I don’t pay much attention to UA that much could you tell me which article has the feat and fighting style? Just curious at to what they are. Thanks in advance!
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier. If you strike with two free hands, the d6 becomes a d8.
When you successfully start a grapple, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to the grappled creature. Until the grapple ends, you can also deal this damage to the creature whenever you hit it with a melee attack.
I'm not sure of which specific feat there is, other than the Fighting Initiate feat, which allows classes who don't have a fighting style to pick one, and if you're already allowing UA, then you could pick Unarmed Fighting as your fighting style.
Yeah, I don't think this is a good idea for several reasons:
1) Any boost to natural weapons are going to make the monk class OP at lower levels, as you will be getting a racial boost to your martial arts attacks until you hit mid-tier levels in some cases (especially with a d10 natural weapon). This will go away at higher levels, but is a big issue for the majority of games as they typically stay low level.
2) Any boost to natural weapons are going to make gish builds OP in general. having the ability to have a powerful natural attack while wielding a shield and having a free hand for spells is a gish dream, and you are basically getting the benefit of several magic items and feats (war-caster, ruby of the war mage) as you can attack with horns/bite/claw for high damage while keeping a +2 AC shield bonus and immediately using the same attacking hand for spellcasting.
3) it doesnt' make sense from a character balance reason. While crocodiles and bulls are stronger than the average human IRL, for game balance all races are more or less on equal footing in D&D, so adding substantially to a racial ability is going to unbalance the game unless another benefit is removed or a detriment added.
4) finally, it doesn't make sense when comparing to other weapons and creature attacks. an ox does 1d6 with its horns (3d6 on a charge). crocodile does 1d10 with its bite. lion deal 1d8 with bite and 1d6 with claws. But, these are all large creatures, which weigh considerably more than the PC races, and have larger paws, mouths, and horns in general. so saying that a minotaur can exceed or even equal the damage output of a creature 2x the height and 4-5x the weight, likewise with a tabaxi or lizardfolk, doesn't make sense. their unarmed strikes already greatly exceed the maximum of races without natural weapons, but they shouldn't exceed the (much bigger) animals they are based on, so their current damage output is pretty balanced as is.
Why would you go to all the trouble of mining, refining and forging steel into a weapon when you can simply go out, kill a monster and attach their claws/teeth/beak/etc. to a hilt and have a better weapon.
Manufactured weapons has the following advantages over home 'grown' natural weapons, so they should always do more damage.
Can be made of things too hard to eat, natural can not. How can they get their first set of natural weapons without being able to break the material components because you have nothing that hard!
Can be formed under unique circumstances, so can have unique weaknesses (I.e. metal weapons suck in a super hot environment, but are great all other times).
Can be sharpened by rare substances, rather than stuff commonly found around the habitat.
I'd homebrew a feat to represent mastery of your natural wep, something like tavern brawler but it raises your natural wep damage by a die instead of improvised wep proficiency.
I think you raise a good point of what this discussion gets down to ftl, but I think you miss the point of D&D (or TTRPG's).
Why play D&D with all the cumbersome hassle it brings when you could just play an RPG videogame? I mean plenty of videogames you can play with your friends too!
The answer is, because in a TTRPG, you can do anything. The rule of cool (or rule of fun) trumps all. Your minotaur having 1d10 horn damage so they aren't handicapped for roleplaying is fine, if they are abusing this say to also use a shield and an extra weapon constantly then this may be problematic, although the occasional time say of pulling a deception just as being arrested is some good roleplaying memorable moments.
The break in balance if they do start abusing these things could obviously however be offset by giving other players a slight advantage of their own if it crops up to bring things back into balance. Say the wizard has a magic orb that lets them regain an extra high level spell slot as a bonus action.
It actually also touches here on another issue of "what the hell even is balance"? I mean it's obvious for a videogame, but a dungeon master can change and adjust other things on the fly. I'd say as long as you understand the implications of it, it's not unbalanced. So just take the time to think about how you could abuse is, and have eventualities for that (or have a little out-of-universe conversation to say "hey if I let you have this then please don't use a shield as well?" or something similar).
I know one thing I notice is that natural weapons are effectively pointless for monks, as they are about good as an unarmed strike of a monk (and later on worse than it), they are just redundant. When I run my next campaign I'm thinking of saying if someone picks it that they can use the next die size up from unarmed strikes if they have a natural weapon to address it. As is with the rules tho it's far better for a wizard than a monk.
So a tabaxi's claws still use their hands, making it light of finesse really shouldn't break anything in particular. The minotaurs horns being heavy doesn't really impact anything heavily, their horns being more damaging shouldn't cause serious issues. Raising the damage is slightly more complex in balance effects I'd say, but basically the 'breaking' mostly would come in if its a bite/horn attack (no need for using hands) and they then decide to utilise their hands for other things. As long as you are aware of these bits you should be able to control them. After all, the rules themselves are at times not brilliantly balanced.
Flavour-wise, nobody can tell you right or wrong. That's up to you and your table. Why shouldn't a Paladin be able to smite you with the fist of god by giving you a smack across the face with their holy hands?
EDIT: Gonna point out one example to back up my "even the rules are 'broken'" (broken is a terrible concept in a game where we can actively control everything but y'know), a nature domain cleric can get all heavily armoured, strap on a shield, take pole-arm master, then one-handed wield a quarterstaff, cast shillelagh on it for more damage, then attack twice in a round! Plus opportunity attacks when creatures enter your reach. It's a very specific but very possible one which doesn't really sacrifice anything and can deal out absurd bits of damage. Fireball is also a spell not balanced with the rest. That said, I'm not saying the rules need nerfing here, just y'know, D&D is about having fun and you just have to think about what that means at your table.
