So, there's a way easier way of dealing with Damage Reduction than carrying around an array of weapons, Penetrating Strike, and Greater Penetrating Strike.
Also, in most adventure paths - Damage Reduction doesn't seem to be that big of a deal, that you need to build to counter it.
AS for 2, this is what the Elephant in the Room system is for, basically all of your feats apply to all of the weapons in a group. Many players have switched to this set of rules.
1) I'm not sure about a "good" rules reason, but a GM can always bend the language hard enough to make something not work if they want. "You can make a tail slap attack with your tail.", so they could just say that "a" specifies only one.
2) Covered fairly well by happykj and TXSam88. Having so many weapons does make you weaker to DR, since you can't afford to keep the bonuses high enough overcome different types. But really, DR to slashing and piercing is fairly rare outside of the low levels.
3)I would also think they would. The polymorph rules are very human-centric and don't well account for being a non-human transforming into something else.
As to the first question, there is besides weight preventing you from putting a tail weapon on each tail. Two weapon fighting does not apply to using more than 2 weapons at a time. So, you are still -8 to attack with 7 of the tails. The feat Multiweapon Fighting is what you need. The prerequistes for Multiweapon fighting are DEX 13, three or more hands. RAW the tails are not hands. Some GM’s may allow this but don’t count on it.
If you are also making an attack in addition to the tails all of the tails will be considered offhand. The same would go for your bite attack.
That makes more sense. I guess i would need to build multi attack into the build. With the change shape i wonder if you strapped a dagger sheath on your tails would that interfere with the tail natural attack.
My thoughts are change shape being used to smuggle weapons into secure areas by keeping them small and melded into your body. No search check would find them
You need to smuggle weapons in that often? We play Adventure Paths and needing to smuggle in weapons happens so seldom that I can't remember ever needing to do so. In any case, just strap them to your waist and they will still meld.
Seems like a build focused on countering things that aren't encountered that often.
Also, from what I can tell the best "weapon" you could use with teach tail is a Kobold Tail Attachment - not really daggers, etc.
I have to agree with TxSam88 about the need to smuggle in weapons. If you are worried about not having weapons, I would suggest taking the feat Catch Off-Guard. This will allow you to use things you find in the area as weapons. It also means any unarmed opponents are flatfooted when you use an improvised melee weapon.
The human guise feat is letting the kitsune count as human for feats. It's a weird combo and surely not intended. But it mostly "works".
I don't think there is an actual argument for the lack of proficiency. The proficiency is "special" and being adopted seems to meet that criteria.
Like I said earlier, the GM can easily read rules from a skewed viewpoint to keep this from working. We can make all kinds of "what abouts", but allowing most of this to work would be a reasonable reading.
Expanding on what Melkiador posted the feat Tail Terror allows him to make a tail slap attack with his tail, and to use a kobold tail attachment. The feat specifically grants proficiency with all kobold tail attachment. Racial Heritage (Kobold) allows him to take the feat. That portion of the build is a little strange but going strictly by RAW is legal. Many GM’s may decide not still decide not to allow it.
As I pointed out earlier two weapon fighting does not remove the penalty for more than the first extra attack, and it is questionable if the character can take Multiweapon Fighting. That part of the build is a lot more questionable.
In reality even if the GM approves it the build looks very weak. The character is spending 3 feats to get the tail attack. As a Kitsune he takes a penalty to STR so is unlikely to have any STR bonus and may even have a penalty to damage due to STR. He has no way to add DEX to damage. Purchasing 9 magic weapons is going to be incredibly expensive, so that further erodes his damage. Since most of the attacks are off hand, it halves the damage bonus from Piranha Strike and any his STR bonus if any. At 20th level the characters damage bonus is probably only around +15 at most. Compare that to a STR based 20th level fighter using a two-handed weapon. The STR based fighter will probably have a damage bonus of around +46 and a threat range of 17-20 for critical hits.
I just noticed the build is using the fighter bonus feats to pick up magical tail. You can only use fighter bonus feats for combat feats, so the build is going to need to be adjusted.
Even if it can be done the damage potential is extremely low for a fighter. As a fighter the character does not have much else to offer the party. If I were a player in a party I think I would prefer a chained rogue to this character. The chained rogue is probably going to contribute more to the party’s success.
1) is there a good rules reason that all 9 tails cannot use a tail weapon
- You can wear a kobold tail attachment on all nine tails, but it doesn't do anything.
"A kobold with the Tail Terror feat (see below) can slip this device over the tip of his tail to augment his natural attack." Note that it says "augment", meaning it doesn't grant an attack. The only thing in your build that grants a natural attack with a tail is the Tail Terror feat, which says "You can make a tail slap attack with your tail." "a" is singular, meaning the feat only ever grants one natural attack. The feat doesn't make any mention of picking a tail, so you could wear different tail attachments and pick which one to use, but that's it.
3) how would the tail weapons work with change shape? Would they be absorbed into your body until shapeshifting back to kitsune?
Depends on what you turn into. In any case, you won't get any extra attacks (and if the form doesn't have a tail you can't use tail attachments at all).
