Undead Anatomy and natural attacks

[draxar]

The spell Undead Anatomy gives you three natural attacks (claw/claw/bite). However, it makes no comment on the natural attacks of the creature whose form you are taking. Therefore, RAW, if the creature has any natural attacks you get those in addition to the three the spell gives you.

Am I right on this? And is this balanced? The spell is rather heavily limited by its inability to take the form of templated undead, so the extra attacks could even it out. However, they could also lead to ridiculous numbers of attacks.

[cartmanbeck]

No, you wouldn't gain additional attacks. The attacks listed are what you MAY get, based on the undead creature you turn into. In other words, if you turn into a zombie you get a bite and two slams, if you turn into a ghoul or skeleton you get a bite and two claws, and you gain whatever listed abilities the creature also has.

[draxar]

cartmanbeck wrote:

No, you wouldn't gain additional attacks. The attacks listed are what you MAY get, based on the undead creature you turn into. In other words, if you turn into a zombie you get a bite and two slams, if you turn into a ghoul or skeleton you get a bite and two claws, and you gain whatever listed abilities the creature also has.

Nope. The text says you do get them, not may get them. As opposed to the other abilities, which you get if the thing you're taking the form of has.

[Heaggles]

yea your hands turn into claws and you can use your bite as a attack now that is what it is saying, but a wolf would only still have a bite attack not 2 bites and 2 claws. look and the premade monsters that have been brought out in the books.

[draxar]

Heaggles wrote:

yea your hands turn into claws and you can use your bite as a attack now that is what it is saying, but a wolf would only still have a bite attack not 2 bites and 2 claws. look and the premade monsters that have been brought out in the books.

I have been. Undead Anatomy differs from all the other shapeshifting spell in that it specifies you getting two bites and a claw from it. But it doesn't specifically overrule the 'You gain the natural attacks of the form' rule.

Thus, every form you take with Undead Anatomy has a bite and two claws. Now, I wouldn't say it therefore gets a two bites if the creature already has one. But I think there's a good RAW argument for it getting a bite if the form lacked one, and for a form that had a tail slap (or similar non bite/claw attack) to retain that attack.

As for RAI? No idea — Undead Anatomy is probably the worst written of the shapechanging spells, as it doesn't let you turn into a templated creature (when many of the iconic Undead are templates), yet uses template creatures in its examples, and its list of granted abilities include several which are only possessed by templates.

[Emparawr]

I'm really surprised that I can't find any information anywhere about this issue when it seems like a massive one. How has this never been FAQD as this is written terribly. Why would this be the only polymorph spell that specifically mentions getting specific natural attacks. One of the biggest and only things you get from polymorph is the natural attacks of the form, aside of course from looking like whatever you polymorphed into. However there is no clarity in the way this is written at all. I mean if this really is intended to ONLY give you bite bite claw no matter what you morph into then this spell is horrible. So barring anybody knowing of an actual explanation from a dev on how this is SUPPOSED to work, how have you all out there actually been using it in your games?