As unintuitive as it sounds, I don't believe you need a fist to make a "fist Strike." A "fist Strike" could be a bite, headbutt, kick, or even a full body slam by a druid wildshaped into squirrel.
I believe the developers likely used the term "fist" merely to avoid confusion with other mechanical terms, like Unarmed, and also because for most traditional characters, the fist is actually what is used the majority of the time one makes an unarmed Strike with their body.
But are there any rules that actually support this? I refuse to believe that a 20th-level fighter can't kick the monologuing villain in the shin if his hands were occupied by carrying the MacGuffin. Or that a monk MUST be using Flurry of Blows to be able to attack with non-fist parts of their body (or that a person needs to be a monk to be able to Strike with anything other than a fist).
What do you guys think? What do you know? What do you believe?
Unarmed Attacks
Almost all characters start out trained in 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. Unarmed attacks can belong to a weapon group (page 280), and they might have weapon traits (page 282). However, unarmed attacks aren’t weapons, and effects and abilities that work with weapons never work with unarmed attacks unless they specifically say so.
Table 6–6: Unarmed Attacks lists the statistics for an unarmed attack with a fist, though you’ll usually use the same statistics for attacks made with any other parts of your body. Certain ancestry feats, class features, and spells give access to special, more powerful unarmed attacks. Details for those unarmed attacks are provided in the abilities that grant them.
What is your problem exactly?
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What is your problem exactly?Unarmed Attacks
Almost all characters start out trained in 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. Unarmed attacks can belong to a weapon group (page 280), and they might have weapon traits (page 282). However, unarmed attacks aren’t weapons, and effects and abilities that work with weapons never work with unarmed attacks unless they specifically say so.
Table 6–6: Unarmed Attacks lists the statistics for an unarmed attack with a fist, though you’ll usually use the same statistics for attacks made with any other parts of your body. Certain ancestry feats, class features, and spells give access to special, more powerful unarmed attacks. Details for those unarmed attacks are provided in the abilities that grant them.
I suppose there isn't one. Thanks!
I was looking at the fist weapon entry and didn't see any mention of other body parts, and so began to wonder. The rules are SO scattered!
Yep scattered. If you haven't checked the glosary and three other references you can't be sure you have the full picture.
You can also look at Handwraps where they explicitly mention claws. Just in case your GM gets upset about non human forms.
So can I have a human monk with two shield that make Flurry of Blows using kicks?
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Yes. Even with both hands full, you can still kick, body slam, or headbutt.
Grapple - er no.
Any bonus from the second shield won't stack with the bonus from the first shield. But one might break.
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So can I have a human monk with two shield that make Flurry of Blows using kicks?
Or elbows or shoulder slams or knees-to-the-face.
The pushback you'll most often get is the number of hands listed for first (1).
It's the one statistic of "Fist" that I wouldn't believe applies to other parts of the body, for hopefully obvious reasons, but it is a common point of discussion.
Yes. Even with both hands full, you can still kick, body slam, or headbutt.
Grapple - er no.Any bonus from the second shield won't stack with the bonus from the first shield. But one might break.
I know, don't make sense to rise the both shields at same time for take AC bonus, the idea instead is distribute the damage of shield blocks alternating them.
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So can I have a human monk with two shield that make Flurry of Blows using kicks?Or elbows or shoulder slams or knees-to-the-face.
The pushback you'll most often get is the number of hands listed for first (1).
It's the one statistic of "Fist" that I wouldn't believe applies to other parts of the body, for hopefully obvious reasons, but it is a common point of discussion.
For which you have to refer them to the Unarmed Trait which says It also doesn't take up a hand
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For which you have to refer them to the Unarmed Trait which says It also doesn't take up a handSo can I have a human monk with two shield that make Flurry of Blows using kicks?Or elbows or shoulder slams or knees-to-the-face.
The pushback you'll most often get is the number of hands listed for first (1).
It's the one statistic of "Fist" that I wouldn't believe applies to other parts of the body, for hopefully obvious reasons, but it is a common point of discussion.
You don't need to convince me.
I think they mean Fist as in the weapon described in the equipment table. Given that is our only in game definition of fist it is probably the right reading of fist.
If you look at the Monk near the Flurry of Blows it explicitly mentions
You can attack rapidly with fists, feet, elbows, knees, and other unarmed attacks
You'd hardly expect them to repeat that everywhere.
So Monk is clearly not limited to actual fists.
You don't need to convince me.
I know you get it. Its about the causal reader who is looking for answers.
The place that it gets weird to me is with monk attack stances. I know that by raw it doesn’t specify, but making Tiger Claw attacks with your elbows feels wrong to me. I wish the attacks for the stances were a little more clear about requiring hands or feet based on the description of the attack. As is it feels punitive that some give vaguer descriptions than others without clear intent.
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Several of them mention no body part at all.
Tiger Claws, Mountain Stance, Iron Blood Stance
It is clearly just descriptive text. There is no Morph trait on any of them.
You probably should describe how your current body shape is doing the actual stance. But there is definitely no rule stopping these from working in any body shape.
A Bellbird would be doing its Tiger Class attacks with its Talons.
