Mutagen Natural Attacks

[Kardiak]

I have an alchemist who is able to transform into a gruesome monster at lvl 2. This monster has 3 natural attacks, a bite and 2 claws. Now as a full round action do all the natural attacks hit, or do you require multiple attacks from feats/levels to be able to utalize all those attacks in one round?

The reason i ask is because if this is ok, that he get's his normal melee to-hit bonus on all three attacks, doing 1d8+2d6(+3xSTR), how does this balance out? I'm missing something one way or the other.

[Dal Selpher]

I presume you're referring to the feral mutagen discovery? It gives the alchemist 3 primary attacks, 1 bite and 2 claws, each made at the alchemist's highest BAB (in this case +1) and each rolled as a separate attack.

So, if he were to full attack, he'd rolled 3 times. 1 for the bite attack, 1 for the left claw, and 1 for the right claw.

Natural attacks don't progress with iterative attacks though - so it's better in the early levels and loses potency once other classes start to get their iteratives from a high BAB.

If he wants to use his bite/claw/claw attacks and his BAB were +15/+10/+5, he'd still only get 3 attacks (though each would be at +15) it pales in comparison slightly with a monk's flurry, a rogue's twf, or an archer's rapid-shot/many-shot salvo.

PLUS - the mutagen's only good for 20 minutes at level 2. He might get 2 combats out of it and then he's spent unless the party is willing to stop for an entire hour so he can brew up a new batch.

EDIT: Another down side is that the Alchemist is only proficient in light armor and not with shields; he has to stand in melee to full attack which is risky. The Natural Armor boost from the mutagen certainly helps, but the alchemist is considerably more vulnerable than almost any other full-attack centric class.

In Summary: It's good, but not SOOOO good that every alchemist ever would (or even should) take it.

[Kardiak]

So with the +15/+10/+5 BAB listing you used as an example, with natural attacks you only get to make 1 of each per round, you can't do multiple bites?

[Michael Foster 989]

yes natural attacks dont get extra attacks from high base attack bonuses however you can take your natural attacks as secondary attacks at a -5 (-2 with multiattack) while using a weapon.

Basically Guy with 2 claws and a Bite can do the following (BAB +11/+6/+1)

Bite, Claw, Claw (+11/+11/+11) or take 3 attacks with a two handed weapon at (+11/+6/+1) and a bite at +6 (cant use the claws as they are holding the two handed weapon).

Natural attackers are strong at levels 1-6 and get overtaken in attacks after 7 by certain classes

[Dal Selpher]

Correct - no multiple bites and each claw only claws once.

And Michael's got the right of it for weaving natural attacks in with a weapon.

[Kardiak]

Perfect, thank you for the info!