Manufactured weapons + natural weapons during full attack: how do they work?

[Ken Murikumo]

I've done some reading about this, and the way i understand it is this:
Attack with manufactured weapons first, then any primary Nat. weapons become secondary so then you attack with those, then your normal secondary. All done at the stated penalties.

What confuses me is the bit about how some creatures lose attacks with weapons; it says something about "when stated". How does this work with players?

So if i have an unarmed swordsage - renegade mastermaker, i would have a battlefist that deals unarmed damage as if i were a size catagory larger. The battlefist allows a slam attack, and an additional slam at +6 bab and so forth. Lets say i also have a bite and a realistic 3 attacks from my bab.

So would this give me (during a full attack action) 3 unarmed attacks, 2 (or however many) slams, AND a bite at the end?

[ExLibrisMortis]

You'd use either your battlefist or unarmed strike as primary weapon, then possibly have an off-hand weapon (if you have TWF), and finally a bite attack at -5.

Possible full attacks:
11 bab, no feats:

Battlefist or Unarmed Strike +11/+6/+1 and bite +6

11 bab, TWF (improved, greater):

Battlefist +9/+4/-1 and unarmed strike +9/+4/-1 and bite +4

11 bab, multiattack:

Battlefist +11/+6/+1 and bite +9

11 bab, TWF (improved, greater) and multiattack:

Battlefist +9/+4/-1 and unarmed strike +9/+4/-1 and bite +7

The battlefist counts as a weapon you wield, so you can combine it with an unarmed strike. I'm not sure whether you can TWF with two unarmed strikes. Though there's no explicit rule against it, the 'handedness' of unarmed strikes is a bit questionable (of course, that argument could be used to quadruple-wield unarmed strikes).

(note: multiattack requires three natural attacks, I hope your unarmed strike, battlefist and bite all count)

[Darrin]

Attack with manufactured weapons first, then any primary Nat. weapons become secondary so then you attack with those, then your normal secondary.


When you have multiple attacks, the order of the attacks is dictated by total attack bonus, highest to lowest in descending order. However, many players roll iteratives first, then secondary attacks after that, because it's easier to keep track of them that way.



What confuses me is the bit about how some creatures lose attacks with weapons; it says something about "when stated". How does this work with players?


Well, it's usually the other way around (natural weapons are "lost" when they are wielding a manufactured weapon), but this rule was never actually printed in the rulebooks. The only place it's "stated" is in the monster stat blocks. The easiest example would be the giants: when wielding a two-handed sword, they lose both slam attacks. A giant cannot attack with a two-handed weapon and both slams, because slams = arms, and his arms are busy wielding a greatsword or whatnot. Another example is the troglodyte, which gets two claws and a bite attack, but if you look at the "Full Attack:" line, it can also attack with a club, but it loses one claw attack when it does so, because that claw is busy wielding a club.

This "rule" is not written down anywhere. You have to imply it from the stat blocks and use common sense.

Note: RAW and common sense are not currently on speaking terms.



So if i have an unarmed swordsage - renegade mastermaker, i would have a battlefist that deals unarmed damage as if i were a size catagory larger. The battlefist allows a slam attack, and an additional slam at +6 bab and so forth. Lets say i also have a bite and a realistic 3 attacks from my bab.

So would this give me (during a full attack action) 3 unarmed attacks, 2 (or however many) slams, AND a bite at the end?

Ugh... did you have to use the battlefist as an example? There are about three different ways you can get a slam with a battlefist, only one of them bothers to explain how the slam interacts with other attacks (Mighty Arms graft), and it's still mostly incoherent.

The battlefist granted by Renegade Mastermaker gives you a slam attack, but does not specify what happens if that hand is wielding a manufactured weapon. It then contradicts one of the basic rules for natural weapons, allowing multiple attacks based on your BAB. There is also no indication in the text that this battlefist is in any way related to the battlefist detailed in the Eberron Campaign Setting, so by RAW there's no way to tell if this particular battlefist has any effect on the size or damage of your unarmed attacks. Even if it did, you would still have to be a Warforged monk in order to get the damage increase... and even then it's not clear if you still get the bonus effects from the battlefist if you're just attacking with unarmed strikes and not "using" the slam attack.

