Rending Talons

[Dracomicron]

I'm a little unclear on how Rending Talons work.

When you renew a grapple, as a swift action before the end of your turn you can use your talons to rake your target. Your talons function as a basic melee weapon with the analog weapon special property for this purpose, and they deal damage based on their model. The talons can only be deployed properly as weapons when grappling a target or damaging a helpless target, and thus can’t be used to make other attacks.

So do these work like old school bear Rend, where you just automatically do extra damage without an attack roll at the cost of the designated action, or do they simply allow an extra attack with a swift action, like old school feline enemies that get back claw attacks if their front claws hit?

I'm not sure the "basic melee weapon" information makes sense if it's not an extra attack roll; if we include strength and basic melee weapon specialization, it makes these ridiculously more lethal as opposed to a d6 or so of flat damage that I would expect from an augment.

[BigNorseWolf]

Looks like a swift action attack and yes, 1) thats going to hurt and 2) being a basic melee weapon means most of your damage comes from sources other than the damage dice (strength, specialization, gear boost etc)

[Dracomicron]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Looks like a swift action attack and yes, 1) thats going to hurt and 2) being a basic melee weapon means most of your damage comes from sources other than the damage dice (strength, specialization, gear boost etc)

That seems most plausible, but damn, that's nasty, and makes the the grapplemander build a death machine.

[Gaulin]

Wait, could you use entropic strike with rending talons? RAW I think you could.

[BigNorseWolf]

Dracomicron wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Looks like a swift action attack and yes, 1) thats going to hurt and 2) being a basic melee weapon means most of your damage comes from sources other than the damage dice (strength, specialization, gear boost etc)

That seems most plausible, but damn, that's nasty, and makes the the grapplemander build a death machine.

Keep in mind it takes 2 successful grapple checks to work, one to establish and one to renew.