Let's optimize Tails

[daremetoidareyo]

I'm working on a build to unleash on my players. What I want to do is get as many tails on the same character as possible, and be able to use them.

So far I've got the following:
Weapons
Tail blade, tail scythe, tail club, ratling tail spikes

Feats that add tails
Dragon Tail, aberration blood, Double chakra bind

Feats that help tails
tail rattle, prehensile tail, tail sweep knockdown, whirlwind tail sweep, barbed stinger

Spells that grant tails you attack with
Devils tail (1), ghostly tail(1), scorpion tail (3) Tail slap (2)

Powers that grant tails
Tail of the dragon

Soulmelds that grant tails
Dragon tail, wyrmtail pelt, lamia belt, totem avatar, manticore belt.

So far, totemist 6 gets you two chakra binds, so you can bind totem avatar to your feet and lamia pelt to your totem chakras. The problem is that so many tail soulmelds have to occupy either your feet or waist chakras. You can take double chakra bind twice (once for feet and once for waist) to get a total of four tails.

Does prehensile tail affect all of your tails? Cuz then you can wield scorpion tail whips in all of them...
It doesn't seem to matter much because the tail weapons don't seem to require that your tail be traditionally used for its own attack, so you can just strap a weapon to each of them and take your -2 to your attack rolls. Which, if you are going the sorcerer route, consider arcane strike to burn spell slots for bonuses to hit and damage.

Anyway, a silverbrow human totemist 2 with dragon tail and aberration blood can have 4 extra tail attacks per full attack. That attack is at -8, so we may need a way to offset that flurry of misses.
With prehensile tail, I was thinking of adding some sais and gnomish battle cloaks to get some +16 to disarm checks.

Any other tail based shenanigans that yall can think of?

[Inevitability]

Can't warshapers grow tails?

[martixy]

Don't forget the grafts - Smashing tail(Draconic), Stinging tail(Fiendish), Added tail and Replacement tails(Yuan-ti).

Also, gonna mention PF here too, since the thread is not explicitly 3.5 - the race creation system can add a few tail variations(Slapping tail, Tripping tail) for cheap.

[flappeercraft]

Warshaper can technically grow NI natural weapons, it might be cheesy but it can. I would do that honestly

[Psyren]

Also, gonna mention PF here too, since the thread is not explicitly 3.5 - the race creation system can add a few tail variations(Slapping tail, Tripping tail) for cheap.

There's also Kitsune which can get up to 9 magical tails. Not much there on weaponizing them directly, but some of those 3.5 attachments might do the trick.

[Buufreak]

Here I was, thinking this would be a thread about a two tailed fox that flies a plane...

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Here I was, thinking this would be a thread about a two tailed fox that flies a plane...Ditto.

And whose name is a pun on "miles per hour."

I came for the fox but stayed because the actual subject is relevant to a character of mine.

[Afgncaap5]

I'm not really familiar with a lot of this stuff. Looking over Prehensile Tail: the wording seems to suggest that it works for a singular tail, but the fact that the language only assumes a single tail is curious as well. Would that feat alone function for multiple tails, or would you need something different for all the other tails a person has?


Ditto.

And whose name is a pun on "miles per hour."

I came for the fox but stayed because the actual subject is relevant to a character of mine.

Same, minus the character relevancy. It's a fun topic, though!

Seriously, though: I need a SatAM roleplaying game. Other topic for another day.

[Darrin]

Does prehensile tail affect all of your tails?


Inconclusive. The text refers to a singular tail, but if I have multiple tails, I can still refer to them as singular even though I have several of them.



Anyway, a silverbrow human totemist 2 with dragon tail and aberration blood can have 4 extra tail attacks per full attack.


How about Diabolus (Dragon Compendium) with a Dragonfire Adept dip?



That attack is at -8, so we may need a way to offset that flurry of misses.


Exotic Weapon Master's "Throw Exotic Weapon" stunt might be of use here, stacking MWF with Rapid Shot. Orc shotputs, maybe?



