So I'm working on a build that utilizes Path of the Beast barbarian and monk (subclass TBD). I learned recently that martial arts actually applies to simple weapons. My conundrum is that I don't know if this is a limit of DnD Beyond or there is something mechanically incompatible between these two but shouldn't martial arts apply to PoB natural weapons? I noticed this when my dice/modifiers did not change on my sheet.
For context, the important section of Form of the Beast feature reads "When you enter your rage, you can transform, revealing the bestial power within you. Until the rage ends, you manifest a natural weapon. It counts as a simple melee weapon for you, and you add your Strength modifier to the attack and damage rolls when you attack with it, as normal."
Martial Arts feature reads "You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons." and "You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table."
Currently with a level 20 build with 9 levels in barbarian and 11 in monk, if I rage and choose claws with Form of the Beast, which deal a D6 + Strength and count as simple weapons, shouldn't martial arts scale it up to a D8 + Dexterity if it's higher than my strength?
Yes. That seems to be a flaw with Beyond's implementation of the feature.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Yup, this is just a flaw with DnDBeyond. As a Simple Weapon without the Two-Handed or Heavy weapon properties the Path of the Beast natural weapons count as monk weapons.
Just remember that both Rage bonus damage and Reckless Attacks require you to use Strength as your attack modifier. So while it is possible to use Dexterity with your PotB natural weapons it may not be optimal.
"Simple", "Martial" and "Natural" are all classifications of weapons. "Unarmed strike" is something you do.
Most races that get "Natural" weapons also have text allowing them to be used to do unarmed strikes (which normally cannot be done with a weapon). However those "Natural" weapons are not specified to also be "Simple" or "Martial" weapons, which means they might not interact with other features (like being Monk weapons).
The PotB Barbarian though gets a weapon that is defined as being both a "Natural" and a "Simple" weapon and thus it can qualify as a Monk weapon.
This is probably why D&D Beyond doesn't support it. You'll probably have to set up something through the homebrew feature.
Unfortunately the archived tweet from Mike Mearls does not capture the specific questions he was addressing. The only reason we have to infer he was talking about natural weapons is because of the title sageadvice.eu chose to give this page when they archived the tweet. Without the specific questions Mike Mearls was addressing we do not know if he was referring to a specific feature that grants natural weapons or natural weapons more generally. What he says is true for natural weapons in general, however many player accessible natural weapons like Tabaxi claws and Dhampir bite contain language that creates specific exceptions to this general rule.
Honestly, it seems to me he was talking about natural weapons more generally, like those given to monsters that players can use via Wild Shape or Polymorph.
*Edit* Also worth noting, this tweet was from May 19th, 2015. At the time the only officially published race with natural weapons were the Aarakocra, which had only been around for barely more than a month as the Elemental Evil Player's Companion was published on April 16th, 2015. So he might have been answering a question about the Aarakocra Talons feature (though if he was, then what he says is straight up contradicting the published rules for that feature). But he certainly wasn't talking about the PotB natural weapons, as they did not exist yet.
Unfortunately the archived tweet from Mike Mearls does not capture the specific questions he was addressing. The only reason we have to infer he was talking about natural weapons is because of the title sageadvice.eu chose to give this page when they archived the tweet. Without the specific questions Mike Mearls was addressing we do not know if he was referring to a specific feature that grants natural weapons or natural weapons more generally. What he says is true for natural weapons in general, however many player accessible natural weapons like Tabaxi claws and Dhampir bite contain language that creates specific exceptions to this general rule.
Interestingly enough if you have a bit stricter settings for scripts that makes tweets not embed properly then you get to see the question too. =)
@Sam_Urfer@JRobsonSFthat also came up as a question in regards to Minotaur monks: the gore attack, not unarmed, not a monk weapon? not unarmed, not a monk weapon
*Edit* Also worth noting, this tweet was from May 19th, 2015. At the time the only officially published race with natural weapons were the Aarakocra, which had only been around for barely more than a month as the Elemental Evil Player's Companion was published on April 16th, 2015. So he might have been answering a question about the Aarakocra Talons feature (though if he was, then what he says is straight up contradicting the published rules for that feature). But he certainly wasn't talking about the PotB natural weapons, as they did not exist yet.
