Let's say I have a Goblin Feral Gnasher, say level six. Animal Fury lets me get a free bite every time I maintain a grapple. But when I do that, which bite damage do I use? My normal bite, or the rage power?
I suppose RAW are mildly ambiguous, but RAI is certainly for the rage power to use the rage power's bite.
On that note, does greater animal fury apply to the Feral Gnasher's normal bite?
No. It is a modification to the animal fury rage power, not to random unrelated bite attacks.
There is justification for an argument that Animal Fury must use its own bite attack for the grapple check for a rules as intended interpretation, however rules as written doesnt have that wording.
Benefit: While raging, the barbarian gains a bite attack. If used as part of a full attack action, the bite attack is made at the barbarian’s full base attack bonus –5. If the bite hits, it deals 1d4 points of damage (assuming the barbarian is Medium; 1d3 points of damage if Small) plus half the barbarian’s Strength modifier. A barbarian can make a bite attack as part of the action to maintain or break free from a grapple. This attack is resolved before the grapple check is made. If the bite attack hits, any grapple checks made by the barbarian against the target this round are at a +2 bonus.
As written it could be any bite attack you have.
Rules as intended could suggest that it has to be the bite granted in the same paragraph of the same ability but as written it just has to be a bite attack.As for Greater Animal Fury, I was under the assumption that it only boosted the Animal Fury bite but it uses the same language. Hmmmm >_>
Benefit(s): This power works as animal fury, but the barbarian’s bite attack deals damage as if she were one size larger.
Hmmm. The "This power works as Animal Fury" part seems to suggest that the following segment of the sentence applies to "Animal Fury" specifically.
So it would only affect the bite gained from Animal Fury.Edit: Honestly I am under the impression that they used those set of words because they hadn't considered its interaction with other sets of rules and assumed they didn't need to be overtly specific. However in this instance I have also built a Feral Rager Goblin with Animal Fury and we allowed the goblins natural bite to work with animal fury without too much issue. We did not use the Greater version tho.