What do you mean by "carry"? Do you mean "carry" as in "have available so you can switch it out for a weapon" or something similar? Or do you mean "carry" as in "use for its intended defensive purpose"?
If it's the former, I don't think I'd have much of a problem, though it likely doesn't qualify as a "small, stowed object", as Jiggy mentions.
If it's the latter, I definitely will say no. You can't use it to swing a weapon, so I don't see how you should be able to use it to defend yourself with a shield.
Not really. I don't think the parsing of the language you're doing is intended.
Your tail becomes more useful.
Prerequisite: Tiefling.
Benefit: You can use your tail to grab stowed items. While you cannot wield weapons with your tail, you can use it to retrieve small, stowed objects carried on your person as a swift action.
Special: If you have the prehensile tail racial trait, you can use your tail to grab unattended items within 5 feet as a swift action as well as to grab stowed objects carried on your person; you can hold such objects with your tail, though you cannot manipulate them with your tail (other than to put them in your hand).
This feat tends to counsel against your interpretation. "You can hold such objects with your tail, though you cannot manipulate them with your tail" sounds to me like you're not supposed to be able to functionally wield anything in any capacity with your tail (nor could you activate a wand, for instance). Note that this is a feat you have to take in addition to the Racial Trait in question. That the feat on top of the Racial Trait doesn't allow you to do what you want to do undoubtedly means that the Racial Trait alone won't allow it, either.
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Not without this feat, and having a prehensile tail to begin with.
Your tail becomes more useful.
Prerequisites: Tiefling.Benefit: You can use your tail to grab stowed items. While you cannot wield weapons with your tail, you can use it to retrieve small, stowed objects carried on your person as a swift action.
Special: If you have the prehensile tail racial trait, you can use your tail to grab unattended items within 5 feet as a swift action as well as to grab stowed objects carried on your person; you can hold such objects with your tail, though you cannot manipulate them with your tail (other than to put them in your hand).
EDIT 1: Ninja'd.
EDIT 2: And even then, that's just so you're holding the shield to access it easily when switching your equipment, rather than gaining an actual shield bonus.
Carry: probably.
Wield: No.
There is a difference mechanically. Picture a monk who has just disarmed someone of their shield. They are now Carrying the shield. It is in their hands, but it is providing no benefit (or making the monk immediately unable to flurry).
That's the way a teifing could carry a shield with their tail.
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I can't go to your link from my computer. What is the name of the feat. Why does it read just like the Prehensile tail racial trait. I am confused.Not without this feat, and having a prehensile tail to begin with.
Your tail becomes more useful.
Prerequisites: Tiefling.Benefit: You can use your tail to grab stowed items. While you cannot wield weapons with your tail, you can use it to retrieve small, stowed objects carried on your person as a swift action.
Special: If you have the prehensile tail racial trait, you can use your tail to grab unattended items within 5 feet as a swift action as well as to grab stowed objects carried on your person; you can hold such objects with your tail, though you cannot manipulate them with your tail (other than to put them in your hand).
It's a feat that you can take in the event that your tiefling doesn't have the racial trait in the first place. In addition, if you already have that racial trait, it would let you hold (and in turn carry) such objects with your tail, allowing you to swap it with an item in your hand at any time with no fuss.
The feat is called "Grasping Tail".
Prehensile tail is used to retrieve objects from your person, not carry shields. It does not say "Oh, you can also use your tail as a free arm, because yeah" As a game master I would only let your tail be used in this way if your character began the campaign with a missing hand. If you want some extra Ac strap on a buckler and take the shield mastery feat, or...whatever, the one that gives you +1 AC, but arguing semantics will get you nowhere. When the passage says "holding small items" it means things such as potions, wallets and puppies, not shields my friend.
Not really. I don't think the parsing of the language you're doing is intended.
