Hey all,
Quick question. A player in my group wants to build a melee alchemist. He's taking the following feats:
Level 1: Two-Weapon Fighting
Human (Bonus): Improved Unarmed Strike
Level 3: Multiattack
Multiattack is a monster feat, yet the only prerequisite is that it you have three or more natural attacks.
Taking an alchemists Feral Mutagen grants him Claw/Claw/Bite that "... are primary attacks and are made using the alchemist’s full base attack bonus."
His argument is that, while mutagened, he can Kick/Kick/Claw/Claw/Bite at -2/-2/-2/-2/-2 dealing 1d3/1d3/1d6/1d6/1d8
Kicks he claims he can do via Improved Unarmed Strike and are subject to the penalty reduction of TWF.
My question is whether or not this is legit?
Where I can see this fall apart is that Feral Mutagen doesn't specifically say it gives you Natural Attacks. Not sure about Monster Feats either...
Thoughts?
Yes, it works. Of course claws and bites are natural attacks.
You don't have to allow multi-attack though.
TWF says that "an unarmed strike is always considered light"
In fact, that's how Monks get their Flurry of Blows...
I should also add that my player is going Vivisectionist archetype. So it's super interested in getting as many attacks as possible in a round. 1d3/1d3/1d6/1d6/1d8 +5d6 seems like a LOT of damage at level 3 provided that he can flank or something.
That would be a houserule to not allow multiattack, just so you know.
So?
Claws and Bite are natural attacks. If it doesn't explicitly say so, that's because it goes without saying...
He could take IUS and Multiattack and do Unarmed/Unarmed (plus any iterative attacks for high BAB) and follow it up with both claws and the bite. TWF gives a -2 to all the attacks. Using natural weapons with manufactured ones (unarmed strike counts as such; basically any weapon attack that can get additional iterative attacks due to BAB) makes them secondary natural attacks regardless of whether they're normally primary or not. This imparts a -5 penalty (-2 with multiattack) on the attack roll, which STACKS with the -2 TWF penalty, and you only add half your strength modifer to damage.
So in terms of penalties accrued, it would look like: Unarmed -2, Unarmed -2, Bite -4, Claw -4, Claw -4. He's spent feats on IUS, TWF, and Multiattack. Frankly, I think he'd be better off just doing claw/claw/bite at no penalties with full strength to damage on all 3 attacks, and save those 3 feats for something else. *shrug*
by RAW, TWF doesn't mention anything about natural attacks...
All it talks about is Primary and off-Hand attacks.
Those who say not allowing monster feats for pc's is a house rule are wrong. Allowing monster feats is entirely up to GM discretion, and if you are playing a pathfinder society game, they are simply not available to pc's at all.
Pathfinder Society Resources list lists which feats from which books are available for character creation.
Hmm, you're correct. So I guess by RAW they would all be at -2 penalties. Stil not sure it's worth the investment, but that's certainly better than i was giving it credit for.
Rules text from PRD:
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. You suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand when you fight this way. You can reduce these penalties in two ways. First, if your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. An unarmed strike is always considered light. Second, the Two-Weapon Fighting feat lessens the primary hand penalty by 2, and the off-hand penalty by 6.
Those who say not allowing monster feats for pc's is a house rule are wrong. Allowing monster feats is entirely up to GM discretion, and if you are playing a pathfinder society game, they are simply not available to pc's at all.
Pathfinder Society Resources list lists which feats from which books are available for character creation.
PF Society has a lot of dumb rules, and technically allowing ANYTHING is up to DM's discretion.
PF Society has a lot of dumb rules, and technically allowing ANYTHING is up to DM's discretion.Those who say not allowing monster feats for pc's is a house rule are wrong. Allowing monster feats is entirely up to GM discretion, and if you are playing a pathfinder society game, they are simply not available to pc's at all.
Pathfinder Society Resources list lists which feats from which books are available for character creation.
Yes, everything is up to GM discretion in a non-PFS game, which is why the OP is quite justified in not allowing a player to use monster feats without any feeling of guilt or that he is "cheating". Technically, players have only resources available in player resources such as CRB, APG, UC and UM, and the Bestiary is supposed to be a mystery to the player and available only to the GM (yes there are the specific exceptions for animal companions and summon spells), and any knowledge of the existence of such things as monster feats is entirely meta-gaming if not gained through the Knowledge skills and actual first-hand experience of creatures who have the feats.
