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Human Paragon 3
2007-07-05, 03:02 PM
A character in my campaign is a tiefling going into the Half Fiend transition class. Among other abillities, he gains natural attacks (claw, claw and bite). Assuming he has a BAB of +1 and no STR modifier, what is his standard attack bonus? What does his full attack look like? Does he need feats to take his full claw/claw/bite attack, or do they not suffer from a penalty because they are "natural" attacks? Please help!

brian c
2007-07-05, 03:32 PM
Secondary natural attacks are at a 0/-5/-10... etc progression with each weapon being used once (be sure to count 2 claws though, etc). He would probably do something like

Bite +1, Claw -4, Claw -9 (assuming +0 str)

However, having 3 natural attacks makes you eligible to take Multiattack (Monster Manual), which decreases that -5 to a -2:

Bite +1, Claw -1, Claw -3

You never get iterative attacks on natural weapons from BAB (ie with BAB +6 you only get +6, not +6/+1) but with Improved Natural Attack and a good attack bonus those can do some pretty nice damage for you.

Iku Rex
2007-07-05, 03:51 PM
From the SRD, http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#naturalWeapons .

When a creature has more than one natural weapon, one of them (or sometimes a pair or set of them) is the primary weapon. All the creature’s remaining natural weapons are secondary.

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. A creature’s primary natural weapon is its most effective natural attack, usually by virtue of the creature’s physiology, training, or innate talent with the weapon. An attack with a primary natural weapon uses the creature’s full attack bonus. Attacks with secondary natural weapons are less effective and are made with a -5 penalty on the attack roll, no matter how many there are. (Creatures with the Multiattack feat take only a -2 penalty on secondary attacks.) This penalty applies even when the creature makes a single attack with the secondary weapon as part of the attack action or as an attack of opportunity.In the OPs case this means that the character gets two claw attacks at +1 and one bite attack at -4.

There's an example in the MM, where the 18 Str and BAB +5 half-fiend cleric has the option of using "2 claws +9 melee (1d4+4) and bite +4 melee (1d6+2)" as its full attack.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-07-05, 03:51 PM
A character in my campaign is a tiefling going into the Half Fiend transition class. Among other abillities, he gains natural attacks (claw, claw and bite). Assuming he has a BAB of +1 and no STR modifier, what is his standard attack bonus?

+1


What does his full attack look like?

The claws are the primary natural weapon and the Bite the secondary.

Primary natural weapon use the full BAB and full STR bonus to damage

Secondary attacks are made at a -5 modifier and only get ½ STR to damage.

In this case a full attack using natural weapons only would look as follows:

Claw/Claw/Bite: +1/+1/-4

A full attack combining a manufactured weapon wielded in one claw would be:

Weapon/Claw/Bite: +1/-4/-4

Both the Claw and bite would in this case only add ½ STR to damage, while the weapon would get full STR to damage. The weapon (manufactured) would be able to gain iterative attacks as normal when the BAB becomes high enough.



Does he need feats to take his full claw/claw/bite attack, or do they not suffer from a penalty because they are "natural" attacks? Please help!


No, but feats like multiattack can be used to reduce the penalties.

SadisticFishing
2007-07-05, 03:52 PM
Secondary natural attacks are at a 0/-5/-10... etc progression with each weapon being used once (be sure to count 2 claws though, etc). He would probably do something like

Bite +1, Claw -4, Claw -9 (assuming +0 str)

However, having 3 natural attacks makes you eligible to take Multiattack (Monster Manual), which decreases that -5 to a -2:

Bite +1, Claw -1, Claw -3

You never get iterative attacks on natural weapons from BAB (ie with BAB +6 you only get +6, not +6/+1) but with Improved Natural Attack and a good attack bonus those can do some pretty nice damage for you.

This is incorrect, all secondary natural attacks are made at -5 (-2 with Multiattack), so it'd be Bite +1, Claw -4, Claw -4, or with Multiattack; Bite +1, Claw -1, Claw -1

SadisticFishing
2007-07-05, 03:53 PM
Or if Bite is the secondary attack (haha, sorry), it'd be Claw +1, Claw +1, Bite -4 (or -2 with Multiattack).

brian c
2007-07-05, 04:55 PM
This is incorrect, all secondary natural attacks are made at -5 (-2 with Multiattack), so it'd be Bite +1, Claw -4, Claw -4, or with Multiattack; Bite +1, Claw -1, Claw -1

whoops, yeah. Also, I was using Bite as the primary because that's what it usually is, but I guess not always.