down the gauntlet!

Well, you win the irony award, that's for sure. I'm not telling you what to feel. In fact, I've explicitly said several times do what you want. Rather, it you who have been saying a person can't accept the rule unless it's in bad faith like it's an objective thing. It's YOU who are telling others how they should treat the scenario.

The only thing I'm doing is telling you what the actual rule is, which isn't up for debate, because it's objective. We have clear references to point to which give the rule, from the game designer himself.

The only part of my post that speculative was me pointing out that you argued it's a bad rule that shouldn't exist because it breaks suspense of disbelief (for you), in a game that is full of abstract rules, like the basis of hit points, seems a pretty odd position to have. I.e, not one applied consistently.

Either way, I'm not going to argue it. It's the rule. Do what you want at your table. But it's a settled issue.

So good day. I'm done.

 

[Seramus]

Settled as vague and ambiguous? Yes.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Settled as vague and ambiguous? Yes.

In what way is "unarmed attacks and natural attacks do not count as weapons" ambiguous? That seems pretty clear. And it's been repeated many times. So what part of THAT sentence is confusing you, exactly?

I think people are confusing "I don't like the rule" with "it's not clear".

I mean, if all we had was the first printing of the PHB, then yeah, it can be ambiguous. Be we've had clarification many times, so it's not ambiguous at all any longer. They aren't counted as weapons.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Most obviously, wildshaped druids (moon druids below level 6) can't damage creatures immune to non-magic weapons.

Which forces the player to use different tactics, and thus I consider it a "win".

Maybe your table fights a lot of creatures immune to non-magic weapons at low levels but I don't think that is common at all or a concern really. Fighting creatures who are resistance, sure, but hardly immune. Sure, the players use different tactics, but even then it is only an issue for 3 levels.

I consider "living" "non-living" and "undead" as fundamentally different from the point of view of magic.

But where do the teeth end and the body begin? They are part of the body, so the spell would affect the whole of the body, which would make the whole body the magic weapon, perhaps to be wielded by a giant using it as a club.

The 3rd edition magic fang spell dealt with this issue - you cast it on the creature, and all the creature's natural weapons benefit from the spell (but the creature itself is not a magic weapon if a giant swings it).

Well, were teeth end is pretty obvious. You can have a tooth pulled, etc. Just because they are "part of the body" doesn't mean the spell affects the entire body. The wolf doesn't make his Bite attack with his tail or paw, after all, as the Bite is the melee weapon attack. I suppose an old wolf with no teeth might use just his gums for the Bite attack and then would his gums be magical? There is a point where logic and common sense must prevail.

Something like Magic Weapon can be used the same way on whatever is the weapon in the attack. Restricting it to "weapons which are weapons" or something just limits the game needlessly, and it is solely because the almighty "JC" says so.

This is the kind of silliness I would rather keep out of my games. I would rather it looked more like Game of Thrones and less like a cheesy 1970s martial arts movie.

That's cool. I am not big on "the glow" really, it was more for the point. I think D&D would be better served by allowing things and then letting tables remove them to taste instead of the other way around.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.