Mixing natural weapons with weapon attacks in the same full attack?

[LordHenry]

As the title says, is this possible? For example a vampire with enough class levels to get 11 BAB, can he swing his greatsword twice, and then use a slam attack?

[KillianHawkeye]

Yes, you can do this provided whatever limbs you use to make your natural attacks are not occupied with a physical weapon or shield or other item. For example, a lizardman with two claws and a bite cannot attack with his right claw in the same turn that he attacks with a club or other weapon in his right hand, or really when he's holding anything or using that hand for anything else.

The natural attacks get automatically transformed into secondary attacks, which means the vampire in your example would take his slam with a -5 penalty and 1/2 * Strength bonus to damage.

EDIT: The issue of slam attacks is a little bit vague. The glossary definition of a slam attack is "The creature batters opponents with an appendage, dealing bludgeoning damage." Some DMs may rule that a slam attack requires the use of a creature's limbs, and may therefore disallow a slam following a weapon attack on that basis.

[Thurbane]

Yeah, slams are a borderline case. Most other natural attacks are more clear-cut as to whether they can be used with manufactured weapons or not.

I recall reading somewhere that if a creature is Large (or bigger), it's slams are fist attacks, while for smaller creatures it is less well defined. I could be wrong though.

[KillianHawkeye]

I recall reading somewhere that if a creature is Large (or bugger), it's slams are fist attacks, while for smaller creatures it is less well defined. I could be wrong though.

I'm not 100% sure on that, but I do know that a lot of creatures that are larger than Medium size get a pair of slam attacks instead of just one. I kinda think that it's more of a trend than a hard and fast rule, but there's definitely some leeway there for a DM to make a ruling either way.

[Khedrac]

The other point is that natural weapons never* get iterative attacks - they have the primary/secondary split instead.

*there are exceptions, e.g. monk.

So the lizard folk fighter with a BAB of 6 and a sword in one hand gets +6/+1 with the sword (iteratives) and +1/+1 with the bite and other hand (secondary natural attacks).
Multi-attack reduces the secondary attack penalties.

Note, as KillianHawkeye pointed out the natural attacks are all secondary regardless of which would normally be primary.

[LordHenry]

So my vampire in question could not swing his Greatsword with 2 hands at +11/+6, and then also use his slam attack - because he already used his left hand with the greatsword?

[Bronk]

So my vampire in question could not swing his Greatsword with 2 hands at +11/+6, and then also use his slam attack - because he already used his left hand with the greatsword?

Right. Slam attacks aren't very well defined, but the vampire entry states "A vampire armed with a weapon uses its slam or a weapon, as it desires." So, one or the other, but not both.

[Chronos]

Note that, if you were going to be using a weapon anyway, and you have a compatible natural weapon (a bite, say, or a tail, or an offhand claw or slam if you're single-wielding), then there is no reason whatsoever not to use the natural weapon. The attack with the natural weapon is at -5 (i.e., the same as your second iterative), but there's no penalty applied to your main-weapon attacks.

Where this can get really insane is with a monk or other unarmed-strike-user who is transformed into a monster with a bunch of natural attacks (say, a monk/druid). Since unarmed strikes can be made with any part of the body, they're compatible with all natural weapons, so you'd get your full iteratives (including Flurry of Blows), plus all of the monster's attacks.

[Darrin]

I recall reading somewhere that if a creature is Large (or bigger), it's slams are fist attacks, while for smaller creatures it is less well defined.

Monster Manual p. 312:

"...a creature can make one bite attack, one attack per claw or tentacle, one gore attack, one sting attack, or one slam attack (although Large creatures with arms or armlike limbs can make a slam attack with each arm)."

For creatures that are medium-sized or smaller, it's not clear how many arms are involved with the slam. With Warforged as one of the standard races in Eberron and also getting printed in MM3, you'd think WotC would have clarified this at some point, but the only indication we have about Warforged is when they wield a two-handed weapon such as a spear, the slam isn't listed as part of the "Full Attack:", which means they either don't get it or the designers forgot to list it as an option. The only indication we have that a Warforged slam involves the arms is if you add the Mighty Arms graft (Faiths of Eberron) to a creature, they get a slam very similar to a Warforged, which has this to say:

"You can make a slam attack while wielding a weapon in the other hand, in which case it is treated as a secondary attack (–5 penalty on attack roll)."

That's about as close as we can get to RAW, if we assume the Warforged slam and Mighty Arms slam are equivalent to each other. To simplify things, I came up with the "One Slam Good, Two Slams Bad" rule of thumb: if a creature of any size has a single slam, then it's a body check/chest bump/head butt that doesn't involve the arms, and it keeps the slam as part of its full attack even if one or both arms are occupied. If a creature has two slams, then each slam represents an arm, and if one or both of those arms are occupied, then it loses the associated slam. This contradicts the Warforged stat block in MM3 and the Mighty Arms text, but it's simple to remember and gets rid of most rules headaches.

Under the "One Slam Good, Two Slams Bad" guideline, the Vampire would still keep his slam when wielding a two-handed weapon. However, when a slam is added via a template, such as with Vampire or Woodling, the RAW is generally a little clearer:

"Full Attack: A vampire fighting without weapons uses either its slam attack (see above) or its natural weapons (if it has any). If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack along with a slam or other natural weapon as a natural secondary attack."

A vampire attacking with a greatsword is attacking with a weapon, and the text here says he gets the slam as a natural secondary attack. The text doesn't discuss which appendages are used, so we have to assume that if one or both arms are occupied, he still gets the slam because the template says he does.

[Red Fel]

If I recall correctly, letting go of a weapon with one hand is technically a free action and would allow you to then do something with your free hand (such as performing an attack). However, the above posters are correct that, generally speaking, holding a weapon with a given limb precludes you from using that limb's natural weapons.

