Hi there. I'm building a Druid for a campaign my friends are starting up, and I want to go with the animal companion option. It seems like it's a lot weaker than the domain option, but I like the flavor. I'm not asking for advice on how to build the druid. What I'm curious about is one thing I found in the NPC Codex.
The iconic druid, Lini, has an animal companion. Somehow, this cat has found a way to learn a second bite attack. I've looked through all of the material on animal companion attacks and I can't find anything that would give this attack to it. Multiattack only gives another attack if the companion doesn't have three natural attacks, which it does. Its attacks are listed as: bite +14/+9 (1d6+5 plus trip), 2 claws +15 (1d3+5). I don't see how the companion gets that +9 attack. If I can give my Roc another attack, I'd like to know how it's done.
From what i know of AniComs, that second bite has to be a typo/error.
So, first, it's definitely a typo--there's no way to get a second bite like that, especially not at iterative intervals like that.
It seems like it's a lot weaker than the domain option
Quite the opposite, actually. I don't see how a domain could ever stack up to having an extra character with you.
Multiattack.
Druid Animal Companions get it at level 7, I think, and if they only have a single natural attack, it allows them to make an iterative attack with it at a -5 penalty. If they have more than a single natural attack, it just reduces the penalty on using secondary natural attacks.
Multiattack only gives an animal companion another attack if it has less than three already. I could see it being useful if you wanted to use a rhino or something else that has one powerful natural attack. However in my roc's case and in the iconic druid's small cat's case, they have three natural attacks already. All this bonus feat does when you have three natural attacks is lower the penalty for secondary attacks to -2 instead of -5. However this is useless for the roc and the cat because all of their attacks are primary. Pretty lame.
So, first, it's definitely a typo--there's no way to get a second bite like that, especially not at iterative intervals like that.It seems like it's a lot weaker than the domain optionQuite the opposite, actually. I don't see how a domain could ever stack up to having an extra character with you.
My friends and I thought it had to be a typo too, but I wanted to make sure. Thanks.
And I wasn't looking to get into this argument, but in my opinion the domain is better because you can summon better monsters than your companion could ever be. I know they're temporary and can be dispelled, but its not like the companion is immune to dominates or other magic that would remove them from the fight. More spells is more winning. Heck if you want a companion so badly you can get a weaker companion using the Animal Domain while reaping the benefits of more spells.
And I wasn't looking to get into this argument, but in my opinion the domain is better because you can summon better monsters than your companion could ever be.
Sure, or you could summmon AND have a companion. Having extra slots when you can't choose what goes in them (and most domain spells are "eh" at best) is almost like not having extra slots, as far as I'm concerned. It's not like there's a domain that gives you summons in the domain slots, is there?
And the animal domain is ok, but then you have to ask whether a feat (Boon Companion) is worth the lousy spells you get from the domain.
All_That_Chaz, perhaps you should consider an Animal Companion Archetype that replaces Multiattack.
- Gauss
Like I said, it's just my opinion. I put more emphasis on spell-casting. An unintelligent animal with no thumbs can't change the scope of a high-level battle like a spell can. Agree to disagree.
But I think the companion is more fun, for sure. I think I'll use it to flank when our barbarian rides me into combat (that is if we can cooperate... we both have 5 charisma...)
All_That_Chaz, perhaps you should consider an Animal Companion Archetype that replaces Multiattack.
- Gauss
I actually hadn't noticed them. The bodyguard archetype looks intriguing, but I don't know if it's worth losing evasion and improved evasion.
SKR has stated that this functionality of animal companion attacks is intentional.
Personally, I disagree with this way of doing it, since it's impossible for anyone to know to do this based on how the rules are written. It should be made clear in an errata, so people building animal companions themselves would know that's how it's supposed to work without having read (or remembered) that post.
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From what i know of AniComs, that second bite has to be a typo/error.
Unfortunately no it's not a typo.
In the blog posting for the NPC guidebook the DEVS confirmed that no matter what once the animal companion gets multi-attack it ALWAYS gets an additional attack. Read it HERE.I personally don't approve since it significantly broadens the gap between the various animal companions but oh well.
There may be more to this - I seem to recall some sort of errata being mentioned. However that may have been wishful thinking of those seeing the statblocks in the NPC Guide. Personally, I think if you've got 3+ attacks that are all primary, you don't need any extra help.
