teddy boysen's page

interesting

I and my player are having a showdown over what the official ruling is going to be on this is. In fact I started another thread about it before I found this one.

Let me say first... and I cannot stress this enough...

IT IS NOT A POWER ISSUE!!!

I, as a DM of 8 years, do not believe that it is in the spirit of the rules to twist them around and do things that were not originally considered, like horse-bomb (in 3.0.) You could just as easily use mouse-bomb. Should I allow it just because it is not overpowered?

Furthermore, if it is the case that creators of the game rule that you can do this, like they have with armor spikes, then this raises all kinds of interesting technical problems for the rules system. For instance, can a tiefling with a vestigial arm take improved multiweapon fighting (just because she has an extra "hand" and then multiweapon fight with two shortswords and her foot? Well... I would say that if the two weapon fighting thing is kosher, because of the foot counting as an "offhand," then the logical extension of that would be this and lots and lots of other silly tactics.

Perhaps in your game this is preferable. I myself have been DM in games where I encouraged and even rewarded silly tactics, but I do not think that this should be the norm (especially in official organized play.)

Another problem... what do you do with monsters who have lots of limbs? If a cestus can't be used with a greatsword, because you already used it (the arm that is, just like you can't two weapon fight with one dagger by quick drawing it out of your other hand, because you already used it: the weapon,) then does my hypothetical tiefling with multiattack get two swords and two feet? What about a marilith? Can she get a tail and a head-butt in? What about the tieflings head-butt?

My friend (who has been playing longer than I have been DMing) says that the answer to my last string of questions would be ‘of course not!’ because you can only attack with unarmed strike as if it were a single weapon, so the marilith could get an extra attack if she had improved unarmed strike, but no more than one. An atach could get an extra unarmed strike in with his foot, but not both feet and his head.

This makes perfect sense in the case of monsters, but unfortunately for me, long winded and rules lawyery as I am, it raises another problem. What if I am an unarmed fighter who uses his fists, like a boxer? I can't do this now because I can only attack with one unarmed strike. The unarmed strike could be my primary weapon, gaining my full strength bonus to damage and extra attacks by virtue of a high base attack bonus, but I must be wielding a real weapon in my other hand. I am no longer allowed to duel wield my own two hands. This is in my mind a disastrous implication because it limits the PCs in a more significant and relevant way than not allowing them to two weapon fight with their foot and a greatsword. What if the ranger gets disarmed? Is he completely bum!@#$ing useless now?

It is perfectly OK with me if someone in a position of authority to make this call for errata purposes says on a case by case basis “Yes, you can do this. No you can’t do that.” Please make me not confused anymore.

this seems wrong... how can you two weapon fight with flurry to gain extra attacks? aren't you already "two weapon fighting" because of the original flurry penalties? (which get removed later.) when did the sage rule this?

Ok, but by my reckoning a character with a bite could still use a headbutt as an unarmed strike, IF that is, any other character can use a headbutt to make an unarmed strike even if they have no natural weapons on their head.

The reason why I bring this up is because the rules on unarmed strike in the combat section refer to headbutts but not monks, but then again they may just be referring to the monk implicitly.

If this is the case then it would explain a lot, and eliminate a lot of apparent optimization opportunities for doing things like dealing 16 points of strength damage at level 10, with a rogue's crippling strike, as opposed to 11 points with a maximized ray of enfeeblement... that would just be silly.

A friend of mine insists that he can take two weapon fighting feats and use a two handed weapon for his primary and his FOOT as an "offhand" weapon. I know that you can use Two Weapon Fighting with a normal weapon and armor spikes, but that is different because armor spikes are a weapon that have rules which specifically supersede other rules.

my argument against him is that he can use a foot to make an unarmed strike, even if his hands are full, because it says you can, you can use an unarmed strike with your offhand because it says you can, but you CAN'T use your FOOT as an "offhand" for the purpose of two weapon or multiweapon fighting, and if you could then every fighter would take multiweapon fighting and use his falchion along with two kicks and a headbutt at low levels, dragons would take an extra two attacks with their back legs and basilisks?... man... don't even get me started about giant centipedes.

But then I thought I could be wrong. Maybe the creators of the game will say something like "Well... when we say 'offhand' we don't really mean HAND, we mean anything that you could conceivably attack with, like a foot or a wing (if your a flying character) or whatever, in which case I would love to see a build with a half dragon rogue that gets EIGHT ATTACKS PER TURN! I would totally play that character.