Multiple Armed Melee [3.5]

[Galsiah]

Hey all, I was looking through one of the threads here, and got the idea that trying a melee character who has multiple arms to attack with would be fun. So here's my question to the Playground: what would be the best way to go about making a character with multiple arms and the most attacks possible. Any books are fair game. Thanks everyone!

[Glimbur]

I know of a couple of ways.

1) Totemist. Bind the Girallion Arms to your totem chakra. Enjoy your four arms.

2) Spells. The spell Girallion's Blessing gives two additional arms for 10 minutes/level and is 3rd level for clerics, druids, and sorc/wiz. Spell Compendium. Arms of Plenty from Lords of Madness is a 3rd level sorc/wiz spell that gives two arms for 1 round/level. Persist one or both of these via hax/incantatrix/spelldancer/whatever.

3) Race. There is a non-psionic thri-kreen somewhere which has many arms. A marilith has 6, if you can talk your DM into allowing that. There is a multi-armed template...? Possibly in Savage Species.

[TroubleBrewing]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7066595

That ought to help. Check out Person Man's other guides for tons of other useful stuff.

[Popertop]

The multiweapon fighting feat
combined with wounding weapons sounds like a good start

[Urpriest]

I know of a couple of ways.

1) Totemist. Bind the Girallion Arms to your totem chakra. Enjoy your four arms.

2) Spells. The spell Girallion's Blessing gives two additional arms for 10 minutes/level and is 3rd level for clerics, druids, and sorc/wiz. Spell Compendium. Arms of Plenty from Lords of Madness is a 3rd level sorc/wiz spell that gives two arms for 1 round/level. Persist one or both of these via hax/incantatrix/spelldancer/whatever.

3) Race. There is a non-psionic thri-kreen somewhere which has many arms. A marilith has 6, if you can talk your DM into allowing that. There is a multi-armed template...? Possibly in Savage Species.

Note that at least the first of these are claws rather than arms that can wield weapons. They're still awesome, but you can't use Multiweapon Fighting with them.

[Gabe the Bard]

We have a four-armed barbarian of a homebrewed race in our campaign, but she carries one big weapon (dubbed the "Chupachups") instead of several smaller ones. The strength multiplier from wielding a weapon with four arms gives her a huge damage bonus, which is great when she gets a critical or fights a monster with really high DR.

[Halae]

Take a look at the link in my sig. go ahead, take a gander

[Nosferocktu]

Holy ham sammich Batman!!! Thats... just terrifyingly awesome.

[Andion Isurand]

You could try the Obah-blessed template from Dungeon 136 pg 60

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

-- or --

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

[AtomicKitKat]

Aberration Blood, then Inhuman Reach, followed with Deepspawn, will grant you 2 tentacles(which should usually be fully capable of using anything you can use with hands), plus an additional 5 feet of Reach(so you're always threatening out to 10', minimum).

As per PersonMan's thread(which I just checked out a couple days ago, oddly enough), Insectile and Arachnoid creature will grant you 4 bonus arms each, but in the former case, you can't attack with them, while in the latter, you have to be an animal(magical beast?) to qualify.

Also, be sure to find some way to fit Half-Illithid followed by Illithid Body-Tamer in there. Because nothing makes the schoolgirls run at top speed(away from you, not towards) like a Medium squidface with 4 tentacles that can reach up to 5 times(1. Natural, 2. Inhuman Reach, 3. IBT class feature, 4. Extended Tentacles Feat, 5. Tentacle Extensions, Optional 6. Extend Tentacles spell/power) their owners' height.

Oh, and you can also wield weapons in those facial tentacles, as odd as that may be to imagine.

[Urpriest]

Since Savage Species has rules for tentacle attachments that allow one to wield weapons, one can conclude that most tentacles can't by default wield weapons.

[AtomicKitKat]

Since Savage Species has rules for tentacle attachments that allow one to wield weapons, one can conclude that most tentacles can't by default wield weapons.

I might be misremembering it. Probably not with the facial tentacles then. That or the Tentacle Extensions already qualify.

Edit: I just checked Savage Species. There is no such thing as you mentioned. Only add-on weapons for tails.

[Urpriest]

I might be misremembering it. Probably not with the facial tentacles then. That or the Tentacle Extensions already qualify.

Edit: I just checked Savage Species. There is no such thing as you mentioned. Only add-on weapons for tails.

Gloves of Man would like to have a word with you sir. They're over by the Wondrous Items.

[Angry Bob]

This is TO, but technically answers the question.

Basically, you mind swap yourself into this heavily-templated abomination with some retarded amount of arms and pile on the feats and items for just over one million attacks.

[Galsiah]

Thanks for the replies everyone! So my question now, to narrow down build options, is this: would it be better to go for multiple arms for natural attacks or for weapons?

[AtomicKitKat]

Thanks for the replies everyone! So my question now, to narrow down build options, is this: would it be better to go for multiple arms for natural attacks or for weapons?

It depends. For natural attacks, extra arms take only the -2(-5?) penalty. Regardless of how many you have. If going for weapons, you can enhance them(but it will get expensive), but iterative attacks are generally going to miss(unless you go for 6-handing a single sword for that one big hit, then you care less about all the misses).

Re: Gloves of Man. I don't know why, just couldn't see that item even though I was flipping through the pages like crazy. Just tired, I guess.