Can a metal Gauntlet deliver an unarmed attack 1D4? and deliver a touch attack?

[Cyclops08]

I'm thinking of making a character built around the spell "Inflict Harm." 3D10 at first level
By necessity he would be a SorLock. 2 levels of Hexblade, and the rest in Divine Soul Sorcerer.

The Cestus is not available in 5e, That did 1D4 damage in 3.5.
BUT can a standard metal gauntlet make a D4 attack and deliver a touch attack? or am I getting greedy?

[DeTess]

Since gauntlets are part of armor, but are not given additional rules it means a gauntleted hand is identical to an ungauntleted hand wrt to unarmed strikes and touch attacks.

That having been said, your weapon doesn't sound horribly OP or anything, but its up to your dm to decide whether they exist.

[Galithar]

As written, no it can't. When you make an unarmed strike without a feature that boosts it's damage it will deal 1+ Str mod damage. However it's totally reasonable for a DM to allow a 1d4 punch with a Gauntlet on it just create a Homebrew weapon for you to use that deals 1d4 and leaves your hand open.

Also while you could deal the damage with such a weapon, you would NOT be able to use the spell Inflict Wounds at the same time. The melee spell attack made with that spell is a special attack from the spell. It is not an unarmed attack that then gets a 3d10 necrotic damage rider.

[Kane0]

What Gal said. The spell inflict wounds lets you make a melee spell attack, touch isn’t a thing. Whatever unarmed attack you may have isn’t a factor, although you may still need a free hand in order to cast the spell.

[Maan]

Otherwise, you could go with Booming Blade/Greenflame Blade: making the attack with the gauntlet as a weapon.
A dagger is 1d4 piercing, so I don't see any problem in saying that gauntlet/knucledusters do 1d4 blunt.

[Mutazoia]

There was a whole debate about this across several boards back in the 3.X era. The general consensus was that (per DM approval) one could use a normal unarmed melee attack to deliver a touch spell and deal both the unarmed melee damage and the spell damage, but if the melee attack missed, the spell was wasted and the slot expended.

However, in 5e it would be hard to pull off, as you would have to use two actions to do so. One to cast the spell, and one to make the attack, as touch spell durations are instantaneous, and both would have to be done in the same round.

Your DM would have to house rule something that would allow you to punch someone and still trigger the spell. RAI, I believe the "touch" part of the spell requires full palm contact for a moment to channel the energy of the spell into the target, and a punch would be too brief. But maybe forcing the attack to use either the spell attack or a standard melee attack, whichever is lower, might balance things a bit?? But honestly, at some point, the extra D4 isn't going to make much more of a difference, damage-wise to fuss about.

[Zetakya]

I would rule that a Cestus was functionally identical to a Club - which is to say, a 1d4 damage, Light, Simple Weapon.

That said, I would not allow you to perform a Spell Touch Attack and a Weapon Attack with a single attack. That kind of thing is the preserve of Smite spells, which are generally balanced by the Concentration requirement, and the SCAGtrips, which are only Cantrips.

[Cyclops08]

Thank you.