DND is a weird mix of too many rules and not enough rules.
It’s too many rules written with too much haste and no testing. You end up with a ton of rules that aren’t clear and contradict each other constantly. It’s honestly a shit system. New players really should be told to play Pathfinder 2e at this point, not D&D5e. If the company being complete shit wasn’t enough of a reason, the rules making a lot more sense should be.
New players really should be told to play Pathfinder 2e at this point, not D&D5e
It’s unfortunate that DND 5e is the sole mega popular game.
People who want fantasy tactical combat would probably do well with Pathfinder 2e. But people who just want to tell a fun story would probably have a lot more fun with something lighter, like Fate.
There’s so many games out there and most don’t get the love they deserve
I can’t imagine too many scenarios where allowing someone who is wielding a one-handed (or versatile) weapon and nothing in the off hand to have a bonus action unarmed strike to be game-breaking. Seems like an easy call to me.
So we’re just giving out bonus actions now? /s
Free actions? In this economy?
Yeah, especially when one is likely much more powerful than the other. If you are a monk with a sword you are wasting your time. If you are a Warrior* with a free hand you are wasting your time.
*Sorry, that should have been Fighter, I’m sick, and I’ve been reading too many variant rulesets while I’m sitting at home.
If you have nothing else to do with your bonus action that round then it isn’t really a waste of time, no matter how bad it is. 1 damage is sometimes all you need.
So there’s a few issues here:
- Unarmed Strikes do not require an open hand. Punches, kicks, and slams all count as the same Unarmed Strike
- If you were to allow this, there would be no reason to allow someone with two Shortswords or a Greataxe to do a BA strike
- …which would then render the BA attack from Polearm Master moot since they no longer need a feat to do that
- I’ll also note that the fighter with a sword in one hand and nothing in the other is likely using the Duelist fighting style, so that sword attack is effectively two die sizes larger. A Duelist Longsword is roughly equivalent to a Greatsword to put it in perspective
At the end of the day, allowing martials to perform a BA Unarmed Strike wouldn’t be game breaking, but it needs to be applied universally which has secondary implications
As far as I remember the rules, unarmed strike damage is 1 + Str modifier (i.e., a 1d1 damage die). And anyone untrained in unarmed strikes (not monk, not having the Tavern Brawler feat or similar) couldn’t add their prof bonus to the attack roll. This makes it significantly weaker than a proper dual wielding build or something like PAM, where the attacker typically gets a proper damage die and prof bonus. Which is why it doesn’t seem like a big deal to allow it.
Unarmed strikes can be done for flavor with kicks, elbows, etc. But mechanically I’d allow it as a proper bonus action if the character were wielding a single weapon without a shield. Anyone can describe anything however they want for flavor, I’m just talking about balancing the action economy.
Unarmed strikes with kicks and elbows and such aren’t just flavor, it’s written in the rules that you can use any part of your body.
Instead of using a weapon to make a melee attack, you can use a punch, kick, head-butt, or similar forceful blow. In game terms, this is an Unarmed Strike—a melee attack that involves you using your body to damage, grapple, or shove a target within 5 feet of you.
The mechanics don’t state you need a free hand anywhere.
Yes, I’m aware what the rules say. And those rules specify that an unarmed attack is one option when doing a melee attack. And there are other rules that specify when you can make a melee attack. OPs post was noting the weirdness of D&D, in that there are some things that aren’t explicitly specified in the rules. Specifically, whether using two fists counts as dual-wielding (RAW, it doesn’t).
According to the rules, characters can make a melee attack when performing the Attack action (plus in a number of other cases). Most of the time, the Attack action involves one or more attacks with a weapon (martial classes get more than one starting at level 5).
So any weapon attack can be substituted as an unarmed attack. A character wielding a greataxe who can normally make two attacks with the Attack action could substitute one or both of those attacks with kicks, elbows, or for flavor, releasing the weapon with one hand and bitchslapping their opponent.
The question isn’t whether someone wielding other weapons can make an unarmed attack, it’s a question of when. More specifically, when can a character use a bonus action to make an unarmed attack.
The rules also contain information about dual-wielding weapons:
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand. You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.
If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it.
