Can an Eldritch Knight bond with a natural weapon?

Question

Let's say an Eldritch Knight (lvl 8) casts Alter Self and gains claws as natural weapons, could he then create a Weapon Bond with his claws?

Alternatively, could you be a Minotaur race then Weapon Bond with your horns?

Relevant Rules

Melee and Ranged Attacks

The most common actions that a monster will take in combat are melee and ranged attacks. These can be spell attacks or weapon attacks where "weapon" might be a manufactured item or a natural weapon such as a claw or tail spike. (MM p10)

Weapon Bond

At 3rd level, you learn a ritual that creates a magical bond between yourself and one weapon... Once you have bonded a weapon to yourself, you can't be disarmed of that weapon unless you are incapacitated. If it is on the same plane of existence, you can summon that weapon as a bonus action on your turn, causing it to teleport instantly to your hand. (PHB p75)

Alter Self; Natural Weapons

You grow claws, fangs, spines, horns, or a different natural weapon of your choice. Your unarmed strikes deal 1d6 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, as appropriate to the natural weapon you chose, and you are proficient with your unarmed strikes. Finally, the natural weapon is magic and you have a +1 bonus to the attack and damage rolls you make using it. (PHB 211)

Answer 1

Yes, but why?

A weapon in 5e is defined in the basic rules under the monsters section as

A manufactured item or a natural weapon such as a claw or tail spike used to make attacks.

The Weapon Bond ritual has the following requirements:

• Requires 1 hour

• Target must be a weapon

  • A weapon that is a part of your body is still a weapon

• The weapon must be within your reach for the entire ritual

  • A body part would have to be in a pretty awkward place for you to not be able to reach it

• You must be able to touch the weapon at the end of the ritual

  • See previous

So you certainly could bond a natural weapon... but why? You already can't be disarmed of natural weapons, and since they're part of your body, they won't ever be far enough away from you to summon.

As for temporary natural weapons gained from Alter Self, they would disappear as soon as (or just before, depending on interpretation) you finished the ritual, rendering the ritual pointless. The ritual definitely wouldn't allow you to regain the natural weapons as a bonus action; They no longer exist when the spell ends.

Answer 2

No.

First, as with everything, pushing the limits of wording or definitions in the rules to gain some kind of advantage is subject to the approval of your DM. It's a fundamental part of D&D as a game that the rules are incomplete and in some places ambiguous or unspecified, and the DM's job includes navigating those ambiguities when they arise in order to create a fun experience for all of the players (including themselves). If your DM wants to let your Eldritch Knight attune to an ephemeral body part, great. But it's safe to expect that they won't.

Second, "weapon" is used in at least two senses in the 5e rules.

• "weapon" in its usual English meaning of "a tool for fighting"; it's a category of equipment, with several sub-categories (martial weapons, ranged weapons, etc). One key feature of weapons in this sense is that characters can become proficient with them. As with many English words, it is also used in many semi-metaphorical senses, where it may via modification or context refer to things that are not literally weapons under this definition.

• "weapon" as a category of attacks, to differentiate from "spell". A "melee weapon attack" may not involve weapons (a punch is such an attack), but it's distinct from a "melee spell attack".

So, what's a "natural weapon"? My reading is that a "natural weapon" is a weapon (in the first sense) insofar as it can be used to make weapon (in the second sense) attacks that do damage beyond what a regular unarmed attack would do. However, "natural weapon" is not a weapon in the sense that it constitutes a piece of equipment. The descriptions of the traits for player character races which provide natural weapons support this:

Minotaur:

Your horns are natural melee weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes.

Centaur:

Your hooves are natural melee weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes.

Tabaxi:

your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes.

Lizardfolk:

Your fanged maw is a natural weapon, which you can use to make unarmed strikes.

And, of course, the wording of alter self uses the same pattern:

Your unarmed strikes deal 1d6 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, as appropriate to the natural weapon you chose, and you are proficient with your unarmed strike.

In all cases, attacking with a natural weapon is an unarmed strike — the weapon is not a piece of equipment that the character wields. Alter self makes this even more explicit: the spell gives you proficiency with your unarmed strike, not with the natural weapons it creates. If natural weapons were fully "weapons" in the general sense, you would need to be proficient with them (not just your unarmed strike) to use your proficiency bonus on attacks.

Compare to the language of the Weapon Bond feature:

The weapon must be within your reach throughout the ritual, at the conclusion of which you touch the weapon and forge the bond.

While a natural weapon would meet these criteria, the rule reads as if it assumes that the weapon is a piece of equipment separate from you. My inference is that the intent of the Weapon Bond feature is to bond to a piece of equipment, and not a body part.

Answer 3

Not the way you're thinking.

If you're a minotaur, you don't need to bond with your horns. They're already permanently bound to you. You can't be disarmed of them except by major trauma, which would render them useless as weapons anyway (what are you going to do, glue them back on?).

If you're using Alter Self or something to grow temporary natural claws, they're anatomically bound to you for as long as the spell lasts, and then they cease to exist. Weapon Bond can't summon them back because they have to be on the same plane of existence, and they're not anywhere.

If you're trying to acquire a monster part as a bound weapon, do that.

Since the real goal here is to get a manticore's stinger and use it as your Eldritch Knight weapon, the direct solution is to be an adventurer, hunt down a manticore, chop off its stinger, and use it as a spear. You can definitely Weapon Bond with that. This is the time-honored way to get unique, iconic hero gear (look at Hercules and his lion skin) and serves the important function of advertising what a bad dude you are.

Answer 4

Yes, but no

A natural weapon is a weapon. So in theory anything that "targets" a weapon can target a natural weapon unless it says otherwise.

The problem is that Alter Self only lasts for 1 hour. And the bonding ritual requires an hour.

Even if you had a way to extend the duration of Alter Self or the DM allowed the ritual to complete a split second before Alter Self expired...once the Alter Self ends, your natural weapon simply doesn't exist any more.

Now, the weapon bond feature doesn't exactly say what happens if the weapon you are bonded to ceases to exist somehow, but its reasonable to assume that the bond would also be broken. So no "teleporting a non-existing natural weapon" I'm afraid (which doesn't make much physical sense either).

Answer 5

No, but for different reasons than stated in other answers.

I agree with Marq's answer, but there's another angle that he's missing, and that's bonding with part of an object.

Natural weapons are part of a larger whole. If you were to break off a horn or claw and bond with that, then yes, I don't see why that wouldn't work. (If you break it off your own body which was created using Alter Self, it will eventually cease to exist, but that's besides the point.)

But the idea of bonding to part of a larger object sets a very dangerous precedent. For the sake of argument, let's say you find a sleeping Minotaur and manage to weapon bond with his horn. Then, once that's done, you summon the horn to your hand. You've just broken off a Minotaur's horn. That may not seem so unreasonable, but if this is possible, why can't this be applied to anything? Improvised weapons are weapons, and improvised weapons can be anything! Stuck in a prison cell? Just weapon bond with a couple of the bars! When the guards aren't looking, summon those bad boys to your hands, slip through the gap you've created, and beat that guard to death with them! Trying to destroy the One Ring? It's been described as "The Weapon Of The Enemy"! Why not just bond with half of it and summon it to you? Boom: One Ring cut in two, roll credits!

These examples are sort of ridiculous, but I think they illustrate my point in terms of bonding with parts of an object, but also just with how 'weapon' is defined in general. The horn may be more accurately described as 'being used as a weapon', but is not itself a 'Weapon' in game terms. In game terms, that horn is part of a 'Minotaur' until such time as it is severed from said Minotaur.