Bard Handbook + Multiarmed Races

[Ice&Fire]

I have 2 quick questions for the playground

1. Does anyone have know of a way to access the bard handbook from gleemax? It's down for a week

2. How many multiarmed player races are there? I know of Thri-keen, which has 4 arms.

[Lyndworm]

As far as I know, Thri-Kreen is it, buddy. There's the Insectile template from Savage Species which adds four extra arms. However, these arms can't be used to wield weapons on their own. They can be used to add an additional 0.5xStr to damage, though, for One and Two-Handed weapons. There are a whole bunch of ways to get extra natural attacks, but I can't think of any way to get weapon-wielding limbs.

[Ice&Fire]

Hmm
That's a pity. Hopefully someone else may have seen one. I was hoping to minimize the LA, since thri-keen is +2. Theres a variant of the thri-keen thats only LA 1 but loses out on the psi-like abilities.

[The Rose Dragon]

I hate to tell you this, but Thri-kreen also have 2 racial hit die, so you lose a total of four levels.

Though it's not that terrible if you were going for fighter.

[Ice&Fire]

Oh dear
Thats annoying

My plan was PsyWar2/Warblade X with maybe a few levels of Crusader for thicket of blades, wielding 4 kusari-gama (unless I'm mistaken in thinking that you can wield them one handed)

I was thinking of buying of the 1 LA version, but HD...
Any suggestions?

EDIT: Also, how do you figure IL for ToB classes with HD and LA?

[Draken]

Racial HD works like any other class level. You add half of it to your IL. LA does not add at all.

[Salvonus]

This Bard Handbook? (http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:HSPYpYTFlzMJ:forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D952766)

[quick_comment]

I was hoping this would be about bards with many arms being able to play multiple songs at once.

[tonberrian]

For multi-armed, there's also a Sahuagin mutant, but it's even worse than Thri-keen (2 RHD, +3 LA with the arms, Water Dependency, and Light Blindness; none of which makes for a decent character) and it still only has 4 arms.

You could look into an item that casts Girallon's Blessing (Spell Compendium), though.

[Ice&Fire]

I was hoping this would be about bards with many arms being able to play multiple songs at once.

That would be awesome
Not sure what mechanical advantage thatd give but fun none the less

Do Girallion arms allow you to wield weapons?

[Myrmex]

Totemist, from MoI (I think), gets another set of arms. Not sure what the limitations on them are.

Anthropomorphic octopus, from Savage Species, gets 8 arms.

[Xallace]

There's a race in Dragon Compendium with 4 arms, no HD, and I think a +1 LA. Insectoid, like Thri-Kreen, but more beetle-like than mantis-like.

From the same book, you also have the dvati, who have four arms. They also have two bodies, but hey, I think they count.

[Amadi]

Totemist, from MoI (I think), gets another set of arms. Not sure what the limitations on them are.

Anthropomorphic octopus, from Savage Species, gets 8 arms.

Only six, two of those become feet. :smallwink:

[Darrin]

I have 2 quick questions for the playground

1. Does anyone have know of a way to access the bard handbook from gleemax? It's down for a week


Google it, click on "Cached (http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:HSPYpYTFlzMJ:forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D952766+site:gleemax.com+bard+ handbook&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)".



2. How many multiarmed player races are there? I know of Thri-keen, which has 4 arms.

Several of these have already been mentioned, but the candidates you'll want to look at:

Anthropomorphic Giant Octopus (Savage Species p. 216). You want the Giant version because the normal octopus doesn't have individual attacks for each tentacle, just an arm and bite attack. The Giant Octopus also doesn't have +1 LA for some reason... but it does have 2 template HD, which you have to take. As has been mentioned already, two of your tentacles become legs, so you get 6 tentacle attacks. If you have to have 8 tentacles, the Anthropomorphic Giant Squid gets 8 tentacle attacks (starts with 10, two become legs) and is large size, for 3 template HD and +1 LA.

Diopsid in the Dragon Compendium, no racial HD but +1 LA (insectoid, but dumber/slower than a Thri-Kreen). It has some wonky 3.0ish/TWFish rules for the extra arms, but works quite well if you want to dual-wield a pair of two-handed weapons.

Marilith (MM p. 44). While 16 HD places this even outside of Polymorph range, there's a particular PrC that can pull this off... more below.

Tako (Oriental Adventures p. 193). 4HD aberration. While its arms don't do any damage, it can wield up to 7 weapons without a penalty. I'm not sure if the errata/update included LA values, but if you start out as an Elan (+0 LA aberration), you can Alter Self into this form at a low level.

Other methods to gain additional appendages:

Aberrant Blood + Deepspawn feats (Lords of Madness). Adds two tentacles to your waist.

Alter Self (PHB). By starting out with an aberration, monstrous humanoid or outsider race (Elan, Neraph, or Anthropomorphic <blah> can be LA +0), you can alter into a Tako, Thri-Kreen, Diopsid, or some other multi-armed creature. Magical beasts such as Girallons are a little tougher. A bard can cast this at 1st level by taking Precocious Apprentice.

Arms of the Naga (Savage Species p. 55, 56000 GP). Expensive, and mentions a restriction that they can't be used for additional attacks... although there might be a way around that if you get creative.

Demonbinder (Drow of the Underdark p. 72). Spend 8 Damnation points to turn into a sorta-Marilith. You only get one extra pair of arms, although the eldritch blast as a swift action is kinda nice. Lasts only 10 minutes, but after 5 minutes of rest you get all your Damnation points back.

Girallon's Blessing (Spell Compendium p. 106). Limited duration, but you can create a custom magic item with a continuous effect for 45000 GP. Cheaper than the Arms of the Naga and fewer limitations.

Gloves of Man (Savage Species p. 57, 42000 GP). While they don't give you hands themselves, they do allow tentacles or other non-arm appendages to manipulate objects as fully-functional hands with opposable thumbs. Unfortunately, they cost almost as much as Arms of the Naga.

Phylactery of Change (A&EG p. 135, 11200 GP). Somewhat affordable all-day polymorph. It can only go up to 7HD, but that easily covers most of the low-level multi-armed creatures.

Polymorph Any Object, scroll or friendly/paid spellcaster. Can be permanent if you're roughly the same size and type as the new form. A scroll of PAO only costs 1200 GP.

Spare Hand (MIC p. 137, 11000 GP). Requires a 3rd level infusion from an Artificer to become fully-functional. As a waist-slot item, you'll have some difficulty mounting more than one. Assuming you have access to infusions, pretty useful without a lot of limitations.

Totemist 2 (Magic of Incarnum), bind the Girallon Arms soulmeld to your Totem chakra. While the text doesn't explicitly say they can be used as arms, it doesn't specifically say they can't. There may be other soulmelds that offer extra appendages, such as Displacer Mantle.

Wildshape/Master of Many Forms (Complete Adventurer). Offers more interesting creature types, such as monstrous humanoids and aberrations.

[UserClone]

There is also the Siarran race, from the third-party sourcebook Mythic Races, from Fantasy Flight games' Legends and Lairs series.