D&D 5E Question: Am I treating this situation correctly?

[Kikuras]

Yeah, it seems like the real issue here is the intention of what they meant when they said monk weapons were shortswords and simple melee weapons-- did they intend monk weapons to be those weapons used in melee?

You would think that would HAVE to be what they meant... otherwise you'd get this exact situation where there are five Simple Melee Weapons with the Thrown property, all of which technically fall within the 'Monk Weapons' category (and thus all go up in Martial Arts damage die) that can be thrown with the Attack action, followed up by an Unarmed Strike. So we then do question why they don't include the other two weapons the Monk is proficient in (the two Simple Ranged Weapons that don't have the two-handed property-- i.e. the dart and sling) in that Monk Weapon category? The only advantage the dart gets over dagger is cost and weight (neither of which I'd consider game-breaking), and the only advantage sling gets over handaxe or spear is range (which I also wouldn't consider game-breaking because how often are you going to fire your sling the 60-120 feet the sling gets in distance over the other two while still remaining within moving/striking distance of another enemy to use that bonus action unarmed strike?)

Seems to me... the only intention that makes sense for not including dart and sling in with the Monk Weapon category is if that category was only meant to be for weapons used in melee (attack with the weapon to someone adjacent to you, followed up by a punch or kick.) Otherwise, the exclusion of the dart and sling seems a little tenuous and unnecessary.

*EDIT* Paraxis does bring up the good point about Archery style and the Sharpshooter feat, where perhaps WotC felt they were okay with throwing a d10 dagger and then following up with an unarmed strike, but did not want the same to occur with a d10 dart plus the extra 10 damage due to Sharpshooter. That could definitely be a possibility.

You make some valid points, but I'm not convinced. It seems to me that allowing 5 weapons that are thrown is a bigger mistake than omitting the 2 that are simply ranged. When you add that to the fact the the bullet point descriptions under Martial Arts are even less specific in wording that the text leading up to them, I feel there's no reason to assume that throwing a dagger and getting the bonus attack is not intended.

Of course this wouldn't be the first example of easily avoidable confusion to derive from entirely omitted statements in the published material. So I wouldn't be surprised if down the line this was fixed to work just as DEFCON 1 describes it.

 

[Blue]

During a session go with your gut ruling and just play, stopping for excessive amounts of time or multiple times in a session to look up rules slows down play, destroys any sense of immersion, and isn't very fun.
Make a note of any rule you want to look up later, and explain that DM's are allowed to change previous rulings and judgement calls, it happens all the time.

Gotta second what Paraxis says. One of the social contract things I bring up with people joining a game I run is that if a rules question comes up mid-session, we'll take a moment to see if we can find official rules. If not, as DM I'll make a ruling just to get on with play (without "setting precedent") and we can go in more depth between sessions. They need some level of trust that I won't kill or screw over the PC too badly on that at-table ruling.

I've learned the hard way that it's a lot better to have these conversations up front rather than when it comes up and emotions are on line.

 

[Sage Genesis]

*EDIT* Paraxis does bring up the good point about Archery style and the Sharpshooter feat, where perhaps WotC felt they were okay with throwing a d10 dagger and then following up with an unarmed strike, but did not want the same to occur with a d10 dart plus the extra 10 damage due to Sharpshooter. That could definitely be a possibility I hadn't thought of.

Doubt it, Sharpshooter can be used with thrown daggers.
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/19/sharpshooter-feat-with-dagger/

So the combination can still be used, whether you use daggers or darts. It still doesn't matter.


I have an alternative explanation: you are spending way more thought on this than they were. They just wrote some things that felt right, like the 3e Monk/Paladin multiclassing restrictions that had nothing to do with balance and were just put in for the sake of flavor. We sit here and try to divine their hidden intent behind these rules but I suspect that there wasn't any.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Doubt it, Sharpshooter can be used with thrown daggers.
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/19/sharpshooter-feat-with-dagger/

So the combination can still be used, whether you use daggers or darts. It still doesn't matter.


I have an alternative explanation: you are spending way more thought on this than they were. They just wrote some things that felt right, like the 3e Monk/Paladin multiclassing restrictions that had nothing to do with balance and were just put in for the sake of flavor. We sit here and try to divine their hidden intent behind these rules but I suspect that there wasn't any.

Quite possible. Although I also don't always take Mike's "Sage Advice" as gospel, because it's been said several times before that it's Jeremy Crawford who gives the more official rules adjudications, whereas Mearls' is more "what he does at his own table".

All in all... although I have no monk players in my game, if it ever came up I think I'd probably just rule that "Monk Weapons" for Martial Arts are just all the weapons the monk is proficient in that don't have the Heavy or Two-Handed properties (thereby including dart and sling). After all... really just how often will a monk have the need or desire to tag some monsters at range before then slugging one next to him (rather than just wail on the one in front of him until its dead?) I would imagine it'd be rather rare.

 

[Sage Genesis]

All in all... although I have no monk players in my game, if it ever came up I think I'd probably just rule that "Monk Weapons" for Martial Arts are just all the weapons the monk is proficient in that don't have the Heavy or Two-Handed properties (thereby including dart and sling). After all... really just how often will a monk have the need or desire to tag some monsters at range before then slugging one next to him (rather than just wail on the one in front of him until its dead?) I would imagine it'd be rather rare.

That seems fair enough. The entire issue is a bit corner case at any rate and I doubt you can really break the game with Monk martial arts attacks.

 

[Paraxis]

Doubt it, Sharpshooter can be used with thrown daggers.
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/19/sharpshooter-feat-with-dagger/

So the combination can still be used, whether you use daggers or darts. It still doesn't matter.

Mike's answers are not the greatest, he goes with his gut more than rules as written. His answer is even "yes - it might feel unintuitive for the bonus damage, but it doesn't break anything", why does it feel unintuitive for the bonus damage, because a dagger is not ranged weapon.

I have an alternative explanation: you are spending way more thought on this than they were. They just wrote some things that felt right, like the 3e Monk/Paladin multiclassing restrictions that had nothing to do with balance and were just put in for the sake of flavor. We sit here and try to divine their hidden intent behind these rules but I suspect that there wasn't any.

You would be 100% right I imagine, see above comment on how Mike answers rules questions as a good example of how they do things with little thought and for flavor.

 

[guachi]

Mr. Mearls' answers are perfect if you don't really care what the rules actually say but you just want to know if a house rule might potentially break a game. I don't think I've ever seen Mearls give an answer that didn't make a character more powerful by his ruling.