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Well normally people are doing one thing at a time, even juggling which is manipulating a number of items becomes a focus on doing a gestalt action of keep all the balls up.
With that in mind, extra hands definitely has quite a lot of potential for abuse by actively using them for multiple things. However, having four-arms need not enable you to 'by default' be able to wield two two handed swords, or a bow and a two-handed sword, or even a two handed sword and a shield at the same time.
Let them hold the bastard sword, the bow and the shield. But in any 'turn' limit their use to two hands in the turn. So if you shoot your bow, you can't simply use an action to tell your third arm to actively seek out incoming strikes with the shield on it.
Maybe the racial 4-arms ability, has an action investment. You can spend 1 action with sensible traits to unlock the use of a third hand for active use during the round.
Thus your bow user might:
1: shoot bow
2: focus additional hand
3: raise shield (with third hand)
It ends up being possible, but costs an extra action due to the extra focus required. Otherwise, it just gives you extra hands (at the ready). So as mentioned, you can have a variety of 1 handed weapons with different damage types to be able to select the best for the circumstance, and maybe have one holding onto a potion or other magic activation item.
The extra hands might also be useful for counting as being able to wear 2 additional toolsets at the time if not holding other items.
Not that we are getting Skittermanders: But even their 6 hands could be handled similarly, and further limited.
Single skittermander hands can only individually hold and use objects of light bulk. They can hold items of 1 bulk but can't use them effectively. However, they can use 2 of their hands combined and treated exactly like 1 normal hand use for most objects. To use weapon that requires 2 hands normally that isn't light, would require either a total of three or four hands. I'm thinking four, two pairs of skittermander hands working together making 2 normal hands. That leaves 2 skittermander hands that can hold two 1 bulk items, or together hold something larger, but again. Multi-hand use (more than 2 effective active hands) ends up requiring expending an extra action to enable it.
But note, using 4 little skittermander hands together to preform a 2handed action counts as 2 active hands (normal) not 4, so they aren't paying extra action to enable the two smaller hands extra movement.
Now you have a cost associated with having extra hands, if you want to use them actively, otherwise their benefit is having more choices readily available up front. Which, yes, that is, in itself a potentially pretty strong benefit, meaning Kasatha may lose something elsewhere to keep them from becoming a must-have.
It seems like many of the tail feats provide an extra hold, or an extra natural weapon based on the limb, and doesn't involve any action cost to access, but their choices of what can be done with that extra limb is far more limited. So I see a bit of a tradeoff between a limited prehensile tail only able to be able to do certain specific instinctual actions, vs more functional hands, but them also potentially taking more attention to use due to their more advanced capabilities.
Anyway, I think multiple arms is something that second edition is in a far better position to deal with and leave with some reasonable balancing factors than the prior edition.
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Excellent point about the extra concentration required to use non-dominant hands. I'm ambidextrous myself, so I tend to forget that's a thing, but even I'll go cross-eyed after a while if I try to, say, perform the old trick to pat my head and rub my stomach simultaneously.
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Being able to hold four hands of stuff is potentially an issue when you...dual-wield 2h weapons...
There have been many valid concerns raised, but I don't think this is one. Almost all of the dual-wield abilities in the game require you to be wielding two one-handed weapons, not two-handed weapons, and so have a built in limiter against abuse already.
EDIT: Man was I wrong!
They actually just say "You are wielding two melee weapons, each in a different hand."
I suppose the "each in a different hand" might still prevent it, but it's a bit more sketchy than I initially thought.
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I do think its decent sense to say you can't really use two two handed weapons because kasatha are still human sized while two handed weapons are very big. So imagine what that would look like, you'd be carrying something really heavy and probably keep accidentally hitting yourself or the other weapon with each other while trying to swing them around.
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I do think its decent sense to say you can't really use two two handed weapons because kasatha are still human sized while two handed weapons are very big. So imagine what that would look like, you'd be carrying something really heavy and probably keep accidentally hitting yourself or the other weapon with each other while trying to swing them around.
It's actually a myth that two-handed weapons were particularly heavy. Perhaps it is true in a fantasy setting like Golarion, where art frequently depicts characters wielding slabs of metal because it's frankly cool as hell, but IRL even polearms rarely broke 4kg (just under 9lbs). The difficulty in large weapons tended not to be in lifting or swinging them, but having the stamina to keep swinging them.
This is why they were made as light as possible. Even a relatively weak human should be able to hold a great sword in one hand.