This feat tends to counsel against your interpretation. "You can hold such objects with your tail, though you cannot manipulate them with your tail" sounds to me like you're not supposed to be able to functionally wield anything in any capacity with your tail (nor could you activate a wand, for instance). Note that this is a feat you have to take in addition to the Racial Trait in question. That the feat on top of the Racial Trait doesn't allow you to do what you want to do undoubtedly means that the Racial Trait alone won't allow it, either.Your tail becomes more useful.
Prerequisite: Tiefling.
Benefit: You can use your tail to grab stowed items. While you cannot wield weapons with your tail, you can use it to retrieve small, stowed objects carried on your person as a swift action.
Special: If you have the prehensile tail racial trait, you can use your tail to grab unattended items within 5 feet as a swift action as well as to grab stowed objects carried on your person; you can hold such objects with your tail, though you cannot manipulate them with your tail (other than to put them in your hand).
I am not talking about the feat. I am talking about the Tiefling 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.
Did you not read my post at all? I kniw you're talking about the trait. Read the special line of the feat - it makes the trait better and you still can't do what you want to do with the trait alone.
As the one who wrote the feat, no. My answer isn't gospel since I'm not a Paizo employee, but the intent did not include it being used for shields.
As the one who wrote the feat, no. My answer isn't gospel since I'm not a Paizo employee, but the intent did not include it being used for shields.
A mithril buckler is 2.5 lbs. How small where you thinking of when you wrote "small, stowed objects" or "unattended items"?
PS: it great to see you pop in to give a reply. :)
OP: At best, you take the feat and JUST hold the shield: no wield for AC bonus.
Are you really being catty with a designer? The size of the object isn't the point, it's more what the object does.
Are you really being catty with a designer? The size of the object isn't the point, it's more what the object does.
How did you get that from my question? I'd like to know. if a 2.5 lb item is out, would a holy symbol? They weigh 1 pound? A 1 lb iron spike? A 2 lb miners latern? a 4lb waterskin? Or is it overall size instead of weight?
When the designer is nice enough to drop by, I don't think it's bad form to find out what he was thinking the feat should do. If his intent was, for example, objects a pound and under or 1" or smaller, I'd love to know. I'm curious! :)
Are you really being catty with a designer? The size of the object isn't the point, it's more what the object does.How did you get that from my question? I'd like to know. if a 2.5 lb item is out, would a holy symbol? They weigh 1 pound? A 1 lb iron spike? A 2 lb miners latern? a 4lb waterskin? Or is it overall size instead of weight?
When the designer is nice enough to drop by, I don't think it's bad form to find out what he was thinking the feat should do. If his intent was, for example, objects a pound and under or 1" or smaller, I'd love to know. I'm curious! :)
I believe his intent was to not wield a shield, not be unable to hold one.
Also, prehensile hair doesn't work - all shield explicitly state they're strapped to an arm, whereas the hair only functions as a hand.
Creative Director
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I've been playing a tiefling with this trait and the associated feat in a Way of the Wicked campaign for about a year.
As as player, the feat and trait combo already feels VERY helpful and good, verging on overpowered, as a way to manipulate and grab and carry objects as a free action. Allowing the tail to also effectively wield weapons or shields as if the character had a 3rd arm is not only way over the top for what a feat would and should allow, but also way over the top for what the game's baseline assumptions regarding number of arms assumes.
The alternate racial trait ONLY lets you retrieve a small stowed object carried on their person as a swift action.
The Grasping Tail feat upgrades the tail so that it now works on ANY small unattended object within 5 feet, not just something you're carrying.
That's all they're intended to do.
If you want to use the object, regardless of what it is (this includes using a holy symbol or material component for a spell, casting a spell from a wand, or wielding a weapon or gaining an AC bonus from a shield) you have to transfer the object from your tail to your hand. That transfer is not an action any more than moving one object from your right hand to your left hand is an action.
What the tail lets you do, essentialy, is retrieve an item as a swift action and that's it. That's pretty huge, though, especially if you want to do something like move, draw a potion, and drink said potion in a round.
