Feral Template Question
Ken's new game is going reasonably well. We've only had one death in two sessions of play. But I do have a question about my character that nobody can seem to answer.
We started our characters at level three. So I am playing a Feral Mountain Orc Barbarian named Ogg. Basically, I took the Mountain Orc race from the Races of Faerun, which is just a simple race like Human or Elf, and I added the Feral template to it from Savage Species. The Feral template is a +1 level adjustment, so I added only two levels of Barbarian.
Being Feral has a few neat bonuses to being an Orc. My strength is 25, which is actually pretty good. With my +7 bonus from Strength, I can do 1d12+7 damage with a great axe. Yay! But here's the trick...
Feral also gives Ogg claws. Techincally, two claw attacks. Presumably when you apply this template to a monster (such as an orc), the monster would get two claw attacks as a primary attack, both at full attack bonuses. So I should have two claw attacks (1d8+7) at an attack bonus of +9 (Str +7, BaB +2).
A little more background on my character development is required. I intend to take Ogg toward a specific prestige class from the new Frostburn book, Primeval. Bascially, a Primeval is a character that has latent primeval genes or a past life or something, and is able to revert to a prehistoric animal. My character's prehistoric animal is a dire wolf. The bonus is that when Ogg turns into the dire wolf, he gets a pretty good bonus to his Strength. I forget what the numbers are exactly, but it's something like +17.
Now, one of the prerequisites for this pretige class is Knowledge (nature). Barbarians aren't adept at acquiring knowledge, so it takes twice as long to achieve that level. To offset this (and possibly get some enhancements in other places) I thought I would take a level of Ranger, because doing so would fill all of my requirements right away (except BaB +8, which I somehow overlooked before I started on this venture - oh, well).
So when we advanced two levels last session (it was a long one with two "parts" and very difficult combats), I was contemplating what class I should take as the next level. (Never mind that I should have taken Fighter and not Ranger anyway - yeah, yeah.) If I took another level of Ranger, I would be granted the Combat Style ability, which is effectively the same as the Two Handed Fighting feat.
Ok, here we go. -- If I can already fight with two claws at full attack bonuses, then what does Two Handed Fighting do for my character?
Here is our presumption. The two claw attacks are functionally a single primary attack, just as if I was going to make one attack with a sword. If I made a third claw attack (primarily two attak rolls, and then secondarily one attack roll), it would be the same as making two attacks with a sword, with the same penalties. Assuming that claws classify as light, my first two attacks would be at -4, and my third would be at -8.
Using the Two Weapon Fighting feat, all three attacks would be at only -2, just as two attacks would be with a sword and that feat.
Does this make sense?
We combed through rulebook after rulebook after Dragon Magazine on Saturday night after the game (I had been using an axe through the game, because it was easier than figuring out the claw business up front), and couldn't find anything that specifically applied to the problem.
Any ideas? An official-ish ruling would be nice for our DM. My common sense meter is pushing into the red with this extra attack, though.
Comments
Comment by Owen on .
We found that, but it doesn't really address the problem in a way that I can figure.
The example doesn't demonstrate how the ranger Two-Weapon Fighting feat affects the attacks of the creature. If it did, there would be mention of a second melee weapon, or you'd see a secondary attack in the block somewhere.
The alternative to what I've laid out originally is that Two-Weapon Fighting simply doesn't apply to natural attacks. This is contrary to what I would think due to how Monk unarmed combat works, but maybe we should assume that Monks in D&D - as in every RPG I've known to contain Monk-like classes - have been given stupid bonuses without justification. I mean, the damage die changes on the unarmed damage for the monk for no good reason other than to make the damage increase arbitrarily.
That Two-Weapon Fighting doesn't apply to claws is somewhat eluded to in the Multiattack feat, where I assume that they mean "iterative attacks" and not "secondary attacks", since a true secondary attack would normally incite not just a -8 penalty for the off-hand, but a -4 penalty for the primary hand.
Normally, this is the sort of rules thing I wouldn't bother with, but I want to be fair in computing the combat potential of my character, both to the scenario and to the future advancement of the character.
It's like all of the rules dance around the issue. If they're going to allow you to apply these templates and level adjustments to make monster characters, then they should set some simple ground rules like how to balance monster natural attacks against the existing character feats. What if a monster NPC took Two-Weapon Fighting as a feat? There just isn't a good answer.
(By the way, if a comment doesn't appear, it's because it's in the moderation queue. This alpha software doesn't display the notice that this has happened. Buggy.)
Comment by Adam Horry on .
www.wizards.com
FAQ
3.5
P.32 talks about this ...
When a creature has natural weaponary, do all its natural weapons become secondary attacks when it uses a manufactured weapon? If so, what happens to the damage rating for a primary natural weapon that gets demoted to secondary status?
When a creature use both manufactured and natural weapons together with the full attack action, treat the manufactured weapon as the primary attack (using the creature's full attack bonus) and treat all the natural weapons as secondary natural attacks (-5 attack penalty, or -2 if the creature has Multiattack feat).
