I have been dealing with a particular GM that for what-ever reason, thinks that natural weapons are super-powerful.
Can someone please enlighten me?
Thank you,
-Hexen
Natural weapons can be. Certain creatures have them aligned or have nasty effects tagged to them. At early levels a wolf can easily trip you and tear you apart. If you have 8 natural attacks you almost always get all 8 in a full attack, if you have pounce you full attack with those 8 all the time. A creature with one is usually big, and it usually has powerful bite so its just one big nasty bite attack.
However they lack iteratives and are usually not enchanted. Any a PC gains is going to need an AoMF and he's probably going to get 3, (claw claw bite) and not much if any more.
I have been dealing with a particular GM that for what-ever reason, thinks that natural weapons are super-powerful.
Can someone please enlighten me?
Thank you,
-Hexen
They can be powerful in certain builds. Consider a Tengu ninja that at first level can get 3 natural attacks that with sneak damage is going to do massive amounts of damage. Consider also that of these 3 attacks, there is no penalty for hitting as there is for 2 weapon fighting and that the beak attack is considered both piercing/bludgeoning/slashing and claws are both bludgeoning/slashing which gets you around DR problems.
A typical example of natural weapons being a bit powerful is the alchemist. Feral mutagen can give them a strength bonus and 3 natural attacks. Add in the vivisectionist archetype and you add full sneak attack progression to that. Big dice pool+big static damage = very high DPR.
On the monster side some of the more dangerous damage dealing monsters use natural attacks. There is a reason why people fear owlbears and dire tigers in PF after all.
On a monster its just a powerful and dangerous encounter. Put it on a PC and some GMs don't know what to do with the high DPR.
To give a rough idea of how powerful a viv. Alchemist or Tengu ninja is with damage, by 5th level with the sap adept feat and a merciful AoMF hitting with all your sneak attacks, you would on average do over 80 points of damage in a single round.
On the other hand, natural attack builds tend to not scale well into late game because of their lack of iterative attacks and the difficulty in getting more of them.
Pros: Always equipped, can't be disarmed, all use your highest attack mod unless secondary, multiple damage types.
Cons: Potential social stigma, "enchanted" via AoMF, can't be 2-handed for 1.5*STR, x2 crit only on nat 20.
Honestly, I can't care about scalability of attack count. If you have Claw/Claw/Bite, you already have more attacks than a Fighter will have until level 11 and as many as they will have until 16. The real problem is that you can't easily compare them to, say, a Falcata, with its x3 crit mod AND extended crit range.
The real power of Nat Weapons is consistency and delivery of static bonuses. That's why most people get a +1d6 elemental damage mod on their AoMF first and foremost. It pairs well with Sneak Attack, where you will have more attacks than the standard Rogue would have until level 8 (dual wield) or 15 (1 weapon) while maintaining a higher attack bonus on subsequent attacks.
In short: mediocre with a Fighter, good with a Rogue.
|
To give a rough idea of how powerful a viv. Alchemist or Tengu ninja is with damage, by 5th level with the sap adept feat and a merciful AoMF hitting with all your sneak attacks, you would on average do over 80 points of damage in a single round.
The same character is completely helpless against a construct with DR 5.
To give a rough idea of how powerful a viv. Alchemist or Tengu ninja is with damage, by 5th level with the sap adept feat and a merciful AoMF hitting with all your sneak attacks, you would on average do over 80 points of damage in a single round.The same character is completely helpless against a construct with DR 5.
So true, my shattered star rogue player actually switch to a bard because there are so many things immune to his sap master build. His DPR went up (though his spike potential went down) as a result.
Natural attacks on PCs are usually all at your highest attack bonus because they're usually claws and bites and claws and bites are primary. Druids and those using the Beast Shape spells can get up to 5 primary natural attacks on a pounce.
Really? 5? Can i ask what 5? I didn't know they could do that. I think with magic items an assimar barbarian can get 7 at most, but 3 will be secondary.
Oh... So its not really five. Its 3 + Rake. I thought i'd missed some crazy 4 armed or multi headed monster you could wildshape into.
I have been dealing with a particular GM that for what-ever reason, thinks that natural weapons are super-powerful.
Can someone please enlighten me?
Thank you,
-Hexen
Well, this isn't actually a lot of information with which to answer the question. Some more would help.
However, tossing out a few educated guesses (and starting from the premise that you disagree with your GM):
-Natural weapon builds tend to be frontloaded. They can peak early in the game, and decline significantly at high levels. This is a sign of just poor balance overall rather than super-powerfulness per se, but if your GM typically plays at the lower levels where these builds peak, then he will only ever see them at peak potential; thus, super-powerful. And this is a problem - on both ends - with natural weapon builds.
-A few monsters, such as dragons, tend to have pretty fearsome natural attack routines (Others tend to have s+*~ty natural attack routines, but the standouts stand out). Your GM may be looking at powerful monsters.
-Natural weaponeers frequently can get abilities which are powerful even if they don't derive from the natural attacks themselves. Pounce in particular. A Beast Totem barbarian with Pounce is super powerful and isn't a natural weapon build, but he kind of looks like he should be if you just read the Beast Totem line. Your GM may be linking the two in his head.
-Some natural weapon builds are fairly basic and can be pulled off easily at a table where people don't have great system mastery or optimization skill. A druid for example. Step 1: have high base Str. Step 2: Dire Tiger. That's 80% of it right there.
A lot of builds exist which exceed this exist, but many require more system mastery. The non twfing standard sword and boarder, or the fireball wizard, which exhibit similar system mastery, may get shown up. So that Dire Tiger druid can easily break a casual table's optimization standard even if he's nowhere near (and couldn't get near) higher ceilings of optimization. Your DM might have seen tables like this.