Natural weapons for PC races

[jaelis]

If you're mainly looking for a way to make NW more meaningful, I think a good solution is what they did with the lizardman: give a 1/short rest bonus action attack with them. That is well controlled, nicer than a ribbon, and pretty simple.

 

[CapnZapp]

WotC isn't doing it because there isn't the need: outside of Monks, there isn't much demand for unarmed strike/natural weapon-using combatants. The concept of using a weaker, less-dangerous, and more exposed piece of your body to attack with when swords and axes are available is pretty niche.

I beg to differ. Just check out the complaints about the UA Mino.

 

[Li Shenron]

This is very good for Monks at the lowest levels, but I'm willing to agree that's a surmountable problem.

I also agree d8 finesse is good enough for every one-handed martial, if the DMG/UA/supplement includes "amulets of natural attack" or something.

But it is not good enough for Strength-based fighters. It is not reasonable to ask a high-level Barbarian Minotaur to trade his 2d6+18 Greatsword for d8+5 Horns.

I do give you the "without feats, it's good enough" argument. Maybe we can fix it by creating an analogue to the GWM feat for natural weapon users.

If you try to model NW against a great weapon, you end up with giving a too big benefit to everyone who doesn't use a great weapon: the Rogue minotaur, the Cleric minotaur, even the Wizard minotaur... and of course the Monk minotaur, which I forgot to take into account.

I think it's better to model it against a one-handed weapon, because the NW will at most always require one hand (if it's a claw) and sometimes not even that (if it's horns, tail or hooves). This means that the NW will always allow the use of a shield or any other object. But it's ok to model it against the best one-handed weapons, to make it better than a ribbon. Maybe d10 is better, after all, but I would not make it par with a Greatsword. I don't care if the Greatsword is better than the horns! It actually makes sense it is. The GWF minotaur is someone who learned to fight better with a weapon than with his bare body, like 99% of fighters after all. There are other race-class combos with duplicate proficiencies (e.g. elf and bows) and nobody is pulling hairs because of them.

About Monks, they have very controlled damage by design, and so I would just rule that when using martial arts they can use their NW but the damage defaults to unarmed strikes.

OTOH I would be in favor of allowing feats and fighting styles to NW when appropriate.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Why not just use weapons and reflavor them as natural weapons? I don't see the need to have separate mechanics for natural weapons. Sure, natural weapons can't be disarmed and there are role playing opportunities for being able to carry a weapon in a place that is normally restricted. But that trades off with greater suspicion (roleplaying wise). And natural weapons could still be "disarmed." Someone strikes your claw or horn, it's probably gonna hurt. DM can use that to explain that a "disarmed" natural weapon needs to devote similar actions in the next round to someone that gets disarmed of an actual weapon. Like use your object interaction to rub the numbness from your claw or you need to run from an opponent to deal with your stunned senses from getting hit like that.

For me, mechanical stats don't inherently have any link to the weapon it's skinned as. It's just numbers and imagination, so if I want my dagger to be Wolverine claws or my warhammer to be rock fists, that's an easy fix.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

To my thinking, a dagger's damage doesn't change with the level of the character, so neither does their claws or horns. A level 20 character is more effective with a dagger not because the dagger got better but because they can hit better (higher proficiency bonus), they have better ability scores (ASIs), they have more attacks (Extra Attack features), etc.

On the other hand, the level 20 character is probably not using the same dagger the level 1 character is. They'll have a nice magical one with bonuses to hit and damage and maybe some other cool stuff.

If the level 20 character still wants to punch or kick or claw or gore instead of stabbing with a magical dagger, that's their choice. The consequence of their choice is that they don't get that extra magical stuff.

As an aside, in my games, there are no such things as "natural weapons". I simply rule that if you have claws or horns or whatever then your unarmed attacks do more damage. It makes many rules (for example, two weapon fighting) much simpler.

 

[CapnZapp]

If you try to model NW against a great weapon, you end up with giving a too big benefit to everyone who doesn't use a great weapon

Nobody is discussing only great weapons. You say this like I had to choose between regular and great weapons, and chose great weapons?

 

[Ilbranteloth]

So, in conclusion, what's wrong with the NW of Unearthed Arcana is the lack of an automatic damage progression.

