Two-Weapon Fighting and Natural Attacks

[jmclaus]

As I understand it, natural attacks have little interaction with Two-Weapon Fighting, both the feat and the full-round action. While two-weapon fighting, you take a penalty only on the attacks made with your primary and off hands. Natural attacks such as a bite are not affected.

For example, if a character dual wields daggers and uses a bite attack in the same round, his full-attack would look like dagger -2 / dagger -2 / bite -5 before factoring in BAB, Strength, etc.

However, the Core Rulebook 6th printing states that:

Page 181 wrote:

Feats such Two-Weapon Fighting and Multiattack (see the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) can reduce these penalties

The penalties that quotes refers to are the ones for secondary natural attack. Those penalties are changed from -5 to -2 by Multiattack but it's not clear to me why they mention Two-Weapon Fighting.

If you're only using natural attacks, Two-Weapon Fighting doesn't matter at all because natural attacks have no penalties for using multiple attacks past the basic -5 for secondary attacks. If you have two primary claw attacks, you can both of them without penalty unlike two manufactured weapons. And if you are using manufactured weapons in conjunction with natural attacks, all natural attacks are made at a -5 penalty regardless of whether you have Two-Weapon Fighting.

Is the quote from the Core Rulebook an error or am I missing something?

[CBDunkerson]

You already applied the penalty reductions from TWF to get the dagger attacks down to just -2. Otherwise, they would be; dagger -4 / dagger -8.

That's all the text on page 181 is referring to... when fighting with manufactured weapons in both hands AND natural weapons the TWF feat can reduce the manufactured weapon attack penalties and the Multiattack feat can reduce the natural weapon attack penalties.

[Weirdo]

Citing the rule in context would help.

CBR wrote:

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. For example, you cannot make a claw attack and also use that hand to make attacks with a longsword. When you make additional attacks in this way, all of your natural attacks are treated as secondary natural attacks, using your base attack bonus minus 5 and adding only 1/2 of your Strength modifier on damage rolls. In addition, all of your attacks made with melee weapons and unarmed strikes are made as if you were two-weapon fighting. Your natural attacks are treated as light, off-hand weapons for determining the penalty to your other attacks. Feats such as Two-Weapon Fighting and Multiattack (see the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) can reduce these penalties.

So a character with only one dagger and a bite could make an attack routine at dagger at -4 (primary manufactured attack) and bite -5 (secondary natural attack) but if the character has TWF the dagger penalty is only -2, and if he has Multiattack the bite penalty is only -2.

It appears that you can still TWF and use natural attacks at the same time, at no additional penalty, though I'm not certain.

[thaX]

So the confusion is mostly when a character has a bite attack. When using Manufactured weapons, the Natural attacks are secondary, thus getting the -5 and half str. If the bite is used on it's own, it would become the primary attack at full bonus, and be 1 1/2 times str, as that is how bites are.

The main thing is if a character has claws, they can not use the weapon in that hand and the claw at the same time. (it is one or the other) Typically, the natural attacks are less damage and do not get magical assistance at later levels.

Weirdo, the penelty is the -5 for the natural attacks, the same as when a primary is used and the lesser attacks are at that same penalty (Bite, claw/claw)(full, -5/-5)

[jmclaus]

Weirdo, I didn't include that because it isn't in the 6th printing. This is the entire paragraph

Quote:

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. For example, you cannot make a claw attack and also use that hand to make attacks with a longsword. When you make additional attacks in this way, all of your natural attacks are treated as secondary natural attacks, using your base attack bonus minus 5 and adding only 1/2 of your Strength modifier on damage rolls. Feats such as Two-Weapon Fighting and Multiattack (see the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) can reduce these penalties.

Which version are you using? I'm guessing that it originally worked like you said in the quote but they changed it and forgot to change the rest of the wording.

Regardless, it certainly doesn't work that way now. There are numerous stat blocks for monsters that use both natural and manufactured weapons at once, taking no penalties on the manufactured weapon attack rolls.

[SheepishEidolon]

The section about two-weapon fighting also only states penalties for primary hand and off hand (hand, not hands), not a general attack penalty:

Core Rulebook wrote:

Two-Weapon Fighting

If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. You suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand when you fight this way.