As the tweet mentions Minotaur there is another possible explanation. AFAIK all playable Minotaur races call the feature "Goring Rush" but the Minotaur creature in the Monster Manual (which was out in 2015) doesn't have that feature, instead it has an attack called "Gore". And that would explain the answer too as the playable Minotaur races has "Horns" that are called out as unarmed strikes (which would clash with Mearls answer just as the Talons would). The MM Minotaur though doesn't have a horn feature, it has "Gore" which is defined as a melee weapon attack (and thus match the answer).
I'm just guessing that someone was homebrewing a bit using the MM Minotaur as a template for a monk PC, might have been clearer if the full tweet chain still existed.
No it's not. That's why "Counts as" was used in place of "is" or "are". Argue the semantics if you want to, it doesn't change whether or not D&D Beyond allows for the OP to do what (s)he wants to do without using homebrew.
Likewise, you can complain about the date of the tweet, which I actually referenced in the post you quoted. That also doesn't change D&D Beyond's programming. Nor does championing another explanation for what "he really meant".
The OP's conundrum is not whether to allow the natural weapons to use the monk Martial Arts die. It's that D&D Beyond didn't allow it on his/her sheet.
The OP's conundrum is not whether to allow the natural weapons to use the monk Martial Arts die. It's that D&D Beyond didn't allow it on his/her sheet.
That is false. Read the original post again. The conundrum is whether or not the rules would allow it. How it was programmed isn't in question, as that's very clearly stated right off the bat.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
No it's not. That's why "Counts as" was used in place of "is" or "are". Argue the semantics if you want to, it doesn't change whether or not D&D Beyond allows for the OP to do what (s)he wants to do without using homebrew.
Likewise, you can complain about the date of the tweet, which I actually referenced in the post you quoted. That also doesn't change D&D Beyond's programming. Nor does championing another explanation for what "he really meant".
The OP's conundrum is not whether to allow the natural weapons to use the monk Martial Arts die. It's that D&D Beyond didn't allow it on his/her sheet.
Ehh, you're in the wrong here. They don't use "is" because your hands do not literally turn into weapons but rather can be used as weapons. This clarifies that they can also still be used as hands for the purposes of holding and manipulating things, which you cannot do with weapons coming out of your wrists.
Furthermore, what else do you think "counts as" could mean other than "for the purposes of other game features that reference simple or natural weapons?" There's no other reason for them to "count as" a weapon.
The beast barbarian was released many years after the tweet you're referencing. Because of the known ambiguity in past features, they made the wording very clear for beast barbarian to avoid the exact issue you're citing.
Cool. So what's your theory as to why the OP can't get the dndbeyond app to do what you believe I'm so clearly wrong about? How does the OP go about resolving the problem? Why did you not address any of that in your post?
Ehh?
Claws actually are weapons. So your hands would actually turn into weapons if they turned into claws. That's why the wording is so clear. They count as, not are, because they are not intended to be usable as monk weapons. Hence why it is (according to the OP) not supported by dndbeyond. Why else would it not be supported if the 2015 tweet, which was tweeted many years before your post here, did not apply to the barbarian path just as it doesn't apply to the minotaur gore?
Is it your assertion that dndbeyond is in the wrong here and that you're not?
I just tested something to see if it would work. I made a lvl 20 monk minotaur to see if DnDBeyond would change the damage dice of the horns from 1d6 to 1d10. Surprisingly enough, it did. So DnDBeyond recognizes that a minotaur's horns are unarmed strikes regardless of their origin as "natural melee weapons" thus the damage was changed to a D10 and it was able to choose dexterity over strength as my modifier. I can 100% confirm this as I just tested it. I don't know if this supports your argument or not but this is a fact nonetheless. I think in that case it only cares about the fact that the horns register as a unarmed attack in the mechanics. I think the problem lies in that for PoB's wording, though it does say they count as simple weapons for you, they do NOT count as unarmed for some reason. I honestly want to say that this is a design oversight with the mechanics because it does not make sense.
Is it your assertion that dndbeyond is in the wrong here and that you're not?
Yes, that is what we are asserting.
DnDBeyond is not an authoritative source on the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, the rulebooks are. One needs only look at the Bugs & Support forum or try to use the Barbarian's Rage feature to see the problems with assuming DnDBeyond is a complete and authoritative implementation of D&D's rules.
As for "Counts as" versus "is", this is a common wording used in the rules and the Bard's Magical Secrets feature is a prime example of it (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/bard#MagicalSecrets). If we were to apply your interpretation of "Counts as" being substantively different from "is" to this feature then a Bard would be unable to cast spells learned via Magical Secrets not already on the Bard spell list because Bards can only cast Bard spells when using their Spellcasting feature. Hopefully it is obvious that this is not how the feature is intended to work.
