Starts to come online at Level 3: Barbarian - Path of the Beast's Form of the Beast feature reads, "Until the rage ends, you manifest a natural weapon. It counts as a simple melee weapon for you". You can attack 2 times per round at this point using only the "claw" natural weapons. Level 4: Feat: Dual Wielder, key focus on point 2, "You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren't light." You can attack 3 time at this point using only the "claw" natural weapons (2x action attack and 1x bonus action attack). Level 5: Extra attack
Bonus action: Off-hand Natural Claw weapon 1d6 +2 Rage (remember there's no STR MOD added here since we don't have the "Two-Weapon Fighting" fighting style)
Downside to this build is that you won't be getting a lot of benefits from any +1 magic weapons that you come across.
Variations:
Use Custom lineage for a feat that gets you the +1 in STR for more accuracy and damage early on.
Use Tortle and re-jig stats so that you have 13 INT to multiclass to Blood Hunter for Base 17 AC +1 from Dual Wielder and +1 from Lycan Blood Hunter's Transformation Multiclassing to Blood Hunter of at least 2 levels gives you access to the Two-Weapon Fighting Fighting style that's been missing this entire time plus the Crimson Rite bonus Damage
There are lots of ways to optimize the Path of the Beast Claws for damage that are thankfully not the usual GWM/PAM build. It is a large part of why I like Path of the Beast.
However there are two potential RaW problems with this approach. First is that Dual Wielder only applies to weapons the character is "wielding". Since you do not hold your claws I have seen it argued that this means they do not meet the "wielding" requirement. This leads to the second and more important problem. The Two-Weapon Fighting rules require that you make an attack with a weapon you are holding in one hand and grants the ability to make a bonus action attack with a weapon you are holding in your other hand. This "holding" requirement is why you can't use Two-Weapon Fighting with Unarmed Strikes and the PotB claws runs into the same issue.
It is still possible to benefit from Two-Weapon Fighting and PotB claws at the same time. However it requires using two manufactured weapons to perform Two-Weapon Fighting and juggling one of them so you can also make your claw attacks.
There are other ways of weaponizing your bonus action to consider too. Longtooth Shifter is one way and with Monsters of the Multiverse it got improved so you can make your bite attack when you Shift. This avoids the extra run up time that Order of the Lycan has. Also your number of Shifts per day scales at almost exactly the same rate as your Rages. Lizardfolk also get a way to make a bite attack as a bonus action but it is very limited.
This is a weird one but Crossbow Expert also technically works. The issue is now you have to mix Dex based attacks with Str based attacks. This means your Rage bonus damage and Reckless attacks are less impactful.
Probably the next best way after Longtooth Shifter is multuclassing into Monk. Since your claws count as Simple Weapons and they don't have any weapon properties they also count as Monk Weapons. So while you can't use your claws themselves to make Unarmed Strikes, you can still use Marital Arts to be making 4 attacks a round by level 6 and 5 attacks a round by level 7. This is very MAD though and works best with a race that has natural armor and a natural weapon that can make Unarmed Strikes like Tortle or Lizardfolk.
Completely doesn’t work. You either make a single attack with a weapon in each hand (primary attack followed by bonus action attack from two weapon fighting) OR you make an attack with each of the 2 claws (primary attack followed by bonus attack with other hand). You only get one bonus action per turn and the attack action only lets you make a single attack unless you have the extra attack feature. Even then at 5th level a martial can only make 3 attacks without extra abilities and feats. It is possible to get a fourth attack but it uses your reaction and requires the enemy to provoke an attack of opportunity.
Completely doesn’t work. You either make a single attack with a weapon in each hand (primary attack followed by bonus action attack from two weapon fighting) OR you make an attack with each of the 2 claws (primary attack followed by bonus attack with other hand). You only get one bonus action per turn and the attack action only lets you make a single attack unless you have the extra attack feature. Even then at 5th level a martial can only make 3 attacks without extra abilities and feats. It is possible to get a fourth attack but it uses your reaction and requires the enemy to provoke an attack of opportunity.
Here is the exact wording from the Form of the Beast feature regarding the Claw option: "Once on each of your turns when you attack with a claw using the Attack action, you can make one additional claw attack as part of the same action."
Ahh that snuck in there, I thought the second claw attack was a bonus action like the monk gets with martial arts. I didn’t realise it was a free attack.
RAW there are no problems combining Path of the Beast Claws with Flurry of Blows. Flurry of Blows only has three requirements to use:
You must make the Attack Action as your action this turn.
You must use your bonus action to perform the Flurry of Blows immediately after completing your Attack Action.
You must spend one ki point to perform Flurry of Blows.
I think a Beast Barb/Monk multiclass has potential but I haven't ever had the chance to play one in a campaign. Path of the Beast opens up a lot of non-standard builds for Barbarian that can do good damage if you can find a way to attack with your Bonus Action. As far as Barbarians go nothing beats a GWM+PAM Zealot in damage but Beast can get real close while allowing a free hand and/or a Small race if you want.
RAW there are no problems combining Path of the Beast Claws with Flurry of Blows.
Depends what you mean by combining; you can certainly use Martial Arts or Flurry of Blows after making your three claw attacks if you wish, but you can't use Flurry of Blows to attack using the claws themselves, as they're not unarmed strikes (they're natural weapons). This differs from racial natural weapons which usually say you can make unarmed strikes with them.
So those extra attacks would be regular bludgeoning unarmed strikes, so they'll deal slightly less damage (you need five levels in Monk to get the same d6 damage dice).
