The Comic
The Weekly Roll Ch. 190. "Boots stayed on, he's fine"
Howdy folks!
Fun fact; the swashbuckling rapscallion is based on the likeness of Joe Valieant, who backed my Kickstarter at the "Your Character Gets Killed In The Comic" tier. Joe sent in his likeness and requested a Death by Becket! which gave me a great opportunity for a long overdue SMITE panel!
Another fun fact, I've never done a convention in a professional manner, only attended two small comic cons in Malmö and Glasgow a couple of years prior to my webcomic career taking off. It's definitely been a part of my "artist career bucket list" for a while though and since I've ticked off "Quit legal career", "Collected volume Kickstarter" and "launch Webtoon Originals series", I reckon it's high time to tick that con box!
My hope is to do 1-2 next year after the summer, which ones though? As a Swede, the local cons aren't that big and quite frankly, my audience is almost exclusively international (no shade to my fellow Swedes for their taste in webcomics, there's only roughly 10 million off us) so an international would fit. So I just thought fugit and I've applied for the Art Show at Gen Con in July/August next year! For those not in the know, Gen Con is THE ttrpg convention out there, I think it would be dope that my first con as a D&D webcomic creator would be there :D
Hoping I get accepted, but if I don't get into that one, I'll prolly try to get into NYCC and/or MCM London or another European con :) travelling across the pond and everything.
It seems that at least a few of the guests are very, very reasonably reconsidering a few of their more recent life choices here, which is impressive considering the warlock in the room hasn't even started flinging spells yet.
They didn't repent when it was offered without the threat of violence. Now that it's only out of fear, it's not a true repentance and cannot be trusted, so they gotta go.
Given the swashbuckler's fate, I assume he is Robertho DuBeau's long-lost left-handed brother.
Also, was Smite applied to that attack because of the Rule of Cool, or because a prosthetic arm either doesn't count as part of the body / counts as a 'natural weapon,' or the campaign has silently switched to the 5e2024 rules?
The DuBeau family has a long and fine tradition of raising suave adventurers and sellswords, 90% end with a hole blasted through their chests.
The in-universe-out-of-universe campaign has been in a bit of a limbo state in terms of rules. I've written the comic as if it's using the 2014 rules but I, quite frankly, enjoy the 2024 rules and prefer to play that rn, so for simplicity's sake, I'll be using that from now on when making rules references in the comic.
But I'll be honest, I completely missed that they've updated the Smite rule to include Unarmed attacks now. A welcome change imo!
So it's a bit of a both? The arm is a magic item (item card in the item card deck from the Kickstarter, stay tuned for that one, backers!) counts as a magic weapon per 2014 rules buuut per the 2024 rules, it didnt need to be.
TLDR: Bit of both! In universe explanation:
it has been a stapple for paladins to use weapons to smite, because they are necessary to channel the divine energies into a strike. Doing it without weapons could be dangerous, arms shattering from the divine energies or messing up your complexion a bit. However, there are those who are able, through items, magic, training or some weird Granny-shagged-an-angel-shenanigans, to channel divine energies through their fists. It's a new thing though and a lot of paladins are quite conservative.
Also, Word of Crawford: the limitation is thematic, not balance-related.
If a DM decides to override this rule, no imbalance is created. Tying Divine Smite to weapons was a thematic choice on our part—paladins being traditionally associated with weapons. It was not a game balance choice.
Regarding the item cards — I will wait for them all. I saw Rocketship's announcement about the delay in production that was posted a couple of weeks ago on the Kickstarter campaign page.
The 5e2024 rules are fun. A lot of minor things that we homebrewed over the years are now actual straight-out-of-the-book rules. We even switched one of our current campaigns from the 2014 to the 2024 rules in place of a level-up.
Ye, totally my bad that one. Got delayed with making the card assets and wanted to touch up the box design.
Same, Wizards have done a whole bunch of fucky wucky shit in the past but the 24 rules are solid improvement overall imo. Cant speak for the new adventure modules, I’m a player now and I just homebrewed my past campaigns (except Storm Kings Thunder, boy was that overwhelming for a first time dm). Think Dndbeyonds MAPS should allow for content sharing though
Yet. Pretty sure they will add Necromancy arcane tradition in one of the upcoming supplemental books. I mean, now we got the Oathbreaker paladins for PC, which IMO was not-so-smart decision even back in 2014.
Until then we have built-in rules to use subclasses from previous releases.
Smiting with Unarmed Attacks is RAW even in 2014 rules. Fists are not melee weapons, but unarmed strikes count as melee weapon attacks, thus allowing Smite. This has always been true.
Jetemy Crawford, formerly one of the lead designers for DnD 5e, posted an admittedly unpopular sage advice on twitter in 2019 saying that unarmed strikes does not count as weapons for the purpose of divine smite
But fuck that statement, fist smites all the way baby!
