(PF) Natural Weapons Question

[Private]

I am just starting up a Pathfinder game where I am going to play an Synthesist Summoner. I'll be a melee combatant mainly, focusing on high strength, numerous attacks, and reach. I'll mainly be using a Falcata along with some tentacle attacks. Pretty basic stuff, however I recently read another thread that piqued my interest.

Someone stated about how secondary natural attacks are treated as primary natural attacks if they are the only attack you use.

My question is this: If I primarily use a Falcata and treat the tentacles as secondary attacks, can I still decide, on occasion, to forgo my falcata attack(s) and just attack with tentacles, causing them to become primary attacks (all at full BAB and with full STR bonus to damage)?

Thanks for the help!

[gooddragon1]

I am just starting up a game where I am going to play an Synthesist Summoner. I'll be a melee combatant mainly, focusing on high strength, numerous attacks, and reach. I'll mainly be using a Falcata along with some tentacle attacks. Pretty basic stuff, however I recently read another thread that piqued my interest.

Someone stated about how secondary natural attacks are treated as primary natural attacks if they are the only attack you use.

My question is this: If I primarily use a Falcata and treat the tentacles as secondary attacks, can I still decide, on occasion, to forgo my falcata attack(s) and just attack with tentacles, causing them to become primary attacks (all at full BAB and with full STR bonus to damage)?

Thanks for the help!

SRD points to no. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/xill.htm)

However, I could be wrong and I think it might vary by race or stuff. I do know that a monk does this:


Unarmed Strike

At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A monk’s attacks may be with either fist interchangeably or even from elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may even make unarmed strikes with her hands full. There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply her full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes.

You can be of lawful alignment in your backstory and quit thereafter while retaining all monk bonuses.

[Private]

I did forget to mention that this is a Pathfinder game, but I fixed that. Given that, I don't know that the Xill reference helps too much.

[grarrrg]

My question is this: If I primarily use a Falcata and treat the tentacles as secondary attacks, can I still decide, on occasion, to forgo my falcata attack(s) and just attack with tentacles, causing them to become primary attacks (all at full BAB and with full STR bonus to damage)?

No. For 2 reasons.

First off, you're Eidolon will most likely still have a Primary Natural attack, even if it is Claws or something and you are using that limb to hold a weapon, the Eidolon still HAS the attack even if it cannot USE the attack.

Secondly, a Manufactured Weapon is NOT a "primary" attack. Only Natural Attacks can be Primary/Secondary.
Granted, having/using a weapon means all of your Natural Attacks are considered Secondaries, but that still does not mean your Weapon is a "primary".


The only time a Secondary can be considered a Primary is if you have absolutely no Primary Natural Attacks, and are not using any Manufactured Weapons.

[Keld Denar]

Pathfinder changed the rules for determining primary and secondary. In 3.5, if you only had one primary natural weapon, it was generally primary, shifting to secondary if you had a manufactured weapon or UAS. Example: Warforged Slam.

I'm not an expert on Pathfinder, though, but I think they changed the rules on primary naturals. Someone a bit more versed in Pathfinder might have some insight.