Vestigial arm and Feral mutagen, again..

[lRequiemZ]

First of all, sry for my bad english, if you don't undersant something, just ask for a clarification.

I was reading some of those posts asking about vestigial arm and feral mutagen interaction, but it's still not clear for me...

"The arm does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round" so.. this seems to be absolutely useless

"though the arm can wield a weapon and make attacks as part of the alchemist's attack routine (using two-weapon fighting)"
This looks contradictory to me.

So, my aim was to have the feral mutagen (bite, claw, claw), and a sword, so i could take advantage of iterative attacks, but then i realized that this vestigial arm couldn't give me extra attacks, so my questions are...

-Can you explain this for stupids like me? (i'm kinda new in D&D and Pathfinder, i'm not an english fluent speaker, so, you'll need to explain this really carefully)

-Can i use Bite, Claw, Claw, Sword? (and then, Bite, Claw, Claw, Sword, Sword at +6/+1? wearing the sword in the vestigial arm, or... maybe having Claws in my legs like the Summoner's Eidolon, which looks pretty possible for me... (since it's not giving me extra attacks...) this way i could Bite(mouth) Claw(leg) Claw(leg) and then use a sword with 4 arms (2 natural arms, and 2 vestigial arms) and apply X2,5 STR (1arm-x1str / 2arms-1,5str / 3arms-x2str / 4arms-x2,5str)

-Let's put us in the case that i can't use what i said before, i already have one vestigial arm, what could i do with that? it looks 100% useless for me
"The arm does not give the alchemist any extra attacks or actions per round"
As it's said there, i can't use it for anything. I did read in other posts that it could be useful for shields (but alchemist isn't proficient with shields), also for potions (but i have potion glutton)

I'll stop ramble and let you read this and answer my questions, and hopefully, i'll be able to understand this with your explanations

(I need to do something useful with this vestigial arm, and i don't know what, it's like a wasted discovery if i don't find something useful to do with it)

[Meirril]

An alchemist with a vestigial arm treats it the same way any race with more than 2 arms treat the extra arm: you can make an additional attack using the two weapon fighting rules, or you can use it for a two handed action.

Karsatha have 4 arms. They can either perform 1 primary attack and use the other 3 arms for secondary attacks with the appropriate penalties (with Two Weapon Fighting feat + light weapon that is 3 off hand attacks at -2), or they can wield 2-2 handed weapons (again, using two weapon fighting), and I've even see one build that uses 2 shields and a 2 handed weapon. Oh, and 2 bows was extra special.

Claw indicates it appears on a hand. While its possible for it to be a foot, you don't have the monks ability to use any part of your body as a weapon. Normally you only get 2 claw + bite if you decide to use your natural attacks. The vestigital arm will let you argue that you can wield a weapon as well. If you want to do a weapon + natural attacks you'll get 1 weapon + itteratives and your natural attacks at -5 to hit each because they are secondary to your weapon. If you want to go with the second vestigital arm and do two weapon fighting style then your natural attacks will also suffer the -2 penalty from two weapon fighting style for a combined penalty of -7. Can you even hit anything at this point?

[zza ni]

Meirril wrote:

An alchemist with a vestigial arm treats it the same way any race with more than 2 arms treat the extra arm: you can make an additional attack using the two weapon fighting rules, or you can use it for a two handed action.

not so. the vestigal hand specificly call out to not allow extra attacks.

so what do you use it for?
it count as an extra hand for wielding and carring stuff as long as the nuber of attacks doesn't increase.

-carring a shield is not attacking, you can hold a shield in that hand and use the other two for attacking with two weapons or a two handed weapon. my mutant fighter picked that extra hand twice so he can duel wield two greatswords (with a hafty two handed panilty but still nice).
- used for holding a wand\metamagic rod or draw items like potions.
- i think extra hands give bonus for cllimbing but i might be wrong.
- for sumatic spell compunents even when your main hand is full.
- holding that damn torch for the human who can't see in the dark like the rest of the party.
in fact anything you can yuse a hand OTHER then extra attacks....

as for the Kasatha race with 4 arms or any other multi armed race. they pick one hand to be main hand. the rest are off hands.
without multi weapon fighting they take the normal panilty for multi weapon fighting in their main\off hand mantioned in the two weapon fighting rules. if they have multi-weapon fighting (need 3 arms at least) they take -4 for main hand weapon attacks and off hand as well or -2 if all hte off hands weapons are light weapons.
multi weapon fighting is treated as two weapon fighting so after reaching +6 bab and +11 they can take improved and greater two weapon fighting to gain one more off hand attack at -5 and -10 bab.
so a kasatha for exmaple with 4 light weapons (or one one handed in main and light in the off hands) and +20 bab with multi-weapon fighting,improved two weapon fighting, greater two weapon fighting and double slice (for full str off hand dmage) will get attacks as :
+20 (main hand) -2,+20 (off hand #1) -2, +20 (off hand #2)-2, +20(off hand #3)-2, +15 (main hand) -2, +15 (any one,but only one of hte off hands)-2,+10 (main hand) -2,+10 (any one ,and only one of hand)-2, +5 (main hand)-2. all at full str for damage.
(+18/+18/+18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+8/+3)

[Meirril]

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 implication being that the arm doesn't give you any extra actions, you still have 1 swift, 1 standard, 1 move and any number of free actions. The arm can be used as part of an alchemist's attack routine, as in it participates as an off handed action vis a vi two-weapon fighting rules, much like races that have more than 2 arms (as I said above).

Or is that line where it says "though the arm can wield a weapon and make attacks" a typo? Really, explain why that extra verbiage is there if the arm was only intended to hold your beer while the other arms do all the fun stuff?

[zza ni]

it's in the faq. it's explained there that it doesn't grant any extra attacks beyond what the alchemist allready can do, only better wielding aiblities. so a 2 armed alchemsit with two weapon fighting cna do 2 attacks in a full round action with -4/-4 or -2/-2 with light off hand weapon. with this discovery he can still make only 2 attacks but his options of what he wield are better. and he has an extra hand ot carry stuff and he can change which arm do the attacking, but nto get extra attack.(btw shields are carried, as in the rules they are not wielded,unless used for sheild bash, so just having them in a free hand is all that is needed to get the shield bonus)

[lRequiemZ]

so.. those extra vestigial arms are only useful for carrying shields, wands, etc..?

i'll need to take Shield Proficiency in order to use something useful

[zza ni]

if you use a shiled with no armor check panilty and do not intend on using shield feats (like shield focus shield bash etc) then you do not need proficency, as the downside of not being proficiant (beside arcane check fail which alchemist dont get) is that aromor penalty is applied ot attacks while using a shield with no proficency. if said shield has no armor penlty( dark wood or mithril heav shield but not tower shields) then its fine without .