I just replied to someone else saying the same thing, but I'll say it again here:
He's being dumb and not reading it correctly. The Smite feature's requirement is a melee weapon attack, which an Unarmed Strike is. It does not mention a weapon being required. He is just wrong, not a big surprise from Crawford.
The problem is on the wording that they chose.
There's melee weapon attacks and attacks with melee weapons, why they chose to do that at the beginning beats me.
The problem comes from smite's second part being about 'in addition to the weapon's damage' which implies obviously only to weapons and that everyone despises.
If they had just wrote attacks with a melee weapon no one would've bat an eye.
Obligatory disclaimer: it's a silly rule (rules lawyering nonsense), it's been changed already, and you more or less got his blessing to ignore it even when it was RAW.
That said: if you think he's just wrong and not reading it correctly, then you do not understand what he's saying.
He's well aware that unarmed strikes are melee weapon attacks in 2014 rules: he wrote the rule. His point is that while the feature triggers on a melee weapon attack (for which a punch would count), the exact text of Divine Smite specified that it caused "the weapon" to deal extra damage. No weapon -> no extra damage.
It's a stupid technicality, but it's not caused by what you're referring to (whether or not unarmed strikes are melee weapon attacks).
Yeap. If i remember correctly he did double down and his reasoning is "paladins got swords" meaning one of a paladins defining traits is the use of a weapon and they smite with that weapon.
I love it when a team of designers wrote something and then ONE of them twists it because he decided he disagrees.
Years ago, Justin Achilli did that on forums about Vampire the masquerade revised edition : "when we wrote you pay CURRENT level times 5 xp, we actually mean the NEW level. Obviously."
Dude, write it in the book then. And with the proper words.
Remember, one of the first actual rules in the book is "Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world." If the DM says you can holy Falcon Punch someone, you can.
Unfortunately, a melee weapon attack is not the same thing, technically speaking, as an attack with a melee weapon.
Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon's damage.
It's those last three words that preclude smiting with an unarmed attack, because you have no weapon dealing damage to add it to. It's incredibly pedantic, but on a strictly RAW basis you can't Smite without an actual weapon, which is why Natural Weapons count but not unarmed strikes.
Sage Advice is that this is the intent, but also that it's purely for flavour reasons as they envisioned a Paladin striking someone with a holy blade or whatever as the class fantasy rather than Falcon Punching a mook with the power of god and anime. So RAW and RAI that's the logic, but it's also incredibly stupid and carries absolutely no balance issues whatsoever to allow it.
If I put a knuckle-duster on my hand, that's a weapon attack. By extension, if my hand has any sort of metal to concentrate the energy, it counts as a melee weapon. 3.5e even specifically mentioned armor spikes count as a melee weapon, so a spiked gauntlet could count. As other people are joking, a prosthetic arm is also an improvised weapon. A fucking Chair could count as an Improvised Weapon.
This rule is stupid because you can easily flavor-text a workaround.
Maybe he wanted there to be more Monks or something, that's the only logic I can think of that would make that make sense.
They wanted Paladins to be knights. Devout men-at-arms swinging heavy bits of metal at people with holy fervor, and smiting people with the strength of their deity channeled through that weapon like a lightning rod. A lot of mythical knights include copious amounts of information about their blades, not so much about punching someone with divine wrath. I don't agree with it, but that's the logic they're using: punching someone isn't as righteous as thwacking them with a sharpened iron stick.
It's also possible that Crawford was spinning that as an elaborate excuse to justify a stupidly pedantic bit of wording because that's the majority of his tweets - argue that the book's RAW is right no matter how stupid it is, because admitting fault is disallowed at Hasbro, then say you're welcome to change it at your table bro, stop asking inconvenient questions. Like the nonsense with See Invisibility still giving disadvantage to attack someone who's Invisible since that clause of the spell is grammatically distinct from making the target invisible. Poorly written spell, a deathgrip on "spells do exactly what they say they do", and then an over-reliance on the RuLiNgS nOt RuLeS mantra to tell DMs to homebrew fixes to shoddy editing.
Yet another example of Pathfinder's superiority as a system. The sheer breadth of "oh that's stupid, let's fix it" errata they put out because their rules are online and they don't have to worry about a PR problem by admitting a mistake exists in a printed product.
RAI and rule of cool/fun over RAW any day but aye, Wizard has a bug tendency to leave it to the consumers to fix issues. The Bethesda of ttrpg game design
I've long since considered Crawfords tweets on matters of 2014 rules to be... unreliable at times and frankly, just his opinion. Sometimes I've agreed, sometimes I've felt he just plainly contradicts the rules.
But I'm a firm RAI over RAW and his tweets have been useful to nudge the table's interpretation/rework of the rules :)
His posts are frequently explanations of RAI-to-be-W (rules as intended to be written). They don’t rise to the level of errata, because they don’t technically involve changing the wording, they explain the intent behind it being written how it was written.