It is simply an attempt by players to bully their GM to say that not allowing monster feats is a "house rule", because it is just not true.
Freaky Liar -- I understand why you would think what you do but you are incorrect:
Combat Section
Striking for damage with punches, kicks, and head butts is much like attacking with a melee weapon, except for the following:
Attacks of Opportunity: Attacking unarmed provokes an attack of opportunity from the character you attack, provided she is armed. The attack of opportunity comes before your attack. An unarmed attack does not provoke attacks of opportunity from other foes, nor does it provoke an attack of opportunity from an unarmed foe.
An unarmed character can't take attacks of opportunity (but see "Armed" Unarmed Attacks, below).
"Armed" Unarmed Attacks: Sometimes a character's or creature's unarmed attack counts as an armed attack. A monk, a character with the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, a spellcaster delivering a touch attack spell, and a creature with natural physical weapons all count as being armed (see natural attacks).
Note that being armed counts for both offense and defense (the character can make attacks of opportunity).
Unarmed Strike Damage: An unarmed strike from a Medium character deals 1d3 points of bludgeoning damage (plus your Strength modifier, as normal). A Small character's unarmed strike deals 1d2 points of bludgeoning damage, while a Large character's unarmed strike deals 1d4 points of bludgeoning damage. All damage from unarmed strikes is nonlethal damage. Unarmed strikes count as shed light (for purposes of two-weapon attack penalties and so on).
Dealing Lethal Damage: You can specify that your unarmed strike will deal lethal damage before you make your attack roll, but you take a –4 penalty on your attack roll. If you have the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, you can deal lethal damage with an unarmed strike without taking a penalty on the attack roll.
This explicitly states that kicks are unarmed strikes.
And the feat doesn't say anything to counter this:
you are skilled at fighting while unarmed.Benefit: You are considered to be armed even when unarmed—you do not provoke attacks of opportunity when you attack foes while unarmed. Your unarmed strikes can deal lethal or nonlethal damage, at your choice.
Normal: Without this feat, you are considered unarmed when attacking with an unarmed strike, and you can deal only nonlethal damage with such an attack.
Rogues don't do that because natural attacks and iterative attacks are considered separate. UAS and IUS don't count as natural attacks - for the purposes of the rules (though exceptions are made), unarmed attacks are light iterative weapon attacks. Combining natural weapon and iterative weapon attacks works like this:
Iterative attacks are considered primary. If you're using TWF, /all/ attacks (not just iterative ones) take a -2 penalty.
All natural attacks (whether normally considered to be primary or secondary) combined with iterative attacks count as secondary natural attacks (the iterative attacks are primary). Secondary natural attacks /all/ take a -5 penalty, and only get half strength to damage.
(source: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules #TOC-Natural-Attacks )
This means that in the Kick/Kick/Claw/Claw/Bite scenario, the penalties would be -2/-2/-7/-7/-7 with only half the Strength modifier applied to the -7 attacks. That really doesn't seem overpowered to me (note that alchemists don't even get full BAB in the first place) unless the rest of the party has some reliable way to flat-foot enemies whilst simultaneously allowing the alchemist in question full attacks each turn. Even in such a case, that's simply good party synergy, and should ultimately be encouraged rather than discouraged.
With multiattack, it becomes -2/-2/-4/-4/-4, which is still not very powerful for three feats on a character with a medium BAB.
Aeonoris, that's incorrect. The natural attacks don't take the -2 from TWF.
But Aeonoris is correct that all of the attacks except for one of the kicks will only add half strength damage. Pay special attention to that, because it greatly reduces the damage you can do with this build.
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Freaky Liar -- I understand why you would think what you do but you are incorrect:
...Incorrect that if this were allowed, any character could do it?
What in your post disallows a two-weapon Rogue from doing Slash/Slash/Kick/Kick? Or a rogue? Because nothing about his character makes it able to kick with TWF more than the others can.
Kicks are unarmed attacks, but nothing he did lets him use them as extra attacks.
There is a huge difference between unarmed strikes and natural attacks.
