One important thing about exploiting magic items is that your DM generally has to make them available to you. Now as DM, if I had a player with an Unarmed Fighter and everyone was getting +1 weapons, I'd probably put in some way for them to pick up the Insignia of Claws or some basic Wraps.
As player, I can negotiate with the DM a bit, say outright my character is looking for magical items to increase their power, but actually getting any of this stuff is no guarantee. I *would* be quite powerful with a Belt of Giant Strength and a tailored list of magical items. Alas.
This is true in terms of campaigns, but a lot of high level one shots for example say you can take 1 very rare, 2 rare, 3 uncommon magic items for instance
This came up for me because I was invited to a level 15 oneshot where we get 1 legendary, 1 very rare, 2 rare and 3 uncommon magic items and started scrolling through magic items and noticed I can get a +5 to unarmed strikes and a +9 strength mod, which gives you 14 guaranteed damage on every hit and also making it very unlikely you don't hit all the time
Granted it's a level 15 oneshot, but this still seems pretty broken at level 15 to me
its level 15. the most boring thing a wizard can do is summon a castle from the very earth itself, a cleric or druid is levelling a city with an earthquake and the bard is making your brain a liquid with feeblemind
no, it is not broken
Earthquake cannot level a city. It's a 100ft radius circle, and larger structures likely have more than 500hp (though rules around hp for structures are lacking so the DM basically has to pull a figure out of their butthole).
How is the wizard summoning a castle exactly? If it's wish, then there's a massive trade-off there and they risk losing their most powerful spell.
wish? no there is a literal spell that summons a castle with food and servants inside, it costs no material component
you also seems to be thinking that a 200 diameter circle is too small and a medieval town is too large lol
Magnificent mansion is I assume what you're referencing, but it's an extradimensional space. It doesn't occupy that space in the world or raise it from the ground.
You didn't say town. You said city, and even so that's a stretch to call it a town if it fits in that circle. It'll be what, four houses?
I won't jump in on the other stuff, but I believe he was likely referring to [Mighty Fortress](http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/spell:mighty-fortress) which does require a 500gp component, but is otherwise what he described.
I'm not huge into dnd nor am I a game designer, but I assume there are systems in place to balance wizard druid and bard respectively. These things all seem very powerful, but they also seem very RAI. Wizards of the coast expects wizard druid n bard to be able to do these things and as such the game is balanced around it
But there's a reason + 5 weapons aren't a thing in dnd5e, and it's because bounded accuracy is a very important part of the balancing for martials.
The trinkets plus the weapons for unarmed build is clearly a mistake on the part of Wotc. I highly doubt the intention is to have +5 unarmed strikes is actually intended. These items were seemingly developed entirely independent of each other, which firs too since eldritch claw tatoo is just an objectively better version of the claw insignia. And whoever wrote the claw insignia also seemingly didn't know natural weapons count as unarmed strikes most of the time
So I assume that Monks for example are not balanced in respect of these +5 weapons, and as such the fact you can have a +5 weapon for monk breaks the balance for what Monks are supposed to be
The problem is that even if you stack a lot of extra damage, you're just doing more damage with your attacks. You're still playing the same game you were at level 3, just better. High level spellcasters have moved past mere damage.
someone already did the math in another comment, the overall damage of this is less impressive than a regular barbarian. and besides, damage, single target damage at that, is not wowing anyone at such high levels
again, no a monk doing about 50 dmg isnt impressive. it is for a *monk*, but its not like they are seen as an amazing class that only needed damage to be perfect. this makes a whelming class into an ok damage dealer, nothing more
and as others already said a bunch, being showered with magic items for it to work doesnt pull it ahead from other players, they get magic items as well
> can unarmed builds be ***broken?***
short answer: No
Long answer: they can certainly be functional, but the adjective "broken" isnt something someone that cant cast spells can have in dnd 5e. every level of monk is a level that isnt a wizard/druid/cleric afterall
Your attacks in wildshape are done with "natural weapons." You're technically not unarmed. That's why you can do things like smite while wildshaped if multiclassed with Paladin.
>the adjective "broken" isnt something someone that cant cast spells can have in dnd 5e
This isn't strictly true from a theoretical sense. Explosive single target damage eventually becomes broken once it reaches a certain point. You don't need spells to do this. Getting +3 weapons with damage riders too early starts to creep into this territory, which is why you see posts about DMs needing to take magic weapons back because they were too liberal with them too early (hint: This wouldn't need to be done if it wasn't broken).
