Natural Attack Order

[Yogibear41]

When making a full attack with natural weapons, is there any reason you could not make your secondary attacks first? For example say you have a penalty or a bonus to your next attack, and would prefer it applied to your secondary attack, is there anything in the rules that says you cannot make your secondary attack first?

[Fizban]

I generally consider myself a 3.5 veteran, but I too have little idea what the full rules are regarding attack order, natural or no. Iterative attacks must be made in order since it's right in the name, and primary natural attacks also must be made first (so that's a no on the OP), but the placement and order of secondary natural attacks/two weapon fighting/haste/etc have never been clear. Can a dragon re-order their claws and wings? When does a hasted Darfellan do what? Anyone have a proper reference?

[Yanisa]

Well I thought I knew the answer to this, interestingly enough it doesn't deal with all attack.

From the actions in combat, full attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#fullAttack).

If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest. If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first. If you are using a double weapon, you can strike with either part of the weapon first.

The first sentence specially calls out iterative (base attack bonus) to a point it almost seems to exclude all other ways to gain multiple attacks. (And don't get me started on two-weapon fighting, different discussion) But perhaps there is a other part of the rules dealing with this. I did spot this in the natural weapons section (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#naturalWeapons).

The primary weapon is given in the creature’s Attack entry, and the primary weapon or weapons is given first in the creature’s Full Attack entry.
But that doesn't really pertain to the order of attacks, just that its listed first on the entry table.



Still generally speaking most people assume attacks go from highest to lowest, just like iterative attacks.

[Darrin]

I tend to roll natural weapons after the iteratives/offhand attacks, but that's mostly for my convenience and easier for me to remember that way. But the actual general rule is highest attack bonus to lowest.

Most of the time, this means the primary should always be rolled before the secondary, which have a -5 penalty. However, taking Multiattack and then Improved Multiattack reduces the secondary attack penalty to zero, at which point the primary and secondary attack bonuses are usually equal. There's no clear directive on which goes first here, and so the common practice is that when multiple effects take place somewhat simultaneously, the player can specify the order of effects however they like (usually in whatever way is more beneficial to them). But I don't recall if that's actually enshrined in the rules.

[Chronos]

Quoth Yanisa:

The first sentence specially calls out iterative (base attack bonus) to a point it almost seems to exclude all other ways to gain multiple attacks. (And don't get me started on two-weapon fighting, different discussion)
Yup, so a 5th-level ranger with a masterwork dagger and an ordinary sword can use them in whichever order he chooses, but as soon as he hits 6th, he has to use the dagger first, then the sword, and then one more with whichever he chooses.