RAW, you need to take improved unarmed strike in order to take improved grapple. Yet for all intents and purposes they already have improved unarmed strike since they are always considered armed because of their natural attacks since all base forms have some kind of free natural attack evolution. It seems odd to make it necessary to require a feat that is completely moot due to the nature of the eidolon in order to take a feat.
I just want to know how most people on here would rule this one and possibly know whether or not the free evolutions are respecable.
As far as improved grapple is concerned, you need imp unarmed strike.
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In v3.5 monsters with natural attacks did NOT need to take Improved Unarmed Strike first. I have no idea if this is still true in Pathfinder though.
In v3.5 monsters with natural attacks did NOT need to take Improved Unarmed Strike first. I have no idea if this is still true in Pathfinder though.
Got a source to cite on that? Monsters with natural attacks did not to take a feat to avoid AOO's for using natural weapons, but that never bypassed prerequisites on Improved Grapple to my knowledge.
In v3.5 monsters with natural attacks did NOT need to take Improved Unarmed Strike first. I have no idea if this is still true in Pathfinder though.Got a source to cite on that? Monsters with natural attacks did not to take a feat to avoid AOO's for using natural weapons, but that never bypassed prerequisites on Improved Grapple to my knowledge.
Look in your Monster Manual. There is at least one monster in there that has Improved Grapple without Improved Unarmed Strike (Barbed Devil if I'm not mistaken).
There are a number of other published monsters outside the core Monster Manual that follow that trend as well.
In v3.5 monsters with natural attacks did NOT need to take Improved Unarmed Strike first. I have no idea if this is still true in Pathfinder though.Got a source to cite on that? Monsters with natural attacks did not to take a feat to avoid AOO's for using natural weapons, but that never bypassed prerequisites on Improved Grapple to my knowledge.Look in your Monster Manual. There is at least one monster in there that has Improved Grapple without Improved Unarmed Strike (Barbed Devil if I'm not mistaken).
There are a number of other published monsters outside the core Monster Manual that follow that trend as well.
Having natural attacks has nothing to do with it. It was either
A. an uncorrected mistake orB. it was ignored for the factor of cool, kind of like the sorcerer blink dogs.
What they should have to be consistent is given it as a bonus feat.
I would make the Eidolon take both feats.
Well, technically an Unarmed Strike and a Natural Attack are not related, since they follow different rules.
A Natural Attack is always at Full BaB if Primary, and at Full BaB -5 if Secondary (-2 with the Multiattack feat), and does not grant iterative attacks (except for Animal Companions and Eidolons with a single Natural Attack and the bonus Multiattack feat - but that is a special feature gained through their own version of the Multiattack feat); if used in conjunction with manufactured weapons, they do not follow the normal rules for Two-Weapon (or Multiweapon) Fighting, since they are merely considered Secondary Attacks and do not grant any penalties to manufactures weapons either; with a full-round action, a creature can unleash all his disposable Natural Attacks without any BaB requirement in order to do so; and due to the fact that they are, uh, 'armed', Natural Attacks do not provoke Attacks of Opportunity and allow the creature to make Attack of Opportunity against other creatures. The damage they deal is usually based on the type of attack and the size of the creature, but there can be exceptions (the Gore of a Minotaur, for example, deals less base damage than that of a suggested creature of its size - the Gore of a Large creature should deal 1d8, while the Minotaur deals 1d6).
Unarmed Strikes, on the other hand, (without special features like a Monk's Unarmed Strike special ability or the Improved Unarmed Strike feat) do not allow to make Attack of Opportunity against other creatures, and provoke Attacks of Opportunity; they follow the normal rules for Iterative attacks, meaning that in order to make a second Unarmed Strike you need to have a BaB of +6 or more, +11 to make a third attack, and +16 to make a fourth - and these iterative attacks are, of course at -5/-10/-15; and if used in conjunction with manufactured weapons - or with themselves, like a Boxer which uses both punches and wants to make more attacks - they follow the normal rules for Two-Weapon Fighting. The damage is fixed, 1d3 for a Medium creature and then size-based (1d2 Small, 1d4 Large, and so on).
Judging from these, I would say that even if a creature - like an Eidolon - has Natural Attacks, they are not Unarmed Strikes, and so in order to benefit from a feat which needs as a prerequisite the Improved Unarmed Strike feat... they would have to take it effectively.
Just my 2c.
EDIT: aaand, ninja'ed by another wraith ;D
In v3.5 monsters with natural attacks did NOT need to take Improved Unarmed Strike first. I have no idea if this is still true in Pathfinder though.Got a source to cite on that? Monsters with natural attacks did not to take a feat to avoid AOO's for using natural weapons, but that never bypassed prerequisites on Improved Grapple to my knowledge.Look in your Monster Manual. There is at least one monster in there that has Improved Grapple without Improved Unarmed Strike (Barbed Devil if I'm not mistaken).
There are a number of other published monsters outside the core Monster Manual that follow that trend as well.
Having natural attacks has nothing to do with it. It was either
A. an uncorrected mistake or
B. it was ignored for the factor of cool, kind of like the sorcerer blink dogs.What they should have to be consistent is given it as a bonus feat.
I would make the Eidolon take both feats.
If it was an error it was a consistent one. As I said, its been seen elsewhere.
As such I submit to you the possibility that the error was excluding the "or a natural attack" in the feat's prerequisites line.
[Not a RAW argument, just an alterative build suggestion]
I felt the same way, that improved unarmed strike doesn't make sense on an Eidolon, while improved grapple would be great for an Eidolon. Rather than try to sneak it past my DM, I gave my Eidolon the reach and grab evolutions. Those give +4 to grapple, and the ability to grapple at reach 2 (outside of some AoO's ranges), and the choice of a grapple roll (AoO free) when hitting with the grab attack (only vs smaller targets, but you were going to cast enlarge person all the time anyway, right?).
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Look in your Monster Manual. There is at least one monster in there that has Improved Grapple without Improved Unarmed Strike (Barbed Devil if I'm not mistaken).
There are a number of other published monsters outside the core Monster Manual that follow that trend as well.
System ate a long post.
The logic above is an example of inductive reasoning, which can provide direction for investigation, but which can also lead to false conclusions. In the general case, it is unreliable. In the case of the game rules, there are enough uncorrected errors that it is not only unreliable, but guaranteed to lead to false conclusions at times.
There is an uncorrected error somewhere. Either in the statblock, or in the prerequisites for Improved Grapple. It is much, much, more likely that the error is in the statblock, regardless of whether it also showed up in other statblocks. It could have been cut/paste type errors or a single designer who repeated the error repeatedly. And, while there other ways to reverse that to place the burden on the feat rather than the statblock, an error in the feat would have been much more likely to be corrected as a more fundamental rules element.
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Just because there are a few cases of monsters having Natural Attacks and Imp Grapple without IUS does not automatically mean that all creatures with natural attacks have direct access to IG. Keep in mind that an eidolon is not a Bestiary creature. It is a unique summoned entity that exists as a manifestation of the summoner. Without some RAW that states having natural attacks is equivalent to IUS, it must be (IMHO) ruled that the eidolon needs IUS prior to IG.