First of all, let me say to my players who read this board, STAY OUT. THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE FOR THE CAMPAIGN I AM MAKING. TURN BACK NOW.
Now that that's taken care of, I have a question concerning attack bonuses of creatures with natural attacks and two weapon fighting. The exact situation is this: A group of yuan-ti captured some caravan guards and transformed them into bizarre snake-creatures. I'm using the spellwarped template from MM3, but they've also gained some other abilities, such as constricting and a poisonous bite. The bite has me confused.
The guards all use two weapon fighting with a longsword and shortsword, but what would the attack bonus of the bite be? Would it take a -5 penalty for being a secondary natural attack? The caravan guards haven't had that much time to get used to their new form, so would it be primary? They don't have three or more NATURAL attacks, so I don't think multiattack would apply here, and I'm not going to make up a new feat just to make them more lethal, if the normal rules wouldn't allow it. Or, would the bite only take a -2 penalty? It's a light (natural) weapon, and secondary, but I'm thinking that it would have to take a bigger minus. The guards were all 5th level fighters. Strength scores and such are irrelevant, as I'll add in extra bonuses later. I'm just wondering what the longsword/shortsword/bite full attack would be given the base attack bonus.
OK so I read the natural weapon section of the MM and IF the creatures have a natural claw attack then you have to decide if the bite is secondary of primary (secondary weapons take a -5 to hit). It is primary if it is the most effective natural attack:
" A creature's primary natural weapon is its most effective natural attack, usually by virtue of the creature's physiology, training, or innate talent with the weapon."
A medium creature usually has a bite of 1d6 and 2 claws at 1d4. this makes the bite the primary natural weapon.
Therefore the two other weapons (longsward and shortsword) and secondary attacks and suffer a -5 to attack.
Two weapon fighting feats do not seem to be taken into account in this system. So maybe apply the -5 and to the secondary weapons and leave it at that. The argument being that the are kind of proficient with 2 weapon fighting from their previous life so don't stack on more penalties.
However ... if you assume that the bite is secondary then give it a -5 and don't penalise the two swords.
Any comments?
igi
OK so I read the natural weapon section of the MM and IF the creatures have a natural claw attack then you have to decide if the bite is secondary of primary (secondary weapons take a -5 to hit). It is primary if it is the most effective natural attack:
" A creature's primary natural weapon is its most effective natural attack, usually by virtue of the creature's physiology, training, or innate talent with the weapon."
A medium creature usually has a bite of 1d6 and 2 claws at 1d4. this makes the bite the primary natural weapon.
Therefore the two other weapons (longsward and shortsword) and secondary attacks and suffer a -5 to attack.
Two weapon fighting feats do not seem to be taken into account in this system. So maybe apply the -5 and to the secondary weapons and leave it at that. The argument being that the are kind of proficient with 2 weapon fighting from their previous life so don't stack on more penalties.However ... if you assume that the bite is secondary then give it a -5 and don't penalise the two swords.
Any comments?
igi
A tricky call. Don't forget the feat 'Multiattack' reduces the penalty on secondary natural attacks from -5 to -2 (On a par with 2 weapon fighting). If someone were to spend two feats in order to get both Two Weapon Fighting and Mutli Attack, I would personally allow them to use both at the same time. Thus allowing the two sword attacks at -2, as well as a bite at -2. This seems to make sense to me.
The thing is, they don't have a PRIMARY natural attack, just two weapons, so I wonder if Multiattack is actually applicable? I also want their swords to be the primary attacks, as that's what they were in the previous life. The bite will be a secondary. Right now, I have the bonus, using just base attack of a 5th level fighter, as +3, +3 (longsword and shortsword with Two-Weapon Fighting), and -2 (Bite as a secondary natural attack). The huge strength augments from the spellwarped template, as well as the fact that the longsword is +1 and the shortsword is masterwork, actually has the bonuses pretty high. These creatures also use their bites to coat their weapons in poison out of combat, so that the first hits require Fort saves.
The sheer number of snakes, yuan-ti, and spellwarped that the party will encounter is going to almost ensure they fail a Fort save or two, and all the poison used by these various creatures is 1d6 Con. I'm not too worried about it (they're a strong party), but I don't actually want the bite on the spellwarped to be TOO strong, since it's the only attack that can deliver the poison on every hit, which might be a bit too lethal if that's super accurate.
I also remember a statement regarding things such as herbivores that don't use their primary weapons all that much normally (a cow using her horns was the example given I believe), and those automatically took -5. Though these beasties are obviously more combative than cows, lol, I still think that rule applies to their bite. They almost always use their swords, just throwing in the bite on a full attack for the chance that it hits and deals the Con damage. It is a tricky subject, however. Thanks for the posts!
Have the bite be a primary (and sole) natural attack if it is their only attack for the round. That is, full attack bonus, x1.5 Str bonus to damage.
In a full attack, if they wish to use it in addition to their weapon attacks, it is a secondary attack, -5 atk, x.5 Str bonus to damage.
I'm just wondering what the longsword/shortsword/bite full attack would be given the base attack bonus.
The bite, while it is a Primary Natural Attack, would be used as a secondary natural attack when they attack with their swords first.
The guards would attack: longsword / shortsword with at (BAB -2) for t.w.f. Then they would recieve a bite at their full (BAB - 5) for the secondary natural attack.
As I understand it, ANY natural weapon can be tacked onto the end of a full attack sequence as a "secondary" natural attack for the round at BAB -5. However, since the -2 penalty for TWF specifically says that it applies to all attacks during the turn, it may be (not sure on this) that the -2 penalty must also be assessed along with the -5 secondary natural attack, for a final sequence of Longsword (BAB -2)/Shortsword (BAB -2)/Bite (BAB -7). If this isn't the case, then just tack on the bite at the end of their sequence at BAB -5, and don't forget that damage on a secondary natural attack is always 1/2 STR bonus. However, if they attack with ONLY their bite (such as in the case of a standard attack action or perhaps an AoO), they should get 1.5 * STR bonus, since that's the norm for damage bonus when a creature has a single natural weapon attack.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
|
Minotaur would be a good analogy, so you may want to look for some classed minotaur NPC's. Their horn attack is their only natural weapon. When we had a Savage Species minotaur in the party, he used his horns at a -5 penalty as a secondary weapon (though he wasn't double weilding).