With prehensile tail, I was thinking of adding some sais and gnomish battle cloaks to get some +16 to disarm checks.


I was going to say, maybe broadblade shortsword (Complete Adventurer) to stack up dodge bonuses, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

[ExLibrisMortis]

There is this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20310092&postcount=15) bit by WhamBamSam, which uses ghostly tail to great effect.


Dragonborn Silverbrow Human Stalwart Dragonblood Battle Sorcerer 5/Swordsage 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 5/Abjurant Champion 5/Full Casting medium BAB 4. Drop Draconic Heritage from Dragonblood Sorcerer for your required dropped feat and trade Weapon Focus from Stalwart Sorcerer for Dragon Tail when undergoing the Rite of Rebirth. Intersperse JPM levels as necessary for desired maneuvers. Pretty basic Sorcerer/JPM build, but this one is set up for the combo of Arcane Thesis Fell XYZ Sudden Maximized Empowerd (by Empowering Strike) Ghostly Tail+Defensive Rebuke+Desert Tempest. Ghostly Tail is hours/level and makes a melee touch attack to deal 2d6 Force damage (+CL up to 20 if you're a Dragon or Dragonblooded) whenever someone performs an action that would provoke an AoO from you, critically (and explicitly), even if you aren't wielding a weapon that threatens them at the time. With Defensive Rebuke+Desert Tempest, you can make it so that a bunch of your enemies will be forced to move to attack you, likely provoking an AoO from your reach weapon and tasting the Ghostly Tail, or else provoke an AoO and taste the Ghostly Tail as a result of attacking your allies. Having used a strike maneuver (Desert Tempest), you can Empower a spell on the following round. If you don't mind losing 9th level spells, consider going all the way to JPM 10 for Quickening Strike and other goodies.

[Prime32]

It's insanely cheesy, but...

A halfling were-murder-of-crows in hybrid form has 1,000 tails but attacks as a normal creature instead of a swarm, meaning it can wield 1,000 Small tail blades.

If you can find a Tiny humanoid and make it into a were-pitying-of-doves, that rises to 5,000 Tiny tail blades.


Don't forget to change your type and take the Rapidstrike and Improved Rapidstrike feats for more attacks.

[VisitingDaGulag]

You've exceeded 9. You need an auto-curse if an enemy dares to touch one of your precious tails.

[daremetoidareyo]

There is this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20310092&postcount=15) bit by WhamBamSam, which uses ghostly tail to great effect.

bronze dragon heritage needs to get on there. spend a spell slot so they have to move away from you

[PrismCat21]

Ditto.

And whose name is a pun on "miles per hour."

I came for the fox but stayed because the actual subject is relevant to a character of mine.

Everything that he said. :Elan:
I was really hoping for the two-tailed plane flying one. :,(

[Darrin]

Here I was, thinking this would be a thread about a two tailed fox that flies a plane...

Hengeyokai Fox in hybrid form gives us some baseline racial stats for LA +0: +2 Dex, -2 Wis. Aberration Blood gives us a second tail. From there, Psion (Shaper) w/ astral construct gets us a plane we can fly around in.

[daremetoidareyo]

Hengeyokai Fox in hybrid form gives us some baseline racial stats for LA +0: +2 Dex, -2 Wis. Aberration Blood gives us a second tail. From there, Psion (Shaper) w/ astral construct gets us a plane we can fly around in.

Needs a way to smite constructs made by a corpulent artificer

[Darrin]

Needs a way to smite constructs made by a corpulent artificer

Huh. There are no PrCs in 3.x that focus on smiting constructs. Odd.

Best I can do... Destruction domain (either via Cleric dip or Planar Touchstone -> Catalogues of Enlightenment) + multiple Extra Smiting feats. Damage would be pathetic, though... either 1 (Cleric dip) or 0 (no Cleric levels).

[DeTess]

Huh. There are no PrCs in 3.x that focus on smiting constructs. Odd.


