Ratfolk cryptic with sharpclaw, tailblade, and ring of rat fangs = 4 attacks ?


Rules Questions


Hi all.
I am gm'ing the kingmaker campaign world, and have recent killed off the monk/rogue. My player wanted something new so built a Ratfolk (pg 150 adv race) cryptic (pg 36 psionics expanded).
The questions i have are this:

1.) Does he actually get 4 attacks at level 6 with the feats: Sharpclaw (pg 154 adv race), multi-attack (pg 315 beastiary 1), and the ratfolk weapon Tailblade (pg 154 adv race) with the added magic item: Ring of Rat Fangs (pg 155 adv race)?

2.) ring of rat fangs says "The wearer gains a bite attack as a PRIMARY attack), and the feat:sharpclaw says These are PRIMARY attacks.So add weapon finesse to hit with his +4 base, and add the insight from the cryptic class:(pg 38 psi expanded)
Branding Pattern (Su): As a swift action, the cryptic can manipulate the pattern of one enemy to “mark” them as a ranged touch attack. Until the cryptic’s next turn, each time the cryptic makes a successful attack against that enemy, she deals an additional amount of hit point damage equal to her Intelligence modifier. therefore giving him int modifier for damage if he hits and rolls his ranged touch attack.

This to me seems an abuse of the system, and i want to make sure that this is a legit build. Can anyone PLEASE help me ?

Sincerely : frustrated GM


bite, 2 claws and a tail attack = 4 attacks seems legit to me.

bite and claws at full attack bonus and tail at -2. +Dex to hit, +str and Int to damage. I can't see a flaw. looks interesting. splash of rogue and a bit of sneak attack...

If you think it might be a problem you could just talk to the player. Let him know that you are concerned that it might be too much. Ask him if he wants to see if it works and if it proves overpowered (in your sole opinion) change it, or whether he just wants to change his mind and try something else from the start.

Or, you know, just ban 3PP...


I guess my main concern was the PC out-damaging the Barbarian, our main DPS, since thats the barbarian's main role, whereas the cryptic seems to be able to do EVERYTHING and have his bag of chips as well.

Silver Crusade

Well, where natural attacks are involved, there's plenty of potential for early martial strength. What level are the characters right now, and what does the barbarian wield?

Grand Lodge

At level 6 this doesn't seem overpowered at all. I mean, there are first party sources that give 3 primary natural attacks at lvl 1. And there are plenty of items that grant extra natural attacks.

Note, it's completely up to you to decide if he qualifies for Multiattack as that's a monster feat. It says "PCs may qualify" which leaves the decision up to you.

I don't know what class he is, but if he's a full-bab class he could just take Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and still have 6 attacks.


You only get one primary attack; if you gain a bite attack then that replaces the claws as the primary attack. The tail blade is a manufactured weapon (even though you gain the benefits of feats and effects which apply to natural weapons), so really it should not be listed as a secondary attack - it would replace the bite as the primary attack since it's manufactured.

So at level 6 he has a bab of 4, meaning on a full attack action he gets one iterative attack with the tail blade, a secondary primary attack with the bite (at -5), and 2 secondary primary attacks with the claws (also at -5). If he weilds manufactured weapons in his hands he loses the claw attacks.

Remember that secondary attacks only get half damage scaling from str/PA/etc.

Technically multi-attack is a monster feat, he can't take it unless you allow him to. it would reduce the penalty on the bite/claws to -2.

Not really familiar with psionics as they're third party.

If you don't like the build I can offer four really easy fixes; one - give things dr 5/- or 10/-. the base damage for the bite/claw is really low, and I'm guessing your guy is not heavily specced into str; two - put him up against large groups of enemies, he gets one swift action/round he can't mark all of them; three - give your mobs shields which deflect magical touch attacks 1/rnd :P; four - make him move around a lot, then he can't make full round actions.

Grand Lodge

You have some third party stuff thrown in there, that we can't help you with.

Grand Lodge

Trekkie90909 wrote:

You only get one primary attack; if you gain a bite attack then that replaces the claws as the primary attack. The tail blade is a manufactured weapon (even though you gain the benefits of feats and effects which apply to natural weapons), so really it should not be listed as a secondary attack - it would replace the bite as the primary attack since it's manufactured.

So at level 6 he has a bab of 4, meaning on a full attack action he gets one iterative attack with the tail blade, a secondary primary attack with the bite (at -5), and 2 secondary primary attacks with the claws (also at -5). If he weilds manufactured weapons in his hands he loses the claw attacks.

Technically multi-attack is a monster feat, he can't take it unless you allow him to. it would reduce the penalty on the bite/claws to -2.

Not really familiar with psionics as they're third party.

If you don't like the build I can offer two really easy fixes; one - give things dr 5/- or 10/-. the base damage for the bite/claw is really low, and I'm guessing your guy is not heavily specced into str; two - put him up against large groups of enemies, he gets one swift action/round he can't mark all of them; three - give your mobs shields which deflect magical touch attacks 1/rnd :P.

All very wrong.

Creatures can absolutely have more than one Primary natural attacks.

Multiattack adds no extra attacks, and only reduces penalties for secondary attacks. That's it.

The Tailblade is weird item, in that it functions as a natural attack.


Trekkie90909 wrote:
You only get one primary attack; if you gain a bite attack then that replaces the claws as the primary attack. The tail blade is a manufactured weapon (even though you gain the benefits of feats and effects which apply to natural weapons), so really it should not be listed as a secondary attack - it would replace the bite as the primary attack since it's manufactured.

That's 3.5 thinking Trekkie, in PF you can have multiple primary attacks.

