"Melee weapon attacks" and Crane Wing

[spectrevk]

The Crane Wing feat allows you to deflect one "melee weapon attack"

Quote:

Once per round while using Crane Style, when you have at least one hand free and are either fighting defensively or using the total defense action, you can deflect one melee weapon attack that would normally hit you. You expend no action to deflect the attack, but you must be aware of it and not flat-footed. An attack so deflected deals no damage to you.

The wording of this is a little strange though...why not just melee attacks? What is considered a melee weapon attack? Does this mean that Crane style is ineffective against unarmed combatants? Surely an unarmed attack isn't a melee weapon attack, right? Or is this just intended to prevent you from deflecting natural attacks from monsters? What about melee touch attacks? A wizard using a touch attack spell is considered "armed", so does that count as a melee weapon attack?

[Michael Sayre]

An unarmed strike is still a weapon, as are natural attacks. I think the intent was that Crane Wing shouldn't work against melee touch attacks, like a Wizard's Chill Touch or a Cleric's Inflict Wounds.

[Cheapy]

Dev commentary here.

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

If it meant "manufactured weapon," it would say "manufactured weapon" rather than "melee weapon."

So...any melee weapon attack.

[SlimGauge]

The search feature is your friend:

See SKR about 8 posts down

EDIT: Ninja'd by Cheapy

[kyrt-ryder]

Bit of a necro, but not too bad, so here goes.

Was the question of whether or not a Touch Spell (given that holding a charge makes the character 'armed') qualified as a 'melee weapon' ever completely resolved?

[Cheapy]

While I'm not going to back this up with rules, if I had to guess at the intent, touch attacks would not be affected by crane wing due to the fact that crane wing is you deflecting the attacks, and touch attacks work based on touch. So by deflecting the attack, they're touching you and thus the touch attack goes off.