D&D 5E Natural Attacks

[StormbringerAUS]

Tomato

 

[Charlaquin]

I’m with @dnd4vr on this. WOTC should not have their PR rep tell USA Today that reducing barrier to entry rules was their mantra, when a dagger and a dart have identical stats but the Sharpshooter feat will never apply to a thrown dagger, but the extra damage from the Dueling Fighting Style would apply to thrown daggers, as long as you only have one weapon in hand at the time of throwing.

The 5e rules meander between natural language and category specific language so often, that rule parsing is made more difficult, than in more rule heavy editions like 3e and 4e.

Yeah, the ambiguity is the most frustrating part. If they want to use technical language, great! If they want to use natural language, also great! But this weirdness where the language is mostly natural, except when it isn’t, and even then it assigns highly technical meanings to natural-sounding terms, is the worst of both worlds. It makes it feel deliberately misleading. I’m pretty used to parsing this particular form of double-speak, so I can usually figure out what the Sage Advice answer will be on one of these wording questions, but it’s very rarely what a casual reading would intuitively lead someone to conclude.

 

[Horwath]

They could have made things so much simpler for smite and many other things.

Smite: when you hit with melee attack(any) you can spend spell slot and add damage.

Remove -5/+10 part from GWM, SS and make them half feats.

Add power attack: half feat: +1 str or dex.
when you make melee or ranged attack reduce attack roll by 3 and add 5 to damage. Works on spell attacks if spell deals HP damage.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

5e has four types of attack: melee weapon attack, ranged weapon attack, melee spell attack, ranged spell attack. All attacks belong to one of those categories. "weapon" in this context just means "not magic".

 

[DND_Reborn]

If you want to play that way, sure. But it’s not what the rules say, and has been clarified by Crawford on multiple occasions. Unarmed strikes are melee weapon attacks, but they are not weapons themselves. Since divine smite and magic weapon both require actual weapons, they can’t be used with unarmed attacks. Per Crawford.

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Oh, I know precisely how JC feels about it, but frankly it is silly IMO and needlessly complicates things.

As far as Paladins potentially doing more damage with an unarmed strike than a Monk... OH NO! The heavens shake and the earth trembles! Remember that smites are a limited resource, as where the Monk can do his better unarmed strike damage all day long. And what of a monk/paladin? It would seem very limiting if that character couldn't use divine smite with his unarmed strike attacks

Unarmed strikes used to be part of the simple melee weapons in prior prints of the PHB. They should have left it there and that's the way we play it. It also means you need proficiency in simple weapons to make an unarmed strike with proficiency, so classes Sorcerer and Wizard can't make unarmed strikes or do without their proficiency bonus. This makes a lot of sense IMO since not everyone actually knows how to punch or fight really.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I remember 3rd edition paladin/monks doing unarmed divine smites, so it's hardly lorebreaking, but if JC feels that strongly about it he can errata the PHB by adding the text "with a melee weapon" to the description of Smite so that the rules actually say what he says they say.

 

[Fenris-77]

I mostly ignore this whole mess. You want to backstab with an unarmed strike? Go nuts. You want to smite someone with your fancy bite attack? Cool! You want to use SS with a thrown dagger? Of course you can. It doesn't break the game and I'd rather not throw up in my mouth a little when I try to explain the tortured and half-assed logic that is the 'official' position.

 

[Iry]

I mostly ignore this whole mess.

Pretty much. There is no real definition of Weapon beyond the Weapon table in the PHB stating that it covers "common weapons." The difference between weapons forged in a furnace, weapons forged in a lab, and weapons forged in a womb is purely academic. Every DM is going to draw the line somewhere different, so the best you can do is talk to yours and respect their decision.

 

[Sacrosanct]

5e has four types of attack: melee weapon attack, ranged weapon attack, melee spell attack, ranged spell attack. All attacks belong to one of those categories. "weapon" in this context just means "not magic".

Exactly. There isn't a separate category for unarmed or natural attacks; they have to fall into one of the above. So they fall under melee weapon attacks. But they are not weapons themselves. It's always been that way. And both the divine smite and magic weapon say that you need a weapon.

Oh, I know precisely how JC feels about it, but frankly it is silly IMO and needlessly complicates things.

As far as Paladins potentially doing more damage with an unarmed strike than a Monk... OH NO! The heavens shake and the earth trembles! Remember that smites are a limited resource, as where the Monk can do his better unarmed strike damage all day long. And what of a monk/paladin? It would seem very limiting if that character couldn't use divine smite with his unarmed strike attacks

Yeah, you've made it clear how you feel. But guess what? Jeremy wrote the rules. So his opinion carries a bit more weight on how those rules should work than your opinion or my opinion. Do what you want at your own table, as always. But you are factually wrong when you say the rules don't work the way they do.

There shouldn't be a debate on this. We know how the rules work. The only debate is people saying they don't like it, and that's expressing opinion, not debating, since you really can't debate opinions (at least not get anywhere by doing so). I'm not going to argue with someone based on their opinion, because it would be like arguing why someone doesn't like ice cream. What's the point in arguing that?

Divine Smite and magic weapon do not, RAW, work with unarmed attacks. End of story.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Pretty much. There is no real definition of Weapon beyond the Weapon table in the PHB stating that it covers "common weapons." The difference between weapons forged in a furnace, weapons forged in a lab, and weapons forged in a womb is purely academic. Every DM is going to draw the line somewhere different, so the best you can do is talk to yours and respect their decision.

It's under the combat section:

"Instead of using a weapon to make a melee weapon attack, you can use an unarmed strike: a punch, kick, head-butt, or similar forceful blow (none of which count as weapons). On a hit, an unarmed strike deals bludgeoning damage equal to 1 + your Strength modifier. You are proficient with your unarmed strikes. "