PEACH - Unarmed Strike Proficiency [Archive] - Wizards Community

PEACH - Unarmed Strike Proficiency [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
liquidhypnotic
05-02-07, 06:28 AM First things first: None of this is debated or anything within RAW; I'm talking pure house rules and variants.
*****

I propose... something. Of course I was first considering it a feat, but then I thought that it could work specifically as a new type of proficiency, but ideas are welcome.

Rule (0): Unarmed Strikes are no longer covered under simple weapons, but require their own proficiency.

Unarmed Strike Proficiency [General]
(1) When unarmed, you may deal damage as a monk of level equal to your BAB (so if you take it as a monk, you are dumb). Also, of course this removes the -4 penalty to attack rolls made with unarmed strikes for non-proficiency. This feat/proficiency does not change whether or not you incur AoOs for making unarmed strikes.
(2) This does not count as IUS for anything.
(3) In any given combat, if the number of rounds in which you benefited from this feat exceeds your con mod + str mod, then you are fatigued until the end of the encounter.
(4) If you do take IUS, all that it does is remove the AoOs that you incur for making unarmed strikes, and add 3 to the number of rounds that you can use this feat before you get fatigued. (I personally strongly believe that IUS+IT = AoOs for making trip attempts, but let's NOT get into that here :))
(5) This overlaps with the Monk's Belt; no stacking.

Further rules: (6) All classes with full BAB progression get this proficiency for free. This can be chosen as a fighter bonus feat. (IDK how that would come up, but eh).
***

(0) Clerics and Druids know how to punch people without the -4? Sorcerers don't? Something's weird.
(1) A 20th level +1 BAB type (ftr, pal, rngr, brb) gets to swing a 2d10 around, but all the way up to 19th, he's maxing out at 2d8. Doesn't that make such a character more likely to go unarmed, since it does more damage? No, because you still incur the AoOs, and of course you lose all of the benefits of your focuses and specs and such. I'm thinking of the fact that not everyone throws down their weapons as soon as they can afford a Monk's Belt, which even throws in an AC bonus. Well, then why not just focus and spec in them? Wouldn't that just do away with the monk class? No, because they can still Flurry, and they get all of the neat supernatural thingies. There are things in D&D besides numbers, other reasons to go into monk. And if you want to build a fighter that goes unarmed all the time, then by all means, you should be able to.
(3) Further making this a not very attractive option.
(4) Basically, IUS means to me that unarmed combat becomes a viable combat style for you (essentially you've learned an unarmed martial art that allows you to deal with weapon wielding foes).
(5) Just to clarify. Bonus: How did I word this guy to prevent overlapping? Someone say "I see what you did there."
(6) I hate the proficiencies system as it exists, and vastly prefer the Weapon Group Proficiencies from Unearthed Arcana (available at d20srd.org). I know there is a line between realism and ease of play but I think that this particular subsystem comes down way on the wrong side of the line.

*****
I'm bothered by how completely weak someone is when not armed; it seems to me that there ought to be some situations that you can still clobber your way out of, even if you don't have your signature weapon on you or whatever.

Example: A 20th level fighter is awoken in the middle of the night (so sans armor, items and weapon), surrounded by zombies. Following RAW, he's completely scrood.
Problems:
(1) Every time he tries to throw a punch or whatever, he gets AoOed by everyone in the world. If he had been wearing spiked gauntlets, then suddenly he wouldn't. Why should that be? What has changed?

(2) 1d3 damage + 1/2 str? A 20th level fighter with an un-enhanced strength of 26 hands out 6 damage on average per punch, pre-PA (puh puh puh). That's not enough to drop an average CR 1/2 zombie, and baarely enough to drop a lowly goblin. Add to the fact that there are no rules for interaction between PA and Unarmed Strikes (like a hammer fist technique).

(3) Disarming the BBEG / sundering his/her weapon ends the fight, and that gets to be problematic. You disarm the big blackguard or whatever and he can't just clock you? Come on. Add to that how easy it is to sunder weapons, with their pitiful statistics and the horrible chunkiness of the HP/Hardness system for weapons.

