Monsters attack!
ruleslawyer said:
Well, it would be different insofar as the creature would have 4 primary attacks (i.e., attacks at full BAB) and no secondary attacks (i.e., attacks at BAB -5, or BAB -2 with the Multiattack feat).
Yes, that is precisely the difference - I will try to summarize all the possibilities below.
Please note, however, that according to the Sage (and this seems pretty reasonable) when a creature uses a manufactured weapon, all natural weapons become secondary. Thus, for example, a lizardfolk normally has two primary claw attacks and a secondary bite. However, a lizardfolk who wields a scimitar in one hand instead gets a primary attack with the scimitar, a secondary attack with its remaining claw, and another secondary attack with its bite.
According to the rules of creature creation (and by reverse-engineering some of the MM creatures), you choose one attack type (claw, bite, slam, etc.) as primary as respects natural weapons.
All attacks of that TYPE are primary (i.e., a monstrous octopus could get 8 primary claw attacks and one secondary bite attack for example). All other natural attacks are secondary. The secondary attacks are made at -5 unless the creature has the Multiattack feat (applies to natural weapons only) in which case they are made at -2.
Furthermore, there is no "attack progression" for 2nd, 3rd, 4th attacks with the same attack (i.e., a +6 BAB with my primary natural weapon does not give me another attack at +1 with that weapon).
A creature with only a single attack (not a single type of primary attack) gets 1.5x its Str bonus on hit and damage rolls.
A creature with multiple attacks (whether this is multiple primary attacks - such as 2 claws - or primary and secondary attacks) gets its full Str bonus (i.e., 1x its Str bonus) on hit and damage rolls on all attacks, both primary and secondary.
(The previous two paragraphs can be arrived at by reverse-engineering the Grick, Grey Render, and Griffin in the monster manual)
In short, a creature with, say, a +6 BAB and a +3 Str Modifier would get a +10 (+6 BAB, +4 for 1.5xStr Mod) if it has only one natural attack.
A creature with multiple attacks (either multiple primary attacks or primary plus secondary attacks) with a +6 BAB and a +3 Str Modifier would get a +9 to all primary attacks and +4 to all secondary attacks (+1 BAB and +3 for Str Mod). If it had the Multiattack Feat, it would instead have a +7 on secondary attacks (+4 BAB and +3 for Str Mod).
A creature that only attacks with manufactured weapons follows the same rules as characters do. It can get up to four iterative attacks with its primary weapon based on BAB, gets another attack for each secondary weapon - i.e., a creature with 8 "hands" could get four attacks with its primary weapon and one attack with each of the remaining seven hands for 11 total attacks. The BAB is reduced by 5 for each iterative attack and apply the normal penalties for the remainder of its weapons per the fighting with two (or by extension more) weapons in the PH, using the Ambidexterity/Multidexterity (the number of appendages the creature has determines the appropriate Feat) and/or Two-Weapon/Multiweapon fighting Feats(again, appropriate Feat is based on number of appendages).
It gets 1.5x its Str bonus when wielding a weapon two-handed, 1x its Str bonus when wieding a weapon in its primary hand, and 0.5x its Str bonus when wielding a weapon in an off-hand.
Given the Sage's ruling (I agree that it seems reasonable), we can cover the final case - a creature using both manufactured and natural weapons. A creature uses the rules for characters on its manufactured weapons, and all natural weapons are considered secondary (we already established the calculations for that above).
Hope that clears everything up and serves as a nice "executive summary."
--The Sigil
