Feral Combat Training and Perfect Strike


Rules Questions


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.
FCT table text wrote:
Use Improved Unarmed Strike feats with natural weapons
Feral Combat Training wrote:

You were taught a style of martial arts that relies on the natural weapons from your racial ability or class feature.

Prerequisites: Improved Unarmed Strike, Weapon Focus with selected natural weapon.

Benefit: Choose one of your natural weapons. While using the selected natural weapon, you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, as well as effects that augment an unarmed strike.

Special: If you are a monk, you can use the selected natural weapon with your flurry of blows class feature.

How does this interact with Perfect Strike?

Perfect Strike table text wrote:
Roll twice for attacks with monk weapons and take the better roll
Perfect Strike wrote:

When wielding a monk weapon, your attacks can be extremely precise.

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Wis 13, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +8.

Benefit: You must declare that you are using this feat before you make your attack roll (thus a failed attack roll ruins the attempt). You must use one of the following weapons to make the attack: kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, and siangham. You can roll your attack roll twice and take the higher result. If one of these rolls is a critical threat, the other roll is used as your confirmation roll (your choice if they are both critical threats). You may attempt a perfect attack once per day for every four levels you have attained (but see Special), and no more than once per round.

Special: A weapon master monk or zen archer monk receives Perfect Strike as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. A monk may attempt an perfect strike attack a number of times per day equal to his monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels he has in classes other than monk.

I imagine most of you will argue that the specific limitation of the feat makes this untenable, perhaps even citing the FAQ about it's use with unarmed strikes.

However, I have observed an inordinately large number of responses suggesting that FCT also bypasses similar language in other feats that require the attack to be an actual unarmed strike.

Why does this make a difference? FCT says nothing about treating your natural weapon as an unarmed strike, only that IUS feats apply (as do effects that augment UAS).
(At best, you treat it as if it had the monk special weapon quality, but it doesn't even say that explicitly; it's still a natural weapon and still follows all the rules of such -save where something that augments UAS overrides this, like Monk IUS granting full Str-, unless you are using it as part of a FoB.)

So, my questions is

Can you substitute a 'natural weapon attack augmented by Feral Combat Training' in place of an Unarmed Strike for feats that specifically utilize an Unarmed Strike such as: Vicious Stomp, Panther Style, or Medusa's Wrath?

If you can for the above, what makes this different for Perfect Strike, considering no such language about substitution exists within Feral Combat Training?

Can you use Perfect Strike in conjunction with Feral Combat Training?


1) Yes. Otherwise the feat does nothing, and that would be dumb.

2) Because Feral Combat Training does not let you treat your natural attacks as a kama. It lets you treat them as unarmed strikes.

3) No.

Bonus: Excessive use of bold lettering does not make your argument more convincing.


It doesn't work.

Not because of the pre-requisites that you bolded, but because Perfect Strike doesn't work with unarmed strikes normally.

Perfect Strike requires IUS to take the feat, but that has nothing to do with what the feat does. If unarmed strike was one of the weapons listed under it's benefits section, then it would work like you want.

It has been asked a couple of times on the forums why a feat that requires IUS, and is given to one of the monk archetypes for free, doesn't actually work on unarmed strikes.


No, it does not let you treat them as unarmed strikes.

You may only use your natural attack as part of a Flurry, you may not substitute it in any other iterative way, including AoOs.

edit, since it will be misunderstood
of course you can make an AoO, you may not substitute it for an UAS AoO because it is not an UAS


...Jesus Christ, looking at it again I think Archaeik is right.

Feral Combat Training wrote:
Choose one of your natural weapons. While using the selected natural weapon, you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, as well as effects that augment an unarmed strike.

The part that references unarmed strikes is separate from the main part of the feat, which indicates that you can use your natural attacks with feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite.

This is ridiculous. Why would they word it like that? "Treat the selected natural weapon as an unarmed strike for the purposes of Flurry of Blows and other abilities that require an unarmed strike" is much more clear and wouldn't have allowed this to happen.

