Natural Weapons, Maturity

[Roger Smith]

Do physical traits which are clearly stated to be owned by your character in your Character Profile such as - for example - claws, horns and a tail (which applies to my character) need to be purchased as moves to be used? I figure the answer is yes seeing as they are technically a weapon, but don't want to assume and waste OM if it's not necessary.

You assume correctly, my friend. They'd need to be a move to have any real effectiveness.

You worded it as "to have any real effectiveness". So I have to ask; can they be used at all until I have purchased the move? Sorry if I'm coming off as hard-headed or something, its just that particular wording leads me to believe they can still have some use and are just "dulled". So a claw strike would just be as though I had no claws and struck someone with my fingertips, a horn strike would just basically result in the same way as a regular headbutt and a tail strike would... that's the one that mostly matters; can I use my tail in a fighting scenario or? Does my tail work at all?

Again, sorry if I come off as slow here. I might just be misunderstanding things.

No, no worries at all, I get where you're coming from.

You're pretty much right on all counts. Without dedicated moves for things like claws, or your horns or tail, they don't have any major impact when used. It would fall under the "incidental weapons" thing mentioned in the rules. For your claws and horns, you COULD still use them, they'd just be grossly ineffective, as if your ATK was much lower than it is, and be generally ineffective in a more traditional sense like you described.

Your tail....you could technically still use it to smack people with or something, it just wouldn't be effective. At all. And forget about things like grasping or holding an opponent with it in any way.

Keep in mind that this wouldn't prevent you from doing such things from an RP fodder perspective, only in a competitive situaiton.