My thoughts are change shape being used to smuggle weapons into secure areas by keeping them small and melded into your body. No search check would find them
It works, but only when turning into a creature of the animal, dragon, elemental, magical
beast, plant, or vermin type. In short, you need the Fox Shape feat, possibly from the Superior Shapeshifter racial trait.The feat Multiweapon Fighting is what you need.
It does absolutely nothing here. Well, it does nothing for 99.99% of PCs, so no surprise there.
As I pointed out earlier two weapon fighting does not remove the penalty for more than the first extra attack, and it is questionable if the character can take Multiweapon Fighting. That part of the build is a lot more questionable.
Two-Weapon Fighting only works with exactly two weapons, and there simply is no similar option for more weapons. A Kitsune doesn't qualify because the feat requires three actual hands, but even if the character had those and thus would qualify, it just never, ever helps.
Honestly, remove the feat form your mind. It is a relic of DnD 3.5 that got broken with the conversion to PF, and is useless for PCs.
I already pointed out that you could try to argue the "a", but that's really pretty flimsy. Still I wouldn't be surprised if a GM tried something passive like that rather than just saying no because it's too cheesy.
I'm more curious if this uses anything other than the natural attack rules.
A kobold with the Tail Terror feat (see below) can slip this device over the tip of his tail to augment his natural attack. Each tail attachment provides just enough weight, balance, and striking power to increase the damage of his tail slap.
It seems to still be a "natural attack", just augmented.
I just noticed the build is using the fighter bonus feats to pick up magical tail. You can only use fighter bonus feats for combat feats, so the build is going to need to be adjusted.
The Nine Tailed Scion trait covers that limitation.
I already pointed out that you could try to argue the "a", but that's really pretty flimsy.
"a tail slap attack" is singular, there's nothing flimy or language bending about that. What's flimsy is seeing "You can make a tail slap attack with your tail." and trying to argue that for multiple tails this means multiple tail slaps. That's simply not how the rules work.
I'm more curious if this uses anything other than the natural attack rules.
Oh, wait, I didn't actually talk about that part...
The text about "augment his natural attack" appears to be flavor text/explanatory text, and the actual rule text says "Tail attachments are light weapons".* Thus, they behave like other manufactured weapons.
This also clears up any doubts about how many attacks you get, because having more than two manufactured weapons never grants additional attacks.
*) Tail attachments are light weapons and can be improved by feats that can improve weapon attacks (such as Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization). All kobold tail attachments make up a kobold tail attachment weapon group that can be improved by the fighter’s weapon training class ability. Tail attachments can be constructed of special material and made into masterwork or magic items.
I already pointed out that you could try to argue the "a", but that's really pretty flimsy."a tail slap attack" is singular, there's nothing flimy or language bending about that. What's flimsy is seeing "You can make a tail slap attack with your tail." and trying to argue that for multiple tails this means multiple tail slaps. That's simply not how the rules work.
No, you can make a tail attack with a tail. And then you can make a tail attack with a tail. And so on. It never specifies how many times it can be used in a turn, round, minute, hour or day. Using your kind of meaning, the character could make one tail attack once in their career and then never be able to use it again.
I'm more curious if this uses anything other than the natural attack rules.Oh, wait, I didn't actually talk about that part...
The text about "augment his natural attack" appears to be flavor text/explanatory text, and the actual rule text says "Tail attachments are light weapons".*
Natural attacks are also light weapons though, so that's not really meaningful.
It's more troubling that you dismiss the text that refutes you as being nothing more than flavor text. It sounds very dishonest. Why should your selected text carry any more weight than other parts of text?
Have you considered going with Ratfolk for racial Heritage rather than Kobold? A Ratfolk tailblade functions similarly to a kobold tail attachment but you would save the feat for tail terror as u don’t need a feat to use one, Racial Heritage Ratfolk is enough. Also I feel like the wording in the Tailblade text is more likely to fly with a GM for stacking multiple attacks with it.
“A tailblade is a small, sharp knife designed to be strapped to the tip of a wielder's tail. It takes a full-round action to strap on or remove a tailblade. The wearer can loosely attach the tailblade (without strapping it securely in place) as a move action, but using a loosely attached tailblade gives the wielder a –4 penalty on all attack rolls made with the weapon, and other creatures get a +4 bonus on disarm combat maneuver checks to disarm the tailblade. A ratfolk wielding a tailblade can make a tail attack, adding its Strength modifier to the tailblade's damage. Ratfolk are considered proficient with such attacks and can apply feats or effects appropriate to natural attacks to tail attacks made with a tailblade. If used as part of a full attack action, attacks with a tailblade are considered secondary attacks.”
Since it’s the act of wielding a Tailblade that grants a tail attack I think it would be easier to argue that wielding multiple tailblades grants multiple attacks rather than taking a feat that grants a tail slap and arguing that that grants a character with multiple tails multiple tail slaps.
In addition as counting as a Ratfolk that would also qualify you for the Sharpclaw feat that grants you a pair of claw attacks as well.
Have you considered going with Ranger over the Fighter class? You only get one less combat feat than with Fighter and the Natural Weapon combat style gives you access to the Multiattack feat at 10th level and Aspect of the Beast feat to gain you a pair of claw attacks.