When I comes down to it, Vampire Fangs and by extension Dhampir would have some kind of value over 1 sp. I doesn't matter if they are still in the creature's mouth, they have value. Worse case scenario, all you would have to do is add a Gold or Silver implants to give 1 sp or more worth to it.
From a rules mechanic POW it won't work no matter how much you try to justify it. But if you want to do it just homebrew it, it's not something that's going to break the game.
Sorry if you find this tenuous, but you are just wrong.
Saying it doesn't make it so.
Again, the further you have to go out of your way, the less you're arguing rules as written; you do not brandish your own body parts, and Dhampir's teeth do not have a value. This is 100% not allowed in RAW, and 100% not RAI.
Even with your own more vague definition of brandish, waving is still required and you do not wave teeth. You can shake your head, bare your teeth, wave your arms etc. but these are all different things.
Also, I very specifically gave a legal definition of brandishing a weapon because brandish is the word you're trying to question; plenty of things can be considered "deadly weapons" if used to take life, but having them, or threatening to use them is not considered "brandishing a weapon" for the purposes of conviction. This is because while they can be used to harm, and you can threaten to do so, there is no case in which waving a fist about (which you can do with a fist, unlike teeth) constitutes "brandishing a weapon" as far as the law is concerned, though you could certainly still be convicted of the lesser offence of merely threatening someone.
You are welcome to use hippos as a justification for a house-rule, but that is all it will ever be, as you're not playing as a hippo.
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It's actually very ironic that I got pinged by this thread today. I was running some new players through an adventure a few hours ago and one of my players (Satyr Druid) tried to melee attack someone with her horns. She's got a quarter staff and shillelagh, and every time she says "I want to ram him with my horns!" I tell her, you can totally do that but your quarterstaff and shillelagh combo will be way more effective. And she always agrees and does more damage... but she looks disappointed every time.
So today I was just about to disappoint her again... but instead I said "How about we say shillelagh works with your satyr horns instead?" and she got a huge smile on her face and said "I'd love that" and from that point on she had a ball ramming the hell out of bad guys for 1d8+wisdom.
So that has really cemented how I feel about this dhampir bite+green flame blade issue. As a Dhampir, I could easily just carry a dagger and do 1d4 damage. But every time I used that dagger I'd feel disappointed that I'm not doing the cool unique thing I can do. Or my DM can be chill and just let me bite someone with flaming teeth and feel awesome. Either way I'm just doing 1d4 damage. But one makes me feel like any dude with a knife and the other makes me feel like cool. As a DM, for me personally, there's only one answer. I don't really care about the gold value of fangs. Given the choice, I'm not really sure why anyone would.
So today I was just about to disappoint her again... but instead I said "How about we say shillelagh works with your satyr horns instead?" and she got a huge smile on her face and said "I'd love that" and from that point on she had a ball ramming the hell out of bad guys for 1d8+wisdom.
I'd say that shillelagh is a different case, and I'd absolutely rule the same way, as it's simply empowering the weapon and it's kind of silly that it's as limited as it is (especially since it scales so poorly into higher levels, a Druid will usually want to be wildshaped or use primal savagery instead).
So that has really cemented how I feel about this dhampir bite+green flame blade issue. As a Dhampir, I could easily just carry a dagger and do 1d4 damage. But every time I used that dagger I'd feel disappointed that I'm not doing the cool unique thing I can do. Or my DM can be chill and just let me bite someone with flaming teeth and feel awesome.
The problem with green-flame blade by comparison is that it's a much stronger cantrip than shillelagh, as it adds more damage on top of the weapon attack, and it scales extremely well.
Meanwhile a Dhampir's bite is not simply a basic natural weapon, it's the delivery mechanism for the special rider effect of healing plus an attack/check bonus, so you're still doing the "cool" thing your race enables when you use it for that; you may not be doing as much damage as you could be (though it only takes one of your attacks), but you're making it possible to deal more, and also getting free healing. I would also argue that vampires aren't typically known for attacking with their teeth at all times; in most fiction they will still use swords etc. as those are clearly superior weapons, the fangs are an option of last resort, or for feeding.
