The question in posts past was whether I could take the improved natural attack (claws) feat with using the dragon bloodline claws as my means to have claws for the feat's prereq. (still not sure on that, whether it has a clause like the fly skill or not)
Per the core rulebook, here's the relevant bits:
Page 75
Claws (Ex): Starting at 1st level, you can grow claws as a free action. These claws are treated as natural weapons, allowing you to make two claw attacks as a full attack action using your full base attack bonus. You can use your claws for a number of rounds per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.
A sorcerer with the draconic bloodline gains a natural attack, specifically a pair of claws. They are not always-on.
Page 112
Your character must have the indicated ability score, class feature, feat, skill, base attack bonus, or other quality designated in order to select or use that feat. A character can gain a feat at the same level at which he gains the prerequisite. A character can’t use a feat if he loses a prerequisite, but he does not lose the feat itself. If, at a later time, he regains the lost prerequisite, he immediately regains full use of the feat that prerequisite enables.
Good news. Since you have the ability to have claws the moment you level up, you can take Improved Natural Attack (claws) as a feat. You will lose access to that feat moments the moment you dismiss your claws or you run out of time for the given day, but you regain access to the feat when you grow them again.
So in short, rules-as-written, yes you can take this feat.
As for natural attacks, I give you the no tail no tail slap theory, but I do have a mouth that CAN bite, I do have nails that CAN scratch. I am not saying scratch and bite an ooze to death, but if you have ever been attacked irl, I highly doubt you just punched the guy. I am also not saying that a bite or scratch is the most effective way to attack, rarely is a scratch gonna be lethal, but enough of them will make them think twice about continuing to attack you.
Sure. And in Pathfinder you also CAN bite and scratch. The rules system tries to model this in a rational way. There are a few concepts that all tie together to explain why a typical character wouldn't do so.
First, damage. The game models damage scaling by using different dice sizes. A typical dog for instance deals 1d4 bite damage. This is in addition to the variable applied due to its Strength modifier, but we can disregard that variable as it is evenly applied in all circumstances. If the dog is magically made a size category larger, its bite die goes up in size as well. A cat or a rat would do 1d3 or 1d2, and a good part of that is the fangs and ripping action. Where I'm going with this is that a human(oid) with omnivore teeth isn't going to do significant damage relative to everything else in the game. Giving a human 1d2 or even a flat 1 point of damage wouldn't be unreasonable.
Second, proficiency. The proficiency rules are designed to differentiate between training experience levels. A person who is proficient with a club could reasonably be expected to use a chair as a weapon, but it's just not the same thing. Similar but not identical. So there is a non-proficiency penalty (-4 to attacks) imposed when you use a weapon you are not proficient with. Human(oids) don't typically use their teeth or fingernails as weapons, nor do they typically do much punching or kicking. Yes, in a life-or-death circumstance you'll do so, but you're in desperation, not doing anything skillfully, and your attack rolls should (and do) reflect that.
Third, definitions. When a creature is said to have an X attack where X is bite, slam, tail slap, or the like, it automatically is given proficiency. The creature's statistics specifically call out and define what damage levels that creature gets with its attacks, and it points out to the DM running the monster that the creature has a decent likelihood of using those weapons. A (typical) human(oid) does not get statted out having bite attacks because that would grant proficiency, and imply the human/elf/dwarf etc is likely to actually bite someone. They are instead far, far more likely to use any tool they can which is not their teeth. "Civilized" races are tool-users.
Fourth, unarmed strikes. This is a special set of rules designed to simulate unarmed combat. Two elves in a fist fight works exactly as you'd expect; one elf hits the other, then gets hit back. Rinse, repeat. Neither is particularly good at punching... civilized races don't tend to - as a generalization - get into fist-fights very often. Now, if one of those elves tries to get in a fist-fight against a seasoned dwarf fighter who's got an axe, again the rules model this well. The elf takes a swing... the dwarf sees this coming a mile away and takes advantage of the amateur by slashing him. Attack of Opportunity. Then the dwarf takes his own turn and slashes again. Rinse, repeat. The dwarf ends up with one extra attack each round. Finally, the Improved Natural Attack feat provides a legitimate rule whereby a player can create an elf who
just happens to be the
rarity... a civilized humanoid who has trained in fisticuffs. Taking this one feat eliminates the AoO the dwarf was getting. It customizes you into what you want to be. It also - as a side-note - lets you deal
lethal damage instead of solely non-lethal. Without it, the elf has to work twice as hard to
kill the dwarf as he would if he had the feat.
The end result of all of this is that a typical human(oid) should not be considered to have natural attacks. There's a world of difference in training, damage, and likelihood between an elf and a dog. That's what the game rules simulate.
Continuing with the human fighter example, after being disarmed, all I can do is punch (kick, elbow, etc)? If I charge one of the goblins, I may punch or kick or whatever after the charge, but before, I am gonna put all my charging force into a tackle, (which sounds like a slam natural attack to me)
We're getting all over the place here. If a player asked to bite his captor, I'd allow it. I'd also grant his captor an Attack of Opportunity, I'd impose a -4 non-proficiency penalty on the bite attack roll, I'd give him 1d2 as his damage die, and I'd ask "do you really want to do this?" Sure, he might roll well, hit, and do some damage, but he'll
never bite a dragon to death.
What you describe as a charge, then as a tackle has a game rule set for it too. It's technically neither. A "charge" is a specific action in the game that says you can move up to double your normal move rate (so 60ft for a human without heavy armor) in a straight unobstructed line, and make one attack. You get a +2 bonus on that attack for your effort, and you take a -2 penalty to your armor class for a round because you put yourself off-guard.