Edit: Double ninja'd, but consensus that it's a bad idea :)
Thank you for the links, Are and Mathwei. That clears some of this up. Although it still seems ambiguous for animals that may have a secondary attack, but would prefer an additional primary.
EDIT: And if the multiattack feat actually does give my companion a fourth primary attack, I'm definitely not going for those archetypes. Four attacks, 3 at full base, is pretty delicious.
Mathwei:
Unfortunately, they confirmed something that by the rules, is not possible.
Question: Do you have 3 or more natural attacks.
Yes: gain the multiattack feat.
No: gain an extra attack at -5 penalty.
There is no proviso for: Do you have 3 or more attacks and they are all primary.
In order for the NPC guidebook to be correct they will need to put out an Errata rewriting the Multiattack ability or feat.
- Gauss
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Mathwei:
Unfortunately, they confirmed something that by the rules, is not possible.
Question: Do you have 3 or more natural attacks.
Yes: gain the multiattack feat.
No: gain an extra attack at -5 penalty.There is no proviso for: Do you have 3 or more attacks and they are all primary.
In order for the NPC guidebook to be correct they will need to put out an Errata rewriting the Multiattack ability or feat.
- Gauss
And they really should, they haven't yet however. Unfortunately Blog posts have been declared as valid updates for official rules changes for some time now so this unpleasant ruling still stands until they post a change to it.
And this isn't the first time they have declared as official something that isn't possible by the rules. That whole re-write of flurry of blows immediately springs to mind.
Could you point me to the text where they declare blog posts as valid updates for rules changes?
- Gauss
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Cats don't have 3 or more Natural attacks. They have two. Claws and Bite. Claws is a single natural attack that comes in pairs.
You wouldn't take Weapon Focus once for each claw would you? Or any other feat for that matter.
Claws are always paired, like Pincers or Talons.
As a note, I'm just trying to play devil's advocate to back up SKR's clarification here. I'm not saying this is clear-cut and irrefutable.
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Could you point me to the text where they declare blog posts as valid updates for rules changes?
- Gauss
I could show you that text for PFS Gauss :)
If you'd like.Definitely a bit of a gap between RAI and RAW here, unless you go with the definition I posted above where "3 or more natural attacks" is intended to mean "3 or more natural attack forms".
Cats don't have 3 or more Natural attacks. They have two. Claws and Bite. Claws is a single natural attack that comes in pairs.
You wouldn't take Weapon Focus once for each claw would you? Or any other feat for that matter.
Claws are always paired, like Pincers or Talons.As a note, I'm just trying to play devil's advocate to back up SKR's clarification here. I'm not saying this is clear-cut and irrefutable.
Your Weapon Focus analogy doesn't make sense to me. That implies that a two-weapon fighter using two short swords would need to take a weapon focus feat for each short sword in order to get the benefit for both weapons. Since the claws/talons require separate attack rolls and deal their own unique instances of dice damage and strength damage, I consider them separate natural attacks. I see where you're coming from though and that would make multiattack give the cat or my roc a second bite attack, which sounds glorious. It makes me want to give my roc Improved Natural Attack. The jump from 1d8 to 2d6 is massive.
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Your Weapon Focus analogy doesn't make sense to me. That implies that a two-weapon fighter using two short swords would need to take a weapon focus feat for each short sword in order to get the benefit for both weapons. Since the claws/talons require separate attack rolls and deal their own unique instances of dice damage and strength damage, I consider them separate natural attacks. I see where you're coming from though and that would make multiattack give the cat or my roc a second bite attack, which sounds glorious. It makes me want to give my roc Improved Natural Attack. The jump from 1d8 to 2d6 is massive.Cats don't have 3 or more Natural attacks. They have two. Claws and Bite. Claws is a single natural attack that comes in pairs.
You wouldn't take Weapon Focus once for each claw would you? Or any other feat for that matter.
Claws are always paired, like Pincers or Talons.As a note, I'm just trying to play devil's advocate to back up SKR's clarification here. I'm not saying this is clear-cut and irrefutable.
Sorry, maybe not the best analogy. However, when creating a Summoner's Eidolon, you take the "Claws" evolution, not the "Claw" evolution. I don't think there's a single instance of an animal only having 1 claw attack. And if you look up natural attacks in the Bestiary, they have a list of types of natural attacks (Claw, Bite, Sting, Talons, etc.)
