Full attack, drop weapon, natural attacks

[Nails]

I'm playing a Beast Totem barbarian which gives me two claw attacks. My BAB is +9, which means I get an iterative attack with my greatsword.

Can I drop my sword in the middle of a full attack and take my natural claw attacks after my main and iterative attacks?

If so what bonus am I at?

+9 greatsword/+4 greatsword/+9 claw/+9 claw
or
+9 greatsword/+4 greatsword/+4 claw/+4 claw?

[Claxon]

No. It is against the rules as intended and also violates the concept of the ruling that you can't two weapon fight with a two handed sword and armor spikes.

If you had a bite attack you could make it. However, you have used both your arm limbs to make attacks with a sword, you cannot use them to make any more attacks in a single round. You also cannot say that you have claws on your feet and try to make those attacks with your feet. It is specifically to prevent this exact sort of thing.

If however you had a bite attack, you could do:

GS +9 / GS +4 / Bite +4

The bite would also do damage as a secondary natural attack

[Cheapy]

Designer talks about it here.

[lemeres]

Plus, even if you could use the claws, they would be turned into secondary natural attacks (-5 to attack, 1/2 strength and power attack damage bonuses) because you used a manufactured weapon during the same round.

At that point, it would be hardly even worth using the claws. Two attack rolls just to get the same damage as your second iterative, and you have to drop your weapon to do it? that just seems like trouble.

[Bizbag]

Quote:

At that point, it would be hardly even worth using the claws. Two attack rolls just to get the same damage as your second iterative, and you have to drop your weapon to do it? that just seems like trouble.

Replace "drop" with "sheathe with Quickdraw" and you'll see the real issue.

There was also another FAQ besides the link Cheapy provided; it appeared in a thread concerning armor spikes and two-handed weapons, as Claxon alluded to. The FAQ confirmed that "hands" are a game term for the action economy you are entitled to (even if not strictly using one's hands). Claws are considered to be part of the "hand" action economy, but bites are not, so if you've used your two "hands" to attack with your greatsword, you may not also get claw attacks. You do still get bite attacks.

[james maissen]

Nails wrote:

I'm playing a Beast Totem barbarian which gives me two claw attacks. My BAB is +9, which means I get an iterative attack with my greatsword.

Can I drop my sword in the middle of a full attack and take my natural claw attacks after my main and iterative attacks?

No, you will want to read the rules on combining natural weapon attacks with manufactured weapon attacks.

Since, in your case you used your hands to make the greatsword attacks, your claws are not available for the combination.

If you also had a bite attack, then you could make a bite attack at -5 (like an iterative attack) that would deal x1/2 STR mod. It would be considered what is called 'a secondary natural attack' even if it would otherwise be a primary natural attack.

If you used a longsword in one hand, you could also attack with your claw attack associated with the other hand (as well as a potential bite, etc).

This has been the way of it since 3e came out. It is just that PF has added a lot of ways for PCs to get natural attacks, and as such it feels very new to people. (To whit: the rules for combining manufactured and natural weapon attacks was put in the Monster Manual in 3rd ed).

-James

[Artoo]

Bizbag wrote:

Quote:

At that point, it would be hardly even worth using the claws. Two attack rolls just to get the same damage as your second iterative, and you have to drop your weapon to do it? that just seems like trouble.

Replace "drop" with "sheathe with Quickdraw" and you'll see the real issue.

There was also another FAQ besides the link Cheapy provided; it appeared in a thread concerning armor spikes and two-handed weapons, as Claxon alluded to. The FAQ confirmed that "hands" are a game term for the action economy you are entitled to (even if not strictly using one's hands). Claws are considered to be part of the "hand" action economy, but bites are not, so if you've used your two "hands" to attack with your greatsword, you may not also get claw attacks. You do still get bite attacks.

Quickdraw has no impact on sheathing a weapon, it's still a move action that provokes.

[blahpers]

Why is a bite considered not part of the action economy but armor spikes are? Neither necessarily involve a hand at all. What about unarmed strike, which is explicitly not always hands?

[Cheapy]

Because natural weapons are weird.

[Claxon]

Because the Pathfinder rules system is cumbersome, and while it helped alleviate some of the problems of 3.x it still has many.

[blahpers]

Fair enough. I'll continue to house the two-handed-plus-kick TWF option.

[Alarox]

blahpers wrote:

Why is a bite considered not part of the action economy but armor spikes are? Neither necessarily involve a hand at all. What about unarmed strike, which is explicitly not always hands?

It's because using those 2h weapons either requires too much time or makes using the other weapons too difficult. You can still bite while swinging a 2h sword without it interrupting the action of swinging it multiple times, but slamming your body into your enemy or using your knees/elbows does. Swinging a 2h weapon with your full str/attack bonus and BAB assumes you're putting all of your skill and power into it.

If your character could physically do more attacks it would be represented in-game using your BAB. Only reason something like a bite works is because it doesn't interfere with your BAB based actions, in this case swinging that 2h. Same reasoning with an Eidolon or monster that can wield weapons, but is also primarily a natural attack user.

