Multi-armed character creation

[Bober]

Hello,
I'm interested in creating a character with 4 arms (or something similar... 4 tentacles? 3 arms and a prensile tail? etc..). The only limit I have, is starting at level 4.

Which classes do you think would work well with a 4 armed character? I'm assuming melee-oriented classes, since mages don't really need more than 2 arms to cast their spells (if they need them at all)...

I'm not looking for power-playing, I'm mostly interested in ideas for a fun build that would let me do something unusual... Any suggestion?

[nicholas storm]

kasatha have 4 arms. They have a ranger archetype that uses 2 longbows.

[The Sideromancer]

There's always the sword-shield-sheild-sheild approach.

[RealAlchemy]

Alchemist/magus with a greatsword?

[Bober]

That ranger archetype sounds interesting!

The 3 shield thing doesn't work as far as I know, since you only get AC bonus from 1 shield. I could go with a 2H weapon, 1 off-hand and 1 shield, but I don't see it working well as a character..

What would be the benefit for an Alchemist or magus to have multiple hands? I can see a nice background involving alchemy to explain my multiple arms, but no practical use for it.. Unless I can throw more than one potion at a time, but I don't think I can (more arms don't give me more attacks), can I?

[nicholas storm]

Vestigial arms don't give much utility except to use a shield with a 2H weapon. Most GMs would rule you can't spell combat with a 2H weapon and an extra vestigial arm.

[Bober]

I'm not talking about vestigial arms here. Race creation allows you for fully functional arms (4RP each, max 2 extra arms), so technically you can use them just as your 2nd arm..

[nicholas storm]

I mentioned that because hte other poster listed alchemist.

[lemeres]

nicholas storm wrote:

Vestigial arms don't give much utility except to use a shield with a 2H weapon. Most GMs would rule you can't spell combat with a 2H weapon and an extra vestigial arm.

Well... that is because you can't. The spell combat specifically calls out one handed or light weapons when using it.

There is, of course, the argument of using a one handed weapon in two hands. So mostly just a downgrade from greatsword to longsword. Or the usual scimitar.

Not actually sure what alchemist brings though. People only went for it with the multiarm build because they tried to munchkin vestigial arms. It has little to offer to multiarm builds other than the false hope of getting them to happen at all.

I would rather go with a ranger or slayer- something with nice static bonuses to damage.

[Bober]

Hmm, another concept could be a fighter or barbarian wielding a larger 2h weapon.

If a 1h weapon counts as 2-handed, a 2h weapon could count as a 3-handed or even 4-handed I guess... making it possible for a character with multiple arms to wield larger 2h weapons.

It doesn't have much use, but could be fun...

But so far the double bow sounds much cooler! Other ideas?