I'm working out my attacks with my Magus right now, and considering all options.
I have a bastard sword, and a great sword for when I want to enlarge myself and go all melee, sacrificing my ability to cast spells until I free up one of my hands.
In regards to wielding my great sword (or my bastard sword two-handed), am I able to also make an off-hand attack with my armour spikes?
Armour spikes don't occupy a hand, so I could potentially hold a two-handed weapon while still wielding the spikes, correct?
(Nevermind the fact that armour spikes allow you to attack someone 5 feet away with ambiguous parts of your body. Does the character execute a friendly chest bump? And one way or another, how does this not provokes AoO's the way unarmed attacks would?)
I have Two-weapon Fighting so this possibility is quite desirable in plain melee combat.
As a secondary question, how does Two-weapon Fighting interact later on with a +6/+1 base attack bonus?
This question gets asked periodically. Search for the other threads. The basic answer is that you can wield your two-handed weapon AND your armor spikes. Just be sure to spell ARMOR (not ARMOUR) or you won't get any hits.
As to the secondary question, two-weapon fighting gets you an extra attack whenever you meet the requirements. So you'll get both your regular attacks from BAB +6/+1 AND one extra attack, BUT you pay the "to hit" penalty on all of your attacks. This penalty varies depending on your feats and the class of the weapons involved and is beyond the scope of this answer.
As to the secondary question, two-weapon fighting gets you an extra attack whenever you meet the requirements. So you'll get both your regular attacks from BAB +6/+1 AND one extra attack, BUT you pay the "to hit" penalty on all of your attacks. This penalty varies depending on your feats and the class of the weapons involved and is beyond the scope of this answer.
Well, as armor spikes count as a light weapon, the "to hit" penalty would be -2 to all attacks, correct?
But what wasn't clear for me in your statement was what the base attack for the off-hand would be? Would it be the second/last base attack bonus?
(And one way or another, how does this not provokes AoO's the way unarmed attacks would?)
Unarmed attacks are not 'armed attacks' while armor spikes ARE armed attacks.
It's as simple as that.
A character with improved unarmed strike has their unarmed strikes count as 'armed' and thus can take AOOs with them.
So thinking on it this way- A trained character can knee someone without provoking an AOO because they are more threatening than an untrained person. A character with sharp spikes on their knee is just as threatening (if not more so frankly).
-James
So a character wearing spiked armor always threatens? That is something I never considered.
Thank you guys for all the advice!
I'm looking forward to trying out two attacks and getting the two handed 1.5 strength damage on one of them. My mind is suitably blown.
Also, all this just at level 2! My first level was as a fighter(a human one at that), so I had a hefty feat boost.
Yeah, I started him out with 16 Dex. My highest stat right now. Hahah.
Going to need to work on my Int if I'm going to get my caster levels as a Magus.
The fighter level was mostly because I was late in joining the group, and didn't have Ultimate Magic available at the time. Ended up helping the group out of a TPK during their second encounter because I built my character fast.
A side effect to having that fighter level is that I have proficiency in all armour types before I get said proficiencies through my Magus levels.
Meaning that the character can potentially wear a mithral breastplate right now and still cast spells.
At seventh level(when the Magus levels grant him medium armour proficiency/casting), he will be able to wear mithral full plate and still cast spells. Correct? Mithral counts as one category lighter in regards to movement, so could I apply that to spell casting as a Magus?
Without the fighter level, I would not be able to wear these mithral armours because one still needs to be proficient with the armour as if it weren't made of mithral.
| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Paizo has stated that the intent is that Armor Spikes use your arm.
Search the Post History of SKR or Bulmahn or James Jacobs for 'armor spikes' and it should come up.
I'm not sure if that prevents 2WF with Greatsword + Armor Spikes or not.
To do so, you would have to be 'switching grip' to make each attack, which seems questionable.
