Ragebred Barbarian Attack Penalties?


Advice


I just want to make sure that I am getting this right. A Skinwalker (Ragebred), with Extra Feature, Animal Fury, and Beast Totem (lesser), can have 2 Claw attacks, 2 Hoof attacks, a Bite attack, and a Gore attack, and during a full-attack, all are at full BAB, except for the bite, which is at -5?


To my knowledge, Bites are primary, so it still goes at full BAB. I think of hooves as secondary(BAB-5), but skinwalkers may change that, and I'm not up on them.


Well Ragebred doesn't seem to specify if they are primary or secondary. Lesser Beast Totem specifically calls out that the claws are primary and use full BAB. Animal Fury does not specify if the bite is primary or secondary but does specify that it uses BAB-5 during a full attack and uses 1/2 Str damage.


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The text may not be expecting a natural weapon-only full attack. If you have a manufactured weapon, all of your nat attacks become secondary.

List of natural attacks and damage/type

Silver Crusade

Bites are Primary.

Hooves are Secondary.

All Natural attacks follow the same pattern for whether they are primary or secondary unless specified otherwise.


The "this is a primary/secondary attack" text that's added to most natural attaks is almost always redundant. The table in Sideromancer's link dictate whether a given natural attack is primary or secondary (unless overruled by something, like when you are using a weapon).

That means that for you, the bite, gore, and claw attacks are primary attacks, while the hoof attacks are secondary attacks.

Pure RAW, they bite would behave as a primary attack that's still at -5 BAB (which you couldn't even improve with Mulitattack) and adds only half strength, but that's only because the writer screwed up. Animal Fury was written with the assumption that you use it in combination with a weapon. The intend is that it is a regular bite attack and it should be played like that. The identically named rage power for Unchained Barbarian has it as a primary attack.

Paizo just loves to add redundant rules text that only repeats the general rules as much as possible. In the worst cases, like the Animal Fury rage power, they put it in in such a clumsy way that it contradicts the rules they are trying to repeat. Animal fury should simply say "The barbarian gains a bite natural attack with 1d4 base damage (if the barbarian is Medium; 1d3 if the barbarian is Small)."

Silver Crusade

I wouldn't necessarily call it a screw up. They called it out the in the description but yeah it could have been worded clearer.

Animal Fury wrote:
If used as part of a full attack action, the bite attack is made at the barbarian's full base attack bonus –5.


No, it's a definite screw up because the way they worded it, the bite has a attack and damage penalty if used in a full attack that has nothing to do with primary or secondary. Basically, it's a reminder text that misquotes the rules (because it leaves out the "attacks made with weapons" part of the rules).

As written, if you use the bite as part of a full attack action in which you only use natural attack, it would still be at BAB -5 and add only half strength. Which is not how a bite attack should behave according to the Universal Monster Rules.

All because they couldn't be bothered to add a f++*ing glossary to the CRB.

Silver Crusade

Or you could not go by an overly specific and strict RaW interpretation that intentionally leads to problems.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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I get more excited for Advanced Player's Guide errata every day.

Silver Crusade

Kalindlara wrote:
I get more excited for Advanced Player's Guide errata every day.

hehe

Beast Totem, Greater wrote:
change to "While raging, the barbarian gains the pounce special ability, allowing her to make a full attack at the end of a charge with her claw attacks. In addition, the damage from her claws increases to 1d8 (1d6 if Small) and the claws deal x 3 damage on a critical hit." This change shall be presented in the next printing.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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Hey, it might allow other natural attacks too. ^_^

Dazing Spell and Persistent Spell are also begging for a lightning strike.

Silver Crusade

Sorry, I just couldn't resist being a gadfly :3

But those two? Yeah...


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Kalindlara wrote:

Hey, it might allow other natural attacks too. ^_^

Dazing Spell and Persistent Spell are also begging for a lightning strike.

+4 level adjustment! Two feats worth of feat tax each! Nerf 'em into the ground!

...Sorry, I have strong feelings about metamagic abuse.

But as far as the main topic goes, just use the default natural weapon rules. It's much less of a headache than working out the interactions with bad summaries of the natural weapon rules.


Sounds good. So it changes how we have been doing it by removing the -5 attack penalty and 1/2 damage from the Bite, but imposes the -5 penalty and 1/2 damage on both the Hoof attacks. Fair enough.

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