Where did my hands go? Natural attacks, grapple, unarmed strikes

[Trikk]

#1 Can a character that makes natural attacks with his hands use his hands to make unarmed strikes in the same turn or does he have to kick?

#2 Does a character who uses natural attacks with his hands count as having his hands free when attempting to grapple or does he get the -4 penalty?

#3 Do offhand unarmed strikes have to be done with the actual offhand or could you use your right hand (or leg, or knee, etc) to make your primary attack, your offhand attack and all your iterative attacks?

[Derwalt]

1. No. He'll have to kick (or something Else).
2. I would definitely say no penalty.
3. No. They Can be made with pretty much anything you prefer (which should make no difference in the rules).

[Trikk]

Derwalt wrote:

1. No. He'll have to kick (or something Else).

2. I would definitely say no penalty.
3. No. They Can be made with pretty much anything you prefer (which should make no difference in the rules).

Wow, I thought nobody would find this thread if I didn't bump it. Thanks for the answers. Ignore my bump.

Spoiler:

I'll bump this with some clarifications:

The first question is because you normally cannot make weapon attacks with a limb that has made a natural attack in the same round. Does the same thing apply to unarmed strikes?

The second question is related, because you get a -4 penalty if you have one or both hands occupied while trying to grapple someone. Basically, could you do all of your natural attacks and then as many grapple attempts as your BAB allows without taking this penalty?

The third question is basically whether or not the "only one attack per limb" natural attacks thing applies to punches and stuff.

Example:
Bill the Barbarian with 16 BAB has two claw attacks. Can he attack with both claws and then follow up with 5 unarmed strikes (or 5 grapple attempts) in a full attack? Does he "only" get -5 (secondary) penalty on the claws and -4 (two-weapon fighting with light weapons) on the unarmed strikes? An additional -4 if he decides to grapple instead of striking?

There are more and more options with every book released for humanoids to get natural attacks so it would be great if this could be clarified.

[BigNorseWolf]

Quote:

#1 Can a character that makes natural attacks with his hands use his hands to make unarmed strikes in the same turn or does he have to kick?

There are no explicit rules for mixing unarmed attacks with natural attacks.

Creatures with natural attacks and attacks made with weapons can use both as part of a full attack action (although often a creature must forgo one natural attack for each weapon clutched in that limb, be it a claw, tentacle, or slam). Such creatures attack with their weapons normally but treat all of their natural attacks as secondary attacks during that attack, regardless of the attack's original type.

I believe you would have to either treat "unarmed" as one manufactured weapon or use two "Weapon" fighting rules with your two fists (and forgo your claw attacks because your fists are busy punching)

Quote:

#2 Does a character who uses natural attacks with his hands count as having his hands free when attempting to grapple or does he get the -4 penalty?

Using grapple is a standard action. You can't mix that and attacks.

#3 Do offhand unarmed strikes have to be done with the actual offhand or could you use your right hand (or leg, or knee, etc) to make your primary attack, your offhand attack and all your iterative attacks?

I think if you're going to use the two weapon fighting mechanics you have to actually use your other hand. You cannot simply declare your head, fists, elbows, knees, and feet all "off hand" attacks and make 8 attacks a round.

[Trikk]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

There are no explicit rules for mixing unarmed attacks with natural attacks.

In my core rulebook there is:

You can make attacks with natural weapons in combination with attacks made with a melee weapon and unarmed strikes, so long as a different limb is used for each attack. For example, you cannot make a claw attack and also use that hand to make attacks with a longsword. When you make additional attacks in this way, all of your natural attacks are treated as secondary natural attacks, using your base attack bonus minus 5 and adding only 1/2 of your Strength modifier on damage rolls. 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 can reduce these penalties.

The question is simply if the longsword example holds true for unarmed strikes as well. Different limb for each attack also raised the question if you can only kick once with each leg or if you can use all iterative attacks with the same limb when unarmed striking.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Using grapple is a standard action. You can't mix that and attacks.

Yeah, I keep forgetting that because some CMs replace attacks and some are their own actions. Good catch.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

I think if you're going to use the two weapon fighting mechanics you have to actually use your other hand. You cannot simply declare your head, fists, elbows, knees, and feet all "off hand" attacks and make 8 attacks a round.

In the FAQ they said that offhand attacks with unarmed strikes can be done with any limb so I got this question answered when I dug a little deeper. You can for example attack with your longsword wielded in two hands while you kick as your offhand attack.