Multiattack


Rules Questions


I searched for answers, but only found old archived material.

How does multiattack work in Pathfinder? I notice some creatures in the Bestiary (an Owlbear, for example) has 3 attacks, but suffers no penalty on any of them (+8 on both claws and bite - many other examples exist: chimera, bone devils, leopards, you name it) despite not having multiattack, while other creatures like an Otyugh (2 tentacles and a bite) have the typical -5 penalty for a secondary attack, and others like a unicorn have multiattack and have the -2 penalty.

Is there a simple rule for determining whether all a creature's attacks should have the same bonus (as a bone devil has for claws, bite, and sting, or a chimera has for bite, bite, gore, claw, claw) or for different bonuses (as a cornugon has, where bite and claws are one bonus, but the tail has a -2 penalty?)

I am converting creatures and simply unsure sometimes as to whether I should bother to use a feat on multiattack if the creature would already have full BAB attacking on all its various attack forms.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Multiattack works the same as 3.5 in that it lessens the secondary attack penalty from -5 to -2.

What Pathfinder did was changed which attacks were considered primary and secondary. Now a monster can have more than one 'primary' attack.

Its all covered on Pg 302 of the Bestiary.


Richard McAteer wrote:

I searched for answers, but only found old archived material.

How does multiattack work in Pathfinder? I notice some creatures in the Bestiary (an Owlbear, for example) has 3 attacks, but suffers no penalty on any of them (+8 on both claws and bite - many other examples exist: chimera, bone devils, leopards, you name it) despite not having multiattack, while other creatures like an Otyugh (2 tentacles and a bite) have the typical -5 penalty for a secondary attack, and others like a unicorn have multiattack and have the -2 penalty.

Is there a simple rule for determining whether all a creature's attacks should have the same bonus (as a bone devil has for claws, bite, and sting, or a chimera has for bite, bite, gore, claw, claw) or for different bonuses (as a cornugon has, where bite and claws are one bonus, but the tail has a -2 penalty?)

I am converting creatures and simply unsure sometimes as to whether I should bother to use a feat on multiattack if the creature would already have full BAB attacking on all its various attack forms.

from what I read on some other posts, multiattack effectively does nothing to a creature that only has multiple primary attacks (like a bite and 2 claws) since they do not meet the requirement of "only having one attack" nor the requirement of "having a secondary attack."

Contributor

Zag is correct.

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