[The Quite-big-but-not-BIG Bad]

I really cannot imagine someone swinging a 4-6 foot greatsword, or even worse a greataxe or great hammer (whose business end is located at the end of a pole), and then leaning in to bite.
It just doesn't visualize....

[lemeres]

The Quite-big-but-not-BIG Bad wrote:

I really cannot imagine someone swinging a 4-6 foot greatsword, or even worse a greataxe or great hammer (whose business end is located at the end of a pole), and then leaning in to bite.

It just doesn't visualize....

The sword does a diagonal cut from the character's top left down to the bottom right, and the sword in position near the character's legs. The character then leans forward to bite, and at the same time brings the sword up on a backswing. After that you get iteratives as normal.

But yes, it is inherently awkward, and thus the -5 and 1/2 bonuses.

[Alarox]

lemeres wrote:

The Quite-big-but-not-BIG Bad wrote:

I really cannot imagine someone swinging a 4-6 foot greatsword, or even worse a greataxe or great hammer (whose business end is located at the end of a pole), and then leaning in to bite.

It just doesn't visualize....

The sword does a diagonal cut from the character's top left down to the bottom right, and the sword in position near the character's legs. The character then leans forward to bite, and at the same time brings the sword up on a backswing. After that you get iteratives as normal.

But yes, it is inherently awkward, and thus the -5 and 1/2 bonuses.

Pretty much this. The 2h swing isn't penalized, but the Bite is.

Conversely, if you were to try slamming your body into your enemy for armor spikes you would have to stop swinging your 2h to do it at all. Same goes for kicking someone. However, if you only have a 1h weapon it takes much less to swing it effectively, thus letting you TWF with an unarmed strike or natural attack, albeit at a penalty.

[mdt]

You could, however, if you were a monk (or anyone with Improved unarm srike), make a full attack by kicking someone repeatedly, then use your claws. You just couldn't do this with a flurry (due to a limitation on flurry).

The basic idea is, a given limb can only be used to make one type of attack per round. It can still be used multiple times per round (for example, you could use a long sword in your left hand to hack at someone twice (+8/+3 for example), and then use the right hand to make a single claw attack (+3 secondary natural weapon).

[Bizbag]

There's plenty of ways to justify using two-handed weapons with a kick, or armor spikes, etc., and they make a good deal of hypothetical sense. But from a game-rules perspective, I also can see these justifications as resulting in a player having three "hands", so to speak.

All else being equal, one character could attack with two 1d6 weapons and apply 1.0 Strength and 0.5 strength (two short swords, say), and another could attack with a 2d6 weapon and a 1d6 weapon (Greatsword and spikes, say), and apply 1.5 Str and 0.5 Str, effectively having 1d6 + 1.0 STR over the other player.

The debate was long on whether the math actually made such a style more powerful, but the FAQ clarified/ruled that such styles were not intended and not allowed.

As Blahpers did above, if you feel differently, you are welcome to House Rule it, and I'd support your decision to do so (it does make for some fun ideas), but I personally prefer the FAQ's ruling on a general level.

[Claxon]

blahpers wrote:

Fair enough. I'll continue to house the two-handed-plus-kick TWF option.

Just make sure the character provokes an Attack of Opportunity for using an Unarmed Strike and deals non-lethal instead of lethal damage (unless they take improved unarmed strike).

Even then I'm still strongly against this and agree with BizBag that this was purposely not allowed for balance reasons.

Now, if you wanted to allow a character (who had BAB high enough to grant two attacks) two swing his sword once, then punch or kick for his iterative attack I'd be totally fine with that. Of course that would be mechanically sub-par (which should be okay if you want the flavor) but otherwise you're just granting two handed wielders an extra attack compared to everybody else.

[The Quite-big-but-not-BIG Bad]

Alarox wrote:

Pretty much this. The 2h swing isn't penalized, but the Bite is.

Conversely, if you were to try slamming your body into your enemy for armor spikes you would have to stop swinging your 2h to do it at all. Same goes for kicking someone. However, if you only have a 1h weapon it takes much less to swing it effectively, thus letting you TWF with an unarmed strike or natural attack, albeit at a penalty

Not to go off-topic but I'm pretty sure a penalty on the 2h swing would be warranted if you perform the exact same pattern of strikes multiple times in a row in combat. You become predictable.

If it does hold up, you could basically do the same thing with armor spikes as you're suggesting for the bite. Make a diagonal cut, use the momentum of the swing to slam your side into the opponent (optional: make a pretty pirouette to bring the blade up again for the next turn).

No matter, had been considering making a Beast & Dragon Totem barbarian for the last week or so, in which I'd make the choice that I'd either use claws and bite or my 2h weapon, never a 2h weapon and bite. It's just so incredibly awkward.

PS. damn, now I wanna play a Barbarian Ballerina with pretty pirouettes of pain.