Crane Wing free hand

[Cold Pastoral]

I need a hand free to do the Crane Wing ability, where I deflect an attack. If I have a bastard sword, which can be 2h or 1h, could I always have a free hand and use the sword two-handed when I wanted?

Do I even have to have a bastard to do this?

[Jon Otaguro 428]

The way I see it, you can use the bastard sword two handed when you make your attacks, but after your turn you have to declare it as one handed to benefit from crane wing; so all opportunity attacks would have to be made with you using the bastard sword one handed.

[Glendwyr]

Jon Otaguro 428 wrote:

The way I see it, you can use the bastard sword two handed when you make your attacks, but after your turn you have to declare it as one handed to benefit from crane wing; so all opportunity attacks would have to be made with you using the bastard sword one handed.

That's my interpretation as well. You can switch from one-handed to two-handed as a free action, so you can switch to two-handed at the beginning of your turn and to one-handed at the end. Under this approach, any AoOs you make (except on your turn) would be one-handed, and if you're attacked on your turn you can't use the feat.

In answer to your second question, you can use a light or one-handed weapon in two hands (see here), though there's little reason to two-hand a light weapon.

[Cold Pastoral]

All right, thanks everyone!