There's also the silliness of lighting your own teeth on fire; this is very different to say a minotaur lighting their horns on fire (which you could at least argue could, maybe, be done safely if they're long enough). Not saying I'd allow either personally, in fact it's the only one I can think of it might come close to being possible to allow, as claws, talons, tail etc. all raise the question of how much damage you should suffer for doing it. Plus these cantrips were specifically altered in a way that renders them unusable with natural weapons (and they were never supposed to in the first place, it's just that with the way they were worded you didn't need to attack with the weapon you used as a material component).
Finally there's the fact that there are better things to try and combine it with, which you can actually do in RAW and make more sense; hunter's mark for example actually increases the damage of the bite itself (and thus the healing and attack/check bonus), so can the Piercer feat if you're looking to get more mileage out of your bites (and will also work with a rapier and/or ranged build).
But ultimately this is the Rules & Game Mechanics forum; DMs are free to house rule whatever they want, and while I'd do the same as you did for shillelagh, I wouldn't for green-flame blade, it's already a really strong cantrip and it's very clear about how it's intended to be used.
Compared to the Path of the Beast's bite attack (which is just bad) the Dhampir's isn't terrible, the main problem is it means you have to build for Constitution to keep it usable, and what you're doing when you use it is trading damage for healing and to empower a followup attack (or check such as a Grapple). It's okay, not the most exciting feature, I'd prefer something more powerful but with a trade-off, like continuously drain a target you have grappled or incapacitated, but you count as restrained yourself for the duration, but that's pure homebrew.
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Unlike other people said, you can't rip out your Dhampir teeth and replace them with gold or another expensive material, as it's not just a bite, but a Dhampir bite (otherwise it'd be an unarmed strike).
However, can't you just silver your teeth up, then? Silvering weapons is a RAW weapon mechanic, and definitely gives your teeth a cost (at the very least the cost of the silver, not of actually silvering the teeth). There doesn't seem anything RAW preventing this imo.
The only possible issue might be that material components do need a free hand RAW, so your bite would be a natural simple silvered melee weapon, but you wouldn't be able to use Booming Blade/Green-Flame Blade with them. However, it seems stupid to me that you need to hold in your hand something that is literally inside your mouth (I know it's not RAW, but RAW also states that See Invisibility doesn't negate invisibility, and that you can make an army of Simulacrums by having your Simulacrum cast Simulacrum on you, which are both stupid). And, as someone stated, teeth can definitely be "brandished" for a bite.
If your DM is boring and says you must use RAW, just tell them that you touch one of your fangs as you attack (with should be RAW) Though, if they're so boring to not allow this, they're probably gonna houserule that you can't make the attack or have a penalty to it (which is not RAW).
However, can't you just silver your teeth up, then? Silvering weapons is a RAW weapon mechanic, and definitely gives your teeth a cost (at the very least the cost of the silver, not of actually silvering the teeth). There doesn't seem anything RAW preventing this imo.
While natural weapons are weapons, and therefore technically eligible to be silvered, I think there's a bit of a leap to assume that silver plating fangs is going to be as easy as silver-plating any ordinary weapon, if it's even possible at all.
The Silvered Weapons rule is listed in the weapons section of the equipment rules, i.e- alongside only ordinary weapons that a blacksmith could reasonably make and manipulate. To get a weapon silvered you need to be able to find someone who can do it; even silver plating an ordinary weapon that can be held, dipped, turned etc. is a specialist skill (not every smith will know how to do it), somehow doing that for a person's fangs is another order of magnitude of difficulty entirely.
You'd probably be looking for someone with very specialised skills and/or magic to make this possible, and it's worth keeping in mind that all costs are discretionary (what's listed as a price is not necessarily what you will pay), so that could go a lot higher than 100 gp to get it done.
