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.

Anytime a show or movie shows a sword fight where someone also gets punched in the face is just good choriography.

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.

So we’re just giving out bonus actions now? /s

Also somewhat historically accurate. Ye olde sword fighting was basically just brawling with blades.

What’s hilarious to me is that you’d have to have a mod to make this work effectively in bg3. Or at least multiclass into monk, which makes little sense when you confused consider that fighters are kinda known for tactics like that, and there’s a lomg standing tradition of punching a motherfucker when a weapon attack fails, or even using a weapon attack to set up a punch (or kick) in many martial arts that have a weapon focus

Tell me how the grass tastes, little man!

When I DM I have a consistent house rule that if you have the ability to do a bonus action, you can do a strike with an unarmed off hand if you are adjacent to an enemy regardless of class. If it connects it does 1d4 bludgeoning and has a chance to knock a medium or smaller enemy prone if the player wins a strength contest. Nat 20 achieves both the connecting of the hit and the prone.

Martial arts? Like monks are trained in?

DND is a weird mix of too many rules and not enough rules.

I didn’t write things in a good way.

Yes, like monks are trained in, but more like real world monks that are martial artists.

“Also, f*ck monks.”

I like when my monk players take 15 minutes to decide what to do only to end up punching a bunch of times and end their turn.

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.

…most folks don’t like that…

It usually works out fine. Plus sometimes the potential of just getting a 1d4 out of it doesn’t seem worth it to waste a bonus action, especially at higher level encounters. I have other house rules that also incentivize other options too. But I’ve been blessed with players that like to keep things interesting and inventive for the fun of it rather than just cheese everything they can.

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.

I think that has less to do with monks and more to do with your players.

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.