Help with natural attack build

[LaRayna]

So I have the possibility of playing an anthro giant squid which gets ten tentacle attacks, plus adding the feral template. I'm unfamiliar with much regarding natural attacks and was wondering who would have any advice on this. Also, since they're netted a plus six bonus to wisdom it seems like the should take a divine casting class and double as melee too, but would that sacrifice the full benefit of all those natural attacks?

[Gruftzwerg]

So I have the possibility of playing an anthro giant squid which gets ten tentacle attacks, plus adding the feral template. I'm unfamiliar with much regarding natural attacks and was wondering who would have any advice on this. Also, since they're netted a plus six bonus to wisdom it seems like the should take a divine casting class and double as melee too, but would that sacrifice the full benefit of all those natural attacks?

1: on a full attack action you can attack with all natural attacks. That would be 10 tentacles and I guess a bite attack as secondary (-5). If you want to make use of regular attacks from BAB somehow (if you are allowed to wield a weapon or go for imp. unarmed strike), this would result in your regular attacks from BAB + all your Natural Attacks as secondary (-5). Multiattack can lessen the penalty to -2 for your secondary attacks.

2: I would go full divine casting and buy a "Monk's Belt" asap. This gives you imp. unarmed strike of 5th lvl monk (enables you to make attacks from high BAB, see 1:) and gives you Wis-bonus to AC. Together with Multiattack you should have now enough attacks/round and most of em are likely to hit (-2 penalty for your NA).

3: Since monster have to live with 3/4 BaB progress too, cleric should be doing fine on the martial combat side. And if things should get harder, you have access to Divine Power which gives you full BAB for its duration.

4: If you want to go for a more gish build and include pure martial dips, I would recommend a Crusader or Warblade dip and maybe prc into Ruby Knight Vindicator

[Darrin]

So I have the possibility of playing an anthro giant squid which gets ten tentacle attacks, plus adding the feral template. I'm unfamiliar with much regarding natural attacks and was wondering who would have any advice on this. Also, since they're netted a plus six bonus to wisdom it seems like the should take a divine casting class and double as melee too, but would that sacrifice the full benefit of all those natural attacks?

Actually, anthro giant squid only gets eight tentacle attacks. As per Savage Species p. 215, two of your tentacles become legs. Other than that, Gruftzwerg has the gist of it: eight primary tentacle attacks, one secondary bite attack.

The Feral template turns two of your tentacle attacks into claw attacks. It's not clear if the claw attacks are primary or secondary... but since tentacles are already primary, I don't see anything that says this changes. So I think your full attack becomes six primary tentacle attacks, two secondary claw attacks, and one secondary bite attack.

Adding Improved Unarmed Strike gets you full iteratives based on BAB, and then all your tentacle/claw/bite attacks become secondary attacks. You can get this by taking the IUS feat, with a base class dip (Monk or Battle Dancer), or with a magic item: Bracers of Striking (1310 GP, Magic of Faerun), Ring of Might (4000 GP, Magic of Faerun), or Fanged Ring (10000 GP, Dragon Magic).

Feral also gives you Improved Grab with the claw attacks, but unfortunately not Pounce. As per the text, the special attacks granted by Feral are tied to "monster hit dice" rather than just generic "hit dice". In this case, anthropomorphic giant squid has 3 racial HD, which is what counts as your "monster hit dice". Class levels don't count toward this. However, some DMs might handwave this and let total HD count. (If you want more racial HD, the Multi-Headed template adds +2 HD, as well as Superior TWF).

Druid is going to be much stronger for natural attacks than cleric as far as spell selection goes. However, you're probably not interested in Wild Shape, so Spirit Shaman might work better for you.

[Zaq]

Totemist is generally my go-to class for natural attacks, but if you've already got 8+ natural attacks, you might not need any more. (Plus, while MoI does have some rough guidelines, soulmelds get a little weird on critters that don't fit the "head + torso + 2 arms + 2 legs" paradigm. Not unworkable by any stretch, but a little weird.) That said, there are still some good options from Totemist—Sphinx Claws hands bind provides easy Pounce with natural weapons, Dread Carapace and Totem Avatar can be nice force multipliers, and so on.

Going for a caster build isn't ever really going to be a bad idea, of course, but if you want to really take advantage of your melee capabilities, have you looked at Psychic Warrior? They're WIS-based, so your stat bonuses aren't going to go to waste, and they're very good face-maulers. Like Totemists, they're good at growing their own natural attacks if they want them, but there's plenty of strong powers for boosting your existing melee capabilities. (In a similar vein, Ardent is also WIS-based, and while they don't get the bonus feats that a PsyWar would, they've got the same BAB, and they're primary manifesters with 9th level powers, if you want more magical psionic juice. They do have some decent melee-boosting powers, and they can use Expanded Knowledge to poach key PsyWar powers, if needed.)