Tiefling Natural Weapon Ranger??

had an interesting idea last night while I was looking around, trying to build something for a mate.

Tiefling (Maw or Claw Alt. Racial Trait. Maw, in this case.)
20 point buy

STR 15 (17)
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 11 (13)
CHA 10 (8)

1 Fiendish Heritage (Pitborn, +2 STR, WIS, -2 CHA)
3 Power Attack
5 Toughness?
7 Multiattack
9 Cleave?
11 Furious Focus?

ranger Feats
2 Aspect of the Beast (Claws)
6 Eldritch Claws
10 Improved Natural Weapon (Claw)

Idea here is that i use the 2 claws and bite up until i get iterative attacks at level 6, and Multiattack at 7... At that point, I pick up any one handed weapon that i fancy. I use my remaining claw and bite attacks after attacking with said weapon... Since i have multiattack, the penalty is -2 instead of -5, and I get an extra attack out of it. The goal here is to get the early benefits of natural weapon ranger, and then to keep relevant.

Some Questions though:

1.) I feel like i am missing some good natural weapon feats, but I can't recall them.

2.) natural Weapon Style loses most of its appeal around level 6 or 10, since I can get Multiattack earlier, having 3 natural attacks already. Would it be a good idea to multiclass out into Barbarian or something?

Any help is much appreciated!

The two things that you are missing here is multiattack only reduces the penalty to hit, you still take the 1/2 str to damage penalty and power attack only getting half the damage bonus (-1 to-hit/+1 damage) which is a MASSIVE decrease in your damage potential. Second you don't get an extra attack out of multi-attack. That addition is only for animal companions who take the feat. All it would do for you is offset a penalty you should NEVER put yourself in a position to get.

Claw/Claw/Bite is ALWAYS going to be better then iterative attacks until about 11th level when they get 3 attacks a round, at which point you buy the Helm of the Mammoth Lord which gives you a 4th primary natural attack and pushes natural weapons back over iterative attacks.

Throw on an amulet of mighty fists +X (the recent price decrease makes it comparable to weapon enchant costs) with a wand of Strong Jaw and a decent belt of strength and you will easily keep up with and pass most weapon users on to-hit & damage. If you really want to just overwhelm the hunk of iron wielders throw on a Cloak of the manta ray (for the tail sting) and dip Alchemist for the Tentacle discovery and the Str boost mutagen.
5+ attacks a round by 5th-ish level nearly all at full BaB with no problem casting all your spells in full plate and no need to ever put away your wand/potion/extract/shield/etc since you always have a free hand.

Natural attacks are just better in all ways if you just invest a bit of time and effort into them.

P.S., Skip the cleave, Furious Focus & fiendish heritage feats, you don't need them.
Cleave is a standard action which means you'd give up your 3-4 attacks per round for 2 attacks that only work on different adjacent targets. ick
Furious Focus costs you one of your attacks per round (requires 2 hands for that 1 attack) to offset a penalty that is unimportant to you, all your attacks have an equal chance of hitting unlike iterative wielders so just full attack always.
Fiendish heritage is from an old AP book and with the new Blood of fiends it no longer costs you a feat to choose a different ancestry. Skip it.

Also, Pitborn is +2 STR/CHA, -2 INT. You're looking for Onispawn.

Also also: why not a half-orc with Tusked (a racial trait) instead of the tiefling, which has to give up a race trait for it?

...But Toothy (I assume that's what you meant by "Tusked") also requires you to give up a race trait for it.

Tieflings give up Darkness 1/day (or Alter Self in his case) and gain Maw or Claw.

Half-Orcs give up Orc Ferocity for Toothy.

Going Half-Orc saves the feat, though. With Half-Orc you can get +2 Strength.
You need to take the feat to get +2 Strength as a Tiefling.

I guess the feat does let you roll on that table of extra abilities.

...But Toothy (I assume that's what you meant by "Tusked") also requires you to give up a race trait for it.

Tieflings give up Darkness 1/day (or Alter Self in his case) and gain Maw or Claw.

Half-Orcs give up Orc Ferocity for Toothy.

Because for what he's going for Tiefling is a MUCH better race choice.

@Salindurthas, You are completely wrong there.
That was changed when the released Blood of Fiends, you no longer need to burn a feat to gain access to the other bloodlines, you just pick one.

Because for what he's going for Tiefling is a MUCH better race choice.

I'm aware. I was trying to make sense of his statement that Half-Orc didn't need an alternate racial trait for a bite.

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

Because for what he's going for Tiefling is a MUCH better race choice.

I'm aware. I was trying to make sense of his statement that Half-Orc didn't need an alternate racial trait for a bite.

It doesn't, it can drop ferocity for toothy or take the Race trait for Tusked or burn a feat for RazorTusk. All three options will give it a 1D4 bite attack.

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

Because for what he's going for Tiefling is a MUCH better race choice.

I'm aware. I was trying to make sense of his statement that Half-Orc didn't need an alternate racial trait for a bite.

Orcs of Golarion. Tusked is a trait that you can take. It's even PFS legal. Toothy is different. Unfortunately, it seems to have been taken off of d20pfsrd due to the purging of IP.

Also, in looking at the stat outlay, the tiefling isn't necessarily gaining anything. He's using pretty neutral values for WIS and CHA such that he could do a non-racial modification to 13 and 8 and it still fits in his point buy as-is.

The tiefling, while having some advantages, loses out in other areas, such as not being a viable target for Enlarge Person or being able to get a blanket +1 to all saves (or, for that matter, any number of other things) by losing Orc Ferocity.

