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BooNL
2010-07-27, 04:34 PM
So I was playing through Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos for a bit today. I hadn't played it in years and it's still as awesome as I remember it. If you've never played it, I highly recommend you find a copy somewhere!

Anyway, one of the NPC's is a Thomgog, basically a Michelinman with 4 arms and it got me thinking. How much are those arms worth in DnD terms?

The Thri-kreen is a fairly popular race simply for even having 4 arms, but I feel most of it's side benefits justify its high LA as well (huge jump bonus for one).

If you had a race who had no benefits at all besides having 4 arms, what would its LA be? How much are those arms worth exactly?

Andion Isurand
2010-07-27, 08:00 PM
Obah-Blessed template from Dungeon Magazine 136 is a fun one to look at.

+2 Str, +4 Dex, +2 Con, +4 Cha
one extra pair of arms
multi-weapon fighting bonus feat
+2 LA

-- or --

+4 Str, +6 Dex, +4 Con, +6 Cha
two extra pairs of arms
multi-weapon fighting bonus feat
+3 LA


can't be added to a creature that already has more than four arms
heh.. imagine a ranger/scout using greater manyshot three times simultaneously... or a scout/lion totem barbarian going for the pounce

I would level dip for an unarmored AC though, since armor that fits will be hard to find

playswithfire
2010-07-27, 09:16 PM
There's also Aberrant Limbs (Arms) from, if I remember right, DMG II. Gives 2 more arms and multi-weapon fighting. +2 LA. Strictly worse than Obah-blessed, of course, but, not being from Dragon Magazine, may be palatable to more DMs.

So, I'd say you could probably get just having 4 arms for +1 LA and maybe 4 arms with a -2 penalty when you attack with more than one weapon as a full attack (in addition to TWF/MWF penalties) for nothing, but I could be wrong.

Xallace
2010-07-27, 09:21 PM
There's a race in Dragon Compendium that has four arms and a number of other benefits. It's worth LA +1. So... all this given, I'd say the arms themselves are worth ~1.5 LA, rounded down or up depending on who's asking.

I_Got_This_Name
2010-07-27, 11:21 PM
Sahuagin are LA +2 with two racial hit dice.
Sahuagin with four arms are LA +3.

So we can conclude that having an extra pair of arms is worth +1 LA if you are a fifth-level character. It might be overpowered at lower levels, and it might be underpowered at higher levels, but at that point is worth +1 LA, according to the people assigning level adjustments in the monster manual.

Since they overpriced everything, it's probably worth a level's worth of class features on a class with a reasonable BAB and save progression, usable at around level 5 (the first level of a prestige class might give it).

These people (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Extra_Arms_(3.5e_Feat)) seem to think it's worth a feat at around the same point. Since an entire level's worth of class features isn't exactly clear (I'd certainly trade the entire "special" line on my fifth level of Fighter for a second pair of arms), a feat at least gives it a more concrete cost. Not a very concrete cost, since feats range from, say, Alertness, Skill Focus (Profession (Basketweaver)), Monkey Grip, and Weapon Focus up to Quicken Spell, Leap Attack, Shock Trooper, Natural Spell, and Divine Metamagic (note that the designers of this feat consider it to belong to the latter category). But at least a feat has an assigned value that isn't often zero.

If you want it available at a lower level, it might be worth a level adjustment. Maybe. Think very carefully first. I'd take LA +1 for extra arms if it suited my build (thrown-weapon user or twofour-weapon blender) and was playing with LA buyoff. I wouldn't take it on a caster even with LA buyoff.