In your example above, you can only declare one of your weapons to be your primary weapon. If this is your unarmed strike (or a manufactured weapon), then that's the weapon you use for your iterative attacks. If you choose to use your battlefist as your primary weapon, you *can* use this for iterative attacks, because Renegade Mastermaker explicitly allows this. But your unarmed strike would either be unavailable or would have to become your offhand weapon. Even though the RAW is pretty clear that an unarmed strike is a natural weapon (most of the time), I have never seen a rule that suggests it can become a secondary attack. It's either a primary attack or an offhand attack. After your iterative attacks, you could attack once with each secondary weapon. Your best full attack routine, assuming a BAB of +11, would probably be:

unarmed1 +11/unarmed2 +6/unarmed3 +1/slam +6/bite +6

Reordered by descending BAB:

unarmed1 +11/unarmed2 +6/slam +6/bite +6/unarmed3 +1



The battlefist counts as a weapon you wield


Not exactly. There is no "weapon" entry for battlefist, so even though the Renegade Mastermaker actually *manufactures* the battlefist, it's treated as a "slam" rather than a manufactured weapon.



I'm not sure whether you can TWF with two unarmed strikes.


Most rules authorities generally say "No", as an unarmed strike is considered a "single" weapon, and you need two weapons to use the TWF rules. However, many DMs handwave this and allow unarmed strikes to use multiple striking surfaces. Balance-wise, it's not much of an issue, unless you've got some sort of King of Smack build leveraging the size increases up the wazoo.



(note: multiattack requires three natural attacks, I hope your unarmed strike, battlefist and bite all count)

Yes, battlefist (or rather the slam) + bite + unarmed strike would count as three natural attacks.

[Ken Murikumo]

Ok, lets make it simpler, then:

Now we have a warforged monk with a battlefist (as his primary). Let's exclude flurry for now. He/she has 3 attacks granted by bab, 2 slams (ala second slam feat), and a bite (ala jaws of death feat).

would i now have 3 attacks with the battlefist at whatever damage, 2 slams at 1d8, and a bite a 1d6 as a full attack, or does it simply not work that way?

Also for the sake of argument, the battlefist entry does state "This +1 weapon" but it has no damage listed because its dependent on you already having a slam (or being a monk, i guess)

[Darrin]

Ok, lets make it simpler, then:

Battlefist is the timecube (http://www.timecube.com/) of weapons. It is impenetrable to simplification.



Now we have a warforged monk with a battlefist (as his primary). Let's exclude flurry for now. He/she has 3 attacks granted by bab, 2 slams (ala second slam feat), and a bite (ala jaws of death feat).

would i now have 3 attacks with the battlefist at whatever damage, 2 slams at 1d8, and a bite a 1d6 as a full attack, or does it simply not work that way?


You don't actually get to attack with the battlefist as a weapon. The battlefist gives you a slam attack, which can be your primary weapon, but the battlefist typically mounted on a Warforged doesn't get multiple attacks based on your BAB (Renegade Masterworker has separate rules for its battlefist). Without the Second Slam feat, you can only attack with your slam once, same as any other natural weapon.

A warforged monk would most likely use unarmed strikes as his primary weapon (which gets iterative attacks based on BAB), then get 2 slams (via battlefist and Second Slam) and the bite (via Jaws of Death) as secondary attacks.



Also for the sake of argument, the battlefist entry does state "This +1 weapon" but it has no damage listed because its dependent on you already having a slam (or being a monk, i guess)

What I meant is that there is no entry on a weapons table for "battlefist". It's treated as a slam, which is a natural weapon, but is distinctly different from an unarmed strike (which, confusingly enough, does appear on the weapons table). The designer appears to be confused and is mingling slams together with unarmed strikes, but they aren't interchangeable. The +1 enhancement applies to the slam attack/damage. If the Warforged has monk levels, then his unarmed strike, which is a completely separate weapon from the battlefist, gets a size increase on damage along with the +1 enhancement from the battlefist. It's not clear if the unarmed strike still gets this enhancement if the Warforged is not actively attacking with his slam on that particular turn. The text refers to "using a battlefist", but doesn't explain if this means actively attacking with it, or passively wielding/dodging/weaving/etc. with it.

To make matters worse, rather than clarifying how the battlefist works, the designers just made it more confusing. The Renegade Masterworker entry gives different abilities to its battlefist, and while the Mighty Arms graft allows non-Warforged to mount a battlefist, a non-Warforged monk can't take advantage of the extra damage/enhancement bonus because they don't count as a Warforged monk by RAW (unless they take 10 levels of Renegade Mastermaker).