But we're still ultimately talking about using this as a means of lighting your own teeth on fire while they are inside your own head. It's worth keeping in mind that just because the RAW doesn't say that something isn't possible, doesn't necessarily mean that it is, because a big part of why the game is run by a DM is because the rules aren't exhaustive and don't cover every possible eventuality (the DM's involvement in the rules is itself defined in RAW).
Same as you could light a torch and then shove it into your belt; RAW doesn't say that you would burn yourself doing this, as the RAW only covers what happens if you hit something with it, but you clearly would and should burn yourself. Although there are actually generic rules in the DMG for fire damage from "hazards", which a DM would be well within their rights to apply to both situations (self inflicted fire damage).
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It's a magical fire. It's meant to be harnessed by you magically. In the same way Produce Flame doesn't burn your hand.
The ruling about torches makes sense even if not RAW, but when magic starts to take part, then there's nothing much you can say.
Also, reminder that a spell only sets stuff on fire if it explicitly says so. And even then, it's always "ignites objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried."
It's a magical fire. It's meant to be harnessed by you magically. In the same way Produce Flame doesn't burn your hand.
Produce flame explicitly cannot harm you "the flame remains there for the duration and harms neither you nor your equipment".
The flame from green-flame blade however can definitely harm you, as you could (if you wanted) choose yourself as the target of the flame leaping to a "different creature" as the only condition is that it's not the same creature as your initial target.
The ruling about torches makes sense even if not RAW, but when magic starts to take part, then there's nothing much you can say.
Something being magic doesn't really change anything; it's left to the DM to determine if or when to make allowances for or against something being magic rather than mundane.
Also, reminder that a spell only sets stuff on fire if it explicitly says so. And even then, it's always "ignites objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried."
This isn't true; flammable objects can be set alight by attacking them directly with fire. Spells that explicitly set objects alight do so because they can cause collateral damage as well as intentional damage; this is why fireball in a room full of lamp oil and kindling may be less safe than a nice empty cave. 😉
The fact that you are attempting to deal fire damage with your own teeth is not negligible, nor is the fact that using fangs does not fit any common definition of "brandishing"; or the fact that silver fangs is not something just any can do. There are multiple steps and hurdles required for GFB to be usable with a bite, meaning this issue lands solely in the realm of DM fiat, but in RAW it's extremely tenuous because you have to go so far out of your way on multiple issues to justify it making sense.
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[Edit]I think I misunderstood the point of the "exception" sentence, but still, there are no less than 4 "lunging head first" natural weapons here. It not working with martial Arts is probably to keep it balanced more than anything.
Just sliding in here way late to this party, to state that, the Dhampir's Bite actually does work with Martial Arts --- because, the Bite is actually a 'Monk Weapon' for Monks. A monk weapon only has the requirements that it is a simple weapon that you are proficient with - both of which, Dhampir's bite checks off. In fact, Monk is one of the best and few ways to naturally increase the bite's piercing damage so that you get more healing/roll buffs from it. The only part of the bite that doesn't play very nicely with the other Monk features is the plethora of subclasses that explicitly can only trigger their features off of unarmed strikes - you basically need the Kensei if you want to use the most subclass-based features with your bite.
Shadow - works great, especially the advantage after teleporting to your enemy; you just have to choose teleport or Flurry on your turns because they both use bonus action.
Kensei - works by RAW with all of its melee-oriented features. Yes, even Agile Parry though it makes 'zero' real sense how you can parry with your face lmao. Should be noted Kensei is the only way to make the bite weapon 'magical' in terms of resistances, also.
Four Elements - is Four Elements. Without homebrew, it's a non-issue but even so, it uses unarmed strikes for things like Fangs of the Fire Snake.
Sun Soul uses its unique attacks.
Mercy/Astral Self/Ascendant Dragon/Drunken Master/Open Hand - all focus on unarmed strikes and not monk weapons.
Long Death works fine, none of its features are weapon or unarmed focused.
While a Dhampir's Vampiric Bite is a Monk weapon, it still use Constitution though..
Indeed it does. You need to be a Monk with good Constitution to get mileage out of it - but it does benefit from the scaling Martial Arts die at least.
