| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
On P. 178 (equipment)it says:
UNARMED ATTACKS
You can Strike with your fist or another body part, calculating your attack and damage rolls in the same way you would with a weapon. This counts as a simple weapon, so almost all characters start out trained in unarmed attacks. Use the statistics for a fist even if you’re kicking, kneeing, or attacking with another part of your body. Some ancestry feats, class features, class feats, and spells give access to special, more powerful unarmed attacks.
On p.419 (appendix) it says
Unarmed An unarmed attack is made using your body rather than a manufactured weapon. An unarmed attack isn’t a weapon, though it’s categorized with weapons for weapon tables and weapon groups, and it might have weapon traits. Because it’s a part of your body, an unarmed attack can’t be Disarmed. It also doesn’t take up a hand, though a fist or other grasping appendage follows the same rules as a free-hand weapon.
Which leaves us in the confusing position where unarmed strikes are not weapons but they count as weapons. So my question is what is the limit of counts as a weapon?
Some Specific Questions:
1. Magic weapon targets weapons but probably shouldn't work on unarmed attacks, unless it is supposed to?. So are unarmed attacks weapons for this case?
2. The Druid Feat Savage Slice intuitvly seems like it should work with Wild Claws ability or wild shape but it calls out "Your last action was a weapon Strike that dealt slashing damage." and "Make another Strike against the same target using the same weapon. If it hits, add an additional die of damage." Do slashing unarmed attacks (claws) count as weapons in this instance"
3. The whole Barbarian class repeatedly calls out weapon strikes and unarmed attacks as if they are separate things citing in Rage "Gain a +2 conditional bonus to damage rolls with melee weapons and unarmed Strikes" and in Weapon Fury "Your proficiency rank for simple weapons, martial weapons, and unarmed attacks increases to expert." But if unarmed strikes count as simple weapons wouldn't just raising simple weapon proficiency to expert be enough?
Basically I am confused as to what exactly "counts as a simple weapon" means in regards to unarmed attacks. For what purposes does it count as a simple weapon?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
add paladin ally ability to that list
Yes another good question. My intuition says that unarmed strikes should count as weapons for abilities that apply to or for weapon attacks but should not count as weapons for spells and effects that target weapons. But at the same time even if you can't target your unarmed strikes the blade ally should be able to target hand wraps at least. Overall still confused.
Yeah, I noticed this issue when trying to roll up an Iroran Paladin. I really hope unarmed Paladins can be viable in core.
I was going to respond to brew bird but I don't have any sort of thing to add at this point so really this is just a shameless bump. Is there something that I missed that clarifies this or is everyone in the same nebulous boat?
|
**Passes the Rations**
Looks like we are in the same boat, might as well enjoy our time while we die of thirst right? Know any good jokes?
Seriously, though, simply letting Unarmed Strike to ALWAYS count as a weapon would be a VERY simple change and it would improve SOosoosoosososo many corner-case rulings like this. If they really want to retain the "design space" for Handwraps of Mighty Fists, they simply need to state that Creatures themselves cannot benefit from applying Runes to their Body, otherwise let Magic Weapon affect Unarmed Strike, let Clerics/Paladins of Irori carve their Holy Symbol on their palm, heck, let PCs hold Trinkets in their Hand to use them for Unarmed Strike.
Yes another good question. My intuition says that unarmed strikes should count as weapons for abilities that apply to or for weapon attacks but should not count as weapons for spells and effects that target weapons. But at the same time even if you can't target your unarmed strikes the blade ally should be able to target hand wraps at least. Overall still confused.
Overall this is largely where I sit. I think this would be something easy to address, if they listed something like "Any effect which targets a weapon can target handwraps of mighty fists, and those effects apply to unarmed attacks made by the wearer" or something like that (which it could be argued that it already does, at least something similar, by making your unarmed attacks function as magic weapons, you could argue Blade ally could target your fists, or other effects like that).
A wild druid player in my group wants to know this, too. So bump, I guess?
For savage slice at least I think it should say meleeattack instead of weapon attack. Otherwise you could use it with thrown daggers which doesn't seem very fitting.
I really wanted to do a Iroran cleric with a shield but Deadly Simplicity only makes your fist 1d6 but not lethal so you can only do nonlethal damage.
They really need to work on the unarmed rules and class feats that deal with them.
Not that the unarmed rules don't need clarification, but now you can take a monk multiclass dip instead to fix that problem. And more monk feats will of course make you better at punching things.
The other thing is that I just looked through the bestiary, and I think only constructs resist non-lethal damage anymore, so it is much less of a big deal than it used to be.
My search fu turned up this thread, which asks the same question I've been thinking lately. Has there been any official clarification on whether unarmed attacks or fists count as weapons for various effects/feats/etc.?
As far as I know no Dev response. Update 1.4 came and went and I still don't know.
In "Sneak Attack" the rogue calls out "an agile or finesse melee weapon" as a different thing from "an agile or finesse unarmed attack" despite the fact that unarmed attacks are always melee, and are agile and finesse by default. So I'm inclined to think unarmed attacks simply are not weapons.
But clarity would be appreciated.
My recommendation is that you each playtest the rules according to how you understand them - and include these rulings in your playtest reports. That way Paizo gets to see which rules are ambiguous.
My take is that fists are agile finesse weapons that can shove and trip. If you use handwraps, you get bonuses on fist attacks and all maneuvers using fists. This is how I will play it and how I will report my playtests. If Paizo has another RAI, they know where I misinterpreted and can change the wording for the final version.
it's super ambiguous because the game clearly contemplates times when an unarmed strike functions as a weapon and times when it does not, without a general rule.
it's super ambiguous because the game clearly contemplates times when an unarmed strike functions as a weapon and times when it does not, without a general rule.
Right. So if there were to be a general rule what should it be? Personaly I'd say unarmed strikes should count as weapons for all purposes except runes. But you can add runes to unarmed strikes via handwraps.
Then make magic weapon and paladin ally explicitly add a temporary rune so it would work on unarmed strikes.
I don't think the rules necessary support that position but it feels right to me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
the general rule just has to be either, unarmed attacks are count as weapons unless stated otherwise or unarmed weapon are not weapons unless stated otherwise. I don't think people are necessarily concerned right about when it should be or not be a weapon, but instead the designers need to let us know when it's supposed to function as a weapon and when it doesn't.
I do not want unarmed strikes to count as weapons, because then a rogue who takes the monk archetype can easily outdamage a monk by combining tiger/wolf stance with dex-to-damage.
At the very least Finesse Striker should require weapons which are not unarmed.