How many attacks does Kasatha get


Rules Questions


I know this has come up a few times now, and I would love to get a real answer from someone with official sources and clout even.

I know many people are adament about only getting two attacks at most and requiring the upper end of the Two-Weapon Fighting chain to gain more.

However, that is a generic rule, and we are talking about a specific ruling about a very specific race using a very specific racial trait/ability IE multiple arms.

I know standard PCs only get two attacks, but all those races have two arms and the rules normally applied are specifically for the two armed default.

Now we come to Multi-Weapon Fighting which stats that it replaces Two-Weapon Fighting for races with multiple arms. It also talks about reducing the penalties for fighting with multiple arms. And while this is a Monster Feat it is also a standard Combat Feat which is possible to be taken by PC, making this a PC Feat.

Now I would love for a dev to get involved and give us the clear cut answer to this question.


There is no rule of "PC's" only getting two attacks, and if you read the other post that rule has no support. The rule is for "creatures" with 2 hands, and it just so happens that most PC's only have two hands. A kasatha PC, and a kasatha NPC follow the exact same rules barring GM fiat.

If it matters to you the monsters in the book also go by how I say RAI works.

PS: Asking for a dev to answer does not make them answer, and they actually don't like it.


I didn't say I expected them to answer, said I was love if one got involved. I would love a million dollars, don't expect to get handed it.

I am not exactly sure what you ment by "a kasatha PC, and a kasatha NPC follow the exact same rules barring GM fiat"


A monk can consider any part of their body an unarmed strike.

A human monk has 2 hands, 2 feet, 2 elbows, 2 knees, a head, and a penis like a mighty oak tree. He still only gets to make his iterative attacks plus one off-hand attack (if not using flurry or TWF rules) at a penalty, or his iterative attacks plus TWF feats bonus attacks, or his flurry worth of attacks.

Multi-Weapon fighting is really the only thing that lets you take advantage of having more than one off-hand if you aren't using natural attacks.


I'll be retreading old ground here, but the short answer is Marilith. The answer is always Marilith. It gets one main-hand and 5 offhands and the only ability it has that has anything to do with multiple attacks just removes the penalties for using multiple weapons (Multiweapon Mastery).

This means it doesn't need Two-Weapon Fighting or Multiweapon Fighting to get an attack for every hand it has.

And yes, the monk can use all of their body as a weapon, but it doesn't matter because you only get a number of attacks based on your hands. That's why Vestigial Arm says you don't get any extra attacks for it.


Isn't there anywhere something that say that more hands = more off-hands while TWFing ?

IIRC, Marylith work like that too, and Multi-Weapon Fighting (MWP) reduce the penalty on each off-hand you have, but don't increase the number, meaning you already have that much off-hands.

Need to dig up a little to verify, but I remember it that way.


On the Other Hand wrote:

I didn't say I expected them to answer, said I was love if one got involved. I would love a million dollars, don't expect to get handed it.

I am not exactly sure what you ment by "a kasatha PC, and a kasatha NPC follow the exact same rules barring GM fiat"

Calling for a dev is pretty much seen as "answer this", and I brought the NPC is PC topic because some posters claim the NPC have special rules. That was an argument made by some saying the PC kasatha could not use its hands beyond the first 2.


a Kasatha with Multiweapon fighting gets an extra attack for each of its off hands, 2 with each off hand with improved multiweapon fighting,3 with each off hand for greater multiweapon fighting and 4 with each off hand for superior multiweapon fighting. meaning with superior multiweapon fighting and a 16 or better BAB, it can literally make 16 attacks, 12 of which come from 3 sets of 4 off hand attacks each


HectorVivis wrote:
Isn't there anywhere something that say that more hands = more off-hands while TWFing ?

Specifically? Not as far as I can find.

I took a bit more time to dig into it and need to correct my earlier statement. The example involving the Marilith is definitely correct, but it's a bad policy to just blindly allow things because a monster can do it because some monster stat blocks don't completely make sense.

The reasoning behind why this is allowed takes a bit of a trip through multiple feats and rules, so let's start with the only place that the rules for off-hand fighting are actually mentioned as far as I can find: the Two Weapon Fighting feat.

TECHNICALLY all this feat does is reduce the penalties when fighting with a weapon in your off-hand, so under the "normal" section of the feat description it details the baseline rules for fighting with a second weapon (even though these for some reason aren't mentioned in the combat rules or under full-attack where it only mentions the possibility of fighting with a weapon in your off-hand).

TWF says that "If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon."

Now let's transition from there to the Multiweapon Fighting feat. This feat breaks things down in the same way, with the only benefit of the feat being that it reduces the penalties for fighting with weapons in multiple hands and under the "normal" section it does specify that you have penalties to attacks with "all of its off hands". It also says that this feat replaces (read as: counts as) two weapon fighting for creatures with more than two arms.

Technically a Kasatha could take it, because they have more than two arms.