[Darrin]

If I recall correctly, letting go of a weapon with one hand is technically a free action and would allow you to then do something with your free hand (such as performing an attack).


It's from one of Skip Williams' "Rules of the Game (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20041102a)" articles:

"Although the rules don't mention it, letting go of a two-handed weapon with one hand or putting a free hand back on the weapon is a free action for you."

While it's not exactly an official rule, if it didn't work that way, then you could never draw arrows from a quiver.



However, the above posters are correct that, generally speaking, holding a weapon with a given limb precludes you from using that limb's natural weapons.

It would have helped immensely if WotC had actually written this rule down somewhere.

[torrasque666]

If I recall correctly, letting go of a weapon with one hand is technically a free action and would allow you to then do something with your free hand (such as performing an attack). However, the above posters are correct that, generally speaking, holding a weapon with a given limb precludes you from using that limb's natural weapons.

So Free Hand>Slam>Grip>Swing>Free Other Hand>Slam.

[Andezzar]

The other point is that natural weapons never* get iterative attacks - they have the primary/secondary split instead.

*there are exceptions, e.g. monk.Minor nitpick, all unarmed strikes are natural attacks not just a monk's. The monk's unarmed strike only differs as that it counts as a manufactured or natural weapon for the purpose of adding beneficial effects.

[Darrin]

So Free Hand>Slam>Grip>Swing>Free Other Hand>Slam.

The problem there is if we look at the stat blocks for the giants in the MM, their full attacks don't ever mention that they can free up an arm for a slam as a free action. If you allow them to do so, then giants become utterly terrifying creatures for their CR: they get iterative attacks with a two-handed weapon with x1.5 Str bonus on damage, and then both slams on top of that. Getting within their melee reach would be a death sentence for most PCs.

[Andezzar]

They would still have to make their attacks in descending order of AB.

[Necroticplague]

Yes, its easily possible. You don't even have to wait until you get iteratives, just until you get the weapon and the natural attack. How it works is that you attack with the weapon as normal on a full-round attack. Than, you attack with the natural weapons, which count as secondary (regardless of what they would normally be). Like normal natural weapon attacks, these use your full BAB, but take a -5 penalty (which can be reduced with some feats). And despite the precedence set by a bunch of statblocks, the whole "you can't use a hand holding a weapon to make natural attacks" isn't an actual rule in the books. Note that for these purposes, an unarmed strike is a manufactured weapon, so if you wanted to throw that in, you would use two-weapon fighting. So if you had BAB 11, using a natural slam and a sword full attack would simply be this routine:

sword+11/sword+6/Slam+6.

And if you wanted to throw in punching him at the same time:

Sword+7/Sword+2/UAS-2/Slam+6.

Again, this is all assuming you have none of the relevant feats (two-weapon fighting, multiattack, or any feat that improves them)

[LordHenry]

I had also heard the thing about letting go as a free action. So, finally, to recap, my vampire could do the following: Wield his Greatsword with 2 hands, Attack with (for simplicity 11 BAB, 10 Strength) +11/+6 , THEN letting go with 1 hand and making a final slam attack at +6 (because it only gets -5) and applying his Energy Drain. And all that without any relevant feats like 2wf etc.

[Necroticplague]

I had also heard the thing about letting go as a free action. So, finally, to recap, my vampire could do the following: Wield his Greatsword with 2 hands, Attack with (for simplicity 11 BAB, 10 Strength) +11/+6 , THEN letting go with 1 hand and making a final slam attack at +6 (because it only gets -5) and applying his Energy Drain. And all that without any relevant feats like 2wf etc.

Bingo. Only minor thing is that 2wf wouldn't help. The feat your looking for is Multiattack.

[Andezzar]

Bingo. Only minor thing is that 2wf wouldn't help. The feat your looking for is Multiattack.Unless the creature that was made a vampire had at least two natural attacks, a vampire does not qualify for multiattack. You need at least 3 natural weapons.

[LordHenry]

I just wanted to clarify that he does not have any extra feats helping him with the current problem in any way.

Thank you for the great advice!

[Bronk]

I had also heard the thing about letting go as a free action. So, finally, to recap, my vampire could do the following: Wield his Greatsword with 2 hands, Attack with (for simplicity 11 BAB, 10 Strength) +11/+6 , THEN letting go with 1 hand and making a final slam attack at +6 (because it only gets -5) and applying his Energy Drain. And all that without any relevant feats like 2wf etc.

Only if your vampire was large size or larger... only at larger sizes (except possibly for the confusion surrounding the warforged listed above) can a single arm perform a slam attack.

You could do this if you had a claw attack though...

[Chronos]

I've always interpreted it as a slam always being a single appendage. A Medium or smaller creature usually only gets one, but that doesn't mean that they're not using their fist.

[Bronk]

I've always interpreted it as a slam always being a single appendage. A Medium or smaller creature usually only gets one, but that doesn't mean that they're not using their fist.

Maybe they figured that would be to close to an unarmed attack? I'd imagine a vampire monk could clean up like that.

Unless an unarmed attack is always a kind of natural attack when taken alone?

Otherwise, the greatsword wielding person would be incurring two weapon fighting penalties.

[Andezzar]

Unless an unarmed attack is always a kind of natural attack when taken alone?Yes, Unarmed Strikes a re natural attacks with special rules.

[Vogonjeltz]

Extra: beyond or more than what is usual, expected, or necessary; additional.

Yeah that's exactly what I said.

RAW it doesn't work, but feel free to houserule it.

Sleet Storm and Ice Slick don't deal damage, so they wouldn't be eligible in the standard rules.

[Chronos]

Vogonjeltz, was that meant for a different thread?