I come to you broken hearted. I was going through the rules, preparing my character plans for tomorrow night, and I am now very sad.
All discussions I have found seem to suggest that I can't do a weapons damage with a combat maneuver, yet I do not find this in the rules. What I do find is them asking me to do a melee attack at +8.
I have to say, if I make a melee attack with a weapon at +8, by the gods, I expect to do damage. I see no place in the rules where it states that weapon attacks deal no damage.
If I have, for arguments sake, a Large 13th level Dragonkin (StarShaman3/Solarian10), with a tail mounted Xenolash Whip (5d4) , a dimensional gland to grow to Huge, and have casted Carnivorous for a Gargantuan Bite Attack for 2d8, am I to believe that I cannot Whip Trip them, doing damage and making them entangled and prone?
Nor can I grapple them with my 2d8 bite attack, essentially CHEWING THEM FOR 2D8 WITH EVERY SUCCESSFULL GRAPPLE?
From the way it reads grapple can't be done with anything but a spare hand? Can I not grapple with a rope attack, whip attack, chain attack, even a net attack? If these all count as entangle attacks, then do I entangle with my bite? Do I still get no damage?
Please help me. Clearly, what I want to do is grotesquely awesome. My GM for some reason has unleashed me on the FORGOTTEN CITY OF ISTAMAK, and all I want to do is give them a warrior's honorable death by eating them alive in a way that would make Psycho Goreman proud.
If you could, please, just this once, agree that I should be able to do damage with weaponized combat maneuvers, since there is no other way of realizing the fantastic feats I wish to accomplish.
I wait patiently for your blessing so that I can show it to my GM as validation of my interpretations. Thank you for your time.
On a separate note - What are the effects of eating a person covered in Xenolash Sap?
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There is no way to perform a combat maneuver and deal full weapon damage at the same time for PCs. There are, however, many ways to reduce that KAC+8 target to something far more reasonable.
The feat improved combat maneuver gives you a +4 bonus. A weapon with the appropriate trait gives another +2. Racial modifiers can give yet another stacking +2. If you're a vanguard, with all of the above, you can hit EAC+0 to perform combat maneuvers with ease.
There are quite possibly magic items, class abilities, and such beyond even this that do not come to mind immediately.
However, there is no having your cake in your hands, and eating it too. Bite attacks by default do not have the grapple trait for PC races. They cannot be used to grapple without a hand free, and they cannot deal damage while attempting to grapple.
Starfinder is a somewhat balanced system. You can't do everything at once in a single standard action, you must perform these actions across multiple rounds.
You can do what you want to do here, it just takes 2-4 rounds instead of only one.
You make sense. I appreciate the reply.
I guess my next question after that understanding is whether or not a xenolash would apply entangled sap to a tripped character, or does it have to deal damage to entangle?
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Weapons with the throttle property allow you to deal damage when you use them to grapple. Some class abilities let you do damage on other combat maneuvers as well, such as a solarion's stellar rush, or a Powerhouse Soldier's Forceful Attack feature. As Garretmander says though, there's no universal rule that let you do full weapon damage.
You make sense. I appreciate the reply.
I guess my next question after that understanding is whether or not a xenolash would apply entangled sap to a tripped character, or does it have to deal damage to entangle?
I'm not certain about damage, but you do need to make an attack with it, either a standard, full attack, or attack of opportunity.
A creature hit by an entangle weapon becomes entangled until it escapes with an Acrobatics check (DC = 10 + weapon’s item level + the attacker’s Dexterity modifier) or a Strength check (DC = 15 + weapon’s item level + the attacker’s Dexterity modifier). An entangled creature can attempt such a check as a move action. Some weapons (such as stickybomb grenades) have a maximum duration for this effect. See page 275 for information about the entangled condition.
I believe (but am not sure) that making a trip combat maneuver with the xenolash should count as 'hitting' an opponent and trip+entangle.