Cestus / Brass Knucks / Sp.Gauntlet: Count as Unarmed for feats, etc?

[Ravennus]

Hey All,

Quick question... may be obvious, but I just wanted to clarify and make sure....

Do Spiked Gauntlets, Brass Knuckles, and Cestus' count as Unarmed Attacks for the purposes of feats like Weapon Focus, etc?
IE: If I took Weapon Focus (Unarmed), would that count if I was wearing a Cestus?

The descriptions say that they just convert your unarmed attack to lethal, so that's why I'm curious.

[Jiggy]

The descriptions are all totally borked. There's all kinds of confusion, including your question, what happens if you have a +1 flaming spiked gauntlet and a +1 shocking amulet of mighty fists, what happens if you're a monk with 2d6 unarmed strike damage but wielding a cestus, and so forth.

Near as I can tell, the intent is that they are all (with the possible exception of brass knuckles) simply light weapons with no relationship to unarmed strikes whatsoever. That's probably the safest way to treat them, unless your GM specifically says otherwise.

[Carbon D. Metric]

There is good reason to believe that these things will be getting a pretty heavy errata as far as description, and how they work in Ultimate Equipment.

[gamer-printer]

Basically, unarmed combat means there is nothing in your hands - you are unarmed. If you have Cestus, Gauntlets, Tekko or Brass Knuckles in your hands, then you are no longer unarmed and cannot combine any weapon with an unarmed attack. Monk weapons can be wielded by monks, but do not count as unarmed.

In Rite Publishing's upcoming #30 Ancestral Relics supplement (legacy weapons and items for the Kaidan setting) there is a set of Tekko - Japanese brass knuckles for all intents and purposes that do allow you to combine with an unarmed attack, but then this is a specialized magic item that magically allows it's use in unarmed combat as one of it's special properties. However a non-magical version does not count as unarmed normally. (I'm finishing up the last few items, being the author of that supplement and it should be available soon.)

[Roaming Shadow]

Pretty much everything I've seen/read on the matter says that they are not considered unarmed strikes. Brass knuckles used to use the monks unarmed damage instead of the weapon dice, but that didn't take long to change in errata.

As far as I know, they are all considrered "manufacture weapons", and are listed under the appropriate weapon type: Simple Light Melee Weapon (except spiked gauntlets, which are an exception I believe like Jiggy said). So no, Brass Knuckles and Cestus do not count as unarmed attacks, even if you are delivering punches like you might for an unarmed strike. You are armed with the brass knuckles or the Cestus. If you want Weapon Focus, it's have to be, for example, Weapon Focus (Cestus).

[Ravennus]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I wasn't aware this was a debated topic.... very interesting!

[blackbloodtroll]

Not debated. All "unarmed" weapons have been errata'd to simply be light weapons.
The only "unarmed" weapon, is the unarmed strike.

[Ross Byers]

I removed a post. Criticism is fine, but attacks on the Paizo staff are getting old.

[Grick]

Sean K Reynolds (Developer) wrote:

Brass knuckles should be armed (light melee weapon) attacks. (As should gauntlets and spiked gauntlets.)

Which makes it clear that using brass knuckles is not an unarmed attack (and the description of the weapon should not refer to unarmed attacks), and therefore monk's don't get their unarmed damage with them. They can, as others have pointed out, still use them to flurry, and allows for things like silver brass knuckles and +5 flaming brass knuckles.

The cestus description confuses the issue by referring to unarmed attacks; it's clearly a light melee weapon and doesn't relate to unarmed strike rules at all.

Rope gauntlets are light melee weapons and its descriptive text shouldn't confuse the issue by referring to "unarmed strikes."

Sean K Reynolds (Developer) wrote:

None of those three weapons allow a monk to use his level-based unarmed damage; they just do the damage listed on the weapon table. This isn't errata (they were never intended to allow monks to do that, as they can already deal lethal or nonlethal at their discretion), it's a clarification of the use of terms like "with unarmed attacks" in the descriptive text of those three weapons (they aren't unarmed attacks, and mentioning unarmed attacks at all confuses the issue).

Sean K Reynolds (Developer) wrote:

Treating brass knuckles, gauntlets, spiked gauntlets, cesti, and rope gauntlets as "unarmed attacks" doesn't make a lot of sense... Making all of these weapons act 100% like weapons and not refer to unarmed attacks at all means these questions go away.

[Fredrik]

Thanks, Grick! I never read that thread before. Very interesting.

[Ravennus]

Thanks for finding those quotes from SKR, Grick!

That's exactly what I was looking for. :)

[Sliska Zafir]

Except that the Advanced Players' Guide says that monks can use their unarmed damage with brass knuckles.

[Talonhawke]

Which has since been changed in either the most recent APG or Armory errata and I believe will be repeated in the UE when it comes out.

Edit: Changed ARG to APG.

[wraithstrike]

It is the Armory book. They APG will have it changed with the next errata for that book also.