[Ken Murikumo]

The battlefist doesnt actually give me a slam, being a warforged gives me the slam attack. As a mastermaker, though, it does like you said.

Also, the description for the battlefist does actually say that monks get the bonus added to their unarmed attacks and damage.


So, lets try to get some core info i can use. Throw all the warforged stuff out the window.

As it sounds, i can make unarmed attacks AND slams AND other secondary attacks as part of a full attack?

[ExLibrisMortis]

As it sounds, i can make unarmed attacks AND slams AND other secondary attacks as part of a full attack?
A full attack consists of your iteratives with a manufactured weapon, plus your bonus attacks to that (haste and such), plus your off-hand attack(s), plus your natural attacks, anatomy permitting (you can't slam with an arm holding a weapon, typically, though you could use a kick or a shoulder I suppose). Each natural attack hits only once per full attack. That's why unarmed strikes have to count as manufactured weapons: you couldn't use iteratives with them otherwise.

Natural attacks used after iterative attacks are secondary, and are made at a -5 penalty (-2 with Multiattack). Using an off-hand adds penalties to all attacks that round, normally at the minimum -2, for people interested in TWFing.

[Darrin]

The battlefist doesnt actually give me a slam, being a warforged gives me the slam attack. As a mastermaker, though, it does like you said.


Sorry, I should have made that clearer. The battlefist does not give you a "battlefist" weapon that you can attack with. It augments your existing slam weapon (which you have either because you're Warforged or have the Mighty Arms graft), or in the case of Renegade Mastermaker gives you a slam attack.



Also, the description for the battlefist does actually say that monks get the bonus added to their unarmed attacks and damage.


Yes, but only when "using a battlefist". And a battlefist or slam is not a "special monk weapon", so some monks are going to have difficulty attacking with both an unarmed strike and a slam in the same full attack.



So, lets try to get some core info i can use. Throw all the warforged stuff out the window.

As it sounds, i can make unarmed attacks AND slams AND other secondary attacks as part of a full attack?

Yes.

The rules for natural attacks (including slams and bites) are on page 312 of the Monster Manual. The rules for mixing natural attacks with manufactured/iterative attacks are on page 311. The rules for unarmed strikes... are kinda spread all over the place, and are a bit of a mishmash between manufactured weapons and natural weapons.

Ok, so let's say you're just a plain ol' Warforged Fighter. You have a slam attack as part of your racial abilities. The rules don't actually say if this slam is with your arms, a shoulder check, elbow strike, kicking out with a knee/foot, headbutt, or whatever, and they don't say anything about whether you keep your slam attack if your arms are busy with something else (such as wielding a manufactured weapon). It's implied that the Warforged's slam is made with his arm appendage, and if we go by the MM3 stat block, he loses his slam attack if he's wielding a two-handed weapon (such as a spear). He may keep the slam as a secondary attack if he's attacking with a one-handed weapon and has the other arm free, but the stat block and the descriptive text don't tell us that.

Ok, so, let's add the battlefist. The "battlefist" is not added as a weapon, it just makes his existing slam do more damage. The battlefist description doesn't tell us if he has to attack with that particular arm, or even if the battlefist is still capable of manipulating objects. Great idea! But the best we can say about the description is that it was "poorly written".

The slam we get from Renegade Mastermaker is a little different, but it's hard to tell if this battlefist is the same thing as the one in ECS, or a different device with different rules.

And if we add the Mighty Arms graft, we get a slam very similar to a Warforged, but now the designer has finally bothered to clarify what happens when the Mighty Arms are doing other stuff like holding weapons. We can now add a battlefist to the Mighty Arms, but at no point has any designer specified what "using a battlefist" means.

If we wrap all three of those ideas together, we begin to get some inklings of what the designers maybe intended with the battlefist, but getting it all to work smoothly requires a lot of conjecture and house rules.

Sorry. I'm getting all rantish. I'll try to calm down a bit.

[Crake]

Natural attacks used after iterative attacks are secondary, and are made at a -5 penalty (-2 with Multiattack). Using an off-hand adds penalties to all attacks that round, normally at the minimum -2, for people interested in TWFing.

That's not quite true. Two weapon fighting applies a penalty to the main hand and offhand separately, potentially different numbers (if you lack the twf feat), but those penalties are to your main and offhand only. Natural attacks do not get penalties for when you fight with two weapons, so a secondary natural attack with multiattack is at the same penalty as your one handed/light twf attacks.