***
I've got love for the game, certainly, but sometimes it just seems so McDonald's, and it gets to be only about numbers and dealing damage. Bah. I tend to start by asking "What can these characters DO?" in terms of epics and heroics, and then trying to think up rules for that. "What kinds of scenarios ought they be able to survive?" I strongly dislike the "make sure it's not broken first, and then publish the thing" approach. I guess I first and foremost dislike the need for such a mentality.

I've got plans in the works for several major system overhauls (all house rules, of course, or some taken from third party OGL sources), and I'll post them where appropriate as I get them written up; see what people think. Thanks, all.
Cala, Legend Reborn
05-02-07, 07:24 AM In before the "this is D&D" posters.

I like how this system sounds. It deals with a lot of sillyness such as the ones you have provided as examples. I may suggest some of this to my DM sometime.
Frugal
05-02-07, 03:43 PM I think the thing is that in medieval times fighter types learned to fight with weapons and didn't focus much on unarmed combat. Now if it makes sense for a world you're making that most fighting types will be trained with unarmed combat then this could make a certain degree of sense but then I'd be more inclined to give them IUS as a bonus feat or something.

The monk gets an unarmed strike damage bonus because he spends a significant amount of his time training with unarmed combat and how to use those blows effectively, giving the same bonus to other classes, who also train with a large variety of other weapons, doesn't make sense to me.
liquidhypnotic
05-02-07, 05:07 PM What you're saying certainly makes a good deal of sense. However, I would like to say that while IUS can represent training in unarmed combat, i.e. the ability to fight someone who has weapons while you do not, so that you no longer incur AoOs, etc, the premise behind my USP (heh heh) is just the ability to friggin slug weak things and knock them out if you're a beefy brawler, a la Indiana Jones or some other rugged male archetype; the ability to ball up your fist and throw it at someone and not look like an idiot doing it. (I'm imagining someone without this proficiency as being literally unable to punch straight). USP does not get rid of the AoOs, nor does it allow you to even deal lethal damage, now that I think about it (although I don't like how this interacts with undead...).

I think of it like this:
With neither feat: An ordinary dude, walking down the street, who's never thrown a punch in his life, and if he tried to slug you, he would hurt himself.
With USP: Maybe he's been in a few bar fights, has hit the bag a few times, whatever. "Stings like a bee."
With IUS: Has learned a few trapping and slapping techniques, perhaps, or he knows how to read opponents and go in for openings so he doesn't get smacked around automatically (no AoOs). Knows how to place deep and focused strikes that do more than superficial smacking damage; they bruise (lethal damage). "Moves like a butterfly."
With both feats, or a monk: Is a martial artist.

Semi-relevant corner case: If Frank West can knock out zombies with one good punch at some point, then Regdar... Also, I'd love to run just a good tavern fight at some point, with no flashy weapons or magic, just bottles and fists and knives and sticks and throwing chairs.

I fully agree with you that IUS is the sort of thing that comes about through specialized training, and so I wouldn't hand it to all brawler types for free.

Hm, alternative idea: USP allows lethal damage, but IUS no longer does. Specify that monks can deal lethal damage with unarmed strikes.

Further annoyances: You can't PA with unarmed strikes because they count as light. I would suggest that USP allows you to count unarmed strikes as either light or one-handed, however you want. Then, I'd suggest another feat that allows you to treat some unarmed attacks as "two handed" (a hammer fist or axe kick or some other slow but powerful technique) for the purposes of PA; perhaps that isn't compatible with Flurry, TWF, or Rage, etc. Maybe it takes a standard action to make a single attack that counts as 2H. Maybe allow it to combine with a charge, so that you could run up to someone and rocket kick him for significant damage. Maybe with WF(US), USP, IUS as pre-reqs (or monk lvl whatever).
Frugal
05-02-07, 10:42 PM Well here's the thing, even a longsword only deals 1d8 damage, I find it highly unlikely that someone who's not primarily training in unarmed combat (a monk) can out-damage a sword. Right now it's slightly worse off than a dagger, which I think makes a certain amount of sense.

You want to do a bar brawl? Well great, everyone's at the same disadvantage in terms of using unarmed strikes and improvised weapons. AoOs aren't much of an issue because unless you have IUS you can't make an AoO with them.

