Thanks to gnolls being a playable ancestry now, and other changes from older editions, I can more easily make my "savage" gnoll warrior who focuses on claws and teeth. I've run into a quandry, however:
Gnolls get a 1d6 Bite attack. The Crunch ancestry feat turns that 1d6 to a 1d8, and gains the Grapple quality. So far, so good.
Enter the Animal Instinct Barbarian. Looking at taking Wolf, as it's close enough to a hyena to make sense. When raging, a Wolf Instinct barbarian gains a 1d10 bite attack with the Trip quality.
Silliness about "grow a second set of jaws, etc" aside, it seems pretty simple on the outset - while raging, my jaws would do the 1d10. But would they still have the Grapple quality?
It gets a bit more convoluted as we go up in level, as well. The Specialization Ability states " Increase the damage die size for the unarmed attacks
granted by your chosen animal by one step". Normally, this would only apply while raging, as humans/elves/etc don't generally have a Bite. But a Gnoll does... would the Specialization ability bump my non-Raging bite damage up as well?
I'll also state that why I'm firmly in the camp of "ask your GM", this character build is for use in PFS, so a 'house call' doesn't really work in this situation.
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I think the rules are pretty clear cut here and unfortunately not what you're looking for. Bestial Rage has a the morph trait. It literally morphs your mouth into a new form, and it is the same form regardless of what your mouth was originally. Your rage jaws don't gain grapple and your gnoll jaws don't increase their damage dice.
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The gnoll bite is clearly not a "unarmed attacks granted by your chosen animal".
There's basically two ways to handle this:
1) You really have two separate jaws attacks, and while raging, you can either one. But any given attack uses one of them, not a mixture.
2) While raging the rage-given jaws attack takes over, and you can't use your ancestral one, since it's a morph effect and uses the same body part.
In no case do you get a combined one with the benefits of both. It's one or the other.
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I think the rules are pretty clear cut here and unfortunately not what you're looking for. Bestial Rage has a the morph trait. It literally morphs your mouth into a new form, and it is the same form regardless of what your mouth was originally. Your rage jaws don't gain grapple and your gnoll jaws don't increase their damage dice.
Yep, this. My suggestion would be to take Ape: that gets you a Fist attack that's 1d10 B [Grapple, unarmed]. Since it's a different body part, you'd keep your Jaw 1d8 [Grapple, unarmed] giving you different damage types that are both Grapple.
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There's no benefit to having two Grapple attacks, though.
I don't know why having two different biting attacks seems so strange to people. There's more than one way to attack with your hands.
Morph trait does change that a little, though.
There's barely a benefit to having one Grapple attack if you're not wielding weapons.
The morph trait changes it completely, IMO. That's what the trait literally does. The gnoll bite basically just becomes a back up attack in case you get knocked out of rage.
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Alternately, you might consider taking a different instinct. Giant instinct in particular is well-suited for grapplers, and "get very angry and grow very large" fits just fine for a "savage warrior" idea.
This is a little different approach, but if you want to scale up your gnoll's natural bite, Thaumaturge is excellent for that.
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Alternately, you might consider taking a different instinct. Giant instinct in particular is well-suited for grapplers, and "get very angry and grow very large" fits just fine for a "savage warrior" idea.
Don't you have to use your oversized weapon to get the bonus damage, though? And you can't just waive that because it comes with a downside.
There's no benefit to having two Grapple attacks, though.
Never said there was. There is only 1 option, the Ape, that grants a different limb, does something different and doesn't replace the Jaw attack they already have. For instance you could take Deer, but it does the more damage and has the same traits as the existing unarmed attacks, meaning you'd never use the Fangs or Cat where the Claw attacks deal a S damage and are agile but the Jaw attack replaces the existing Fangs with one without any traits.
I don't know why having two different biting attacks seems so strange to people. There's more than one way to attack with your hands.
Different ways of attacking are represented in the game by the Versatile or Modular. If you are referring to things like monk special attacks, well I'd say you're talking about apples and oranges: fist covers the entire body and even you limit it to the hand, that limb is able to alter its shape to take different forms and that's something horns, claws and teeth don't do.