It makes sword and claw a solid alternative to two swords. To keep it viable, you have to invest resources (gold, feats etc.) in either case.

[jmclaus]

You don't take any penalties on manufactured weapon rolls just for using a natural attack, including a sword and a claw. The sword will have the same attack bonus regardless of whether you use the claw.

[jmclaus]

I have located the change. In the first to sixth printing errata:

Quote:

Page 182—In the Attack section, in the Natural Attacks section, in the third paragraph, delete the following two sentences: “In addition, all of your attacks made with melee weapons and unarmed strikes are made as if you were two-weapon fighting. Your natural attacksare treated as light, off-hand weapons for determining the penalty to your other attacks."

[fretgod99]

jmclaus wrote:

I have located the change. In the first to sixth printing errata:

Quote:

Page 182—In the Attack section, in the Natural Attacks section, in the third paragraph, delete the following two sentences: “In addition, all of your attacks made with melee weapons and unarmed strikes are made as if you were two-weapon fighting. Your natural attacksare treated as light, off-hand weapons for determining the penalty to your other attacks."

Yeah, it's a relic reference. That was ported from 3.5 when natural weapons worked slightly differently. Your OP about how these rules interact is correct.

[fretgod99]

thaX wrote:

So the confusion is mostly when a character has a bite attack. When using Manufactured weapons, the Natural attacks are secondary, thus getting the -5 and half str. If the bite is used on it's own, it would become the primary attack at full bonus, and be 1 1/2 times str, as that is how bites are.

The main thing is if a character has claws, they can not use the weapon in that hand and the claw at the same time. (it is one or the other) Typically, the natural attacks are less damage and do not get magical assistance at later levels.

Weirdo, the penelty is the -5 for the natural attacks, the same as when a primary is used and the lesser attacks are at that same penalty (Bite, claw/claw)(full, -5/-5)

A couple notes, bite attacks only get 1.5 STR if they are the only natural attack a creature has (which is true for any natural attack), or if they have a special rule like dragons.

Also, bite/claw/claw attack routines use full BAB for all three, because they are all primary natural attacks. This is a change from 3.5.

[Weirdo]

That's what I get for looking it up in my actual copy instead of using the internet. Though, to be fair, without any more context than a page number I didn't know where to look online.

I'm glad it works that way because I'm pretty sure that's the way my group has been doing it. Probably, again, because we mostly use the pfsrd as our actual rules reference.

thaX wrote:

Weirdo, the penalty is the -5 for the natural attacks, the same as when a primary is used and the lesser attacks are at that same penalty (Bite, claw/claw)(full, -5/-5)

That's what I said...

Weirdo wrote:

So a character with only one dagger and a bite could make an attack routine at dagger at -4 (primary manufactured attack) and bite -5 (secondary natural attack) but if the character has TWF the dagger penalty is only -2, and if he has Multiattack the bite penalty is only -2.

[yumzol]

Hello all.
I am playing a catfolk with the trait of Claws (2 natural attacks)... but I am not finding a clear explanation on what happens when the BAB of the character reachs +6/+1.

Do the character gets 4 claw attacks (2 at +6 and 2 at +1)?
Do he gets 3 attacks (2 at +6, 1 at +1)?

As I understand it, 2WF is not an option, as the claws are natural attacks. Multiattack, is not an option either, as the character does not have another (3rd) natural attack.

Just to shorten the replys, I am not interested in having a 3rd nat att, nor having a manufactured wp.

thanks in advance for your thoughts!!!

[graystone]

yumzol: You get 2 claws at +6. The /+1 only has an affect when you're using non-natural weapons. For instance, if you took Improved unarmed strike, you could make a +6 strike and a +1 strike. In that case, you also have the option of attacking with your claws at -5 and 1/2 strength damage.

[Aziraya Zhwan]

Iterative attacks aren't taken into consideration when only using Natural Attacks. You still only get two claw attacks, both at +6 (not counting bonuses from Str or Dex).

[yumzol]

thanks a lot !!!