Odd/Unclear Interaction: Pact of the Blade and the Natural Weapon from Alter Self

[Damon_Tor]

Alter Self-

Duration:Concentration, Up to 1 hour
...
You assume a different form. When you cast the spell, choose one of the following options, the effects of which last for the duration of the spell. While the spell lasts, you can end one option as an action to gain the benefits of a different one.
...
Natural Weapons. You grow claws, fangs, spines, horns, or a different natural weapon of your choice. Your unarmed strikes deal 1d6 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, as appropriate to the natural weapon you chose, and you are proficient with your unarmed strikes. Finally, the natural weapon is magic and you have a +1 bonus to the attack and damage rolls you make using it.

Pact of the Blade-

You can use your action to create a pact weapon in your empty hand.

...

You can transform one magic weapon into your pact weapon by performing a special ritual while you hold the weapon. You perform the ritual over the course of 1 hour, which can be done during a short rest. You can then dismiss the weapon, shunting it into an extradimensional space, and it appears whenever you create your pact weapon thereafter. You can’t affect an artifact or a sentient weapon in this way. The weapon ceases being your pact weapon if you die, if you perform the 1-hour ritual on a different weapon, or if you use a 1-hour ritual to break your bond to it. The weapon appears at your feet if it is in the extradimensional space when the bond breaks.

It seems like the natural weapon created by Alter Self is a viable target to become a pact weapon. Alter Self lasts 1 hour, just long enough to be bonded as a pact weapon. If there's a quibble about this point (ie: "you don't have an hour, you have 59 minutes and 54 seconds") let's assume we're a sorcerer and we've extended the duration to 2 hours via metamagic.

But then what happens?

The duration of Alter Self expires and, I assume, the natural weapon vanishes: nothing about being the pact weapon would prevent the weapon from vanishing when the spell that created it expires. You use an action to create your pact weapon and... and what?

[Throne12]

This is a cool way to do walvarin.

[Damon_Tor]

This is a cool way to do walvarin.

There's some wacky wording here that makes some head scratching. While Wolverine's claws can reasonably be said to be "in his hand" what happens if your natural weapons are horns on your head? Are you left holding the horn like a weird dagger when you summon it? And what about when you attune to a different pact weapon? Would the claws/horns "appear at your feet" like the feature says? Are they still +1 1d6 magic weapons?

[Toadkiller]

I think the question really is can pact weapon feature allow you to get natural weapons? While it might be possible to dig through the books and find an edge case such as this one it would be more straightforward to just ask the DM.

I would say no to rules shenanigans like this one. Because it owns the door to endless rules lawyering. I would say yes, however, to just allowing a natural weapon as a pact feature. It doesn’t materially change the impact if instead of a sword or something appearing it’s claws or sword arm or whatever. It’s still just damage.

So asking for a refluff would be my advice.

[Throne12]

There's some wacky wording here that makes some head scratching. While Wolverine's claws can reasonably be said to be "in his hand" what happens if your natural weapons are horns on your head? Are you left holding the horn like a weird dagger when you summon it? And what about when you attune to a different pact weapon? Would the claws/horns "appear at your feet" like the feature says? Are they still +1 1d6 magic weapons?

Yes I should of checked before hitting submit. Lol dame phone.

[JNAProductions]

I would allow you to nominate Unarmed Strikes or Claws or similar as your Pact Weapon.

I would NOT allow you to permanently gain the bonus of Alter Self by doing this. You spend the slot, you get a +1 Pact Weapon for the duration, but not permanently.

[Sigreid]

RAW I don't think it works because your pact weapon doesn't create the claws and I don't think of them as a weapon you can bind so you can summon and dismiss it.

That said, I don't really think it hurts anything so if the rest of the table were ok with it I'd allow it.

[logannc]

While the pact blade feature can conjure non-magical weapons, it can only displace magical weapons.

If your magic sword is sitting on a table and I disintegrate it, I do not believe that you can re-summon it using that feature. (Given the context of the full description of the feature - what is quoted in this thread is not suggestive enough.)

Extending this to your scenario, while you might have roughly the right amount of time to bond with the natural weapons, they would cease to exist and render the bond void.

[8wGremlin]

We talked about this a while ago when I said that a warlock could summon minotaur horns, which at the time the minotaur version was a 1d10 natural weapon.

The raw is:

You can use your action to create a pact weapon in your empty hand. You can choose the form that this melee weapon takes each time you create it.

So you could create a minotaur horn in your empty hand.


You are proficient with it while you wield it.

So now you can wield it.

But it comes down to the poor wording in D&D 5e weapon, natural weapon and weapon attack are three different and distinct things. In the minotaur horn's case it was worded poorly that it was treated as a weapon, and a natural weapon, thus you could get weird interactions like this.

RAW, it depends upon the wording of the natural weapon in question.
ROC: rule of cool: does it really make much of a difference, not really, is it cool, heck yeah!

[BloodSnake'sCha]

It reminds me of a funny rule interaction in 3.5e that let monks have a floating enchantment of a weapon on their bodies.

It was fun then and what you present look as fun as it was.

I think it works because there is no rule about what happened when your pact weapon is no longer there.