Natural attacks with hands full


Rules Questions


As the title asks, can you make a claw attack while your hands are full?

I know you can't attack with the same limb twice in a round when combining natural attacks and weapon attacks, but what about when you're only making natural attacks.


You can not use the occupied limbs, but the other natural attacks can be used.


Source?


Pathfinder Bestiary wrote:
Creatures with natural attacks and attacks made with weapons can use both as part of a full attack action (although often a creature must forgo one natural attack for each weapon clutched in that limb, be it a claw, tentacle, or slam).

From the section on natural attacks in the Bestiary. Emphasis mine. Also, if you look at the rules for spells that provide claws, they typically have a line that specifically states that you cannot use a claw attack on a hand that is holding a weapon.


But what about when you're holding a potion? Not a weapon, just any old item.

And if you can attack while holding a potion, then why would a weapon work differently. Do note that you're quoting from the section about combining manufactured weapons with natural attacks, which obviously doesn't apply here.

Scarab Sages

You can't wield a weapon and hold an item in the same hand at the same time. You can wield a weapon in one hand while holding a potion in the other, but you can't juggle both at once unless you are a juggler bard.

Using a claw as a weapon precludes the use of that limb as a manipulator. You could technically make an attack with one claw, use a free action to switch the potion to another hand and then attack with the newly free claw on the newly empty hand, but expect gms to invoke the free action limit if you abuse it.


I'll ask again. Source?


This is a no. Your limb is occupied. The rules may not explicitly cover every circumstance.

Just because the rules do not say you can't doesn't mean that you can.

Put really long nails on the end of your fingers. Grab a book. Try to imagine using claws as a weapon while they're pointed at your wrists.


If you're just going to appeal to logic and not rules, I'll point that Wolverine never seems to have much of a problem with it. Yes, he has claws in addition to his fingers, but it's easy enough to imagine using only your thumb to hold an object in place while you have your fingers pointing outwards.


jmclaus wrote:
it's easy enough to imagine using only your thumb to hold an object in place while you have your fingers pointing outwards.

Is it? You have a different sense of reality from me then.

How about this. Hold a water bottle with your thumb and try typing once. That should be easier than hitting a moving target with your fingernails...


Right, because a potion is remotely the same size as a water bottle. It's one inch wide and two inches high. And just for you, I tried typing while holding a salt shaker without much issue.


jmclaus wrote:
If you're just going to appeal to logic and not rules,

Are there rules that cover this exact circumstance? Probably not.

Since there is no exact rule for or against this, the answer does not default into -so i can do it- it falls into adjudication.

In the absence of rules covering your exact circumstance you look for the next best thing. The closest analog for holding something is holding a weapon, which you can't do. This strongly indicates that you can't hold an item either. Weapons are some of the most ergonomic things in the pseduomiddle ages , but you still can't hold one and use claws. A dagger would be far easier to hold that way than a dictionary, but you can't.

Quote:
I'll point that Wolverine never seems to have much of a problem with it. Yes, he has claws in addition to his fingers, but it's easy enough to imagine using only your thumb to hold an object in place while you have your fingers pointing outwards.

Thats probably a good way to break your thumb or drop the object.

Since the rules say that you cannot hold a weapon and use claws, they are probably not wolverine claws.


jmclaus wrote:
Right, because a potion is remotely the same size as a water bottle. It's one inch wide and two inches high. And just for you, I tried typing while holding a salt shaker without much issue.

Hit your keyboard hard enough to punch through plate armor.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
jmclaus wrote:
Right, because a potion is remotely the same size as a water bottle. It's one inch wide and two inches high. And just for you, I tried typing while holding a salt shaker without much issue.
Hit your keyboard hard enough to punch through plate armor.

But not hard enough to break that shaker... And keeping a grip on said shaker...


I'll point out - again - that the rules concerning holding weapons and attacking are for when you are combining natural and weapon attacks. So no, there is no closest analog. I guess it's a matter of opinion and I have no problem with it.


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Oh look, its another one of those threads where the OP goes "I can do this thing, right?" and everyone goes "No, you can't, for a variety of excellent reasons," and OP goes "Well I'm gunna!"


jmclaus wrote:
I'll point out - again - that the rules concerning holding weapons and attacking are for when you are combining natural and weapon attacks.

