Barbarian - Animal Instinct - Spider - What tags does the web have? AND Brutality's wording

[CandymAnse]

Hi and sorry for bothering,

My pc is a Barbarian with spider instinct.

Me and the DM are trying to understand some technicalities about the Web attack.

We are using Foundry and we are more or less sure that it has all the errata and fixes, but we (ok, ok, just I) have still some doubts.

I read right now the 2024 errata:

"Page 338: In insect form, replace the spider's web Strike. "Ranged [one-action] web (range increment 20 feet), Damage immobilizes the target for 1 round or until it Escapes." "

Ok, nice because this simplifies a lot its usage, but my doubts are about else.

The Player Core 2's Brutality says:

"Your fury makes your weapons lethal. Your proficiency ranks for simple weapons, martial weapons, and unarmed attacks increase to expert. While raging, you have the critical specialization benefits for melee weapons and unarmed attacks."

And the Animal Instinct Ability says:

"Instinct Ability — Bestial Rage - While raging, you gain your chosen animal’s unarmed attack (or attacks), but you’re unable to use weapons. The specific attack gained, the damage it deals, and its traits are listed in the Animal Instincts table. These attacks are in the brawling group. Your Rage action gains the morph and primal traits."

TL;DR - My doudbts are:

• 
  -1) Has the web attack the [unarmed] tag?

  Within Foundry, luckily, it does have it, but I really hope Foundry is right, because the absence of that tag would mean that a spider barbarian doesn't become expert in shooting the web.
  

• 
  -2) I'm not 100% sure about the wording of Brutality's last sentence's "AND" (also, I'm not native english)

  For what I know about english, there are two possible interpretations of that "AND"

  FIRST INTERPRETATION: "While raging, you have the critical specialization benefits for melee weapons and MELEE unarmed attacks"

  OR

  SECOND INTERPRETATION: "While raging, you have the critical specialization benefits for unarmed attacks* and melee weapons"
  *->> wether they are ranged or melee

  I'm almost sure that the first interpretation is the right one, mainly because, within Foundry, critting with the web doesn't add effects and also because giving the critical specialisation to the Web attack would make it even too strong in the right situation...

  BUUUUUT IF EVER the second interpretation is the right one, that would mean that the Web attack should also have a critical specialisation (for the brawling group I suppose).
  

Ok, I guess I asked everything,

Thanks in advance!

[Errenor]

I had a bit of difficulty finding that errata because it doesn't exist. At least it doesn't for Animal instinct barbarian. It's an errata for Insect form spell in PC1. So, we forget about it for this question, it's irrelevant.
1) No, the web attack doesn't have the [unarmed] tag, as is obvious in all sources. Common Animal instinct ability has this:
" While raging, you gain your chosen animal’s unarmed attack (or attacks), but you’re unable to use weapons. The specific attack gained, the damage it deals, and its traits are listed in the Animal Instincts table. These attacks are in the brawling group." All other attacks support this. This one contradicts it. I don't know whether it's intentional.
Seeing as it's the only one ranged, and as I suspect none of ranged unarmed attack from ancestries are in the brawling group, it very well may be intentional.
I suppose you have to decide with your GM. As written, it's not unarmed but probably still in brawling group? Which kind of makes no sense, so not in brawling group either I think.
2) It's the second one, same as in the previous sentence, all unarmed attacks, in general.

[Dragonchess Player]

Going off of Archives of Nethys, a barbarian with the spider animal instinct gains the following:
1) Fangs; 1d8 P; grapple, unarmed, venomous
2) Web; Special*; Range increment 15 feet.

*- The spider’s web attack deals no damage, but the target takes a –10-foot circumstance penalty to its Speeds for 1 round on a hit. If a target is hit a second time by the same character’s web attack while they have this penalty, they’re instead immobilized until they succeed at a check to Escape against your class DC.

Since the web attack "deals no damage," abilities that increase damage or add riders to damage have no effect. Also, Brutality doesn't apply to the web attack because it isn't a melee weapon and lacks the unarmed tag.

[Errenor]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Since the web attack "deals no damage," abilities that increase damage or add riders to damage have no effect. Also, Brutality doesn't apply to the web attack because it isn't a melee weapon and lacks the unarmed tag.

critical specialization is not a rider on damage though: "Certain effects can grant you benefits when you make a Strike with certain weapons and get a critical success. This is called a critical specialization effect." It's a rider on a critical Strike. So no damage doesn't matter.

What matters is weapon group. Animal instinct tells that all given attacks are unarmed and brawling. But unarmed is missing from Web. Without that having brawling has little sense in my opinion. It could be just a typo though.

[TheFinish]

I think it's much more likely Web missing Unarmed is an error. Even without it, the description is clear that all attacks granted to an Animal Barbarian are Unarmed and in the Brawling Group, doesn't matter if they don't have the Trait.

For comparison, the Foxfire Feat also gives an unarmed ranged attack that lacks the trait, but nobody's going to argue it isn't an Unarmed attack.

The Web should therefore benefit from anything that benefits Unarmed Attacks, including Brutality.

[CandymAnse]

Errenor wrote:

I had a bit of difficulty finding that errata because it doesn't exist. At least it doesn't for Animal instinct barbarian. It's an errata for Insect form spell in PC1. So, we forget about it for this question, it's irrelevant.

Dang! Thanks for the correction. I was blinded by greed and I didn't read the big things before the entry.

[Ascalaphus]

The web pretty much has to be an unarmed attack because otherwise it'd be a weapon, and you can't use those while raging (which is the only time you could use webs). The missing unarmed trait has got to be a mistake.

I would read the line about the critical specialization as applying to melee attacks only, so the web wouldn't get it.