Improved Natural Attack or Power Attack?

[Xaroth]

I was taking a look at Improved Natural Attack and Power Attack and found myself stuck between deciding which one I wanted to take for a large creature at early early levels, around level 4-7. Sure, Power Attack sets you up for decent feats down the line, but what if you're not gonna be using the feats Power Attack would grant?

Any thoughts?

[Crake]

Improved natural attack rarely grants more than a 1-2 point average damage increase honestly, so it's about on par with weapon specialization, and well... you know how people feel about that feat.

That said, power attack doesn't particularly scale well with natural attacks either, only granting a 1:1 damage boost, so if there was an option C, I might take that instead.

[Xaroth]

Improved natural attack rarely grants more than a 1-2 point average damage increase honestly, so it's about on par with weapon specialization, and well... you know how people feel about that feat.

That said, power attack doesn't particularly scale well with natural attacks either, only granting a 1:1 damage boost, so if there was an option C, I might take that instead.

Well, right now all he has is a bite attack. That's kinda where the majority of the problem comes from. A bit down the line, he's gonna be getting claws, but for the moment he's kinda just sitting there with a bite attack. Weapons aren't an option because, uh, reasons.

[Stewzors]

Any particular reason you can't take both?

[Xaroth]

Any particular reason you can't take both?

Not really, I suppose. But by the time I get around to taking the other, due to the other feats I plan to take, I'll be about level 15, if not 18.

[Particle_Man]

If you happen to have, or can easily get, an acid breath weapon, I would recommend Noxious Bite as a feat.

[MisterKaws]

If you have plans of stacking size increases, take Improved Natural Attack, but otherwise, take Power Attack. That's pretty much all there is to it.

[Fizban]

The most important question is what damage die those natural attacks are using, followed by which will end up being the primary. If you're got a pair of d8 or bigger claws INA is okay, preferably as the primary weapon, but otherwise eh. Multiattack is more important for dealing with the secondary penalty, and/or Improved Unarmed Strike is worth a lot more on the full attack if you've got good str and iterative attacks. And speaking of Weapon Spec, Melee Weapon Mastery's applying to more than one weapon is actually useful when dealing with multiple natural weapons.

[Gruftzwerg]

since you talk about lvl progress I guess it's a PC and not a NPC.

When you want to improve your damage with natural claw attacks, here's the my suggestion:

Necklace of Natural Attacks:
- you will want it anyway for + X to hit and damage
- add Sizing
- Valorous optional if you like to charge a lot

Beast Strike (feat):
add your claw damage to your unarmed attack.


Unarmed attacks always count as light weapon despite their size. With Sizing you can now trade -2 to hit steps for increasing in size categories.

Add a monk's belt (or some lvls of something monkish) to increase the unarmed attack and for the improved unarmed strike.

Imho this approach fits the claw user more than power attack. Since your weapons are light, power attack can't give any free extra damage for fighting with a 2h-weapon. Sizing increases unarmed and claw damage, thx due to beast strike. Depending on your base damage, you get either increased dices to roll with or more dices are added for each size increase.

May Malar be with you ;)

[Darrin]

Well, right now all he has is a bite attack. That's kinda where the majority of the problem comes from. A bit down the line, he's gonna be getting claws, but for the moment he's kinda just sitting there with a bite attack. Weapons aren't an option because, uh, reasons.

Shape Soulmeld: Dread Carapace might be worth a look... it's not exactly a great option, but slightly better than INA or PA. It adds +2 damage to bite attacks (and +1 damage to claw attacks), but incurs a -1 attack penalty for all natural attacks. So it's kinda like two-handed PA but only for bite attacks.

Hrrm. I'm not really seeing any really good damage options without getting into multiple feats or magic items.