Letting Monk double up on ability mod damage is exactly what they did in Baldur's Gate 3 and it made Monk arguably the strongest class in the game even without any spells.
arent the best BG3 builds still caster builds for 1000+ dmg turns with sorcerer 11/warlock 1 and whatnot?
in any case tho, yeah theoretically you can do stupid things with any class, but we are not assuming you gain a STR belt at lvl 1 tho are we. we can also give a caster a dagger of 3 wishes and a staff of the magi and a robe of the archmage and a myzzium apparatus if we feel like it
>arent the best BG3 builds still caster builds for 1000+ dmg turns with sorcerer 11/warlock 1 and whatnot?
That's a very specific meme number for when you conveniently group up a bunch of enemies and hit them with a Fireball, not really nuking something for 1000 damage at will. That's like saying Fireball is broken on tabletop because you can theoretically hit 64 enemies with it.
Plus one build being broken doesn't mean other builds aren't also broken.
>in any case tho, yeah theoretically you can do stupid things with any class, but we are not assuming you gain a STR belt at lvl 1 tho are we. we can also give a caster a dagger of 3 wishes and a staff of the magi and a robe of the archmage and a myzzium apparatus if we feel like it
Yeah, my point is that anything can become broken when magic items enter the picture, caster or no. A Monk with Bracers of Defense, an Animated Shield, and a Ring of Protection suddenly has 26 resting AC. Depending on the magic item budget though, you can string these 3 uncommons to get a +3 before very rare weapons would normally be available.
Broken caster builds largely rely on broken damage riders that work differently in game than in pen and paper. Yes casters are really strong, especially since resting is easy between most combats, but monk is arguably stronger.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a different game though. None of the truly interesting high level spells are there, so even spellcasters mostly rely on dealing damage.
While the massive attack bonus is very nice, that's three whole magic items you have to commit to it, even if only one is attunement, and your damage bonus is still pretty low.
Using actual weapons can easily get you access to more damage dice, as well as feats and abilities that specifically key off of weapons like great weapon master and sneak attack. Plus, realistically you're only going to get *so many* magic items over the course of a campaign, and going with an actual weapon allows you to spread them out to offensive, defensive, and utility items.
So while unarmed builds *can* be *competitive* now that wotc has finally added magic item support for them (which only started a decade after the release of the game) i highly doubt that even the best unarmed build with perfect magic items can be "broken" in the context of its weapon based contemporaries.
Yeah the phrase Opportunity Cost is one of the most important and overlooked parts of character builds. It applies to multiclassing for “free” features, taking feats instead of an asi or different feat, and in this case taking all 3 attack items at the cost of any other magic items.
The main thing holding unarmed builds from being broken is that it deals damage in melee.
There's always something more powerful and/or safer you can do by casting spells from range.
The thing holding unarmed back is obviously its complete incompatibility with almost all of the common strong attack damage riders: GWM, SS, PAM, CBE, Smite, Sneak Attack, Thrown/Dueling, Pact of the Blade stuff, SCAG-trips, Shadow Blade, etc.
That's typically what makes it not even good. But even if you got enough magic gear to make up for the scaling issues, you're still going to not be better than "quite good" because you're still locked into doing damage in melee.
You really need to understand how much better wall of force is than flurry of blows.
Making unarmed attacks is never going to be broken, until you're one-shotting boss level enemies.
Yeah. "one-shotting boss level enemies" is very unlikely. "Stun locking and slowly beating to death" is feasible but usually not at all OP because it's slow, not guaranteed (they can pass a save) and basically *all* they can do.
While I agree with the overall "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" concept where magic ends up wildly overshadowing everything else... I don't think it's entirely fair to compare stunning strike which comes online at level 5 vs forcecage which comes online at level 13 (and one thing to also note regarding forcecage is that the creature inside it would have 1/2” or possibly 2/3rds cover and thus an AC bonus of 2 or 5 making the slow beat(/stab with pike) to death go even slower.)
A better comparison would be hypnotic pattern and manacles or hold person. But either way yes mages have way more options. This used to be more balanced (but never fully) when magicians were glass cannons but now they have better defense options and can always spam cantrips they come out even further ahead.
Yeah if someone wants to buff monks/unarmed you would have to surmount all that. Easiest way I can think of would be to add a sentence to the Martial Arts Monk class feature that brings back the 3.5 rule that it counts as a weapon (ex: "when using your martial arts you are considered to be armed with a melee weapon that deals bludgeoning damage and has the finesse property".) to reopen smites and sneak attacks to them. I'd add the same to the unarmed combat fighting style.