There's barely a benefit to having one Grapple attack if you're not wielding weapons.
You add the item bonus [from your handwraps] to attack rolls as an item bonus to the Athletics check. A +3 to your grapple is pretty good if you plan to use Grapple. Granted, it doesn't stack with Armbands of Athleticism which adds to Athletics making that item more versatile but getting it for free with your base attack 'weapon' means there is less need to get the Armbands as quick as you might otherwise.
Alternately, you might consider taking a different instinct. Giant instinct in particular is well-suited for grapplers, and "get very angry and grow very large" fits just fine for a "savage warrior" idea.Don't you have to use your oversized weapon to get the bonus damage, though? And you can't just waive that because it comes with a downside.
Huh. I'd missed that. That's rather obnoxious for a number of otherwise viable barbarian grapple builds. Fury instinct, then?
There's no benefit to having two Grapple attacks, though.Never said there was. There is only 1 option, the Ape, that grants a different limb, does something different and doesn't replace the Jaw attack they already have. For instance you could take Deer, but it does the more damage and has the same traits as the existing unarmed attacks, meaning you'd never use the Fangs or Cat where the Claw attacks deal a S damage and are agile but the Jaw attack replaces the existing Fangs with one without any traits.
I don't know why having two different biting attacks seems so strange to people. There's more than one way to attack with your hands.Different ways of attacking are represented in the game by the Versatile or Modular. If you are referring to things like monk special attacks, well I'd say you're talking about apples and oranges: fist covers the entire body and even you limit it to the hand, that limb is able to alter its shape to take different forms and that's something horns, claws and teeth don't do.
There's barely a benefit to having one Grapple attack if you're not wielding weapons.You add the item bonus [from your handwraps] to attack rolls as an item bonus to the Athletics check. A +3 to your grapple is pretty good if you plan to use Grapple. Granted, it doesn't stack with Armbands of Athleticism which adds to Athletics making that item more versatile but getting it for free with your base attack 'weapon' means there is less need to get the Armbands as quick as you might otherwise.
Yeah, but if you're planning to grapple then it feels silly not to get an Athletics boosting item anyway. And Athletics has some of the earliest and cheapest boosting items. So there's a benefit, just... Not much of one.
It may be worth considering Sprit Instinct for your gnoll barbarian. It still fits well (imo) to general gnoll themes while allowing you to use the bite without restriction.
Yeah, but if you're planning to grapple then it feels silly not to get an Athletics boosting item anyway. And Athletics has some of the earliest and cheapest boosting items. So there's a benefit, just... Not much of one.
If you're using unarmed attacks, and you already have one with trip, and one with grapple, then the importance of getting an athletics-booster goes way down.
Also, for grapple in particular, having grapple on a jaw attack effectively gives you another limb to grapple with.
You add the item bonus [from your handwraps] to attack rolls as an item bonus to the Athletics check. A +3 to your grapple is pretty good if you plan to use Grapple. Granted, it doesn't stack with Armbands of Athleticism which adds to Athletics making that item more versatile but getting it for free with your base attack 'weapon' means there is less need to get the Armbands as quick as you might otherwise.
Isn't a scam?
Getting +X on athletics checks from the weapon potency runes shouldn't affect the athletics DC the grabbed/restrained character would have to hit to break free.
I wouldn’t call it a scam, but you are correct about the DC. However, the success of the action itself is often more than enough, and even if the enemy has an easier time breaking free of a grapple it still is spending the action.
Yeah, but if you're planning to grapple then it feels silly not to get an Athletics boosting item anyway. And Athletics has some of the earliest and cheapest boosting items. So there's a benefit, just... Not much of one.
For me, it allows you to put off the athletics item a bit so it gets you some flexibility instead of wanting to get both your weapon rune and your athletics boost item as soon as they are available: sometimes you just don't the cash or access to new items but have a weapon no one wants that you could transfer to your handwraps. Now is it a huge boon? No, but IMO it's more than "barely a benefit" especially as it's essentially free with the attack.