RAW, Elemental Adept does not do anything for Thunder Gantlets since they're a weapon rather than a spell. A GM might decide to house-rule otherwise, but it's not a guarantee.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Thunder is one of the less resisted damage types, so Elemental Adept's resistance bypass likely wouldn't come up often. I find it too situational, even if it's allowed by the DM.
I also saw someone mention using poisons; don't. The only type that would make sense would be contact, and that comes with the risk of hitting yourself with it to coat your gauntlets. Injury-type poisons require a piercing or slashing weapon.
So the wording "Each of the armor's gauntlets counts as a single melee weapon, while you aren't holding anything in it" implies, to my reckoning, that the gauntlets are counted as two distinct weapons, wielded in two hands (or prosthetic limbs).
It would follow that with the dual wielding feat, the player could use the two-weapon fighting melee attack, using one gauntlet as their primary attack and the second gauntlet as the attack granted as a bonus action, but without ability modifiers applied to damage (flat d8). Pick up the 'two-weapon fighting' fighting style from the Fighting initiate feat to even it out.
The sticking point with two weapon fighting isn't having multiple weapons, the problem is that two weapon fighting specifically (in RAW) requires both weapons to be held, which gauntlets are not (they are worn). Dual Wielder sadly doesn't do anything to change this either (it just lifts the light property requirement, but that's not what's stopping you).
Having two gauntlets matters only because it means that it doesn't matter which hand you have free; both are thunder gauntlets, so you can attack with a thunder gauntlet any time that you have either hand free (or both).
The feature says nothing to confirm an exception for two-weapon fighting; compare for example with the Path of the Beast's Claws attack, which very specifically has its own form of extra attack (but also isn't eligible for two weapon fighting).
Now, as to whether it'd be OP for a DM to just let you dual wield anyway; very unlikely. The "worst" thing you can do is hit three enemies in a round and impose disadvantage on all of them against targets other than you, but if you're tanking then they're probably all fighting you anyway (or perfectly happy to do so) so it's not necessarily OP.
On a related note (as I saw it mentioned in an earlier post), Thunder Gauntlets do work with Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade because the gauntlets are not an item in their own right, they're a feature of your armour, and as long the armour is worth at least 1sp, then it satisfies the new condition for these cantrips (as the armour is both a weapon and worth more than 1sp for that purpose).
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So I just stumbled on this thread, and it's a bit old, but my thought is this:
If you can wield 2 light daggers in your gauntlets and get two attacks, how are the gauntlets NOT light when they aren't holding a weapon? Logically, they would be LIGHTER than if holding 2 daggers (not to mention, the armor ignores strength requirements because the enchantment lets you wear it like it's part of you, so you don't even feel the weight of it to begin with). The idea is that you are attacking with your main and off-hand, so any type of wind up or CD argument doesn't hold weight, since you can throw both punches at relatively the same time. The attack is magic, so there's not even an excuse like you have to throw all your weight into a single punch to achieve the damage from the hit.
I understand, of course, that it's written the way it's written, but I think an objective look at how it's written may lead to the conclusion that the omission of the Light property is an oversight rather than intention. The whole idea of weapons with the light property is literally their weight, so again, if you can attack twice with daggers while wearing full plate and gripping them in said gauntlets, then on their own they would weigh less than dual-wielding daggers. Motion economy is the same as well, if not better. The whole reason daggers are so accurate is because they are small, and the tip is closer to the hand than that of a sword, allowing them to be manipulated more closely to natural hand movements. It's easier to hit a target more precisely the closer you get your hand to it, because of the way hand-eye coordination works, and how second-nature using hands is. Throw back in a second mention that the armor is magically enchanted to essentially function as part of your body and requires no strength to don. That's a long, redundant, way around to say I'd allow it as a DM, but I'd really like to see this addressed by an executive personality with clout now that Tasha's Cauldron is out, so that Word-for-Word purists feel justified in implementing such an amendment.
Well, they're not light weaons. Meaning they are rather big and hefty gauntletrs. Not like normal gloves, but more like some Megaman weapons.
They are not normal gauntlets anymore. They are heavily modified with some heavy powerful magic.
That said, not much problem in house rulling it if you want to. But they aren't r eally tiny weapons, they are heavily modified thunder gauntlets. The armour itself is helping you wield them. There is no verified method or knowledge on what their size or weights are either.
House rule is totally fine though. It helps the subclass a lot since they can bonus action punch now too. So with mobile, tha innately gives them 3 disadvantage procs. I'd likely ask GMs to allow it in games that allow house rules.
But again, those "heavy gauntlets" can wield 2 daggers, and that doesn't make them somehow less heavy... just the opposite, they would be heavier, and yet the daggers retain the light property, so that's what I'm saying. The "heavy gauntlets" explanation doesn't track if you assume light weapons can be wielded with their light property regardless of armor type.
Also, you said it yourself, "The armour itself is helping you wield them. There is no verified method or knowledge on what their size or weights are either." so your assertion that they are heavy is immaterial, and if anything, less true, because the fact that the magic allows you to wear the armor without strength requirements means that the gauntlets would essentially feel weightless to the wielder. This class is basically a way to make your character a magical Iron Man, and where his suit uses technology to move a heavy suit with the ease of moving his own body, the magic of the arcane armor functions in the same way. It should be equivalent to naked-fist strikes as far as weight and ease of motion.
Again, I understand people wanting to adhere to as-written rules for balance and to avoid debate at their gaming table, it's totally reasonable, and I agree that DM's should be responsible for their own discretion in these matters, but this is one of those instances where I just feel like there's such a very obvious logic behind the validity of this idea, that it warrants consideration for a more universally accepted standard of this feature's function.
The gauntlets are magic (even if they're not considered magic weapons by default). Perhaps they simply reinforce themselves to provide additional protection to the wielder's hands when striking, but remove the protection when being used to hold a weapon so as not to interfere with their manual dexterity?
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
But again, those "heavy gauntlets" can wield 2 daggers, and that doesn't make them somehow less heavy... just the opposite, they would be heavier, and yet the daggers retain the light property, so that's what I'm saying. The "heavy gauntlets" explanation doesn't track if you assume light weapons can be wielded with their light property regardless of armor type.
What I was saying is all the tinkering you do with the armour changes where the weight is, they aren't normal gauntlets from normal plate mail etc.
but i get what you mean by the thunder gauntlet hand holding a dagger for instance. In which case, its more than likely how its being used. There is a difference between using the daggers, and being sure to align the Thunder Gaunlet's effect. It could be a factor of how you have to hit with it-after all the gauntlets don't go off unless you're using them purposfully. There are plenty of possible reasonings why when using the thunder gauntlet you have a more unwiedly weapon than a small dagger. Even if you're holding both at once. Some reasonable ideas would be "charge time" and the like. Or the one I think more so is that they won't go off unless there is a sufficient impact. So you have to put enough force, which doesnt' allow for fancy stuff,.
Its basically the same how 6 inches of steel turn a light weapon to a one handed weapon. Just shifting the weight changes how handy it is. Just means its similiar with the gauntlets, using them is more unwiedly than light weapons. I still like the idea tht the thundering doesnt' go off until enough force is applied to cause it. Though part of that is because of previosu edditiosn thunderstone mechanics. I'm biased.
Ultimately most of what I've said is flavoring for the mechanics. fact is, it is not light. We don't know what the actual "item" is regardless. So the dagger idea, is similiar situation. Its basied off thet assumption that the Thundergauntlet is always "a thunder gauntlet" But given that you still use your hands, its never clear if their always thunder gauntlets, or if theyre only thundergauntlets when you're actively using them.
They're vague class abilities, same as they don't put on weight, nor do they even require heavy armour with gauntlets. You can turn any armour into thunder gauntlet enabled armour. heck you can turn leather armour into a full suit as far as I know. (the final released version no longer requires heavy armour) EDIT: WHich would be kind of a neat mechanic actually. Light armour makes the weapon light. but using heavy increased the damage die. then medium doing..something.
my Question is this. Why do you even want to be considered to doing two weapon fighting with them? For the bonus action attack? Once you get into the realm of doing that they are a rather weak attack. One you turn them into two weapon fighting the second attack does not get your stat modifier added on.