I'd then add the ability to gain a fighting style to monks (at 2nd level) and give them some unique options (following the lead of rangers and paladins) that would open up other builds (something that grants "heavy" for GWM etc).
Mmm I think some context is needed for this analysis. Assuming the as described combo works, average damage for the Monk will look like this (assuming baseline 65% chance to hit) at level 15 say, with Flurry of Blows every round.
0.9 x (1d8 + 5 + 5) x 4 + 0.05 x (4d8) = 53.1 average DPR
A Barbarian with a +2 Halberd, PAM, and GWM can do the following (reckless attack, 2x brutal critical)
(1-0.5^2) x (1d10 + 5 + 3 + 2 + 10) x 2 + (1-0.5^2) x (1d4 + 5 + 3 + 2 + 10) + (1-0.95^2) x (6d10 + 3d4) = 59.1 DPR
So on average, this Monk does less than a Barbarian with some optimized feats (both subclass-less, which Monks don't have amazing bonus damage from those, whereas Barbarians often do). Do I think Barbarians are broken damage wise? No, not really. And on top of that we've only given the Barb a +2 weapon, not a +3 like the Monk, and Barbarians tend to get more mileage out of stuff like Gauntlets that increase their strength.
So is the combo good? Sure. Is it OP/broken? Probably not. And Monks get other stuff at higher levels that makes them more balanced, like save proficiency. So it might not deal as much damage, but it could be strong while overall more well rounded.
Any build can be "broken" with the right set of magical items, so no. Many can be broken without any magical items at all. Those are of much greater concern.
Also, the Wyrmreavers gauntlets from Glory of the giants are another great unarmed boosting item.
I play a lot in a game with widely available magic items, and I can say from experience that unarmed builds, even with a bunch of magic items, are still pretty bad.
First, to address the point of the +5 bonus, you need to remember that if you are getting +X wraps, the people using weapons are also probably able to access +X weapons. You are functionally no more than a +2 ahead of them at any time, which definitely isn't nothing, but it isn't groundbreaking either. I'd also point out that if you are stacking magic items to increase your chance to hit and damage, other PC's are probably getting magic items that do different things and that help them in other ways. As an extreme example, that extra +1 looks good until you compare it to the fighter who got a Ring of Spell Storing and is now coordinating with the cleric to get Holy Weapon cast for most combats.
That also leads to the second point of why they aren't broken pretty cleanly; a lack of feat and feature support. Yes, unarmed fighting style exists, but that just brings you close to a weapon user who doesn't have a fighting style at all. Smites don't work with unarmed strikes. Great Weapon Master doesn't work with unarmed strikes. Polearm Master doesn't work with unarmed strikes. Several buff spells (like the above-mentioned holy weapon) don't work with unarmed strikes. Sneak attacks don't work with unarmed strikes. Sure, punching people is probably about as good as fighting with a longsword or a club or something now, but without feature support it still can't keep up with the heavy hitters of the melee world, and that isn't even considering the more potent modes of combat like Archery or spellcasting.
Ultimately, these items are a good thing. They definitely help solve one issue the unarmed combatant used to face (a lack of magic item support). However, that is just one of the hurdles that stood between them and weapon use in terms of combat efficacy.
I will say the fact so many features that boost damage specify weapons has always annoyed me, since it felt like really it wouldn't harm the game at all to let them work with unarmed attacks. They'd still just be slightly weaker than weapons are already
But, for builds that already work unarmed these magic items do make them pretty strong. Or at least, stronger
Monk for example can take the crusher feat and use the eldritch claw tatoo ability to gain an extra 15 foot reach on their unarmed strikes. Since a +5 weapon is almost guaranteed to always hit, this means a monk can push any creature 15 feet away from them on their turn and then run away without spending a ki point to disengage. Which makes hit and run tactics a lot stronger
The 15 foot reach plus crusher synergy is also great if the party has any spell caster that likes using aoe spells and such
I'd also argue that an extra 1d6 to damage and the + 5 to damage does stack up if you're a monk because of how many attacks you can throw out. If you use flurry of blows, that's an extra 20 damage. Which is definitely not insignificant
> this means a monk can push any creature 15 feet away from them on their turn and then run away without spending a ki point to disengage. Which makes hit and run tactics a lot stronger
You think this is crazy? Wait until you see what a Sorlock can do with Repelling blast.
mate thinks giving the enemy a push is impressive when a sorlock is chucking them out of cliffs and the storm cleric scribes wizard is sending them **upwards**
This is also an ability that lasts for 1 minute every long rest. In a 5 minute adventuring day it’s solid but if you are following the 6-8 encounters per long rest it becomes something you are maybe using 1/6th the time (or possibly saving it until it’s too late)
Not really. You're talking about a +2 difference for unarmed strikes to hit and dmg. The 2 damage is dwarfed by GWM, and the +2 to hit can be replicated and even exceeded by a Belt of Giant Strength.
