Please help me sort out Natural Weapons

[Moon_Goddess]

I'm a bit confused over how mulitple natural attacks work on a classed creature.


I'm creating a half fiend, She is 10 level with a BAB of +7/+2 Strength of 14, Half Fiend gains a bite attack and a claw attack.

How does all this work out? Is her bite +9 and her claw +4? Or ...? I just don't know.

 

[Vaxalon]

Multiple natural weapons generally don't get iterative attacks. The half-fiend can either attack "claw +9/+4" or attack "bite +9, 2 claws +4" or some such. You can't get "bit +9/+4, 2 claws +4"... you're double-dipping.

 

[reapersaurus]

As I understand it:

Give her a weapon, make that the primary attack, and then the secondary attack (bite) would be at -5 of the primary (+4 in this case)
Give her Multiattack and the bite would be at +7.

Then she would get +9/+4 with the weapon, +7 to attack with the claw.

 

[Brekki]

She can choose the following routines:
- Bite +9/Claw +4 /Claw +4 ("animal" attack)
- Bite +9/Claw +7 /Claw +7 ("animal" attack with Multi-attack feat")

- Bite +9/Bite +4 (normal character attack)
- Bite +7/Bite +3/Claw +7 (normal character attack with two-weapon fighting and ambidex)

 

[reapersaurus]

Brekki - you're correct that half-fiend gets two claw attacks, not one as Darwin mentioned.

She can choose her claws to be the primary weapon, so it could be +9 claw/+9 claw/+4 bite if she wishes.
I don't know where you got this from though:

Bite +7/Bite +3/Claw +7 (normal character attack with two-weapon fighting and ambidex)

Why would she be using TWF/Ambi to attack with claws and bite?
And wouldn't that Bite attack be at -2 in any case?

Look at the Half-Fiend entry in the MM.
It gives the option of +8/+3 attack with dagger, and also a secondary bite.

So as i said, the best damage option is probably to give her a weapon, get +9/+4 with the weapon, and get +4 with the bite, or +7 if you give her Multiattack.

This is also explained in Dragon 292.

 

[Brekki]

Can you explain to me how the half-fiend/medusa gets an attack of +10 with her claws ? ... I just get to +8 (+6 Medusa BaB, +2 from increased strenght)

Multiattack only works if you use natural weapons only. If you start to mix it with actual weapons you need to follow the two-weapon rules.

 

[reapersaurus]

good question - I don't like breaking down MM entries - too many times they are off, as i understand.

And what's your source for the Multiattack restriction statement?

Because in Dragon 292 it explicitly states no such restriction (i know that sounds weird, but...) in 5 paragraphs of rules about natural attacks.

I wish I had the time to type out all the text in the article.

 

[Brekki]

The restriction comes from the feat "Multiattack"

Benefit: The creature's secondary attacks with natural weapons ...

 

[reapersaurus]

there's nothing in that sentence that implies or states anything about the primary attack.