So your still better off getting the two weapon fighting style and/or the dual wielder feat anyway. And the Dual Wielder feat along with solving the issue of whether they are light or not also gives you +1 AC which may be important if your going to encourage people to hit you more by applying the extra affect of the thunder gauntlets. And the two weapon fighting style means your doing more damage with the hit which just gives them more incentive to attack you rather than negating or overcoming the penalty you inflicted.
For me, it's less a matter of usefulness, and more about representing the object as it should be based on its properties. Many things in D&D go to great lengths to make the descriptions and qualities make narrative sense beyond being simple game rules, as it's a role playing system, and anybody who has ever DM'd knows that as much as you can fluff and make up answers for anything, there's a certain degree of appreciation, if not expectation, for a level of corroboration between how something is described and how it functions. This is probably, of course, the largest hurdle to balancing D&D, as there's a tendency to want to embellish on cool features of classes, races, gear, etc., which then has to be reflected in a way that acknowledges the preconceptions it creates without foiling the whole purpose of a rule-bound structure. I mean, the whole point of the rules in D&D is to establish an arbitration device into what is otherwise a game of make-believe, and it allows a DM to be both a storyteller and referee so that everybody playing gets fair treatment and has a good time. That being the case, I'm 100% down with house rules and people coloring outside the lines if it doesn't cheapen the experience for the players, and that means I don't care about being a PHB-thumping tyrant either, so it's not like I think addendums are necessary from that standpoint. Far and away the thing I'm LEAST concerned with is min/max metagaming rhetoric about it being useless to add in light of feats and such which work around the lack of a property.
That said, I just think it's an interesting topic on principle of discussing omission versus intention, and how the implications of how something is described should inform a generalized consensus when someone does ask for a definitive ruling. Of course the default of that ruling will always be to take it "as-written", assuming the omission of a property to mean it intentionally does not have that property, but there are cases where at the very least it's an interesting conversation to discuss the possibility that this omission is ill-conceived or even erroneous based purely on whether or not a large enough group recognizes it as a seemingly odd decision where the logic behind it is concerned whether that be due to contradiction or simply a lack of further details regarding WHY the function is the way it is. When the only response to a reasonable description of the physics of the matter can only be countered with arbitrary speculative replies of "it's magic, so maybe...", it makes me double-down on my opinion that it would be rewarding either way to have it officially addressed, and I don't expect or prefer one outcome over the other, I would simply be very satisfied to have a canonical way to explain why they are not light despite the reasons I've explained by very simple math. Again... Gauntlet + Dagger = Light Therefore Gauntlet - Dagger = Light(er) The idea that it plays off balance doesn't hold weight, because if the gauntlet is different enough from a normal hand to make it unwieldly, then it would STILL be unwieldly holding a dagger, because unlike the difference switching between a dagger and sword, the hand (or gauntlet) is always present, so since armor type doesn't affect weapon properties, it can be assumed they are always balanced well enough to be equally utilized for two-weapon fighting dependent entirely on the weapon, meaning they themselves should be light and balanced by default. I mean, if there were a note that said "any weapon wielded while wearing the gauntlets loses its light property", that would be a perfect resolution as well in my book. If you want to talk about a charge-up type effect, remember that two weapon fighting means on-hand and off-hand, not making an extra attack with the same hand (which the class gets extra attack at a higher level anyway), so there's no merit to that theory since I can throw two punches simultaneously if I want. The enchantment is on the armor, as well. It's not a spell, it's persistent, so there's no incantation being spoken with each punch or anything. It's automatic, or at least at-will. With a possible modifier of 0 (remember this is theoretically possible, not at all probable) to the damage, the idea that a certain amount of reciprocal pressure would be required to release the enchantment is also functionally invalid since the lowest possible damage roll on either on-hand or off-hand damage is the same, implying that the effect would proc with even the smallest amount of damage-causing impact.
And here's another thing... this whole conversation could also be about the finesse property based on my reasoning.
Gauntlet + Dagger = Light Therefore Gauntlet - Dagger = Light(er) The idea that it plays off balance doesn't hold weight, because if the gauntlet is different enough from a normal hand to make it unwieldly, then it would STILL be unwieldly holding a dagger
While this seems a sensible point, it's not necessarily about how heavy something is, but how balanced it is and how it's used.
To deal a potentially lethal wound with a dagger only requires a short sharp stroke, it's the point of the weapon that does the real work so you can strike with it almost as fast as you like as long as you can get a minimum amount of force behind it to pierce through any armour/skin etc.
For a thunder gauntlet though you're punching the target; by it's very nature it's really a bludgeoning weapon that happens to convert that punch into lightning damage instead. Dealing a solid punch though isn't as simple as stabbing with a dagger, it requires power, and we can assume that that power is still required for the thunder gauntlet to be activated, which is why it's not a light weapon.
Another way to think about it is in video-game terms; the light keyword doesn't necessarily mean that the weapon itself is physically light, it means that it can be used to make "light" (quick) attacks that are especially fast/easy.
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Read the part where I broke down minimum damage, for starters.
Also, it's thunder damage (not lightning), and magical, with no strength requirement AT ALL to wear the gauntlets, and you can use your spellcasting modifier for the attack and damage rolls so "having to hit hard" is ruled out.
It's like a magic taser. I only need to make contact.
If I can make "fast and easy" hits with an object in my hands, then I can make equally deft hits with free hands, and if I only need to make contact for the effect to activate, that is just as easily done, because at that point, it DOES come down to weight and motion economy, which I've described.
You're reintroducing ideas and reasons that I've already dismantled by saying the same stuff in a different way. Additionally, the semantics of the term "light" as you are trying to represent it alternatively is still tied directly to being able to move fast due to lesser weight such as "light on their feet" or "light movement" which, yes, implies quickness, but the nature of the quickness is due to lightness still in the context of heft, so while the implications of the term could be extrapolated to indicate speed as a factor in their utility, the root of that property is still weight. There's also the context of a "light strike" but that implies that there is little force behind the blow, not necessarily speaking to the speed, and also suggests less damage dealt making it ill-suited as a tertiary explanation. I'm not missing or misunderstanding the way you are interpreting it, I've read through the whole topic, I'm saying that fundamentally the points made so far are, I feel, flawed in the physics and logic they are presenting as antithetical to the appropriateness of the attribute in question. What I've seen so far feels, to me, like scrounging for excuses to support what is cannon instead of being objective, and that disconnect of forced reasoning which doesn't hold up to scrutiny is why I'm compelled to continue this conversation even as it was obvious from the outset I'd be going in circles.
I appreciate the conversation, for what it's worth, and it's compelling to see the way other people conceptualize it, even if I personally find flaws in their logic, so thank you for replying. I know I can be a bit curt or dry in my analytical communication mannerisms, so I want to impress on you that my intent is always to be sporting.
Read the part where I broke down minimum damage, for starters.
Also, it's thunder damage (not lightning), and magical, with no strength requirement AT ALL to wear the gauntlets, and you can use your spellcasting modifier for the attack and damage rolls so "having to hit hard" is ruled out.
It's like a magic taser. I only need to make contact.
If I can make "fast and easy" hits with an object in my hands, then I can make equally deft hits with free hands, and if I only need to make contact for the effect to activate, that is just as easily done, because at that point, it DOES come down to weight and motion economy, which I've described.
