[RPG] Do Animal Companions need Improved Unarmed Strike

animal-companionsfeatspathfinder-1eunarmed-combat

Would a Goat with a Gore attack be considered armed for the purposes of the rules outlined by this feat? If it was somehow unable to attack with a Gore and tried to Bite would it need Improved Unarmed Strike to avoid an Attack of Opportunity? Per these rules would the Bite or Kick (hooves) deal non-lethal damage?

Best Answer

No. Unarmed strikes and natural attacks are separate, distinct things, and the rules for one do not apply to the rules for the other. And gore is a type of natural attack.

A short list of some of the differences:

  • Natural attacks never get iteratives; unarmed strikes do.

  • You can use natural attacks you have once each in a full-attack; you can only use unarmed strikes if you have attacks (from BAB, two-weapon fighting, things like haste, or whatever) to use for them. For example, if a creature has four arms, that creature can automatically attack four times if those arms end in claws, but if they end in fists that creature can only attack four times by using up four attacks, e.g. from iteratives or by using Multiweapon Fighting.

  • Unarmed strikes are monk weapons; natural attacks are not.

  • Unarmed strikes require proficiency and (to avoid an AoO) Improved Unarmed Strike. With natural attacks, however, a creature is always proficient and never provokes an attack of opportunity for using them.

Note that Feral Combat Training muddies the water here somewhat, since it makes natural attacks count as monk weapons and allows them to be used with a flurry of blows, so that they do get iteratives. But that’s a special case.

Anyway, it would be too much for an answer here to reproduce the entire natural attack rules, so have a link.