All natural weapons are considered melee weapons. Saying it needs to cost 1sp doesn’t matter cuz most games don’t force using components for spells. Even if the game does, all natural weapons are weapons worth more than 1sp.
All natural weapons are considered melee weapons. Saying it needs to cost 1sp doesn’t matter cuz most games don’t force using components for spells. Even if the game does, all natural weapons are weapons worth more than 1sp.
Literally no natural weapon in the game has a value, so they're all worth precisely 0 sp; as for campaigns that don't force using components, that's not really relevant as they're not playing by the full rules to begin with so they can make any exception they like.
But again, the question is literally about a vampire setting their own teeth magically ablaze; it's clearly not rules as intended, it's definitely not rules as written, and I'd argue it defies rule of cool unless you're willing to be the secondary target for setting yourself on fire.
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I think the only reason it was listed as a simple weapon is a monk could choose to take it as their monk dedicated weapon. Sadly wont let you use it with weapon cantrips due to them changing to 1sp requirement deliberately to stop you using it with natural weapons and unarmed. DM is free to allow the player to gain an item that are 'capped teeth'. One could possibly argue that a prosthetic limb magic item could be prosthetic teeth, since it can be another body part. Those cost 5ogp.
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From a rules mechanic POW it won't work no matter how much you try to justify it. But if you want to do it just homebrew it, it's not something that's going to break the game.
Saying it doesn't make it so.
Again, the further you have to go out of your way, the less you're arguing rules as written; you do not brandish your own body parts, and Dhampir's teeth do not have a value. This is 100% not allowed in RAW, and 100% not RAI.
Even with your own more vague definition of brandish, waving is still required and you do not wave teeth. You can shake your head, bare your teeth, wave your arms etc. but these are all different things.
Also, I very specifically gave a legal definition of brandishing a weapon because brandish is the word you're trying to question; plenty of things can be considered "deadly weapons" if used to take life, but having them, or threatening to use them is not considered "brandishing a weapon" for the purposes of conviction. This is because while they can be used to harm, and you can threaten to do so, there is no case in which waving a fist about (which you can do with a fist, unlike teeth) constitutes "brandishing a weapon" as far as the law is concerned, though you could certainly still be convicted of the lesser offence of merely threatening someone.
You are welcome to use hippos as a justification for a house-rule, but that is all it will ever be, as you're not playing as a hippo.
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.
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Wow, I forgot that I even started this thread.
It's actually very ironic that I got pinged by this thread today. I was running some new players through an adventure a few hours ago and one of my players (Satyr Druid) tried to melee attack someone with her horns. She's got a quarter staff and shillelagh, and every time she says "I want to ram him with my horns!" I tell her, you can totally do that but your quarterstaff and shillelagh combo will be way more effective. And she always agrees and does more damage... but she looks disappointed every time.
So today I was just about to disappoint her again... but instead I said "How about we say shillelagh works with your satyr horns instead?" and she got a huge smile on her face and said "I'd love that" and from that point on she had a ball ramming the hell out of bad guys for 1d8+wisdom.
So that has really cemented how I feel about this dhampir bite+green flame blade issue. As a Dhampir, I could easily just carry a dagger and do 1d4 damage. But every time I used that dagger I'd feel disappointed that I'm not doing the cool unique thing I can do. Or my DM can be chill and just let me bite someone with flaming teeth and feel awesome. Either way I'm just doing 1d4 damage. But one makes me feel like any dude with a knife and the other makes me feel like cool. As a DM, for me personally, there's only one answer. I don't really care about the gold value of fangs. Given the choice, I'm not really sure why anyone would.
I'd say that shillelagh is a different case, and I'd absolutely rule the same way, as it's simply empowering the weapon and it's kind of silly that it's as limited as it is (especially since it scales so poorly into higher levels, a Druid will usually want to be wildshaped or use primal savagery instead).
The problem with green-flame blade by comparison is that it's a much stronger cantrip than shillelagh, as it adds more damage on top of the weapon attack, and it scales extremely well.