You're reintroducing ideas and reasons that I've already dismantled by saying the same stuff in a different way. Additionally, the semantics of the term "light" as you are trying to represent it alternatively is still tied directly to being able to move fast due to lesser weight such as "light on their feet" or "light movement" which, yes, implies quickness, but the nature of the quickness is due to lightness still in the context of heft, so while the implications of the term could be extrapolated to indicate speed as a factor in their utility, the root of that property is still weight. There's also the context of a "light strike" but that implies that there is little force behind the blow, not necessarily speaking to the speed, and also suggests less damage dealt making it ill-suited as a tertiary explanation. I'm not missing or misunderstanding the way you are interpreting it, I've read through the whole topic, I'm saying that fundamentally the points made so far are, I feel, flawed in the physics and logic they are presenting as antithetical to the appropriateness of the attribute in question. What I've seen so far feels, to me, like scrounging for excuses to support what is cannon instead of being objective, and that disconnect of forced reasoning which doesn't hold up to scrutiny is why I'm compelled to continue this conversation even as it was obvious from the outset I'd be going in circles.
I appreciate the conversation, for what it's worth, and it's compelling to see the way other people conceptualize it, even if I personally find flaws in their logic, so thank you for replying. I know I can be a bit curt in my analytical communication mannerisms, so I want to impress on you that my intent is always to be sporting.
Except. It's not actually a magical Taser. It In no way stuns your opponent. Or does anything that a taser would do.
Thunder is effectively sound based damage in a sense, in a game that doesn't have sonic damage. And it takes some amount of force to make that thunder damage. Almost all uses of it actually produce loud sounds and other various audible affects. This one just happens to forgo the general description of that for whatever reason and just goes with the idea of altering their attention.
Making that sound is still not necessarily light. Or entirely simple. But magic can make it seem very simple. A gauntlet even if worn is something more akin to armored heavy working gloves than it is something full of dexterity and actually can hinder several hand to hand fighting styles that require more finesse and dexterity to make their hits function.
Even while wearing those gloves just because you can make fast and easy stabbing motions with a knife. That does not mean that fast and easy stabbing motions with your hand or even your fingers is going to create anywhere near the same result. Your creating a false equivalency here by saying they all involve your hands. how ever the movements and the impacts between the two are in fact very different despite the fact they both use your hands.
Another example, and a very extreme one, to make what I mean about the differences of how they function would instead be a car. There is a lot of difference between you hitting a car and a car hitting you. They both involve a car but the results are very different. If you hit the car. You are stopped. there may be some slight cosmetic damage to the car or damage to glass but there is going to be some injury to you. If the car hits you however. The impact is likely to be extreme and you are more likely to be pushed out of the way with little impediment to the car though there still may be some damage to it in this case as well. But asking why you hitting the car isn't the same as the car hitting you since they both hit the car is clearly both involving a car should be fairly clear.
It's like a magic taser. I only need to make contact.
Which is stated where, exactly?
What it comes down to is really very, very simple; the gauntlets aren't light, the rules are extremely clear on this point, which means that they very clearly do not merely require contact to deliver their full damage.
To look at other examples; a shortsword is double the weight of a dagger, yet both are light, a club and a flail are the same weight, yet one is light and the other isn't, and so-on. Weight has nothing to do with it, it's how the weapon is used. If a weapon isn't light then it must require more than simple contact or a short strike to use it effectively.
Also a taser isn't a great example as I'd argue a modern taser in D&D wouldn't be light either as even without the cartridge (melee not ranged) and the trigger held down you still have to get both contacts onto the target with a fair degree of precision at a location where it will have full effect (arm or chest is better than a pinky toe), and positioning or worn items can impede your ability to do this effectively. It's definitely not as simple as a stab. Also you say yourself, it's not lightning damage (I always confuse it with the lightning launcher, even though the clue is in the names) but thunder damage, which implies concussive force; while magic could deliver this automatically, it would be light if that were the case, and it's not.
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Defaulting to "They aren't light, the rules are clear" is the entire point of this conversation. The omission means that they aren't light. There are reasons this seems odd. The topic here is expressing why that rule which I've acknowledge a bunch already as the canon ruling seems, under scrutiny, to be worth questioning and discussing.
The way you are presenting your side of the debate is not cumulative of all the previous points made, you are picking single things to focus on. It's the begging the question fallacy, where you are saying (as I understand it) "it's light so what your are saying must not be true, because if it was, it would be light, which it is not" when I have provided so much other context for my position.
My use of the term "magic taser" was clumsy. I was reaching for an easy-to-grasp approximate comparison. If you followed my context, I wasn't saying that it has to make contact with two prongs in order to shock them. That's a completely unintended extrapolation of my point, and exploiting the literalism of an analogy instead of endeavoring to interpret my meaning falls partly on me for assuming that it was obvious enough. the follow-up was the important bit "I only need to make contact". Again, my previous posts explained my reasoning behind why it appears based on the details we are given that only minimum contact is required. I'm not going to be led in circles repeating stuff every time I feel my point has been made and don't comprehensively revisit every single thought I've already expressed. It's still visible in the previous replies.
"Which is stated where, exactly?"
Come on, really? Nowhere. Which is exactly where all of the explanations of balance and having to hit hard enough are stated. You can't force the burden of proof on someone and then turn around and make your own unproven statements rooted in the implications of the very thing being questioned. In other words, my if my stance is that the omission seems like a mistake, then using the omission as the supporting evidence to what you are asserting is just dismissive of the whole nature of this conversation, and it's pointless. This whole discussion is based on extrapolation, and, by nature, is not a proof-based debate, it's simply saying that because there is no explicit explanation for why the trait was omitted, it is within reason to question that omission.
You appear adamant in disproving the legitimacy of was is purely opinion from the standpoint of the as-written rules, but if you are merely tryin to say that the as-written rules are the "correct" interpretation, then you don't need to because the rules "as-written" do that for you. If you are trying to participate in the conversation about how the omission should be interpreted based on the existing description of the weapon REGARDLESS of the present canon of the rules, and your opinion is that they should not be light, that is well and good, but that means you cannot default to the canon ruling as a supporting part of your argument, because this whole discussion assumes the gauntlets either COULD or COULD NOT be light based on the fact that such a quality or lack thereof is not explicitly described.
So. This being the case, I will point out once more: A character with a strength score of 3 can use the arcane armor. They can make the attack with their INT. No strength is required to make the attack function. This implies that force of impact is irrelevant, as the enchantment itself is making the hit deal damage WITH NO TEST OF STRENGTH. Since the mechanism of the activation is not described, but it is a melee attack, this means only contact is required. Failing while using the INT as the attack roll modifier would indicate the enchantment failed, and thus the physical impact alone was not strong enough to deal damage. This means a hit not weak enough to deal damage would have done so if the enchantment had succeeded. This proves further that the force of the blow doesn't matter, nor does the positioning/accuracy, since DEX is not involved. So if all that is required is physical contact while the wielder's INT fuels the arcane enchantment adequately, then with the previously explanations of weight and literal lightness, they could use both hands while attacking, as I've stated, with the same ease as using a weapon with the Light quality.
Yes, other weapons of similar size and weigh don't have the light quality. This is because of balance, which has been addressed. Since hands are present no matter if using a balanced or unbalanced weapon, claiming they somehow become more clumsy and unbalance when not holding something is silly. The shape and composition of weapons affects their balance. That does not apply to hands. They are part of the body, and they are the neutral base of any weapon being held, meaning they should be just as easy to move around while not holding something as if they are.
