I am working on a Druid/Rogue and I want him to be able to use feats like "Sap Adept" and "Sap Mastery". I've seen two ways that might work.
1) use the feat "Bludgeoner" to deal nonlethal damage. Claw, bite and most other natural attacks deal Bludgeoning damage so they could use the feat. While not stated, since it removes the -4 penalty for dealing nonlethal damage, it could be interpreted this would allow for nonlethal sneak attack damage.
2) Deal unarmed strikes instead of natural attacks. This sounds like a good solution, but raises a few questions:
- A creature with a natural attack is never unarmed, so can it even do an unarmed attack?
- If so, does it still provoke AOOs? Does it still threaten?
- Does it use it's natural attack routine for unarmed strikes?
- If not, how many attacks does it get? What is the bonus for each attack?
- How do feats like "improved unarmed strike" work in this scenario?
Your thoughts and advice would be very helpful.
Thanks
I would assume that a creature could make a slam attack instead of a claw attack (by slapping the enemy with a paw while the claws are sheathed) that deals nonlethal damage equal to the lethal damage it could do. I would suggest requiring a feat to do this, however. It should threaten critical hits, but it should not provoke AOO (as the actual motion is no different than that of a standard claw attack, which does not provoke AOOs). This should be considered a natural attack, not an unarmed attack.
It would use it's natural attack routine for this attack, and I would not allow improved unarmed strike to have any effect on it (What's the point when you could just unsheathe your claws?). I would allow sap adept and sap mastery to effect it, however, as a paw used in such a manner is broadly similar to a sap.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
In the equipment chapter:
Type: Weapons are classified according to the type of damage they deal: B for bludgeoning, P for piercing, or S for slashing. Some monsters may be resistant or immune to attacks from certain types of weapons.
Some weapons deal damage of multiple types. If a weapon causes two types of damage, the type it deals is not half one type and half another; all damage caused is of both types. Therefore, a creature would have to be immune to both types of damage to ignore any of the damage caused by such a weapon.
In other cases, a weapon can deal either of two types of damage. In a situation where the damage type is significant, the wielder can choose which type of damage to deal with such a weapon.
Seems to me that natural attacks fall into the former category "all damage is of both types" and wouldn't work with the feat. I'm not completely certain on that though.