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I do think its decent sense to say you can't really use two two handed weapons because kasatha are still human sized while two handed weapons are very big. So imagine what that would look like, you'd be carrying something really heavy and probably keep accidentally hitting yourself or the other weapon with each other while trying to swing them around.It's actually a myth that two-handed weapons were particularly heavy. Perhaps it is true in a fantasy setting like Golarion, where art frequently depicts characters wielding slabs of metal because it's frankly cool as hell, but IRL even polearms rarely broke 4kg (just under 9lbs). The difficulty in large weapons tended not to be in lifting or swinging them, but having the stamina to keep swinging them.
This is why they were made as light as possible. Even a relatively weak human should be able to hold a great sword in one hand.
Yeah but we talking about fantasy two handed weapons right?
Also duel wielding two pole arms sounds still clumsy :p
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Should note that the signature kasatha fighting style in 1e was dual-wielding bows.
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I think it will be easier to describe which uses of 4 hands are ok, rather than lists which ones are not and hope we did not miss any interaction.
I see no problem with kasatha dual wielding bows since that does not give them any extra action or similar advantage in PF2.
The most simple way would be to check what actions are currently allowed with your 2 hands full, for example with the Tail feats of the Ganzi. Or the buckler. Or the Nimble shield hand feat...
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Should note that the signature kasatha fighting style in 1e was dual-wielding bows.
As someone who is cross dominant this always bothered me. I'm right handed, but left-eyed so in order to shoot accurately (with a bow or a gun) I need to shoot left-handed.
It seems very difficult to hold two bows in your two right hands (since they're going to get in each other's way), and it seems impossible to hold a bow in your left set of hands and your right set of hands.
FWIW, I have also always been bothered by the "gun in each hand" thing you see in action movies. This accomplishes nothing unless your only goal is "put a lot of lead down range without any particular preference about what you hit with it."
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Should note that the signature kasatha fighting style in 1e was dual-wielding bows.
To be fair, you could do it in theory and get no benefits unless I'm wrong and dual slice works with ranged weapons
But yeah, either way I'm kinda hungry for serpentfolk again xD Ah well maybe one day, one daaay....
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- Vanaras; now with gorilla, mandrill, baboon and chimpazee heritage
- Nagajis; now with asp, viper, cobra and constrictor heritage
- Ratfolks/Ysoris; now with mouse, rats and other rodent heritage
- Rougarous; now with wolf, coyote and jackal heritage
- Merfolks, now with fish, shark, triton, cetacean and cephalopod heritage
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I just finished watching interspecies reviewers so...this title really spoke to me.
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- Vanaras; now with gorilla, mandrill, baboon and chimpazee heritage
- Nagajis; now with asp, viper, cobra and constrictor heritage
- Ratfolks/Ysoris; now with mouse, rats and other rodent heritage
- Rougarous; now with wolf, coyote and jackal heritage
- Merfolks, now with fish, shark, triton, cetacean and cephalopod heritage
those sound neat but Ratfolk already exist in 2e.
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those sound neat but Ratfolk already exist in 2e.- Vanaras; now with gorilla, mandrill, baboon and chimpazee heritage
- Nagajis; now with asp, viper, cobra and constrictor heritage
- Ratfolks/Ysoris; now with mouse, rats and other rodent heritage
- Rougarous; now with wolf, coyote and jackal heritage
- Merfolks, now with fish, shark, triton, cetacean and cephalopod heritage
We could see new heritages being added separately though.
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As a big fan of Kalashtar in Eberron, I’d love something to scratch the itch. Any and all psychic ancestries are a big thumbs up from me.
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For everyone asking for oozes and slime in this thread, I hope we can see something slither out of Nex eventually.
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I don't know if they would work better as separate ancestries or as heritages, but I'd like svirfneblin and aquatic elves as options.
(We can sort of make svirfneblin from the Umbral Gnome heritage, but I'd at least like some ancestry feats specific to deep gnomes to set them apart from other gnomes.)
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For some reason, I thought Flumphs weren't OGL. TIL.
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I'll admit, a lot of the ancestries I wanna play around with are less singular ancestries than they are just going nuts with the versatile ones.
Dwarf-half-elves! Halfling-half-orcs! Aasimar-gnolls! Ifrit-leshies! SO MANY POSSIBILITIES!!!
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I'm actually most interested in the theoretical "Ancestry-Ready" options from the Beastiaries. Some interesting candidates if my observations are accurate.
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For those curious, these are the creatures I imagine possibly fall into the "Ancestry-Ready" category, based on patterns I noticed between the Ancestries we have, that feature Bestiary entries, and the Stheno. These are unlikely to be too accurate, but it was something I noticed and had fun thinking about.