Starting at d6 isn't actually so horrible it can't stay, IF it gets automatically upgraded with character level (much like a cantrip):

Level 1: d6
Level 6: d8
Level 12: d10
Level 18: 2d6​

The Greatweapon Fighting feat is amended thusly (add this text to the end of the feat description):

If you have a natural weapon, its damage die is upgraded a number of steps decided by your character level.
Less than 6 levels: one step (a d6 becomes a d8)
6-11 levels: two steps (a d8 becomes a d12)
12 or more levels: three steps (a d10 becomes 2d8; 2d6 becomes 2d12)​

This concludes my analysis and suggested fix for the UA natural weapon debacle.

Zapp

Heh, debacle. I love the dramatics.

Another one in this thread I love:

no high level hero will choose to make half damage against most level-appropriate creatures.

Since you specifically invited me to read this thread, I'm going on a different tangent.

You want natural weapons to scale, so somebody can choose to be a natural weapon specialist, and focus on that aspect. Well, OK, that's fine. They can do that as a pugilist too.

In D&D and other genres, minotaurs are often depicted using other weapons, commonly a battle axe. Why? Because as good as there natural weapons might be, real weapons are better. They are better than the natural weapons of other minotaurs, and also better than their own natural weapons. It makes sense that their horns don't keep up with steel weapons, otherwise there would be no need for any of them to use them.

Having said that, I certainly don't object to the idea that there might be some that want to use their natural abilities and build them to their pinnacle. I'm still not sure I'd agree that it should keep pace with actual weapons, but something in the ballpark would be OK. Regardless, I don't think it should necessarily apply to all characters of that race. The main thing that you're lacking in your analysis is the fact that there is an inherent advantage to always being armed. Whether that applies to your game or not I don't know. But considering the game world as a world, where there are many circumstances where you might be disarmed, or that bearing arms is inappropriate and not allowed, it does provide a real advantage.

So the only thing I would change is that I think your proposal should be a feat, rather than something that every minotaur or creature with natural weapons gain automatically.

I also think that your amendment to Great Weapon Feat is irrelevant, since I can't think of any natural weapons that would be categorized as heavy weapons.

Second, if there is a world where minotaurs exist (or other intelligent races with natural weapons, are civilized in that they have an economy, mine, forge, develop armor and weapons (or adopt those from a society that does), and there is magic and magic items, I certainly think there would be magical horn sheaths.

My biggest issue with all of these types of races is that just dumping them all into the core world, without addressing things like cultures, histories, the fact that they would most likely have developed and evolved quite differently from humans, is never addressed. They end up as humans with horns, or whatever. Otherwise they don't differ at all.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I beg to differ. Just check out the complaints about the UA Mino.

I'm going through the other thread, and it seems to be only you complaining about the natural weapons. Most of the complaints seem to be about the centaur and minotaur being medium instead of large. Although [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] commented that the horns are no better than simple weapons, I don't really gather it's a complaint, just a comment. And I don't see any further commentary in the thread yet from him that says otherwise.

I may have missed a few, but so far I'm not seeing a huge outcry. That doesn't invalidate your point of view, of course, but it might indicate that it's not a big issue for many others. The general consensus I'm seeing (and there's really a very, very small sample size in that thread) is that folks don't seem to be concerned that natural weapons aren't as effective as steel weapons.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm going through the other thread, and it seems to be only you complaining about the natural weapons. Most of the complaints seem to be about the centaur and minotaur being medium instead of large. Although [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] commented that the horns are no better than simple weapons, I don't really gather it's a complaint, just a comment. And I don't see any further commentary in the thread yet from him that says otherwise.

It was neither an endorsement or condemnation of the idea; exactly as you said, it was a comment only. I do think the fact that the charge ability and the shove ability explicitly don't stack is a mistake, as it cheapens the visual of what a charging minotaur SHOULD do. Running into a dude with your horns should shove them, or at least give a pretty large bonus to do so. 5e is natural language driven, not mechanic driven; the mechanics provided should support obvious narrations.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

It was neither an endorsement or condemnation of the idea; exactly as you said, it was a comment only. I do think the fact that the charge ability and the shove ability explicitly don't stack is a mistake, as it cheapens the visual of what a charging minotaur SHOULD do. Running into a dude with your horns should shove them, or at least give a pretty large bonus to do so. 5e is natural language driven, not mechanic driven; the mechanics provided should support obvious narrations.

I'd agree with that. Being able to charge with horns without a bonus to shove seems odd. But then it seems odd that it requires a feat to charge in 5e too.