Yes, Path of the Beast Claws work with Martial Arts and Flurry of Blows in the same way that a Quarterstaff does. You can't use the Claws to make the Unarmed Strikes themselves but you can use them during the normal Attack Action.
And if you want to increase your Unarmed Strike damage there are a number of ways to do this. Picking up more levels of Monk is one way, there are also feats, fighting styles, and races options you can use.
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Race: Doesn't Matter
Stats: 15 STR, 14 DEX, 15 CON, 08 INT, 10 WIS, 08 CHA
Starts to come online at Level 3: Barbarian - Path of the Beast's Form of the Beast feature reads, "Until the rage ends, you manifest a natural weapon. It counts as a simple melee weapon for you".
You can attack 2 times per round at this point using only the "claw" natural weapons.
Level 4: Feat: Dual Wielder, key focus on point 2, "You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren't light."
You can attack 3 time at this point using only the "claw" natural weapons (2x action attack and 1x bonus action attack).
Level 5: Extra attack
Downside to this build is that you won't be getting a lot of benefits from any +1 magic weapons that you come across.
Variations:
Multiclassing to Blood Hunter of at least 2 levels gives you access to the Two-Weapon Fighting Fighting style that's been missing this entire time plus the Crimson Rite bonus Damage
There are lots of ways to optimize the Path of the Beast Claws for damage that are thankfully not the usual GWM/PAM build. It is a large part of why I like Path of the Beast.
However there are two potential RaW problems with this approach. First is that Dual Wielder only applies to weapons the character is "wielding". Since you do not hold your claws I have seen it argued that this means they do not meet the "wielding" requirement. This leads to the second and more important problem. The Two-Weapon Fighting rules require that you make an attack with a weapon you are holding in one hand and grants the ability to make a bonus action attack with a weapon you are holding in your other hand. This "holding" requirement is why you can't use Two-Weapon Fighting with Unarmed Strikes and the PotB claws runs into the same issue.
It is still possible to benefit from Two-Weapon Fighting and PotB claws at the same time. However it requires using two manufactured weapons to perform Two-Weapon Fighting and juggling one of them so you can also make your claw attacks.
There are other ways of weaponizing your bonus action to consider too. Longtooth Shifter is one way and with Monsters of the Multiverse it got improved so you can make your bite attack when you Shift. This avoids the extra run up time that Order of the Lycan has. Also your number of Shifts per day scales at almost exactly the same rate as your Rages. Lizardfolk also get a way to make a bite attack as a bonus action but it is very limited.
This is a weird one but Crossbow Expert also technically works. The issue is now you have to mix Dex based attacks with Str based attacks. This means your Rage bonus damage and Reckless attacks are less impactful.
Probably the next best way after Longtooth Shifter is multuclassing into Monk. Since your claws count as Simple Weapons and they don't have any weapon properties they also count as Monk Weapons. So while you can't use your claws themselves to make Unarmed Strikes, you can still use Marital Arts to be making 4 attacks a round by level 6 and 5 attacks a round by level 7. This is very MAD though and works best with a race that has natural armor and a natural weapon that can make Unarmed Strikes like Tortle or Lizardfolk.
Completely doesn’t work. You either make a single attack with a weapon in each hand (primary attack followed by bonus action attack from two weapon fighting) OR you make an attack with each of the 2 claws (primary attack followed by bonus attack with other hand). You only get one bonus action per turn and the attack action only lets you make a single attack unless you have the extra attack feature. Even then at 5th level a martial can only make 3 attacks without extra abilities and feats. It is possible to get a fourth attack but it uses your reaction and requires the enemy to provoke an attack of opportunity.
Here is the exact wording from the Form of the Beast feature regarding the Claw option: "Once on each of your turns when you attack with a claw using the Attack action, you can make one additional claw attack as part of the same action."
Here is a link to the full text of the class feature of you are curious: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/tcoe/barbarian#FormoftheBeast
Ahh that snuck in there, I thought the second claw attack was a bonus action like the monk gets with martial arts. I didn’t realise it was a free attack.
What happens if you're multi-classed as a Monk at higher levels? Can you Flurry of Blows for 5 total attacks? Or is that crossing too many streams?
RAW there are no problems combining Path of the Beast Claws with Flurry of Blows.
Flurry of Blows only has three requirements to use:
I think a Beast Barb/Monk multiclass has potential but I haven't ever had the chance to play one in a campaign. Path of the Beast opens up a lot of non-standard builds for Barbarian that can do good damage if you can find a way to attack with your Bonus Action. As far as Barbarians go nothing beats a GWM+PAM Zealot in damage but Beast can get real close while allowing a free hand and/or a Small race if you want.
Depends what you mean by combining; you can certainly use Martial Arts or Flurry of Blows after making your three claw attacks if you wish, but you can't use Flurry of Blows to attack using the claws themselves, as they're not unarmed strikes (they're natural weapons). This differs from racial natural weapons which usually say you can make unarmed strikes with them.
So those extra attacks would be regular bludgeoning unarmed strikes, so they'll deal slightly less damage (you need five levels in Monk to get the same d6 damage dice).
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
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Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
Yes, Path of the Beast Claws work with Martial Arts and Flurry of Blows in the same way that a Quarterstaff does. You can't use the Claws to make the Unarmed Strikes themselves but you can use them during the normal Attack Action.
And if you want to increase your Unarmed Strike damage there are a number of ways to do this. Picking up more levels of Monk is one way, there are also feats, fighting styles, and races options you can use.