Help understanding Feral Mutagen? Please.

[Brett Gillespie]

I read the other thread about feral mutagen, but part of it really went over my head. haha.

When you get three natural attacks, bite claw claw, at your full attack bonus, what does that mean?

Say I'm a second level Alchemist with Feral Mutagen, my base attack bonus is effectively 2 with them. I can just attack with one of them as a standard action, but as a full attack, what's my bonus look like?

The Alchemist class says that the bite and claw attacks are 'primary attacks'. What is the penalty if I were to full attack with bite/claw/claw? I know about the multiattack feat, which would reduce the penalty some. However, multiattack says that it reduces the penalty for secondary attacks with natural weapons. According to the Alchemist, the bite/claw/claw are primary attacks. Huh?

In the other thread they mentioned iterative attacks, which I guess means multiple attacks b/c of a high attack bonus? So the Alchemist with feral mutagen can make multiple attacks with a full round action even though his BAB wouldn't normally allow it otherwise?

What about two weapon fighting? Can I take those feats and use them with these natural attacks?

I'm gonna read over monster combat and see if I find any help there. :)

Please help me understand how this works. lol. :P

[Brett Gillespie]

I was just reading over the rules for monsters and natural attacks.

In the Bestiary on page 302, it says,

The Bestiary wrote:

Primary attacks are made using the

creature’s full base attack bonus and add the creature’s
full Strength bonus on damage rolls. Secondary attacks
are made using the creature’s base attack bonus –5 and
add only 1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus on damage
rolls. If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always
made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and adds
1-1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus on attack rolls. This
increase does not apply if the creature has multiple attacks
but only takes one. If a creature has only one type of attack,
but has multiple attacks per round, that attack is treated
as a primary attack, regardless of its type.

Also at the end of the overview of natural weapons rules, it gives an example of the part I bolded above, of a creature with only one type of attack (primary), but multiple attacks per round.

Format: bite +5 (1d6+1), 2 claws +5 (1d4+2)

right?

[0gre]

When you are full attacking all three of the attacks are at Full BAB.

So if your BAB is +2 and your adjusted strength bonus is +3 you would get:

Standard Action: 1 claw or bite attack at +5
Full attack: 2 claws at +5, 1 bite at +5

You don't need multiattack because all of your attacks are primary attacks. If you wanted to attack with a weapon your natural attacks become secondary attacks with a -5 penalty. You could take multiattack to reduce that to -2.

[Brett Gillespie]

Thanks! What about two weapon fighting? Can I take that line of feats to gain an extra claw attack at a -2 penalty to my attacks?

Feral Mutagen seems really powerful now. lol :)

[Sean K Reynolds]

Brett Gillespie wrote:

Thanks! What about two weapon fighting? Can I take that line of feats to gain an extra claw attack at a -2 penalty to my attacks?

No, natural weapons already have TWF-like math built into them. You're already attacking with two hands at no penalty (better than TWF with a light weapon and the TWF feat), you can't use TWF feats to get extra attacks out of it (mainly because you never get iterative attacks with natural weapons).

[Brett Gillespie]

question, what are iterative attacks?

[0gre]

Brett Gillespie wrote:

question, what are iterative attacks?

When you get to a high enough base attack bonus to get a second or third attack in a single round with a weapon.

Natural weapons don't get iterative attacks.

[Sean K Reynolds]

They're the extra attacks you get from having a high BAB.

So BAB +6 means you get an attack at +6 and another at +1... the attack at +1 is the iterative attack.

Natural attacks don't get iterative attacks, which is why a dire lion's attacks are bite +12 instead of bite +12/bite +7.