D&D 5E VGTM races with a Natural Unarmed attack

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm pretty sure I mentioned that there are some edge cases they might prove useful. The thing is, while your 14 STR Fighter 1/Wizard X can make better OAs with a shield in one hand and a wand in the other, your non-magical 5 damage OAs are not going to affect a monster's tactics.

A better example is a tank (e.g. Paladin X/Warlock 2) who's holding a (Hexed Str) target grappled and prone with one hand while defending himself with his shield in the other hand (since shields are disproportionately useful when the enemy is at disadvantage). Normally he's stuck making nonproficient shield bashes at d4+Str or proficient head butts at 1+Str, while everyone else does the killing. That's certainly not bad, but if he had a built-in proficient bite attack for 1d6+Str it would be an improvement in every way.

If you think too hard about that scenario though it becomes Nightmare Fuel. "The lizard man is holding the drow warrior prone and taking noisy bites out of it while it struggles feebly to resist." http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NightmareFuel

 

[gyor]

A Tabaxi archer wouldn't have to switch weapons to engage in melee, just disembowel with a kick an enemy who enters melee.

 

[Blue]

Isn't this just 1/round situational +2.5 damage over punching something? Your halberd only requires two hands when you attack with it.

You answered yourself. If you want a 10' reach (for opportunity attacks) you need to have two hands on the halberd.

No, because you need a free hand for an unarmed attack, which would preclude making an opportunity attack with the reach polearm. That's why the bite is useful to ALSO have a 5' reach for opportunity attacks. It's been confirmed by JC that you can then trigger an Opportunity Attack when leaving either.

 

[gyor]

Another idea, a Paladin who loves using a shield and lance, if its too close to effectly use the lance, use your bite bite (Lizardfolk) or Foot Claws (Tabaxi). And its still a weapon attack, so you can smite with it. The question is can you use the Duelist fighting style with your lance.

 

[jaelis]

No, because you need a free hand for an unarmed attack, which would preclude making an opportunity attack with the reach polearm. That's why the bite is useful to ALSO have a 5' reach for opportunity attacks. It's been confirmed by JC that you can then trigger an Opportunity Attack when leaving either.

You don't need a free hand for an unarmed strike attack. Kicks and headbutts work fine.

 

[GreenTengu]

I'm curious which classes you think could benefit from this. I think it's ok at level one, it seems subpar after level 5 when most people get multiattack and a feat. I actually think that's a good place for racial abilities though; they should be flavorful for your first few levels, but to underwhelming compared to the items and equipment you later discover.

And to clarify, since you say "if", it's always an unarmed strike, 1/short rest it can be used as a bonus action.

Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Monk, Rogue, Bard... basically anything that is going to be in melee range and is likely to lose hit points.

I mean, I figure the closest thing we get to this is races that grant one a cantrip or 1st level spell.

Is dealing 1d6+Str damage on a melee attack in addition to everything an otherwise identical member of the class would normally get to do during that round at least as good as a cantrip or first level spell? It seems to me it most certainly is! Now... is it as good as the Dragonborn breath ability which is another comparable racial ability? I don't think so, BUT... I understand that Lizardfolk might have a bit more going on while that singular ability more or less defines Dragonborn completely.

I mean, if I were designing it then I think I would have been very hesitant to put the ability on there and I would have put some thought into whether I can have the damage scale with level... maybe start off at 1d4 damage at 1st level and get better at roughly the same levels as cantrips increase in power.

But I have already gone quite a bit on record on saying that I feel a lot of the races in this book really aren't as finely tuned as they should be-- like, they are close, but enough under par that they still fail at being ideally balanced and a lot of the abilities have seeds of good ideas in them but needed to be reworked just a little more to get them to where they needed to be.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]

You don't need a free hand for an unarmed strike attack. Kicks and headbutts work fine.