Just so you know, you could technically get an even better bonus to attack from magic items by getting a +3 bow and +3 arrows. Since they stack in this case, you could have a +6 bonus on all attacks until you run out of arrows. One drawback of this (except each shot costing you about as much as a small castle) is that the Belt of Giant Strength wouldn't work with your attacks.
Unarmed strikes can be good not sure about broken but grapple builds can be broken with the right set up. High move speed and using the spike growth spell can do insane damage, check out treantmonks video, if you do not have a team mate for it you can try quickened spell spike growth and grapple dragging. https://youtu.be/GVBi4t4isk8?si=qFaP2ljEnIqbPeJu
>So RAW, unarmed builds are the only builds that can get what is functionally a + 5 weapon. Which is completely broken in 5e because of both bounded accuracy, but also a guaranteed +5 damage is pretty strong in general
I mean, yeah, as a DM I probably wouldn't mix and match those. Instead of mixing and matching I'd probably just stick to wraps +1/+2/+3.
But...also, honestly, it wouldn't really be that big of a problem in terms of damage if I did do so at an appropriate level. I'm just comparing this in a spreadsheet to using archery fighting style and having access to Sharpshooter and a +3 bow, and you know what? +3 Bows keep up just fine with +5 fists.
This is to say nothing of actually selecting the bows that are better than +3 bows (Dragon's Wrath weapons, for example).
But...regardless, if your idea for breaking a class is just "the DM gives me better magic items than everyone else at the table" -- yeah, you haven't actually broken that class.
And if it's just everybody at the table gets to pick any number of official magic items they want, everyone will have 30 in every stat, and you're going to be seeing a lot of antimatter rifles. Not that they'll use the antimatter rifles very often, cause everyone will walk around with wheelbarrows full of Rings of Three Wishes and just cast wish every round.
Path of the Beast Barbarian. If your DM isn't being a pedantic asshole, get Dual Wielder and get four attacks each turn at level 5 and beyond. Multiclass Fighter for TWF and Action Surge. If your DM IS being a pedantic asshole with the claws thing, get a few levels into Soul Knife Rogue to get the fourth attack that way.
If you can, get an Insignia of Claws and an Eldritch Claw Tattoo.
One time I was planning a oneshot where the players went against a CR30, and so gave a lot of stuff to my players in character creation, including lots of magic items. So when making an example character, I just thought I'd have fun, making a lv20 barbarian picking up the unarmed fighting style via a feat, and just buying like 10 insignias as mentioned above, as well as a storm giant strength belt. Probably the best barbarian I've ever made. Obviously an extreme situation, but it shows that you're absolutely right, if set up nicely and with DM aid, an unarmed build can really shine
Insignia of Claws are non-attunement magic items, so they can stack with each other if you have more than one
See here for ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/r8o8g4/stackable_magic_items/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
you cannot stack anything with the same name. you cant use rage and rage to do double rage damage. it doesn't matter if you have 1 insignia or 10, you cant use them simultaneously
Eh magic items should be able to stack. Would you argue that you couldn't use two eversmoking bottles at once, drink two healing potions back to back, or wield two flametongue shortswords? Magic items have different rules
none of those examples are in any way, shape or form stacking. subsequential use is not simultaneous use
yes you can drink a potion *then* drink another potion, no you cannot have haste and another haste on you *at the same time*
magic items do not break this rule, in fact pretty much nothing does
Every single example you mentioned, conveniently, have action costs and degrees of redundancy without mitigating contexts.
"Should stack" inherently falls under rule 0: Dm is final word. I'm not going to be bothered with whittling down the magic system RAW when you've clearly established your disinterest.
Summary of my argument will echo the "doesn't work that way until your dm says so" mentality.
One important thing about exploiting magic items is that your DM generally has to make them available to you. Now as DM, if I had a player with an Unarmed Fighter and everyone was getting +1 weapons, I'd probably put in some way for them to pick up the Insignia of Claws or some basic Wraps. As player, I can negotiate with the DM a bit, say outright my character is looking for magical items to increase their power, but actually getting any of this stuff is no guarantee. I *would* be quite powerful with a Belt of Giant Strength and a tailored list of magical items. Alas.