The car analogy makes zero sense in this context. That's a description of opposing forces. It's completely irrelevant, and I don't know how you made the leap that that is in any way congruent to the previous point you were making. Literally the only parallel in that analogy is the assertion "one doesn't do damage, one does", and the representation of why doesn't line up at all with the idea you were posing which was "the nature of how damage is delivered allows it to be done in a specific quick fashion, enough so to strike twice in succession, that is unachievable by the hands that hold the tools because achieving enough force to deliver a blow that deals damage requires more wind-up since the mitted hand can't make precision martial-art style strikes". Again... if all you need is intentional contact for the sonic vibrations to penetrate and deal damage, that hand dexterity argument is null. The strength/wind-up argument is null. The balance argument is null. I've already discussed motion economy. They are light enough, and balanced enough, for the same character to make a successful touch on an enemy as easily as they would with any light weapon. How forceful the hit is doesn't matter. The placement doesn't matter. I have explained why. For this reason, there should be no excuse for why an attack with both main hand and off-hand could not be made within the time-frame of an action and bonus action. I'll add, as much as I hate to because I find it cringe when people talk about their training unprovoked (and I only bring it up because it was already attempted to use fighting styles as a point of reference), that this is also coming from the perspective of someone who has gone through over a combined decade of study in various martial arts, weapons training, and combat sports. I am well aware of the difference in using different pieces of equipment and how they affect motion economy, specifically the difference in how rapidly one can achieve significant contact depending on what us being used. I entirely understand, from experience, why all the weapons have been given the properties they have, and that's one of the reasons why, when considering the magical and functionally-weightless nature of the gauntlets I wonder at why it's written in a way that they are unable to do what, by pure physics, they should be more than capable of. Heck, I should be able to deal the thunder damage from the gauntlets merely by poking the enemy with an index finger, which is essentially the same motion as stabbing with a dagger, and as silly as it is to imagine, I could even make swipes with it in the same fashion, and still get the damage, because it's the magic doing the damage, and all that it requires is the hit connecting with complete disregard to the actual physical force behind that contact. The armor creates gauntlets if there are none, and it replaces missing limbs. This indicates that its form is tailored to the design expectations of the Artificer creating it, so it's reasonable enough to assume that it can have individual fingers as opposed to a mitt.
The way you are presenting your side of the debate is not cumulative of all the previous points made, you are picking single things to focus on. It's the begging the question fallacy, where you are saying (as I understand it) "it's light so what your are saying must not be true, because if it was, it would be light, which it is not" when I have provided so much other context for my position.
And yet you've failed to actually establish why your position has more legitimacy than the one backed up by the rules, in a thread about whether Thunder Gauntlets are compatible with two-weapon fighting (they are not).
You can perform all the mental gymnastics you like about why Thunder Gauntlets should be light, but it will never make them so unless your DM specifically chooses to homebrew otherwise, and you will be doing so by specifically ignoring the (arguably more) legitimate justifications as to why Thunder Gauntlets aren't light in order to do that. Now there's nothing wrong with a bit of homebrew if you and your DM feel a Guardian Armorer is lagging behind other players in the game and two-weapon fighting is the boost they need, but it's a customisation not an alternative interpretation; the rules were designed the way that are for a reason, with a lot of established precedent from other "unarmed" weapon attacks.
There's no winning the argument here; the rules are what they are.
Heck, I should be able to deal the thunder damage from the gauntlets merely by poking the enemy with an index finger, which is essentially the same motion as stabbing with a dagger, and as silly as it is to imagine, I could even make swipes with it in the same fashion, and still get the damage, because it's the magic doing the damage
Magic in D&D works as described in the rules, not however you want it to (unless again, your DM chooses to homebrew in some way); the fact that the gauntlets aren't light means the magic isn't simply activated by contact. You can choose to RP your character's gauntlets differently, but either you do so while following the rules some other way, or you do by tweaking the rules (with your DM's consent) to make it work, but it will not be the way Thunder Gauntlets were intended to function.
The fact that the gauntlets aren't light explicitly means that a forceful blow of some kind of is required to activate them. There are plenty of ways to justify this; maybe it's for safety so you don't destroy everything you touch (goodbye face if your nose itches!) or maybe the magic is either powered by the force of the blow, or functions by amplifying it.
And again, as you yourself have pointed out; thunder damage is not electrical, it doesn't logically follow that a concussive blast can (or should) pass to another through contact, relying on "magic" as a justification when the rules don't support it doesn't make it a good answer.
Again, I have nothing against homebrew or playing a character a little differently from exactly how its rules are presented, but D&D is a game, and games ultimately have rules to make them function; at some point you either have to follow them as written and justify why that's the case, or you have to choose to break those rules with the consent of your DM in order to fit the rules to your head canon, but what you have will no longer be Thunder Gauntlets as presented by Tasha's Cauldron, but a modified version of them. I could for example theme my Guardian armour as made from a wearable Gelatinous Cube inflicting acid damage instead of thunder, but that'd be my own take on the rules to fit the theme for how I want it to function.
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So. This being the case, I will point out once more: A character with a strength score of 3 can use the arcane armor.
The car analogy makes zero sense in this context. That's a description of opposing forces. It's completely irrelevant,
I'm going to just jump to these two right here. These are the fine points that you keep drawing everything around harping on and you keep using to hold up your entire argument.
First of all. Strength doesn't matter because of the Magic infused in the armor. It's not that the Armor no longer needs strength it's just that the magic you infuse it with makes it so that the magic is compensating for the strength you don't have. Not requiring Strength to wear the armor does not change it's actual physical properties to something totaly new it's just providing you aid to be able to handle the properties it already has. it's not lightening the Armor in any way. It's not magically making the Heavy Plate Mail Armor weigh the same as paper. All it is doing is bolstering it in such a weight that the weight of it is not having an effect on you if your not physicaly up to the task of wearing it. This effect is basically the magical equivalent to wearing a harness and stepping into iron man armor that is actually capable of holding itself upright and works through a system of actuators and gears and clever technology to aid your movement. Your Strength does not matter not because the armor weighs less but because The Armor is now designed to work regardless of your strength. it could still be a 2 ton monstrosity that a Giant has trouble moving around. But when your inside of it you do not feel that weight and so it is not restricting your movement because of it.
Second of all. I said it was Extreme. The entire point of the car analogy was entirely that it's irrelevant. Your entire argument about because the way you can wield a knife in your hand so therefor the your hand must function like a knife is irrelevant. There is no logical correlation here. They are two very different things. It doesn't matter how things work in your hands because that is entirely irrelevant because that is purely the properties and function of that object in your hands and not your hands at all. The Fact that your Armor is magically effected to bolster itself so that it's weight does not affect your movement is also Irrelevant because that is not actually changing physical properties of the armor and is simply affecting your ability to move while within it.
So let me get stupidly simple about this with an easy logical example that you can test for yourself as you sit at the computer. Take your finger of one hand and poke the other hand. Notice that there is almost no noise to the action. Notice that even if you do it hard there isn't much force to it. You feel perhaps a little discomfort or pressure and if you do it enough times you might make a bit of ache as you slowly start to minorly surface bruise it or push the tissue around slightly in ways it doesn't like. This is completely ineffective, But by simple logic if you did this same action with a knife (Which you should not do and I am Certainly Not telling you To) you'd do a lot of damage to yourself and the way the knife functions and the way you hold it would do a lot of damage to your hand but clearly your hand alone does not function the way the knife does. This is the difference between the Gauntlet and the Knife or other light item as well. To Give your hand impact You either need to flatten it out and make a swinging motion so that a large portion of it strikes over a large area or you need to ball it up and put force behind it. Ball your own Hand up into a Fist and smack it into your hand. You'll notice something sound based happening when you do this. You'll hear a sharp audible crack as the two surfaces come together from the increased surface and you'll hear it range from almost nothing to getting louder the hard you do this. This audible crack is important. This is your thunder damage source. This is being Magically amplified to cause the damage from the Thunder Gauntlets. Changing the applied Attribute does not change this, because what the Intelligence is doing is using your cognitive reasoning to find the best way to make the audible crack as loud as possible with the force that you have So that you have more to Amplify Magically to do the damage. So no. Thunder gauntlets don't work from a little poke. Thunder Gauntlets work because of that audible crack with brute force applied with deductive reasoning and understanding behind it and is amplified until it becomes painful and this is why Thunder Damage almost always comes with a widely audible component. This is why Thunder Gauntlets are not and never will be light.
The Rest of your argument as long as it is. Is pointless without these two very basic things. So that is why there is no point in getting into it. They are built upon a flawed base premise and without that premise rebutting them serves little purpose
I don't think the gauntlets lacking the light property has anything to do with whether or not physical contact is made. The thunder damage isn't being added to a physical impact, and even the reference art seems to depict a concussive blast. Adding the wielder's Intelligence modifier makes using it akin to a spell attack; not unlike with shocking grasp. Not only is that your "magic taser", but it's also on the artificer spell list.
