Okay, so the plant domain power grants the Wooden Fist ability.
Wooden Fist (Su): As a free action, your hands can become as hard as wood, covered in tiny thorns. While you have wooden fists, your unarmed strikes do not provoke attacks of opportunity, deal lethal damage, and gain a bonus on damage rolls equal to 1/2 your cleric level (minimum +1). You can use this ability for a number of rounds per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
My question is this: When a druid wild shapes, can he use this ability with his natural attacks to deal bonus damage? RAW obviously states "unarmed strikes," but does that preclude natural weapons?
If so, do y'all think it would be terribly unbalanced to let it apply to natural attacks anyway?
Page 182 of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook makes it quite clear that these are different kinds of attacks (most notably, unarmed attacks use your full iterative BAB, while natural attacks are not eligible for iterative attacks at all - though there are other differences too).
And the druid Plant Domain ability specifies unarmed and does not mention natural attacks, so it's clear, by RAW, that this only applies to unarmed attacks.
As to whether it would be unbalancing, my first inclination is to say no, it's not too big a deal. You gave up your animal companion to get this ability, and your animal companion most certainly could be used while you were wildshaped, so I don't see that letting you use this domain ability while wildshaped gives you any more advantage than the alternative.
Of course, playtesting would prove or disprove how unbalanced this is.
If I were the DM, I would tell you that I will allow it on a permanent probationary basis. If it turns out (at any level, ever) that you are overpowered because of it, then steps will need to be taken to either enforce the RAW or tone down the aiblity to make it less overpowered.
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Wooden Fist (Su): As a free action, your hands can become as hard as wood, covered in tiny thorns. While you have wooden fists, your unarmed strikesMy question is this: When a druid wild shapes, can he use this ability with his natural attacks to deal bonus damage? RAW obviously states "unarmed strikes," but does that preclude natural weapons?
Two key points:
1) Unarmed Strikes != Natural Attacks.2) You lose any ability that depends on your form, this says "your hands" so your DM is the final arbiter on whether or not this depends on your form (and is therefore lost.)
My question is this: When a druid wild shapes, can he use this ability with his natural attacks to deal bonus damage? RAW obviously states "unarmed strikes," but does that preclude natural weapons?
If so, do y'all think it would be terribly unbalanced to let it apply to natural attacks anyway?
I think Risner and Blake probably have the rules right. That said, talk to your GM, you are giving up a whole lot of functionality with the Animal companion so I don't see why he wouldn't let it slide.
As a side note, this domain ability is fairly weak for a wildshaper (assuming you allow it in your game). Your wildshaped natural attacks don't provoke AoOs and they also deal lethal damage. So 2 of the 3 benefits of the ability are moot points when wildshaped.
So all you really get is the +1 damage/2 levels. This is quite nice, especially since it seems to be an untyped bonus (unless I missed a rule somewhere that defines untyped domain bonuses as a specific type) so it stacks with everything else (like Magic Fang or an Amulet of Mighty Fists). So it might be worth it just for this.
Further, if I were the DM, I would still limit it to your two "hands", so if you turn into a bear, you can claw/claw/bite, but your bite wouldn't have the Wooden Fist ability. In fact, one of my reasons for only allowing this as probationary is the fact that a human druid/cleric at low level would only get one attack/round with this ability (unless he took the Two-Weapon Fighting penalties), but a wildshaped druid would almost always get two attacks/round.
I certainly would be cautious of this and would restrict it from slipping further out of control through any loose interpretation that would argue for bites, rear-leg attacks, squid tentacles, or any other trickiness, getting more than the two "hands" that the ability was (loosely) meant to allow.
Yeah, I figured that's how it was intended. Were I DMing, I'd certainly allow hand(paw)-related natural attacks to benefit from it. It's only so many rounds per day, and +6 damage/attack at level 12 is not a huge deal.