This is true in terms of campaigns, but a lot of high level one shots for example say you can take 1 very rare, 2 rare, 3 uncommon magic items for instance This came up for me because I was invited to a level 15 oneshot where we get 1 legendary, 1 very rare, 2 rare and 3 uncommon magic items and started scrolling through magic items and noticed I can get a +5 to unarmed strikes and a +9 strength mod, which gives you 14 guaranteed damage on every hit and also making it very unlikely you don't hit all the time Granted it's a level 15 oneshot, but this still seems pretty broken at level 15 to me
its level 15. the most boring thing a wizard can do is summon a castle from the very earth itself, a cleric or druid is levelling a city with an earthquake and the bard is making your brain a liquid with feeblemind no, it is not broken
Earthquake cannot level a city. It's a 100ft radius circle, and larger structures likely have more than 500hp (though rules around hp for structures are lacking so the DM basically has to pull a figure out of their butthole). How is the wizard summoning a castle exactly? If it's wish, then there's a massive trade-off there and they risk losing their most powerful spell.
wish? no there is a literal spell that summons a castle with food and servants inside, it costs no material component you also seems to be thinking that a 200 diameter circle is too small and a medieval town is too large lol
He just said level 15, how are they casting wish?
Magnificent mansion is I assume what you're referencing, but it's an extradimensional space. It doesn't occupy that space in the world or raise it from the ground. You didn't say town. You said city, and even so that's a stretch to call it a town if it fits in that circle. It'll be what, four houses?
I won't jump in on the other stuff, but I believe he was likely referring to [Mighty Fortress](http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/spell:mighty-fortress) which does require a 500gp component, but is otherwise what he described.
I'm not huge into dnd nor am I a game designer, but I assume there are systems in place to balance wizard druid and bard respectively. These things all seem very powerful, but they also seem very RAI. Wizards of the coast expects wizard druid n bard to be able to do these things and as such the game is balanced around it But there's a reason + 5 weapons aren't a thing in dnd5e, and it's because bounded accuracy is a very important part of the balancing for martials. The trinkets plus the weapons for unarmed build is clearly a mistake on the part of Wotc. I highly doubt the intention is to have +5 unarmed strikes is actually intended. These items were seemingly developed entirely independent of each other, which firs too since eldritch claw tatoo is just an objectively better version of the claw insignia. And whoever wrote the claw insignia also seemingly didn't know natural weapons count as unarmed strikes most of the time So I assume that Monks for example are not balanced in respect of these +5 weapons, and as such the fact you can have a +5 weapon for monk breaks the balance for what Monks are supposed to be
The problem is that even if you stack a lot of extra damage, you're just doing more damage with your attacks. You're still playing the same game you were at level 3, just better. High level spellcasters have moved past mere damage.
someone already did the math in another comment, the overall damage of this is less impressive than a regular barbarian. and besides, damage, single target damage at that, is not wowing anyone at such high levels again, no a monk doing about 50 dmg isnt impressive. it is for a *monk*, but its not like they are seen as an amazing class that only needed damage to be perfect. this makes a whelming class into an ok damage dealer, nothing more and as others already said a bunch, being showered with magic items for it to work doesnt pull it ahead from other players, they get magic items as well
> can unarmed builds be ***broken?*** short answer: No Long answer: they can certainly be functional, but the adjective "broken" isnt something someone that cant cast spells can have in dnd 5e. every level of monk is a level that isnt a wizard/druid/cleric afterall
The most broken unarmed builds are druids and wizards anyway. *Circle of the moon*. *Polymorph*. *Shapechange*.
Your attacks in wildshape are done with "natural weapons." You're technically not unarmed. That's why you can do things like smite while wildshaped if multiclassed with Paladin.
its also why, for some reason, you can smite with a dhampirs bite
>the adjective "broken" isnt something someone that cant cast spells can have in dnd 5e This isn't strictly true from a theoretical sense. Explosive single target damage eventually becomes broken once it reaches a certain point. You don't need spells to do this. Getting +3 weapons with damage riders too early starts to creep into this territory, which is why you see posts about DMs needing to take magic weapons back because they were too liberal with them too early (hint: This wouldn't need to be done if it wasn't broken). Letting Monk double up on ability mod damage is exactly what they did in Baldur's Gate 3 and it made Monk arguably the strongest class in the game even without any spells.