James, since you've been playing with it, what do you count as small stowed object and/or small unattended object? Just curious where you draw the line between small and non-small.
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James, since you've been playing with it, what do you count as small stowed object and/or small unattended object? Just curious where you draw the line between small and non-small.
Rob McCreary is my GM in that game, so he's the one that gets to draw that line.
If I were running the game, I'd allow the tail to pick up light weapons, one-handed weapons, wands, bucklers, light shields, potions, scrolls, holy symbols, torches, most alchemical devices, and pretty much anything else that you could comfortably pick up with one hand. I wouldn't set in stone specific weights and the like, but would make those decisions as the need came up on a case by case basis. Since you can't use the tail to attack or activate items or defend yourself, it really doesn't matter if the category of what you can pick up is vague.
James, since you've been playing with it, what do you count as small stowed object and/or small unattended object? Just curious where you draw the line between small and non-small.Rob McCreary is my GM in that game, so he's the one that gets to draw that line.
If I were running the game, I'd allow the tail to pick up light weapons, one-handed weapons, wands, bucklers, light shields, potions, scrolls, holy symbols, torches, most alchemical devices, and pretty much anything else that you could comfortably pick up with one hand. I wouldn't set in stone specific weights and the like, but would make those decisions as the need came up on a case by case basis. Since you can't use the tail to attack or activate items or defend yourself, it really doesn't matter if the category of what you can pick up is vague.
Thanks! That's nice and simple, I like it. :)
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I've been playing a tiefling with this trait and the associated feat in a Way of the Wicked campaign for about a year.
You have no idea how flattered I feel right now that you're playing a character using that trait and that feat. :D
James, since you've been playing with it, what do you count as small stowed object and/or small unattended object? Just curious where you draw the line between small and non-small.Rob McCreary is my GM in that game, so he's the one that gets to draw that line.
If I were running the game, I'd allow the tail to pick up light weapons, one-handed weapons, wands, bucklers, light shields, potions, scrolls, holy symbols, torches, most alchemical devices, and pretty much anything else that you could comfortably pick up with one hand. I wouldn't set in stone specific weights and the like, but would make those decisions as the need came up on a case by case basis. Since you can't use the tail to attack or activate items or defend yourself, it really doesn't matter if the category of what you can pick up is vague.
Precisely.
The feat wasn't written with a weight limit in place, which I'd leave more to DM adjudication than not, as it's less about weight than it is about fine control which the tail lacks in comparison to a full hand. Hold, pick up, and stow objects but not wield weapons, shields, use spell components, etc (though in my home campaign I could personally be persuaded to allow the tail to perform somatic components of spells).
Precisely.The feat wasn't written with a weight limit in place, which I'd leave more to DM adjudication than not, as it's less about weight than it is about fine control which the tail lacks in comparison to a full hand. Hold, pick up, and stow objects but not wield weapons, shields, use spell components, etc (though in my home campaign I could personally be persuaded to allow the tail to perform somatic components of spells).
It's great to get both of your inputs into the ability/feat. Thanks a lot. :)
EDIT: (though in my home campaign I could personally be persuaded to allow the tail to perform somatic components of spells): it'd be awesome to be able to use your tail for the new Kineticists as one of the hands needed.
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.
Can a Teifling Carry a Shield with his Prehensile Tail?
Wow, it's a Dev party!
So, to clarify for the OP:
Carry? For light shields, yes. Wield for the AC bonus? No.
@Graystone, I misinterpreted your choice of tone.
@Graystone, I misinterpreted your choice of tone.
It's cool: tone is easy to mess up over the net. The only dev I ever meant to get snarky with was SKR and that was after he got snarky first. I love seeing the others stop by and make comment so I don't try to upset them. :)
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@Graystone, I misinterpreted your choice of tone.It's cool: tone is easy to mess up over the net. The only dev I ever meant to get snarky with was SKR and that was after he got snarky first. I love seeing the others stop by and make comment so I don't try to upset them. :)
Boy, could that guy get snarky...