If you look what the OP is asking about is someone that is using unarmed strike and natural attacks not unarmed strike and "slash/slash" (whatever that is).
If what you mean is a rogue going "dagger/dagger/kick/kick" then my answer to you is the fact that unarmed strikes are not natural attacks. If the rogue in question had 2 claw attacks, a bite attack and as a boot blade and armor spikes then he could have the following attack routine:
Armor Spikes/Boot Blade/Bite/Claw/Claw
Kicks are unarmed strikes -- that is explicit in the rules.
Aeonoris, that's incorrect. The natural attacks don't take the -2 from TWF.
But Aeonoris is correct that all of the attacks except for one of the kicks will only add half strength damage. Pay special attention to that, because it greatly reduces the damage you can do with this build.
Are you sure the natural attack won't take the -2 penalty from TWF? When I try to match up the Natural Attacks rule and the Two-Weapon Fighting rule to be sure, the extremely different wording in the two rules leaves gaps.
The rule that allows the alchemist to combine natural attacks with other attacks is the following paragraph in the Natural Attacks section of the combat rules in the CRB:
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 available natural attacks as secondary attacks during that attack, regardless of the attack's original type.
We have to interpret the phrasing to count unarmed strikes as "attacks with weapons."
Meanwhile, the Two-Weapon Fighting rule says:
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. You suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand when you fight this way. You can reduce these penalties in two ways. First, if your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. An unarmed strike is always considered light. Second, the Two-Weapon Fighting feat lessens the primary hand penalty by 2, and the off-hand penalty by 6.
Once again, we have to interpret the phrasing to count a kick with a leg as "wield a second weapon in your off hand." The reminder about unarmed strikes being light supports this interpretation.
In this case, the primary hand is one of the legs and the off hand is the other leg, so we could declare, as AvalonXQ did, that none of the secondary attacks with claws and bite receive a penalty from TWF. However, no other penalties are mentioned because no other attacks are mentioned. The writer of the Two-Weapon Fighting rule assumed that the primary attack and the off hand attack were the only attacks. The Multple Weapons question in the FAQ makes the same assumption.
Thus, the two rules do not suggest how they can be combined. I see four quick interpretations for combining the two rules:
1) The multiple attacks from secondary natural weapons and the extra attack from TWF do not affect each other. This leads to a -2 penalty to all attacks, gven that the character has the TWF and Multiattack feats.
2) The -6 penalty to "regular attacks with your primary hand" applies to all attacks besides the off-hand attack. This leads to a -2 penalty to the two kicks and a -4 penalty to the natural attacks, gven that the character has the TWF and Multiattack feats.
3) The -10 penalty to "the attack with your off hand" applies to all attacks besides the primary attacks. This leads to a -2 penalty to the two kicks and a -4 penalty to the natural attacks, gven that the character has the TWF and Multiattack feats.
4) The two rules cannot be combined. Two-Weapon Fighting limits the character to two limbs.
None of the interpretations is obviously correct.
To add to what Archaeik said:
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. Feats such as Two-Weapon Fighting and Multiattack can reduce these penalties.
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With two-weapon fighting the penalties would be -2/-2/-5/-5/-5. That is for kick/kick/claw/claw/bite. With two-weapon fighting and multiattack the penalties would be -2/-2/-2/-2/-2. Note, damage would be 1xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr and this is suboptimal to just attacking with natural attacks at +0/+0/+0, with damage at 1xstr/1xstr/1xstr. Taking the improved unarmed strike feat is still worth it to pick up some of the style feats later and use them with natural attacks using the Feral combat training feat.
Helloo. I'm the alchemist in question. The OP, my lovely GM, says he's going to allow multiattack.
So now that that's sorted out... I'm wondering if there's a way to avoid spending the feat on Improved Unarmed Strike.
Natural attack rules say "...often a creature must forgo one natural attack for each weapon clutched in that limb, be it a claw, tentacle, or slam"
I'm intrigued by the words "often" and "clutched". For example, could I get around this by using a cestus, thus getting punch/punch/claw/claw/bite?
Also, believe it or not this is not about super-optimizing a character and breaking the game. The alchemist is actually dex-based, and often gives up some or all of these attacks to cower in fear or be overwhelmed with combat. But I'm trying to build her so that when she does go all out in killing machine mutagen mode, she's a River Tam style destruction engine.
