I thought there was a rule that aquatic creatures could do normal damage with their natural weapons while underwater even if those weapons deal bludgeoning or slashing damage. This seems sensible to me since otherwise a giant octopus might only do half damage with its tentacles. Then again, maybe the fact that you get to do full bludgeoning damage while grappling is why an octopus likes grappling so much.
A lot of aquatic creatures use Bites, and those would do full damage due to the piercing component. It is the tentacles and claws I'm worried about though it was a draugr's slam which made me think of all this. With Improved Natural Attack it does 2d8 base damage, which might still be pretty decent even after it gets halved.
Now it makes me wonder about Water Elementals too though. They only have slam attacks and don't seem to concentrate on grappling, so do they inflict half damage in their native environment? Should creatures with the Water subtype do full damage underwater? Are there rules on any of this anywhere?
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Okay, looked into it further.
That entire Underwater Combat section starts with "Land-based creatures have considerable difficulty when fighting in the water."
So I don't think the underwater combat penalties are intended to apply to creatures with the aquatic or water subtypes, as those subtypes represent creatures native to the water.
I think the further limitations regarding underwater combat would still apply (fire used underwater, the note regarding spells behaving differently, and the note regarding ranged weapons used underwater or from the water to land).