Clawlock help with Beast Claws weapon and Beast Strike

[Tempestas Leo]

Hello everyone long time lurker making his first post because this has been driving me nuts for the past two days. I have been making a Clawlock and looking though other threads for advice and ideas and I had a question about how the Beast claws (Savage species P.49) and the Beast Strike feat (Dragon #355) work because it seems to me that taking Beast strike is a waste of a feat compared to Beast claws.

Beast claws are treated as a +1 spiked gauntlet (+2 if you have your own claws already) and lets you make claw attacks at your normal claw damage with a +1D6

Beast Strike lets you add your claw and slam damage to your Unarmed strike and grapple for damage

The problem is that attacking with Spike gauntlets are considered an armed attack and thus wouldn't get the benefits of the Beast Strike feat. I have looked everywhere trying to figure out what makes this feat so good and how it works with this item since both threads recommend picking both it and the feat up.

Maybe it's my own lack of knowledge on the subject that's the problem (I never really made a Warlock or dealt with fighting unarmed before) but I would would like some advice on what I am missing that makes the two of these things together so good.

[Red Fel]

Okay. Here we go.

The short version is that the Beast Strike feat allows you to deal double unarmed damage. Here's how.

Eldritch Claws lets you deal your Eldritch Blast damage via claw attacks. Your Claws deal damage equal to your Eldritch Blast plus unarmed strike damage.

Beast Strike adds your claw damage to your unarmed attacks normally. This means that you add (EB + unarmed) to your unarmed damage, doubling your unarmed strike damage and adding Eldritch Blast on top. This also has the added bonus of letting your Eldritch Claws deal iterative damage, which claws normally cannot.

That's the big point of it. There's some cheese you can perform beyond that, such as using an Adaptive weapon, but that's really extra and subject to DM-motivated book-based projectiles.

(The short version of that: An Adaptive weapon allows you to take weapon-specific feats and apply them to the weapon in question. Thus, you could use Beast Strike and Eldritch Claws on, say, a bow, and now the bow deals Eldritch Blast plus double arrow damage. Like I said, cheese.)

[Tempestas Leo]

Eldritch Claws and Beast strike aren't what I am having trouble with, I understand how that interaction works. It's using the Beast Claws from Savage species. Because it's a spiked gauntlet I can't make Unarmed attacks with it and with it I would just be making claw attacks with my Eldritch Claws and getting a +1D6.

Still I read your and Snowbluff's posts on Adaptive weapon and in theory I could make the Spike gauntlets count as normal gauntlets for the sake of using my Unarmed feats but I wanted to make sure that was the only way to use the +1 (+2) Beast claws as Unarmed and I wasn't just missing something

[Gruftzwerg]

Eldritch Claws and Beast strike aren't what I am having trouble with, I understand how that interaction works. It's using the Beast Claws from Savage species. Because it's a spiked gauntlet I can't make Unarmed attacks with it and with it I would just be making claw attacks with my Eldritch Claws and getting a +1D6.

Still I read your and Snowbluff's posts on Adaptive weapon and in theory I could make the Spike gauntlets count as normal gauntlets for the sake of using my Unarmed feats but I wanted to make sure that was the only way to use the +1 (+2) Beast claws as Unarmed and I wasn't just missing something

you are on the wrong (optimization) way/route my friend..

The gauntlet wont make any real difference if you want to optimize a clawlock. There are other thing that makes a clawlock strong.

1. As you already know Beast Strike double dips your unarmed strike dmg. It adds you claw dmg (unarmed + eldritch blast) to your regular unarmed strike dmg: (2x unarmed + eldritch blast). This further allows for iterative attacks.

2. Dip monk and use Enlightend Fist to progress unarmed strike and warlock casting (and thus Eldritch Blast dmg). Add Monks Belt and Fist of the Forest prc to get up to 20th lvl monk unarmed strike. Dip Barb1 for ACF Pounce. Add 2 lvl of Drunken Master for the needed mobility to charge every round in almost any kind of space.

3. Use a Necklace of Natural Attacks to buff your unarmed strikes (+1 - +5) and give it "valorous" (double dmg on charge)

4. Build Ubercharger

5. Get Fell Flight for dive attack (another multiplier for charge = x3)

...

If you want to see a more detailed Clawlock optimization, have a look at my signature. The Claw of Malar build has much fluff and is optimized in dmg, deception & perception. It will rip anything it target into pieces with a single strike at later lvls.

If questions remain I'll gladly help out. Clawlocks are one of my favorite build types^^

[Buufreak]

Literally any chance to plug yourself, eh?

[Tempestas Leo]

I am not going for a full optimization mostly because the Clawlock is a cohort in the campaign I'm in and I don't want to overshadow some of the other members of the party including another Warlock. I just really love the aesthetic and idea of a Warlock wolverine and wanted to optimize a little bit to make sure she keeps up with the rest of the party.

I was planning to pick up Necklace of Natural Attacks already after coming across it in SS looking into the beast claws and of course I was going to dive into ubercharging a little bit :smallwink:

Still thank you for your help on this and I'll check out your Almighty Claw of Malar thread. Might pick some somethings if I ever break out this character again :smallamused:

EDIT:
Literally any chance to plug yourself, eh?

No complaints here about it. I love reading optimization threads and seeing what people come up with. Helps me learn the system better. Besides it's nice to see people still working in this system and being proud of their work.

[Gruftzwerg]

Literally any chance to plug yourself, eh?

sure if you want to see it that way.

The way I see it is I try to help people out. And if the same kind of questions appears over and over in the forums every few weeks and I already have a optimized build that already explains all the stuff... Why should I be wasting my time to write the same crap again and again?

In this case we have someone who is mislead by old clawlock guides/threads that don't have any clue when it comes to clawlock optimization. Gauntlets are the worst choice cause they restirt you from using the superior unarmed strike from monk. He asked how to optimize and I did give him exactly what he asked for. Info for optimizing clawlock.

I mean there are several reason for me to post in a thread:
- out of curiousness or because I want to learn something
- participating for fun/jokes/memes as we all do
- discusions
- share knowledge that I have


I mean I am just a lazy person like everyone else, but I still like to help people out. Why am I trying to plug myself when I post builds of mine related to the topic? And btw, where do you add to the topic other than implying selfishness on other forum members?