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Unbalanced
2015-02-18, 06:24 AM
Starting a simple, solo game tomorrow and we've homebrewed up a "Gatorfolk" race with claws and bite attack.
What I want to know is how to bring out the best in my natural attacks.
Primary will be the 2 claws, and secondary will be the bite.

Obviously, as a fighter, I'll have plenty of feats at my disposal, but where are they best spent??
Also, I do have the option of going barbarian if I want... Which I do like the sound of. But I thought I would want all the feats I can get my hands on to optimize my natural attacks.

Help on a build would be great!

Starting at level 2. 2 traits.
And stats are as follows:

STR 18
DEX 14
CON 16
INT 11
WIS 12
CHA 9

grarrrg
2015-02-18, 10:38 AM
Starting a simple, solo game tomorrow and we've homebrewed up a "Gatorfolk" race with claws and bite attack.
What I want to know is how to bring out the best in my natural attacks.
Primary will be the 2 claws, and secondary will be the bite.

Just to be clear:
Are the Claws Primary Natural Attacks, and the Bite is a Secondary Natural Attack
OR
You will be focusing more on the Claws than you will be on the Bite
??

Psyren
2015-02-18, 11:03 AM
To elaborate on grarrrg's question - natural attacks work very differently in Pathfinder so you will want to be familiar with the changes before designing/homebrewing a new race. Specifically, rather than one natural attack or pair of natural attacks being a creature's "primary" and all the others being "secondary," PF instead assigned "primary" and "secondary" to specific natural attack types. For example, claw and bite attacks are always "primary," while hooves and wings are always "secondary(1)." Therefore for your race, some of the common ways to make natural attacks better, like Multiattack, would end up being redundant for you.

In addition, Amulet of Mighty Fists is much cheaper in Pathfinder than it is in 3.5, and can also carry special abilities, whereas the 3.5 version could not.

(1): Unless they are that creature's only natural attack - such as a war-horse's hooves - in which case they are treated as primary.

Abd al-Azrad
2015-02-18, 05:47 PM
Natural attack combat routines can be extremely powerful if you play them properly. A really basic explanation of the Pros and Cons of using natural attacks would look something like this:

Pros: High volume of attacks; all attacks use a high AB (Primary attacks all use your full AB, Secondary attacks all use your full AB -5).

Cons: No 1.5*Str Bonus to your damage (barring some exceptions); damage reduction is difficult to overcome; weapons are expensive to enchant (via Amulet of Mighty Fists).

So you tend to have similar problems and opportunities to a Pathfinder Archer, i.e., boost your AB, capitalize on your attack volume, find a bunch of options that add per-strike damage, and look for tricks to penetrate DR.

A quick trick, if you just want to dip Barbarian, would be to pick up the Lesser Fiend Totem Rage Power. This gives you a Primary Gore natural attack while raging, increasing your average damage output by 33%. Well, plus the Rage strength bonuses.

If you were interested in a more feat-heavy investment, five - or more - levels in Unarmed Fighter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fighter-archetypes/unarmed-fighter) would give you potential access to the Dragon Ferocity (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/dragon-ferocity-combat) Style feat. Picking up Feral Combat Training, Weapon Focus, and the Dragon Style feat would allow you to add 1.5*Str Bonus to your damage with one type of natural weapon (I'd pick Claws). It only really pays off with a high Strength score - I've listed a six-feat chain (two of which you get as bonus feats, Weapon Focus is just always useful) so make sure that you're going for a massive Strength if you're interested.

At 5th level, you also gain the Fighter Weapon Training bonus for your natural attacks, which is just nice.

Unbalanced
2015-02-18, 06:12 PM
Thanks guys.
I had misunderstood how natural attacks work. So, with that in mind, I'm a bit more OP than I thought. Haha.
Not that my DM will mind I don't think.

Thanks for the feat chain advice. Appreciated.
I very well might go down one of those paths. I like the idea of gaining another attack when raging! Haha.