But for the Monk Stances that do mention a body part, a firm GM could reasonably require that body part. For myself though, as long as the player can describe it, I'd be happy with it as a GM.
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I don't believe there was intended to be a hard separation between crunch and flavor text - this isn't Magic, the flavor text isn't italicized to definitively separate it from rules text and so forth. If a stance mentions or clearly implies a body part, I consider that a rule.
But yeah, everyone can kick and headbutt.
I don't believe there was intended to be a hard separation between crunch and flavor text - this isn't Magic, the flavor text isn't italicized to definitively separate it from rules text and so forth. If a stance mentions or clearly implies a body part, I consider that a rule.
That's like saying stunning fist is JUST fist attacks and Flying Kick is ONLY kicks. Where do you draw the line when it doesn't come out and explicitly call out a particular attack form?
But yeah, everyone can kick and headbutt.
So shakes can kick and a butterfly headbutt? *pulls out popcorn* I want to see this. ;)
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I don't believe there was intended to be a hard separation between crunch and flavor text - this isn't Magic, the flavor text isn't italicized to definitively separate it from rules text and so forth. If a stance mentions or clearly implies a body part, I consider that a rule.That's like saying stunning fist is JUST fist attacks and Flying Kick is ONLY kicks. Where do you draw the line when it doesn't come out and explicitly call out a particular attack form?
With (un)common sense.
Stunning Fist's description (name notwithstanding) just says it works on your flurry, and flurry can work with a lot of other things than just fists.
Flying Kick just says that you make an unarmed strike. Doesn't talk about limiting you to a particular kind of unarmed strike.
Meanwhile a stance like Wolf Stance first says you hold your hands like fanged teeth, and then gives you a wolf jaw attack. Yeah you clearly need a hand free for that.
Tiger Stance is a bit less clear, it just says "claws", but generally claws map to hands, while talons map to feet. So I'd also assume you're doing that with your hands. But that one's indeed more open to interpretation.
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I mean, Flying Kick has 'kick' right there in the name. It seems weird to dismiss that as irrelevant but then emphasize the 'hands' part of wolf stance as vital.
On the other hand(hah):
Yeah you clearly need a hand free for that.
Wolf Jaw has the unarmed trait though, which clearly states the opposite is true.
With (un)common sense.
You are taking one descriptive text as explicit confirmation of a specific attack type but dismissing another descriptive text [the name] with no substantial difference in 'rules'.
Meanwhile a stance like Wolf Stance first says you hold your hands like fanged teeth, and then gives you a wolf jaw attack. Yeah you clearly need a hand free for that.
Tiger Stance is a bit less clear, it just says "claws", but generally claws map to hands, while talons map to feet. So I'd also assume you're doing that with your hands. But that one's indeed more open to interpretation.
Squiggit pretty much covered this: all that about "claws" and "hands" are as compelling as "fist" and "kick" are.
Also on talons, is there a rule where they are? They are mostly on birds/avians but 2 creatures have them on front legs where other creatures would have claws [Viskithrel and Intellect Devourer] even if we ignore the avians that do so [griffon and hipogriff]. Even when an ancestry gains a talon, like the strix, it's never stated it's on the feet in the heritage or it's physically description. It's fine to houserule using the PF1 natural weapon divisions but PF2 doesn't have that FAQ.
And it's not like we can fall back on common language usage as a talon is a claw, that's usually on a bird of prey, so it's not really a useful thing in differentiating between claw and talon because a talon IS a claw...
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Stunning fist, in particular, is a tricky one as the name is clearly a call out to PF1 monk in title, but then clearly flurry contradicts the fist language. PF2 doesn’t have descriptive text vs mechanical text though. There is a lot of ambiguity about hand use with monk abilities. The general rule of unarmed attacks not requiring a hand or fist can be overridden by specific abilities that call out using your hand or hands. It is definitely an aspect of the game where GMs are going to have to make calls on what fits the tone and theme of their games.
I mean, Flying Kick has 'kick' right there in the name. It seems weird to dismiss that as irrelevant but then emphasize the 'hands' part of wolf stance as vital.
On the other hand(hah):
Yeah you clearly need a hand free for that.Wolf Jaw has the unarmed trait though, which clearly states the opposite is true.
The same argument was posed with the Return Fire feat from Monks as well, where the feat name is analogous to the actual mechanics.
Same goes for Double Slice being usable with piercing and bludgeoning weapons, or Twin Takedown not requiring weapons with the Twin trait to use. Using feat names as a means to justify limitations when there are already rules that do this for us defeats that purpose.
I'm pretty sure the rule for unarmed is that you can perform the attack even if your hands are full. Could be wrong, though.
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The trait says "It also doesn't take up a hand, though a fist or other grasping appendage generally works like a free-hand weapon." This doesn't mean you can use an Unarmed attack that requires hands when your hands are full, it just means using an Unarmed attack means your hands are still empty.
Basically, it requires that appendage be free like a weapon normally would, but does not occupy that appendage so you are still free to use it for other things, like climbing or opening doors.
Wolf Jaw has the unarmed trait though, which clearly states the opposite is true.
Maybe you can try a more directly approach if your hands are busy and just bite! :P