How many attacks? Natural Attacks & BAB

[youspoonybard]

I see an "Unarmed Strike" as being just attacking with your body, not a specific part of it. It does damage based upon your size, and it also shows up in grappling (the Damage Your Opponent using an opposed grapple check).

Brekki - I'm not sure if that quote is applicable; it seems to be talking more about drawing AoO than anything else.

That's just how I see it, though.

 

[Brekki]

It is applicable .. the piece right under it says:

Note that being armed counts for both offense and defence

That is just one paragraph of the four under the "unarmed attacks" heading. Natural weapons are simply a subcategory of unarmed attacks.

 

[Camarath]

He simply gains a better BAB, no additional attacks.

Here is my take on this issue. (I meant to post this yesterday but had trouble with the boards. )

From SRD Manufactured Weapons

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. These secondary attacks do not interfere with the primary attack as attacking with an off-hand weapon does, but they take the usual –5 penalty (or –2 with the Multiattack feat) for such attacks, even if the natural weapon used is normally the creature’s primary natural weapon.

The monks unarmed strike follow the manufactured weapon pattern of additional iterative attacks rather than the natural weapon pattern of no iterative attacks. It is also clearly not dependent upon the anatomy used with the troll’s natural attacks. To me this means that the monk’s Unarmed Strike should function as a separate “manufactured” weapon in this case.

Now if you count the troll’s natural weapons as monk weapons (which is a very reasonable suggestion) I agree with reapersaurus that the answer should be 3 with the option of doing unarmed strikes dealing damage based on

 

[reapersaurus]

reading that manufactured weapons section closely, and thinking about it, I'm starting to think that WotC has got a somewhat serious problem on their hands here:

Creatures using weapons and natural attacks just doesn't work right by the rules currently.

It seems like the rules support monsters using natural attacks in an iterative fashion, yet their MM statistics are the only place that oppose that. (I'm ignoring the misunderstood "natural attacks don't get iterative attacks" line)
According to the Manufactured Weapons section, than many of the MM entries are wrong, aren't they? Maybe it's not the straight MM entries that are off so much as the numerous examples of classed monsters I've seen on WotC's website.

Let me put it this way:
A Xill with many Ftr class levels has 4 arms and 4 natural claw attacks. He has +16 BAB and +2 STR and Multiattack.
Anyone who interprets "natural attacks don't get iterative attacks" as meaning this epic Xill would only get 4 claw attacks ( !) (let's say +18/+18/+18/+18), yet when he simply plops a club in one hand, the rules say he'd get +18 club/+16 claw/+16 claw/+16 claw/+13 club/+8 club/+3 club, that is so obvious of rules mistake/oversight/outrageousness, I'd have difficulty carrying on a game with said individual.

 

[Camarath]

It seems like the rules support monsters using natural attacks in an iterative fashion, yet their MM statistics are the only place that oppose that.

Could you post supporting rules for natural attacks gaining iterative attack that do not refer to unarmed attacks? Rational thought may support that view point but the rules don’t seem to.

(I'm ignoring the misunderstood "natural attacks don't get iterative attacks" line)

So now we can just flat-out ignore the rules we don't like? (I mean you can house rule it any way you want but don’t tell me I should ignore explicit rules to come to the correct interpretation.) I really don't see what there is to misunderstand about this rule text.

Natural Weapons: Natural weapons are weapons that are physically a part of a creature. 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. Creatures do not receive additional attacks from a high base attack bonus when using natural weapons. The number of attacks a creature can make with its natural weapons depends on the type of the attack—generally, a creature can make one bite attack, one attack per claw or tentacle, one gore attack, one sting attack, or one slam attack (although Large creatures with arms or arm-like limbs can make a slam attack with each arm). Refer to the individual monster descriptions.

According to the Manufactured Weapons section, than many of the MM entries are wrong, aren't they? Maybe it's not the straight MM entries that are off so much as the numerous examples of classed monsters I've seen on WotC's website.

AFAICS the 3.5 MM monsters appear to follow the current rules (natural attacks gain no iterative attacks and when using manufactured weapon(s) all useable natural weapons function as secondary natural weapons).

Let me put it this way:
A Xill with many Ftr class levels has 4 arms and 4 natural claw attacks. He has +16 BAB and +2 STR and Multiattack.
Anyone who interprets "natural attacks don't get iterative attacks" as meaning this epic Xill would only get 4 claw attacks ( !) (let's say +18/+18/+18/+18), yet when he simply plops a club in one hand, the rules say he'd get +18 club/+16 claw/+16 claw/+16 claw/+13 club/+8 club/+3 club, that is so obvious of rules mistake/oversight/outrageousness, I'd have difficulty carrying on a game with said individual.

Then don’t play with who ever wrote the 3.5 MM. Let us take a look at the Horned Devil (Cornugon) from the 3.5 MM as an example. His Full Attack options are either #1- 2 claws +24 melee (2d6+10) and bite + 22 melee (2d8+5) and tail +22 melee (2d6+5 plus infernal wound) that is 4 natural weapons with no iterative attacks or #2- Spiked chain +25/+20/+15 melee (2d6+15 plus stun) and bite +22 melee (2d8+5) and tail +22 melee (2d6+5 plus infernal wound) here he losses 2 natural attacks (claws) do to hand use but gains weapon use and iterative attacks wile retaining all other natural attacks as secondary natural attacks.