Multiple Claw attacks and Vestigial Arms

[Hate9]

I'm thinking of making a multiclass Alchemist/Bloodrager (or sorcerer) and using the eldritch heritage feat or the dual-blooded archetype to gain both the Draconic and Abyssal bloodlines.
If I use the Vestigial Arm Alchemist Discovery (twice, for two arms), and use both bloodlines' 1st abilities at the same time, should it be possible to gain 4 claw attacks?

[Psyren]

I'm thinking of making a multiclass Alchemist/Bloodrager (or sorcerer) and using the eldritch heritage feat or the dual-blooded archetype to gain both the Draconic and Abyssal bloodlines.
If I use the Vestigial Arm Alchemist Discovery (twice, for two arms), and use both bloodlines' 1st abilities at the same time, should it be possible to gain 4 claw attacks?

No. Vestigial Arm:

"The alchemist gains a new arm (left or right) on his torso. The arm is fully under his control and cannot be concealed except with magic or bulky clothing. 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)."

Even if you put claws on all 4 arms, you won't get any extra claw attacks. You can however use the claws on your vestigial arms to attack while your regular hands do other things though (e.g. hold a shield and potion) or vice-versa.

[Knight Magenta]

No. Vestigial Arm:

"The alchemist gains a new arm (left or right) on his torso. The arm is fully under his control and cannot be concealed except with magic or bulky clothing. 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)."

Even if you put claws on all 4 arms, you won't get any extra claw attacks. You can however use the claws on your vestigial arms to attack while your regular hands do other things though (e.g. hold a shield and potion) or vice-versa.

I really dislike this discovery for its murkiness, as another interpretation of it is that "having the arm can't give you extra attacks, but It can wield weapons that you could attack with:

"The alchemist gains a new arm (left or right) on his torso. The arm is fully under his control and cannot be concealed except with magic or bulky clothing. 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)."

Its also conceivable that it could let you dual-wield bows or something.

[Psyren]

I really dislike this discovery for its murkiness, as another interpretation of it is that "having the arm can't give you extra attacks, but It can wield weapons that you could attack with:

"The alchemist gains a new arm (left or right) on his torso. The arm is fully under his control and cannot be concealed except with magic or bulky clothing. 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)."

Still no: "extra" means "more than you would be able to make if you didn't have that discovery." (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fz#v5748eaic9rc5) If you can make X attacks with TWF without the discovery, that is exactly how many you can make with it, end of story.


Its also conceivable that it could let you dual-wield bows or something.

This one is more possible - however between the TWF penalties for having two non-light weapons and your middling BAB with no bonuses, it's probably a bad idea.

[Knight Magenta]

This one is more possible - however between the TWF penalties for having two non-light weapons and your middling BAB with no bonuses, it's probably a bad idea.

I could see an alchemist 2/slayer X that dual-wields bows.

[upho]

If you intend to be a pure natural attacker, you can actually build around the vestigial arm limitation by taking a monk dip for monk unarmed strikes. Since these attacks can be made with any part of your body, without vestigial arms your full attack might look something like:

unarmed strike +10/+5 (damage) and 2 claws (secondary) +5/+5 (poor damage)

And with two vestigial arms and two additional claw attacks to go with them, your full attack could instead be:

4 claws (primary) +10/+10/+10/+10 (good damage)

Especially if you invest in stuff like Feral Combat Training and Dragon Ferocity, the latter "claws-only" full attack will soon be vastly more potent than the former "unarmed/claws mixed" attack. Notably since the latter can also get the full "2-handed" x3 bonus from Power Attack, since all can be primary natural weapons which receive 1.5 x Str (or more) to damage.

Hope that helps!

[Psyren]

If you intend to be a pure natural attacker, you can actually build around the vestigial arm limitation by taking a monk dip for monk unarmed strikes. Since these attacks can be made with any part of your body, without vestigial arms your full attack might look something like:

unarmed strike +10/+5 (damage) and 2 claws (secondary) +5/+5 (poor damage)

And with two vestigial arms and two additional claw attacks to go with them, your full attack could instead be:

4 claws (primary) +10/+10/+10/+10 (good damage)

Especially if you invest in stuff like Feral Combat Training and Dragon Ferocity, the latter "claws-only" full attack will soon be vastly more potent than the former "unarmed/claws mixed" attack. Notably since the latter can also get the full "2-handed" x3 bonus from Power Attack, since all can be primary natural weapons which receive 1.5 x Str (or more) to damage.

Hope that helps!

You can use Feral Combat Training to flurry with your claws, but that just means that you're replacing individual punches/kicks/headbutts/whatever from your routine with claw attacks. The claws on your vestigial arms still won't actually add any attacks to that (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1g1#v5748eaic9ozd) - they're wasted discoveries at that point because you can flurry with a single claw if you want.

[upho]

You can use Feral Combat Training to flurry with your claws, but that just means that you're replacing individual punches/kicks/headbutts/whatever from your routine with claw attacks. The claws on your vestigial arms still won't actually add any attacks to that (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1g1#v5748eaic9ozd) - they're wasted discoveries at that point because you can flurry with a single claw if you want.Yeah, they'd certainly be wasted with FoB. But why the heck would you want to gimp your full attack with FoB as a natural attacker? :smallconfused:

As a natural attacker, your full attacks can largely consist of primary attacks at full bab, which of course is the whole reason they can be so much greater for damage purposes than anything anyone is capable of by using FoB (or other iteratives). So the whole point of dipping monk is of course to get some crappy monk iteratives to trade for two additional boosted claw super-attacks (well, aside from maybe getting a boost to your saves and a ton of free useful feats, like Dragon Style via MoMS). And since you're not using FoB and can use a pair of extra arms for something much better than just adding a few additional poor iteratives or secondary attacks, the vestigial arm discoveries are anything but wasted. I think they can probably often increase your already fantastic full attack damage output capacity with as much as 50%, which I think is pretty darn impressive results from a mere total of three levels worth of dips (1 monk + 2 alchemist). Especially when considering you can also pick up yet another stacking +6 boost to your Str from the alchemist, improving your full attack even further.