OP’s post calls out that fighting bare-fisted would not qualify as two-weapon fighting, and thus RAW a character fighting unarmed could not use a Bonus Action to make an additional attack (despite “wielding” two fists).
My point was that, as a GM, I would rule that fighting unarmed, or fighting with a single one-handed weapon and not having a shield, would qualify as being able to make an additional attack with a bonus action per the two weapon fighting rules.
But per the rules, landing an unarmed attack in this scenario would result in a maximum of one (1) point of damage, as the Str modifier would not be added to the damage (unless the character had some other benefit that improved it, such as a class feature or feat). So there’s no reason to not allow it, as it’s a pretty weak option.
You need to be trained in some sort of unarmed fighting style to be able to throw a kick in between slashes. If you did it untrained, it would leave you unbalanced and prone to get hit.
Makes sense to let a monk with a quarterstaff do it and not a barb with a great axe.
Instead of using a weapon to make a melee attack, you can use a punch, kick, headbutt, or similar forceful blow. In game terms, this is an Unarmed Strike
D&D isn’t a real world simulator. It values them all equally.
You technically can’t do an unarmed strike if you have a 2hander. Quarterstaves are versatile weapons, which allow for monks to do kicks while using them.
I know what you said, but the mechanics still don’t allow for kicks with a regular 2hander. I was trying to rationalise the actual mechanics with some real world logic.
Do you know where it says you can’t unarmed strike while holding a two handed weapon? I’m not seeing a requirement for a free hand in the rules.
They specifically don’t require a free hand
I got lost in the reeds, I though we were talking about bonus action unarmed attacks, which, for doing a bonus action attack you need a light weapon and only monks consider unarmed attacks “light” for the purposes of bonus action attacks. So yeah, fighters RAW can’t bonus action unarmed strike with their “offhand” because they don’t consider their first/feet light weapons.
In any case, you are right, anyone should be able to use their whole action to kick someone even if they are wielding a 2hander, but only monks can do it as a bonus action effectively, if they are using versatile monk weapons like quarterstaves.
I know you wanted for references, but since I changed my argument you might not need them anymore. If you want I can search proper references.
Anytime a show or movie shows a sword fight where someone also gets punched in the face is just good choriography.
There’s a phenomenon in TTRPGs called a Mermaids Amulet. There was an item in a game that let a mermaid breathe in air, which was the ONLY thing that indicated they normally couldn’t. In short, a rule was only shown to exist by an ability to overcome it.
Monks have the ability to make a bonus action unarmed strike after making an attack, which would be redundant if the dual wielding rules let you do that.
thought that just let them add their modifier to the second attack
If that was the case, it’d be phrased more like Two Weapon Fighting from the fighter’s fighting styles. But instead of saying you can add your modifier, it says you can make an unarmed strike. Which means you couldn’t before.
An Unarmed Strike without modifier would also be literally 1 point of damage, barring Monk or Unarmed Fighting Style
I am directly talking about the Monk, though
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If you are with a mermaid with this, can you summon the amulate from around their neck?
People desperately need to understand that mechanical rules are there for balancing and taking them so painfully literally just isn’t necessary.
You only get one unarmed attack on the dice, but if you want to say you did the damage in two or three hits instead of one then go for it, it literally does not matter. You can even say you missed one attack and them wound up for a sneaky second one!
Follow the rules for number related things and roleplay and tell a story for being cool related things.
As DM, I’ll have you roll the dice, tell you if it succeeded or not, and then have YOU describe what happens based on the roll.
But with this particular thing, it’s not really about the story. It’s the player trying to maximize their bonuses so the dice will be more favorable. In which case, sure. You can dual wield your hands. But you’re still taking a penalty with your off-hand unless you have the feat that removes it. You ever try to punch someone with your non-dominant arm? You definitely take a penalty IRL, unless you’re ambidextrous.
An unarmed strike is a weapon attack. When you make a weapon attack, you can use a bonus action to make another weapon attack with your offhand. It seems pretty straightforward and intuitive that your offhand weapon attack could be using your bare hand.
… and this is why I don’t play D&D. It’s all abstract. It’s more like a board game than an RPG.