Meanwhile a Dhampir's bite is not simply a basic natural weapon, it's the delivery mechanism for the special rider effect of healing plus an attack/check bonus, so you're still doing the "cool" thing your race enables when you use it for that; you may not be doing as much damage as you could be (though it only takes one of your attacks), but you're making it possible to deal more, and also getting free healing. I would also argue that vampires aren't typically known for attacking with their teeth at all times; in most fiction they will still use swords etc. as those are clearly superior weapons, the fangs are an option of last resort, or for feeding.
There's also the silliness of lighting your own teeth on fire; this is very different to say a minotaur lighting their horns on fire (which you could at least argue could, maybe, be done safely if they're long enough). Not saying I'd allow either personally, in fact it's the only one I can think of it might come close to being possible to allow, as claws, talons, tail etc. all raise the question of how much damage you should suffer for doing it. Plus these cantrips were specifically altered in a way that renders them unusable with natural weapons (and they were never supposed to in the first place, it's just that with the way they were worded you didn't need to attack with the weapon you used as a material component).
Finally there's the fact that there are better things to try and combine it with, which you can actually do in RAW and make more sense; hunter's mark for example actually increases the damage of the bite itself (and thus the healing and attack/check bonus), so can the Piercer feat if you're looking to get more mileage out of your bites (and will also work with a rapier and/or ranged build).
But ultimately this is the Rules & Game Mechanics forum; DMs are free to house rule whatever they want, and while I'd do the same as you did for shillelagh, I wouldn't for green-flame blade, it's already a really strong cantrip and it's very clear about how it's intended to be used.
Compared to the Path of the Beast's bite attack (which is just bad) the Dhampir's isn't terrible, the main problem is it means you have to build for Constitution to keep it usable, and what you're doing when you use it is trading damage for healing and to empower a followup attack (or check such as a Grapple). It's okay, not the most exciting feature, I'd prefer something more powerful but with a trade-off, like continuously drain a target you have grappled or incapacitated, but you count as restrained yourself for the duration, but that's pure homebrew.
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Unlike other people said, you can't rip out your Dhampir teeth and replace them with gold or another expensive material, as it's not just a bite, but a Dhampir bite (otherwise it'd be an unarmed strike).
However, can't you just silver your teeth up, then? Silvering weapons is a RAW weapon mechanic, and definitely gives your teeth a cost (at the very least the cost of the silver, not of actually silvering the teeth). There doesn't seem anything RAW preventing this imo.
The only possible issue might be that material components do need a free hand RAW, so your bite would be a natural simple silvered melee weapon, but you wouldn't be able to use Booming Blade/Green-Flame Blade with them. However, it seems stupid to me that you need to hold in your hand something that is literally inside your mouth (I know it's not RAW, but RAW also states that See Invisibility doesn't negate invisibility, and that you can make an army of Simulacrums by having your Simulacrum cast Simulacrum on you, which are both stupid). And, as someone stated, teeth can definitely be "brandished" for a bite.
If your DM is boring and says you must use RAW, just tell them that you touch one of your fangs as you attack (with should be RAW) Though, if they're so boring to not allow this, they're probably gonna houserule that you can't make the attack or have a penalty to it (which is not RAW).
While natural weapons are weapons, and therefore technically eligible to be silvered, I think there's a bit of a leap to assume that silver plating fangs is going to be as easy as silver-plating any ordinary weapon, if it's even possible at all.
The Silvered Weapons rule is listed in the weapons section of the equipment rules, i.e- alongside only ordinary weapons that a blacksmith could reasonably make and manipulate. To get a weapon silvered you need to be able to find someone who can do it; even silver plating an ordinary weapon that can be held, dipped, turned etc. is a specialist skill (not every smith will know how to do it), somehow doing that for a person's fangs is another order of magnitude of difficulty entirely.
You'd probably be looking for someone with very specialised skills and/or magic to make this possible, and it's worth keeping in mind that all costs are discretionary (what's listed as a price is not necessarily what you will pay), so that could go a lot higher than 100 gp to get it done.
