[Overbyte]

I searched through previous topics and all I found was a consensus (clarification) for Ghoul critters, that critters can use their normal physical skills for astral combat.

If  a PC is a Ghoul at char creation (or becomes one later on) do they use Astral Combat rules?
There are two parts to this.
1) What Skill & Stat do they use for their attack pool?  Unarmed + Agility or Astral Combat + Willpower?
2) What stat do they use for damage? Strength or Charisma?

On of the main issue here is that Ghouls have low Charisma so they will be weak on damage even if they were to use Astral Combat skill. PC ghouls would have to have both high strength and high charisma if they wanted to fight both ways. Kinda a bummer.

I'm tempted to just allow them to use the better of the two.
The whole "Astral Combat is a different thing" works for me with regards to mages projecting and moving around at the speed of thought, but not so much for people that are just perceiving or dual natured.

[Quatar]

Astrally  perceiving  and  dual-natured  charac-
ters use their physical attributes and skills to fight op -
ponents with a physical body, and their Astral Combat
+ Willpower to fight wholly astral entities. Astrally pro -
jecting characters use their mental attributes in place of
physical ones (see Astral Attributes Table) along with
the Astral Combat skill.

1) Ghouls are dual-natured, so, they'd use Unarmed+Agility vs. other dual-natured enemies, and Astral Combat+Will vs. projecting mages and unmanifested spirits etc.
2) Same here, Strength vs dual natured enemies, Charisma vs astral enemies. (It says "use their phys. attributes to fight" not just "to attack" or so, so they'd be using it for the damage too)

[Kuirem]

There is an exception for Natural Weapon :

A dual-natured critter with a melee Natural Weapon can use this power against astral targets that are within its reach. Use the critter’s normal Unarmed Combat skill and physical Damage Value for this attack

I don't see a reason for it to work any different for a PC Ghoul. So against Dual-Natured it is Unarmed + AGI as mentioned, with or without the damage from the natural weapon (can use this power) and against projecting mages/unmanifested spirit they can either use Unarmed + AGI with their Natural Weapon or a "classic" astral attack with Astral Combat + WIL.

[Jack_Spade]

Which is pretty much necessary, or astral security through hell hounds and basilisks would be pretty ineffective.

Also technically a shapechanged mage with active astral perception would also be able to use the natural weapons of his new form to fight purely astral beings.

[Quatar]

Oh didn't know about the Natural Weapon part. Yes I agree, that should apply to everyone's unarmed combat as well. And yes, I suppose what Jack_Spade said about shapechanged mages applies as well.