Any clever ideas on how someone could get the TWF attacks AND the natural attacks without taking IUS? Any exotic weapons that could do it, especially dancer-flavored ones?
Actually, this is about optimizing a character to fit a roleplaying concept. Making a concept work is the best purpose of optimization. Optimization is not a dirty word.
Zaxomax is optimizing a character to powergaming levels with the agreement of his or her GM, Memento Mortis, and the implicit promise that Zaxomax is not going to abuse the flexibility that Memento Mortis grants in granting Multiattack.
Such agreements between the GM and a trustworthy player often make the game more memorable with new character concepts. The GM is favoring the trustworthy player, but only because the player has proven that he or she works toward the enjoyment of all players rather than hogging most of the fun for him- or herself.
Given that premise, let's us go wild to make the character concept work. Combining Improved Unarmed Strike with Feral Mutation in a full-attack action has the unfortunate side effect of rendering the natural attacks secondary. The spirit of Feral Mutation is primary natural attacks, rendering the Multiattack feat unnecessary. Usually, the three primary natural attacks granted by Feral Mutation are good enough for a second-level alchemist, especially if the mutagen enhanced Strength. However, Zaxomax wants a dex-based alchemist.
How about inventing a new Discovery devoted to a Dex-based Feral Mutatgen?
Footclaw Mutagen
Prerequisite: Feral Mutagen
Benefit: Whenever the alchemist imbibes a mutagen that enhances Dexterity and choses to apply the Feral Mutagen discovery to gain two claw attacks and a bite attack, she may also chose to gain two additional claw attacks with her feet. These are secondary attacks and are made using the alchemist’s full base attack bonus with the usual -5 penalty for secondary natural attacks (-2 with Multiattack). The footclaw attacks deal 1d6 points of damage (1d4 if the alchemist is Small). When the footclaws form, the alchemist loses her boot slot and drops any items that occupied her boot slot.
With Footclaw Mutagen, the alchemist would get -0/-0/-0/-5/-5 with bite/claw/claw/footclaw/footclaw and 1d8/1d6/1d6/1d6/1d6 damage instead of -2/-2/-2/-2/-2 (maybe -4/-4/-4/-2/-2) for bite/claw/claw/kick/kick and 1d8/1d6/1d6/1d4/1d4 damage, a net improvement except for the restiction to Dexterity mutagen. The alchemist can spend her feats on Weapon Finesse and Extra Discovery rather than on Improved Unarmed Strike and Multiattack.
Incidentally, trying to exploit the exact wording "clutched" in the Natural Attack rules to allow double attacks with the arms after previously handwaving away the exact wording "attacks made with weapons" in the same sentence is tacky.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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With two-weapon fighting the penalties would be -2/-2/-5/-5/-5. That is for kick/kick/claw/claw/bite. With two-weapon fighting and multiattack the penalties would be -2/-2/-2/-2/-2. Note, damage would be 1xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr and this is suboptimal to just attacking with natural attacks at +0/+0/+0, with damage at 1xstr/1xstr/1xstr. Taking the improved unarmed strike feat is still worth it to pick up some of the style feats later and use them with natural attacks using the Feral combat training feat.
THIS!
Blackbloodtroll has it right, the character is taking a hit to his Str mods for each iterative attack to add some unarmed attacks.It seems like a fair trade, especially for a dex-based character. This is your answer. Everyone quit fighting.
Darn. Looks like I missed out on the fun.
Yes, you can Unarmed Strike TWF and add in your natural attacks. BBT has the breakdown correct.
With two-weapon fighting the penalties would be -2/-2/-5/-5/-5. That is for kick/kick/claw/claw/bite. With two-weapon fighting and multiattack the penalties would be -2/-2/-2/-2/-2. Note, damage would be 1xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr and this is suboptimal to just attacking with natural attacks at +0/+0/+0, with damage at 1xstr/1xstr/1xstr. Taking the improved unarmed strike feat is still worth it to pick up some of the style feats later and use them with natural attacks using the Feral combat training feat.
And Abraham brought the Rules Bat to the party for some clarity.
