Natural attacks in conjunction with normal ones?

[Warsmurf]

I think I read it that if I use a manufactured weapon in the same round, my natural attack will always be treated as secondary so it will use -5 my BAB and 1/2 my strength? Is this correct?

Warforged crusader who's hoping to use his slam after hitting foes of law with his hammer.

[Cog]

Yep. You can't use, say, a sword and the claw that's holding it, and it's questionable what exactly a slam is - more of a punch, or more of a backhand/forearm? The latter seems likely to me, but it's arguable.

[GoatBoy]

If you are holding the hammer in one hand, then your slam would be your off-hand attack. If you were holding the hammer in both hands, the slam would be impossible.

Multiple primary attacks almost invariably take the form of something like 2 claws, everything else is secondary.

I know there's a Pathfinder feat (Double Slice) which lets you add your full Str bonus to offhand attacks, but I don't recall seeing a 3.5 equivalent.

[Urpriest]

If you are holding the hammer in one hand, then your slam would be your off-hand attack. If you were holding the hammer in both hands, the slam would be impossible.

Multiple primary attacks almost invariably take the form of something like 2 claws, everything else is secondary.

I know there's a Pathfinder feat (Double Slice) which lets you add your full Str bonus to offhand attacks, but I don't recall seeing a 3.5 equivalent.

This is false. Natural attacks are never offhand attacks, you don't even wield them in your hands. In the case of Slam attacks, plenty of creatures without limbs have them, so it can be more of a body slam and should be fine while wielding a hammer.

The OP is correct, though, that a manufactured weapon would be your primary weapon, while the Slam would be a secondary weapon.

[Warsmurf]

Thanks for the info guys, and yeah I more envisioned it as a strike with the hammer and then a shoulder check or even headbut rather than hitting with my arm.

[Tvtyrant]

You can use unarmed strike as either primary or secondary though. As primary it gets iteratives, as a secondary it does not (as I recall).

[MeeposFire]

Unarmed strikes are not secondary. They are treated like manufactured weapon in this case where it is either your primary weapon or dual wielded.

Unarmed attacks are unique in that they are treated as manufactured in some ways (such as iterative attacks) and natural attacks in other ways (interactions with certain game elements).

[Tvtyrant]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070403a

You can make an unarmed strike off hand by taking a -4 to hit on your natural attacks. This does not take away any of your natural attacks but does reduce your to hit.

You can also lose a natural attack to use unarmed strike as your primary, thus taking less to hit loss and getting iteratives but losing a natural attack.

[Curmudgeon]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070403a

You can make an unarmed strike off hand ...
That's one of Skip Williams's house rules, not actual RAW.
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. Unarmed strikes aren't "wielded in your off hand", and thus they don't qualify for two-weapon fighting under the normal D&D rules. An unarmed strike uses your entire body rather than being wielded in a particular hand.

[Darrin]

You can also lose a natural attack to use unarmed strike as your primary, thus taking less to hit loss and getting iteratives but losing a natural attack.

You don't "lose" a natural attack when you attack with an unarmed strike as your primary. In general, an unarmed strike isn't tied to a particular body part or appendage. You can use an elbow, knee, head-butt, body-check, etc. as an unarmed strike. As the Rules Compendium makes clear, if you choose to attack with a manufactured/iterative weapon (which includes unarmed strikes), all of your natural weapons (including the primary) can be added as secondary attacks (-5 attack penalty, 1/2 Str bonus).

By RAW, there is no rule that says attacking with a manufactured weapon or unarmed strike makes a certain natural weapon unavailable. It is heavily *implied* by the stat blocks in the MMs, by common sense, and somewhat more explicitly by Skip's article, but even "Rules of the Game" is his interpretation, not RAW.

Slam attacks are somewhat confusing, in that any vaguely humanoid creature at least large-sized or larger gets two "slam" attacks that represent two arm-like appendages, but even the stat blocks for ogres/giants aren't 100% consistent with this. Medium-sized humanoids such as Doppelgangers and Warfarged also get a single slam attack, which may represent an "arm", but it's never explicitly identified as involving the arms.

