Earth Elemental + Bite of the Werebear

[erok0809]

This could be about anything with 2 slams as natural weapons, but in this case it's an earth elemental. A character of mine is going to Wild Shape into an Earth Elemental, and then cast bite of the werebear on himself. As silly as that kind of is, nothing in the spell says that you have to be made of organic material/flesh to grow the bite and claws, and that part is fine. The question I have is does he keep his slams as natural weapons as well, or do the claws override that because they'd show up on the "arms" of the elemental? I'm inclined to say they keep the slams, because an earth elemental doesn't really have an anatomy, and so it's slams can be made by different "limbs" that grow and stuff as the elemental shifts in shape as it moves. Alternately, it could use the slams as kicks, rather than punches or hitting with the "arms" that now have claws on the end. However, I don't know if this is supported by the rules. What do you guys think?

[Necroticplague]

Yeah, he gets to keep his slams. Nothing in the spell says he loses it, thus he gets to keep it. No rules on what kind of natural weapons you can combine if you have several outside of some specific examples, either. SO yes, he would now have a claw/claw/bit/slam/slam attack routine.

[Urpriest]

There isn't RAW on this. If you follow the rules-as-maximally-consistent concept of "one slam good, two slams bad" then you wouldn't get both, since two slam creatures usually use their arms for their slams.

[Uncle Pine]

Natural weapons are weapons that are physically a part of a creature. A creature making a melee attack with a natural weapon is considered armed and does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Likewise, it threatens any space it can reach. Creatures do not receive additional attacks from a high base attack bonus when using natural weapons. The number of attacks a creature can make with its natural weapons depends on the type of the attack—generally, 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 arm-like limbs can make a slam attack with each arm). Refer to the individual monster descriptions.

The above text suggests that you shouldn't get both the slam attacks and the claws, as earth elementals have only two arms. However, the above text is only indicative and technically not an actual rule. So RAW you get all the attacks, RAI you don't. In any case, as you can't normally combine an attack with a manufactured weapon with a claw or slam with the same arm, I wouldn't allow to combine a claw with a slam either because if there was a printed monster with a claw and a slam on each arm this is (probably) how it would work.
I apologise if the last sentence seems a bit convoluted, but I really need some sleep.

[DrMotives]

There's a sample templated monster in Dragon #350 (yes I know, not 1st party official but pretty close) of a corrupted treant. As the template adds claw/claw/bite, and the base has 2 slams, the stat block lists the full attack as either claw/claw/bite or slam/slam, but not all 5 natural weapons at once.

[Urpriest]

There's a sample templated monster in Dragon #350 (yes I know, not 1st party official but pretty close) of a corrupted treant. As the template adds claw/claw/bite, and the base has 2 slams, the stat block lists the full attack as either claw/claw/bite or slam/slam, but not all 5 natural weapons at once.

It should at least be able to do slam/slam/bite, though, so that's not an entirely sensible source.