Brawler Off-Hand Unarmed Strikes

[hotnasty]

I have a Constructed Pugilist and the Constructed Limb is currently in the Limb Extender mode, which gives it reach. I trip someone from 10 feet away with the extended limb and use Ki Throw to position them next to my PC to perform an attack of opportunity with Vicious Stomp. I assume I'd have to perform the attack of opportunity with my other hand, which is not holding anything, with an unarmed strike.

Now the question is: would I treat this attack of opportunity as a light weapon in my off-hand? Since I don't have the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, this would mean this attack roll takes a -8 penalty.

Or would this work like a monk's unarmed attack, which is described as: "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed"? The Unarmed Strike sections for brawlers and monks are nearly identical, but this text is not present in the brawler's description.

[Wonderstell]

Okay, so an "Off-Hand" attack is only a thing if you're trying to get more attacks through Two-Weapon Fighting. To explain what this means, here's an example of a character with +6 BAB, who's wielding a Dagger and a Rapier in his left and right hand, respectively.

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The Rogue can attack twice with the Dagger, or twice with the Rapier at the normal +6/+1 BAB progression.

There is no Off-Hand

*

The Rogue can attack once with the Dagger, and once with the Rapier. It doesn't matter which weapon the Rogue starts attacking with, the attacks are made at the normal +6/+1 BAB progression.

There is no Off-Hand

*

The Rogue can use Two-Weapon Fighting to attack twice with the Dagger, and once with the Rapier. Since the Rogue attempts to gain one more attack with the Dagger, that weapon is now designated as being held with the Rogue's "Off-Hand". The attacks suffer the penalties from having a Light weapon in the Off-Hand.

The Dagger is the Off-Hand weapon

*

The Rogue can use Two-Weapon Fighting to attack twice with the Rapier, and once with the Dagger. Since the Rogue attempts to gain one more attack with the Rapier, that weapon is now designated as being held with the Rogue's "Off-Hand". The attacks suffer the penalties from having a One-Handed weapon as the Off-Hand.

The Rapier is the Off-Hand weapon

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What this means for your Constructed Pugilist example is that the Attack of Opportunity (AoO) is made at your highest attack bonus, since you only have an "Off-Hand" during a Two-Weapon Fighting Full-Attack action.

[Wonderstell]

Noticed I gave the exact opposite conclusion to examples 3 & 4.

Wonderstell wrote:

The Rogue can use Two-Weapon Fighting to attack twice with the Dagger*, and once with the Rapier. Since the Rogue attempts to gain one more attack with the Dagger Rapier, that weapon is now designated as being held with the Rogue's "Off-Hand". The attacks suffer the penalties from having a Light One-Handed weapon in the Off-Hand.

The Dagger Rapier is the Off-Hand weapon

*At +6/+1 BAB, with penalties for TWF.

But the main point still stands: If you're not using a weapon to gain an extra attack with TWF, it's not an Off-Hand weapon.

[bhampton]

Brawler wrote:

Unarmed Strike: At 1st level, a brawler gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A brawler may attack with fists, elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a brawler may make unarmed strikes with her hands full. A brawler applies her full Strength modifier (not half) on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes.

In addition to what Wonderstell said, if you did a TWF you don't necessarily have to use two 'hands' to attack, you can punch, or kick, or knee, or elbow, I'd even go so far to say headbutt too.

[hotnasty]

Sick, that makes sense. Thanks fellas~