4 Arms and LA+0?

Arkhandus said:
Now how do you even propose the character would wield a weapon with four hands? As it is, one-handed and two-handed weapons can't be used with more than two hands. Period. At best a 4-armed character will be wielding two weapons that are each two-handed. With their Strength penalty and Small size, that's still not going to be awesome damage.

Examples:

1st-level human fighter wields a greatsword. Str 18. Weapon Focus, Power Attack, and Cleave for initial feats. Always uses PA since his WF feat balances out the penalty. So each round he attacks once for 2d6+8 damage, with +5 on the attack roll, whether it's a standard attack or full attack or charge or attack of opportunity or whatever.

1st-level Quan-Ri fighter wields two Small greatswords. Str 16. Multi-Weapon Fighting and Power Attack feats. Always uses PA just because he likes to pretend that he's as good as the human fighter. On rounds where he can full-attack, he gets off two strikes at +0 to the attack roll (that's right; +3 Str, +1 size, +1 BAB, -1 PA, -4 for two weapons with neither being light). The Quan-Ri deals 1d8+6 damage per hit with the primary hand, 1d8+3 damage with the off-hand. So on a full-attack, he deals at best 2d8+9 damage, mildly better than the human fighter, but at a much reduced attack bonus.

Perhaps a better comparison in this context. 1st-level human fighter wielding two bastard swords. Str 18. Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Two-Weapon Fighting, Power Attack. On a full-attack, gets two attacks at +0 each, deals 1d10+6 damage with the primary hand and 1d10+4 damage with the off-hand. Total of 2d10+10 potential damage. Slightly superior to the Quan-Ri. Spent the human bonus feat on EWP to match and exceed the Quan-Ri's own racial benefit of four arms.

Final comparison..... 1st-level Quan-Ri fighter wields four Small bastard swords. Str 16. Multi-Weapon Fighting and Exotic Weapon Proficiency feats. On a full-attack action, he gets four attacks at +1 each, dealing 1d8+3 damage with the primary hand and 1d8+1 damage with each of the three off-hands. Total potential of 4d8+6 damage. Now this is the only terrible scenario.

Taking that last scenario into consideration..... The racial Strength penalty should probably be -6, or -4 with an additional -2 Dexterity penalty. This would make it very difficult to get the necessary Str and Dex scores to acquire Multi-Weapon Fighting, Power Attack, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword or Dwarven Waraxe), and so on. If we went with -6 Strength instead of -2..... Then the first scenario would have the Quan-Ri taking Weapon Focus instead of Power Attack (as their Str would be insufficient at 12), getting two attacks at +2 each for 1d8+1 and 1d8 damage, for a total of 2d8+1 damage, quite reasonable considering the feats and penalties involved (as shown by the example human using two bastard swords; even two longswords or perhaps two shortswords would out-do the Quan-Ri in this case). With -6 Str instead of -2, the later (aka worst case) scenario would have the Quan-Ri wielding four Small longswords, with Str 12 and Weapon Focus, getting 4 attacks at +0 each (+1 size, +1 Str, +1 BAB, +1 WF), each dealing 1d6 damage (though +1 damage for the primary hand). So 4d6+1 damage (avg. 15, max. 25) compared to a human doing 2d10+10 (avg. 21, max. 30). This would make the race quite fair for LA +0 (probably even a bit underpowered considering their Cha penalty and the crippling Str penalty for those PCs who don't invest a base score of 18 into Str to get 12).
-6 Strength and -2 Charisma would probably be fine and balanced, although -2 to all physical stats would probably be balanced and less crippling to strength. Also, removing the special abilities and the -2 Charisma would probably also be balanced.
 

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Nah, once I actually did the math in making the examples, I saw that really it's the obscene damage at 1st-level that's the problem. And 3.5's modifications really. In 3.0 you'd never see a four-armed small character wielding four small bastard swords, or power attacking for extra with two small greatswords; at worst they'd wield four short swords or two longswords.

Strength is the only thing really needed to impose balance in this case; -6 Strength will prevent them from gaining Power Attack until at least 4th-level, and likewise with regards to Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword), since both require Str 13+. The reduced Strength balances out the absurd number of damage dice, at least until the characters have gained some levels in which to better fill/fit their niches. Giving only -2 or -4 Strength, regardless of the other drawbacks, will not prevent the 1st-level character from quickly slaying any random ogre/bear/dire badger in the first round, single-handedly, and going up to 2nd-level from merely one to three short combats. And thus completely overshadowing whatever other warriors may be in the party. Of course, it may be more balanced by simply adding a caveat that the race cannot gain Multi-Weapon Fighting or Multidexterity, due to being insufficiently coordinated by their very nature. Then just go with -2 Str, -2 Cha, and maybe, possibly -2 Dex. Without access to MWF and/or MD, their attack bonuses will be too horrible to hit with any consistency, balancing out the mighty damage by the fact that on any given round they'll be lucky to hit with even one of the four attacks.
 