Also Tailblade looks like it's treated as a natural attack as it grants a 'tail attack' and is a secondary attack when full attacking (I had to double check that one as I was sure it was a weapon attack too :))

tailblade wrote:
A ratfolk wielding a tailblade can make a tail attack, adding its Strength modifier to the tailblade's damage. Ratfolk are considered proficient with such attacks and can apply feats or effects appropriate to natural attacks to tail attacks made with a tailblade. If used as part of a full attack action, attacks with a tailblade are considered secondary attacks.

Another way to counter this build is just keep bad guys mobile, if he has to move he can't full attack.

EDIT: took too long triple checking tailblade. :)

Grand Lodge

Natural Attack builds always seem powerful, early on.

They peter out, as they don't get Iterative Attacks, due to high BAB, and it becomes very hard, and expensive to bypass DR later.

That "Branding Pattern" thing seems to be the kicker.


A couple of things.

First, the cryptic is a third party class and is a casting psionic class with medium BAB and access to multiple damage steroids.

Second, remember that when he uses the ranged touch attack to add int to damage, it provides an attack of opportunity, and also suffers any penalties to hit from attacking into melee so if any of the other party members are in melee with their target, they will suffer that -4 penalty.

Third, if that is all he is doing, you are lucky. There is a cryptic archtype that allows the cryptic to add their disrupt pattern damage to all of their melee attacks. This would allow him to potentially add his intelligence modifier twice to damage rolls.

If he did the above, and also took the feat,one pattern (removes the penalty on disrupt pattern damage for having the wrong creature type selected) he would potentially be doing base damage +3d6+int+int and if he ever got an agile amulet of might fists he could throw his dex onto it as well.

Long story short, third party stuff will not always be balanced, and there is always martial caster disparity.


Until the cryptic’s next turn, -each time- the cryptic makes a successful attack against that enemy, seems to say he would get that bonus to hit for each attack in the full attack, or no ?

and your saying he has to have a certain type of enemy marked for it to work or suffer negatives ? so it is part of his "Disrupt pattern power?"


Cryptics have a list of abilities that are like rogue talents, they get to choose one at each even level. Branding pattern is one of those abilities and yes it does allow the bonus damage on every attack they make in a full attack action.

Disrupt pattern is a different class feature that allows the cryptic to make a ranged touch attack that does 1d6 untyped damage per odd level (same dice progression as sneak attack) and add their int modifier to the damage. They also have to select a creature type when they attain their psionic focus. If the targeted creature type does not match the selected type, it does half damage, but the one pattern feat allows them to ignore that penalty. In any case, in the information you provided, there was no indication that your player was making use of this ability, the only reason I mentioned it was that in conjunction with an archtype, it could have raised his damage by a lot.

Based on the information you provided, and my understanding of the rules and third party material in question, your player's build is legal and functioning as intended.

Based on the information you provided, the player has done a very good job optimizing his build, but the entire issue of him doing to much damage is entirely because of how powerful the branding pattern ability is. For an ability that can be acquired as early as level 2, and has unlimited uses per day, it is a very powerful ability. If it was part of the core rules, there would probably be a huge number of threads complaining how broken it is.

As his GM, what were your terms for allowing third party content? If you just blanket allowed it, you should consider yourself lucky, as this is no where near the level of cheese you can hit.


As for 3rd party content, i only allowed psionics, and psinoics expanded. and thank you very much appreciate all of your help guys.


The other option for 3 natural attacks is to start as a Tengu with Claw Attack, that's at level 1. Or start as any race with a bite and go Barbarian and Lesser Beast Totem, that's level 2.

And Branding Pattern isn't as good as you seem to think it is. Yes, he gets to add his Int to every attack during that round. But it burns his swift action and it's a ranged touch attack (and therefore provokes an AoO). So he either gets to brand someone at a distance then move and attack them once, or he gets to brand someone point blank and get attacked in return. His ideal situation is being 5 feet away, branding them, and 5-foot stepping up to full attack. In every other circumstance he only gets one attack or provokes an AoO.

Liberty's Edge

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I doubt he'll overshadow the Barbarian, especially as the levels get higher. If he is playing a rogue type (he was a monk/rogue, now he's a cryptic) why not let him have some DPS? That's their role in the game.


McDeadeye Jones wrote:

Hi all.

I am gm'ing the kingmaker campaign world, and have recent killed off the monk/rogue. My player wanted something new so built a Ratfolk (pg 150 adv race) cryptic (pg 36 psionics expanded).
The questions i have are this:

1.) Does he actually get 4 attacks at level 6 with the feats: Sharpclaw (pg 154 adv race), multi-attack (pg 315 beastiary 1), and the ratfolk weapon Tailblade (pg 154 adv race) with the added magic item: Ring of Rat Fangs (pg 155 adv race)?

2.) ring of rat fangs says "The wearer gains a bite attack as a PRIMARY attack), and the feat:sharpclaw says These are PRIMARY attacks.So add weapon finesse to hit with his +4 base, and add the insight from the cryptic class:(pg 38 psi expanded)
Branding Pattern (Su): As a swift action, the cryptic can manipulate the pattern of one enemy to “mark” them as a ranged touch attack. Until the cryptic’s next turn, each time the cryptic makes a successful attack against that enemy, she deals an additional amount of hit point damage equal to her Intelligence modifier. therefore giving him int modifier for damage if he hits and rolls his ranged touch attack.

This to me seems an abuse of the system, and i want to make sure that this is a legit build. Can anyone PLEASE help me ?

Sincerely : frustrated GM

It is not system abuse. It may however be beyond what "power level/optimization level" you like for your games. If that is the case tell the player you don't feel comfortable with it. Honestly he could probably do more damage by not using natural attacks, especially when DR comes up.

edit: I expect the barbarian to pass him later on.

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