This is absolutely not the RAI and I doubt there are many GM's out there that will accept this, but... by RAW, because Perfect Strike is a feat with Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, you may use Perfect Strike with a Feral Combat Trained natural attack.


I want to reframe the question slightly.

Are attacks granted by feats "effects"?
Do you "apply" attacks to weapons?

I think we're pretty clear on the RAI, that this is completely unintended.
I'm just curious if these other "standard" uses are also unintended by extension, as I'm confident the rules can be argued both ways.


I look at it this way. FCT allows exception to the general rules by allowing natural attacks to essentially be used in place of unarmed strikes. The general rules being, to do xyz with such and such ability/feat you are making an unarmed strike (IE stunning fist let's say). So the new general rule becomes NA is essentially IUS.

Now where your Perfect Strike situation falls apart for me is the feat itself. FCT allows the potential to work, it has IUS as a prerequisite. The full stop occurs in Perfect Strike's write up. It doesn't list unarmed strike as a weapon able to access the benefit of the feat. The specifics of the feat state you need to be using one of the following "kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, and siangham." Improved unarmed strike isn't on that list.

Even though FCT gives you the potential, the specifics of the feat keep you from gaining the benefit of the feat unless using a specified weapon. If it had unarmed strike listed, or if the text just applied to "attacks made" in a general sense, FCT could work its magic. But there is a specific list of weapons that the feats benefit can be applied to. Specific > General rules.


That's not what the RAW says though. There is no qualifier that says the natural weapon is treated as an unarmed strike, or that it works 'as if' it was an unarmed strike.

Just curious, do you allow an FCT weapon to make iterative attacks in place of unarmed strikes? (something FCT says nothing about) Because that's what your interpretation suggests.


Specific trumps general and more specific trumps specific. The raw is fct doednt make your claws one of the listed weapons.


Feral Combat Training also doesn't say it let's you use your natural weapon in place of an unarmed strike, but that's how everyone plays it.

everyone seems to be missing that point


For all practical purposes it does allow you to use your natural weapon in place of an unarmed strike. I cannot think of any exceptions aside from a non flurry full attack.


thorin001 wrote:
For all practical purposes it does allow you to use your natural weapon in place of an unarmed strike. I cannot think of any exceptions aside from a non flurry full attack.

Show me where it says this.

Best I can tell, it considers attacks and bonuses from feats "effects" and then "applies" them to a natural weapon without consideration to its actual designation.


You can use a natural weapon in a flurry, you apply the better of your monk IUS damage or natural weapon damage, and anything that you can do with an unarmed strike you can do with your natural weapon. Buffs that normally only apply to unarmed strikes, like Dragon Style and the Plant domain power apply to your natural weapon. So where does your natural weapon not act like your unarmed strike?

Shadow Lodge

Here there are two ways of reading this one particular section

Feral Combat Training wrote:
While using the selected natural weapon, you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, as well as effects that augment an unarmed strike.

1:While using the selected natural weapon, you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, and you can apply effects that augment unarmed strikes to natural attacks.

2:You can apply feats that both have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite and effects that augment unarmed strikes.

Note the difference:1 functionally allows you to apply anything that works with unarmed strikes to work with natural weapons, and lets things like Perfect Strike work because it is a feat with IUS as a prerequisite. 2 allows only feats that work with unarmed strikes and have IUS as a prerequisite to work with natural weapons. Now, as to which is intended, I believe 1 is intended due to previous FAQ's. Also I'm pretty sure that most GMs will say no because the RAW of Perfect Strike is clear.


thorin001 wrote:
You can use a natural weapon in a flurry, you apply the better of your monk IUS damage or natural weapon damage, and anything that you can do with an unarmed strike you can do with your natural weapon. Buffs that normally only apply to unarmed strikes, like Dragon Style and the Plant domain power apply to your natural weapon. So where does your natural weapon not act like your unarmed strike?

The part where you use Primary or Secondary BAB to determine Attack Bonus instead of your iterative progression.

