Unchained Flurry of Blows with Natural Weapons and Feral Combat Training using natural attacks as primary

Question

I know the question of whether adding your natural attacks after you finish a Flurry of Blows (As secondary nat attacks at −5) has been asked many times (Monks, natural and unarmed attacks, and Feral Combat Training) and it has been generally agreed that it doesn't work. But now want to know if you are allowed to perform the process backwards. Natural attacks first, then the extra hits from FoB.

Example:

Level 3 Catfolk (With 2 claws, no Monk weapons) Unchained Monk with Feral Combat Training (Claws).

Flurry of blows without any natural weapons is 2 attacks at full BAB because they normally get 1 attack as full round action. This character can also get 2 claws as a full round action, would he be able to use flurry of blows to add a third hit in this scenario?

The claws would be primary Natural attacks, followed by the "extra" hits from flurry. The text says Flurry gives me some sort of max number of attacks, but that number is never mentioned. Is it my normal full attack +1? With natural weapons, full attacks can have varying number of hits.

Answer 1

Yes, this is (one of) the main purpose(s) of the Feral Combat Training Feat.

Feral Combat Training

(...) Special: If you are a monk, you can use the selected natural weapon with your flurry of blows class feature.

By selecting Claw for Feral Combat Training, you gain the ability to use it as your weapon (similar to wielding a 'monk weapon') for the subsequent extra attack. The extra attack could be your Claw or an unarmed strike per the normal monk rules.

This differs from the other question because the other question wanted to use a full set of extra attacks; in your case, you are merely substituting your Claws as a valid option for the Flurry of Blows strike.

To clarify, this does not allow you to Full Attack with Natural Weapons+1, but instead allows you to use the benefits of your Monk class with your Claw(s) and the benefits of your Claw(s/Blades) with your Monk class.

Per this FAQ:

The feat does not allow you to make your normal flurry of blows attack sequence plus one or more natural attacks with the natural weapon. In other words, if you can flurry for four attacks per round, with this feat you still only make four attacks per round... but any number of those attacks may be with the selected natural weapon.

To summarize:

Level 3 Catfolk UnMonk 2 Claw attacks + 1 Flurry of Blows attack OR 1 Unarmed/Claw and 1 FoB

Level 6 Catfolk UnMonk 2 Claw attacks + 1 Flurry of Blows attack OR 2 Unarmed/Claw and 1 FoB

Level 11 Catfolk UnMonk 2 Claw attacks + 2 Flurry of Blows attacks OR 3 Unarmed/Claw and 2 FoB

Answer 2

First of all, your statement about adding natural weapons as secondary attacks after a flurry of blows is incorrect about unchained monks. The original monk got an errata-nerf that prevented this, but the unchained monk does not have that line. This also makes the rules more consistent, and is how things worked in D&D 3.5. It never caused problems.

But as for using a pair of primary claws as basically one attack, and then gaining a bonus attack from flurry of blows, that is ambiguous. Normally, when you use primary natural weapons, that is in place of iterative attacks. But flurry of blows bonus attacks are just that, bonus attacks, not iterative attacks.

Personally, I would allow it. Monks are one of the weakest classes in Pathfinder (see here), and in general gaining natural weapons also costs you something, so it seems entirely safe to me to combine the two. This is how things worked in 3.5, and it never caused problems (monks still sucked). The unchained monk is a better, but still not good, and natural weapons are usually overpriced, so if anything I would be worried that combining the two cost too much and was underpowered.

On the other hand, it seems reasonable to me to interpret Paizo’s statements about flurry of blows as indicating that in their mind, absolutely nothing ever should allow a monk to attack more times during a flurry of blows than it says on the table. This doesn’t make much sense to me (does that include haste? I would assume not, because why would it—but then what is the difference here?). Paizo has made a number of statements that don’t actually make sense with the rules as written trying to prevent various ways of gaining more attacks (see the entire “flurry of blows is two-weapon fighting” fiasco). So if you are unduly impressed with Paizo’s design skills and want to absolutely follow their ideas on game balance, then you probably would not want to allow it.

And the reason we have this situation is because, basically, the natural weapon rules of D&D 3.5 are a mess, and Paizo has only made things worse with the ways they have tried to edit the rules. It seems to me that they are dead-set on trying to claim that the 3.5 rules always worked the way they say the Pathfinder rules work, instead of admitting the 3.5 rules didn’t work that way (they didn’t), and then just changing the rules for their system. So instead of clear rules that say how things work, we have unclear rules that try to take 3.5 rules and imply that they always said what Paizo wants them to have said (even though they don’t). I do not know why this is the approach they took (but then, it isn’t that unusual for Paizo).

Monks are a bad class. They are very poorly designed, and they function very poorly in practice at many, many tables. Their abilities are an antisynergistic hodgepodge of tightly-limited effects and weak approaches to combat. The unchained monk is better, the qinggong monk is better, but ultimately they still leave a lot to be desired. Natural weapons are likewise a mess, and often cause problems of their own. My recommendation is really to just avoid both. A wise, mystical, bestial fighter could be a druid, and be a very similar character, just better, than trying to do the same with monk.

Answer 3

I asked the same question, and the consensus is no. Granted, I plan on using a more overpowered race and We are a higher level, but Flurry of Blows is the Full round action, while using your iterative attacks and natural attacks are something separate.

If you are seriously wanting a fully unarmed/natural attack character, grab Umonk for a level or two, then go fighter. The insanity that can come from this is huge. Also, I would like to note that if you are going to take this route, take note of the Advanced Weapon Training FEAT, as that will be extremely helpful in this regard. Other than that, you'll want Feral Combat Training and Multiattack (Full Round Attack, which would make your natural attacks secondary, but lessen the -5 to a -2).