Taarn's page

Regardless of the last point, a ratfolk whose hands are otherwise occupied, or even just had reason to want to use the tail blade over their other melee weapon(poison maybe), should always be able to make an attack of opportunity with an equipped tail blade if they want, right? Seems pretty clear that there is no reason that they shouldn't be able to do that.

Thanks a lot for the clarification! Hopefully I can get things sorted out with all this info, I appreciate it.

Hmmmm, the guys I was playing with seemed pretty sure about the whole "...creatures NEVER make attacks of opportunity with secondary weapons, they only ever use their primary weapons..." thing. They've played modern style D&D way more than I have, so I usually take them at their word on rules stuff. Are they remembering a holdover from 3.5 or something do you think?

Based on my understanding I definitely think you're right, Umbranus and blackbloodtroll. I just wish I knew where the confusion was coming from specifically so I could point to more than "The internet told me so!"

Well, the situation in question involved my character wielding a reach weapon in his hands and wanting to use the tail blade to AoO someone adjacent, so you could say that the polearm stood in for the primary in this case.

The argument that was made was based on the fact that monsters don't get to make AoOs with their secondary natural weapons. Since the tail blade counts as a natural weapon kinda (for feats and things) and (for full attacks) is counted as a secondary weapon they argued that AoOs shouldn't be possible.

I guess the question really is whether tail blades always count as secondary weapons, or just as part of full attacks.

Can a rat folk make attacks of opportunity with a tail blade? I was told that, since the item description says to treat them as secondary weapons if used as part of a full attack, they can never be used for attacks of opportunity. It seems to me, however, that it's only to be treated as secondary in that specific situation and otherwise ought to treated as a normal weapon.

That said, I'm not very good at parsing some of the subtle points and the tail blade seems kind of weird. Can anyone help me understand what's going on here?

Can a rat folk make attacks of opportunity with a tail blade? I was told that, since the item description says to treat them as secondary weapons if used as part of a full attack, they can never be used for attacks of opportunity. It seems to me, however, that it's only to be treated as secondary in that specific situation and otherwise ought to treated as a normal weapon.

That said, I'm not very good at parsing some of the subtle points and the tail blade seems kind of weird. Can anyone help me understand what's going on here?