No, the gauntlets are simply unwieldy. That might not make any sense because your character is wearing them and we're hopefully all coordinated enough to at least pretend to box, but thems the rules. That said, they do work with the Dual Wielder feat.
Dual Wielder
You master fighting with two weapons, gaining the following benefits:
You gain a +1 bonus to AC while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand.
You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren’t light.
You can draw or stow two one-handed weapons when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one.
You might not be holding a light weapon, as Two-Weapon Fighting normally requires, but there's no question that you're wielding weapons that lack the light property. And being able to get in three attacks for 1d8 + INT modifier thunder damage, along with a perpetual +1 to AC, isn't bad.
The thunder damage isn't being added to a physical impact, and even the reference art seems to depict a concussive blast.
This is an interesting perception of the art. I think it may be me but I have trouble seeing it this way. To me what it looks like is the Thunder effect going off in response to him punching the enemy That as it connects the Thunder Effect is released and we're seeing the magical augmentation of the sound created from it hitting the enemy and pushing them back a bit from the blow that is combined with him reeling back his other fist like he's going to make another punch as the magic charges up and prepares to amplify the sound for the other fist in boxers 1, 2 combo as if illustrating that he has the extra attack feature.
But it is interesting to see that somebody else sees the art differently and mentions how they view it.
The thunder damage isn't being added to a physical impact, and even the reference art seems to depict a concussive blast.
This is an interesting perception of the art. I think it may be me but I have trouble seeing it this way. To me what it looks like is the Thunder effect going off in response to him punching the enemy That as it connects the Thunder Effect is released and we're seeing the magical augmentation of the sound created from it hitting the enemy and pushing them back a bit from the blow that is combined with him reeling back his other fist like he's going to make another punch as the magic charges up and prepares to amplify the sound for the other fist in boxers 1, 2 combo as if illustrating that he has the extra attack feature.
But it is interesting to see that somebody else sees the art differently and mentions how they view it.
It is worth mentioning, I think, that monks can replace the normal bludgeoning damage of their unarmed strikes with fire damage, so there is precedent. Then again, the same feature which allows this also allows for increasing the range of the attacks. (Never thought that Way of the Four Elements and Fangs of the Fire Snake would rear their heads in this conversation, but here we are.)
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RAW, Elemental Adept does not do anything for Thunder Gantlets since they're a weapon rather than a spell. A GM might decide to house-rule otherwise, but it's not a guarantee.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Thunder is one of the less resisted damage types, so Elemental Adept's resistance bypass likely wouldn't come up often. I find it too situational, even if it's allowed by the DM.
I also saw someone mention using poisons; don't. The only type that would make sense would be contact, and that comes with the risk of hitting yourself with it to coat your gauntlets. Injury-type poisons require a piercing or slashing weapon.
The sticking point with two weapon fighting isn't having multiple weapons, the problem is that two weapon fighting specifically (in RAW) requires both weapons to be held, which gauntlets are not (they are worn). Dual Wielder sadly doesn't do anything to change this either (it just lifts the light property requirement, but that's not what's stopping you).
Having two gauntlets matters only because it means that it doesn't matter which hand you have free; both are thunder gauntlets, so you can attack with a thunder gauntlet any time that you have either hand free (or both).
The feature says nothing to confirm an exception for two-weapon fighting; compare for example with the Path of the Beast's Claws attack, which very specifically has its own form of extra attack (but also isn't eligible for two weapon fighting).
Now, as to whether it'd be OP for a DM to just let you dual wield anyway; very unlikely. The "worst" thing you can do is hit three enemies in a round and impose disadvantage on all of them against targets other than you, but if you're tanking then they're probably all fighting you anyway (or perfectly happy to do so) so it's not necessarily OP.
On a related note (as I saw it mentioned in an earlier post), Thunder Gauntlets do work with Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade because the gauntlets are not an item in their own right, they're a feature of your armour, and as long the armour is worth at least 1sp, then it satisfies the new condition for these cantrips (as the armour is both a weapon and worth more than 1sp for that purpose).
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So I just stumbled on this thread, and it's a bit old, but my thought is this:
If you can wield 2 light daggers in your gauntlets and get two attacks, how are the gauntlets NOT light when they aren't holding a weapon? Logically, they would be LIGHTER than if holding 2 daggers (not to mention, the armor ignores strength requirements because the enchantment lets you wear it like it's part of you, so you don't even feel the weight of it to begin with). The idea is that you are attacking with your main and off-hand, so any type of wind up or CD argument doesn't hold weight, since you can throw both punches at relatively the same time. The attack is magic, so there's not even an excuse like you have to throw all your weight into a single punch to achieve the damage from the hit.
I understand, of course, that it's written the way it's written, but I think an objective look at how it's written may lead to the conclusion that the omission of the Light property is an oversight rather than intention. The whole idea of weapons with the light property is literally their weight, so again, if you can attack twice with daggers while wearing full plate and gripping them in said gauntlets, then on their own they would weigh less than dual-wielding daggers. Motion economy is the same as well, if not better. The whole reason daggers are so accurate is because they are small, and the tip is closer to the hand than that of a sword, allowing them to be manipulated more closely to natural hand movements. It's easier to hit a target more precisely the closer you get your hand to it, because of the way hand-eye coordination works, and how second-nature using hands is. Throw back in a second mention that the armor is magically enchanted to essentially function as part of your body and requires no strength to don. That's a long, redundant, way around to say I'd allow it as a DM, but I'd really like to see this addressed by an executive personality with clout now that Tasha's Cauldron is out, so that Word-for-Word purists feel justified in implementing such an amendment.
Well, they're not light weaons. Meaning they are rather big and hefty gauntletrs. Not like normal gloves, but more like some Megaman weapons.
They are not normal gauntlets anymore. They are heavily modified with some heavy powerful magic.
That said, not much problem in house rulling it if you want to. But they aren't r eally tiny weapons, they are heavily modified thunder gauntlets. The armour itself is helping you wield them. There is no verified method or knowledge on what their size or weights are either.
House rule is totally fine though. It helps the subclass a lot since they can bonus action punch now too. So with mobile, tha innately gives them 3 disadvantage procs. I'd likely ask GMs to allow it in games that allow house rules.
But again, those "heavy gauntlets" can wield 2 daggers, and that doesn't make them somehow less heavy... just the opposite, they would be heavier, and yet the daggers retain the light property, so that's what I'm saying. The "heavy gauntlets" explanation doesn't track if you assume light weapons can be wielded with their light property regardless of armor type.
Also, you said it yourself, "The armour itself is helping you wield them. There is no verified method or knowledge on what their size or weights are either." so your assertion that they are heavy is immaterial, and if anything, less true, because the fact that the magic allows you to wear the armor without strength requirements means that the gauntlets would essentially feel weightless to the wielder. This class is basically a way to make your character a magical Iron Man, and where his suit uses technology to move a heavy suit with the ease of moving his own body, the magic of the arcane armor functions in the same way. It should be equivalent to naked-fist strikes as far as weight and ease of motion.
Again, I understand people wanting to adhere to as-written rules for balance and to avoid debate at their gaming table, it's totally reasonable, and I agree that DM's should be responsible for their own discretion in these matters, but this is one of those instances where I just feel like there's such a very obvious logic behind the validity of this idea, that it warrants consideration for a more universally accepted standard of this feature's function.
The gauntlets are magic (even if they're not considered magic weapons by default). Perhaps they simply reinforce themselves to provide additional protection to the wielder's hands when striking, but remove the protection when being used to hold a weapon so as not to interfere with their manual dexterity?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
What I was saying is all the tinkering you do with the armour changes where the weight is, they aren't normal gauntlets from normal plate mail etc.
but i get what you mean by the thunder gauntlet hand holding a dagger for instance. In which case, its more than likely how its being used. There is a difference between using the daggers, and being sure to align the Thunder Gaunlet's effect. It could be a factor of how you have to hit with it-after all the gauntlets don't go off unless you're using them purposfully.