Doesn't artificer get an infusion that's basically inflict wound but that only works on constructs?

Edit: Yes, they do. Inflict light/moderate/etc. Damage.

[Anxe]

Why not just design your own monster that attacks a bunch with its prehensile, extendable tails? Or take an existing monster and call all of its natural attacks tail attacks?

The build sounds like a lot of work if you're not doing the work for its own sake. Trying to build something like this within the rules can obviously be a fun activity on its own, but it doesn't seem necessary if this is an NPC character.

[daremetoidareyo]

Why not just design your own monster that attacks a bunch with its prehensile, extendable tails? Or take an existing monster and call all of its natural attacks tail attacks?

The build sounds like a lot of work if you're not doing the work for its own sake. Trying to build something like this within the rules can obviously be a fun activity on its own, but it doesn't seem necessary if this is an NPC character.

Our game has devolved a bit. Players are in a mercenary company with squads, they choose a mission at the end of a session. The next session is that mission. Sometimes multiple squads are on a mission. I make opposing teams of stuff for the PCs to compete with and against. Usually one mission is one combat encounter.

[Thurbane]

Detach (feat) (SS)
Diamond Dragon (PrC) (Dragon Magic)
Dragonshape, Least (spell)
Infernal Transformation (spell) (SC)
Scorpion Heritor (PrC) (Sandstorm)
Sharptooth (spell) (Draconomicon)
Shock Wave (feat) (Draconomicon)
Tail Constrict (feat) (Draconomicon)

[The Viscount]

Huh. There are no PrCs in 3.x that focus on smiting constructs. Odd.

Best I can do... Destruction domain (either via Cleric dip or Planar Touchstone -> Catalogues of Enlightenment) + multiple Extra Smiting feats. Damage would be pathetic, though... either 1 (Cleric dip) or 0 (no Cleric levels).

You're forgetting Techsmith from Faiths and Pantheons. It's pretty good at smiting constructs, despite being a tinkerer itself.

On topic, Fiend Folio also has the lashing tail and the Added Tail.

[WhamBamSam]

Oh boy. I love tail optimization in all its forms.

As quoted above, I'm very fond of the Ghostly Tail+Defensive Rebuke combo. In addition to loading up Fell X metamagics on the spell, I quite like taking Ghostly Tail as a Draconic Rite of Passage SLA and tacking on Mortalbane and Maximize SLA as well. Other effective ways of striking multiple enemies in a round and ending far enough away that it's inconvenient for them to get to you include Paimon's Dance of Death, the Whirling Blade spell, and ranged combat in general (as Defensive Rebuke only requires that you strike your opponent, and doesn't say anything about melee).

With Prehensile Tail, you can take advantage of things that require extra hands, like Multiweapon Fighting or weapons designed for creatures with more hands. If you believe (as I do) that it should apply to all your tails (or at least all your tail attacks), then you can use your tails to get an extra pair of hands and qualify for Multitasking. Lucy "Legs" Silvertail from my sig uses Osteomancer to grow Spiked Gauntlet natural weapons from all hands and Blood Wind to use all her natural weapons at once (your DM might rule that you can't use multiple natural weapons from the same arm on an ordinary full attack, but Blood Wind is pretty explicit in that regard). I had wanted to make a sister build for her that used the same extra hand tricks but instead used them to wield a 6-handed weapon and Multitask Nightmare Blade maneuvers, but couldn't quite make it work without flaws.

Combining the Tail Sweep from the Dragon Tail soulmeld's Totem Bind with various Incarnum-friendly ways of AC boosting (Combat Expertise+Cobalt Expertise, various soulmelds, maybe Deepwarden and/or Fist of the Forest, or perhaps simply heavy armor) gets you a pretty much entirely Con-SAD tank build. Since you're Tail Sweeping, you don't really need to worry about your to-hit, and Tail Sweep Knockdown (and for that matter regular Knock-Down boosted by Improved Trip, Cobalt Expertise, soulmelds, and the like since you do deal the damage in melee) gives you some crowd control as well.

