The improved natural attack feat gives you the size progression.
1d8 will be 2d6 for a huge snake..
help me figure this out
Serpent Shamans suck. It's that simple. In fact, all of the shamans save three suck hard.
The Saurian, Eagle, and Lion shamans are decent, but all of them are great for summoning, not for wild shaping. Shaman wild shaping is strictly penalized except for level 6 and 7 when some shamans have a very slight advantage.
Serpent Shamans never really get an advantage, since there are no huge snakes. It's a trap choice. Sorry.
what if im gestalted into tetori monk as well?
Then a Serpent Shaman is still a bad choice because your wild shape is penalized as a Shaman. Just be a normal Druid (or a Menhir Savant, also known as "better Druid").
i was told i could template, but the existing templates didnt match what i was looking at for examples. wraithstrike fixed that with his explanation on improved natural attack.
but my question is, the constrict ability reads "or unarmed strike damage" and since im gestalted with tetori, couldnt i use my unarmed strike damage in place of the templates constrict damage?
Constrict (Ex) A creature with this special attack can crush an opponent, dealing bludgeoning damage, when it makes a successful grapple check (in addition to any other effects caused by a successful check, including additional damage). The amount of damage is given in the creature's entry and is typically equal to the amount of damage caused by the creature's melee attack.
Format: constrict (1d8+6); Location: Special Attacks.
I don't see "or unarmed strike damage", and the tetori does not get constrict until level 15.
If you are level 15 then I would say you can use the unarmed strike damage.
The improved natural attack feat gives you the size progression.
this can be confusing because you normally look to the statblocks for attacks gained by a form, but you don't automatically get to use feats the animal normal has, so unless you pick Improved Nat Attack yourself (with the relevant Nat Attack), you will have a lesser attack damage than normal animals of the chosen type (who do have that Feat).
i believe there is some feat that lets you flurry with a natural attack, and (less sure) it changes the damage to your UAS if you wish.
constrict is generally tied to a specific natural attack, certainly in the case of snakes. the passage is referencing "the creature's melee attack" in the singular, which only makes sense in that context, it is not saying ANY melee attack you can make.
i would not say that every creature can do UAS, it is defined as using specific body parts, albeit headbash is one of those so if you have a head that should work for UAS. (although, RAW, headbash is not mentioned as an allowed UAS weapon for flurry even though it adds elbows/knees to the normal punch/kick)
its only penalized for non snake forms...
we are starting at level 6 if that helps.
It's only penalized for non-snake forms, which is 99% of the forms you can take and a huge number of the forms you might want to take.
As a quick example, I bet there are plants you could turn into with better Constriction attacks than most snakes.
The main benefit of Shamans are that they can summon templated forms of their chosen animal type and do so as a standard action. Their Wild Shape is penalized because Wild Shape is such a versatile tool, not even the widest range of forms (Saurian Shaman) is enough to cover everything you might want (Elementals and Plants are quite awesome).
Do you really want to wait 2 extra levels to get a 60' reach from the Quickwood? Isn't that more valuable for grappling then being a snake?
Perhaps rather than just saying 'that sucks' you should offer some helpful advice on what he wants to do?
Anyways, the way I read it, constrict is additional damage to the normal, meaning you could do constrict AND unarmed strike damage.
Perhaps rather than just saying 'that sucks' you should offer some helpful advice on what he wants to do?
I did.
Just be a normal Druid (or a Menhir Savant, also known as "better Druid").
The improved natural attack feat gives you the size progression.this can be confusing because you normally look to the statblocks for attacks gained by a form, but you don't automatically get to use feats the animal normal has, so unless you pick Improved Nat Attack yourself (with the relevant Nat Attack), you will have a lesser attack damage than normal animals of the chosen type (who do have that Feat).
i believe there is some feat that lets you flurry with a natural attack, and (less sure) it changes the damage to your UAS if you wish.
My point was that the feat shows the size progression. None of the numbers in the feat are tied to a certain animal size.
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A medium constrictor I think of baby berm or a ball python they ar strong but not super strong like a thirteen foot long red tail boa large snake or young bermiese Python and the annconads in the real wrold but u are looking at muscle mass the bigger the snake more muscle were the base of the damage die come in the constriction is base on strength alone
There are huge snakes; there is just not a default huge snake.
You just have advance a regular snake yourself using the Monster Advancement rules.
This isn't Rules Discussion, guys—we can give pointers other than "strictly follow the rules for classes we just acknowledged to be poorly-designed traps". :P
My advice would be to talk to your GM. See if he'll allow an in-between—something simple and practical. Maybe even just an anaconda with the Giant template. It won't be great, but it'll let you turn into a huge snake.
I don't think using the monster advancement rules is the same thing as applying a template. It just shows you how to easily adjust the monster ability scores depending on its size. The PRD doesn't use the word template anywhere; you just use the base monster and apply the "ability adjustments from size changes" from the table. It is just the easy way to add size variation to any monster.
Polymorph spells cannot be used to assume the form of a creature with a template or an advanced version of a creature.
The only problem with this is that even Paizo recognizes that there are actual animals without defined stats, and has used templated creatures to describe them.
If, for some reason, I really want to shapeshift into a blue penguin (Eudyptula minor), it's vaguely unreasonable to say that they don't exist (esp. since Earth is officially part of the Golarion-verse) and equally vaguely unreasonable to say I can turn into a Small penguin (like an emperor penguin) but not a Tiny one (like a blue).
Our house-ruled solution is that I can't turn into a "young" emperor penguin, but that I can turn into an ordinary blue penguin, which has exactly the same stats as an emperor penguin with the young template.