More different question about VA.

[Dash Lestowe]

Not wanting to start up that whole other thread, please, lets not.

Example build:

Tiefling, Claws ability
1 - Alchemist - Arch type - Ragechemist
- Feat: Weapon Focus (Claw)
2 Barbarian - Arch type - Invulnerable Rager
3 - Alchemist
- Discovery: Feral Mutagen
- Feat Extra Discovery: (Vestigial Arm)
4 Barbarian -
- Rage Power: Fiend Totem (Lesser)
5 - Alchemist
- Feat: Extra Discovery (Vestigial Arm)

Without VA, I should have claw/claw/bite/gore right? claws from race, bite from mutagen, gore from totem - (all primary natural attacks)

4 valid legit, not ua/ua/c/c stuff, normal natural attacks.

After I should be able to claw/claw/claw/claw. Second set of claws from mutagen, replace bite attack with claw attack, replace gore attack with claw attack.

Does anyone disagree? Just for arguments, sake, lets jest keep it to yes or no - like a poll, instead of a discussion.

[Blackstorm]

What is VA?

[blahpers]

The "Vestigial Arm" alchemist discovery. It grants an extra arm that can make attacks, but it cannot add to the total number of attacks the character could make without the arm.

I don't see a problem with claw/claw/claw/claw. Per your request, I'll keep any "where is this going?" speculation to myself for now.

[Remy Balster]

The format of your question is strikingly uninformative.

[The Morphling]

Your question is phrased poorly, you're asking a question that's already been answered (it's the same one you're pretending not to re-ask), and rules questions are not a democracy.

[Bizbag]

This is the exact same question from the previous thread. You couldn't make 4 claw attacks before, so you can't make 4 claw attacks after.

[blahpers]

I don't see anything in the FAQ on VA prohibiting this. As long as he makes the same number of attacks/actions, he should be fine. The entire point of the discovery is to increase versatility without heavily impacting action economy.

[Bizbag]

blahpers wrote:

I don't see anything in the FAQ on VA prohibiting this. As long as he makes the same number of attacks/actions, he should be fine. The entire point of the discovery is to increase versatility without heavily impacting action economy.

I object to it because it's a backdoor into making two extra natural attacks at a full attack bonus. Mixing manufactured attacks with natural attacks, using VA or no, is legal, but carries penalties. For example, a character can get Weapon/weapon/claw/claw/bite. Without VA, his weapon choice is limited to such things as armor spikes and unarmed strikes. VA just expands his weapon selection.

With the claws example, the character is simply going from claw/claw/bite in the round to claw/claw/claw/claw/bite. He is adding attacks he could never have made without the arms, so this breaks the rules of the arms themselves.

[blahpers]

The rules say you can't have extra (i.e., more; a higher quantity of) attacks than you would without the arms. They do not say you cannot have different attacks than you would without the arms. If that is what the designer meant by "extra", they had more than sufficient space to say so in the huge FAQ entitled, 'Alchemist, Tentacle/Vestigial Arm: What does "extra attacks" mean for these discoveries?'. Since they did not, and since their examples and rulings did not preclude using additional natural attacks so long as the total attack count wasn't reduced, it should be fine.

Yes, this can make the VA alchemist more efficient in some ways. Of course it does! Otherwise, what's the point of permanently deforming your body and using up a valuable discovery slot? The alchemist can also use a two-handed weapon, carry a shield, and leave a hand free for casting. That provides numerical benefits above the non-VA just as going full natural attack does, but that's okay, because it doesn't increase the number of attacks or actions. If that wasn't okay, the arms would literally be useless, as they would offer no benefit at all above a non-VA.

There's no back door here--it's the front door, all the way.

[Nefreet]

Four claw attacks would be legal.

[Archaeik]

If I understand the question, he's asking if he can have 4 natural attack "slots" and then "replace" 2 with additional claws (he'd have 6 weapons total).

I have never seen any rules dealing with substituting natural attacks. As far as I'm concerned, you can only take the attacks you actually have. The point being that he couldn't have 4 claw attacks without the extra arms, so this is contrary to the clarification they made.

If this is actually legal, I'll find that very interesting.

[blahpers]

He isn't substituting anything. The "replace" language was a step-by-step demonstration that no extra attacks were being made above and beyond the non-VA build.