So Serisan and Mathwei regarding the ability scores:

To make sure we are on the same page I'd like to make sure I understand. A Tiefling COULD more 'aggressively' min-max to get a higher Wis and a lower Cha, right?
It just happens that the stat block above does take advantage of that fact (not to say it should, but it could).

Mathwei, you clearly think Tiefling is the superior choice (and have explained why).
Does the core of your suggestions (mammoth lord, amulet, etc) still apply even if the character were a half-orc?

Essentially, I'm asking if (mechanically) the decision between Tiefling and Half-Orc is or might be minimal.

So Serisan and Mathwei regarding the ability scores:

To make sure we are on the same page I'd like to make sure I understand. A Tiefling COULD more 'aggressively' min-max to get a higher Wis and a lower Cha, right?
It just happens that the stat block above does take advantage of that fact (not to say it should, but it could).

Mathwei, you clearly think Tiefling is the superior choice (and have explained why).
Does the core of your suggestions (mammoth lord, amulet, etc) still apply even if the character were a half-orc?

Essentially, I'm asking if (mechanically) the decision between Tiefling and Half-Orc is or might be minimal.

Absolutely. My suggestions work for any natural weapon using character and I'm currently playing a half-orc ranger making use of exactly that. Now if I had the option of going back and doing it again I'd definitely rebuild it as a tiefling ranger instead.

The core of natural weapon using characters is to get as many primary attacks as you can and push your strength as high as you can, and that's it. A high strength + high attack bonus +3-5 natural attacks = a massive amount of damage potential.

Depending on whether you like the skill bonuses you get as an onispawn, you could trade it out for fiendish sprinter. This gives you a +10 speed bonus when you charge, run, withdraw, etc. Not sure if it is as good for rangers as beast totem barbarians, but can still be nice. One detail I was a bit iffy on though: does this speed bonus come before or after the multiplication of your speed? I'd assume after, but the wording was a bit weird.

A good feat that you could get would be Rending Claws. This add an extra 1d6 of damage on a second successful claw attack in a turn. Since both are at full BAB, that should not be too hard. It adds 3.5 to your average DPR, and it could help you punch through DR. You can get the feat at any time with your bonus feats as a natural weapons ranger. Might be something to look into later at least.

In considering barbarian, the problem comes up that many of the best rage powers for natural weapons users are for pure barbarians. The beast totem abilities are of course attractive, but that is level 10 for the full set. The elemental rage would also help since it would allow you to pick an element while raging so that you would not have to have to apply the standard elements to your AoMF, but that is level 8. The only real choice for you would be to use two levels of barbarian to get lesser fiend totem and get a gore attack while raging. This could be rather effective since it is a 1d8 primary attack, and the boost to STR and CON while raging could often be attractive for a melee build.

I'm playing one in a game without magic marts, and therefore was willing to drop FE (was so situational for my GM to worry about it, and no wand of instant enemy available).

So I picked up the Wild Stalker/Shapeshifter Ranger. Natural Weapon Style, Tiefling, gives me claw/claw/bite/gore with a 26 Str (18 Base +4 rage +4 enhance at level 5) and a 1k quickrunners shirt is poor man's pounce until you get on up there.

Feats Aspect of the Beast (claws), Tiefling Nat Armor +2, and Power Attack.

I'm hitting at +11 for 1d8+12 and 1d4+12x3 attacks at level 5, and people pretty much become a red mist. All of this with a 20 AC and saves of 7/7/4, perception of +11, and about to pick up my AoMF.

It works, fairly well.

The two things that you are missing here is multiattack only reduces the penalty to hit, you still take the 1/2 str to damage penalty and power attack only getting half the damage bonus (-1 to-hit/+1 damage) which is a MASSIVE decrease in your damage potential.

I thought Power Attack gave you -1/+2 and also 1-1/2 Strength mod on Primary Natural attacks? So wouldn't Power Attack actually be a good thing?

When natural attacks are secondary, they get half str, such as when combined with manufactured weapons. There is also this line in the PA description: "This bonus to damage is halved (–50%) if you are making an attack with an off-hand weapon or secondary natural weapon"

The OP was talking about using pure nat attacks until he got his iteratives, then mixing, and several people were pointing out why that's less than effective until you get BAB +11. (and even then it's less effective, since you need an AoMF for your naturals and a magic weapon to get thru DRs at that point)

AH! Thank you for the clarification!

I'd like to put in my two cents on this conversation because I'm making a similar build and I haven't seen it mentioned yet. The maw or claw alternate trait give the tiefling a bite that deals 1d6 points of damage, whereas everything for the half-orc only gives a bite that does 1d4 points of damage. This was the biggest selling point for me as it has the potential for more damage.

....1 point DPR more. Differences between weapons dice do not matter much until you can reliably get 1d8 to a 2d6, since it is a 2.5 increase in DPR.

On that note, looking at the wild stalker archetypes, you might be able to get your claws to do 2d6 damage while staying monoclass. You just have to get the Beast Totem rage powers. Greater Beast Totem gives you 1d8 claws while raging (plus the ever amazing pounce), so improved natural weapon feat would bring that up to 2d6. It admittedly takes until level 13 to pull this off though, since your ranger level counts as barbarian levels -3. Still something to look forward to. Assuming you take aspect of the beast (which might get delayed until level 3 depending on how some of the rules are read), you get a jump from 1d6 to 2d6 damage while raging.

Although, not entirely sure if I would go with wildstalker though, since you give up a lot and the language seems a bit iffy here or there. The bit with uncanny dodge makes it seem like you replace all your combat feats for it (which is nowhere neat a fair trade).