Or does the Off-Hand rule only count when Two-Weapon Fighting?
This. Have you used the search feature to find any of the existing threads on Off-Hand and TWF ?
checking the FAQs is useful as well as searching for existing threads.
Hello,
If I were wielding 2 weapons, each in either hand... Do I get the off-hand penalty (1/2 Strength bonus to dmg instead of full Strength bonus to dmg) when I only attack with the one in my off-hand but not the one in my main hand during a single round?
Or does the Off-Hand rule only count when Two-Weapon Fighting?
Cheers,
Sorrol
It only applies when two-weapon fighting. All characters are ambidextrous. It's a change from D&D 3.5.
checking the FAQs is useful as well as searching for existing threads.
Personally, I find the FAQ to be incredibly difficult to navigate. I greatly dislike that it's broken out by book and it's a pain to try to navigate to it.
Welp! if you can't be bothered to look up the FAQ not sure I can be bothered to look it up for you.
i don't mind helping people, but if they aren't prepared to help themselves...
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And SlimGauge, I've recently experienced multiple questions whose answers were outdated or unclear at that moment but currently have got a different answer/are clear now... So I don't tend to search back simply for that reason.
That's why threads and posts have dates on them. They also often have links to FAQs or Blog Posts and sometimes explanations beyond simple answers, so you can judge the validity of the answers for yourself.
Welp! if you can't be bothered to look up the FAQ not sure I can be bothered to look it up for you.
i don't mind helping people, but if they aren't prepared to help themselves...
The issue is that the FAQ is horribly organized, difficult to find if you don't know where it is, and really dense.
For someone who doesn't mind helping people, you seem to be going out of your way to make sure that someone who asked for help feels like he shouldn't be asking for help.
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Welp! if you can't be bothered to look up the FAQ not sure I can be bothered to look it up for you.
i don't mind helping people, but if they aren't prepared to help themselves...
The issue is that the FAQ is horribly organized, difficult to find if you don't know where it is, and really dense.
For someone who doesn't mind helping people, you seem to be going out of your way to make sure that someone who asked for help feels like he shouldn't be asking for help.
Seconded here.
The FAQ section is difficult to navigate if you aren't familiar with it, because half the time, you don't know what it is you're looking for. The other half of the time? It's characterized as something completely different. Hell, what you're looking for might not even exist.
It can stand to be more user-friendly, and newbie-friendly, so that we can have fewer of these sorts of threads.
Only two weapon fighting.
The FAQ page is hard to navigated, don't feel bad. You should always feel welcome to come and ask questions here, no matter how obvious you think they are. The only stupid question is the one you done ask.
I once made this suggestion to Paizo for enhancement of the searchability of the FAQs, but it seems to have gone nowhere.
You only suffer the penalty to accuracy and damage when fighting with both weapons at the same time. If you're not getting extra attacks from TWF, there are no penalties.
Correct. The FAQ says that when you're using standard iteratives, you're not incurring any rules of TWF. Off-Hand penalties and restrictions are specifically for TWF purposes, because they occur nowhere else in the game. Therefore, there is no off-hand penalty or restriction with regular iterative attacks.
There is another FAQ that stated you could not use Armor Spikes with a Two-Handed Weapon for TWF, because it overstepped the power level of what should normally be allowed with TWF, and introduced the "Hands of Effort" clause for TWF. In that FAQ, the reason the above combo is not allowed is because 1.5x Strength from a Two-Handed Weapon + the 0.5x Strength from the Armor Spikes constituted a 2x modifier to damage, something which the devs did not want to allow in the game. You tack on 2x Strength from Two-handed Fighter archetype, the Double Slice feat, and you're looking at an effective 3x Strength modifier, which is extremely powerful.
Without TWF, I can use that Two-Handed Weapon and Armor Spikes as iterative attacks, because the sword deals 1.5x Strength, the Armor Spikes deal 1x Strength, and it doesn't overstep the TWF "Hands of Effort Rule."
(Note, I put quotes around "Rule" because it's an unwritten rule the Devs follow, but is not really listed in any sort of book or FAQ or anything.)
Btw this FAQ answer does not even partially answer my question about when the off-hand 50% strength penalty to damage applies...checking the FAQs is useful as well as searching for existing threads.
It's the same rule as anything else regarding off-hand attacks. It is only an off-hand attack, and thus you only take a penalty, when you are using TWF, and in that case, it is always the second attack in each iterative attack from your BAB because of the ambidextrous clause.
Ex.:
BAB is +6/+1, you have 14 (+2) STR, and you are wielding two longswords:
TWF without any feats:
First iterative (+6 BAB):
+2/-3
Second Iterative (+1 BAB):
-3/-8
EDIT: I double checked my math but I could have screwed up somewhere due to distractions (I'm at work) -- if I messed up somewhere, please let me know.
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There is a way to search the FAQ using keywords. It's been described in this forum before. I just can't remember how to do it and I can't find the post now.
It's not a service Paizo offers. It's just using Google.
If someone's familiar with how to do it maybe I'll finally copy it down. One of these days.
The schroddinger hands debacle is still the worst "errata" Paizo has ever released. It opened a huge can of worms and made overcomplicated something simple.
Why? Because even though [2-handed + 0-handed] was flavorful and underpowered, it wasn't as underpowered as [1-handed + light weapon] (i.e.: the freaking weakest melee combat style in the whole game).
And people don't listen when they are told Paizo has no competence to handle nerfs...
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There is a way to search the FAQ using keywords. It's been described in this forum before. I just can't remember how to do it and I can't find the post now.
It's not a service Paizo offers. It's just using Google.
If someone's familiar with how to do it maybe I'll finally copy it down. One of these days.
A bit of "site:paizo.com/paizo/faq" in the google search box should do what you want. eg like this
Don't think of two-weapon fighting as fighting with two weapons. Two-Weapon Fighting is a specific rule-set within the Pathfinder system while "fighting with two weapons" is merely a description of what you are doing. The phrases are not synonymous. (...)
This is really good advice regarding Pathfinder in general. There are plenty of rules in the system like this where the name of the rule isn't exactly the same as the ruleset that it's named for.
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A bit of "site:paizo.com/paizo/faq" in the google search box should do what you want. eg like thisThere is a way to search the FAQ using keywords. I just can't remember how to do it and I can't find the post now.
If someone's familiar with how to do it maybe I'll finally copy it down. One of these days.
May the Flying Spaghetti Monster bless you with your own personal beer volcano.