Had an idea recently for a multiclass armorer / forge cleric, who uses their gauntlets for unarmed attacks, and also casts heat metal on their own gauntlets to deal fire damage on-hit. Some of the rules for this seem to be in a grey area (between RAW and my interpretation of RAI), so opinions are appreciated.
I think the idea of self-casting heat metal is original, although there is a chance it was inspired by some other viral/meme character. Also the cleric levels are purely for roleplay, the build would function (if all rulings go to plan) just as well without them, if not better.
Key ideas behind the build:
Thunder Gauntlets lets 3rd level armorers can treat their gauntlets as simple melee weapons
Thunder Gauntlets deal 1d8 damage on hit "while you aren't holding anything in it" RAW - since you are not holding anything, is this instead of an unarmed strike, or in addition to unarmed damage?
Dual Wielder feat allows use of Two-Weapon Fighting when weapons are not light, so gauntlets should count now for bonus action attacks?
Unarmed Fighting Style (acquired from Fighting Initiate feat) makes unarmed strikes do 1d6 damage plus STR modifier, or 1d8 if "If you aren't wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll" RAW - are you "wielding" your gauntlets? Would you still get the STR bonus on a bonus action off-hand attack, without needing the Two-Weapon Fighting Style?
Dragonborn with fire ancestry resist fire damage, Chromatic Dragonborn can become immune to fire damage for one minute, no concentration
Heat metal only forces a CON save if you take damage, so no save needed
Mind Sharpener armor infusion allows you to auto-pass concentration saves
Cast Chromatic Ward, run in, cast Heat Metal, punch stuff, deal (ideally) 1d8 thunder + 3d8 fire + 1d8 + STR bludgeoning
Assuming 15 STR and average rolls, 5 fire, 15 thunder, 7 bludgeoning, for three attacks (level 5 extra attack and bonus unarmed strike), 81 average damage before AC
The build has other minor stuff going on as well such as infusions and spells, but I want to focus on the feasibility of the unarmed strikes. To summarise, the RAW points of contention:
does thunder gauntlet damage add to or replace unarmed damage
are you "unarmed" or are you "wielding" your gauntlets
does your STR modifier apply to unarmed bonus action attacks, with the aforementioned combination of feats/abilities
Please let me know your thoughts or how you would interpret the rules.
Your Thunder Gauntlets are simple melee weapons, not unarmed strikes. Usually, features that treat any sort of weapon (natural weapons commonly) as an unarmed strike will specifically state that "you can use them to make unarmed strikes", the gauntlets don't have such a clause.
Dual Wielder does work, since both gauntlets are separate weapons and neither have the Light property so, with the feat, you can dual wield them and attack once with your bonus action. Keep in mind though, if you do not have the Two-Weapon Fighting style, you do not add STR to your bonus action attack.
Unarmed Fighting style does not work here for the reason stated in 1.
Chromatic Dragonborn with fire ancestry resist fire and can become inmune to it for 1 minute (using an action), correct.
Yes, Heat Metal only forces the save if you take damage (so, if you are inmune to fire damage, you should be safe from both Concentration checks and the "dropping the object" part).
Mind Sharpener works.
The whole combination takes 2 turns of set-up (1 for Chromatic Ward and 1 for Heat Metal), in which you are not attacking at all (the bonus action attack from two-weapon fighting requires an attack with the main weapon first), unless an enemy triggers an AoO from you. If you get it going, you'd get: 1d8 + STR thunder (Thunder Gauntlet) + 2d8 fire (Heat Metal) on your main attacks (so from lvl 5 you'd get 2d8 + 2*STR thunder + 4d8 fire) and 1d8 thunder + 2d8 fire from you bonus action attack.
With 15 STR (so +2) and average rolls, you get: (7 thunder + 10 fire)*2 main attacks + (5 thunder + 10 fire) off-hand attack = 34 main attack + 15 off-hand, so 49 total damage.
Personally yes I would, I can see why others would say no but I personally would say yes because, the way I see it it's not like monk, you don't have ki points, you can't flurry of blows, they are not magical weapons, and you can't add a modifier to your offhand attacks anyway at least by normal means. What I see when I see a fighter is that this is someone who is not barbarian brute but not exactly wizard smart either, this is someone more in between ready to be molded into something more, like say eldrage knight for example, just because they can cast spells from the wizard tree and the spells are based off of the fighters intelligence does not make them wizards, but it does make a good Kickstart for a player to want to play a wizard in later games. A champion fighter maybe heavily reliant on being blunt and brute forcing as it deals in mostly your dex and str and my preferences for front lining them so focused con, but that don't make them barbarian, simply granting the ability to unarmed attack as a bonus action, I don't personally see anything wrong with such as it is just that you have two fists use them, but it does not mean you can go facing a monk and expect things to go smoothly
First, the monk unarmed strike let you use str. Using dex is optionnal.
For a str pugilist, start as a fighter and choose unarmed fighting to boost your dice to a d8 or pick another combat style, like blind fighting or protection, take tavern brawler as your origin feat and the grappler feat later. Take a one level dip in monk at level 2. You can then go Champion for the crit range and second fighting style or Battle master as most manoeuvre work with unarmed strikes and let you up the dmg and add an effect. Both are viable and you can do that in full plate if you want, and with action surge and eventually 4 unarmed strikes at level 12 (7 with action surge).
Alternatively, play a barbarian with tavern brawler, a one level dip in monk and add your rage dmg bonus on your unarmed attacks. Go berserker or zealot for the extra dmg.
One level dip is not bad. Yes, you will get your second attack only at level 6, but you already are attacking twice with a d6 or D8 and your full str bonus on each attack.
