TWF question

[Darrin]

Huh? I know they specify you can't use iterative attacks, but what about AoO and other miscellaneous stuff?

I pored through the rules looking for something that says "yes you can make AoOs with natural weapons", since that seems to violate the "once per turn" rule, but I couldn't find anything. The best I can find is this in the MM/SRD:

"A creature making a melee attack with a natural weapon is considered armed and does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Likewise, it threatens any space it can reach."

Since natural weapons threaten, they can make AoOs. I wish this were explicitly spelled out in the combat section, but it isn't. Actually, the AoO rules do explain that you can make an AoO even if you've already attacked that round. So AoOs are an exception to the "can't make multiple attacks" rule, either for the "can't make multiple attacks unless you use full attack" rule or the "natural weapons can only attack once per round" rule.

I also thought that natural weapons used with manufactured weapons are always secondary.

It's implied, but you may be putting an absolute "always" in there that wasn't necessarily there to begin with. From the SRD:

"Some creatures combine attacks with natural and manufactured weapons when they make a full attack. When they do so, the manufactured weapon attack is considered the primary attack unless the creature’s description indicates otherwise and any natural weapons the creature also uses are considered secondary natural attacks."

So it is possible that a stat block may specify that a manufactured weapon is not the primary, but it's not clear if a creature can choose to keep it's usual primary natural weapon and treat the manufactured weapon as an off-hand attack. Since most monsters don't have the TWF feat, I don't think it's ever come up in a stat block that way... but I don't see any rule that says a creature can't keep it's "bite" as its primary attack and use TWF to attack with a sword in his off-hand. So long as the rules for natural weapons are being followed (they don't get iterative attacks), there's nothing in the TWF rules that says your primary weapon has to be manufactured.

Never noticed that, but yeah, it seems that both attacks from WFS should get full benefits from Str. Excellent…

The comment about using an unarmed strike as your second weapon = off-hand attack bothers me, though... it sounds like all second weapons, not just unarmed strikes, would be treated as off-hand attacks. I'm not sure arguing about it would make much of a difference, though... monks and Bloodclaw Masters already get full Strength damage on their off-hand attacks, why not a maneuver?