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Snap Kick states the following (emphasis mine):

When you make a melee attack with one or more melee weapons (including a standard attack, full attack, or even a strike maneuver), you can make an additional attack at your highest attack bonus. This attack is an unarmed attack that deals damage equal to your base unarmed attack damage + 1/2 your Str bonus. You take a -2 penalty on all attack rolls you make this round.

My character has Shadow Blade and therefore can add its DEX to the damage, and also has the possibility of making Sneak Attack with Assassin's Stance and adding even more damage with Craven and some other maneuvers. Do these bonuses affect Snap Kick's attack too? My theory is that it does since it does not specify that it doesn't like with Insightful Strike (emphasis mine):

As part of this maneuver, make a melee attack. If this attack hits, you do not deal normal damage. Instead, you make a Concentration check and deal damage equal to the check result. Your Strength modifier, your weapon's magical properties (if any), and any other extra damage you normally deal do not modify this check (including extra damage from class abilities, feats, or spells).

Since both writings are from the same book, I can assume that they are consistent in that if it would not be possible to add the bonuses, it would have an addendum equal to the one in Insightful Strike, but I'm not sure and that's why I'm asking.

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The attack made by Snap Kick is defined as an unarmed attack, and the damage calculation offered by it matches that used by an unarmed strike made as an offhand attack while two-weapon fighting. This is interpreted by most as simply a reminder of how unarmed strike damage works, rather than a fixed figure that cannot be changed. If it were fixed, then like insightful strike, it would explicitly say so. It’s also unclear what it means to be “an unarmed attack” if your bonuses and improvements to unarmed attacks don’t apply.

So yeah, Shadow Blade should affect your extra attack from Snap Kick, adding your Dexterity bonus to the damage roll.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ +½Str to +Dex, or +½Str to +½Dex? \$\endgroup\$
    – Wannabe Warlock
    Apr 13, 2021 at 22:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ @WannabeWarlock That is a contentious question; I seem to recall that RAW favored not including multipliers when doing such replacements, but I would have to investigate to refresh my memory as to why. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Apr 14, 2021 at 0:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ I've found the ToB errata and now Snap Kick reads like this: "Whenever you initiate a strike or use the attack or full attack action, you may take a -2 penalty to attacks made this round gain an additional attack at your highest attack bonus (the -2 applies to this attack as well). This attack is an off-hand unarmed strike, and deals damage as appropriate." "Special: You may use Snap Kick when making attacks of opportunity, or with other effects that grant extra attacks (such as the Snake's Swiftness spell), but you cannot stack uses of Snap Kick with itself." \$\endgroup\$
    – Karrion42
    Apr 14, 2021 at 0:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Karrion42 Awesome, then that’s clear—I’ll update the answer in a bit. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Apr 14, 2021 at 0:29
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Karrion42 This is embarrassing—I should have caught this immediately when you brought it up. Tome of Battle’s official errata file is notoriously almost entirely overwritten by the contents of the errata to Complete Mage. For all practical purposes, it has no errata. What you found is the unofficial errata project put together by fans. While it made the answer to this question clearer, ultimately this question can be answered without it, and it does some extremely questionable things—including heavily nerf Snap Kick. I don’t recommend it, and removed it from my answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Aug 3, 2021 at 10:44

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