FCT does not change your natural weapon into an unarmed strike.
It's very dubious to me if you can apply something like Brawling through FCT since it contains no language to suggest that your weapon no longer counts as natural, yet a lot of people think you can apply it.


Archaeik wrote:
thorin001 wrote:
You can use a natural weapon in a flurry, you apply the better of your monk IUS damage or natural weapon damage, and anything that you can do with an unarmed strike you can do with your natural weapon. Buffs that normally only apply to unarmed strikes, like Dragon Style and the Plant domain power apply to your natural weapon. So where does your natural weapon not act like your unarmed strike?

The part where you use Primary or Secondary BAB to determine Attack Bonus instead of your iterative progression.

FCT does not change your natural weapon into an unarmed strike.
It's very dubious to me if you can apply something like Brawling through FCT since it contains no language to suggest that your weapon no longer counts as natural, yet a lot of people think you can apply it.

I already said that the only exception is a non flurry full attack. I asked you for other exceptions.

Brawling absolutely affects the FCT natural weapon. It is explicitly an effect that augments unarmed strikes. The language may not be in the Brawling entry, but it is in the FCT entry.


Perfect Strike tells you what weapons it functions with, period. FCT doesn't state anywhere it allows you to bypass the restriction in the feat itself. FCT grants the potential to be used with any feat with IUS, but a specific limitation is still a limitation.


thorin001 wrote:

I already said that the only exception is a non flurry full attack. I asked you for other exceptions.

Brawling absolutely affects the FCT natural weapon. It is explicitly an effect that augments unarmed strikes. The language may not be in the Brawling entry, but it is in the FCT entry.

This is still dubious as it is still a natural weapon you make the attack with. Brawling specifically says it does not apply.

There is a direct conflict here (provided you go with an "as if it was an UAS" interpretation), which makes it a GM call.

Regarding the Attack Action/Full-attack, it's less popular, but some make the argument for "in place of an UAS".
FCT implies this is not the case (by calling out FoB without additionally assigning the Monk weapon quality), but even the "as if" version does not rule this out entirely.
I'm only like 99% convinced that you can't substitute an FCT attack for every UAS.

Skylancer4 wrote:
Perfect Strike tells you what weapons it functions with, period. FCT doesn't state anywhere it allows you to bypass the restriction in the feat itself. FCT grants the potential to be used with any feat with IUS, but a specific limitation is still a limitation.

The language of FCT can be read as a delimiter. (Especially since it delimits every other IUS feat without specifically declaring the manner in which it does so.)


If there was only the "limit" of only being able to use IUS to make an attack, use as a delivery system of an effect or perform an action/effect. It could act as a "delimiter" here. If there was only that one contradiction to deal with I'd agree it works.

But the "effect" of the feat is based off a certain specific list of weapons. We have a second limit in the feat which FCT doesn't bypass or make exception to. I can use my natural attack to use this feat but the feat doesn't function unless I'm using one a specific list of weapons. I can't gain the benefit of the feat due to that, I'm not using the right weapon.

This is an exception based game. The rules tell you what you can do, and when there are exceptions to the general rules. There isn't just one check made for an action to be viable. It has to check true to all involved restrictions. Just because the general rules say you can move 30', doesn't mean that is always allowed. If you are encumbered or wearing medium/heavy armor or any number of any other possible restrictions, you don't get to move 30'. Everything involved needs to be "allowing" the action. Or every restriction needs to be be "delimited" for it to work.

FCT doesn't grant exception to the feats inherent limitations. So we have the potential but once the feat checks the weapon, we fail to have a way bypass the restriction.


It's a close distinction, but I'm going to have to go with no on this one. FCT allows Perfect Strike to apply to your natural attack, but Perfect Strike itself requires you to use from a specified list of weapons. The result is that Perfect Strike will apply to your claws, but only if you're attacking with a kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, or siangham. It technically works, but the qualifying situation to make it work (making an attack that is both claws and not claws) is impossible. Thus, the de facto state is that it doesn't work.

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