Essentially what I'm saying is I fail to see what the "problem" is. By your reasoning the base damage of every weapon in the game should improve because why should Redgar be stuck dealing a piddly 1d4 damage at level 20 if he's been jumped without his gear and only has a dagger? Or how about shortsword or longsword. Why should he be much more effective if he's caught unarmed than if he were caught with a mundane (non-enchanted) weapon? Well okay, he'd provoke an AoO but that's it.
liquidhypnotic
05-03-07, 12:51 AM Well, out-damage only in that it has a bigger die. There is still an issue of whether or not to allow it to be non-lethal or what, and there is the bonus business to worry about, as well as the damage type restriction. A piker guardsman ambushed by skeletons is, again, scrood.

Maybe just something to allow you to Power Attack with unarmed strikes, even if only as 1-handed weapons. Whatever this something is, I feel it should be available to all of the big fighters.

My brother suggested maybe using the progression for the small monk, or perhaps saying a monk whose level is half of your BAB.

My problem is, once again, how utterly helpless characters are without weapons, combined with how easy it is to disarm an opponent or sunder their weapons. I'm thinking of the original Soul Blade (predecessor to the Soul Calibur games), in which case yeah, if you broke someone's sword, yeah, they were raaather defenseless (they could still smack you around if you weren't careful), but you had to work pretty hard to break their weapons.
Frugal
05-03-07, 07:50 AM Maybe just something to allow you to Power Attack with unarmed strikes, even if only as 1-handed weapons. Whatever this something is, I feel it should be available to all of the big fighters.

Do you mean something like this?

Power Attack [General]
Prerequisite

Str 13.
Benefit

On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a number from all melee attack rolls and add the same number to all melee damage rolls. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus. The penalty on attacks and bonus on damage apply until your next turn.
Special