The basic damage rating for a secondary natural weapon doesn't change, but the creature gets only half its Strength bonus to damage for the secondary attack, even if it would otherwise be a primary natural weapon. The troll entry in the Monster Manual provides a good example of this.
In Monster Manual for a Troll Hunter:
Attack - Claw +16 melee (1d6+7) or +1 battleaxe +17 melee (2d6+8/X3) or javelin +10 ranged (1d8+7).
Full Attack - 2 claws +26 melee (1d6+7) and bite +11 (1d6+3) or +1 battleaxe +17/+12 melee (2d6+8/X3) and claw +12 melee (1d6+3) and bite +12 (1d6+3); or javelin +10 (1d8+7)
Troll Hunter has Two Weapon Fighting and Improved Two Weapon Fighting feats.
Comment by Rhavyn on .
Well this is a bit old, but just in case you didn't know...
While having a 25 Strength, you get to use 1 1/2 times your strength bonus with a greataxe. So your damage is actually 1d12+10.
And remember, while using Power Attack you get to double your damage bonuses.. i.e. -4 from to hit bonus = +8 damage bonus with 2 handed weapons.
Comment by Deja Vu on .
There is a very logical reason behind this. Monstrous advancement and monstrous feats fill the gap. Also consider that a natural weapon has feats for it as well as what you first said "two claw attacks counts as a single attack" and as such two weapon fighting will not work with it because it's a single weapon that being "claws" now you could quite potentially work this in with "claws" being your primary weapon and "bite" being your secondary.
Aside from that you'll have to work with your DM and if he allows this then go for it but if not just keep in mind that you're more dangerous with your claws than with an ax being that you currently deal 16 - 30 (1d8+7) + )1d8+7) that being said I don't know why you would want to use anything else. What you should be looking into is finding out whether you can use "weapon focus", "weapon specialisation", "weapon mastery" and other feats like that with a natural weapon. House rules are always an option too.
Happy gaming.
Comment by Deja Vu on .
Can you edit my post to change the ) in "(1d8+7) + )1d8+7) to a ( please? :) This one ^ second paragraph in my first post. (^_^)
Thank you. :)
Comment by fifer on .
Natural attacks can never have iterate of attacks stemming from your BAB. Never. As for what happens when combining manufactured weapons and claw attacks, the claws become secondary attacks that do not affect the attack bonus of the manufactured weapon (the primary attack). Here is a quote directly from d20srd.com which is a website with all of the core books on it.
"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."
Also consider that when two-handing a manufactured weapon, why would you take you're hands off of it to claw at someone? Why not just hit them with it. Our group made it a general rule that if you are dual wielding or two-handing a weapon, you can't use you're claw attacks.
Comment by Jonathan on .
From my understanding, using the two claws as a single attack would not at all benefit from "Two-Weapon Fighting" because you actually can wield each claw separately as per usual two-weapon fighting rules - thereby making your attack, with the feat, at -2/-2. Ergo it is better to use them together as a single attack. What you want is Multi-Weapon fighting which, should you acquire a bite/tail/slam (dire wolf can bite - there's also another prestige class that allows you to change your body to accommodate natural attacks, but it's name evades me; it requires simply the ability to transform naturally via druid, lycanthropy, etc.) you could take advantage of that. In conclusion, two-weapon fighting would not benefit you, but hamper you (though give you the option to attack separate creatures simultaneously).
Comment by Thomas on .
My sentiments on all this...
1. You do not gain additional natural attacks from having a high base attack bonus.
2. Claws DO benefit from weapon spec. and focus.
3. As an experienced werewolf player I have come to avoid the ranger altogether unless going for the ranged aspect, I recommend asking your DM if you can change you ranger lvl's out for fighter lvl's it will save headaches for lots of people.
4. The generic class "Warrior" out of "Unearthed Arcana" is about equal to if not better than the fighter for things with 3 or more natural attacks, as you will be getting a bite eventually from the direwolf, and the generic feats will come in handy for all the good non-fighter bonus feats.
Comment by Executioner on .
Natural weapons are separate from your iterative attacks from BAB. By default, with a full attack action, you get to attack with all of your natural weapons. Primary natural weapons are at Full BAB. Secondary natural weapons are at BAB -5. It doesn't matter if you have 1 bite, 4 claws, and a tail slap. Whichever the primary attack is, they are all at full BAB. You cannot gain more than one attack from a natural weapon except for with special circumstances (IE: Rapidstrike feats from Draconomicon). In my example above, if your claws were the primary and you had a strength of 25 and a BAB of +2 (Using your stats for this example), you would have a full attack that looked like this:
4 claws +9 melee, bite +4 melee, tail slap +4 melee
If you had Multiattack, you would reduce the -5 penalty to -2, thus having a full attack as follows:
4 claws +9 melee, Bite +7 melee, tail slap +7 melee
I hope this clears up your question.
Comment by T-$ on .
Were you being serious or sarcastic when you said "My strength is 25, which is actually pretty good." That's completely ridiculous for a third level character. I have to wonder why the hell it says "Level adjustment: +1" under the feral entry. Those benefits are far beyond any +1 LA. Maybe a +4 or 5.