Boggard, Caligni, Deep Gnome (Svirfneblin), Dero, Drow (Dark Elf), Duergar (Gray Dwarf), Gremlin, Merfolk (Sapiaquali-oths), Nymph, Ogre, Sea Devil (Sahuagin), Xulgath (Troglodyte)
Serpantfolk, Spriggin, Urdefhan (Orvian Vampire)
Buso, Cecaelia, Gathlain, Ghoran, Girtabililu, Grioth, Kovintus, Locathah, Maftet, Mortic, Munavri, Samsaran, Shabti, Stheno, Vanara, Vishkanya, Wayang, Wyrwood
Again, a few of these are highly unlikely. We already know Serpentfolk are off the table. I imagine options like Ogres and Girtabililu are probably unlikely as well, mostly due to size and quadrepedal body structure atm. But they all followed a pattern. Quite a few of these are options in 1e; which brings me to Bestiary 2, which had a lot of 1e Races (like Grindylow and Triton), as well as options that seem like shoe-ins for Ancestries (like Bog Striders and D'ziriak). But most of them didn't follow the trend, which is why that list is so small.
This was mostly just an exercise to see what creatures may have potential to be playable in 2e, especially those that weren't already options in 1e.
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Boggards, caligni, and gremlins all feel like no-brainers.
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I wonder if gremlins would be to kobolds what kobolds are to goblins.
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I'm going to continue making noise about playable Serpentfolk.
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Alternative serpentfolk ap so we can say "okay we have had the definitive serpentfolk antagonist ap so surely afterwards they are okay to play" x'D
(I wouldn't mind multiple serpent ancestries though, I do know for fact there are people who want to play serpent's lower body ones rather than humanoid ones)
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I'm going to continue making noise about playable Serpentfolk.And I'm going to keep making noise about playable Caligni. I mean the castes make real easy heritages, and a lot of their abilities slot so easily into ancestry feats.
I actually hadn't considered using the many Caligni castes as Heritage options, and I never knew I needed something more. This is an amazing idea!
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I'm going to continue making noise about playable Serpentfolk.And I'm going to keep making noise about playable Caligni. I mean the castes make real easy heritages, and a lot of their abilities slot so easily into ancestry feats.I actually hadn't considered using the many Caligni castes as Heritage options, and I never knew I needed something more. This is an amazing idea!
They were playable in P1 as well, so precedent!
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They were playable in P1 as well, so precedent!I'm going to continue making noise about playable Serpentfolk.And I'm going to keep making noise about playable Caligni. I mean the castes make real easy heritages, and a lot of their abilities slot so easily into ancestry feats.I actually hadn't considered using the many Caligni castes as Heritage options, and I never knew I needed something more. This is an amazing idea!
Indeed. I actually made note of every 1e return and every new potential in my list, but voided that info in my post.
Actually, I've decided there are a few Ancestries I really want to see.
One: Aquatic Ancestries. Fully or otherwise. I just really want to see more truly aquatic options; and really, REALLY want a fully aquatic AP to play them in. The oceans of Golarion are full of much wonder and danger, and would be really fun to explore more of.
Secondly, or maybe even firstly, I want Tanuki to be playable. And, maybe, Kappa.
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Alternative serpentfolk ap so we can say "okay we have had the definitive serpentfolk antagonist ap so surely afterwards they are okay to play" x'D
(I wouldn't mind multiple serpent ancestries though, I do know for fact there are people who want to play serpent's lower body ones rather than humanoid ones)
I was thinking JJ's insistence on Serpentfolk not being a PC ancestry yet might mean we will have a future subterranean AP dealing with Serpentfolks, where a PC being one would be a liability. And the AP solves something so that they become playable. Maybe destroy an artefact that allows its owner / wearer to control Serpentfolks. Say Crown of the serpent.
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I’m missing Samsarans today.
Do we know if any live in Jalmeray? It would make sense, given that Samsara is an Indian concept, but they’ve mostly been tied to Tian Xia so far, rather than Vudrani cultures.
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I’m missing Samsarans today.
Do we know if any live in Jalmeray? It would make sense, given that Samsara is an Indian concept, but they’ve mostly been tied to Tian Xia so far, rather than Vudrani cultures.
I'm not sure about Jalmeray specifically, but...
Samsarans are located all over the world. They do have their own nation in Tian Xia, but so do Tengu, for example.
