I have a few things I wanted to clarify about the new "Alternate Natural Attack" rules from Wilderness Origins.
First off, does changing the shifter claws from claws to another damage type free up that hand for something else, like wielding a weapon?
Second, can you utilize the "Alternate Natural Attack" rules while in a Weretouched shifter's hybrid form?
Yes on both questions. It's not explicitly said, but placing natural attacks gained by something other than shapeshifting was always 90% guesswork. The "used up hand" thing comes form a general rule ("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."), though, so that's pretty clear.
Weretouched Shifter's Hybrid form is like other hybrid forms (Beastkin Berserker Barbarian or lycanthrope) a case of "let's try to figure out together what sounds most logical". Most of the time, your hybrid from will already have the "slots" filled with the animal form's natural attacks (like, a hybrid Deinonychus already has a bite and two talons), so you don't really have a choice.
|
Bare in mind though that once you start using an artificial weapon in one hand, all natural attacks become secondary attacks.
i.e. -5 attack, only half STR added to damage.