Not everyone learns to fight in school

Ok so looking at the classes I notice that no matter who you are you gain trained in unarmed combat.

I see the reasoning behind this, every adventurer must learn to throw a punch but classes apply to more than adventurers and there are some classes where the power is not in combat but spells. AS such these guys would be the book nerds who ended up getting the swirlies in school only to later on get back at the bullies with itching powder or clumsy cantrips (prestidigitation I guess. Just a metaphor).

It seems to me there are certain classes where the weapons combat is rushed. OK wizard you may be in a place where you are out of spells so here is how to handle a staff. Learning to fight at a basic level with weapons does not necessarily mean knowing how to throw a punch.

AS such what do we think about a house rule that takes trained in unarmed combat from Bards, Clerics, Sorcerers and Wizards. The idea being that these individuals rely heavily on spells and weapons and are not true warriors. The classes still retain unarmored defense.

As I see it the only penalty is that with an unarmed blow they have a +0 attack for proficiency. They can still throw a punch just won't be good with it. If there are other penalties then this needs to be waved to make this work.

To compensate if one takes a weapon proficiency feat along with whatever level of weapons they upgrade to (simple in the case of wizards, martial, etc.) they also gained trained in unarmed combat. This signifies the time taken to study weapons included basic hand to hand fighting,

I think this is Ok because spell attacks use the Spell Attack feature not unarmed.

Maybe give the player another cantrip to make up for it. I don't know, players that get nerfed usually want something in return. Understandable.

Perhaps give the player the option. They add one more cantrip known and able to be prepared to cast each day in exchange for losing trained in unarmed combat. At least then it is the players choice and the DM can feel free to have court wizards and clerics that never leave the castle grounds not have it. That would be more fair.

What does this accomplish? All this really seems to do is making someone who wants to play an unarmed wizard or bard worse.. and unarmed wizard is already a pretty questionable build. It's not like they're very good with weapons to begin with.

I don't feel like this change is necessary. Sure, Bards, Clerics, Sorcerers, and Wizards might be able to hit someone at a punch, but that doesn't mean they'll be good at it. Basic unarmed attacks kinda suck, just 1d4 nonlethal damage. And the characters won't have any feats or features from their class that improve it.

Plus, a lot of ancestries can give additional unarmed attacks, and this change would make those completely useless to these characters (where they're currently not optimal, but could be flavorful and occasionally useful).

I guess if you really wanted to stop a wizard from casting Dragon Form more than once, this would be a way to do it. I don't really see the value in that goal, though.

What does this accomplish? All this really seems to do is making someone who wants to play an unarmed wizard or bard worse.. and unarmed wizard is already a pretty questionable build. It's not like they're very good with weapons to begin with.

It accomplishes adding realism to the game. The court wizard NPC is not going to learn to fight effectively with his hands. He spends his youth training with spells and studying and when he learns basic the court guard will give him a weapon and teach him basic moves with it.

This rule would reflect that.

I guess if you really wanted to stop a wizard from casting Dragon Form more than once, this would be a way to do it. I don't really see the value in that goal, though.

It is not about the player characters but the NPCs. They would not as a rue be trained in it at all.

But to your point a Bard in this case with 1d4 unarmed damage takes a -2 penalty to do lethal with his fists. At say 10th level that does not matter that much. This is the same as the dagger at 1d4.

Now if untrained then they don't just lose the +2 for being trained but the level bonus as well. This means in said situation an unarmed bard whose weapon has been disarmed is going to first be concerned with finding a weapon in order to be able to attack.

This adds more realism. If the person in question is an NPC who plays the lute for the king and not an adventuring PC then they might put more effort into spells or skill than learning to punch someone.

Again I am approaching this from a GMs perspective. This rule would make NPCs more realistic.

This is why I approached this as a player option. If you want to lose unarmed for the extra cantrip I am giving the NPC's, well OK your choice. This makes it fair and avoids arguments about it.

NPCs don't follow PC rules, so removing proficiency from PC classes has literally no effect on them - if you don't feel like the court lutist should have unarmed proficiency you just don't give them it, done.

'At say 10th level that does not matter much' is also not correct. AC scales at almost the same rate as attack bonus as level increases, a 10th level character using lethal unarmed attacks against a 9th level creature is disadvantaged to a similar degree as a 1st level character doing so against a 0th level creature. Compared to the dagger, even more so, because the dagger at that level is likely magical and unless the character has specifically invested in magic handwraps their fists are likely not.