However, I'm still of the opinion that if you want a monster feat you should talk with your GM. Multi-Attack is harmless enough though.
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With two-weapon fighting the penalties would be -2/-2/-5/-5/-5. That is for kick/kick/claw/claw/bite. With two-weapon fighting and multiattack the penalties would be -2/-2/-2/-2/-2. Note, damage would be 1xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr/.5xstr and this is suboptimal to just attacking with natural attacks at +0/+0/+0, with damage at 1xstr/1xstr/1xstr. Taking the improved unarmed strike feat is still worth it to pick up some of the style feats later and use them with natural attacks using the Feral combat training feat.THIS!
Blackbloodtroll has it right, the character is taking a hit to his Str mods for each iterative attack to add some unarmed attacks.
It seems like a fair trade, especially for a dex-based character. This is your answer. Everyone quit fighting.
And this works great.. until the player buys that Amulet of Mighty Fist (agile) and starts using his Dex bonus for damage instead of his strength.
then it will look like this:With two-weapon fighting, multiattack and Agile enchant the penalties would be -2/-2/-2/-2/-2. Note, damage would be 1xdex/1xdex/1xdex/1xdex/1xdex.
Throw the Dex mutagen on top of this with a Mage armor/shield spell combo and they'll be a invisible whirling dervish of sneak attack death with an insanely high AC and a 50% miss chance. If you're bad guys aren't throwing aoe's or will saves nothing will stop this guy.
I approve.
Personally I don't allow agile or guided weapons in my game (don't have the books they are in for one).
Secondly: So what? He's got a good combination. The amulet is expensive, and there are still plenty of ways to ruin his day.
However since you finish with, "I approve" I guess it isn't a big problem to you either really.
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I approve because I'm a hateful beast and like that look of utter despair on OTHER GM's face. The real issue is that it is an absolute metric ton of damage being put out and is the core of one of the allcaps builds (AMY actually).
It's 5x(((lvl/2)+1)*d6)+dex mod +enhancement bonus) all at an insane probability to hit. Around the level you can pull all this off (usually between 5-7) you are routinely doing over 20D6 of damage every round and are almost impossible to hit in combat.
It tends to make the fight either totally boring for everyone else or absolutely deadly since the GM has to ramp it up to be a challenge for your character.
I'm just making sure that the GM in this thread understands what's about to happen to his game.
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PF Society has a lot of dumb rules, and technically allowing ANYTHING is up to DM's discretion.Those who say not allowing monster feats for pc's is a house rule are wrong. Allowing monster feats is entirely up to GM discretion, and if you are playing a pathfinder society game, they are simply not available to pc's at all.
Pathfinder Society Resources list lists which feats from which books are available for character creation.
It's not any "stupider" than any other house rules, except it's a ruleset that tens of thousands of people follow willingly because it provides a reasonable way of balancing things that GMs don't have to guess at.
The fact that PFS actually thinks about and tries to balance things out is so much better than random houserule that Joe the GM decided to do because Joe the GM doesn't actually understand the real problems behind his rules.
Not to mention all rules, even the base PF rules, have lots of flaws still. But these are sometimes just things players have to accept because it works for the general group.
I approve because I'm a hateful beast and like that look of utter despair on OTHER GM's face. The real issue is that it is an absolute metric ton of damage being put out and is the core of one of the allcaps builds (AMY actually).
It's 5x(((lvl/2)+1)*d6)+dex mod +enhancement bonus) all at an insane probability to hit. Around the level you can pull all this off (usually between 5-7) you are routinely doing over 20D6 of damage every round and are almost impossible to hit in combat.
It tends to make the fight either totally boring for everyone else or absolutely deadly since the GM has to ramp it up to be a challenge for your character.I'm just making sure that the GM in this thread understands what's about to happen to his game.
As a sidenote it's 5(((lvl-1)/2+1)*d6)+dex mod+enhancement bonus) .
