A PC of mine recently emailed me with a question / request. He is playing as a Changeling Barbarian tho disguised as a human to others. He plans to have the character kick-box of sorts, combining changeling claws(natural) and kick attacks(unarmed). I'm unsure if I'm understanding his issue correctly and wanted to ask if anyone can tell me if my PC is correct about the problems of mixing unarmed & natural attacks or would this work entirely different.
He is also asking me to house-rule a feat (which I don't think I have an issue with) but I wanted to make sure the problem he describes actually exists in the first place.
As you may recall, unarmed strikes are messed up. As are natural weapons. And God have mercy on your soul should you attempt to mix the two! Naturally, I'm here to work on that last one, ja? As you know, my plan is to focus on kick-boxing most of the time, then add in all those fun natural bits during those dramatic times that warrant lovable 'ol Sophitia raging. Perhaps in the future I'll use claws outside of a rage once the others are aware of them, but never where there are humanoid witnesses around (potential exclusions for dramatic rage moments of course). The trick is that mixing natural weapons and "manufactured" ones like my feet imposes all manner of ugly things: all natural attacks are treated as secondary (base attack + str - 5 and damage die + str * 0.5) and all "manufactured" weapons treat as if two-weapon fighting (base attack + str -2 (assuming having the two-weapon-fighting feat and a light off-hand weapon), weapon die + str for main hand, weapon die + str * 0.5 for off hand), considering natural weapons as light off-hand weapons. A handy feat, Double Slice lets you enjoy your full strength bonus on off hand weapons. Sadly this does not affect natural weapons, though it would work for unarmed attacks. Multiattack is another potentially useful feat to consider as it lessens the attack penalty for swinging with secondary natural weapons to -2 from -5. Feral Combat Training comes close, allowing you to pick a natural weapon and use it with feats requiring Improved Unarmed Strike (style feats, Stunning Fist, etc) and even work in a monk's flurry.So now that there's some background here, I'll get to my proposal: a new feat that would function as Double Slice for otherwise primary natural weapons when mixed with unarmed strikes (natural weapons that are normally considered secondary gain no benefit). The goal is to tear down the ugly wall between natural weapons and unarmed strikes, focusing on simply using your body as a weapon, pointy and not-so-pointy bits alike. By specifying that this only works with a combination of unarmed strikes and natural weapons, we avoid exploiting things by getting swords and other truly manufactured weapons in the mix and also dodge simply making an enhanced version of Double Slice as this will confer no bonuses when say wielding two axes or chakrams as I may well do at some point. The end wording I was thinking of would go something like this:
Snazzy Feat Name!
Prerequisites: Dex 15, Improved Unarmed Strike, Two-Weapon-Fighting, at least one primary natural weaponBenefit: When attacking using only unarmed strikes or a mix of unarmed strikes and natural weapons, add your full strength modifier to damage rolls for all unarmed strikes and natural weapons that are normally considered primary.
Normal: When attacking with unarmed strikes and natural weapons, add only half of your strength modifier to damage rolls for off-hand unarmed strikes and all natural weapons.
Thoughts?
The trick is that mixing natural weapons and "manufactured" ones like my feet imposes all manner of ugly things: all natural attacks are treated as secondary (base attack + str - 5 and damage die + str * 0.5) and all "manufactured" weapons treat as if two-weapon fighting (base attack + str -2 (assuming having the two-weapon-fighting feat and a light off-hand weapon), weapon die + str for main hand, weapon die + str * 0.5 for off hand), considering natural weapons as light off-hand weapons.
After various errata that have been posted, this is only half correct. If you attack with a manufactured weapon or unarmed strike, all natural attacks are considered secondary, but attacking with natural weapons does not affect your manufactured weapon attacks.
The upshot is that a 6th level fighter with a single weapon and two claws would have an attack sequence of +6/+1/+1/+1, while one who was two-weapon fighting (with the Imp TWF feat) would have +4/-1/+4/-1/+1/+1.
