Octopi and Squid

[Gyoza sausage bun]

The tentacle damage of a standard octopus or squid is listed as being 0 and does not seem to include aplicable strength bonuses.

Does this mean that it never does any damage and overrules the rule that every successful melee attack does a minimum of 1 point of damage?

What if magic fang were cast on the critter?

Would the damage go up from 0 if it increased in size? Perhaps to 1 and then 1d2.

So we have our octopus with 8 improved grab attacks.
According to the rules there is a -20 to its grapple checks if it tries to do anything else while grappling. Does this mean he must stop his natural attacks once he is has managed to start the grapple with improved grab even if they are all against the grappled target?

Any help here would be amazingly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[dcollins]

Fairly good question.

- I'd rule that the arm attacks can never do damage... they seem to be (due to unusual damage specifier, as you note) intended to be good only for grab-purposes.

- The "-20 grab" rule is specific to attacking "other opponents", still threatening an area, and not being considered grappled (MM p. 9). A creature can still make natural attacks on a creature it grapples at no penalty.

- One final note if you're using these creatures: the MM Web Errata removed the "automatically deals bite damage" sentence from every monster's Improved Grab description except the octopus and squid. My belief is that was an oversight and these creatures should not ever do automatic damage.