My thought was that maybe what they meant was attack forms, as opposed to the flat number of actual attacks you're making?
This could have serious implications for the poor octopus with his 8 tentacles.
Mathwei:
Unfortunately, they confirmed something that by the rules, is not possible.
Question: Do you have 3 or more natural attacks.
Yes: gain the multiattack feat.
No: gain an extra attack at -5 penalty.There is no proviso for: Do you have 3 or more attacks and they are all primary.
In order for the NPC guidebook to be correct they will need to put out an Errata rewriting the Multiattack ability or feat.
- Gauss
I don't think the issue is 3 or more natural attacks (which is a hold over from 3E) but whether or not the Animal Companion has any SECONDARY attacks. There have been numerous posts on Animal Companions not getting ANY use out Multiattack because only 1 or 2 of them even have Secondary attacks. So if they don't have any Secondary attacks to make use of the Multiattack feat, they get an extra attack with one of their Primary weapons at -5.
Not sure if this was ever fully "solved", but since the wording of the Multiattack feature and the feat are from 3E (where only 1 natural weapon used full base attack and all others were at -5) it may have just been dismissed as RAI to add an attack.
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Canthin, I think you misunderstood my post since my post stated that. The Question->Yes/No was how the rule currently works.
The question: 'Do you have 3 or more attacks and they are all primary?' is my way of stating do you have 3 or more attacks and none of them are secondary.
Here are the three different possibilities:
1) Animal Companion has 3 or more natural attacks and some or all of them are secondary attacks.
Result by RAW: Multiattack ability gives the Animal Companion the Multiattack feat which reduces the secondary attack penalty to -2.
2) Animal Companion has 1 or 2 natural attacks.
Result by RAW: The Multiattack ability gives the Animal Companion an extra attack at BAB-5.
3) Animal Companion has 3 or more natural attacks and they are all primary.
Result by RAW: The Multiattack ability gives the Animal Companion the Multiattack feat which does NOTHING.
In my previous post this would translate into:
Q: Do you have 3 or more natural attacks.
Yes? Gain Multiattack feat
No? Gain an extra attack at -5 penalty.
Now, to do what the Devs have stated you would have to have a second question: Do you have 3 or more attacks and they are all primary.
So, in summary, the issue IS 3 or more natural attacks all of which are primary when the Multiattack ability gives you nothing for that.
The Devs have blogged that, in the case of 3 primary attacks, Animal Companions get the BAB-5 option but nothing in the rules support this. The rules on this are not unclear. The Devs need to make an official errata to the book if this is supposed to be the new rule.
- Gauss
I imagine they're trying to rework the entire feat because just giving an animal with three primary attacks a fourth primary attack is OP. I mean, I'm going to take it, but think about it. An animal a single attack is probably going to work with it getting things like cleave or vital strike. A second attack would lower the effectiveness of these feats because you'd lose the 1.5x strength because it isn't your only attack anymore. And lowering the penalty on two attacks doesn't come close to getting another attack with its own dice damage and strength damage, IMO.
@Ssalarn, from reading SKR's post, he seems to imply that bite/claw/claw is three attacks. Maybe that's just my interpretation.
EDIT: I was just looking through the companions again and found that an Iguanodon companion has a single claw attack. They do exist.
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I imagine they're trying to rework the entire feat because just giving an animal with three primary attacks a fourth primary attack is OP. I mean, I'm going to take it, but think about it. An animal a single attack is probably going to work with it getting things like cleave or vital strike. A second attack would lower the effectiveness of these feats because you'd lose the 1.5x strength because it isn't your only attack anymore. And lowering the penalty on two attacks doesn't come close to getting another attack with its own dice damage and strength damage, IMO.
A creature with a bite only who picks up Multiattack doesn't suddenly gain an extra natural attack, he just gets a second swing with the one he already had. He should still be receiving the full STR x1.5 bonus to damage.
I am really curious about whether there wil be an official errata on this. The Panda Animal companion in the new Animal Archive whose Powerful Bite ability gives it 2x STR to its Bite attack is looking pretty sweet with SKR's clarification.
Huh. Well i stand corrected. Time to let my druid's DM know the bad news.
A creature with a bite only who picks up Multiattack doesn't suddenly gain an extra natural attack, he just gets a second swing with the one he already had. He should still be receiving the full STR x1.5 bonus to damage.
You're right. I must have been tired last night to think that, haha.