Feral Shifters and Claw Damage, or question with a little cheddar....

[akashic_monk]

Okay, last night, I got thinking about a Feral Shifter combination dealie.... in the Feral Creature Template, it gives medium sized creatures a d8 claw attack, and if the creature already has a claw attack, use the better of the two... Shifters(out of Eberron) can get the razorclaw trait while shifting, giving them claws, but (starting out) it don't do well.

Anywho, the Improve Natural Attack Feat (in Eberron Core1) ups the damage dice on a natural attack. the way I would read it, if a Feral Shifter took that feat, they would get a 2d6 claw attack.

Now, the confusing part... Say the Feral Shifter took up the Weretouched Master prestige class, and chose Tiger as the base creature thingie... would the claw attack recieve another upgrade on damage when shifted, or no? (The part that confuses me is the sentence "If he already has the razorclaw shifter trait or the Improved Natural Attack feat, his claw damage increases by one size")

Anyway, thanks for your time and all

[Ben Rosenthal]

ok........... that was wierd.

[akashic_monk]

Vaynor wrote:

ok........... that was wierd.

What's so wierd?

[Phil. L]

The weird part is that both of you spelt weird wrong!

Seriously, there are some things in the game that stack, and some things that don't. You can increase the damage that your natural attacks do almost indefinitely if you take the right combination of feats and prestige classes. The only time you cannot increase the progression of your natural attacks is when the feat or prestige class tells you that you can't, and that is generally only with the feat or prestige class in question.

A shifter with the razorclaw shifter trait deals 1d4 points of damage with his claws. If you then got Improved Natural Attack feat the damage would go up to 1d6. You could keep getting this feat indefinitely or until your DM told you that you were being silly. With the weretouched 1 ability (granted by the weretouched master prestige class) the damage progression is increased by one step if you have the appropriate feats or shifter trait. Therefore a shifter with Improved Natural Attack, the razorclaw feat and the tiger weretouched 1 ability would inflict 1d8 points of damage with his claws (1d4 from the shifter trait, upped to 1d6 with Improved Natural Attack, upped to 1d8 with the prestige class ability). In the shifter's alternate form his claw damage would be equal to that of the base werecreature modified by the improvements in damage progression. Therefore a weretouched master in tiger form would do 2d6 points of damage with his claws (1d8 for his form, upped to 2d6 with Improved Natural Attack). He would not gain the weretouched master 1 ability, as this only applies when the shifter is shifting, not when he's assuming an alternate form. As for the feral template, the damage range just increases the damage a shifter does with its claws to 1d8 (from 1d4). The shifter trait wouldn't improve this damage range, but the feats and class abilities I have just mentioned would (unless the DM said otherwise).

I know its confusing, and some of my suggestions are based on logic more than the rules. This is because the rules are sometimes vague on the whole damage progression thing, especially with regards to shifters.