If you make a Bard on DnDBeyond and pick a spell like Prismatic Wall, or Flame Blade as your Magical Secret spell you will see that DnDBeyond has no trouble with this and even correctly uses your Charisma as the spell's spellcasting modifier, rather than Intelligence or Wisdom respectively. So either DnDBeyond is bugged in how it handles the Path of the Beast's Form of the Beast natural weapons, or DnDBeyond is bugged in how it handles Bard's Magical Secrets spells.
I think the problem lies in that for PoB's wording, though it does say they count as simple weapons for you, they do NOT count as unarmed for some reason. I honestly want to say that this is a design oversight with the mechanics because it does not make sense.
That part doesn't make a difference. Monks can use either Unarmed Strikes or Simple Weapons so the PoB's Natural Weapons should still count. This is a DDB issue, either someone misunderstood the rules or they failed at coding them into their system.
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So I'm working on a build that utilizes Path of the Beast barbarian and monk (subclass TBD). I learned recently that martial arts actually applies to simple weapons. My conundrum is that I don't know if this is a limit of DnD Beyond or there is something mechanically incompatible between these two but shouldn't martial arts apply to PoB natural weapons? I noticed this when my dice/modifiers did not change on my sheet.
For context, the important section of Form of the Beast feature reads "When you enter your rage, you can transform, revealing the bestial power within you. Until the rage ends, you manifest a natural weapon. It counts as a simple melee weapon for you, and you add your Strength modifier to the attack and damage rolls when you attack with it, as normal."
Martial Arts feature reads "You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons." and "You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table."
Currently with a level 20 build with 9 levels in barbarian and 11 in monk, if I rage and choose claws with Form of the Beast, which deal a D6 + Strength and count as simple weapons, shouldn't martial arts scale it up to a D8 + Dexterity if it's higher than my strength?
Yes. That seems to be a flaw with Beyond's implementation of the feature.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Yup, this is just a flaw with DnDBeyond. As a Simple Weapon without the Two-Handed or Heavy weapon properties the Path of the Beast natural weapons count as monk weapons.
Just remember that both Rage bonus damage and Reckless Attacks require you to use Strength as your attack modifier. So while it is possible to use Dexterity with your PotB natural weapons it may not be optimal.
"Counts as" is not the same as "is". According to a 2015 tweet by Mike Mearls, natural weapons are not unarmed strikes or monk weapons.
This is probably why D&D Beyond doesn't support it. You'll probably have to set up something through the homebrew feature.
Yes it is.
No, you have misunderstood what he said.
"Simple", "Martial" and "Natural" are all classifications of weapons. "Unarmed strike" is something you do.
Most races that get "Natural" weapons also have text allowing them to be used to do unarmed strikes (which normally cannot be done with a weapon). However those "Natural" weapons are not specified to also be "Simple" or "Martial" weapons, which means they might not interact with other features (like being Monk weapons).
The PotB Barbarian though gets a weapon that is defined as being both a "Natural" and a "Simple" weapon and thus it can qualify as a Monk weapon.
Unfortunately the archived tweet from Mike Mearls does not capture the specific questions he was addressing. The only reason we have to infer he was talking about natural weapons is because of the title sageadvice.eu chose to give this page when they archived the tweet. Without the specific questions Mike Mearls was addressing we do not know if he was referring to a specific feature that grants natural weapons or natural weapons more generally. What he says is true for natural weapons in general, however many player accessible natural weapons like Tabaxi claws and Dhampir bite contain language that creates specific exceptions to this general rule.
Honestly, it seems to me he was talking about natural weapons more generally, like those given to monsters that players can use via Wild Shape or Polymorph.
*Edit* Also worth noting, this tweet was from May 19th, 2015. At the time the only officially published race with natural weapons were the Aarakocra, which had only been around for barely more than a month as the Elemental Evil Player's Companion was published on April 16th, 2015. So he might have been answering a question about the Aarakocra Talons feature (though if he was, then what he says is straight up contradicting the published rules for that feature). But he certainly wasn't talking about the PotB natural weapons, as they did not exist yet.
Interestingly enough if you have a bit stricter settings for scripts that makes tweets not embed properly then you get to see the question too. =)
As the tweet mentions Minotaur there is another possible explanation. AFAIK all playable Minotaur races call the feature "Goring Rush" but the Minotaur creature in the Monster Manual (which was out in 2015) doesn't have that feature, instead it has an attack called "Gore".
