Making attacks with a manufactured weapon and natural weapons?

[Silverhawk112]

I have gotten inspiration to make a new character. If I were to be a silverbrow human (Mainly for the dragonblodded subtype) then fighter 6, taking the dragon tail feat at first level for that secondary natural attack.

When would I be able to do that natural attack? Can I make it in place of my normal weapon or how does it work?

[Tzardok]

If you make a Full Attack, you attack with your manufactured weapon (twice, because your BAB grants you an additional attack) and with your tail (once). If you make a single attack, you can use either the one or the other.

[Silverhawk112]

You are a scholar and a saint, thank you kind stranger

[Khedrac]

It's worth adding that you need to check the rules a bit more. If I remember correctly if you combine attacks then the natural weapon automatically takes the penalty for being a secondary attack (-5 or -2 with the multi-attack feat).

My memory says that one of Skip William's Rules of the Game articles covered this in detail.

[Beni-Kujaku]

If I remember correctly if you combine attacks then the natural weapon automatically takes the penalty for being a secondary attack (-5 or -2 with the multi-attack feat).

This is true. If you want to use both manufactured and natural, all natural weapons are considered secondary. If you don't use any manufactured weapon, you can in general choose which weapon is primary except if it explicitly isn't (like a normal horse's hooves). If you make a single attack by a standard action, you can choose which weapon you use, and it's considered primary if it's a natural weapon (once again, except if it's described as secondary).

[Seward]

Yeah. There is a whole alternate approach to the TWF chain that involves mixing unarmed strike with natural weapons that you see with wildshaped druids or rogues getting ambitious about sneak attack by alternate means. Usually you want claws, and most stuff that powers up natural weapons also works on unarmed strike. A 2h weapon+bite or tail or horns or whatever isn't as common but can be nice.

If you can hit with your 2nd iterative, it can be pretty efficient (or if not, invest in multiattack feat, but you need 3 natural weapons for that, which usually is a harder get, like wildshape or dragon disciple). Unlike TWF, which favors light weapons, secondary natural weapons work just fine with power attack, so it can be a pretty effective strategy, although some kinds of DR will have to just be endured barring a lot of spell or item support. Unlike TWF it doesn't penalize your main weapon attack, so every attack is pretty much free damage, even with -5 to hit and strength halved for being a secondary.