Natural Weapon Style Ranger, feats ruling

[TGMaxMaxer]

Natural Weapon Style reads:

Natural Weapon: If the ranger selects natural weapon style, he can choose from the following list whenever he gains a combat style feat: Aspect of the Beast*, Improved Natural Weapon**, Rending Claws*, and Weapon Focus. At 6th level, he adds Eldritch Fangs* and Vital Strike to the list. At 10th level, he adds Multiattack** and Improved Vital Strike to the list.

Does this mean that after taking Aspect of the Beast (Claws) a H-elf ranger who had no natural weapons to start with can then select Improved Natural Weapons as a normal feat during progression? I understand that the benefit of the Combat style is to ignore the pre-reqs, but he would qualify for the feat at level 5 when he gets to select one. I believe he can, but not being in a "player" available book as far as feats go I thought it best to check.

Improved Natural Attack (Beastiary, nat combat style for ranger)
Attacks made by one of this creature's natural attacks leave vicious wounds.
Prerequisite: Natural weapon, base attack bonus +4.
Benefit: Choose one of the creature's natural attack forms (not an unarmed strike). The damage for this natural attack increases by one step on the following list, as if the creature's size had increased by one category.
Special: This feat can be taken multiple times. Each time it is taken, it applies to a different natural attack.

[LearnTheRules]

You can take it as long as you meet the prerequisites, unless your DM won't allow monster feats... in which case he/she wouldn't have let you pick a natural weapon ranger.

[Seraphimpunk]

you can take it. you don't need to meet the requirements, as a natural ranger. Thats the point of the Ranger bonus feats: you can take them without meeting prerequisites.

as a Natural Ranger, you can technically take Aspect of the Beast at 1st level, and at 2nd level you could take Improved Natural attack, without meeting any of the prerequisites.

Yes you could take Improved Natural Attack without meeting the requirements and without having claws in the first place. but at most all it will do for your character is increase his punch to 1d4 from 1d3 for a medium humanoid.

You could also go Monk/Natural Ranger, to get improved natural attack for your unarmed strikes.

[Mathwei ap Niall]

Seraphimpunk wrote:

you can take it. you don't need to meet the requirements, as a natural ranger. Thats the point of the Ranger bonus feats: you can take them without meeting prerequisites.

as a Natural Ranger, you can technically take Aspect of the Beast at 1st level, and at 2nd level you could take Improved Natural attack, without meeting any of the prerequisites.

Yes you could take Improved Natural Attack without meeting the requirements and without having claws in the first place. but at most all it will do for your character is increase his punch to 1d4 from 1d3 for a medium humanoid.

You could also go Monk/Natural Ranger, to get improved natural attack for your unarmed strikes.

This is not exactly true.

A. You can't take Aspect of the Beast at first since you have to get the Combat style BEFORE you can ignore the pre-reqs and you don't get that class ability till 2nd level.

Second it has been ruled (repeatedly) that improved natural attack does NOT affect unarmed strikes. Monks are still complaining about that rule.

Now as to whether you can take the combat style feats with your normal feats instead of your bonus combat style feats is debateable. It's *PROBABLE* that those feats are restricted to only being purchasable with your combat style feats as RAI but there is no clear restriction on it in the text.
For that one I recommend checking with your GM.