Dragon Tail Sweeping also combines well with other things that penalize attack rolls or saddle you with low BAB. Further, because the verbiage of the soulmeld refers to adjacent creatures, you can use it on builds that don't threaten adjacent squares but want to deal melee attack damage.

The truest of True Dragons get their tail attack when they reach large size, even, it seems to me, if they get there by way of Expansion or the like.

A cat's tail is a stage 1 Drift for a Geomancer, but these explicitly have no mechanical game effect, so even if you have methods by which to make cosmetic tails useful, it presumably wouldn't work.

[Afgncaap5]

Doesn't artificer get an infusion that's basically inflict wound but that only works on constructs?

Edit: Yes, they do. Inflict light/moderate/etc. Damage.

Also, I think the Warforged Paladin ACF gets a "smite construct" ability that can replace smite evil.

[WhamBamSam]

Also, I think the Warforged Paladin ACF gets a "smite construct" ability that can replace smite evil.Kind of awkward for a fox hengeyokai if we're still married to that. Renegade Mastermaker might allow you to count as a warforged for qualification. If so, you could enter from some class that'll give you a smite that'll stack, then go Warforged Paladin from there.

[MisterKaws]

Nothing says you can't have your tentacles protrude from your butt, so we could add all those other options too, no?

[martixy]

Nothing says you can't have your tentacles protrude from your butt, so we could add all those other options too, no?

Speaking of tentacles: LoM's Deepspawn. Butt, sides, who cares. :)
Also, Half-farspawn.

Also, I wonder what we can do with Chameleon creature's tongue attack.

[daremetoidareyo]

Speaking of tentacles: LoM's Deepspawn. Butt, sides, who cares. :)
Also, Half-farspawn.

Also, I wonder what we can do with Chameleon creature's tongue attack.


Nothing says you can't have your tentacles protrude from your butt, so we could add all those other options too, no?


Guys!
1.) y'all gross. :smallwink:
2.) Those aren't tails.

[MisterKaws]

Guys!
1.) y'all gross. :smallwink:
2.) Those aren't tails.

They are tails in our hearts. And butts!

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Needs a way to smite constructs made by a corpulent artificerNote that Tails is an artificer. He has a ridiculous IQ, regularly invents insane things, and has reprogrammed a supercomputer using nothing but "dishwashing detergent and a toothpick."

[Troacctid]

Anthropomorphic Fox Artificer sounds right, only question is how to get flight from there. Maybe you refluff dragonborn?

[ben-zayb]

There is this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20310092&postcount=15) bit by WhamBamSam, which uses ghostly tail to great effect.This is glorious!
I've always wondered about the combo potential of Defensive Rebuke and Desert Tempest, but I wasn't able to find the missing piece that links them. Ghostly Tails, then

[Inevitability]

Anthropomorphic Fox Artificer sounds right, only question is how to get flight from there. Maybe you refluff dragonborn?

One of the wing grafts refluffed as tail-propellor?

[WhamBamSam]

This is glorious!
I've always wondered about the combo potential of Defensive Rebuke and Desert Tempest, but I wasn't able to find the missing piece that links them. Ghostly Tails, thenEvasive Reflexes should also work, though you need to actually be able to leverage the movement to some useful end. But yeah, Ghostly Tail works better. It's one of my favorite spells. Glad to be of help.

[Afgncaap5]

Is it possible that Tails might also have a few levels in Scout in addition to artificer? I mean, ignoring his techno prowess for a moment, he can generally keep up with his idol, and tends to attack things while running (and running seems to be handy for both dealing damage and dodging traps/constructs/etc.)

[Thurbane]

Unless I'm mistaken, wasn't the OP about optimizing a character with a tail, rather than the video game character?

[MisterKaws]

Unless I'm mistaken, wasn't the OP about optimizing a character with a tail, rather than the video game character?

Rule #1 of weird situations: don't talk about the pink elephant in the room.