I want to create an Asura PC race, the idea being that they are descendant of gods that were cast out of heaven because they waged war against the "good" gods of that region (so loosely tied to the source material).
I want them to have 4 arms, as per the multi-armed racial trait. The problem is, having extra fully-functional arms poses such a great advantage that, either the race becomes too strong compared to the others, or the the list of racial traits is very bland (you get extra arms, +2 to X, and that's it).
-Are there are four-armed PC races out there that you like (and that I could use/adapt)?
-What are some flavorful weaknesses that could help balance out a four-armed character, allowing me to give them more equally flavorful buffs?
Perhaps a pair of arms are rather stunted and only useful for fine manipulation of things.
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if not stunted arms, which is a good suggestion, then how about their mind can only focus on using two arms at a time, so, while they can hold four weapons, they can only use two (or a single two-hander) at a time.
this is effectively a free Quickdraw feat in terms of power.
you could also forbid "monster feats" altogether but still allow them to be four-handed warriors via other means. an example here is to give them a free Cleave feat, and the extra attack must be made with a different weapon.
There is a set of traits in the Advance Race Guide, "Multi-armed" that grants four, fully functional limbs, and "Grabbing appendages" that only grants bonuses in a grapple. I highly suggest picking up the book; it really helps greatly in balancing out new races.
As Scavion said above, a possible limiting factor is making one set of arms inferior would drastically reduce their effectiveness. Perhaps treating the second set of arms as one size smaller than the base creature. Or, you could apply a -2 (or more) to those arm's strength stat. Or both, though personally I am in favor of the former.
Slightly off topic, I read a book where a centaur style species first meets humanoids. The centaurs were constantly grabbing the two legged species to help steady them, and they were convinced creature trying to stand on only two legs would surely fall over at any moment. Perhaps this race would see creatures with only two manipulator limbs as needless crippled by the gods. This would become especially true when your species's new mothers are carrying newborns around and still have hands to do things with.
Stunted arms isn't quite what I'm going for: I WANT them to be fully-functional, but I don't want that to end up being the only boon they get from their race because it's so good.
That might be a much more difficult question to answer but that's my goal here.
The smaller size category might be an okay way to go though, I'll have to think about it.
There is a set of traits in the Advance Race Guide, "Multi-armed" that grants four, fully functional limbs, and "Grabbing appendages" that only grants bonuses in a grapple. I highly suggest picking up the book; it really helps greatly in balancing out new races.
As Scavion said above, a possible limiting factor is making one set of arms inferior would drastically reduce their effectiveness. Perhaps treating the second set of arms as one size smaller than the base creature. Or, you could apply a -2 (or more) to those arm's strength stat. Or both, though personally I am in favor of the former.
Slightly off topic, I read a book where a centaur style species first meets humanoids. The centaurs were constantly grabbing the two legged species to help steady them, and they were convinced creature trying to stand on only two legs would surely fall over at any moment. Perhaps this race would see creatures with only two manipulator limbs as needless crippled by the gods. This would become especially true when your species's new mothers are carrying newborns around and still have hands to do things with.
For four arms, multi-armed would be 8 RP, meaning at best the race would have 3 RPs left for any sort of flavor. Personally, I would just use the traits for multi-armed and just give them two arms instead of three (really Paizo, three arms?!). I don't think it would be game-breaking, and it would reduce the cost to 4 RP, allowing for many other traits to be chosen.
There are several ways to make it far more limited of use. For one thing, it'd probably be nearly impossible to wield a weapon and a shield on the same side of the body. Similarly, it's unlikely that two shields could be held on the same side either. Since only one hand is the primary, the choice of upper or lower could become important.
Unless the arms are a bit disjointed, I very much doubt that using one of the lower hands as the primary weapon hand would be a good idea - there wouldn't be the range of motion possible since it's effectively in the middle of the torso. In fact, I'd probably argue that the second set of hands ought to be treated as a slightly more advanced form of the prehensile tail.
You could probably stab someone with a dagger using a lower hand if they were close enough. You could certainly hold a wand, scroll, potion, or similar, and various rings and bracers could work, but swinging a sword or drawing a bow are out of the question. I'd probably double (at minimum) the usual off-hand penalties for the second set of arms.
The trait doesn't mention anything about grappling, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to give a bonus to hold an opponent with four arms.
Prerequisites: None.
Benefit: Members of this race possess three arms. A member of this race can wield multiple weapons, but only one hand is its primary hand, and all others are off hands. It can also use its hands for other purposes that require free hands.
Special: This trait can be taken up to twice. When it is taken a second time, the race gains a fourth arm.