If you attack with a two-handed weapon, or with a one-handed weapon wielded in two hands, instead add twice the number subtracted from your attack rolls. You can’t add the bonus from Power Attack to the damage dealt with a light weapon (except with unarmed strikes or natural weapon attacks), even though the penalty on attack rolls still applies. (Normally, you treat a double weapon as a one-handed weapon and a light weapon. If you choose to use a double weapon like a two-handed weapon, attacking with only one end of it in a round, you treat it as a two-handed weapon.)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
liquidhypnotic 05-02-07, 06:28 AM	First things first: None of this is debated or anything within RAW; I'm talking pure house rules and variants. *** I propose... something. Of course I was first considering it a feat, but then I thought that it could work specifically as a new type of proficiency, but ideas are welcome. Rule (0): Unarmed Strikes are no longer covered under simple weapons, but require their own proficiency. Unarmed Strike Proficiency [General] (1) When unarmed, you may deal damage as a monk of level equal to your BAB (so if you take it as a monk, you are dumb). Also, of course this removes the -4 penalty to attack rolls made with unarmed strikes for non-proficiency. This feat/proficiency does not change whether or not you incur AoOs for making unarmed strikes. (2) This does not count as IUS for anything. (3) In any given combat, if the number of rounds in which you benefited from this feat exceeds your con mod + str mod, then you are fatigued until the end of the encounter. (4) If you do take IUS, all that it does is remove the AoOs that you incur for making unarmed strikes, and add 3 to the number of rounds that you can use this feat before you get fatigued. (I personally strongly believe that IUS+IT = AoOs for making trip attempts, but let's NOT get into that here :)) (5) This overlaps with the Monk's Belt; no stacking. Further rules: (6) All classes with full BAB progression get this proficiency for free. This can be chosen as a fighter bonus feat. (IDK how that would come up, but eh). * (0) Clerics and Druids know how to punch people without the -4? Sorcerers don't? Something's weird. (1) A 20th level +1 BAB type (ftr, pal, rngr, brb) gets to swing a 2d10 around, but all the way up to 19th, he's maxing out at 2d8. Doesn't that make such a character more likely to go unarmed, since it does more damage? No, because you still incur the AoOs, and of course you lose all of the benefits of your focuses and specs and such. I'm thinking of the fact that not everyone throws down their weapons as soon as they can afford a Monk's Belt, which even throws in an AC bonus. Well, then why not just focus and spec in them? Wouldn't that just do away with the monk class? No, because they can still Flurry, and they get all of the neat supernatural thingies. There are things in D&D besides numbers, other reasons to go into monk. And if you want to build a fighter that goes unarmed all the time, then by all means, you should be able to. (3) Further making this a not very attractive option. (4) Basically, IUS means to me that unarmed combat becomes a viable combat style for you (essentially you've learned an unarmed martial art that allows you to deal with weapon wielding foes). (5) Just to clarify. Bonus: How did I word this guy to prevent overlapping? Someone say "I see what you did there." (6) I hate the proficiencies system as it exists, and vastly prefer the Weapon Group Proficiencies from Unearthed Arcana (available at d20srd.org). I know there is a line between realism and ease of play but I think that this particular subsystem comes down way on the wrong side of the line. *** I'm bothered by how completely weak someone is when not armed; it seems to me that there ought to be some situations that you can still clobber your way out of, even if you don't have your signature weapon on you or whatever. Example: A 20th level fighter is awoken in the middle of the night (so sans armor, items and weapon), surrounded by zombies. Following RAW, he's completely scrood. Problems: (1) Every time he tries to throw a punch or whatever, he gets AoOed by everyone in the world. If he had been wearing spiked gauntlets, then suddenly he wouldn't. Why should that be? What has changed? (2) 1d3 damage + 1/2 str? A 20th level fighter with an un-enhanced strength of 26 hands out 6 damage on average per punch, pre-PA (puh puh puh). That's not enough to drop an average CR 1/2 zombie, and baarely enough to drop a lowly goblin. Add to the fact that there are no rules for interaction between PA and Unarmed Strikes (like a hammer fist technique). (3) Disarming the BBEG / sundering his/her weapon ends the fight, and that gets to be problematic. You disarm the big blackguard or whatever and he can't just clock you? Come on. Add to that how easy it is to sunder weapons, with their pitiful statistics and the horrible chunkiness of the HP/Hardness system for weapons. * I've got love for the game, certainly, but sometimes it just seems so McDonald's, and it gets to be only about numbers and dealing damage. Bah. I tend to start by asking "What can these characters DO?" in terms of epics and heroics, and then trying to think up rules for that. "What kinds of scenarios ought they be able to survive?" I strongly dislike the "make sure it's not broken first, and then publish the thing" approach. I guess I first and foremost dislike the need for such a mentality. I've got plans in the works for several major system overhauls (all house rules, of course, or some taken from third party OGL sources), and I'll post them where appropriate as I get them written up; see what people think. Thanks, all.
Cala, Legend Reborn 05-02-07, 07:24 AM	In before the "this is D&D" posters. I like how this system sounds. It deals with a lot of sillyness such as the ones you have provided as examples. I may suggest some of this to my DM sometime.