There's what appears to be a third type of slam for non-humanoids, mostly worms and oozes, that get what is probably some type of body-slam, but it's not clear if its the same type of slam the Doppelganger or Warforged get.

Whether or not your Warfarged gets to keep his slam attack even if one or both arms is occupied is something you'll have to ask your DM to clarify.


That's one of Skip Williams's house rules, not actual RAW. Unarmed strikes aren't "wielded in your off hand", and thus they don't qualify for two-weapon fighting under the normal D&D rules.

Actually, it is RAW. PHB p. 139:

"Unarmed strikes count as light weapons (for purposes of two-weapon attack penalties and so on)." (emphasis added)

If unarmed strikes could not be used as an off-hand weapon, then there'd be no need to ever calculate TWF penalties for them. The text about "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed" is not a general rule, it's a monk-only feature that gives the monk a slight damage boost for off-hand attacks. Even if the intention was to prevent monks from using unarmed strikes as an off-hand weapon (and I contend that it wasn't), that sentence does not apply to the unarmed strike rules as described in the combat section (PHB p. 139).



An unarmed strike uses your entire body rather than being wielded in a particular hand.

Also on page 139:

"Striking for damage with punches, kicks, and head butts is much like attacking with a melee weapon"

No mention of "entire body" in there. From a mechanical standpoint, the actual means by which an unarmed strike is delivered are left deliberately abstract.

[Curmudgeon]

Actually, it is RAW. PHB p. 139:

"Unarmed strikes count as light weapons (for purposes of two-weapon attack penalties and so on)." (emphasis added)

If unarmed strikes could not be used as an off-hand weapon, then there'd be no need to ever calculate TWF penalties for them.
There generally is no need to calculate TWF penalties for them, because that quote is in the Standard Actions section of the Combat chapter. It would only apply if you have some special way of using two-weapon fighting as a standard action.

I guess the emphasis should actually be on the "and so on" part. :smallamused:

[Darrin]

There generally is no need to calculate TWF penalties for them, because that quote is in the Standard Actions section of the Combat chapter. It would only apply if you have some special way of using two-weapon fighting as a standard action.


That's a rather bizarre argument. By that line of reasoning, you're contending that the rules for making attack rolls, damage rolls, automatic hits/misses, and critical hits only apply to standard actions? I guess we can't use anything in that section on a full-round action.



I guess the emphasis should actually be on the "and so on" part. :smallamused:

The "and so on" most likely refers to Power Attack and any other ability that might depend on the "handedness/effort" of a weapon.

[Curmudgeon]

That's a rather bizarre argument. By that line of reasoning, you're contending that the rules for making attack rolls, damage rolls, automatic hits/misses, and critical hits only apply to standard actions? I guess we can't use anything in that section on a full-round action.
Yes, the rules for attack rolls, damage rolls, and so on on pages 139-140 are only applicable to standard actions.

Of course, those standard action rules are just rephrasing the general Combat rules for attack rolls, damage rolls, and so on from pages 133-136, which are independent of the action type being used.

I don't think that seeing the section header of Standard Actions, and deducing that the rules in that section apply (just) to standard actions, is at all bizarre. After all, when I see the Attacks of Opportunity section header I deduce that the rules in that section apply (just) to attacks of opportunity.

[Darrin]

Yes, the rules for attack rolls, damage rolls, and so on on pages 139-140 are only applicable to standard actions.

Of course, those standard action rules are just rephrasing the general Combat rules for attack rolls, damage rolls, and so on from pages 133-136, which are independent of the action type being used.

I don't think that seeing the section header of Standard Actions, and deducing that the rules in that section apply (just) to standard actions, is at all bizarre.

No, not bizarre at all. So, of course, any other example that appears in the Standard Actions section that doesn't appear in the general combat rules, such as determining the amount of lethal/nonlethal damge for an unarmed strike and "Shooting or Throwing into a Melee", that obviously can't apply to a full attack. And, oh, the paragraph up above that, "Multiple Attacks", where it refers you to the Full Round Actions section on page 143, that must obviously be a typo.

