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Hey guys, I am having a bit of a confusing time here. I am wanting to make a Plant Master hunter who hangs out with a Sniper Cactus, but I am having a very hard time figuring out how to rule some stuff. I am looking for ways to buff the little prickly green guys hit and such, specifically with his ranged thorn attack. I am running into a little bit of a problem with a lack of information making for a really confusing situation.
I have been talking to my brother (who GMs quite a bit) about it, and we seem to be at an impasse where he is saying that the thorn attack is not a natural attack and is instead a special attack similar to the spikes of a manticore, and so magic fang or an amulet of mighty fist won't apply. I am reading it as thorn being a ranged natural attack, similar to the ranged attack animated objects or that Serpentfolk (with Venomspray) can get, and so the natural attack portion of magic fang would apply to the thorn.
Does anyone here that knows more than the two of us have any insight on this? We are both pretty sure of our stances, and I am hoping that an outside opinion can weigh in and give their two-cents, maybe breaking the tie.
There's quite a few ranged natural attacks especially on plants in the last material produced for PF1 - from Bestiary 6 onwards. I can't prove anything about this one in particular, but there's precedent if that matters.
I agree that it is a natural weapon, of course looking at a manticore's spike attack this also appears to be a natural weapon to me. In fact the manticore has weapon focus with it's spike attack. That being said, the sniper cactus attack does seem to be very similar to a cactus leshy's special attack, which unlike the other two lists it as a special attack instead of it just being a ranged attack the creature can perform.
but, I'm not sure why something can't both be a special attack and be a natural weapon. I haven't been able to find anything that states that just because something is a special attack it can't also be a weapon of some kind and therefore benefit from feats, spells etc. that enhance weapons. I mean, if the manticore's spike attack is a special attack it kind of proves that it doesn't matter if something is a special attack or not when it comes to feats and spells. In all 3 cases these attacks are considered extraordinary not supernatural or spell-like.
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Okay, so now I have a few really specific questions, if I can prod your brains for a moment more.
Given that it would be similar to a manticore, would it make sense to also allow the sniper cactus to get weapon focus with its thorns?
Also, would it be able to benefit from rapid shot, given the rapid shot says a ranged weapon, or does that fact that it falls into the (maybe) natural attack area make it so it can't be considered applicable?
And last but not least, would an Amulet of Might Fist or greater magic fang work, since it isn't melee? Do you know of any ways to enhance the ranged attacks for the sniper cactus or others?
Okay, so now I have a few really specific questions, if I can prod your brains for a moment more.
Given that it would be similar to a manticore, would it make sense to also allow the sniper cactus to get weapon focus with its thorns?
Also, would it be able to benefit from rapid shot, given the rapid shot says a ranged weapon, or does that fact that it falls into the (maybe) natural attack area make it so it can't be considered applicable?
And last but not least, would an Amulet of Might Fist or greater magic fang work, since it isn't melee? Do you know of any ways to enhance the ranged attacks for the sniper cactus or others?
It should be able to benefit from weapon focus the same way a manticore does.
I'm not sure about rapid shot, it's basically the ranged version of two-weapon fighting which I have always assumed can't be used directly with natural weapons for "reasons". It looks like rapid shot should work with it since I don't see anything in the description preventing it, but the best I can give is a maybe.
An amulet of mighty fists should enhance the thorn attacks. However, because of how the item and abilities are worded you could only enchant it with abilities that can be applied to an unarmed strike and of those abilities only those that can also be put on ranged weapons would work on the thorns.
So, basically if you wanted to add flaming that's fine but you couldn't enchant it with distance and while you could put mighty cleaving on the amulet it wouldn't work on your thorns.