Valmarius
First Post
So what you're saying is that we need to forget the rope completely and choke that wererat with our BARE HANDS!! Nice.
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D&D 5E Werewolves/rats and damage immunity
- Thread starter Trit One-Ear
- Start date
So what you're saying is that we need to forget the rope completely and choke that wererat with our BARE HANDS!! Nice.
ad_hoc
(they/them)
When the MM errata comes out it will be changed to 'nonmagical weapon attacks' rather than 'nonmagical weapons' to be inclusive of unarmed strikes.
I am just showing how ridiculous it is to try to define what is a weapon and what is not in order to play 5e by strict RAW which is a futile endeavour (and rightly so).
I think that's true of most players - there'll be at least momentary disappointment when the GM
squelches the improvised plan & the players realise ANY improvised plan will get squelched. Yes if the players enjoy being herded to the acceptable pre-planned solution then it's not a problem.
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Azurewraith
Explorer
Unfortunately, that logic makes the monk's 6th level ability Ki-Empowered Strike (PHB p. 79) pointless. The only reasonable explanation is unarmed strikes are indeed considered weapons for purposes of overcoming immunity to nonmagical weapons.
Characters lacking non-magical weapons facing a creature which is immune to normal weapons either need to run or be a bit more creative than thinking the beast can be overcome with brute force.
Yes it actually does. They noted this issue in the PHB errata and the solution was to pretend that the MM errata to fix this were already issued.
IMHO the best solution would be to entirely drop the whole weapon stuff from the resistance and immunity and just make it all non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage.
Also remove immunity from lycanthropes and golems (Frankenstein's monster was threatened by pitchforks after all) and replace it with resistance (and add regeneration broken only by silver in case of lycanthropes on top of it).
Reserve immunity to quasi divine beings, then it also fits nicely with myths like Mount Edna being dropped on Typhon by Zeus or when Garl Glittergold collapsed Kurtulmak's cave and burried him under a mountain, with neither case killing the (quasi)deity suffering a full mountain of non-magical bludgeoning damage
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
Wererats are not immune to fire, so torches and burning oil are an option.
MoutonRustique
Explorer
I've just got to chime in and throw my hat in here - so fun! 
RAW - you can strangle the wererat with a rope : constrictor snakes don't kill you by crushing you - they "wait" until you breath out and then tighten their coils a bit. They're not crushing you, they're preventing your chest from inflating. i.e. you can kill a wererat with a rope in this manner since you're not actually using the damaging part of the rope-using - but you'd probably need a good long coil... Just keep wrapping until it dies.
Also, the idea is that the protection is mystical - so it follows "storybook" rules. In this instance, smashing the wererat against a spike studded wall would probably leave it unarmed - as those were confectioned with the idea of harm, making them weapons of a sort. A very jagged cavern wall/floor with stalagmites would probably be effective though - it would depend upon the story's take on if the stalagmites were "weaponized" by the aggressor; but in this case, I'd be pretty confident in their effectiveness.
In this sense, the floor is not a weapon. A giant picking up a piece of floor, just made that piece into a weapon - AND it also removed that piece from being "floor" at all. So the concept holds. On the other hand, giants are usually presented as "higher up the killing power hierarchy" than most things - so a wererat hit by a giant would probably go splat!.
My 2cp.
Also, RAW, unarmed attacks are NOT weapons - that was made abundantly clear (if incredibly confusing) by the Sage himself. It has to do with limiting monks and rogues and such things... I think.
RAW - you can strangle the wererat with a rope : constrictor snakes don't kill you by crushing you - they "wait" until you breath out and then tighten their coils a bit. They're not crushing you, they're preventing your chest from inflating. i.e. you can kill a wererat with a rope in this manner since you're not actually using the damaging part of the rope-using - but you'd probably need a good long coil... Just keep wrapping until it dies.
Also, the idea is that the protection is mystical - so it follows "storybook" rules. In this instance, smashing the wererat against a spike studded wall would probably leave it unarmed - as those were confectioned with the idea of harm, making them weapons of a sort. A very jagged cavern wall/floor with stalagmites would probably be effective though - it would depend upon the story's take on if the stalagmites were "weaponized" by the aggressor; but in this case, I'd be pretty confident in their effectiveness.
In this sense, the floor is not a weapon. A giant picking up a piece of floor, just made that piece into a weapon - AND it also removed that piece from being "floor" at all. So the concept holds. On the other hand, giants are usually presented as "higher up the killing power hierarchy" than most things - so a wererat hit by a giant would probably go splat!.
My 2cp.
Also, RAW, unarmed attacks are NOT weapons - that was made abundantly clear (if incredibly confusing) by the Sage himself. It has to do with limiting monks and rogues and such things... I think.
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Gabriel Pendragon
First Post
Or players just need to realize that silvering there weapons is an option available to anyone. They are also not immune to rope or pinning.
Unarmed attacks are weapons as they are listed in the weapons chart as simple weapons that don't cost anything do 1 point of bludgeoning damage and have no properties. P 149 PHB. Thus do not by pass were immunities. If they don't silver their weapons they will be limited to torches for 1 point fire damage per round. Flasks of oil if they have them for a little more per round. Or finding some other option to deal with them.
If you are worried about them not having any way to deal with the problem, give them some rumors about wererats being in the area they are headed before hand. Give them an adventure to save a blacksmith before sending them to deal with the wererats, have the reward either gold or the option to silver their weapons. Or not worry about it as a were rat is an AC 12 33 hp enemy that the beefy guys should be able to keep busy while the caster murders it. Can always have the rat in question knock the pcs out instead of trying to kill them. The risk of fighting enemies that are resistant or immune to normal weapons is clear and present in DnD.
Unarmed attacks are weapons as they are listed in the weapons chart as simple weapons that don't cost anything do 1 point of bludgeoning damage and have no properties. P 149 PHB. Thus do not by pass were immunities. If they don't silver their weapons they will be limited to torches for 1 point fire damage per round. Flasks of oil if they have them for a little more per round. Or finding some other option to deal with them.
If you are worried about them not having any way to deal with the problem, give them some rumors about wererats being in the area they are headed before hand. Give them an adventure to save a blacksmith before sending them to deal with the wererats, have the reward either gold or the option to silver their weapons. Or not worry about it as a were rat is an AC 12 33 hp enemy that the beefy guys should be able to keep busy while the caster murders it. Can always have the rat in question knock the pcs out instead of trying to kill them. The risk of fighting enemies that are resistant or immune to normal weapons is clear and present in DnD.
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