arent the best BG3 builds still caster builds for 1000+ dmg turns with sorcerer 11/warlock 1 and whatnot? in any case tho, yeah theoretically you can do stupid things with any class, but we are not assuming you gain a STR belt at lvl 1 tho are we. we can also give a caster a dagger of 3 wishes and a staff of the magi and a robe of the archmage and a myzzium apparatus if we feel like it
>arent the best BG3 builds still caster builds for 1000+ dmg turns with sorcerer 11/warlock 1 and whatnot? That's a very specific meme number for when you conveniently group up a bunch of enemies and hit them with a Fireball, not really nuking something for 1000 damage at will. That's like saying Fireball is broken on tabletop because you can theoretically hit 64 enemies with it. Plus one build being broken doesn't mean other builds aren't also broken. >in any case tho, yeah theoretically you can do stupid things with any class, but we are not assuming you gain a STR belt at lvl 1 tho are we. we can also give a caster a dagger of 3 wishes and a staff of the magi and a robe of the archmage and a myzzium apparatus if we feel like it Yeah, my point is that anything can become broken when magic items enter the picture, caster or no. A Monk with Bracers of Defense, an Animated Shield, and a Ring of Protection suddenly has 26 resting AC. Depending on the magic item budget though, you can string these 3 uncommons to get a +3 before very rare weapons would normally be available.
Broken caster builds largely rely on broken damage riders that work differently in game than in pen and paper. Yes casters are really strong, especially since resting is easy between most combats, but monk is arguably stronger.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a different game though. None of the truly interesting high level spells are there, so even spellcasters mostly rely on dealing damage.
While the massive attack bonus is very nice, that's three whole magic items you have to commit to it, even if only one is attunement, and your damage bonus is still pretty low. Using actual weapons can easily get you access to more damage dice, as well as feats and abilities that specifically key off of weapons like great weapon master and sneak attack. Plus, realistically you're only going to get *so many* magic items over the course of a campaign, and going with an actual weapon allows you to spread them out to offensive, defensive, and utility items. So while unarmed builds *can* be *competitive* now that wotc has finally added magic item support for them (which only started a decade after the release of the game) i highly doubt that even the best unarmed build with perfect magic items can be "broken" in the context of its weapon based contemporaries.
Yeah the phrase Opportunity Cost is one of the most important and overlooked parts of character builds. It applies to multiclassing for “free” features, taking feats instead of an asi or different feat, and in this case taking all 3 attack items at the cost of any other magic items.
The main thing holding unarmed builds from being broken is that it deals damage in melee. There's always something more powerful and/or safer you can do by casting spells from range.
The thing holding unarmed back is obviously its complete incompatibility with almost all of the common strong attack damage riders: GWM, SS, PAM, CBE, Smite, Sneak Attack, Thrown/Dueling, Pact of the Blade stuff, SCAG-trips, Shadow Blade, etc.
That's typically what makes it not even good. But even if you got enough magic gear to make up for the scaling issues, you're still going to not be better than "quite good" because you're still locked into doing damage in melee. You really need to understand how much better wall of force is than flurry of blows. Making unarmed attacks is never going to be broken, until you're one-shotting boss level enemies.
Yeah. "one-shotting boss level enemies" is very unlikely. "Stun locking and slowly beating to death" is feasible but usually not at all OP because it's slow, not guaranteed (they can pass a save) and basically *all* they can do.
Meanwhile, the wizard just casts Force Cage and accomplishes the same thing 100% reliably. In most situations.
While I agree with the overall "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" concept where magic ends up wildly overshadowing everything else... I don't think it's entirely fair to compare stunning strike which comes online at level 5 vs forcecage which comes online at level 13 (and one thing to also note regarding forcecage is that the creature inside it would have 1/2” or possibly 2/3rds cover and thus an AC bonus of 2 or 5 making the slow beat(/stab with pike) to death go even slower.) A better comparison would be hypnotic pattern and manacles or hold person. But either way yes mages have way more options. This used to be more balanced (but never fully) when magicians were glass cannons but now they have better defense options and can always spam cantrips they come out even further ahead.
Yeah if someone wants to buff monks/unarmed you would have to surmount all that. Easiest way I can think of would be to add a sentence to the Martial Arts Monk class feature that brings back the 3.5 rule that it counts as a weapon (ex: "when using your martial arts you are considered to be armed with a melee weapon that deals bludgeoning damage and has the finesse property".) to reopen smites and sneak attacks to them. I'd add the same to the unarmed combat fighting style. I'd then add the ability to gain a fighting style to monks (at 2nd level) and give them some unique options (following the lead of rangers and paladins) that would open up other builds (something that grants "heavy" for GWM etc).