You can also get three attacks at level 2 by puching, using the nick property of any monk weapon, lets say a dagger, using the monk dmg dice (d6) and punch or kick again, basically getting 3 attacks at level 2, each at 1d6 or one d8 + str (you need the dual wielder feat to add your str to the dagger attack). I can see the character mixing punches with quick dagger strikes, holding the dagger in their knuckle pointing outside.
One level dip in monk is nothing, really. You just met that guy in a tavern that teached you some moves.
You can also get three attacks at level 2 by puching, using the nick property of any monk weapon, lets say a dagger, using the monk dmg dice (d6) and punch or kick again, basically getting 3 attacks at level 2,
You can get 3 attacks, but you can't do it in the way you describe. To use nick you need to make an attack with a weapon with the light property and unarmed strikes do not have the light property.
So you can use a light weapon for the first attack, then a dagger or scimiar with nick for the second attack, then use an unarmed strike as a bonus action for the third. You do 1d6 with all these weapons, but two of the attacks need to be made with weapons, both need to be light and one needs to have nick.
My personal favorite method is:
Attack with a hand axe with vex
Nick attack with a dagger
bonus action unarmed strike
I think hand axe and dagger are the best options because they do 1d6 (like every other light weapon wielded by a Monk) and you can throw them.
Another way, with the DM approbation, would be to take the tavern brawler feat and use a brass knuckle as an improvised weapon that could act as a light hammer (without the thrown property), but improvised weapons properties are decided by the DM.
If I was the DM and one of my player would want to do a brawler type fighter, I would just add such a weapon to the simple weapons list (light, 1d4 bludgeoning), as it seems very balanced, but if you go RAW, the improvised weapons rule +tavern brawler is the closest you can get, yet you still need your DM to be on board.
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Had an idea recently for a multiclass armorer / forge cleric, who uses their gauntlets for unarmed attacks, and also casts heat metal on their own gauntlets to deal fire damage on-hit. Some of the rules for this seem to be in a grey area (between RAW and my interpretation of RAI), so opinions are appreciated.
I think the idea of self-casting heat metal is original, although there is a chance it was inspired by some other viral/meme character. Also the cleric levels are purely for roleplay, the build would function (if all rulings go to plan) just as well without them, if not better.
Key ideas behind the build:
The build has other minor stuff going on as well such as infusions and spells, but I want to focus on the feasibility of the unarmed strikes. To summarise, the RAW points of contention:
Please let me know your thoughts or how you would interpret the rules.
The way I see it:
Personally yes I would, I can see why others would say no but I personally would say yes because, the way I see it it's not like monk, you don't have ki points, you can't flurry of blows, they are not magical weapons, and you can't add a modifier to your offhand attacks anyway at least by normal means. What I see when I see a fighter is that this is someone who is not barbarian brute but not exactly wizard smart either, this is someone more in between ready to be molded into something more, like say eldrage knight for example, just because they can cast spells from the wizard tree and the spells are based off of the fighters intelligence does not make them wizards, but it does make a good Kickstart for a player to want to play a wizard in later games. A champion fighter maybe heavily reliant on being blunt and brute forcing as it deals in mostly your dex and str and my preferences for front lining them so focused con, but that don't make them barbarian, simply granting the ability to unarmed attack as a bonus action, I don't personally see anything wrong with such as it is just that you have two fists use them, but it does not mean you can go facing a monk and expect things to go smoothly
Using the 2024 rules.
First, the monk unarmed strike let you use str. Using dex is optionnal.
For a str pugilist, start as a fighter and choose unarmed fighting to boost your dice to a d8 or pick another combat style, like blind fighting or protection, take tavern brawler as your origin feat and the grappler feat later. Take a one level dip in monk at level 2. You can then go Champion for the crit range and second fighting style or Battle master as most manoeuvre work with unarmed strikes and let you up the dmg and add an effect. Both are viable and you can do that in full plate if you want, and with action surge and eventually 4 unarmed strikes at level 12 (7 with action surge).
Alternatively, play a barbarian with tavern brawler, a one level dip in monk and add your rage dmg bonus on your unarmed attacks. Go berserker or zealot for the extra dmg.
One level dip is not bad. Yes, you will get your second attack only at level 6, but you already are attacking twice with a d6 or D8 and your full str bonus on each attack.
You can also get three attacks at level 2 by puching, using the nick property of any monk weapon, lets say a dagger, using the monk dmg dice (d6) and punch or kick again, basically getting 3 attacks at level 2, each at 1d6 or one d8 + str (you need the dual wielder feat to add your str to the dagger attack). I can see the character mixing punches with quick dagger strikes, holding the dagger in their knuckle pointing outside.
One level dip in monk is nothing, really. You just met that guy in a tavern that teached you some moves.
You can get 3 attacks, but you can't do it in the way you describe. To use nick you need to make an attack with a weapon with the light property and unarmed strikes do not have the light property.
So you can use a light weapon for the first attack, then a dagger or scimiar with nick for the second attack, then use an unarmed strike as a bonus action for the third. You do 1d6 with all these weapons, but two of the attacks need to be made with weapons, both need to be light and one needs to have nick.
My personal favorite method is:
Attack with a hand axe with vex
Nick attack with a dagger
bonus action unarmed strike
I think hand axe and dagger are the best options because they do 1d6 (like every other light weapon wielded by a Monk) and you can throw them.
You are absolutely right.
Another way, with the DM approbation, would be to take the tavern brawler feat and use a brass knuckle as an improvised weapon that could act as a light hammer (without the thrown property), but improvised weapons properties are decided by the DM.
If I was the DM and one of my player would want to do a brawler type fighter, I would just add such a weapon to the simple weapons list (light, 1d4 bludgeoning), as it seems very balanced, but if you go RAW, the improvised weapons rule +tavern brawler is the closest you can get, yet you still need your DM to be on board.