In addition, it's still unclear (and thus subject to GM discretion) whether you can TWF with unarmed strike and unarmed strike. All a Monk's Flurry really is is Double Slice, TWF, ImpTWF, and GreaterTWF rolled into one, with a bonus of "Use full BAB instead of 3/4 BAB". On the other hand, it has extra restrictions (like the inability to use natural weapons with a flurry in any way, unless you take the feat he mentioned).
I would say, no.
He can already attack normally unnarmed with Full Strength bonus, if he has 2 weapon fighting he is gonna have Full stregth and 1/2 stregth (although, to be honest, in unarmed cases I would allow full strength always, as a monk, since the Unarmed Combat section of the rules suck)
Natural Attacks are used IN ADITION so the -5 and 1/2 strength is required to make it balanced, and it can be offset by a handfull of feats, like Multiattack.
If he wants to increase his damage output by fighting unarmed he must take a look at Feral Combat Training and Dragon Stance. That's all you need.
The trick is that mixing natural weapons and "manufactured" ones like my feet imposes all manner of ugly things: all natural attacks are treated as secondary (base attack + str - 5 and damage die + str * 0.5) and all "manufactured" weapons treat as if two-weapon fighting (base attack + str -2 (assuming having the two-weapon-fighting feat and a light off-hand weapon), weapon die + str for main hand, weapon die + str * 0.5 for off hand), considering natural weapons as light off-hand weapons.After various errata that have been posted, this is only half correct. If you attack with a manufactured weapon or unarmed strike, all natural attacks are considered secondary, but attacking with natural weapons does not affect your manufactured weapon attacks.
can you point me to the errata as RAW states
In addition,
all of your attacks made with melee weapons and unarmed
strikes are made as if you were two-weapon fighting. Your
natural attacks are treated as light, off-hand weapons for
determining the penalty to your other attacks. Feats such as Two-Weapon Fighting and Multiattack (see the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) can reduce these penalties.
This tells me that using additional natural attacks in a full attack with manufactured weapons will infact have an impact on the attack roll for the manufactured weapon.
The trick is that mixing natural weapons and "manufactured" ones like my feet imposes all manner of ugly things: all natural attacks are treated as secondary (base attack + str - 5 and damage die + str * 0.5) and all "manufactured" weapons treat as if two-weapon fighting (base attack + str -2 (assuming having the two-weapon-fighting feat and a light off-hand weapon), weapon die + str for main hand, weapon die + str * 0.5 for off hand), considering natural weapons as light off-hand weapons.After various errata that have been posted, this is only half correct. If you attack with a manufactured weapon or unarmed strike, all natural attacks are considered secondary, but attacking with natural weapons does not affect your manufactured weapon attacks.
can you point me to the errata as RAW states
In addition,
all of your attacks made with melee weapons and unarmed
strikes are made as if you were two-weapon fighting. Your
natural attacks are treated as light, off-hand weapons for
determining the penalty to your other attacks. Feats such as Two-Weapon Fighting and Multiattack (see the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) can reduce these penalties.This tells me that using additional natural attacks in a full attack with manufactured weapons will infact have an impact on the attack roll for the manufactured weapon.
There is no errata, it's on the Bestiary rules, that superceed core rules.
The natural attacks are made at a -5 penalty to attack, but their strength modifier goes off of however the monster normally does it. The strength modifier does not change. The bestiary rules are the correct one.
James Jacobs:
Part of the problem, alas, is that this is a rules mechanic that Jason was wrestling with up to the very last second. ]b\The Bestiary rules are correct. The part in the core rules that contradicts this is a fragment, alas, that stuck in there.[/b] It should be cleaned up, I agree. It's unfortunate that the confusion is in there, but again, as far as I understand the game and as far as I've been using the rules for the last several volumes of Pathfinder, the rules from the Bestiary are the correct ones.