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Maybe this is a dumb question but I was wondering about Prehensile Tails for Tieflings.
Prehensile Tail: Many tieflings have tails, but some have long, flexible tails that can be used to carry items. While they cannot wield weapons with their tails, they can use them to retrieve small, stowed objects carried on their persons as a swift action. This racial trait replaces fiendish sorcery.
Could a Tiefling with that tail pick up a willing/helpless/unconcious person if they had a high enough strength score? I'm just wondering as it does say they could retrieve small stowed items on their person but not that they are limited to retrieving small objects or the limit to how heavy the object could be.
Strength score is assumed to work off of your upper body, arms, back, and leg muscles.
A prehensile tail really has no beefy musculature to speak of. So, because it's a bendy bit of bones, it can support only small objects on it's own. Anything larger would seriously hurt or break. You can lift weights and train all day long, and your tail won't get super ripped.
I generally limit my players to something the size of a crossbow, so they can get help with reloading. Anything heavier is out of the question.
Picking up a body? Hell no. Not solely supported by that tail.
The problem I seem with this is the difference between the "lift off the ground" capacity (which I would imagine a tail normally uses just to get things at about hip height for a swift grab by the hand) and "lift overhead" capacity (the original scenario)
And yes, these are actual in game mechanics. "Lift overhead" capacity is the same as your maximum heavy load, while "off the ground" is twice that, so neither are that unusual, I suppose. So find out the maximum heavy load capacity, and you can see if you can accomplish this.
If it helps at all, you carrying capacity doubles with each size increase, which would suit nicely with this...grapple mechanic or somethings? Also, you could more easily just use the "lift off the ground" interpretation from earlier more easily, since waist height would be head height for medium creatures if you were large. That means x4 total for whatever you find out the heavy capacity to be for a tail. (hard to pull off enlargements with outsiders rather than humanoids, but righteous might seems like it should still work; it can work thematically with the image you are making)
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So the Tiefling has 18 strength.
Light/Medium/Heavy: 100 Lbs / 101-200 Lbs / 201-300 Lbs
Lift Over Head: 600 (300x2) Lbs
If the Tiefling was large size (Lift Over Head): 1200 (300x4) Lbs
Living Monolith guarantees it for outsiders like the tiefling if you take only one level in it.
A living monolith can invoke the power of his ka stone 3 times per day as a swift action, enabling him to grow in size as if using enlarge person (even if he is not a humanoid).
Light/Medium/Heavy: 233 lbs / 234–466 lbs / 467–700 lbs
Lift Over Head: 1040 (520x2) Lbs
If the Vanara was large size (Lift Over Head): 2800 (700x4) Lbs
Since Enlarge Person makes you heavier, lets say the Vanara whose weight is 150 Lbs, the Vanara would weigh 1200 Lbs. So any object that could support 1200 Lbs of Monkey would allow the Vanara to hang arond by only its tail.
all of this at 1st level to determine the strength score and to figure out how much the tail can lift. If the Vanara who is large size wanted to it could lift anything of 2800 Lbs or less.
I merely bring up the Vanara as it seems to expand a bit more on the Prehensile Tail with the Tree Hanger feat.
Be nice to know how much STR the character has went into the weight lifting with the character's tail.
Not sure how to determine the carrying capacity of the tail.
Your strength score should play a part.
I'd have to agree mechanically, strength should play a part, but it should be a ridiculously small percentage.
It's fair to say a stronger Tiefling would be able to brute force his tail into carrying more than a weaker one. But it's also fair to say that neither can carry significant dead weight, like an unconscious body or very heavy inanimate object, with a tail.
Perhaps some kind of modifier such as 10% of your lift off ground capacity? (Or higher if that's just too darn low)
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So, what about a monster with tentacles? They can potentially lift a lot.
In running my games I would probably use the same lifting/carrying rules as for any other appendage. As the tiefling is coming home from grocery shopping they could fish their keys out of their pocket with their tail but couldn't use their tail to unlock the door. They could then set one back down while using their hand to unlock and open the door. As they walked in, I would let them pick up the back with their tail and carry it in.
I'd say a STR 18 character can lift a lot more with their tail than a STR 8 character.