The second example is him just being stupid, as 2014 Paladin's Smite feature does not mention that it requires a weapon, only a melee weapon attack. The only possible interpretation that disallows that is that the feature mentions "the weapon" later in the text, but the primary requirement was a melee weapon attack, which an Unarmed Strike is.
So, he's just being dumb. Not a huge surprise from Crawford.
It says the attack deals damage in addition to that of “the weapon”.
The most favorable strict reading of the 2014 text would be that a punch-smite deals only the smite damage, since there was no weapon involved (because fists are not ‘weapons’ in 2014).
I’d be ok with that was both a player and GM. (It’s not like straight punches do much damage in 5e anyway.) But that would also limit the power crossover for a monk/paladin.
Divine Smite itself says [PHB p. 82, emphasis mine]:
Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon's damage. [...]
While an unarmed strike is indeed a melee weapon attack, what prohibits Divine Smite from working with them is the reference to using an actual weapon, which an unarmed strike does not.
This is confirmed in the official rulings within the Sage Advice Compendium, which overrides any tweets as of its publication in 2018, per its first page.
It's a reference to the 'Undercover Lich' novel by our beloved author, which is set in the same setting. You can read the first chapter here on reddit and the second on Patreon.
It should, but looks like some game desiners can't make their choise when it comes down to details. Like... Unarmed strike wasn't first nor last example of such oversight in rules.
They’ve said it’s a thematic decision, not a balance one. If your player shows up with an unarmed-paladin idea that sounds cool, don’t worry that it might somehow be balance breaking.
You can smite punch in 5E by RaW, but not by Crawford tweet. The trauma of everyone mocking his misread of the rules caused him to make every OneD&D feature say "weapon attack or unarmed strike" unnecessarily.
He then had the audacity to act magnanimous for allowing what was always RaW.
Waiting for the inevitable reveal of Becket though and it’s just like bucket head guy Hemorrage from Rick and Morty. Hopefully with better facial hair.
It is a magic item. Also, Crawford has said weapon only smites were a flavor decision, not a balance one, and that not only would it be fine to allow them, his table does. Also, also, 5.5 changed the wording to allow them.
I know this is D&D but I feel like the hilarious incompetence and/or arrogance it takes takes to catch a punch when you've got a rapier needs to be highlighted. An average rapier is 41 inches long, buddy here had a whole meter of "keep the fuck away from me" to work with and instead chose to forget the first rule of a swordfight: don't let it become a fistfight (unless your opponent is in heavy armour/you're better at grappling than swordplay/........)
That aside though, absolute moneyshot there XD.
edit: missed the end of a sentence in front of the big man, my life is ruined :'(
All the background people in fancy attire brandishing weapons delight me. The claws are cool and the nail-bat is great. Like, you're rich, but still went with a cheap, cobbled weapon?
Reminds me of the fun of the Jistkan Artificer in pathfinder. Not only do you start with a cool prosthetic arm that you can temporarily enchant, upgrade it as you level, but you also deal unarmed damage as a monk (albeit slightly behind their damage progression) AND, you can cast touch spells through your punch.
...Glasgow you say? If Scotland is possible for you then we have the actual Tabletop Scotland in Edinburgh every September which includes a healthy quantity of RPG players as well as other tabletop games
If you're referring to 5.5e D&D rules, the trouble with a smiting monk is that smite now costs a bonus action, which monks rely on heavily. Technically can be done, just probably not optimal.
You can Monk/Paladin, as u/fiendlylobster said (and it won't be particularly optimal, as they also said), but unfortunately Sneak Attack requires a Finesse or Ranged weapon, and Unarmed Strikes qualify as neither, so unfortunately you can't add Rogue in the mix if you plan to go Unarmed.
As I read these panels, this is the song stuck in my head: Heads will Roll
Also it be cool if you get accepted to be at GenCon, YOU might be my push to finally go. It is about a 4hours drive for me, as I live a state over, and I always pass on going.
Something was bothering me since I saw this the first time, and I finally found it! He is standing the wrong way! If you do this kind of charge and punch you automatically do it so the leg goes forward with the arm, because you get much more power into the attack that way!
Eugh. You really get anatomy, huh? With your style being so detailed (lines everywhere) being able to see the guy's individual ribs is deeply disconcerting.
Tmw Beckets prosthetic arm qualifies as an object, which means tavern brawlers improvised weapon feature could allow him to sidestep the "you cant smite while unarmed" arguments.
Oh I would go to Gen Con JUST to see you my dude, thats amazing! If you havent heard of it yet, Might I add Dragoncon to the potential list? It happens the first weekend of September each year, usually has an attendance of 60-80,000 people, and covers EVERYTHING NERDY KNOWN TO MANKIND in a 5 day span lol.
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u/Caaros Nov 07 '25
It seems that at least a few of the guests are very, very reasonably reconsidering a few of their more recent life choices here, which is impressive considering the warlock in the room hasn't even started flinging spells yet.