I've done a lot of reading on the Paizo boards as of late, and this seems to have always been something of a hot-button issue. So let's consider an example scenario.
For this example scenario, we will assume two near identical 4th level Alchemists. They're both Changelings with two claw attacks for 1d4 damage and the Feral Mutagen discovery. The only difference is that one of the characters has taken the Vestigial Arms discovery twice, once at 2nd level, and once at 3rd via Extra Discovery.
Now that we've established the example characters let's look at a combat.
We'll assume that both characters have imbibed a mutagen. Feral Mutagen grants both characters two 1d6 claw attacks and a 1d8 bite.
Consider for a moment, that any character can perform unarmed strikes with punches, kicks, headbutts, even without IUS, and so too can they use the TWF rules
Because the Alchemist without VAs with Claw/Claw/Bite can do an attack routine of Unarmed Strike/Unarmed Strike/Claw/Claw/Bite, an alchemist with two vestigial arms can do an attack routine of Weapon/Weapon/Claw/Claw/Bite, or even Claw(1d4)/Claw(1d4)/Claw(1d6)/Claw(1d6)/Bite if they could somehow choose to have feral mutagen's claws be added to their VAs, but in that case they couldn't have Unarmed Strike/Unarmed Strike/Claw/Claw/Claw/Claw/Bite because then they'd have 7 attacks, which is more than the 5 attacks that the character without vestigial limbs grants, because vestigial arms can't give you 'extra' attacks over what a character without them could get. This is supported by SKR's Post elsewhere.
I see little reason why weapon/weapon/claw/claw/bite would be particularly imbalanced, with it's -2/-2/-7/-7/-7 penalties. While a worried GM could rule that attack cycle of Claw/Claw/Claw/Claw/Bite is non-option due to the player being unable to choose where the claws from Feral Mutagen Manifest, they still wouldn't have more than the 5 attacks than the non-VA alchemist, they'd simply have more options as to what those attacks could be, rather than simply having to choose from Iteratives or TWF attacks including Unarmed Strike/Armor Spikes/Barbezu Beard/Blade Boot, they could use a pair of short swords, or perhaps a more tactical choice like a reach weapon. Thus ends my arguments about crunch.
On more fluff related matters, I've been thinking about what sort of problems having so many arms could cause a person. Certainly you would have to have most of your armor and clothing specially made, which is easier said than done. I don't know of many non-alchemists who might tolerate such drastic body modifications either. In fact, I'd probably expect to be chased out of town by an angry mob wielding torches and pitchforks. On the upside, I could get a large coat and use the disguise skill to try and pass myself off as a pair of halflings, one on top of the other's shoulders.
While the rules and FAQ's on vestigial arms are pretty vague, they do specifically say that you can't use extra attacks with the arms, even if granted by a claw
On more fluff related matters, I've been thinking about what sort of problems having so many arms could cause a person. Certainly you would have to have most of your armor and clothing specially made, which is easier said than done. I don't know of many non-alchemists who might tolerate such drastic body modifications either. In fact, I'd probably expect to be chased out of town by an angry mob wielding torches and pitchforks. On the upside, I could get a large coat and use the disguise skill to try and pass myself off as a pair of halflings, one on top of the other's shoulders.
Ive seen this brought down on a munchkin before...it was quite funny
Generally, I tend to go by the logic that, if you couldn't do it with a dagger, you couldn't do it with claws in this type of situation. It is why I tend to prefer to use the term 'natural weapon' over 'natural attack', since it reminds people that it isn't some kind of magic damage multiplier.
I mean, the argument of this build, as brought up in other threads, is that while the arms would be crippled and useless if they held a dagger during your full attack, you can make a perfectly good attack when it is unarmed? So, the way I interpret this is that "no extra attacks" means "no extra attacks". No amount of apple/orange trickery with kicks is getting around that. I'll only acknowledge the vestigial arms as having an attack when you sacrifice the attacks from one of your regular arms.
Also, any GM would be out of their mind to allow a player to go from TWF and 'all secondary' penalties to the complete lack of penalties of 'all primary attacks'. You suddenly go from x3 accumulative STR and power attack damage, spread over 5 hits that barely have a snowball's chance in hell of hitting, to x5 bonus damage all at full attack bonus? Anyone that can get that past a literate, sober, sane GM is someone I want as my lawyer.
I actually think I can simplify these arguments further.
The alchemist gains a new arm (left or right) on his torso. The arm is fully under his control and cannot be concealed except with magic or bulky clothing. The arm does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round, though the arm can wield a weapon and make attacks as part of the alchemist’s attack routine (using two-weapon fighting). The arm can manipulate or hold items as well as the alchemist’s original arms (for example, allowing the alchemist to use one hand to wield a weapon, another hand to hold a potion, and the third hand to throw a bomb). The arm has its own “hand” and “ring” magic item slots (though the alchemist can still only wear two rings and two hand magic items at a time).
