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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cabral" data-source="post: 2803489" data-attributes="member: 1193">No.In other words, it is an effect that can only target someone hit by your natural weapons. Hence, that clause of unarmed strike does not apply. If you want a house rule to allow it, just write into the vampire's energy drain that an unarmed strike qualifies.It is true. It says that so they don't have to write a clause into every spell affecting manufactured weapons and natural weapons as to how it applies to monk unarmed strikes.For example, in Eberron, let's make a Warforged Monk. Because the Warforged is a construct, an artificer can cast his infusions directly on the Warforged and avoids a little bit of confusion. The artificer cast Magic Weapon to make the unarmed strikes +1 weapons, and/or cast Weapon Augmentation to give it a special property such as Flaming. Because of the open-ended wording of the Monk's unarmed strike description, Weapon Augmentation does not need any special wording to allow it to function on an unarmed strike.Whether it would work on an Elf's unarmed strike is another question, but that has to do with the nature of Artificer Infusions, not the nature of a monk's unarmed strike.No. It does not. You are twisting the wording. Since it does not require you declare the usage behorehand, you cannot tie the effect to the natural attack. It's equivelant to a spell have the entry: "Target: One creature hit by a natural attack this round"If, for example, it said "Once per round, a vampire may charge it's slam (or any other natural weapon it possesses) with negative energy bestowing 2 negative levels on a creature it hits. A vampire must declare this usage before rolling and a failed attack roll ruins the attempt." Then it would work since that is equivelent to "Target: One natural weapon"Right. See above.The language is perfectly precise and does not allow for it. You may be having difficulty with the fact that the unarmed strike is attached to the monk's body and thus should be considered a natural weapon. However, Natural Weapon has specific meaning in D&D that is seperate from the concept of a natural weapon. A monk's unarmed strike can be enhanced as if it was a natural weapon, but it is not one and cannot trigger the Energy Drain.No it is not just a flavor text description.Saying something is "charged" changes the target of the effect. If something damages a creature hit by natural weapons, the target is the creature. If something charges a natural weapon to deal extra damage, it instead targets the natural weapon. Flavor-wise they are very similar, if not identical. The difference is mechanics.Saying that charge is composed of negative energy defines what resistances applies as well as what creatures are immune or affected differently by it. (Constructs and Undead)Nowhere does the monk class feature state that an unarmed strike is a natural weapon. They are not. The Monk class feature does not change this. The Improved Unarmed Strike feat does not change this. It simply does not work as you claim.Since you missed or ignored this, I'll reiterate.While you can pick and choose which rules you obey and which you ignore in your campaign, you cannot do so in a rules debate[sup]1[/sup]. A monk's unarmed strike is not a natural weapon. The Vampire's Energy Drain requires the vapire to hit a potential target with a natural weapon first. Therefore, the Energy Drain does not work with a monk's unarmed strike as written.I do not think it would be overpowering to do so. In fact, if it had come up in a campaign, I would have probably run it with the unarmed strike. That does not change that, as the two mechanics are currently written, you cannot combine them.[sup]1[/sup] by Rules Debate, I mean a discussion in which the goal is to determine what the rules say, or what they should say. This is not an attempt at saying that you can only discuss rules in D&D Rules and everything else belongs in House Rules.</blockquote>

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