So, I've been working on the Totemist writeup these past few weeks (work and studying have delayed a bit, I apologize). While writing it, not only did I realize that Totemists rely a lot on Natural Weapons, but I also remembered that Natural Weapon rules can get a little wonky. So for those of you unfamiliar with Natural Weapon rules, here's a refresher course.
If a creature has Natural Weapons, it can use them in melee.
Natural Weapons don't provoke Attack of Opportunities since using one
is considered being armed, they threaten whatever squares they can
reach, and you can use them in a Grapple. They also have a strange
way of interacting with iterative attacks, and here's what I mean.
With a normal melee attack (let's say a Fighter using a Greatsword),
as a standard action you can make a single melee attack. IF you meet
the following criteria...
You have +6 or more BAB
You have a full-round action available (i.e. have a standard and a
move action available)
...you can make several melee attacks. Each attack after the first
takes a cumulative -5 penalty (so the 2nd attack in a full
attack is at a -5 penalty, the 3rd is at a -10 penalty,
etc.). If you have +11 BAB or more, you can make up to 3 attacks, and
if you have +16 BAB or more you can make 4 attacks.
Now, compare this to a Natural Weapon:
If you have a Natural Weapon, then as a standard action you can make
a melee attack with it at your full attack bonus (so you add BAB,
Strength bonus, etc. just like a melee attack with a Greatsword on a
Fighter). HOWEVER, even if you have +6 or more BAB and a full-round
action available, you cannot make multiple attacks with the same
Natural Weapon. So if all you have is a Bite, and have +6 BAB,
you can't use your Bite you make 2 attacks in a round; you can only
make one. If you have a Greatsword instead, you could make 2 attacks
in a round.
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If you have multiple Natural Weapons (ex: a Bite and 2 Claws), then
this is how you use them:
One of the Natural Weapons (or appropriate pair of Natural Weapons)
is designated the Primary Natural Weapon. This is usually dictated
for you; a bear, for example, is stuck having its Claws being its
Primary Natural Weapon. ALL other Natural Weapons are designated
Secondary Natural Weapons. So, if you have a creature with a Bite, 2
Claws, 2 Wing attacks, and a Tail (read: Dragons), and the Bite is
designated the Primary Natural Weapon, then the Claws, Wings, and
Tail are all Secondary Natural Weapons.
The Primary Natural Weapon is the Natural Weapon you can use for a
standard action melee attack. In the above dragon example, a dragon
could use its Bite attack as a standard action melee attack.
The Secondary Natural Weapons are always made at a penalty, no matter
what. As far as I know, you can't use Secondary Natural Weapons for
your standard action melee attack. If the dragon uses a full-round
action to make a full attack, it can use its Bite, Claws, Wings, and
Tail attacks for a total of 6 attacks.
Primary Natural Attacks use the creature's full attack bonus, and
adds the creature's full Strength bonus to damage. Secondary Natural
Attacks all take a -5 NON-CUMULATIVE penalty, and use ½ of the
creature's Strength bonus. The non-cumulative part is important; it
doesn't matter if you have 1 secondary attack or a million, they each
only take a -5 penalty.
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To tie this all together, let's compare a Fighter wielding a
Longsword and a Fighter that somehow has a Bite, 2 Claws, and a Tail
attack. To make things simple, let's pretend they are all Level 6 (so
+6 BAB), have no feats, and a Strength score of 18 (so +4 as a
Strength bonus).
The longsword does base 1d8 damage.
The Bite attack does base 1d6 damage.
The Claw attacks each do base 1d4 damage.
The Tail attack does base 1d6 damage.
Fighter A's full attack would look like this:
Attack #1 is made at a +10 (+6 from BAB, +4 from Strength) bonus, and
deals 1d8 + 4 damage (1d8 base, +4 from full Strength bonus).
Attack #2 is made at a +5 (+1 from BAB, +4 from Strength) bonus, and
deals 1d8 + 4 damage (1d8 base, +4 from full Strengh bonus).
Fighter B's full attack would look like this:
Attack #1 is the Bite. It is made at a +10 (+6 from BAB, +4 from
Strength) bonus, and deals 1d6 + 4 damage (1d6 base, +4 from full
Strength bonus).
Attack #2 is one of the Claws. It is made at a +5 (+6 from BAB, +4
from Strength, -5 from the penalty) bonus, and deals 1d4 + 2 damage
(1d4 base, +2 from ½ Strength bonus).
Attack #3 is the other Claw. It is made at a +5 (+6 from BAB, +4 from
Strength, -5 from the penalty) bonus, and deals 1d4 + 2 damage (1d4
base, +2 from ½ Strength bonus).
Attack #4 is the Tail attack. It is made at a +5 (+6 from BAB, +4
from Strength, -5 from the penalty) bonus, and deals 1d6 + 2 damage
(1d6 base, +2 from ½ Strength bonus).
Again, it doesn't matter how many natural weapons Fighter B has; if
he has literally a million claws, then as a full-round action he
could make an attack with each one. You can use all the Natural
Weapons you're equipped with in a full attack.
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As mentioned above, you can also use Natural Weapons in a grapple. While you're grappled, you can attack with a Natural Weapon at a -4 penalty. Strangely, according to the rules you can kinda-sorta break the "You can't make iterative attacks with a Natural Weapon" rule, thanks to this line on the rules on grappling:
"If your base attack bonus allows you multiple attacks, you can attempt one of these actions in place of each of your attacks, but at successively lower base attack bonuses."
And attacking someone with a Natural Weapon while in a grapple counts as "one of these actions".
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One last thing about Natural Weapons; you can mix them up with normal
weapon melee attacks. As long as the melee weapon and the natural
weapons don't get in each other's way, you can use all of them in a
full attack. If you do mix normal weapon attacks and natural attacks
like this, however, ALL Natural Weapons automatically become
Secondary Natural weapons and therefore take the usual penalties (-5
to attack, ½ Strength bonus to damage, etc.)
For example, if you have a longsword and a Bite attack, then as a
full attack you could make as many longsword attacks as you normally
could, then follow that up with a Bite (with the Bite being a Secondary Natural Weapon).
If, however, you have a longsword and a Claw attack, but that Claw is
holding the longsword, then you can't use that Claw to attack at all
until that Claw becomes unoccupied.
(A side effect of this is that Monks go very well with Natural
Attacks, because it specifies that Monk Unarmed Attacks can use
knees, elbows, etc. instead of just hands...so if you're a Monk with
Claws, then you could, say, knee everyone in the face as your Unarmed
Attacks and then follow that up with Claws in a full attack.)
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That's all for now. Sorry if this is all a bit convoluted--again, Natural Weapon rules work differently in odd ways compared to normal weapon attack rules. Tune in next time for the Totemist writeup!
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