Creature weapon

From NWNWiki

A creature weapon is nominally the claws, bite, sting, etc. of a creature, which are represented in the game by the items found in the creature item blueprint category in the Toolset. These items are typically called "bite", "claw", "gore", and "slam", indicating slashing damage, piercing-slashing damage, piercing damage, and bludgeoning damage, respectively. However, the possibilities are not limited to those items, as builders are free to designate almost any weapon as a creature weapon.

Every creature has three inventory slots for its creature weapons, two of them called "claw" and one called "bite" (not to be confused with the creature items of the same names). If a creature has no weapon in the main hand slot, then the creature will use its creature weapon(s) for combat. It is only when the creature has no creature weapons that it will resort to a true unarmed strike. (This distinction is important in some circumstances, such as when weapon-specific feats like improved critical come into play.) When creature weapons are used for combat, most attacks will make use of one of the "claw" slots, with the remainder using the "bite". Which attack is used is random and does not depend on the number of attacks per round. In particular, if a creature has three creature weapons, all three will potentially be used in combat, even if the creature has but one attack per round.

The creature slots have different functionality than the weapon slots. While both can be used in combat, items in the creature slots cannot be disarmed. This is because the creature slots are considered innate abilities, even if the actual item in the slot happens to be, for example, a spear. Creature weapons also cannot be changed by players or Dungeon Masters; they are set by builders and can only be changed via scripting.

As these slots are intended to represent natural weapons, most animals make use of these slots, but few humans and demi-humans do.