[Curmudgeon]

So, of course, any other example that appears in the Standard Actions section that doesn't appear in the general combat rules, such as determining the amount of lethal/nonlethal damge for an unarmed strike and "Shooting or Throwing into a Melee", that obviously can't apply to a full attack.
It's correct to state that those things apply to standard action attacks. It's not necessarily correct to state that they can't also apply to other actions; it's just that you'll need to look outside of the Standard Actions section (not necessarily only in the general combat rules) for those details. The Equipment chapter covers the basics of unarmed strikes (see "Strike, Unarmed" on page 121), and the Feats chapter has more information in Improved Unarmed Strike. The Feats chapter also includes the Precise Shot feat, which explains the normal consequence of shooting or throwing into a melee. (If you think it's odd that basic combat rules would be found in the Feats chapter, note also that the Improved Precise Shot feat includes the longest description of what happens when you make a ranged attack into a grapple; the Combat chapter only addresses this in a footnote to one table.)

And, oh, the paragraph up above that, "Multiple Attacks", where it refers you to the Full Round Actions section on page 143, that must obviously be a typo.
I think you're trying to be funny here, but the joke fell flat.

[Keld Denar]

I helped co-author this. Natural Attacks and You: A Miniguide (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10994.0). It might help.

Note that anecdotal evidence (IE, every humanoid creature in the MMs I-V who's stat block includes a slam option and a weapon option, like most giants, marilith, etc) indicates that humanoid creatures make slam attacks with their arms. If an arm is occupied by a weapon, it can not be used to make a slam attack. Its not spelled out anywhere explicitly in the rules, but every monster that meets the above qualifications follows this format.

[Tvtyrant]

Yes, the rules for attack rolls, damage rolls, and so on on pages 139-140 are only applicable to standard actions.

Of course, those standard action rules are just rephrasing the general Combat rules for attack rolls, damage rolls, and so on from pages 133-136, which are independent of the action type being used.

I don't think that seeing the section header of Standard Actions, and deducing that the rules in that section apply (just) to standard actions, is at all bizarre. After all, when I see the Attacks of Opportunity section header I deduce that the rules in that section apply (just) to attacks of opportunity.

...You think its reasonable to interpret a rule in such a way that it is no longer valid? The rule is specifically meant to allow unarmed strikes to be used in TWF, and your argument is that despite having an obvious purpose the rule is invalid and hence we must rule the opposite? yeah.

[Curmudgeon]

...You think its reasonable to interpret a rule in such a way that it is no longer valid?
Yes, if the rules restrict the applicability of a rule to the extent that it can only be met by special class features or feats, then it has only occasional validity.

If you don't like the limitations of the rules, you can of course create your own house rules to change things to your liking. For instance, the Monk class by itself doesn't include proficiency with unarmed strikes; a RAW Monk would need to multiclass or take the Simple Weapon Proficiency feat to fix that lack. Most every game I've been in instead changes that with a house rule.

[olentu]

Personally I am still waiting for the quote that proves that unarmed strikes are not wielded in the off hand. I mean I assume it exists considering that unarmed strikes are not as I recall actually physical objects and so presumably can not be wielded at all. But without a quotation that shows that unarmed strikes can not be wielded in the off hand or any hand at all they by default can since they are considered light weapons and so as a light weapon can be used in all ways that a light weapon can be used including wielding their non material selves. This would be of course really weird again noting that unarmed strikes are not as I recall physical objects but without such a quote the rule that an unarmed strike is always considered a light weapon must hold in absolutely positively every case with no exceptions including wielding. But as I said presumably an exception exists but then again without proof one must assume it does not.

I would look it up but as I do not really have any recollection of where such a thing might be if it exists I shall not likely have much success.

[Cog]

As for unarmed strike/two-weapon fighting, unarmed's TWF characteristics are given again here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#twoWeaponFighting), so there's no standard-action-only restriction on that. The phrasing is also very suggestive of, but not explicit that, unarmed strikes can be used as light, offhand weapons; if they cannot be used as offhand weapons, the mention of them being light in that context is entirely useless.

Whether an Unarmed Strike can be a second weapon compared to itself is much less certain, and by RAW I'd lean toward no on that. The weapon you use for unarmed strikes is your entire body, and unless you're a Dvati you only have one of those.