There are plenty of possible reasonings why when using the thunder gauntlet you have a more unwiedly weapon than a small dagger. Even if you're holding both at once.
Some reasonable ideas would be "charge time" and the like. Or the one I think more so is that they won't go off unless there is a sufficient impact. So you have to put enough force, which doesnt' allow for fancy stuff,.
Its basically the same how 6 inches of steel turn a light weapon to a one handed weapon. Just shifting the weight changes how handy it is. Just means its similiar with the gauntlets, using them is more unwiedly than light weapons. I still like the idea tht the thundering doesnt' go off until enough force is applied to cause it. Though part of that is because of previosu edditiosn thunderstone mechanics. I'm biased.
Ultimately most of what I've said is flavoring for the mechanics. fact is, it is not light. We don't know what the actual "item" is regardless. So the dagger idea, is similiar situation. Its basied off thet assumption that the Thundergauntlet is always "a thunder gauntlet" But given that you still use your hands, its never clear if their always thunder gauntlets, or if theyre only thundergauntlets when you're actively using them.
They're vague class abilities, same as they don't put on weight, nor do they even require heavy armour with gauntlets. You can turn any armour into thunder gauntlet enabled armour. heck you can turn leather armour into a full suit as far as I know. (the final released version no longer requires heavy armour)
EDIT: WHich would be kind of a neat mechanic actually. Light armour makes the weapon light. but using heavy increased the damage die. then medium doing..something.
my Question is this. Why do you even want to be considered to doing two weapon fighting with them? For the bonus action attack? Once you get into the realm of doing that they are a rather weak attack. One you turn them into two weapon fighting the second attack does not get your stat modifier added on.
So your still better off getting the two weapon fighting style and/or the dual wielder feat anyway. And the Dual Wielder feat along with solving the issue of whether they are light or not also gives you +1 AC which may be important if your going to encourage people to hit you more by applying the extra affect of the thunder gauntlets. And the two weapon fighting style means your doing more damage with the hit which just gives them more incentive to attack you rather than negating or overcoming the penalty you inflicted.
For me, it's less a matter of usefulness, and more about representing the object as it should be based on its properties. Many things in D&D go to great lengths to make the descriptions and qualities make narrative sense beyond being simple game rules, as it's a role playing system, and anybody who has ever DM'd knows that as much as you can fluff and make up answers for anything, there's a certain degree of appreciation, if not expectation, for a level of corroboration between how something is described and how it functions. This is probably, of course, the largest hurdle to balancing D&D, as there's a tendency to want to embellish on cool features of classes, races, gear, etc., which then has to be reflected in a way that acknowledges the preconceptions it creates without foiling the whole purpose of a rule-bound structure. I mean, the whole point of the rules in D&D is to establish an arbitration device into what is otherwise a game of make-believe, and it allows a DM to be both a storyteller and referee so that everybody playing gets fair treatment and has a good time. That being the case, I'm 100% down with house rules and people coloring outside the lines if it doesn't cheapen the experience for the players, and that means I don't care about being a PHB-thumping tyrant either, so it's not like I think addendums are necessary from that standpoint. Far and away the thing I'm LEAST concerned with is min/max metagaming rhetoric about it being useless to add in light of feats and such which work around the lack of a property.
That said, I just think it's an interesting topic on principle of discussing omission versus intention, and how the implications of how something is described should inform a generalized consensus when someone does ask for a definitive ruling. Of course the default of that ruling will always be to take it "as-written", assuming the omission of a property to mean it intentionally does not have that property, but there are cases where at the very least it's an interesting conversation to discuss the possibility that this omission is ill-conceived or even erroneous based purely on whether or not a large enough group recognizes it as a seemingly odd decision where the logic behind it is concerned whether that be due to contradiction or simply a lack of further details regarding WHY the function is the way it is. When the only response to a reasonable description of the physics of the matter can only be countered with arbitrary speculative replies of "it's magic, so maybe...", it makes me double-down on my opinion that it would be rewarding either way to have it officially addressed, and I don't expect or prefer one outcome over the other, I would simply be very satisfied to have a canonical way to explain why they are not light despite the reasons I've explained by very simple math. Again...
Gauntlet + Dagger = Light
Therefore
Gauntlet - Dagger = Light(er)
The idea that it plays off balance doesn't hold weight, because if the gauntlet is different enough from a normal hand to make it unwieldly, then it would STILL be unwieldly holding a dagger, because unlike the difference switching between a dagger and sword, the hand (or gauntlet) is always present, so since armor type doesn't affect weapon properties, it can be assumed they are always balanced well enough to be equally utilized for two-weapon fighting dependent entirely on the weapon, meaning they themselves should be light and balanced by default. I mean, if there were a note that said "any weapon wielded while wearing the gauntlets loses its light property", that would be a perfect resolution as well in my book. If you want to talk about a charge-up type effect, remember that two weapon fighting means on-hand and off-hand, not making an extra attack with the same hand (which the class gets extra attack at a higher level anyway), so there's no merit to that theory since I can throw two punches simultaneously if I want. The enchantment is on the armor, as well. It's not a spell, it's persistent, so there's no incantation being spoken with each punch or anything. It's automatic, or at least at-will. With a possible modifier of 0 (remember this is theoretically possible, not at all probable) to the damage, the idea that a certain amount of reciprocal pressure would be required to release the enchantment is also functionally invalid since the lowest possible damage roll on either on-hand or off-hand damage is the same, implying that the effect would proc with even the smallest amount of damage-causing impact.
And here's another thing... this whole conversation could also be about the finesse property based on my reasoning.
While this seems a sensible point, it's not necessarily about how heavy something is, but how balanced it is and how it's used.
To deal a potentially lethal wound with a dagger only requires a short sharp stroke, it's the point of the weapon that does the real work so you can strike with it almost as fast as you like as long as you can get a minimum amount of force behind it to pierce through any armour/skin etc.
For a thunder gauntlet though you're punching the target; by it's very nature it's really a bludgeoning weapon that happens to convert that punch into lightning damage instead. Dealing a solid punch though isn't as simple as stabbing with a dagger, it requires power, and we can assume that that power is still required for the thunder gauntlet to be activated, which is why it's not a light weapon.
Another way to think about it is in video-game terms; the light keyword doesn't necessarily mean that the weapon itself is physically light, it means that it can be used to make "light" (quick) attacks that are especially fast/easy.
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Read the part where I broke down minimum damage, for starters.
Also, it's thunder damage (not lightning), and magical, with no strength requirement AT ALL to wear the gauntlets, and you can use your spellcasting modifier for the attack and damage rolls so "having to hit hard" is ruled out.
It's like a magic taser. I only need to make contact.
If I can make "fast and easy" hits with an object in my hands, then I can make equally deft hits with free hands, and if I only need to make contact for the effect to activate, that is just as easily done, because at that point, it DOES come down to weight and motion economy, which I've described.
You're reintroducing ideas and reasons that I've already dismantled by saying the same stuff in a different way. Additionally, the semantics of the term "light" as you are trying to represent it alternatively is still tied directly to being able to move fast due to lesser weight such as "light on their feet" or "light movement" which, yes, implies quickness, but the nature of the quickness is due to lightness still in the context of heft, so while the implications of the term could be extrapolated to indicate speed as a factor in their utility, the root of that property is still weight. There's also the context of a "light strike" but that implies that there is little force behind the blow, not necessarily speaking to the speed, and also suggests less damage dealt making it ill-suited as a tertiary explanation. I'm not missing or misunderstanding the way you are interpreting it, I've read through the whole topic, I'm saying that fundamentally the points made so far are, I feel, flawed in the physics and logic they are presenting as antithetical to the appropriateness of the attribute in question. What I've seen so far feels, to me, like scrounging for excuses to support what is cannon instead of being objective, and that disconnect of forced reasoning which doesn't hold up to scrutiny is why I'm compelled to continue this conversation even as it was obvious from the outset I'd be going in circles.