As a side note, a player wanted to use Sleight of Hand to pick the pocket of an NPC. She wanted to use her tail to do it. In game mechanics, it made no difference. In RPG style it was pretty cool and made the session more fun. I went with it but explained that other PFS GM's might not allow it.
Don't forget, we are all here to have fun.
A monster with tentacles is not a PC with a prehensile tail. I don't know <insert monster name here>'s physiology.
A bag of groceries is an entirely different world than picking up a dead or unconscious body.
And, exactly which part of the tail does STR apply to? What kind of items did the tail pick out of the pockets?
Can you explain to me how a tail would be able to grab a coin out of a PC's pockets with no opposable thumb to grip it?
You're right. Mechanically, it wouldn't matter. Story wise, it's a cool option.
But I wouldn't allow it for the above reasons unless they explained to me how they outfitted their tail with a small claw, hook, or sticky fluid to better grab items out of pockets.
Of course we're all here to have fun. But there are rules for a reason. DMs have homebrew rules and interpretation powers for a reason. I can only say how things would go at MY table. MY fun is impacted by a player trying to go outside the boundaries without explaining HOW it's done.
If they have a clever story for it, I'm way more likely to allow it within reason. But no matter how someone tries to justify a tail lifting an entire dead body with armor on it, it will never fly at my table. I don't care if you have STR 18/00. Your tail doesn't.
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Just marked the first post for FAQ as it would be very helpful to understand the limits the tail would have when lifting objects. Like if it turned out the intent was to make the Prehensile Tail was to make it function like mage hand (up to 5 Lbs) or Unseen Servant (up to 20 Lbs), or perhaps that it acted like the Alchemist's Vestigial Limb which gives the Alchemist an extra arm. A solid comparison to go off of would help understand this rule immensely and give insight to the full limitations and capabilities of the Prehensile Tail.
I do think that if a Prehensile Tail could lift 3500 lbs then it would just be so cheese it was ludicrously silly. As then you have to figure the drag factor on a large creature which would easily have been 7000 (1400x5) Lbs.
Having worked in a zoo during my teenage years, I can atest to have seen many species of monkeys able to carry their own weight (i.e. themselves or buckets of food) with their tails. Naturally their tails weren't as strong as their arms, but they could certainly give a good strength tug, lift heavy objects, and drag things.
Varied from species to species, and the individual monkey though...
^
so we could possibly be looking at a STR X - Y = STR Z for lifting/dragging for the tail? Which would make the most sense to me at least when it came to the strength of a tail vs the actual strength a monkey had.
(Also getting to work in a zoo must have been so fun!)
True... but then, not all monkeys could do that with their tails. It was all the South American kinds at the zoo I was at. I don't recall the African monkeys able to do it.
IIRC a "full" prehensile tail implied that said monkey could lift and carry a good amount of with his tail... if the monkey couldn't do that, then his prehensile tail was considered "partial".
Do Tieflings have a full or partial prehensile tail? And of course, flexible or not, not all tails are created equal. There's some big monkey tails out there.
As for working at a zoo... it was fun in many ways, but very messy and smelly. I cleaned after the animals, way more than I got to play or get special viewings of them.
Well monkeys can be about as bad as little kids for the messiness and smells. :P
However if its a partial or full prehensile tail I cannot find wording on either that suggests one or the other for both the Tiefling and Vanara races. Just that its flexible and allows the retrieval of small items as swift actions.
Yes. Key word "SMALL". A dead body is not a small item.
That being the case, if it were me, I'd rule a Tiefling's tail being more like an African monkey's, than a South American one.
Using Mage Hand as a reference point, I'd argue that it could manipulate an unattended object weighing up to 5 lb. -- that could let it grab things like keys and scrolls and whatnot. Seeing how they can't swing weapons with it, it's probably a partial prehensile tail by IRL standards.
***EDIT***
I say unattended, to reflect the tail isn't strong enough to take an item tightly held in a person's hand, or tied really tight to a pillar. It could slip something out a pocket or off a hook.
Strength score divided by 4 seems like a reasonable house rule.
Yes. Key word "SMALL". A dead body is not a small item.
Would a halfling be a small item for a tiefling that has been made large in some way? heh.
Yes. Key word "SMALL". A dead body is not a small item.Would a halfling be a small item for a tiefling that has been made large in some way? heh.
Would a halfling under the petrified effect count as a small item?
Lol