Arkhandus said:
Nah, once I actually did the math in making the examples, I saw that really it's the obscene damage at 1st-level that's the problem. And 3.5's modifications really. In 3.0 you'd never see a four-armed small character wielding four small bastard swords, or power attacking for extra with two small greatswords; at worst they'd wield four short swords or two longswords.

Strength is the only thing really needed to impose balance in this case; -6 Strength will prevent them from gaining Power Attack until at least 4th-level, and likewise with regards to Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword), since both require Str 13+. The reduced Strength balances out the absurd number of damage dice, at least until the characters have gained some levels in which to better fill/fit their niches. Giving only -2 or -4 Strength, regardless of the other drawbacks, will not prevent the 1st-level character from quickly slaying any random ogre/bear/dire badger in the first round, single-handedly, and going up to 2nd-level from merely one to three short combats. And thus completely overshadowing whatever other warriors may be in the party. Of course, it may be more balanced by simply adding a caveat that the race cannot gain Multi-Weapon Fighting or Multidexterity, due to being insufficiently coordinated by their very nature. Then just go with -2 Str, -2 Cha, and maybe, possibly -2 Dex. Without access to MWF and/or MD, their attack bonuses will be too horrible to hit with any consistency, balancing out the mighty damage by the fact that on any given round they'll be lucky to hit with even one of the four attacks.
Hmmm...well disallowing Multidexterity and Multiweapon-Fighting is probably a cop out, since I'm sure the original poster wanted to play a four-weapon user.
 

Well, as I said, that was just the only thing that really would've been fair if just giving -2 Str and such. Besides, giving -2 to all stats would just make the race a waste for anyone not specifically playing it for the sake of a min-maxed 4-weapon-wielding warrior.

Going over the numbers and such again.... I suppose -4 Str and -2 Cha may be fair. At 1st-level they could be getting 4 attacks on a full-attack action, at +0 to-hit, for a total of 4d8+5 damage if all were to hit somehow (however unlikely, and thus reasonable) (Fighter 1, Multi-Weapon Fighting, Exotic Weapon Proficiency - Bastard Sword, Str 14, Dex 13, four small bastard swords). The average damage, assuming all the attacks hit (unlikely), would be 23 (compared to human fighter's 21), and maximum would be 37 (compared to human fighter's 30). However, given the unlikelyhood of hitting that frequently with such a low attack bonus, this seems reasonable compared to a human fighter, considering that the Quan-Ri or whatever would have that -4 Str and -2 Cha. Might not even need the -2 Cha.
 

Arkhandus said:
Well, as I said, that was just the only thing that really would've been fair if just giving -2 Str and such. Besides, giving -2 to all stats would just make the race a waste for anyone not specifically playing it for the sake of a min-maxed 4-weapon-wielding warrior.

Going over the numbers and such again.... I suppose -4 Str and -2 Cha may be fair. At 1st-level they could be getting 4 attacks on a full-attack action, at +0 to-hit, for a total of 4d8+5 damage if all were to hit somehow (however unlikely, and thus reasonable) (Fighter 1, Multi-Weapon Fighting, Exotic Weapon Proficiency - Bastard Sword, Str 14, Dex 13, four small bastard swords). The average damage, assuming all the attacks hit (unlikely), would be 23 (compared to human fighter's 21), and maximum would be 37 (compared to human fighter's 30). However, given the unlikelyhood of hitting that frequently with such a low attack bonus, this seems reasonable compared to a human fighter, considering that the Quan-Ri or whatever would have that -4 Str and -2 Cha. Might not even need the -2 Cha.
-2 Dex does help make sure that they don't take a Lightblade and Weapon Finesse it, though, I suppose. Probably -4 Str and -2 Dex would work well. That also makes it tougher to get Multiweapon Fighting
 

You guys really aren't paying attention, are you? The guy wants to wield multiple weapons and be a blender of doom. Why not let him? That -6 con (or, if need be, -8 con) penalty I proposed will fix balance issues just fine.
 

moritheil said:
You guys really aren't paying attention, are you? The guy wants to wield multiple weapons and be a blender of doom. Why not let him? That -6 con (or, if need be, -8 con) penalty I proposed will fix balance issues just fine.
I don't know about that -6. A barbarian of your proposed race has slightly more HP than a human rogue with the same rolls (and significantly more in rage).
 

Has no one got any comments on my little guy?

Tonguez said:
Vierarme Small Monstrous Humanoid
-2 Strength, -2 Dexterity

Small size: +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Hide checks, -4 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits ¾ those of Medium characters.

Base land speed is 20 feet.

Darkvision out to 60 feet.

Four armed: The Vierarme has four arms two on each side of its body beginning at the shoulder socket. Vierarme can use all its arms effectively however this is with limited 'range of motion' (-2 Dex penalty). Vierarme have access to the Multidexterity and Multi-Weapon Fighting feats and may take them in place of their normals feats gained according to its character class.

Automatic Languages:
Favored Class: Rogue


Hows this? BTW its based on a kobold with even its bonuses stripped away!
 


What if they guy has to take a racial feat to use his extra arms (like the litorians do in AU/AE to get there bite attack). Maybe even one feat per extra arm. How would that affect balance?


glass.
 

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