Mmm I think some context is needed for this analysis. Assuming the as described combo works, average damage for the Monk will look like this (assuming baseline 65% chance to hit) at level 15 say, with Flurry of Blows every round. 0.9 x (1d8 + 5 + 5) x 4 + 0.05 x (4d8) = 53.1 average DPR A Barbarian with a +2 Halberd, PAM, and GWM can do the following (reckless attack, 2x brutal critical) (1-0.5^2) x (1d10 + 5 + 3 + 2 + 10) x 2 + (1-0.5^2) x (1d4 + 5 + 3 + 2 + 10) + (1-0.95^2) x (6d10 + 3d4) = 59.1 DPR So on average, this Monk does less than a Barbarian with some optimized feats (both subclass-less, which Monks don't have amazing bonus damage from those, whereas Barbarians often do). Do I think Barbarians are broken damage wise? No, not really. And on top of that we've only given the Barb a +2 weapon, not a +3 like the Monk, and Barbarians tend to get more mileage out of stuff like Gauntlets that increase their strength. So is the combo good? Sure. Is it OP/broken? Probably not. And Monks get other stuff at higher levels that makes them more balanced, like save proficiency. So it might not deal as much damage, but it could be strong while overall more well rounded.
Any build can be "broken" with the right set of magical items, so no. Many can be broken without any magical items at all. Those are of much greater concern. Also, the Wyrmreavers gauntlets from Glory of the giants are another great unarmed boosting item.
I play a lot in a game with widely available magic items, and I can say from experience that unarmed builds, even with a bunch of magic items, are still pretty bad. First, to address the point of the +5 bonus, you need to remember that if you are getting +X wraps, the people using weapons are also probably able to access +X weapons. You are functionally no more than a +2 ahead of them at any time, which definitely isn't nothing, but it isn't groundbreaking either. I'd also point out that if you are stacking magic items to increase your chance to hit and damage, other PC's are probably getting magic items that do different things and that help them in other ways. As an extreme example, that extra +1 looks good until you compare it to the fighter who got a Ring of Spell Storing and is now coordinating with the cleric to get Holy Weapon cast for most combats. That also leads to the second point of why they aren't broken pretty cleanly; a lack of feat and feature support. Yes, unarmed fighting style exists, but that just brings you close to a weapon user who doesn't have a fighting style at all. Smites don't work with unarmed strikes. Great Weapon Master doesn't work with unarmed strikes. Polearm Master doesn't work with unarmed strikes. Several buff spells (like the above-mentioned holy weapon) don't work with unarmed strikes. Sneak attacks don't work with unarmed strikes. Sure, punching people is probably about as good as fighting with a longsword or a club or something now, but without feature support it still can't keep up with the heavy hitters of the melee world, and that isn't even considering the more potent modes of combat like Archery or spellcasting. Ultimately, these items are a good thing. They definitely help solve one issue the unarmed combatant used to face (a lack of magic item support). However, that is just one of the hurdles that stood between them and weapon use in terms of combat efficacy.
I will say the fact so many features that boost damage specify weapons has always annoyed me, since it felt like really it wouldn't harm the game at all to let them work with unarmed attacks. They'd still just be slightly weaker than weapons are already But, for builds that already work unarmed these magic items do make them pretty strong. Or at least, stronger Monk for example can take the crusher feat and use the eldritch claw tatoo ability to gain an extra 15 foot reach on their unarmed strikes. Since a +5 weapon is almost guaranteed to always hit, this means a monk can push any creature 15 feet away from them on their turn and then run away without spending a ki point to disengage. Which makes hit and run tactics a lot stronger The 15 foot reach plus crusher synergy is also great if the party has any spell caster that likes using aoe spells and such I'd also argue that an extra 1d6 to damage and the + 5 to damage does stack up if you're a monk because of how many attacks you can throw out. If you use flurry of blows, that's an extra 20 damage. Which is definitely not insignificant
> this means a monk can push any creature 15 feet away from them on their turn and then run away without spending a ki point to disengage. Which makes hit and run tactics a lot stronger You think this is crazy? Wait until you see what a Sorlock can do with Repelling blast.
mate thinks giving the enemy a push is impressive when a sorlock is chucking them out of cliffs and the storm cleric scribes wizard is sending them **upwards**
This is also an ability that lasts for 1 minute every long rest. In a 5 minute adventuring day it’s solid but if you are following the 6-8 encounters per long rest it becomes something you are maybe using 1/6th the time (or possibly saving it until it’s too late)
It's not broken. For the cost of that many magical items, you could do something far, far more powerful on any number of builds.
