Natural attacks, and bombs, and tentacle ... oh my

[zylphryx]

OK, so here's the scenario, and I am looking for RAW here.

Assume you have an alchemist with a BAB of +11/+6/+1 who has a natural attack set of claw, claw, bite, gore and fast bombs. That alchemist can use their iterative to throw three bombs and then get a claw, bite, and gore attack in a full round.

Now throw in the tentacle discovery. Does this tentacled alchemist get the three bomb iterative plus claw, claw, bite, and gore (running with the assumption of the tentacle flinging the bombs) or do they get the same attack sequence as the first alchemist?

The reason this comes up is the wording for the tentacle discovery:

PRD wrote:

Tentacle (Ex): The alchemist gains a prehensile, arm-length tentacle on his body. The tentacle is fully under his control and cannot be concealed except with magic or bulky clothing. The tentacle does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round, though he can use it to make a tentacle attack (1d4 damage for a Medium alchemist, 1d3 damage for a Small one) with the grab ability. The tentacle can manipulate or hold items as well as the alchemist's original arms can (for example, allowing the alchemist to use one hand to wield a weapon, the tentacle to hold a potion, and the third hand to throw a bomb). Unlike an arm, the tentacle has no magic item slots.

Since the tentacle discovery specifies the following limitations:

• it does not grant any extra attacks or actions per round
• states a single specific attack that the tentacle can make

does this mean the alchemist with a tentacle is limited to the same attack iteration as the alchemist without a tentacle? Or is the additional claw attack not considered an extra attack since the alchemist is using a free appendage to make the iterative attack?

[zylphryx]

anyone? anyone? Bueller?

[Gisher]

Assuming you can throw bombs with the tentacle, then you can use the tentacle to throw three bombs and then use claw, claw, bite and gore to make secondary attacks. But I'm not clear on whether the phrase "can manipulate or hold items as well as the alchemist's original arms can" includes the ability to use weapons. My gut reaction is that it doesn't, but I can't back that up with any specific rules at the moment.

That this FAQ never considers the possibility of making an attack with a weapon in your tentacle is suggestive to me that you can't do it. But it doesn't actually rule it out.

[zylphryx]

thanks for the link Gisher.

That does raise an interesting item as well. The vestigial arm discovery specifically calls out using the hand to wield a weapon as part of TWF ... the tentacle does not contain that language, which would lead one to believe that you cannot wield a weapon in the tentacle.

[Joesi]

Its perhaps not explicitly stated RAW (I don't recall), but I'd say that one should certainly rule that attacking with a bomb requires 2 hands. It's not just throwing the bomb, but also drawing ingredients, mixing/creating it into it's active state (unlike many people's uninformed opinions, stored bombs will not explode if damaged), and then throwing it.
It's specifically mentioned that it's not just drawing and throwing a bomb, so it makes very good sense to have it use 2 hands.

Also, it seems like a bad idea to throw bombs while in melee combat, since bomb-throwing draws attacks of opportunity (unless they took a feat for it). Was this considered? There'd also be the -5 penalty to all natural attacks due to combining them with iterative attacks, but I'd assume you'd know about that.

Lastly, tentacle most certainly would not grant an extra attack, since it's quite clearly intended to function the same as Vestigial Arm which has a specific clarification that no additional attacks should be allowed compared to if the character did not have the discovery. (I guess that was linked above me already)

I'd say that you could wield a weapon with a tentacle, or even attack with it, but despite it making no sense, you can't do so if you've already used up other attacks. It's specifically a balance limitation rather than anything even close to realistic.