The bolded text, the source of thousands of posts of arguments, is only an exception to the general rule that if a creature has multiple arms, it can make multiple manufactured weapon attacks.
For example, let's look at the High Girallon
One of it's full attack routine is:
Melee mwk throwing axe +16/+11/+6 (1d8+5), 3 mwk throwing axes +16 (1d8+2), bite +11 (1d8+2)
Breaking it's attack bonuses down, we see it has +16 (+12 base +5 STR +1 weapon focus -2 for multiweapon fighting with light weapons.) In bold, it has the standard iteratives any creature using a manufactured weapon can get. In italics, however, we see that the Girallon gets Three offhand attacks at it's highest attack bonus. This is because it has four arms. It follows the general rule that having extra arms lets you take extra attacks with manufactured weapons. This is the only difference between a Vestigial Arm and a 'Real' arm. Therefore, these arms can wield weapons, hold objects, etc. just as well as any other arm could, and if you can give the Vestigial Arms claws, you can even use them to make natural attacks. It is NOT the Vestigial Arms giving you these natural attacks, it is whatever you have used to put claws on them.
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Alchemist, Tentacle/Vestigial Arm: What does "extra attacks" mean for these discoveries?It means "extra," as in "more than you would be able to make if you didn't have that discovery."
For example, if you're low-level alchemist who uses two-weapon fighting, you can normally make two attacks per round (one with each weapon). If you take the tentacle discovery, on your turn you can make
* two weapon attacks but no tentacle attack,
* a weapon attack with your left hand plus a secondary tentacle attack, or
* a weapon attack with your right hand plus a secondary tentacle attack.
At no time can you make a left hand weapon attack, a right hand weapon attack, and a tentacle attack on the same turn because the tentacle discovery says it "does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round." This language is calling out that the tentacle is not a standard natural weapon and doesn't follow the standard rules for using natural weapons (which would normally allow you to make the natural weapon attack in addition to your other attacks).Likewise, if you instead took the vestigial arm discovery and put a weapon in that arm's hand, on your turn you can make
* a weapon attack with your left hand and one with your right hand,
* a weapon attack with your right hand and one with your vestigial arm, or
* a weapon attack with your left hand and one with your vestigial arm,
At no time can you make a left hand weapon attack, a right hand weapon attack, and a vestigial hand weapon attack on the same turn because the vestigial arm discovery says it "does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round."
The exact same restrictions would apply if your race had claws or you had some other ability to add claws to your limbs: the text of both discoveries says they do not give you any extra attacks per round, whether used as natural weapons, wielding manufactured weapons, or adding natural weapons to a limb that didn't originally have natural weapons.Remember that these two discoveries do not have any level requirements, and therefore are not especially powerful; permanently adding additional attacks per round is beyond the scope of a discovery available to 2nd-level alchemists.
—Pathfinder Design Team, 11/06/13
So, no extra attacks means no extra attacks. Not even if you have some ability that grants you a natural weapon that you place on the vestigial arms. You still can't use it in conjunction while wielding two weapons or wielding a two handed weapon.
...
Alchemist, Tentacle/Vestigial Arm: What does "extra attacks" mean for these discoveries?It means "extra," as in "more than you would be able to make if you didn't have that discovery."
For example, if you're low-level alchemist who uses two-weapon fighting, you can normally make two attacks per round (one with each weapon). If you take the tentacle discovery, on your turn you can make
* two weapon attacks but no tentacle attack,
* a weapon attack with your left hand plus a secondary tentacle attack, or
* a weapon attack with your right hand plus a secondary tentacle attack.
At no time can you make a left hand weapon attack, a right hand weapon attack, and a tentacle attack on the same turn because the tentacle discovery says it "does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round." This language is calling out that the tentacle is not a standard natural weapon and doesn't follow the standard rules for using natural weapons (which would normally allow you to make the natural weapon attack in addition to your other attacks).Likewise, if you instead took the vestigial arm discovery and put a weapon in that arm's hand, on your turn you can make
* a weapon attack with your left hand and one with your right hand,
* a weapon attack with your right hand and one with your vestigial arm, or
* a weapon attack with your left hand and one with your vestigial arm,
At no time can you make a left hand weapon attack, a right hand weapon attack, and a vestigial hand weapon attack on the same turn because the vestigial arm discovery says it "does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round."
The exact same restrictions would apply if your race had claws or you had some other ability to add claws to your limbs: the text of both discoveries says they do not give you any extra attacks per round, whether used as natural weapons, wielding manufactured weapons, or adding natural weapons to a limb that didn't originally have natural weapons.Remember that these two discoveries do not have any level requirements, and therefore are not especially powerful; permanently adding additional attacks per round is beyond the scope of a discovery available to 2nd-level alchemists.
