Evening all. I'm working on making my first NPC of own design, and I've chosen a difficult subject for a novice DM: a thri-kreen armed with two short swords. Working on him has brought up a couple of shady rules to me involving two-weapon fighting and the combination of two-weapon fighting and natural attacks. I seem to be missing answers to these in the core rulebooks.
First of all, when base attack bonus gets up to six, the character hits twice with his weapon in one round. Basic stuff. Now, what if the critter is fighting with two weapons? Does the off hand weapon also gain a second attack with the smaller base attack bonus? Or does only the primary weapon retain the second attack? Or perhaps the off hand weapon counts as the second attack? Does the character have two, three or even four attacks a round (with various negatives for fighting two-handed)?
But another problem arises with my NPC having several manufactured and natural weapons. The Monster Manual unfortunately appears to only have rules for one manufactured weapon and natural weapon(s). A primary weapon that's manufactured doesn't normally take penalties with natural secondary attacks, but does the second weapon still result in two-weapon fighting penalties? Does the off hand weapon affect the creature's natural weapons, changing their penalties to two-weapon fighting penalties too?
I hope my queries sound coherent. There's a lot of small details involving weapon combinations, and unfortunately I made the mistake of picking the most difficult combination. If the good folk of Paizo could help me get these rules clarified, I'd be extremely grateful! I'm otherwise proud of the character I'm making, and I'd hate to scrap him for something less intriguing!
Cheers,
Minsk
easy enough.
1) you need a feat to gain the second attack with the offhand shortsword. "improved two-weapon fighting" its not automatic.,
2) thrikreen can add a bite attack to their two weapon volley at -5 to hit. so your +6 BAB critter would attack 2 times with his shortsword primary, 1 with his shortsword offhand, and 1 time with his bite.
3) the 4 claws are only usable when hes not wielding weapons at all, in which case he gets 4 claws + 1 bite.
4) you have the option to use 'multiweapon fighting' from the MM which is basically two-weapon combat for things with more then 2 limbs. so he could use 4 shortswords in equivalent. (much like the marilith demon)
that would be 1 main hand and 3 offhand (1/2 str bonus, etc)
But as you reminded that he's only able to use either all four claws or none at all in a full attack, I'll have to scrap the "alternating attacks per round" idea. Since I want him to retain his swords, I suppose I'll just play up the brutality of his sword-fighting, not so much using them as a trained swordsman as pressing unrelentlessly like a cornered animal - maximizing his lethality isn't as important in his fight as the atmosphere!
I am not exactly sure that is necessary. Typically if a creature is mixing manufactured weapon attacks with natural weapon attacks, the manufactured ones are treated as the primary and the natural ones are all then treated as secondary. So I think you could attack with two shortswords (one of which would be the primary, the other would be the "off-hand") and then with two claws and a bite all at a -5 penalty because they are all treated as secondary at that point. You could reduce that to a -2 with multiattack. They would of course also take the TWF penalties as well.
EDIT: I knew I had seen this written out. It is in the FAQ.
What happens when creatures use their natural weapons as secondary attacks along with a manufactured weapon? For example, lizardfolk have two claws that also serve as hands. What happens when they wield a one handed weapon in one hand and nothing in the other? Do they lose both claw attacks in exchange for their attacks with the weapon?
Wielding a manufactured weapon doesn’t prevent a creature from using all its natural weaponry, provided that the creature is using the full attack action and the additional natural weapons are free.
The example lizardfolk can’t make a claw attack with the “hand” that holds its weapon, although it does get to attack with the weapon itself. But, if it’s using the full attack action, it can use its other claw as a natural secondary attack (–5 to attack rolls, half Strength bonus), and can also bite as a natural secondary attack. In effect, the lizardfolk is using its normal full attack routine with the manufactured weapon attack substituted for one claw attack.
Considering that if you want to play a thri-kreen, which I on occassion, have done, the first thing to remember is that multiweapon fighting is your friend. It is only usable by a character that can hold three or more weapons. Second, a thri-kreen can make one attack with each of its natural weapons EVERY round. This is four claws and a bite at 5 less than the claws, each claw being at full bonus and damage (considered primary attack). If you use mixed weapon and claw, you can still make a bite and the claws are still at the highest BAB.Extra attacks with off-hand weapons requires improved multiweapon fighting or better. Multiattack allows you to make 8 claw attacks (2 each) and two bite attacks in a round. If you really want to get sick, combine multiattack with multiweapon fighting, improved multiweapon fighting, greater multiweapon fighting, a slashing weapon, levels in dervish and slashing flurry from PHB 2 and you come out somwhere around 38 attacks in one round with 4 on each enemy as you pass him.
Incidently, slashing flurry also works for the claws (slashing damage). Also, improved natural attack from the MM will raise the damage on one natural attack type ( take it twice and increase the damage for both), but can only be taken once per natural attack.
If you use mixed weapon and claw, you can still make a bite and the claws are still at the highest BAB.
According to the FAQ entry I posted above, this is not correct. If you use a weapon then that is considered the primary attack and all of your natural attacks then convert into secondary attacks (during a full attack, you can treat your claws as primary when doing one attack like for AoO). So if you mix weapons and naturals, your claws would have the same attack value as the bite.
Extra attacks with off-hand weapons requires improved multiweapon fighting or better.
Technically it is not required, it just reduced the penalties.
Multiattack allows you to make 8 claw attacks (2 each) and two bite attacks in a round.
This is incorrect. Multiattack only reduces the secondary natural attacks from -5 to -2, it does not allow you to take any more natural attacks.
Multiattack [General]
Prerequisite Three or more natural attacks.Benefit The creature’s secondary attacks with natural weapons take only a -2 penalty.
Normal Without this feat, the creature’s secondary attacks with natural weapons take a -5 penalty.
You might be confusing the typical version of the feat with the special druid entry which says:
Multiattack
An animal companion gains Multiattack as a bonus feat if it has three or more natural attacks and does not already have that feat. If it does not have the requisite three or more natural attacks, the animal companion instead gains a second attack with its primary natural weapon, albeit at a -5 penalty.
This is an exception to how multiattack works, not the rule.
If you really want to get sick, combine multiattack with multiweapon fighting, improved multiweapon fighting, greater multiweapon fighting, a slashing weapon, levels in dervish and slashing flurry from PHB 2 and you come out somwhere around 38 attacks in one round with 4 on each enemy as you pass him.
Yes, many of those can increase the number of attacks. Just a reminder that typically your number of natural attacks does not increase though (multiattack for example does not increase the number of attacks typically, see above for the special case it does). It is arguable whether the slashing flurry feat can be used with natural attacks or not, since it says slashing "weapon". Of course to use it you need to take 2 other feats and be at least 14th level, so I'd probably allow it.
My mistake. I was confusing multiattack with rapid strike, which does allow extra natural weapon attacks. There is also improved rapid strike which allows further attacks with natural weapons.These feats however only apply to one set of natural weapons (such as claw) but applys to all limbs of that type. Unfortunately, my original post lacked access to the books so they were a bit skewed.
the wording for weapon focus and every other feat in the tree uses the term "weapon", and there is no mention of it applying to natural weapons, therefor with no mention of it NOT applying to natural weapons makes it allowable for natural attacks of that type.