And that would explain the answer too as the playable Minotaur races has "Horns" that are called out as unarmed strikes (which would clash with Mearls answer just as the Talons would). The MM Minotaur though doesn't have a horn feature, it has "Gore" which is defined as a melee weapon attack (and thus match the answer).
I'm just guessing that someone was homebrewing a bit using the MM Minotaur as a template for a monk PC, might have been clearer if the full tweet chain still existed.
No it's not. That's why "Counts as" was used in place of "is" or "are". Argue the semantics if you want to, it doesn't change whether or not D&D Beyond allows for the OP to do what (s)he wants to do without using homebrew.
Likewise, you can complain about the date of the tweet, which I actually referenced in the post you quoted. That also doesn't change D&D Beyond's programming. Nor does championing another explanation for what "he really meant".
The OP's conundrum is not whether to allow the natural weapons to use the monk Martial Arts die. It's that D&D Beyond didn't allow it on his/her sheet.
That is false. Read the original post again. The conundrum is whether or not the rules would allow it. How it was programmed isn't in question, as that's very clearly stated right off the bat.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Ehh, you're in the wrong here. They don't use "is" because your hands do not literally turn into weapons but rather can be used as weapons. This clarifies that they can also still be used as hands for the purposes of holding and manipulating things, which you cannot do with weapons coming out of your wrists.
Furthermore, what else do you think "counts as" could mean other than "for the purposes of other game features that reference simple or natural weapons?" There's no other reason for them to "count as" a weapon.
The beast barbarian was released many years after the tweet you're referencing. Because of the known ambiguity in past features, they made the wording very clear for beast barbarian to avoid the exact issue you're citing.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Cool. So what's your theory as to why the OP can't get the dndbeyond app to do what you believe I'm so clearly wrong about? How does the OP go about resolving the problem? Why did you not address any of that in your post?
Ehh?
Claws actually are weapons. So your hands would actually turn into weapons if they turned into claws. That's why the wording is so clear. They count as, not are, because they are not intended to be usable as monk weapons. Hence why it is (according to the OP) not supported by dndbeyond. Why else would it not be supported if the 2015 tweet, which was tweeted many years before your post here, did not apply to the barbarian path just as it doesn't apply to the minotaur gore?
Is it your assertion that dndbeyond is in the wrong here and that you're not?
I just tested something to see if it would work. I made a lvl 20 monk minotaur to see if DnDBeyond would change the damage dice of the horns from 1d6 to 1d10. Surprisingly enough, it did. So DnDBeyond recognizes that a minotaur's horns are unarmed strikes regardless of their origin as "natural melee weapons" thus the damage was changed to a D10 and it was able to choose dexterity over strength as my modifier. I can 100% confirm this as I just tested it. I don't know if this supports your argument or not but this is a fact nonetheless. I think in that case it only cares about the fact that the horns register as a unarmed attack in the mechanics. I think the problem lies in that for PoB's wording, though it does say they count as simple weapons for you, they do NOT count as unarmed for some reason. I honestly want to say that this is a design oversight with the mechanics because it does not make sense.
Yes, that is what we are asserting.
DnDBeyond is not an authoritative source on the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, the rulebooks are. One needs only look at the Bugs & Support forum or try to use the Barbarian's Rage feature to see the problems with assuming DnDBeyond is a complete and authoritative implementation of D&D's rules.
As for "Counts as" versus "is", this is a common wording used in the rules and the Bard's Magical Secrets feature is a prime example of it (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/bard#MagicalSecrets). If we were to apply your interpretation of "Counts as" being substantively different from "is" to this feature then a Bard would be unable to cast spells learned via Magical Secrets not already on the Bard spell list because Bards can only cast Bard spells when using their Spellcasting feature. Hopefully it is obvious that this is not how the feature is intended to work.
If you make a Bard on DnDBeyond and pick a spell like Prismatic Wall, or Flame Blade as your Magical Secret spell you will see that DnDBeyond has no trouble with this and even correctly uses your Charisma as the spell's spellcasting modifier, rather than Intelligence or Wisdom respectively. So either DnDBeyond is bugged in how it handles the Path of the Beast's Form of the Beast natural weapons, or DnDBeyond is bugged in how it handles Bard's Magical Secrets spells.
That part doesn't make a difference. Monks can use either Unarmed Strikes or Simple Weapons so the PoB's Natural Weapons should still count. This is a DDB issue, either someone misunderstood the rules or they failed at coding them into their system.