TWF and Natural attacks

[cerin616]

So, I have an issue i never had to consider before. TWF with natural attacks as well. what is the progression for that? consider you have greater twf, and improved rapid strike (magical beast) and full BAB. What would your full attack look like?

18/18/15
13/13/5
8/8/0
5/-5

I think?

[Darrin]

So, I have an issue i never had to consider before. TWF with natural attacks as well. what is the progression for that? consider you have greater twf, and improved rapid strike (magical beast) and full BAB. What would your full attack look like?


You have to be more specific about what natural attack(s) you have. To use rapidstrike and improved rapidstrike, you need a pair of natural weapons that aren't currently wielding manufactured weapons. But in general, you calculate the two attack progressions separately. I think it's easier to calculate your TWF attacks first, and then add all your secondary natural attacks after that. Assuming BAB +15:

Primary#1 +13/Offhand#1 +13/Primary#2 +8/Offhand#2 +8/Primary#3 +3/Offhand#3 +3, then Natural#1 +10/Natural#2 +10/Rapidstrike#1 +5/Rapidstrike#2 +0/Rapidstrike#3 -5/Rapidstrike#4 -10

The text on Improved Rapidstrike is horribly confusing, though, so I'm assuming here that the -5 secondary attack penalty applies to all the rapidstrike attacks, and the second/third/fourth rapidstrike penalties get incrementally worse. However, the text is ambiguous, and I can't tell if they mean the rapidstrike penalties are -5/-10/-15/-20, or -5/-10/-10/-10.

[BowStreetRunner]

Okay, let's look at a 20th level Figther with iterative attacks at +20/+15/+10/+5 for his primary attack. Given a full attack with Greater Two Weapon Fighting this would become +18/+13/+8/+3 for his primary weapon and +18/+13/+8 for his off-hand weapon.

Now if your natural attacks are claws and you are using those hands to wield your weapons, you don't get any natural attacks. But let's say you have a natural attack of one bite, two claws, two wings, and a tail, with the bite being your primary natural attack. Added to the attacks above, you would now have a bite, two wings, and a tail attack. Even though your bite is normally your primary attack, manufactured weapons take precedence in this case so all four would be treated as secondary attacks at a -5 penalty, or +15/+15/+15/+15. Note that as natural weapons they do not suffer the off-hand penalty from two-weapon fighting, but abilities like flurry of blows which impose a -2 penalty to all other attacks made in the round would still affect them.

Now Rapidstrike and Improved Rapidstrike give additional attacks with your paired natural attacks, although you have to take these feats multiple times if you want them for more than one pair of natural weapons. In our example, you can't use them for your bite or tail, as you have only one of each. Your claws are busy wielding weapons, so you would only take Rapidstrike/Improved Rapidstrike once each for your wing attacks. This would yield a +10, +5 and +0 attack.

So your total attacks with TWF, Imp TWF, Gr TWF, Rapidstrike, Imp Rapidstrike now become:

+18/+13/+8/+3 primary weapon
+18/+13/+8 off-hand weapon
+15 bite
+15/+10/+5/+0 first wing
+15 second wing
+15 tail

Edit: Fixed. (I think...) :smallconfused:


Not each. If you have two wing attacks, Rapidstrike gives you a third attack with one of those wings (but not both).

[Darrin]

Your claws are busy wielding weapons, so you would only take Rapidstrike/Improved Rapidstrike once each for your wing attacks. This would yield a +10, +5 and +0 attack with each.


Not each. If you have two wing attacks, Rapidstrike gives you a third attack with one of those wings (but not both). If you then take Improved Rapidstrike, you get two + four = six wing attacks total, not four more additional attacks per wing. You can only take Rapidstrike/Improved Rapidstrike once per pair of natural weapons, not once each per wing.

At least, that's how I'm reading it. Whoever wrote the text for Improved Rapidstrike was obviously going for some kind of gold metal for ambiguity and obtuseness.