Opportunity Attacks/Threaten with no melee weaponry?

[MarkB]

Thanks for your replies.

My concern is that allowing unarmed (non-Monk) OAs only slows down gameplay, with no significant bonus to play balance.

Also, it seems somehow "right" that if a Ranger or Warlock chooses to not wield a melee weapon, they would surrender their rights to OAs. In the sense that they otherwise would both get to keep and eat their cake.

One option - for the Warlock - would of course be to rule that Rods work like Clubs (much like Staffs work like Quarterstaffs).


My main question is: why even bother with the d4 unarmed attack? Why not simply say - "if you have nothing better, you just don't get to make the attack"? Can you see any significant balance issues with this?

Thanks,
Z

As with OAs in general, the balancing factor is not in the carrying out of the OA, but in the threat of one. The fact that you risk being subjected to an OA when you make a ranged attack or move whilst adjacent to an opponent is a deterrent against taking those actions.

With a character who lacks an armed melee attack, that deterrent is much reduced, but it is still there. That character still provides some degree of discouragement against enemies pushing past them or making ranged attacks whilst engaged with them.

If you remove that, you do somewhat change the balance of the battlefield. Not necessarily for the worse, but you are removing part of ranged characters' ability to tactically control the movement of the opposition.

 

[brehobit]

I allow it the unarmed OA. Don't see a problem with it. And a fighter (if he is using a bow or something) actually might have a fair chance of hitting and certainly causes some interesting effects (stopping the opponent's move being the biggy).

Let the PCs _do_ things. It's the 4e way.

Mark