Animal Companion / Eidolon Multi Attack Feature

[Kolokotroni]

Given the change that has been made to natural attacks in pathfinder, does anyone else think the multi attack feature of animal companions and now eidolons needs to be reworded. It used to make sense in 3.5, if you had 3 natural weapons one or two were secondary attacks. If you didnt you got the iterative attack at -5. In pathfinders it is distinctly possible to have 3 or more natural attacks and none of them be secondary. A bite and 2 claws for instance which is not an uncommon setup gains nothing from the multiattack feature.

I am not sure if its neccessary, but it seems like its a holdover from 3.5 that just got missed.

[Odinsonnah]

Kolokotroni wrote:

Given the change that has been made to natural attacks in pathfinder, does anyone else think the multi attack feature of animal companions and now eidolons needs to be reworded. It used to make sense in 3.5, if you had 3 natural weapons one or two were secondary attacks. If you didnt you got the iterative attack at -5. In pathfinders it is distinctly possible to have 3 or more natural attacks and none of them be secondary. A bite and 2 claws for instance which is not an uncommon setup gains nothing from the multiattack feature.

I am not sure if its neccessary, but it seems like its a holdover from 3.5 that just got missed.

I'm not sure I understand this, myself. What exactly is the benefit of getting Multiattack at 9th level for, example, a Big Cat (Lion or Tiger) animal companion?

[Ben Adler]

Odinsonnah wrote:

I'm not sure I understand this, myself. What exactly is the benefit of getting Multiattack at 9th level for, example, a Big Cat (Lion or Tiger) animal companion?

Hmm, there seems to be none for the tiger.

The Dinosaur (Deinonychus/velociraptor) gets a bonus to his talon attacks, and I assume that some of the other critters on the list have secondary attacks.
Since there's no rule anymore about 1 primary only, it might be nice to have a little more stated in the creature stat blocks.
It took me a while to figure out which of my animal companions natural attacks were at 1 1/2, 1, or 1/2 str bonus to damage for instance.
Not to mention that it's not explicitly stated if animal companions get the racial skill bonuses like others of their kind, which can lead to some embarrassing situations:
Like a tiger with poor stealth and nonexistant perception due to 1skillpt/hd, whereas a natural tiger (perhaps with lower hd even) outperforms it in several skills due to +8 racial bonuses.

[straight edge]

Primary adn secondary are now determined by attack type. I cannot find it in the book but Pazio made a chart. Hooves are secondary so horses benefit from the free feat. Claws and bite are primary so the feet is not needed for those animals.

As a side note, aren't horse kicks deadly while their bites are not even close? Shouldn't horse deal tremendous hoove damage? If I understand horse properly, they can snap a person's neck. That would seem to be a "primary attack."