Alter Self and Iterative Attacks

[Falgund]

I'll try to respond :

Q1:
4 attacks

Q2:
2 attacks

Q3:
7 attacks (not sure)

Q4:
For Q1:

You acquire the physical qualities of the new form while retaining your own mind. Physical qualities include natural size, mundane movement capabilities (such as burrowing, climbing, walking, swimming, and flight with wings, to a maximum speed of 120 feet for flying or 60 feet for nonflying movement), natural armor bonus, natural weapons (such as claws, bite, and so on), racial skill bonuses, racial bonus feats, and any gross physical qualities (presence or absence of wings, number of extremities, and so forth).

So you can use the 4 claws of the Xill to attack.

For Q2:

A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two-weapon attacks) than normal.

So your 2 extra arms cannot be used with daggers, and cannot be used as claw attacks as they hold something.

For Q3:
See above, you attack with :
- Dagger in "claw" 1 (Primary)
- Dagger in "claw" 2 (Off-hand)
- Claw 3 (Secondary)
- Claw 4 (Secondary)
- Boot blade 1 (Off-hand)
- Boot blade 2 (Off-hand)
- Armor spikes (Off-hand)

I am not sure about the boot blades, as they are not in the SRD. I'll suppose that the boot blade only use one foot each, so you can use 2 of them.

(I found no limitation to the number of the "off-hand" attacks you can make.)

Note:
Using alter self, you gain the racial bonus feats, ie Multiattack in case of the Xill, so your secondary attacks are only at -2. TWF penalities does not apply to the secondary attacks.
It also seems the Xill entry in SRD is wrong, as the "4 claws" routine suffer secondary attack penalities even for the first claw ...

[Username17]

Is that a trick question witht he point being that you can't alter self into a Xill?

Nope. You can Alter Self into a Xill, provided that you have the Outsider Type - which is itself available with some Core Playable Races (Aasimar and such), and attachable to characters with a number of Core Spell Effects (Polymorph any Object, Shapechange).

I'll try to respond :

Q1:
4 attacks

Q2:
2 attacks

Q3:
7 attacks (not sure)

That's one interpretation. They've never actually been happy with the Multiweapon Fighting rules, and there exist a number of rulings by the old Sage to the effect that you can't use Armor Spikes with a two-handed weapon for an extra attack - which is just sort of puzzling as such a ruling means that you effectively can't use Armor Spikes at all (since if you need a free hand to use them, then there is no benefit or even effect of them being on your armor). These rulings were never backed up with any actual rules - just Skip giving the big thumbs-down to Greatsword and Armor Spikes for no reason, save that he didn't like the fighting style.

Now, as to Multiweapon Fighting, the statement "A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two-weapon attacks) than normal." is pretty much as meaningful as you want it to be. That is, what it actually says is that the body doesn't give you extra attacks - which means that you don't get the natural attacks (you know, those things that you explicitly get). What it doesn't say is that the normal multiweapon fighting rules don't apply while Altered - and those rules are that you can attack with any additional wepaon you happen to be holding as an off-hand attack with no limit.

Furthermore, the only bodies that grant "more advantageous" two-weapon attacks are the ones which grant bonus feats - which are thigs that you also explicitly get. So the Troglodyte grants a bonus body attack and more advantageous secondary attacks, but it can't grant extra attacks or more advantageous secondary attacks. Which text wins? Your call I suppose. Only suppoedly it's now Andy Collins' call.

Now, since what it actually says is simply a list of contradictions, the Sage is going to have to rule based on intent. And since his actual intent was seemingly to make the Polymorph line of spells such a logistical nightmare that people would leave him alone - I don't have high hopes for him ironing that out - ever.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1092069347[/unixtime]]
That's one interpretation. They've never actually been happy with the Multiweapon Fighting rules, and there exist a number of rulings by the old Sage to the effect that you can't use Armor Spikes with a two-handed weapon for an extra attack - which is just sort of puzzling as such a ruling means that you effectively can't use Armor Spikes at all (since if you need a free hand to use them, then there is no benefit or even effect of them being on your armor). These rulings were never backed up with any actual rules - just Skip giving the big thumbs-down to Greatsword and Armor Spikes for no reason, save that he didn't like the fighting style.

There's a weird correlation between arms and attacks that really needs to be dealt with. You run into the same kinds of problems where you're wondering how many attacks a monk gets when his hands are full and shit. In 3.0 there was this weird attack degradation in one of the FAQs that said what happened when a monk had one hand availiable, and then no hands available. I'm really not sure what they did with that in 3.5 either, but it's another case where there's an ambiguity with non-arm attacks, much like the blade boot, or the armor spikes.

They really need to just do away with that legacy mechanic of one attack per weapon, or per limb, and that'll solve all those problems. It's annoying to constantly hear crap like "well what if I kick and swing my sword at the same time".

[Lago_AM3P]

That's one interpretation. They've never actually been happy with the Multiweapon Fighting rules, and there exist a number of rulings by the old Sage to the effect that you can't use Armor Spikes with a two-handed weapon for an extra attack - which is just sort of puzzling as such a ruling means that you effectively can't use Armor Spikes at all (since if you need a free hand to use them, then there is no benefit or even effect of them being on your armor). These rulings were never backed up with any actual rules - just Skip giving the big thumbs-down to Greatsword and Armor Spikes for no reason, save that he didn't like the fighting style.

The FAQ pretty much says that Sage is full of shit, and comes right out and states that you can two-weapon fight with a two-handed weapon and armor spikes.

[Draco_Argentum]

1092069347[/unixtime]]
Nope. You can Alter Self into a Xill, provided that you have the Outsider Type - which is itself available with some Core Playable Races (Aasimar and such), and attachable to characters with a number of Core Spell Effects (Polymorph any Object, Shapechange).

It'd be funnier if you couldn't. Huge diatribe about the form altering magic rules and someone can shoot it down with a simple "you can't alter self into that".