Alright, so this is kind of two questions but here I go anyways.
1:
How does Vestigial Arm/Tentacle work with Monstrous Graft discovery? Can I cut off my tentacle, get a slam attack and now ignore the "does not add any extra attacks" clause? (allowing dagger/dagger/slam?)
2:
Can I take Racial Heritage (Derro) to ignore the wisdom penalty Monstrous Graft gives? I'm fairly certain it works, and I'm fairly certain it doesn't work for the "Method to the Madness" discovery from the same book since I only count as a Derro and not as having "Madness (Ex)".
Vestigial Arm:
Vestigial Arm (Ex)
Benefit: The alchemist gains a new arm (left or right) on his torso. The arm is fully under his control and cannot be concealed except with magic or bulky clothing. The arm does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round, though the arm can wield a weapon and make attacks as part of the alchemist’s attack routine (using two-weapon fighting). The arm can manipulate or hold items as well as the alchemist’s original arms (for example, allowing the alchemist to use one hand to wield a weapon, another hand to hold a potion, and the third hand to throw a bomb). The arm has its own “hand” and “ring” magic item slots (though the alchemist can still only wear two rings and two hand magic items at a time).
Special: An alchemist may take this discovery up to two times.
Monstrous Graft:
Monstrous Graft (Ex) (Inner Sea Monster Codex pg. 23 (Amazon)): The alchemist can replace up to four of his own amputated limbs with those of a monstrous beast of the same size category. If the grafted limb is an arm, the alchemist gains either a climb speed of 15 feet or a claw or slam natural attack that deals 1d6 points of damage (1d4 for a Small alchemist). If the grafted limb is a leg, the alchemist gains one of the following benefits: a +5 bonus to land speed, a swim speed of 15 feet, or a +5 bonus on Acrobatics checks when jumping. For each limb the alchemist replaces in this manner, he takes a –2 penalty to Wisdom as he loses his sense of self. Derros are immune to this penalty.
Method to the Madness:
Method to the Madness (Ex) (Inner Sea Monster Codex pg. 23 (Amazon)): The alchemist has learned to channel his madness into one of his alchemist class abilities. When the alchemist takes this discovery, he chooses one of either bombs or extracts. If he selects bombs, he uses his Charisma bonus in place of his Intelligence bonus when determining the bonus to damage and the saving throw DCs of his bombs. If the alchemist selects extracts, he uses his Charisma bonus in place of his Intelligence bonus to calculate bonus extracts per day. The alchemist must have the madness extraordinary ability to take this discovery. This discovery can be taken twice, allowing the alchemist to select both bombs and extracts.
Racial Heritage Feat:
Racial Heritage (Human)
The blood of a non-human ancestor flows in your veins.
Prerequisite: Human.
Benefit: Choose another humanoid race. You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race. For example, if you choose dwarf, you are considered both a human and a dwarf for the purpose of taking traits, feats, how spells and magic items affect you, and so on.
Now this was just for a crazy/silly character idea I had, and /r/Pathfinder_RPG wasn't too much help and went off on a few too many tangents. link for the curious
Well, I don't see any rules that prevent you from replacing your vestigial arms with grafts, or anything that makes the graft inherit the limitations, so it seems legit. Obviously, it's total haxxx, but it's not too bad.
It totally looks to me like you should be able to use Monstrous Graft to replace a Vestigial Arm or Tentacle and use it to make an extra Slam Attack. Then if you take the Feral Mutagen Discovery, you can also grow Claws on your 4 hands, getting 6 Claws 1 Bite, and 4 Slams.
Also, by RAW, I don't see why you can't play a Human who takes Racial Heritage Derro and gain immunity to the Wisdom loss.
Inner Sea Monster Codex seems like one of those books that Pathfinder Society wouldn't allow. Is that right? If that's the case, this character is deep in homespun GM territory, and it is totally the GM's call.
You're planning to be a Human. Take a level in Warpriest. Take the Martial Versatility Feat, and apply your Sacred Weapon Damage to all of your 11 of your Natural Attacks.
Take a level in White Haired Witch, and gain another Natural Attack: Hair as a Primary Natural Natural Attack. Acquire a Helm of the Mammoth Lord, and gain a Gore Natural Attack. Now you have 13 Natural Attacks.
Whenever I play an Alchemist, I want to take the Potion Glutton Feat, which requires you worship Uragathoa. Being a Warpriest requires you match Alignment with your deity, I think, so that might be an obstacle to your build. But ask your GM: as a GM myself, one of the first things I homespin is my pantheon of deities, and I may totally add or subtract to the number of Deities that grant Potion Glutton.
