Vanara's Prehensile Tail and Firearms

[HappyDaze]

The Vanara have a prehensile tail that can be used to carry things but not to wield weapons.

Prehensile Tail (Ex): All vanaras have long, flexible tails that they can use to carry objects. They cannot wield weapons with their tails, but the tails do allow them to retrieve small stowed objects carried on their persons as a swift action.

So, with this in mind, I want to build a Vanara Gunslinger. Some of my ideas revolve around the tail, and it leaves me with the following questions:

1) Can the tail turn the barrels of a pepperbox? I'm hoping so, because a dual pepperbox wielding gunslinger that flicks his tail back and forth from gun to gun allowing a massive full attack just sounds awesome!

2) Can the tail hold a firearm while it's being reloaded keeping one hand free to do something outside of the reloading (perhaps hold a rapier)?

[Grick]

HappyDaze wrote:

1) Can the tail turn the barrels of a pepperbox?

Strictly, no, the tail does not appear to count as a hand.

Pepperbox: "The entire barrel housing can be quickly rotated by hand between shots (a free action requiring one free hand)"

HappyDaze wrote:

2) Can the tail hold a firearm while it's being reloaded keeping one hand free to do something outside of the reloading (perhaps hold a rapier)?

Loading a Firearm: "You need at least one hand free to load one-handed and two-handed firearms."

Again, technically no, but a perfectly reasonable house rule if the character doesn't get out of hand.

The rules were written with the assumption of normalcy, meaning they were not considering multiple appendages. It's entirely possible the RAI could be that "a free hand" also includes any appendage capable of manipulating the object. This is somewhat backed up by monsters using tentacles to perform somatic components and things like that.

[Jorda75]

Though I agree it would be extremely cool to see in action I don't think the racial ability was intended with this amount of flexibility (pardon the pun) in mind as far as what the tail can accomplish.

Looking at the tail as it functions in nature with real world monkeys it does not possess the manual dexterity required for most such actions, it can curl tightly around objects and possibly move them around, but not to the level required to load a firearm or draw an arrow, ect. While this may be in part a limitation of the animals intelligence I don't feel that loading firearms or the like were the intended use of the tail in the game.

However I think that a simple home brew feat could fix all of this, allowing the Vanara to use it's tail for both of these purposes. I think this is a fair balance, giving you exactly what you want without the DM feeling like you're trying to "take advantage" of the vagueness of the ability.

[spalding]

I could certainly see the tail holding the gun while you reload it with one hand and use a rapier in the other hand. The tail isn't doing the reloading in this case, the free hand is, and since your other hand isn't holding anything it could certainly hold a rapier.

[nosig]

Casting "raise thread" as I have this question coming up in PFS...

"Can a Tiefling GunTank use a Prehensile Tail to hold a pistol while he loads it with a free hand?"

I need to know this from a PFSOP view point, as I am creating a GunTank in PFS and want to use a shield. Basicly a Pistol and shield guy. Which means that he can't hold a pistol and load it while having a shield out, so only one shot a combat, with loading the pistol between combats.

If I give the GunTank a Prehensile Tail, could he fire the pistol with his gun hand, switch it to his tail (holding), use the now free hand to load it, take it back from the tail and ready to fire again? All while not dropping his shield (no need of quick-draw shield gimmicks or wierd cheese or anything.)

If this were a home game I would talk to my judge about getting some type of clamp or clip on the inside of the shield to hold the pistol, but in PFS there is no "custom crafting" or houst rules, so I need to stick with the RAW.

Thanks in advance for your imput!

[Booksy]

Nosig, it looks like Paizo thought of this, you'd have to take the Grasping Tail Feat to keep it above board.

The Racial trait only gives you the advantage of getting small items off of your person as a swift action, where as the feat enchances your tail further letting you hold items (not manipulate them) with your tail. Otherwise I don't see anything wrong with your plan.

Themeatically, Quick Draw wouldn't hurt with any Gunslinger, as you don't want to be the last one with a gun in your hand, but thats a different issue.