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I have an issue with two racial traits.
Both Vanara and Tiefling ART have a racial trait called:
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.
Tiefling Alternate Racial Trait
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.
Neither of these are well defined in the rules.
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Suitable question for developers:
What is the in game meaning of small and stowed?
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For the rest of us:
The only two reference to stowed is in the failed save damaging items rules on page 216 ("Stowed or sheathed weapon") and in the slot rules ("If the item is stowed or placed elsewhere, it does not function") for when you are not wearing a wrist item on the wrist.
This is how I rule in a game with a character with Prehensile Tail:
You may not use a swift to retrieve any sized item from a haversack.
You may not use a swift to retrieve any sized item from anything that requires a full round action.
You may not use a swift to retrieve any sized item from a Weapon Cord (due to recent swift to move action errata.)
You may not retrieve any item that weights more than 1 lb (my interpretation of "small".)
You may use a swift to retrieve anything that someone with Quickdraw could draw as a free action.
You may use a swift to retrieve anything hanging from you.
Comments?
Anyone have a link to a PDT member or JJ talking about the subject?
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My rulings, since I do not choose to arbitrarily neuter abilities players selected for their characters, is they may use the tail to retrieve any item that is reasonably lightweight. This could include potions, scrolls, wands, metamagic rods, or light weapons. Any weapon that is "one-handed" or larger cannot be retrieved with the tail. When in doubt, it works. When abused to break the game or invalidate feats like Quickdraw, it ceases working.
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I assume they are referring to the table of actions from the combat chapter that has Retrieve a Stowed Item as a move action, in essence giving that tail the ability to route around in your pockets and come up with a potion/scroll/rope/anything else 'reasonable' as a swift action instead of a move action.
Manipulate an Item
Moving or manipulating an item is usually a move action.This includes retrieving or putting away a stored item, picking up an item, moving a heavy object, and opening a door. Examples of this kind of action, along with whether they incur an attack of opportunity, are given in Table: Actions in Combat.
The "actions in combat" table describes the action as: "Retrieve a stored item" and it provokes an AoO.
So obviously the ambiguity is around the "small" but I'm not sure I would rule out a haver sack, or restrict the weight to 1 lb. I think the limb isn't strong enough to meaningfully wield the item in ferocious combat, not that it is incapable of some reasonable feat of dragging. Remember in many animals a prehensile tail is capable of holding the weight of the animal, this likely wouldn't be the case in a full sized humanoid (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law#Biomechanics) but would still be likely able to lift a reasonable mass.
I would caution that the rules don't need to be that finely tuned around something like this, if it was reasonably a move action before, now it is a swift, and leave it up to GMs and some reasonable and judicious eye rolling to judge whether Thogar the Prehensile Tailed Barbarian can extract a 500 lb slab of stone from his haversack or not.