A Monk using their Martial Arts feature may "use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action."
My question is can a character with a weapon in hand (let's say a dagger for the sake of argument) make an Unarmed Strike with that hand to simulate throwing an elbow, back-fisting the enemy, or whatever? I ask because I have a character idea for a knife-thrower who has a few Monk levels and would like to take advantage of such things as Stunning Strike and the Kensei feature Agile Parry while still having a weapon prepared for throwing.
Not at all! Unarmed strikes mention "A similar blow of force" you could kick, smack them with the hilt of the dagger etc. Doesn't have to be a smack to the face with your fist.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Anyone can smith at the cosmic anvil, yet only I can forge a weapon as good as thee."
Unarmed strikes include elbows, kicks, head butts, backfists - any sort of strike with a part of the body - even a hand holding a weapon as long as you are striking with the hand and not the weapon. You don't need to have empty hands to make unarmed strikes. Also, the game doesn't require you to state what kind of unarmed strike you might be making - so as long as you aren't making an attack with an actual weapon, it would likely be an unarmed strike.
A Monk using their Martial Arts feature may "use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action."
My question is can a character with a weapon in hand (let's say a dagger for the sake of argument) make an Unarmed Strike with that hand to simulate throwing an elbow, back-fisting the enemy, or whatever? I ask because I have a character idea for a knife-thrower who has a few Monk levels and would like to take advantage of such things as Stunning Strike and the Kensei feature Agile Parry while still having a weapon prepared for throwing.
Thanks in advance.
Not at all! Unarmed strikes mention "A similar blow of force" you could kick, smack them with the hilt of the dagger etc. Doesn't have to be a smack to the face with your fist.
"Anyone can smith at the cosmic anvil, yet only I can forge a weapon as good as thee."
My Homebrew Please click it, they have my family.
Unarmed strikes include elbows, kicks, head butts, backfists - any sort of strike with a part of the body - even a hand holding a weapon as long as you are striking with the hand and not the weapon. You don't need to have empty hands to make unarmed strikes. Also, the game doesn't require you to state what kind of unarmed strike you might be making - so as long as you aren't making an attack with an actual weapon, it would likely be an unarmed strike.