I appreciate the conversation, for what it's worth, and it's compelling to see the way other people conceptualize it, even if I personally find flaws in their logic, so thank you for replying. I know I can be a bit curt or dry in my analytical communication mannerisms, so I want to impress on you that my intent is always to be sporting.
Except. It's not actually a magical Taser. It In no way stuns your opponent. Or does anything that a taser would do.
Thunder is effectively sound based damage in a sense, in a game that doesn't have sonic damage. And it takes some amount of force to make that thunder damage. Almost all uses of it actually produce loud sounds and other various audible affects. This one just happens to forgo the general description of that for whatever reason and just goes with the idea of altering their attention.
Making that sound is still not necessarily light. Or entirely simple. But magic can make it seem very simple. A gauntlet even if worn is something more akin to armored heavy working gloves than it is something full of dexterity and actually can hinder several hand to hand fighting styles that require more finesse and dexterity to make their hits function.
Even while wearing those gloves just because you can make fast and easy stabbing motions with a knife. That does not mean that fast and easy stabbing motions with your hand or even your fingers is going to create anywhere near the same result. Your creating a false equivalency here by saying they all involve your hands. how ever the movements and the impacts between the two are in fact very different despite the fact they both use your hands.
Another example, and a very extreme one, to make what I mean about the differences of how they function would instead be a car. There is a lot of difference between you hitting a car and a car hitting you. They both involve a car but the results are very different. If you hit the car. You are stopped. there may be some slight cosmetic damage to the car or damage to glass but there is going to be some injury to you. If the car hits you however. The impact is likely to be extreme and you are more likely to be pushed out of the way with little impediment to the car though there still may be some damage to it in this case as well. But asking why you hitting the car isn't the same as the car hitting you since they both hit the car is clearly both involving a car should be fairly clear.
Which is stated where, exactly?
What it comes down to is really very, very simple; the gauntlets aren't light, the rules are extremely clear on this point, which means that they very clearly do not merely require contact to deliver their full damage.
To look at other examples; a shortsword is double the weight of a dagger, yet both are light, a club and a flail are the same weight, yet one is light and the other isn't, and so-on. Weight has nothing to do with it, it's how the weapon is used. If a weapon isn't light then it must require more than simple contact or a short strike to use it effectively.
Also a taser isn't a great example as I'd argue a modern taser in D&D wouldn't be light either as even without the cartridge (melee not ranged) and the trigger held down you still have to get both contacts onto the target with a fair degree of precision at a location where it will have full effect (arm or chest is better than a pinky toe), and positioning or worn items can impede your ability to do this effectively. It's definitely not as simple as a stab. Also you say yourself, it's not lightning damage (I always confuse it with the lightning launcher, even though the clue is in the names) but thunder damage, which implies concussive force; while magic could deliver this automatically, it would be light if that were the case, and it's not.
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Defaulting to "They aren't light, the rules are clear" is the entire point of this conversation. The omission means that they aren't light. There are reasons this seems odd. The topic here is expressing why that rule which I've acknowledge a bunch already as the canon ruling seems, under scrutiny, to be worth questioning and discussing.
The way you are presenting your side of the debate is not cumulative of all the previous points made, you are picking single things to focus on. It's the begging the question fallacy, where you are saying (as I understand it) "it's light so what your are saying must not be true, because if it was, it would be light, which it is not" when I have provided so much other context for my position.
My use of the term "magic taser" was clumsy. I was reaching for an easy-to-grasp approximate comparison. If you followed my context, I wasn't saying that it has to make contact with two prongs in order to shock them. That's a completely unintended extrapolation of my point, and exploiting the literalism of an analogy instead of endeavoring to interpret my meaning falls partly on me for assuming that it was obvious enough. the follow-up was the important bit "I only need to make contact". Again, my previous posts explained my reasoning behind why it appears based on the details we are given that only minimum contact is required. I'm not going to be led in circles repeating stuff every time I feel my point has been made and don't comprehensively revisit every single thought I've already expressed. It's still visible in the previous replies.
"Which is stated where, exactly?"
Come on, really? Nowhere.
Which is exactly where all of the explanations of balance and having to hit hard enough are stated. You can't force the burden of proof on someone and then turn around and make your own unproven statements rooted in the implications of the very thing being questioned. In other words, my if my stance is that the omission seems like a mistake, then using the omission as the supporting evidence to what you are asserting is just dismissive of the whole nature of this conversation, and it's pointless. This whole discussion is based on extrapolation, and, by nature, is not a proof-based debate, it's simply saying that because there is no explicit explanation for why the trait was omitted, it is within reason to question that omission.
You appear adamant in disproving the legitimacy of was is purely opinion from the standpoint of the as-written rules, but if you are merely tryin to say that the as-written rules are the "correct" interpretation, then you don't need to because the rules "as-written" do that for you. If you are trying to participate in the conversation about how the omission should be interpreted based on the existing description of the weapon REGARDLESS of the present canon of the rules, and your opinion is that they should not be light, that is well and good, but that means you cannot default to the canon ruling as a supporting part of your argument, because this whole discussion assumes the gauntlets either COULD or COULD NOT be light based on the fact that such a quality or lack thereof is not explicitly described.
So. This being the case, I will point out once more: A character with a strength score of 3 can use the arcane armor. They can make the attack with their INT. No strength is required to make the attack function. This implies that force of impact is irrelevant, as the enchantment itself is making the hit deal damage WITH NO TEST OF STRENGTH. Since the mechanism of the activation is not described, but it is a melee attack, this means only contact is required. Failing while using the INT as the attack roll modifier would indicate the enchantment failed, and thus the physical impact alone was not strong enough to deal damage. This means a hit not weak enough to deal damage would have done so if the enchantment had succeeded. This proves further that the force of the blow doesn't matter, nor does the positioning/accuracy, since DEX is not involved. So if all that is required is physical contact while the wielder's INT fuels the arcane enchantment adequately, then with the previously explanations of weight and literal lightness, they could use both hands while attacking, as I've stated, with the same ease as using a weapon with the Light quality.
Yes, other weapons of similar size and weigh don't have the light quality. This is because of balance, which has been addressed. Since hands are present no matter if using a balanced or unbalanced weapon, claiming they somehow become more clumsy and unbalance when not holding something is silly. The shape and composition of weapons affects their balance. That does not apply to hands. They are part of the body, and they are the neutral base of any weapon being held, meaning they should be just as easy to move around while not holding something as if they are.
The car analogy makes zero sense in this context. That's a description of opposing forces. It's completely irrelevant, and I don't know how you made the leap that that is in any way congruent to the previous point you were making. Literally the only parallel in that analogy is the assertion "one doesn't do damage, one does", and the representation of why doesn't line up at all with the idea you were posing which was "the nature of how damage is delivered allows it to be done in a specific quick fashion, enough so to strike twice in succession, that is unachievable by the hands that hold the tools because achieving enough force to deliver a blow that deals damage requires more wind-up since the mitted hand can't make precision martial-art style strikes". Again... if all you need is intentional contact for the sonic vibrations to penetrate and deal damage, that hand dexterity argument is null. The strength/wind-up argument is null. The balance argument is null. I've already discussed motion economy. They are light enough, and balanced enough, for the same character to make a successful touch on an enemy as easily as they would with any light weapon. How forceful the hit is doesn't matter. The placement doesn't matter. I have explained why. For this reason, there should be no excuse for why an attack with both main hand and off-hand could not be made within the time-frame of an action and bonus action. I'll add, as much as I hate to because I find it cringe when people talk about their training unprovoked (and I only bring it up because it was already attempted to use fighting styles as a point of reference), that this is also coming from the perspective of someone who has gone through over a combined decade of study in various martial arts, weapons training, and combat sports. I am well aware of the difference in using different pieces of equipment and how they affect motion economy, specifically the difference in how rapidly one can achieve significant contact depending on what us being used. I entirely understand, from experience, why all the weapons have been given the properties they have, and that's one of the reasons why, when considering the magical and functionally-weightless nature of the gauntlets I wonder at why it's written in a way that they are unable to do what, by pure physics, they should be more than capable of. Heck, I should be able to deal the thunder damage from the gauntlets merely by poking the enemy with an index finger, which is essentially the same motion as stabbing with a dagger, and as silly as it is to imagine, I could even make swipes with it in the same fashion, and still get the damage, because it's the magic doing the damage, and all that it requires is the hit connecting with complete disregard to the actual physical force behind that contact. The armor creates gauntlets if there are none, and it replaces missing limbs. This indicates that its form is tailored to the design expectations of the Artificer creating it, so it's reasonable enough to assume that it can have individual fingers as opposed to a mitt.