[Obviously, this is just my opinion, and it’s subjective, and it’s probably wrong. But, we are where we are.]
You have to abstract something for a game, though. So are you saying you want it less abstract in that you want less of it to rely on dice (and thus more role playing), or do you want it less abstract in that you want more crunch and mechanics for, like, pooping?
I was more thinking about the abstraction of things like character classes and levels. “I’m a knight and can only more in L-shapes.” or “I’m a seventh level human.” That’s what I mean about it being more like a board game than an RPG. Compare “I’m a third level barbarian” to, eg, Call of Cthulhu and “I’m a pilot who was a POW in WWI which is when I picked up fluency in German.” One of those is a potential character, the other is just a playing piece.
That’s all up to how you play the game, then. I’ve been in games that are both; ones where I played a “human wizard” and ones where I didn’t know what the other characters’ classes were because they were just, like…Zaraaraasnaan, dude. You know, Z?
Edit: And some games that turned from one to the other, honestly.
Zaraaraasnaan sounds more like a real person than a game piece. What character class am I?
That’s a character in the PF2e game I’ve played every week for the past year. I know he’s a gnome because he and the other gnome in the party are total buddies and talk about gnome life all the time. And he’s very sneaky and stealthy, but he also does some magic stuff and is very loud and opinionated. So maybe he’s a rogue, but honestly I couldn’t tell you.
Well good. I feel like you shouldn’t (easily) be able to tell. My question was about me, though. What character class am I? I’m good at soft people skills, cooking, archery, carpentry, languages, project management… am I allowed to wear metal armor? Can I cast spells?
My point isn’t that D&D is bad, it’s not, but it’s also not for me. Different people like different things and that’s great. If you like knowing that someone is playing a cleric or a barbarian (and therefore you also know all the associated limitations and specials of that character), I’m not trying to piss on your picnic. But for me it’s too much like ‘I play a knight and can only more in L-shapes’. Like I said, game pieces, not characters.
In what way? The die tell you success rate so you can’t just say “I succeed at everything” and you use your creativity to bring it all to life.
Your comment as written, especially with the clear example in my first comment, reads like “I’m not creative enough to work within the system”. I’m guessing that isn’t your point but I’m not sure what else to read it as.
There are other games with fewer mechanical rules where you can go crazy with this kinda stuff. D&D is one of the most mechanically crunchy ones out there
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Ugh, this is reminding me that my DM swears that my dual wielding, grappling rune knight/barbarian’s fists are not “melee weapons” and thus cannot use any of the runes that are activated by a melee weapon.
If Bruce Lee’s were licensed as lethal weapons, then why the hell can’t mine, Dan!?
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I’d allow this but, I’d let it just be the flat Str score of an attack.
Monks get to have their unarmed strike to be special.
The prone stuff seems a bit OP. I’d make it a part of Crusher instead.
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theminions@lemmy.world The prone stuff also just seems unbelievable. Jabbing someone with your off-hand isn’t going to knock anyone over. It’s not a running body check against someone who isn’t bracing.
I see this all of the time in the PF2r subreddit. Everyone wants to know why it’s so hard to push enemies around or knock them over, as if they’re pro-wrestlers desperate to oversell for you for a paycheque, and not creatures who are opposing your attempts to do those things.
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I think that has less to do with monks and more to do with your players.
That is massively more powerful than a RAW normal action unarmed attack, which does a single point of damage with no other riders.
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The whole basis of this (nonsense) argument, and related ones, is that “weapon” is defined as “one of the entries in the ‘weapons’ table in the DMG”, rather than y’know, the normal meaning of the word. But there is zero indication that this’d be the case, it’s just powergaming chudslop.
Treantmonk has been a disaster for tbe 5e community.
Jarvis, translate this comment into English
DMG: Acronym, Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Powergaming [verb]: The practice of optimising games above all other concerns, even fun.
Chud [noun]: A horrible creature that lives in the sewers and survives by licking piss off of boots. Sort like a goblin or ghoul.
Slop [noun]: Art that is of low quality.
Treantmonk [proper noun]: popular Youtuber that designs genuinely impressive powergaming builds for 5e, but frequently uses bad-faith arguments like this.