I don’t pay much attention to UA that much could you tell me which article has the feat and fighting style? Just curious at to what they are. Thanks in advance!
Here's the fighting style from UA:
Unarmed Fighting UACFV p13
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier. If you strike with two free hands, the d6 becomes a d8.
When you successfully start a grapple, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to the grappled creature. Until the grapple ends, you can also deal this damage to the creature whenever you hit it with a melee attack.
I'm not sure of which specific feat there is, other than the Fighting Initiate feat, which allows classes who don't have a fighting style to pick one, and if you're already allowing UA, then you could pick Unarmed Fighting as your fighting style.
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Yeah, I don't think this is a good idea for several reasons:
1) Any boost to natural weapons are going to make the monk class OP at lower levels, as you will be getting a racial boost to your martial arts attacks until you hit mid-tier levels in some cases (especially with a d10 natural weapon). This will go away at higher levels, but is a big issue for the majority of games as they typically stay low level.
2) Any boost to natural weapons are going to make gish builds OP in general. having the ability to have a powerful natural attack while wielding a shield and having a free hand for spells is a gish dream, and you are basically getting the benefit of several magic items and feats (war-caster, ruby of the war mage) as you can attack with horns/bite/claw for high damage while keeping a +2 AC shield bonus and immediately using the same attacking hand for spellcasting.
3) it doesnt' make sense from a character balance reason. While crocodiles and bulls are stronger than the average human IRL, for game balance all races are more or less on equal footing in D&D, so adding substantially to a racial ability is going to unbalance the game unless another benefit is removed or a detriment added.
4) finally, it doesn't make sense when comparing to other weapons and creature attacks. an ox does 1d6 with its horns (3d6 on a charge). crocodile does 1d10 with its bite. lion deal 1d8 with bite and 1d6 with claws. But, these are all large creatures, which weigh considerably more than the PC races, and have larger paws, mouths, and horns in general. so saying that a minotaur can exceed or even equal the damage output of a creature 2x the height and 4-5x the weight, likewise with a tabaxi or lizardfolk, doesn't make sense. their unarmed strikes already greatly exceed the maximum of races without natural weapons, but they shouldn't exceed the (much bigger) animals they are based on, so their current damage output is pretty balanced as is.
Why would you go to all the trouble of mining, refining and forging steel into a weapon when you can simply go out, kill a monster and attach their claws/teeth/beak/etc. to a hilt and have a better weapon.
Manufactured weapons has the following advantages over home 'grown' natural weapons, so they should always do more damage.
I'd homebrew a feat to represent mastery of your natural wep, something like tavern brawler but it raises your natural wep damage by a die instead of improvised wep proficiency.
IK I'm late on this but...
I think you raise a good point of what this discussion gets down to ftl, but I think you miss the point of D&D (or TTRPG's).
Why play D&D with all the cumbersome hassle it brings when you could just play an RPG videogame? I mean plenty of videogames you can play with your friends too!
The answer is, because in a TTRPG, you can do anything. The rule of cool (or rule of fun) trumps all. Your minotaur having 1d10 horn damage so they aren't handicapped for roleplaying is fine, if they are abusing this say to also use a shield and an extra weapon constantly then this may be problematic, although the occasional time say of pulling a deception just as being arrested is some good roleplaying memorable moments.
The break in balance if they do start abusing these things could obviously however be offset by giving other players a slight advantage of their own if it crops up to bring things back into balance. Say the wizard has a magic orb that lets them regain an extra high level spell slot as a bonus action.
It actually also touches here on another issue of "what the hell even is balance"? I mean it's obvious for a videogame, but a dungeon master can change and adjust other things on the fly. I'd say as long as you understand the implications of it, it's not unbalanced. So just take the time to think about how you could abuse is, and have eventualities for that (or have a little out-of-universe conversation to say "hey if I let you have this then please don't use a shield as well?" or something similar).
I know one thing I notice is that natural weapons are effectively pointless for monks, as they are about good as an unarmed strike of a monk (and later on worse than it), they are just redundant. When I run my next campaign I'm thinking of saying if someone picks it that they can use the next die size up from unarmed strikes if they have a natural weapon to address it. As is with the rules tho it's far better for a wizard than a monk.
So a tabaxi's claws still use their hands, making it light of finesse really shouldn't break anything in particular. The minotaurs horns being heavy doesn't really impact anything heavily, their horns being more damaging shouldn't cause serious issues. Raising the damage is slightly more complex in balance effects I'd say, but basically the 'breaking' mostly would come in if its a bite/horn attack (no need for using hands) and they then decide to utilise their hands for other things. As long as you are aware of these bits you should be able to control them. After all, the rules themselves are at times not brilliantly balanced.
Flavour-wise, nobody can tell you right or wrong. That's up to you and your table. Why shouldn't a Paladin be able to smite you with the fist of god by giving you a smack across the face with their holy hands?
EDIT: Gonna point out one example to back up my "even the rules are 'broken'" (broken is a terrible concept in a game where we can actively control everything but y'know), a nature domain cleric can get all heavily armoured, strap on a shield, take pole-arm master, then one-handed wield a quarterstaff, cast shillelagh on it for more damage, then attack twice in a round! Plus opportunity attacks when creatures enter your reach. It's a very specific but very possible one which doesn't really sacrifice anything and can deal out absurd bits of damage. Fireball is also a spell not balanced with the rest. That said, I'm not saying the rules need nerfing here, just y'know, D&D is about having fun and you just have to think about what that means at your table.