They cover more than that. Notice that it says each weapon clutched in a limb, not just each weapon used to make an attack. Holding a sword in one hand negates that hands ability to make claw attacks.

Liberty's Edge

Do you have a source saying that you can't attack with a sword while holding a potion in the same hand? What about using one hand to attack with two swords at the same time? What about shooting laser beams out of your ears? Where is it written that you can't do that? Huh? Huh?!


jmclaus wrote:

But what about when you're holding a potion? Not a weapon, just any old item.

And if you can attack while holding a potion, then why would a weapon work differently. Do note that you're quoting from the section about combining manufactured weapons with natural attacks, which obviously doesn't apply here.

hmm, why indeed? makes the rules quote kind of relevant doesn't it.

Also, no!


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This person seems dead set on asking where its clearly forbidden.

There appears to be no convincing this individual with reasonable logic.

But I will propose this, instead of asking where it says you can't....where does it say that you can?


I have no actual horse in this race. I don't have any sort of natural attack build and I don't plan to either. This will probably never come up for me. I was asking for discussion's sake. You are correct in that I have not been convinced. I don't consider the above arguments anything more than opinion. Oh well.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
jmclaus wrote:
I have no actual horse in this race. I don't have any sort of natural attack build and I don't plan to either. This will probably never come up for me. I was asking for discussion's sake. You are correct in that I have not been convinced. I don't consider the above arguments anything more than opinion. Oh well.

That there's no explicit rule prohibiting this sort of thing (because frankly, it should be fairly obvious and is easily inferable from the rules quoted above) doesn't mean you can do it.

Also, applying logic to the rules set to augment your understanding of how the rules work to cover possibly unattended areas or ambiguous areas is not only something a person should naturally do, but it is an expected feature of the system (as has been verified by developer statements). So there is nothing wrong with "just appeal[ing] to logic".

It is not merely "an opinion" that one cannot attack with a claw while holding something in that hand; it is a valid logical inference derived from reading the existent rules and applying real world understanding in conjunction with that to recognize the intent behind the design of the game is to prohibit doing this. Hold a pencil in your hand, using just the thumb to secure it, then forcefully slap a hard surface. Tell me how effective you think you are with that attack. Tell me how effective you think you can be with that attack while still maintaining your grasp on the pencil and not damaging it in any way.

What your asking about not only appears to violate written rules that apply in a similar (though not this exact) situation. What you are doing does not seem logically or physically valid. Ergo, it stands to reason that unless you can demonstrate, with very credible, valid evidence (i.e., rules language supporting your position), that you cannot do what you want to do.

You can think these are just opinions all you want. I have come across no gm in my personal life who would accept what you're trying to do as valid, nor does it appear that anybody on here would accept what you're trying to do as valid. The ball is, as they say, firmly in your court on this one.

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

jmclaus wrote:

But what about when you're holding a potion? Not a weapon

section about combining manufactured weapons with natural attacks, which obviously doesn't apply here.

That isn't the way the rules work. It is a permissive system, if you don't have permission to do something you may not be able to do it.

Should this get answered, you'd likely see the answer parallel the answer on weapons.


It depends on the manner in which your hands are full.

If you are holding a 2 handed weapon such as a longbow, you have Claws, and you find yourself unexpectedly in melee, there is no reason why you can't make your full attack with both claws while holding the bow. There was an FAQ about this.

The example they gave was if a Wizard is holding a staff, you know, like Gandalf, he can let go of his staff with 1 hand as a Free Action to cast a spell, then return his hand to his staff, again as a Free Action.

Letting go of your Greatsword or Longbow to make your full attack with your Claws is just fine.

But if you have a Morning Star in 1 hand and a Heavy Shield in the other, that is a different story.

Dropping the Morning Star is a Free Action, so you can drop it and attack with your Claw, but then you have dropped your weapon. Dropping your Shield is a Move Action iirc, and then you are out of Full Attack country. Unless of course, your Shield is a Throwing Shield, in which case it can be dropped--actually thrown as a weapon--as a Free Action.

In other words,

"It could be carried by an African Swallow!"


You can ask Mark(designer). He has a thread.

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