But even so the attack bonus is 3/4lvl+dex mod+enhancement bonus, and the absolute earliest it could be pulled off is level 4 (the amulet is 5,000 for just the agile). starting with a 20 dex and using the mutagen to boost it to 24 means he's got +3 (BAB) +7 (Dex) - 2 (two handed fighting/multiattack) for a total bonus of +8/+8/+8/+8/+8 to hit, for 3d6+7 damage a hit with the first unarmed strike and then 3d6+3 damage a hit with the rest of the attacks:
This enhancement can only be placed on a melee weapon which is usable with the Weapon Finesse feat.Agile weapons are unusually well balanced and responsive. A wielder with the Weapon Finesse feat can choose to apply her Dexterity modifier to damage rolls with the weapon in place of her Strength modifier. This modifier to damage is not increased for two-handed weapons, but is still reduced for off-hand weapons.
The average AC at level 4 is 17 (13+4) meaning the alchemist is going to hit approximately 45% of the time with average damage for his first hit being 14.5 and for the rest of the attacks being 10.5 -- this results in an average damage per round of 25.425 per round (not counting critical hits). Now if he downs an extract/potion/whatever of cat's grace he will hit 55% of the time for 16.5 and 11.5 damage per hit for an average of 34.375 (not counting critical hits) per attack.
This all assumes he gets to flank, and he has everything up. Even then he has just at 1k wealth left to buy armor and what all still meaning he's not going to be exactly the best defended character on the field (at best +1 from an armor if he wants to apply all his Dex to AC) -- he's looking at an AC of about 20~26 (with cat's grace and shield up) 29 if he has mage armor -- which isn't bad considering the amount of resources he's expending for that (many of which are very short term) but it isn't completely bonkers for AC either.
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Hmm... I'm pretty sure if agile uses dexterity in place of strength the bonus is halved for the 'secondary' natural attacks (All natural attacks are secondary when combined with weapons or unarmed strike). You would certainly halve strength damage in that situation so I don't see why you wouldn't halve dexterity damage which is used in it's place.
Also, as someone who has played a dexterity based vivisectionist, the shock and awe of 3+ sneak attacks per round at your full BAB is largely countered by the fact that you spend half your combat trying to line up that perfect full attack sneak attack.
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3 things you're missing there (and I did specify at levels 5-7 for a reason).
At this point he'll be running around with an alchemically allocated Potion of Greater invisibility so expect sneak attack on every attack.
That invisibility gives an additional +2 to hit and ignores the opponents dex bonus on their AC (effectively another +1 or so to hit).
Natural attacks aren't off hand attacks they don't suffer that penalty from the Agile enchant. One of his iterative attacks would get that penalty but a single level dip into monk removes that as well.
Now with that said let's assume he's lvl 6 (right in the middle of my stated lvl range) with a one lvl dip into monk (master of many styles) and that he actually did bother to use the cat's grace and greater invis potions he'd better be carrying at all times.
+14/+14/+14/+14/+14 to hit, for 4d6+9 damage on every hit.
Against the average AC of 20 for lvl 6 that's a 70% chance to hit (and MUCH higher against the dex heavy opponents you face at this level).
As for resources the only thing he's burned is his 2 second level spells (Alchemical Allocation) which is what their for. The rest of the day he'll just be throwing summon monster/nature's ally/etc into flanking position as he moves in.
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Eh... you can get greater invisibility with alchemical allocation (assuming you allow summoner spells for potions), but it's a round/ level and takes a full round action or more to pull off. Also, at that level the alchemist only has 3-4 second level extracts so he's not going around with this 'all day long'.
So if you assume he has the potion in hand at the start of the encounter:
Round one:
Stuff happens
Round Two
Stuff happens
Round Three (Finally !!)
Round Four
I suppose you can presume he'll have the chance to burn the full round doing buffing up with greater invis right before you kick the door open. Even then it's only ~3-4 times a day and the first round is almost always going to involve movement, as are many rounds between full round actions.
I do think it can be a cool/ fun choice, it's just as I said pulling off full attacks is not going to happen
And time to get them down -- a potion and two extracts means 3 rounds (at least part of the time) ate up with just buffing.
Level 6 is +4 BAB, with a level of monk it's actually going to be +3, adding in the Dex of +9 means +12, and the +2 from greater invisibility means +14 - 2 from two weapon fighting and multiattack still means only a +12 to hit (at level 6 he still can't afford a +1 agile mighty first amulet).
But even so at level six with 5 attacks doing 23 damage a hit across a 70~80% spread we have 80.5 or 92 points of damage in a round.