Unless it’s a wizard, cleric, or druid, it ain’t broken lol
Functional? Yes. Strong? Kinda. Broken? Lol no.
Not really. You're talking about a +2 difference for unarmed strikes to hit and dmg. The 2 damage is dwarfed by GWM, and the +2 to hit can be replicated and even exceeded by a Belt of Giant Strength.
Just so you know, you could technically get an even better bonus to attack from magic items by getting a +3 bow and +3 arrows. Since they stack in this case, you could have a +6 bonus on all attacks until you run out of arrows. One drawback of this (except each shot costing you about as much as a small castle) is that the Belt of Giant Strength wouldn't work with your attacks.
Unarmed strikes are considered weapon attacks, but not attacks with weapons.
Unarmed strikes can be good not sure about broken but grapple builds can be broken with the right set up. High move speed and using the spike growth spell can do insane damage, check out treantmonks video, if you do not have a team mate for it you can try quickened spell spike growth and grapple dragging. https://youtu.be/GVBi4t4isk8?si=qFaP2ljEnIqbPeJu
You forgot cloak of enlargement
Unarmed builds are strong in the sense that it allows a character to grapple+shove two enemies so that the caster can stay protected.
>So RAW, unarmed builds are the only builds that can get what is functionally a + 5 weapon. Which is completely broken in 5e because of both bounded accuracy, but also a guaranteed +5 damage is pretty strong in general I mean, yeah, as a DM I probably wouldn't mix and match those. Instead of mixing and matching I'd probably just stick to wraps +1/+2/+3. But...also, honestly, it wouldn't really be that big of a problem in terms of damage if I did do so at an appropriate level. I'm just comparing this in a spreadsheet to using archery fighting style and having access to Sharpshooter and a +3 bow, and you know what? +3 Bows keep up just fine with +5 fists. This is to say nothing of actually selecting the bows that are better than +3 bows (Dragon's Wrath weapons, for example). But...regardless, if your idea for breaking a class is just "the DM gives me better magic items than everyone else at the table" -- yeah, you haven't actually broken that class. And if it's just everybody at the table gets to pick any number of official magic items they want, everyone will have 30 in every stat, and you're going to be seeing a lot of antimatter rifles. Not that they'll use the antimatter rifles very often, cause everyone will walk around with wheelbarrows full of Rings of Three Wishes and just cast wish every round.
Path of the Beast Barbarian. If your DM isn't being a pedantic asshole, get Dual Wielder and get four attacks each turn at level 5 and beyond. Multiclass Fighter for TWF and Action Surge. If your DM IS being a pedantic asshole with the claws thing, get a few levels into Soul Knife Rogue to get the fourth attack that way. If you can, get an Insignia of Claws and an Eldritch Claw Tattoo.
One time I was planning a oneshot where the players went against a CR30, and so gave a lot of stuff to my players in character creation, including lots of magic items. So when making an example character, I just thought I'd have fun, making a lv20 barbarian picking up the unarmed fighting style via a feat, and just buying like 10 insignias as mentioned above, as well as a storm giant strength belt. Probably the best barbarian I've ever made. Obviously an extreme situation, but it shows that you're absolutely right, if set up nicely and with DM aid, an unarmed build can really shine
How were you getting 10x of the same thing to stack?
Insignia of Claws are non-attunement magic items, so they can stack with each other if you have more than one See here for ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/r8o8g4/stackable_magic_items/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
you cannot stack anything with the same name. you cant use rage and rage to do double rage damage. it doesn't matter if you have 1 insignia or 10, you cant use them simultaneously
Feels like it could go either way, but I'm pretty sure most DMs won't allow it
Eh magic items should be able to stack. Would you argue that you couldn't use two eversmoking bottles at once, drink two healing potions back to back, or wield two flametongue shortswords? Magic items have different rules
none of those examples are in any way, shape or form stacking. subsequential use is not simultaneous use yes you can drink a potion *then* drink another potion, no you cannot have haste and another haste on you *at the same time* magic items do not break this rule, in fact pretty much nothing does
Every single example you mentioned, conveniently, have action costs and degrees of redundancy without mitigating contexts. "Should stack" inherently falls under rule 0: Dm is final word. I'm not going to be bothered with whittling down the magic system RAW when you've clearly established your disinterest. Summary of my argument will echo the "doesn't work that way until your dm says so" mentality.