NPCs don't follow PC rules, so removing proficiency from PC classes has literally no effect on them - if you don't feel like the court lutist should have unarmed proficiency you just don't give them it, done.

'At say 10th level that does not matter much' is also not correct. AC scales at almost the same rate as attack bonus as level increases, a 10th level character using lethal unarmed attacks against a 9th level creature is disadvantaged to a similar degree as a 1st level character doing so against a 0th level creature. Compared to the dagger, even more so, because the dagger at that level is likely magical and unless the character has specifically invested in magic handwraps their fists are likely not.

NPC's follow the rules of the class they are assigned in the same way that everyone else does as far as I can tell. A court magician is still a wizard. Yeah I could ignore levels and just assign abilities but that would be very difficult to gage the power level of that character as a threat of the party attacked him. It is better to stay within set rules in my opinion.

Your criticism of the 10th level difference is not on point, no offence. Unarmed Defense is not affected by this rule. Unarmed Attack is. A 10th level character trained in unarmed with a 10 strength punching someone has an attack of 12. Their level plus their proficiency bonus. A 10th level character who is untrained in attack has a 0 bonus because untrained adds 0 to your roll and no level bonus is assigned. So the difference between a 1st level attacking an unarmored character at 1st level is three while the 10th level character attacking an unarmored 10th level character is 12 points. Untrained attacks do not scale.

This is why proficiency is so much more important in 2e than 1e. If you have a barbarian for instance using an advanced weapon he is not proficient in his proficiency bonus is a 0. It essentially removes his level from the equation. In 1e he just got I believe a -4.

Unarmed Attack is the default option to escape grapples when you are not trained in Athletics or Acrobatics.

(they had to add it in after removing level to untrained, it was a bit of a thing in playtest)

FowlJ wrote:

NPCs don't follow PC rules, so removing proficiency from PC classes has literally no effect on them - if you don't feel like the court lutist should have unarmed proficiency you just don't give them it, done.

'At say 10th level that does not matter much' is also not correct. AC scales at almost the same rate as attack bonus as level increases, a 10th level character using lethal unarmed attacks against a 9th level creature is disadvantaged to a similar degree as a 1st level character doing so against a 0th level creature. Compared to the dagger, even more so, because the dagger at that level is likely magical and unless the character has specifically invested in magic handwraps their fists are likely not.

NPC's follow the rules of the class they are assigned in the same way that everyone else does as far as I can tell. A court magician is still a wizard. Yeah I could ignore levels and just assign abilities but that would be very difficult to gage the power level of that character as a threat of the party attacked him. It is better to stay within set rules in my opinion.

You may have missed it because they are contained in a blog post at the moment until the GMG comes out (located here https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sgym?Building-Monsters-for-Fun-an d-Profit ) , but NPC rules in no way use class now. That is a 1st edition idea that is no longer the case in 2e.

FowlJ wrote:

NPCs don't follow PC rules, so removing proficiency from PC classes has literally no effect on them - if you don't feel like the court lutist should have unarmed proficiency you just don't give them it, done.

'At say 10th level that does not matter much' is also not correct. AC scales at almost the same rate as attack bonus as level increases, a 10th level character using lethal unarmed attacks against a 9th level creature is disadvantaged to a similar degree as a 1st level character doing so against a 0th level creature. Compared to the dagger, even more so, because the dagger at that level is likely magical and unless the character has specifically invested in magic handwraps their fists are likely not.

Yeah I could ignore levels and just assign abilities but that would be very difficult to gage the power level of that character as a threat of the party attacked him. It is better to stay within set rules in my opinion.

Just assigning abilities is actually exactly how monster creation works, and it works very well from my own experience as long as you stay within the damage guidelines.

Indi523,
If you add a line to Polymorph spells that grants the caster proficiency in the appropriate forms unarmed attacks (for the duration of the spell), and if you add a line to Ancestries that grant unarmed attacks that correspondingly grant the appropriate proficiency, and all other similar circumstances where some character build choice remains valid, I think you should be good to go.

.... how is “this person who can warp reality with fantasy magic can’t properly form a fist” realistic?