But we're still ultimately talking about using this as a means of lighting your own teeth on fire while they are inside your own head. It's worth keeping in mind that just because the RAW doesn't say that something isn't possible, doesn't necessarily mean that it is, because a big part of why the game is run by a DM is because the rules aren't exhaustive and don't cover every possible eventuality (the DM's involvement in the rules is itself defined in RAW).
Same as you could light a torch and then shove it into your belt; RAW doesn't say that you would burn yourself doing this, as the RAW only covers what happens if you hit something with it, but you clearly would and should burn yourself. Although there are actually generic rules in the DMG for fire damage from "hazards", which a DM would be well within their rights to apply to both situations (self inflicted fire damage).
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.
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It's a magical fire. It's meant to be harnessed by you magically. In the same way Produce Flame doesn't burn your hand.
The ruling about torches makes sense even if not RAW, but when magic starts to take part, then there's nothing much you can say.
Also, reminder that a spell only sets stuff on fire if it explicitly says so. And even then, it's always "ignites objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried."
Produce flame explicitly cannot harm you "the flame remains there for the duration and harms neither you nor your equipment".
The flame from green-flame blade however can definitely harm you, as you could (if you wanted) choose yourself as the target of the flame leaping to a "different creature" as the only condition is that it's not the same creature as your initial target.
Something being magic doesn't really change anything; it's left to the DM to determine if or when to make allowances for or against something being magic rather than mundane.
This isn't true; flammable objects can be set alight by attacking them directly with fire. Spells that explicitly set objects alight do so because they can cause collateral damage as well as intentional damage; this is why fireball in a room full of lamp oil and kindling may be less safe than a nice empty cave. 😉
The fact that you are attempting to deal fire damage with your own teeth is not negligible, nor is the fact that using fangs does not fit any common definition of "brandishing"; or the fact that silver fangs is not something just any can do. There are multiple steps and hurdles required for GFB to be usable with a bite, meaning this issue lands solely in the realm of DM fiat, but in RAW it's extremely tenuous because you have to go so far out of your way on multiple issues to justify it making sense.
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Just sliding in here way late to this party, to state that, the Dhampir's Bite actually does work with Martial Arts --- because, the Bite is actually a 'Monk Weapon' for Monks. A monk weapon only has the requirements that it is a simple weapon that you are proficient with - both of which, Dhampir's bite checks off. In fact, Monk is one of the best and few ways to naturally increase the bite's piercing damage so that you get more healing/roll buffs from it. The only part of the bite that doesn't play very nicely with the other Monk features is the plethora of subclasses that explicitly can only trigger their features off of unarmed strikes - you basically need the Kensei if you want to use the most subclass-based features with your bite.
While a Dhampir's Vampiric Bite is a Monk weapon, it still use Constitution though..
Indeed it does. You need to be a Monk with good Constitution to get mileage out of it - but it does benefit from the scaling Martial Arts die at least.
All natural weapons are considered melee weapons. Saying it needs to cost 1sp doesn’t matter cuz most games don’t force using components for spells. Even if the game does, all natural weapons are weapons worth more than 1sp.
Literally no natural weapon in the game has a value, so they're all worth precisely 0 sp; as for campaigns that don't force using components, that's not really relevant as they're not playing by the full rules to begin with so they can make any exception they like.
But again, the question is literally about a vampire setting their own teeth magically ablaze; it's clearly not rules as intended, it's definitely not rules as written, and I'd argue it defies rule of cool unless you're willing to be the secondary target for setting yourself on fire.
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.
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I think the only reason it was listed as a simple weapon is a monk could choose to take it as their monk dedicated weapon. Sadly wont let you use it with weapon cantrips due to them changing to 1sp requirement deliberately to stop you using it with natural weapons and unarmed. DM is free to allow the player to gain an item that are 'capped teeth'. One could possibly argue that a prosthetic limb magic item could be prosthetic teeth, since it can be another body part. Those cost 5ogp.