We haven't done a samsaran ancestry yet not because they're limited in where they live, but because we can't do everything at once and have to pick and choose whenever we do a selection of ancestries. So far, folks have chosen other options to fill ancestry selections, but hopefully we'll get to samsarans at some point.
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I’m missing Samsarans today.
Do we know if any live in Jalmeray? It would make sense, given that Samsara is an Indian concept, but they’ve mostly been tied to Tian Xia so far, rather than Vudrani cultures.
All the Tian Ancestries are super interesting to me. But, then again, I love Tian-Xia.
Buddhism is a Indian religion and Samsara is pretty much present in all their major religions. So it isn't too strange imo, since Buddhism is pretty central to a lot of Asian cultures.
Zi Ha also seems to be inspired by Tibet and therefore the Himalayas, and is at least partially inspired by the concept of sacred mountains important to religions like Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and Shinto. With India being on the other side of Tibet as well, seems fitting I feel.
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I'm not sure about Jalmeray specifically, but...
Samsarans are located all over the world. They do have their own nation in Tian Xia, but so do Tengu, for example.
We haven't done a samsaran ancestry yet not because they're limited in where they live, but because we can't do everything at once and have to pick and choose whenever we do a selection of ancestries. So far, folks have chosen other options to fill ancestry selections, but hopefully we'll get to samsarans at some point.
Since when have you been able to link quote names like that? I'm pretty sure I attempted to embed tags like that a while back with no luck.
These forums are finally starting to evolve a bit.
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I'm not sure about Jalmeray specifically, but...
Samsarans are located all over the world. They do have their own nation in Tian Xia, but so do Tengu, for example.
We haven't done a samsaran ancestry yet not because they're limited in where they live, but because we can't do everything at once and have to pick and choose whenever we do a selection of ancestries. So far, folks have chosen other options to fill ancestry selections, but hopefully we'll get to samsarans at some point.
Since when have you been able to link quote names like that? I'm pretty sure I attempted to embed tags like that a while back with no luck.
These forums are finally starting to evolve a bit.
I took a quick look through my old posts, and it looks like I first started using that trick in 2016. So it has been an option for a while. I learned the technique from someone else, but I can't remember who it was.
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Limiting myself to just 1E sources, below are Ancestries I would love to see. I have generally broken them up into where I think it makes sense to find them based on 1E sources. Although a few of them are guesses. If I had to pick my top three choices they would be Panotti, Selkie, and Sasquatch.
Arcadia
Wyrwood, Syrinx, Sasquatch, Rougarou, Saurian (medium sized), Entothrope (Monster Archetypes)
Casmaron (Northern)
Bugbear, Centaur, Vodyanoi, Lycanthrope (Monster Archetypes)
Casmaron (Central)
Udaeus, Skulk, Thriae, Azer, Minotaur (medium sized) Cyclops (medium sized)
Casmaron (Vudra)
Vishkanya, Astomoi, Panotti, Vanara
Crown of the World
Adlet, Selkie
Garund (Southern)
Spriggan, Sabosan, Umasi
Tian Xia
Wayang, Samsaran, Nagaji, Locathah, Tanuki, Orang-pendak
Darklands
Morlock, Mongrelman, Dire Corby, Vegepygmy, Trox, Troglodyte, Deep Gnome (Svirfneblin), Munavri, Myceloid, Derro, Drow, Duergar, Caligni
Ocean Realms
Murajau, Ichthyocentaur, Cecaelia, Ceratioidi, Adaro, Triton, Sahuagin, Merfolk, Grindylow
Stars and Space
Formian, Contemplative, Triaxian, Reptoid, Gray, Green Martian, Kasatha, Lashunta
Dreams and Madness
Grioth, Deep One, Deep One Hybrid (Universal Heritage), Being of Ib, Yaddithian, Leng Ghoul, Denizen of Leng, Animate Dream
Absalom
Clockwork
Broken Lands
Herne
Eye of Dread
Mortic
Golden Road
Girtablilu, Shabti
High Seas
Kuru
Impossible Lands
Ghoran, Wyvaran
Mwangi Expanse
Kerakinsi, Kech (Kaava), Derhii, Charau-Ka
Old Cheliax
Shae
Saga Lands
Khaei, Ogrekin (including Half-Orge) Human Heritage
Shining Kingdoms
Bog Strider, Ginever, Onyvolan
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Samsaran.
Also, would love to see what a Centaur ancestry would look like in 2E
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Some kind of Versatile Heritage for mutants would be a lot of fun, and honestly would've been my preferred way to do Fleshwarps. I hope we see one someday, especially given the presence of mutants of other recognizable ancestries in AP material.