Now I'm not saying it isn't a decent enough build -- only that it isn't an off the boards super power one.
Since someone is going to bring it up anyways, may as well be me.
A beastmorph vivisectionist at level 10 will be able to pounce. That's where it gets nasty.
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Oh definitely true Ogre, this is more of a boss or big nasty tactic. Usually you'll spend the first round moving into flank with another PC or tossing a poke ball (summon monster/nature's ally/minor monster/etc) from a 2nd level wand to setup flank and then unleash.
It's not a super EASY think to keep running all day but whenever you want to this build murders everything. Quickly.
edit: Abraham don't forget the effective bonus of ignoring your opponents dex modifier. It's usually worth at least a +1 - +2 more to hit.
And it's not 3 rounds spent buffing it's 1 round spent buffing.
Round one:
Tumor Familiar pours Alchemical Allocation down your throat on it's action (Full)
Slam invisibility Potion (move) (assuming he took accelerated drinker)
Slam Cat's Grace Potion (move) (this one doesn't get the allocation though, good thing it's cheap and quick for you to make one)
Move into melee and murder the boss and you only do this until you get a +4 Dex belt then you never worry about it again.
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Natural attacks aren't off hand attacks they don't suffer that penalty from the Agile enchant. One of his iterative attacks would get that penalty but a single level dip into monk removes that as well.
On secondary natural attacks the strength bonus is halved. Agile works in place of your strength bonus, not in place of HALF of your strength bonus. If you wanted to be literal minded, you wouldn't add any dexterity bonus.
Also technically monks can't use their unarmed attacks as off hand attacks since it specifically states they don't have off hand attacks with their unarmed strike.
That said -- I would never actually use this as a GM -- I point it in this thread only as a point of trivia.
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I know exactly what you are saying there Ogre, however as the agile enchant is written:
Agile weapons are unusually well balanced and responsive. A wielder with the Weapon Finesse feat can choose to apply her Dexterity modifier to damage rolls with the weapon in place of her Strength modifier. This modifier to damage is not increased for two-handed weapons, but is still reduced for off-hand weapons.
The in place of comment is the kicker. It's not stating to use the Dex mod AS the strength mod, it is specifying don't use the strength at all and to use this instead.
Since secondary attacks directly say this applies to strength and the agile enchant says don't use strength at all use this instead there should be no penalties at all to the bonus.
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I think you are missing a piece here Ogre, even with secondary you are still adding your Str modifier as normal the secondary attack penalty is just letting you apply half of it to damage. If you where only getting half of your bonus it would also apply to your Hit modifier as well.
The agile enchant lets you use your dex in place of your strength modifier, no matter what it currently is.
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"Some natural attacks are denoted as secondary natural attacks, such as tails and wings. Attacks with secondary natural attacks are made using your base attack bonus minus 5. These attacks deal an amount of damage depending on their type, but you only add half your Strength modifier on damage rolls."
What you suggest doesn't jive with what the rules say. You never apply your full strength bonus to secondary natural attack. Whether you apply your full strength bonus on attack rolls or not is irrelevant.
I think you are missing a piece here Ogre, even with secondary you are still adding your Str modifier as normal the secondary attack penalty is just letting you apply half of it to damage. If you where only getting half of your bonus it would also apply to your Hit modifier as well.
The agile enchant lets you use your dex in place of your strength modifier, no matter what it currently is.
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
No.
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And my real question is what does it matter whether you apply all, half or a third of your strength modifier normally?
The general rules of natural attacks says to apply half your str modifier to damage for secondary attacks.
The specific rule for Agile enchanted weapons states to use your Dex modifier in place of your Str modifier on damage.
The agile weapon enchant trumps the secondary penalty (for damage purposes only) so whatever you are doing with your Strength is irrelevant.
Now if you see something stated anywhere saying this is incorrect I'm wide open to revise my understanding but I haven't found anything.
And my real question is what does it matter whether you apply all, half or a third of your strength modifier normally?
It matters because only where you apply your Strength modifier normally do you substitute your Dex modifier instead.
Do you apply your Strength modifier to secondary natural attacks? No, you don't. So Agile doesn't do anything, because Agile is only applied in place of your Strength modifier, and you don't apply your Strength modifier to secondary natural attacks.