[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]You are completely incorrect. You have demonstrated a common pitfall in understanding of how D&D combat works.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]The damage from unarmed attack is not the damage you do by dealing a single strike with any random part of your body with no other consideration. You cannot ball yourself up and roll and say "I am hitting with my head and two arms and two legs, so I deal 5 damage!" that's not how it works.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Unarmed attack is the damage you can do within a 6 second span of time without having any weapons in your hand. Yes, ultimately this means that it COULD be a head-butt or a kick or something. But you know.. there is a reason why you don't see MMA fighters walking into the ring with their hands full even if they intend to use primarily kicks as their offense. You do need to have your hands free and unoccupied in order to deal unarmed damage to the best of your ability.....[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]I believe you can't even be holding a shield at the same time. (Though, if you have a shield, you should be bashing them in the face with that rather than any body part)[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Though, I guess if one is dealing only 1 damage, it really hardly matters.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]And this whole concept has always been screwed up by Monster Manual entries that list each claw and the bite as separate attacks. It is perfectly understandable how one winds up with the misinterpretation that unarmed strike is the damage one does with a single punch.[/FONT]

 

[Bitbrain]

I'm going to be playing as a Lizarfolk Light Domain Cleric in a few days, and as the Bite attack/Hungry Jaws trait will do equal damage to my chosen weapons, I plan to use Hungry Jaws once a day to play up the reptilian nature. Plus it will help out in times when I might need to be in melee range.
which may be quite often as the dice were in my favor and I managed to achieve a Natural Armor of 16, 18 if you count the shield.

 

[RCanine]

Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Monk, Rogue, Bard... basically anything that is going to be in melee range and is likely to lose hit points.

We must be talking past each other. I'm not talking about Hungry Jaws — and won't get into whether 5 or so nonmagical damage and 2-5 temp HP each short rest is exciting. I'm talking aboutBite — the 1d6 damage strength-based unarmed strike. There are no classes that really want that as their primary weapon.

You are completely incorrect. You have demonstrated a common pitfall in understanding of how D&D combat works.

Do you have a rules source for this? Because that's not the impression I get from looking over page 73 of the basic rules. Also, the PHB errata makes it pretty clear you don't need a free hand to make an unarmed strike.

 

[Vulf]

Monk suits the Lizard folk pretty well. You could multiclass into Rogue.
If I was going Ranger, I would pick up shillelagh from a multiclass, ignoring the natural weapons entirely.

A Lizard Folk Ranger/Nature Domain Cleric has proficiency in 8 skills!

 

[GreenTengu]

We must be talking past each other. I'm not talking about Hungry Jaws — and won't get into whether 5 or so nonmagical damage and 2-5 temp HP each short rest is exciting. I'm talking aboutBite — the 1d6 damage strength-based unarmed strike. There are no classes that really want that as their primary weapon.

Do you have a rules source for this? Because that's not the impression I get from looking over page 73 of the basic rules. Also, the PHB errata makes it pretty clear you don't need a free hand to make an unarmed strike.

Yes, the bite-- and honestly, the scaley skin, abilities are pretty much useless in any situation where you are going to be armed and equipped ideally to your desire. Basically all classes have better options to choose from presuming you can pick out and have your ideal equipment at any time. But only if you are a Monk are they totally useless.

A d6 damage attack that doesn't require a free hand is actually a better melee option than Wizards, Warlocks or some Clerics normally get though. And Wizard and Warlock don't have a automatic way to boost AC nor proficiency with any armors.

But generally the usefulness of those abilities is only going to kick in if you have somehow been disarmed and disrobed. Like if you get taken prisoner or you need to sneak in somewhere and obviously can't go in obviously ready for battle.. or you were in attendance at a party or something where it would be inappropriate to be armed and armored.... or you get ambushed while asleep....

Its in those situations where you would otherwise be denied your battle equipment, but regardless this character is effectively always equipped with light armor and a short sword.

Consider it like this though.... those aren't really meant to be prime combat abilities, it is more equivalent to when other races give you proficiencies your class almost certainly already gets or resistance to a damage type you may almost never encounter. Its not the core benefit of the race, but rather a fringe benefit that mostly only helps out classes that the race might be otherwise terribly suited to.


As for whether you have to be unarmed to do an unarmed attack (which the errata in no way indicates is not necessary, it just attempts to convey that 'unarmed attack' does not mean 'punch'), I don't see a reason to argue it. It kind of seems like saying you can deal damage with the sword strapped to your back without first having it in your hand. But, at the same time-- if I am DM and someone wants to choose to do only 1 + Str damage rather than use the d8 damage weapon in their hand, I don't see any real reason to deny it.

It is just weird if someone with their hands full decides to do increased damage based on their claws or something.

And the damage inflicted by the weapon has always been meant to convey how much you can do with it over a 6-second period. Great Clubs do not "swing" as fast as daggers.