Wild Shape and Beast Strike

[Naez]

If I have take Superior Unarmed Strike on my Druid, then take the Beast Strike feat can I combine the damage when I'm in animal form. For the sake of argument let's say the character is level 10 and in the form of a brown bear.

The feats in question:
Superior Unarmed Strike:Tome of Battle
Prereqs: Improved Unarmed Strike, BAB +3
You deal more damage with your unarmed strikes, as shown on the table below.
Character Level Unarmed Damage
3rd 1d4
4th–7th 1d6
8th–11th 1d8
12th–15th 1d10
16th–20th 2d6
Special: If you are a monk you instead deal damage as a monk 4 level higher.

Beast Strike: Dragon Magazine 355 pg 76
Prereqs: Base attack bonus +5, Improved Unarmed Strike, claw or slam attack
Benefit: When you make an unarmed strike or grapple check to deal damage, you may add your claw or slam damage to your unarmed trike or grapple damage.
Special: A fighter may select Beast Strike as a fighter bonus feat.

[Necroticplague]

If I have take Superior Unarmed Strike on my Druid, then take the Beast Strike feat can I combine the damage when I'm in animal form. For the sake of argument let's say the character is level 10 and in the form of a brown bear.

Yes. As long as you qualify for the feat, you get its benefit. So as long as you have Bab +5, IUS, and a claw or slam, you get the benefits of both of those feats. Note that the damage for SUS assume medium size, so the large brown bear does a bit more damage than that chart. Where is the perceived ambiguity?

[Naez]

Just thinking that the bear could not normally make an unarmed strike so it would disqualify you from doing it.

[Extra Anchovies]

Just thinking that the bear could not normally make an unarmed strike so it would disqualify you from doing it.

Oh, bears can. They just aren't listed because no ordinary bear will use them when claws are available.

No, unarmed strikes are not for normal bears. Such techniques are only practiced by true masters of bear-handed combat. I'm not sorry.

[Necroticplague]

Just thinking that the bear could not normally make an unarmed strike so it would disqualify you from doing it.

Why would this be? Unarmed strikes can be made with any part of the body. The bear's statblock just doesn't list it because it's normally ineffecient for them to do so (lacking the IUS feat, it does nonlethal damage and provokes and downgrades all their natural weapons to secondary natural weapons, so there's no reason to ever use it).

[Hiro Quester]

To take superior UAS you already need Improved UAS.

Most of the time a Druid has that, it's because he dipped a level of monk. The wisdom bonus to AC, and IUAS and Improved grapple make that a attractive option for damage dealing in wildshape.

You begin a full round attack with an unarmed strike, then all natural weapons at -5 (or -2 with multiattack).

I think Improved Natural Attack (UAS) is better that SUAS, since INA simply makes your UAS damage dice like you are one size larger than you currently are (as you get large and huge wildshape forms it scales well), rather than assuming you are medium sized. A large bear (which you can have as a wildshape form at 8th level) already does 1d8 for UAS. With INA a large bear UASs like a huge bear doing 2d6. When you are a huge animal you damage is then 3d6.

But maybe that's a moot point, if you already have taken SUAS.


Edit: I forgot the last clause of SUAS; if you have a monk level, then it does the same thing adding a damage dice progression to your UAS.

Yes, it should stack your claw damage to your UAS damage, (effectively ignoring the -5 to your first claw attack). I guess you add that claw damage to your first UAS attack's damage instead of making a separate attack at -5.

[Bronk]

Oh, bears can. They just aren't listed because no ordinary bear will use them when claws are available.

No, unarmed strikes are not for normal bears. Such techniques are only practiced by true masters of bear-handed combat. I'm not sorry.

Heh! Awesome.

Also, there's this food for thought:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070403a

[nyjastul69]

Oh, bears can. They just aren't listed because no ordinary bear will use them when claws are available.

No, unarmed strikes are not for normal bears. Such techniques are only practiced by true masters of bear-handed combat. I'm not sorry.


So, it's only non-normal bears that can make bear-handed unarmed strikes. I can't bear the thought. =)