And yet you've failed to actually establish why your position has more legitimacy than the one backed up by the rules, in a thread about whether Thunder Gauntlets are compatible with two-weapon fighting (they are not).
You can perform all the mental gymnastics you like about why Thunder Gauntlets should be light, but it will never make them so unless your DM specifically chooses to homebrew otherwise, and you will be doing so by specifically ignoring the (arguably more) legitimate justifications as to why Thunder Gauntlets aren't light in order to do that. Now there's nothing wrong with a bit of homebrew if you and your DM feel a Guardian Armorer is lagging behind other players in the game and two-weapon fighting is the boost they need, but it's a customisation not an alternative interpretation; the rules were designed the way that are for a reason, with a lot of established precedent from other "unarmed" weapon attacks.
There's no winning the argument here; the rules are what they are.
Magic in D&D works as described in the rules, not however you want it to (unless again, your DM chooses to homebrew in some way); the fact that the gauntlets aren't light means the magic isn't simply activated by contact. You can choose to RP your character's gauntlets differently, but either you do so while following the rules some other way, or you do by tweaking the rules (with your DM's consent) to make it work, but it will not be the way Thunder Gauntlets were intended to function.
The fact that the gauntlets aren't light explicitly means that a forceful blow of some kind of is required to activate them. There are plenty of ways to justify this; maybe it's for safety so you don't destroy everything you touch (goodbye face if your nose itches!) or maybe the magic is either powered by the force of the blow, or functions by amplifying it.
And again, as you yourself have pointed out; thunder damage is not electrical, it doesn't logically follow that a concussive blast can (or should) pass to another through contact, relying on "magic" as a justification when the rules don't support it doesn't make it a good answer.
Again, I have nothing against homebrew or playing a character a little differently from exactly how its rules are presented, but D&D is a game, and games ultimately have rules to make them function; at some point you either have to follow them as written and justify why that's the case, or you have to choose to break those rules with the consent of your DM in order to fit the rules to your head canon, but what you have will no longer be Thunder Gauntlets as presented by Tasha's Cauldron, but a modified version of them. I could for example theme my Guardian armour as made from a wearable Gelatinous Cube inflicting acid damage instead of thunder, but that'd be my own take on the rules to fit the theme for how I want it to function.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I'm going to just jump to these two right here. These are the fine points that you keep drawing everything around harping on and you keep using to hold up your entire argument.
First of all. Strength doesn't matter because of the Magic infused in the armor. It's not that the Armor no longer needs strength it's just that the magic you infuse it with makes it so that the magic is compensating for the strength you don't have. Not requiring Strength to wear the armor does not change it's actual physical properties to something totaly new it's just providing you aid to be able to handle the properties it already has. it's not lightening the Armor in any way. It's not magically making the Heavy Plate Mail Armor weigh the same as paper. All it is doing is bolstering it in such a weight that the weight of it is not having an effect on you if your not physicaly up to the task of wearing it. This effect is basically the magical equivalent to wearing a harness and stepping into iron man armor that is actually capable of holding itself upright and works through a system of actuators and gears and clever technology to aid your movement. Your Strength does not matter not because the armor weighs less but because The Armor is now designed to work regardless of your strength. it could still be a 2 ton monstrosity that a Giant has trouble moving around. But when your inside of it you do not feel that weight and so it is not restricting your movement because of it.
Second of all. I said it was Extreme. The entire point of the car analogy was entirely that it's irrelevant. Your entire argument about because the way you can wield a knife in your hand so therefor the your hand must function like a knife is irrelevant. There is no logical correlation here. They are two very different things. It doesn't matter how things work in your hands because that is entirely irrelevant because that is purely the properties and function of that object in your hands and not your hands at all. The Fact that your Armor is magically effected to bolster itself so that it's weight does not affect your movement is also Irrelevant because that is not actually changing physical properties of the armor and is simply affecting your ability to move while within it.
So let me get stupidly simple about this with an easy logical example that you can test for yourself as you sit at the computer. Take your finger of one hand and poke the other hand. Notice that there is almost no noise to the action. Notice that even if you do it hard there isn't much force to it. You feel perhaps a little discomfort or pressure and if you do it enough times you might make a bit of ache as you slowly start to minorly surface bruise it or push the tissue around slightly in ways it doesn't like. This is completely ineffective, But by simple logic if you did this same action with a knife (Which you should not do and I am Certainly Not telling you To) you'd do a lot of damage to yourself and the way the knife functions and the way you hold it would do a lot of damage to your hand but clearly your hand alone does not function the way the knife does. This is the difference between the Gauntlet and the Knife or other light item as well. To Give your hand impact You either need to flatten it out and make a swinging motion so that a large portion of it strikes over a large area or you need to ball it up and put force behind it. Ball your own Hand up into a Fist and smack it into your hand. You'll notice something sound based happening when you do this. You'll hear a sharp audible crack as the two surfaces come together from the increased surface and you'll hear it range from almost nothing to getting louder the hard you do this. This audible crack is important. This is your thunder damage source. This is being Magically amplified to cause the damage from the Thunder Gauntlets. Changing the applied Attribute does not change this, because what the Intelligence is doing is using your cognitive reasoning to find the best way to make the audible crack as loud as possible with the force that you have So that you have more to Amplify Magically to do the damage. So no. Thunder gauntlets don't work from a little poke. Thunder Gauntlets work because of that audible crack with brute force applied with deductive reasoning and understanding behind it and is amplified until it becomes painful and this is why Thunder Damage almost always comes with a widely audible component. This is why Thunder Gauntlets are not and never will be light.
The Rest of your argument as long as it is. Is pointless without these two very basic things. So that is why there is no point in getting into it. They are built upon a flawed base premise and without that premise rebutting them serves little purpose
This looks like as good a time as any to jump in.
I don't think the gauntlets lacking the light property has anything to do with whether or not physical contact is made. The thunder damage isn't being added to a physical impact, and even the reference art seems to depict a concussive blast. Adding the wielder's Intelligence modifier makes using it akin to a spell attack; not unlike with shocking grasp. Not only is that your "magic taser", but it's also on the artificer spell list.
No, the gauntlets are simply unwieldy. That might not make any sense because your character is wearing them and we're hopefully all coordinated enough to at least pretend to box, but thems the rules. That said, they do work with the Dual Wielder feat.
You might not be holding a light weapon, as Two-Weapon Fighting normally requires, but there's no question that you're wielding weapons that lack the light property. And being able to get in three attacks for 1d8 + INT modifier thunder damage, along with a perpetual +1 to AC, isn't bad.
This is an interesting perception of the art. I think it may be me but I have trouble seeing it this way. To me what it looks like is the Thunder effect going off in response to him punching the enemy That as it connects the Thunder Effect is released and we're seeing the magical augmentation of the sound created from it hitting the enemy and pushing them back a bit from the blow that is combined with him reeling back his other fist like he's going to make another punch as the magic charges up and prepares to amplify the sound for the other fist in boxers 1, 2 combo as if illustrating that he has the extra attack feature.
But it is interesting to see that somebody else sees the art differently and mentions how they view it.
It is worth mentioning, I think, that monks can replace the normal bludgeoning damage of their unarmed strikes with fire damage, so there is precedent. Then again, the same feature which allows this also allows for increasing the range of the attacks. (Never thought that Way of the Four Elements and Fangs of the Fire Snake would rear their heads in this conversation, but here we are.)