Was looking at an old thread on another forum about how a Leonin was not a good combination with race.

One of the bullet items was that the 1d4 unarmed combat from the race was already there from the class. This got me thinking...

Any one can hit unarmed for 1 HP damage.

A trained monk gains a chance to do 2, 3 or 4 dmg due to their training in where/how to hit.

A Leonin gains  a chance to do 2, 3 or 4 dmg due to their natural claws.

These are not the same thing, hitting with skill to hit a vulnerable spot without a claw should have a chance to do more dmg with claws.

You wouldn't want to duplicate.the 1 of each role which is duplicative of a base punch though so I think a Leonin Monk should have an unarmed attack of 2D4 -1

This seems reasonable to me but would love to get group feedback on if it would negatively affect things anymore than how other race/class combo have synergistic combinations.

However, you are talking about TWO different damage types. Claws, which deal Slashing damage; and a Monk's unarmed damage which is based on their Monk dice for Bludgeoning damage.

When a Leonin, Tabaxi, or X Creature whose Natural Weapons can be used to make Unarmed Strikes as a Monk Class, the player can choose whether they are actually going to do Slashing, or Bludgeoning damage. It's the same when someone makes a normal unarmed attack with the claws, since they are using the claws they are going to be dealing slashing damage, otherwise they simply close the hand into a fist and do bludgeoning damage for the grand total of 1 + Str Mod

Also, eventually because of Monk Die scaling by level, that Claw Damage is going to scale up.

Thanks for the input. I think everything you are saying makes since from a RAW interpretation.

Maybe a better way for me to say what I am thinking is, a commoner Leonin can strike with claws for 1d4.  I would think a trained Monk Leonin should be able to strike with claws for more.  Using claws more effectively just as a human uses their fists more effectively with training.

The whole scaling piece probably wouldn't work the way I wrote it above since Unarmed Strike and Flurry of Blows aren't representative of an exact number of strikes where a claw could do dmg.

Maybe something more like:  (1d4 + Mod) + (1d4 -1)

Then only the first portion would scale with monk levels but an extra 3 dmg could be done for claws without it being OP.  At first level it would be significant increase in dmg that would eventually not add up to much.

The Leonin gives the option to use claws for slashing damage, the Monk gives the option to use Dex for unarmed strikes. Combining them results in the capacity to use both resulting in Dex being the the Ability used and slashing being the damage type for the same attack.

What's your thoughts IamSposta on a house rule of them doing more dmg than a non-clawed Monk?

I would only want to house rule this if it makes good game sense and doesn't go OP.

I feel that second formulae helps out a lot in the lowest levels and then just give some added flavor with only a 0 to 3 dmg bump in later levels. Maybe I am not seeing something.

I don’t use that houserule, or one like it. (If you and your table like the idea then there’s nothing wrong with it though.)

If I were to personally try and implement a houserule for something like this then I would probably just have to combination of Natural Weapon + Monk unarmed strikes just increase the die size (so 1d4 becomes 1d6).
   But that could get goofy* if a player tries to combine, say, a Minotaur’s Hornes (Natural Weapon) with a Monk crossed with a Beast Barbarian and the Fighting Initiate feat.... sooner or later they’ll get the damage up to 2d20 if you let them keep going at it. 🤷‍♂️

*(I was gonna type “dicey” there but I didn’t want to punish you like that. 😂😂)

The fact you can use dex instead of str and have the option between bludgeoning or slashing, is good enough. I see absolutely no reason to increase the damage.

One houserule I am trying out though is to give Characters without Natural Weapons or an enhanced Unarmed Strikes a little tiny something more interesting to do when they hit with an Unarmed Strike]. With just a simple (Str mod + 1) for damage, since there’s nothing to roll there. So Small or smaller PCs do 1d2+Str damage when unarmed, and Medium or larger PCs do 1d3+Str damage when unarmed. If the Character has any Natural Weapons or any other enhancements to their Unarmed Strikes, those would obviously supersede.

(Now, admittedly, that means any Kobold, Goblin, Gnome, or Halfling with a Str of 14 or higher could potential 1-punch kill a Commoner. But I figure, if I have to worry about something like that as a balance issue, I’ve probably effed something else up worse than that already. 🤷‍♂️)

From a role playing perspective I am thinking

• a human commoner hits for 1 dmg, goes off and learns martial arts and goes from doing 1 dmg to potentially 4 dmg.
• a Leonin hits for 1d4 dmg, goes off and learns martial arts and still does 1d4 dmg.

That seems wrong from an RP perspective.  Doesn't training make them better in some negligible way?  Know vital points, gets faster, something?

Seems a playable race with natural weapons should get better at using those natural weapons with training versus a commoner of that race with no training.

Quote from BCross >>

From a role playing perspective I am thinking

• a human commoner hits for 1 dmg, goes off and learns martial arts and goes from doing 1 dmg to potentially 4 dmg.
• a Leonin hits for 1d4 dmg, goes off and learns martial arts and still does 1d4 dmg.

That seems wrong from an RP perspective.  Doesn't training make them better in some negligible way?  Know vital points, gets faster, something?

Seems a playable race with natural weapons should get better at using those natural weapons with training versus a commoner of that race with no training.

 
I'd just make a special case where a Leonin Monk's unarmed attacks count as a weapon in regards to the Savage Attacker feat possibly. Basically what I mean is just ignore the whole you can reroll the weapon’s damage dice where it implies it only works for weapons bit and let it work for your Leonin's unarmed strikes.

The other aspect to consider is that Leonin could just innately not need training to use their claws as it is a part of their form, and players would need to consider the other RP aspects that answer why the Leonin decided to become a monk to begin with and lean more into that.

Quote from BCross >>

From a role playing perspective I am thinking

• a human commoner hits for 1 dmg, goes off and learns martial arts and goes from doing 1 dmg to potentially 4 dmg.
• a Leonin hits for 1d4 dmg, goes off and learns martial arts and still does 1d4 dmg.

That seems wrong from an RP perspective.  Doesn't training make them better in some negligible way?  Know vital points, gets faster, something?

Seems a playable race with natural weapons should get better at using those natural weapons with training versus a commoner of that race with no training.

 A Leonin knows how to use its claws and brute force to do 1d4+Str slashing damage with their Natural Weapon, or their punches and kicks with brute force to do 1+Str bludgeoning damage with their Unarmed Strike.

Then they go off and learns martial arts and comes back knowing how to do either 1d4+ (Str or Dex) slashing damage with their Natural Weapon, or1d4+ (Str or Dex) bludgeoning damage with their Unarmed Strike.

They did learn something, it’s just not what you expected them to learn. 🤷‍♂️

Thanks all for the thoughts and feedback!

I guess I can wrap my head around the fact that the training has made them more versatile with their claws vs more damage dealing and their non-clawed attacks do increase both in versatility and damage.

I think it would be better as a bonus action attack similar to how Battlerager armor works.