this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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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.
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.
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.
They specifically don't require a free hand