Possibly Controversial Discussion

[keeper2161]

I made this because when I made a warlock claw build and some issues came up. I want everyone's opinion.

Ok so here is what Eldritch Claws says "As a free action, you can form the energy of your eldritch blast into a set of claws extending almost an entire foot from your hands. While your eldritch claws exist you may make up to two claw attacks as natural weapons. You are automatically proficient with your eldritch claws. On a successful attack with an eldritch claw, you deal your normal amount of unarmed strike damage plus your eldritch blast damage. Once you form your eldritch claws they remain until just before the beginning of your next turn. You cannot use your normal eldritch blast ability while your eldritch claws exist. A monk may not use eldritch claws as part of her flurry of blows."

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One discussion is whether you actually use your Eldritch Blast. Those who say yes quote this "As a free action, you can form the energy of your eldritch blast into a set of claws extending almost an entire foot from your hands."
Those who say no quote this "On a successful attack with an eldritch claw, you deal your normal amount of unarmed strike damage plus your eldritch blast damage." That eldritch blast damage is not eldritch blast. That the first part is simply fluff.

Another issue is how many natural attack you can have. "While your eldritch claws exist you may make up to two claw attacks as natural weapons." Could you have more attacks if you had rapid strike? Is the bold just outlining what the feat can do by itself unaltered by feats?

Another issue is how many claws can you have. Say you have four arms can you have four claws? The creation of the claws is a free action and there is no limit on the amount of free actions. So you would use this feat twice to make 2 pairs of claws. This discussion is tied to the first. Simply because if you can't have more then two attacks then the extra claws are worthless no matter how many there are.

Another discussion is whether hellfire blast works with this. This discussion is slightly tied to the first discussion.

EDIT: When I say controversial I mean d&d controversial

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

My feeling is: No, it's not an EB. No, you're limited to two attacks with your Eldritch Claws per round. Yes, you could make more but they don't do anything. Yes, Hellfire Blast does modify this.

But that's my opinion and I don't really have strong feelings about it, so I'm not gonna try to persuade anyone I'm right. I can see how there could be multiple reasonable readings.

[Necroticplague]

My reading into it:

Its not your Eldritch Blast, its just claws that happen to do the same amount of damage (+Unarmed Strike). You use Weapon Focus(Claws), not Weapon Focus(Eldritch Blast), you can use them to qualify for Thayan Warrior or Sould Eater.

You can only ever get two claw attacks, its baked right their into the feat. Heck, even if you have one arm, you can get two attacks with the claws you get. Plus, nowhere does it say how many a "set' is. So it could be that you grow more, you just can't bring them to bear. Also, you seem to make the common mistake of thinking you can't have more than one claw attack per arm, which isn't actually in the rules.

Now, since your Claws aren't actually your Eldritch Blast, you can't use Hellfire Blast with them, since Hellfire Blast requires you to use your Eldritch Blast, which Claws never does. Or coming at it from the other end: Hellfire Blast turns your Eldritch Blast into a Hellfire Blast, while Eldritch Claws only allows you to use the damage of your Eldritch blast, not your Hellfire Blast.

[nedz]

Hellfire blast looks like an essence, smells like an essence and behaves like an essence: but it doesn't say that it is an essence. Does this mean that you could stack another essence on top ? Vitriolic Blast would be a hoot !

Eldritch Claws looks like a shape, smells like a shape and behaves like a shape: but does it say that it is a shape ?
Hellfire blast does work with shapes.

The standard interpretation is that Eldritch Claws doesn't work with either Essences or Hellfire.

You are also limited to 2 natural attacks, so no iteratives. It does work with standard natural attack feats though: Multi-attack and Beast Strike (Dragon #355, for double damage) being two examples. It doesn't work with TWF or Flurry, nor Haste.