[3.5] Best RAW option for enchanting US/Natural Attacks

[Thurbane]

Hey all,

Ward Cestus, Bracers of Striking, Necklace of Natural Attacks, Kensai levels...what is the best RAW option(s) for being able to add magical enhancements to Unarmed Strikes and/or natural attacks? Would there be diiferent option depending on whether it was for a Monk-type (US) or, say, a Gargoyle (NA)?

[Eldariel]

Greater Magic Fang is generally the most affordable means, mostly since it's free. For Unarmed Strikes without Druids available, Necklace of Natural Attacks is better. For Natural Attacks, Amulet of Mighty Fists overtakes Necklace in terms of cost-efficiency at 3, though takes house rules to get non-enhancement weapon abilities.

Kensai tends to be quite good for getting enhancements to whatever in terms of XP conversion, but it costs you something irreplaceable: class levels. As such, I don't really like Kensai all that much except for some non-casting Unarmed builds that simply have no other good levels to add.


Of course, out of all the options Ward Cestus is the most inexpensive for Unarmed Strikes. Bracers of Striking is more expensive than either Ward or Necklace. Necklace, of course, is the best with UA Strike and an auxillary NA or two. Ward Cestus may also have trouble when dualwielding with weapon + UA Strikes so in that case, Necklace is preferable.

But again, Druid is the best option. Next best option varies.

[Darrin]

Hey all,

Ward Cestus, Bracers of Striking, Necklace of Natural Attacks, Kensai levels...what is the best RAW option(s) for being able to add magical enhancements to Unarmed Strikes and/or natural attacks? Would there be diiferent option depending on whether it was for a Monk-type (US) or, say, a Gargoyle (NA)?

Best option is probably Necklace of Natural Weapons from Savage Species. It was also published online in this Fight Club article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060707a), although under a slightly different name.

Kensai becomes a lot more cost-effective if you have a bunch of natural attacks of the same type (such as four claw attacks, twelve bite attacks, etc.), since you only pay for each weapon-type once, as opposed to the Necklace of Natural Weapons, where the cost is multiplied by the total number of attacks that are affected. However, unless you're thoroughly abusing Warshaper, it can be difficult to get a large number of natural attacks of the same type.

Monk-type unarmed strikes are treated the same as a creature's natural weapon for the purposes of enchantments/spell effects/etc. There's a bit of a rules conundrum if you pick up Improved Unarmed Strike *without* taking Monk levels, though, since by RAW non-Monk IUS is not considered a natural weapon (although I've seen Curmudgeon argue otherwise, it's not clearly defined in the rules and somewhat open to debate).

[Keld Denar]

Yea, if you just have 1 natural weapon, Necklace of Natural Attacks trumps all else simply because per RAW, its the only item that can really gain non-enhancement bonuses. Getting Wounding on your Flurry of Strikes is pretty potent. However, if you are a Deepspawned Kobold Totemist with 6 claws, a bite, 2 tentacles, and a tail attack, you are probably best getting the Amulet of Mighty Fists, and even Kensai is gonna be prohibitive with the amount of XP you'll have to dump to amp up all of these attacks.

[Greenish]

Thayan Gladiator from Champions of Ruin gets a couple of free enchants over 10 levels, as well as free Imp. Critical, increased crit modifier and natural weapon to count as silver, adamantine and magic over 10 levels. Oh, and an extra attack.