Again, the FAQ clarification does not state that you cannot use any attack forms that you could not have used without vestigial arms. It states that you cannot use more attacks than you could have made without vestigial arms. If they had wanted to make VA work like the first sentence in this paragraph, a simple way to write such a rule would have been to state that "a vestigial arm cannot wield weapons or otherwise attack".

[Archaeik]

And what I'm arguing is that natural attacks don't function in the same way as iteratives (ie. don't function with substitution of other types of attacks).

That is to say, if you have 2 claw, 1 bite, 1 gore, those are the hard-coded attacks you can make before the VAs. Adding claws to the VAs simply allows you to substitute them only for your 2 existing claw attacks, but not either of your bite or gore (or any other non claw attacks).

Treating natural attacks any other way turns them into "slots", something for which I see no rules basis to conclude.

[Nefreet]

"Slots", in this case, is exactly how it is handled. I asked the question in another thread, and SKR replied.

LINKY

The thread is almost 400 posts long, and I originally understood it as you do, but with VA you simply track the number of attacks, not what you're making them with.

[blahpers]

@Archaeik: That's an interesting argument, but you're basically inventing a mechanic to make it. The VA mechanics essentially do make attacks (both iterative and natural) into "slots" as a necessary means of allowing attacks with the arms without increasing the overall number of attacks. There's nothing special about natural attacks that changes this.

[Archaeik]

I'm not sure that clear up anything... He says you're "not tracking manufactured(iterative) vs natural attacks", but this runs contrary to how most people read the FAQ.

And "attacks" are inherently typed (iterative/natural). If you take what he said literally, there's room to argue that VAs let you substitute any iterative for any natural(and vise versa, which would implicitly allow 4 claws w/o needing to substitute other natural attacks). Is that really what he meant?

And if you don't have to worry about types, does that allow you to use a limb for both iterative and natural in the same sequence?

He seems to mean what you've been saying, but also seems to rely on naturals only happening once a round to limit abuse?, which doesn't gel with the reality of gaining claws that only function if put on your VAs.
(in some respects he needs to do an AMA to finally put this to bed)

I hope that's sufficient to put down the particularly silly notion of interchangeable attack types.

I'm mostly persuaded to your side of things(since it seems the likely RAI from his statements), but I still have the issue that RAW and FAQ are otherwise entirely silent on whether natural weapons are also inherently (sub)typed and should be considered as such for the purposes of "extra attacks"...
The evidence I would use to support that they are is that natural attacks are always specifically typed when you gain them (opposed to "your choice of weapon" the way iteratives operate). This suggests to me that claw attacks are claw attacks are claw attacks and nothing changes that unless it says so. (a position I find consistent with standard operating procedure for interpreting RAW - or am I making a logical error here?)

Ultimately this option is not super OP given that you're paying for the ability to do this with weapons you don't use.

However, I would like to point out there is some potential conflict with the FAQ in this part.

Quote:

At no time can you make a left hand weapon attack, a right hand weapon attack, and a vestigial hand weapon attack on the same turn because the vestigial arm discovery says it "does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round."

The example uses iteratives, but if, per his quote, "it's not tracking types", you're using more arms than the VA allows :o. (As a note this shuts down any of the 4 claw or 4 dagger, or even 2 claw/2 dagger, shenanigans I whined about at the start of this post too, so...)

[blahpers]

You aren't using more arms, you're making more attacks. The example in the FAQ specifically uses a low-level alchemist using TWF as a simplifying example; this limits the alchemist to making two attacks. If the alchemist were higher level and had a BAB of +6/+1, he could indeed attack with all three limbs while TWF.

You're extrapolating extra rules from the FAQ that don't actually exist.

As for "substitution", you're missing it again. The attack sequence with VA must meet these two requirements:

1. It must be a valid attack sequence for a character with the given limbs/attacks/weapons.
2. It must not provide more attacks than the character would have without vestigial arm.

VA is just like any other ability that would give you unqualified extra limbs (1) except that it comes with a specific restriction (2). If you can't make an attack sequence by (1)'s rules, (2) never comes into play.

The OP hasn't violated (1); a four-armed creature can certainly use claw/claw/claw/claw. The OP hasn't violated (2); the build already had support for four attacks. So the OP can use claw/claw/claw/claw.

[Rikkan]

Can you make a gore and a Bite attack at the same time?
Don't they both use your head?

[Nefreet]

Gargoyles do it all the time.