There is no such thing in these rules as a tackle, but there is a trip or a grapple or even a bull-rush. Those actions have specific rules for them and they are called combat maneuvers. Anyone can do them but just like anything else there are ways to make yourself better or worse at doing so. Like unarmed strikes, if you don't have the appropriate feat for a maneuver, you provoke an Attack of Opportunity. Do you
really know how to tackle someone? Or does a professional football player
really know how. The feats try to model that difference in training and ability. Improvisation versus training.
Also, the proficient/not proficient is still a little grey to me. A wizard can use a warhammer, with a penalty, but Joe shmoe can't tackle, penalty or no?
Let's use
trip in place of tackle, for convenience. A wizard may use a warhammer, but he suffers a non-proficiency penalty (-4 to his attack roll) with that
weapon because he doesn't know what he's doing. While he is chopping away at his victim, a little halfling girl can come up to him and try to trip him. The wizard is equipped with a weapon so he is entitled to an AoO against the little girl. If she survives, she can complete her trip attempt and may down the wizard. If she happened to have been a halfling soccer player and was good with her feet, she might have the Improved Trip feat, in which case the wizard wouldn't have got an AoO.
Point is - like above - the question isn't so much "can you" but "how can you?"
It is a design flaw, and I see no way to resolve it unless you grant natural attacks to anything which can do it. But the answer. He says you can not, so you can not, doesn't fly with me.
The answer is to learn the rules more thoroughly. Why? There's more. A big huge part of this discussion revolves around what is and what isn't a
weapon. A warhammer is clearly a weapon. A crossbow is clearly a weapon. A chair is clearly not a weapon. Yes, you could use it
like a weapon... that's called an improvised weapon, and you take the exact same penalty as non-proficiency with improvised weapons. So far so good.
Let's move on to bites. To a dog, its mouth is very clearly a weapon. To a shark, the same is true. Both creatures get formally declared to have a bite attack. An elf isn't even vaguely similar and thus does not get declared to have a bite attack. That way any attempt to use his teeth as a weapon is automatically an improvised weapon. A player may ask a DM "may I use my belt as a garrotte?" The belt is not a weapon, but in the fashion the player has asked for it is being improvised as one. The DM has to weight the practicality of what is being asked, and assign a damage die if he is going to allow the improvisation. "I wish to hit the ogre over the head with this salt shaker!" The salt shaker is clearly not a weapon, and it isn't something that can reasonably be improvised as one, so the DM should disallow it. Finally, to return to the bite, an elf asking to bite someone should - in my opinion - be permitted to, exactly as I detailed waaaaay above. 1d2 damage, improvised weapon penalty. Oh, and attacking with improvised weapons provokes Attacks of Opportunity.
Next, let's bring in "slam" for a quick moment. The difference between a stone giant with a slam attack and an elf with an unarmed strike is
exactly the same as the difference between a dog and an elf with bites. The stone giant gets a slam attack... he is defined as being able to use his fists as weapons. He's good at it. Slam is just an in-game name for it. It means he is proficient, isn't improvising, and doesn't provoke.
Screw it. I'm teaching you the game, I might as well go all the way. Let's take a quick aside to talk about "threatening". This is useful for our discussion. You are said to be threatening when you have a
melee weapon and are able to reach a given square with it. So... to an elf, his bite is NOT a weapon... it's an improvised weapon, just like a chair, so he does NOT threaten with it. If someone does something near him that provokes an attack of opportunity, he is NOT permitted to bite that person. Nor can he swing the chair he's got. He's improvising. But a dog who is actually formally declared to have a bite attack DOES threaten with his teeth and CAN make attacks of opportunity with them.
End result is this... slams, bites, tail slaps, swords, hammers... these are all
weapons. "Using your teeth" is not a bite weapon. "Punching with my fist" is not a slam weapon. Bruce Lee's fists... weapons. Ye Randome Elfe's fists... not weapons. A
weapon as opposed to an
improvised weapon confers all kinds of specific rules abilities. That's why it's important to avoid confusing real-world words with game-rule words. Don't say "I slam him" if you're an elf. Say "I try to hit him" or "I punch him". Punch isn't a "keyword" where slam absolutely is. Bite is also a keyword. "My elf sinks his teeth into his torturer's ear!"
So again, you CAN do basically
everything you seem to want to do. You just haven't had enough rules taught to you to see how to go about it, and what the implications are.
As for not all outsiders get natural attacks, there are 5 in bestiary 1 that don't out of all of them in that book.
Anyway, thanks for the input, some of it helps but my questions still have room to be answered
Hopefully some of the above helps. Read it slow and read it repeatedly... I think I was pretty careful to explain the hows and whys. Is this complicated? ABSOLUTELY it's complicated. But it's deliberately complicated. Those of us who like the 3.x/PF rules want complexity. We want rules that make it impossible for an elf to gnaw off a giant's head. We want rules that make it clear what's going to happen to you if you pick up a bird cage and try to beat a vampire up with it. (Incidentally...
nothing good will happen unless that bird cage is magical
and made of silver; vampires have Damage Reduction 10/magic and silver, so any damage less than 10 coming from ANY source that isn't both... it just IGNORES. << See, another complicated rule, but it neatly simulates a creature that's immune to most weapons!)
The Core rulebook is 578 pages including covers and indexes. I get the impression you're new to this. I'm giving your DM the benefit of the doubt... given how much you do and don't seem to know, he may be saying "no" when you ask for certain things not because you
can't do them but because you need to learn about eighty rules first to understand how to do them and more importantly... why you shouldn't. Maybe I'm wrong, but there's a thought to leave you with. "No" is a lot shorter than this post, dontcha think? And at the game table, in the middle of combat, it might not be the right time to launch into an hour-long lesson on Elven Bite Attacks, The Lack Thereof.
Game on.
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