—Pathfinder Design Team, 11/06/13
Admittedly, feral mutagen adds extra ways to attack...but that could be done anyway with creative race/class choices at the level anyway...plus this is nitpicking.
Basically- finally! I had gotten sick of the builds people tried to throw with this argument.
Mill beat bbt to the punch and point out I can make 2 claws and 2 boot blade attacks in a round. The bite would add in regardless so how is 4 attacks > 4 attacks?
Claxon, you are correctly reading the plain language of the FAQ. However, that's not how it appears SKR intended that to be read. One of the issues that lead to the FAQ was whether Clawx4/Bite would be allowed with Feral Mutagen. On first release, it appeared that no, it wouldn't be. As you said, "no extra attacks" means "no extra attacks", whether from natural weapons or otherwise.
However, SKR then subsequently stated that what matters is that your number of attacks after having taken Vestigial Arms can not exceed the number of attacks available before having taken Vestigial Arms. He then explicitly stated that you do not track attacks. That means that since a 1st level Tengu, for instance, can make 5 attacks (claw/claw/bite/Unarmed Strike (kick)/Unarmed Strike (kick) (or use a boot blade or some other non-handed weapon, if you'd rather), that same Tengu actually could make 4 claw attacks and a bite after taking two Vestigial Arms and Feral Mutagen.
Many people, including myself, attempted to clarify if this was actually the intent, since the FAQ language and SKR's subsequent clarification tend to contradict each other. It was never really answered. You are simply supposed to count the number of attacks possible before and after Vestigial Arms and not track where the attacks are coming from. If the after number does not exceed the before number, regardless of the source of the attack, then it's fine.
The odd little result to this is that the exact same logic can be applied to attacking with a dagger in all four hands (including the two Vestigial Arms), which everybody and their siblings understood was not supposed to be allowed. But, if all you're doing is tracking the number of attacks regardless of source, I cannot see how dagger x 4 is not allowed if claw x 4 is. And claw x 4 is explicitly allowed according to SKR's posts in that thread.
Clarification was requested more than once. The final response was, basically, "If you still don't get it, play a different character."
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With all due respect to SKR, and I do respect the man's word dearly and find that I agree with almost everything he says. On this particular point his "clarifications" only served to muddy the point and I think the easier and more sensible way to run it is to the letter of the FAQ as presented.
I believe that if you couldn't make the attack sequence with the vestigial arms you can't make the attack sequence with them. The munckins will continue to try to use SKR's posts to disagree with that, and thats fine. I'm not a player in their games nor am I their GM so it ultimately plays no role in my Pathfinder experience, but I will abide the FAQ as written.
Which seems consistent with the normal meaning of "no extra attacks".
Down the path of counting the numbers of attacks madness lies.
With all due respect to SKR, and I do respect the man's word dearly and find that I agree with almost everything he says. On this particular point his "clarifications" only served to muddy the point and I think the easier and more sensible way to run it is to the letter of the FAQ as presented.
I believe that if you couldn't make the attack sequence with the vestigial arms you can't make the attack sequence with them. The munckins will continue to try to use SKR's posts to disagree with that, and thats fine. I'm not a player in their games nor am I their GM so it ultimately plays no role in my Pathfinder experience, but I will abide the FAQ as written.
Which seems consistent with the normal meaning of "no extra attacks".
Down the path of counting the numbers of attacks madness lies.
I don't disagree with you at all. The only way I think it makes sense is to limit the character to the same number of natural attacks before and after Vestigial Arms. Similarly, limit the same number of manufactured attacks. You have different options available, but the numbers and types are still limited. That's the way the FAQ language seems to work. That's what I'm going to go with.
If you limit it to the same number of manufactured attacks as before and the same number of natural attacks as before possessing the vestigial arms then it works out pretty much as I have indicated.
The only difference being that while the Tengu without the vestigial arms could bite/claw/claw/unarmed strike(kick)/unarmed strike(kick) he could now bite/claw/claw/dagger/dagger with vestigial arms since unarmed strikes count as manufactured attacks. Which honestly is pretty much effectively the same to me.
Though, I do find the original sequence to just be a cheesy way of getting additional attacks and still wouldn't allow it in my home games. But that is certainly a house rule on my part.
Basically a standard PC has a "primary hand" and an "off-hand." You can designate different weapons as primary or off hand such as the weapon in your hand, the boot blade on your foot, or the unarmed strike you make with your forehead. Adding vestigial arms gives you more options but not any more "primary" or "off-hands." Natural weapons do not require a "hand's" worth of effort. That's why you can have four claw attacks but not make four dagger attacks. It's not exactly how I would run it but seems to be the official ruling as far I as can make out.