Ha, ha, be a Vivisectionist and add Sneak Attack Damage to all 13 Natural Attacks. Take a level in Arcanist and get Dimensional Slide for easy Flanking to lock in your SAD. Take 2 levels in Ninja and get the Vanishing Trick, also so lock in your SAD. Take Sap Adept and Sap Master to do extra Sneak Attack Damage. Take 2 more levels in Ninja and take the Distracting Attack to lock in making sure your opponents are Flatfooted. Also take Knockout Artist for even more Sneak Attack Damage, so now you are up to double SAD dice and +2/die X 13 Natural Attacks.
White Hair has a sort of Grab attack, so Wear Armor Spikes and do 1d6 Spike Damage with every one of those Free Grapples. Since the Grapple is a seperate attack, it gets your ST bonus and your Sneak Attack, too, not augmented by Sap feats, but still quite nice.
If you take Hamatula Strike, you can grapple with your Gore and Bite attacks like with your Hair and AS damage with those, too. Claws do either Slashing or Blunt, and HS only works with Piercing, so for that, you'd have to take Snake Style and then Feral Combat Training Claws. But then you take Martial Versatility FCT, and you are quite the monstrosity.
I'm not sure that Racial Heritage will protect you from the WIS damage. It says 'Derros are Immune,' but it doesn't say why. Personally, I would rule they were immune as part of their madness ability.
I would consider it similar to elves being immune to sleep, but this doesn't make Humans with racial heritage(elf) immune to sleep.
I'm not sure that Racial Heritage will protect you from the WIS damage. It says 'Derros are Immune,' but it doesn't say why. Personally, I would rule they were immune as part of their madness ability.
I would consider it similar to elves being immune to sleep, but this doesn't make Humans with racial heritage(elf) immune to sleep.
Well, Racial Heritage says you count as that race for the purpose of taking Feats, and that would include "Extra Discovery." That's a Feat. You also count as that race in terms of how things affect you.
It's academic anyway if I am correct that we are in homespun GM territory.
Seems like it works on paper as an academic exercise.
Now, as to whether it would work at an actual gaming table...
Fair to say, there are a few ways to go with a Natural Attack build.
Druids get a kick because most the Animals they turn into get bigger, up to size Huge, and they can cast a spell called Strong Jaw which pumps up their Natural Attacks 2 more places to size Colossal. With even a 1 level dip into Warpriest, they increase their size Medium Base Damage to 1d6 for every attack they take Weapon Focus for, So that gets up to 4d6/attack. And that would be 5 attacks/round for starters for a Huge Warcat or 9/round at 3d6 for a Giant Octopus.
Without investing 4 levels in Druid to get Wildshape, you can take levels in things to pump up your Natural attacks in other ways. Warpriest is a solid option, balancing between levels in Alchemist to give himself more attacks with levels in Warpriest to give each of those attacks more punch.
I've been looking at Sneak Attack Damage lately. A couple of posts up, and you will see a general idea for how that will work. It looks to me like it might actually be quite a while before the character would start taking Monstrous Graft. You can get 2 Claws and a bite at the cost of a single Discovery, or you could just start out as a Tengu with 2 claws and a bite, offsetting the Wisdom damage in some other way. Meanwhile, with Sap Master, each of your Natural Attacks enjoys a mean damage increase of 1d6+1 every level, so that's 3d6+3 if you just have Claws and a Bite, 4d6+4 when you add Hair and Gore, plus 2 Unarmed Strikes, so that's 6d6+6. So it doesn't become advantageous to add more natural attacks until that average damage/attacks becomes quite high, a good problem to have. On the other hand, we're also talking about the Vivisectionist Archetype, so the SAD will be going up that way, so he'll be picking up those Discoveries anyway.
As you said, what we have here is an idea, not a whole build, and a build is not the same thing as a successful character. It's all about putting it together and how you play it.
You can amputate a Vestigial Arm (probably the Tentacle as well) and use Monstrous Graft to get the benefits of a grafted arm (as there is no text limiting you to the same usabilities as the original arm did, which wouldn't grant you any extra attacks).
Racial Heritage (Derro) would make you immune to this Wisdome loss, as the Discovery in it self includes this clause about Derro and isn't just covered by a Derro racial trait.
However, remember that "Unless otherwise noted, an alchemist cannot select an individual discovery more than once" meaning that you can only have one tentacle, meaning that you can only really gain 3 extra limbs from Discoveries.
However, don't be so sure that any DM will let you do this in any game.