“X has been a disaster for Y”: A snowclone, ah, alas, I forget where this one comes from.
5e is the disaster
Well, yeah. If the sword is so heavy that you need two hands to wield it…then, it’s a two-handed weapon. It’s only considered “dual wielding” if both your hands are holding separate weapons. So, sword in one hand and an empty handed attack with the other, counts.
Stuff like this is why I like my DM so much. He has basically a “common sense” time for stuff like this where if an action makes good common sense within the world he’s built (like a warrior type being able to punch someone after swinging a sword, or a brawler type being able to use both their fists without having to have some esoteric attribute attached to their character sheet), it’s allowed, and you can roll for it.
but what if you hold 2 gnomes on both hands, can you then quadwield?
Unarmed Strikes are not just punches, they have nothing to do with how many hands you have. You can even Unarmed Strike with a weapon in each hand. If you want to “dual wield” Unarmed Strikes, go Monk.
As someone with a similar hobby, I personally hate this clip. It’s obviously choreographed, but I just don’t find concussions funny anymore.
weird… am I the only one who grew up w/ ‘dual wielding is two weapons of the same kind’ table rule? hence, the dual label…
DW in real life means that you have two weapons, of any kind. It literally means that you are wielding two. Not a pair.
is there something in 5e for paired weapons then?
It literally means that you are wielding two. Not a pair.
guess that makes sense.
Rapier and main gauche was my first idea of dual wielding, shrug
To be fair, the official D&D rules call it “Two-Weapon Fighting”. Not sure if it’s to avoid this confusion.
Identical weapons are what I typically picture in that scenario, but it makes sense mechanically to allow different types (especially with a rapier/dagger combo being a thing in a lot of fantasy, and probably historically? I dunno).
that is helpful.
I probably am also getting mixed memories from playing TMNT/palladium, which had some kind of specialization for two of the same weapons… unless my brain is absolute tapioca, which, considering the hellscape out there, isn’t much of a stretch…
Not completely right
(5.5e) Two-weapon fighting is a Fighting Style that only some classes can get.
Dual Wielder is a general Feat that any character of level 4 with str or dex 13 or higher can take.
Anyone can dual wield when their main weapon has the Light property.
There are three things in the rules that I’m aware of that talk about fighting with two weapons:
- There is a subsection in the basic rules called Two-Weapon Fighting. These are the base rules for anyone using two weapons (BA attack without ability modifier, must use light weapons)
- There is also a fighting style called Two-Weapon Fighting available to fighters and a couple of specific subclasses (Swashbuckler has that option, I think). This fighting style allows you to add your ability modifier to the off-hand attack.
- There is a feat called Dual Wielding (Player’s Handbook) that grants additional bonuses: the weapons don’t have to be light, a +1 AC bonus, and you’re able to draw or stow both weapons at once.
That is true, for the 2014 (5e) version
The 2024 / 5.5e version rules no longer have the “two-weapon fighting” subsection - the rule is now merged into the description of the ‘light’ weapon property
Probably, considering the meaning of dual
Most real life dual wielded weapons were not matched, sword and dagger, katana (one handedb long sword) and wakizashi (short sword)
Can you play as a creature with four arms?
Loxodons (Elephant species) have two arms but can use their trunk to make a grapple attack.
Thikreen have 4 arms. The secondary set can use Light weapons. Note that having 4 arms, each holding a Dagger or other light weapon doesn’t inherently grant any additional attacks.
The best combo I have come up with is using 5.5 weapon mastery ruleson a Berserker Barb, and a 2h weapon with some desirable property like Cleave in your Primary arms, and Scimitars in your secondary arms. After level 5, with attack action you can make 1 attack with your big weapon, Cleave attack if you hit, then 1 attack with the secondary arms Scimitar, then an attack from Nick as part of that same attack action, then a bonus action attack with scimitar. STR bonus on first 2 attacks, +2 Rage bonus on all 5 attacks, +2d6 damage on first hit when Reckless, which you should always use.
![Dual Wielding [Dungeons & Dragons]](https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/cac0f467-f0d7-4bd4-a82d-65eace9616a2.webp){kind=link}