Now keep in mind that you only get the ONE off-hand attack with each arm... unless you take Improved Two Weapon Fighting and Greater Two Weapon Fighting.

Though these feats technically require the Two Weapon Fighting feat as a prerequisite, the Multiweapon Fighting feat replaces that for creatures with more than two arms, which means you should be able to use it as the prerequisite for taking these feats which would grant you a second and third attack with each of your off-hands (specifically, the wording in ITWF says "In addition to the standard single extra attack you get with an off-hand weapon, you get a second attack with it" which can be assumed to apply outward to every off-hand that you have).

So a Kasatha with +11 BAB, Multiweapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, and Greater Two Weapon Fighting would get 12 attacks.

Now then, back to the Marilith.

A Marilith has 6 arms and the Multiweapon Mastery monster trait, but no feats in the two-weapon fighting line. Hence, with its +16 BAB it gets 4 attacks with its main hand and 1 attack each with its 5 off-hands and does not take TWF penalties to any of these attacks (including the penalties for not using a light weapon in the off-hand) because of Multiweapon Mastery.

Now then, let's go back to monk and talk about why they cannot strike an infinite number of times (which has nothing to do with the number of hands that they have, by the way).

The level 1 monk ability "Unarmed Strike" uses this phrasing when referring to what type of attacks a monk can make: "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed." This means that a monk can never use an unarmed strike as an off-hand attack, which means that even if they take the TWF feat line they can't make off-hand attacks with unarmed strikes because monk (specifically monk) unarmed strikes cannot be made as off-hand attacks.

Okay, so, now to Flurry of Blows. This is a special full-attack action that the monk takes and has special rules that apply to it. We all know what type of attacks that a monk can make when using Flurry so we won't get into that, but because this is a special type of full-attack rather than a normal full-attack you can't apply the TWF rules normally to this type of action either. So a monk that takes that TWF feats cannot use them while flurrying to gain extra attacks, even if they are using a weapon to make the off-hand attacks.

A monk does always have the option of taking the TWF feat line and making main hand attacks with unarmed strikes and off-hand attacks with a light or one-handed weapon, but they would not be allowed to do this while using Flurry which means that they do not gain the benefits of the improved BAB or the "free" TWF feats included in the Flurry class feature so I would not really recommend doing this unless you are playing a monk archetype that replaces Flurry.

Now then, other fun things you can do with a Kasatha:

- Weild a 2-handed weapon, carry a tower shield, and still have a free hand for Deflect Arrows.

- Use a Longbow with a heavy shield, while holding a wand, and still be considered to have a free hand for casting.

- Use a 1-handed weapon and shield, and still have 2 free hands so that you don't take penalties on grapple checks.


Auren "Rin" Cloudstrider wrote:
a Kasatha with Multiweapon fighting gets an extra attack for each of its off hands,

Here we are in agreement.

Auren "Rin" Cloudstrider wrote:


2 with each off hand with improved multiweapon fighting,3 with each off hand for greater multiweapon fighting and 4 with each off hand for superior multiweapon fighting. meaning with superior multiweapon fighting and a 16 or better BAB, it can literally make 16 attacks, 12 of which come from 3 sets of 4 off hand attacks each

I am unaware of these feats you just mentioned, could you tell me where they are found?


Ughbash wrote:
Auren "Rin" Cloudstrider wrote:
a Kasatha with Multiweapon fighting gets an extra attack for each of its off hands,

Here we are in agreement.

Auren "Rin" Cloudstrider wrote:


2 with each off hand with improved multiweapon fighting,3 with each off hand for greater multiweapon fighting and 4 with each off hand for superior multiweapon fighting. meaning with superior multiweapon fighting and a 16 or better BAB, it can literally make 16 attacks, 12 of which come from 3 sets of 4 off hand attacks each
I am unaware of these feats you just mentioned, could you tell me where they are found?

must be conflating 3.5 material with pathfinder material. sorry. i normally fuse the two.


By RAW, a Kasatha gets the exact same number of attacks as any other PC, there is no rule that equates number of arms with number of attacks. A PC with 0 arms has the same number of attacks as a PC with 4 arms.


Multiweapon Fighting (Combat)

This multi-armed creature is skilled at making attacks with multiple weapons.

Prerequisites: Dex 13, three or more hands.

Benefit: Penalties for fighting with multiple weapons are reduced by –2 with the primary hand and by –6 with off hands.

Normal: A creature without this feat takes a –6 penalty on attacks made with its primary hand and a –10 penalty on attacks made with all of its off hands. (It has one primary hand, and all the others are off hands.) See Two-Weapon Fighting in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook.

See Two-Weapon Fighting

If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon.

+ Muliweapon Fighting

It has one primary hand, and all the others are off hands.

=

Wielding a weapon in your off hand gains you an extra attack and creatures with more than 2 arms have multiple off hands, hence multiple extra attacks.

That's my reading of it.

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