Frugal 05-02-07, 03:43 PM	I think the thing is that in medieval times fighter types learned to fight with weapons and didn't focus much on unarmed combat. Now if it makes sense for a world you're making that most fighting types will be trained with unarmed combat then this could make a certain degree of sense but then I'd be more inclined to give them IUS as a bonus feat or something. The monk gets an unarmed strike damage bonus because he spends a significant amount of his time training with unarmed combat and how to use those blows effectively, giving the same bonus to other classes, who also train with a large variety of other weapons, doesn't make sense to me.
liquidhypnotic 05-02-07, 05:07 PM	What you're saying certainly makes a good deal of sense. However, I would like to say that while IUS can represent training in unarmed combat, i.e. the ability to fight someone who has weapons while you do not, so that you no longer incur AoOs, etc, the premise behind my USP (heh heh) is just the ability to friggin slug weak things and knock them out if you're a beefy brawler, a la Indiana Jones or some other rugged male archetype; the ability to ball up your fist and throw it at someone and not look like an idiot doing it. (I'm imagining someone without this proficiency as being literally unable to punch straight). USP does not get rid of the AoOs, nor does it allow you to even deal lethal damage, now that I think about it (although I don't like how this interacts with undead...). I think of it like this: With neither feat: An ordinary dude, walking down the street, who's never thrown a punch in his life, and if he tried to slug you, he would hurt himself. With USP: Maybe he's been in a few bar fights, has hit the bag a few times, whatever. "Stings like a bee." With IUS: Has learned a few trapping and slapping techniques, perhaps, or he knows how to read opponents and go in for openings so he doesn't get smacked around automatically (no AoOs). Knows how to place deep and focused strikes that do more than superficial smacking damage; they bruise (lethal damage). "Moves like a butterfly." With both feats, or a monk: Is a martial artist. Semi-relevant corner case: If Frank West can knock out zombies with one good punch at some point, then Regdar... Also, I'd love to run just a good tavern fight at some point, with no flashy weapons or magic, just bottles and fists and knives and sticks and throwing chairs. I fully agree with you that IUS is the sort of thing that comes about through specialized training, and so I wouldn't hand it to all brawler types for free. Hm, alternative idea: USP allows lethal damage, but IUS no longer does. Specify that monks can deal lethal damage with unarmed strikes. Further annoyances: You can't PA with unarmed strikes because they count as light. I would suggest that USP allows you to count unarmed strikes as either light or one-handed, however you want. Then, I'd suggest another feat that allows you to treat some unarmed attacks as "two handed" (a hammer fist or axe kick or some other slow but powerful technique) for the purposes of PA; perhaps that isn't compatible with Flurry, TWF, or Rage, etc. Maybe it takes a standard action to make a single attack that counts as 2H. Maybe allow it to combine with a charge, so that you could run up to someone and rocket kick him for significant damage. Maybe with WF(US), USP, IUS as pre-reqs (or monk lvl whatever).
Frugal 05-02-07, 10:42 PM	Well here's the thing, even a longsword only deals 1d8 damage, I find it highly unlikely that someone who's not primarily training in unarmed combat (a monk) can out-damage a sword. Right now it's slightly worse off than a dagger, which I think makes a certain amount of sense. You want to do a bar brawl? Well great, everyone's at the same disadvantage in terms of using unarmed strikes and improvised weapons. AoOs aren't much of an issue because unless you have IUS you can't make an AoO with them. Essentially what I'm saying is I fail to see what the "problem" is. By your reasoning the base damage of every weapon in the game should improve because why should Redgar be stuck dealing a piddly 1d4 damage at level 20 if he's been jumped without his gear and only has a dagger? Or how about shortsword or longsword. Why should he be much more effective if he's caught unarmed than if he were caught with a mundane (non-enchanted) weapon? Well okay, he'd provoke an AoO but that's it.
liquidhypnotic 05-03-07, 12:51 AM	Well, out-damage only in that it has a bigger die. There is still an issue of whether or not to allow it to be non-lethal or what, and there is the bonus business to worry about, as well as the damage type restriction. A piker guardsman ambushed by skeletons is, again, scrood. Maybe just something to allow you to Power Attack with unarmed strikes, even if only as 1-handed weapons. Whatever this something is, I feel it should be available to all of the big fighters. My brother suggested maybe using the progression for the small monk, or perhaps saying a monk whose level is half of your BAB. My problem is, once again, how utterly helpless characters are without weapons, combined with how easy it is to disarm an opponent or sunder their weapons. I'm thinking of the original Soul Blade (predecessor to the Soul Calibur games), in which case yeah, if you broke someone's sword, yeah, they were raaather defenseless (they could still smack you around if you weren't careful), but you had to work pretty hard to break their weapons.
Frugal 05-03-07, 07:50 AM	Maybe just something to allow you to Power Attack with unarmed strikes, even if only as 1-handed weapons. Whatever this something is, I feel it should be available to all of the big fighters. Do you mean something like this? Power Attack [General] Prerequisite Str 13. Benefit On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a number from all melee attack rolls and add the same number to all melee damage rolls. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus. The penalty on attacks and bonus on damage apply until your next turn. Special If you attack with a two-handed weapon, or with a one-handed weapon wielded in two hands, instead add twice the number subtracted from your attack rolls. You can’t add the bonus from Power Attack to the damage dealt with a light weapon (except with unarmed strikes or natural weapon attacks), even though the penalty on attack rolls still applies. (Normally, you treat a double weapon as a one-handed weapon and a light weapon. If you choose to use a double weapon like a two-handed weapon, attacking with only one end of it in a round, you treat it as a two-handed weapon.)