If you would allow that interpretation, anybody could in fact use 2WF with a Greatsword + Shuriken or Greatsword + any weapon (with Quickdraw)... And in fact, there's nothing stopping you from using a Longbow as the 'main hand' and Shurikens/Quickdrawn Greatswords as the off-hand (or vice versa)
...SO I would err on the side of not allowing it, even though AFAIK there isn't any wording re: not being able to use a limb for attacks if you are already using for a different attack (as is explicitly stated re: combining natural attacks + iteratives).
It definitely does mean that you can't simultaneously threaten with both a 2H Reach Weapon AND Armor Spikes... i.e. off your turn, for AoO's.
(unless you have an extra arm or 2 to also be threatening with Armor Spikes)
If you don't go with Armor Spikes, Unarmed Strikes are always an option (kicks, head butts, etc)
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Yes, you're correct about being able to cast in Mithril Armor without problem.
You don't actually NEED Proficiency to do that, you just suffer attack and skill penalties if you aren't proficient.
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I don't like Paizo's stance on armor spikes being you using your arm... I prefer to envision shoulder spikes, helmet spikes, knee spikes, pointy boot spikes, AND also elbow spikes but that shouldn't limit it to just arms and make it so you need a free arm to use the spikes.
That's just a BS stance that is simply brought up to limit armor spikes in their usage. If that gets ruled as a FAQ update thingy I will blatantly ignore it.
Developer responses are opinion, not RAW, at least until they make it into errata or FAQs. Quite honestly, the Devs would be the first to tell you that their responses to some issues on the board are simply how they do it in their home games, NOT what the rules actually are.
There's never been anything in any books as far back as their have been armor spikes that limit attacks with armor spikes to using arms. Even the pictures of armor with armor spikes on it show spikes all over the place, not just on arms.
When I describe characters using armor spikes in my games, it's almost always a mix of shoulder checks, knees, elbows, headbuts, forearm shivers, and leg kicks....along with punches if someone has a free hand. Essentially, you have spikes on your armor, so attacks with any spiked section work pretty effectively.
A character with improved unarmed strike has their unarmed strikes count as 'armed' and thus can take AOOs with them.
So thinking on it this way- A trained character can knee someone without provoking an AOO because they are more threatening than an untrained person. A character with sharp spikes on their knee is just as threatening (if not more so frankly).
I've always viewed it more as a matter of getting in and out of people's reach without provoking.
I don't know a lot of the logistics of AoO's though. My impression though was that an untrained unarmed person would have a hard time moving in from 5 feet away and then out without provoking attacks. Whereas an armed person has the advantage of the reach that a weapon inherently lends them.A trained unarmed person though is much more accustomed to not leaving themselves open as they strike at someone.
I didn't know it was about how a person threatens and such.
If you follow your logical conclusions in your post to this 'internet ruling' then you'll see how it directly goes against things expressly stated in the 3rd edition FAQ. So the next logical conclusion from your assumption would be that the rules regarding armor spikes have changed. Yet they haven't, and again we go back to the starting assumption to find the flaw.
As it happens, such scenarios have come up multiple times regarding PRPG rules/rulings, and Paizo has consistently taken the stance that PRPG is their own game, and even if the RAW is question isn't different from 3.5, they don't feel compelled to follow the 3.5 FAQ rulings on the issue. I understand your point, but one can also look at it from the perspective that FAQ is not always just 'the legitimate interpretation of RAW' but injecting RAI into that mix, when RAW isn't actually sufficient to 'prove' one interpretation or the other.
The light weapon reasoning does indeed sound ridiculously dubious, although I don't remember seeing that stuff before, and remember Paizo ruling on Armor Spikes/limbs usage without connection to that. Maybe it was in a PFS thread...?
Back to the case in point: A person with a spiked gauntlet threatens squares while a person with an unimproved unarmed strike does not. There's not a reach difference here from which to speak. Rather it is a boolean adjudication.
I didn't realise this. I am primarily a player after all, and one coming back from an extended hiatus at that.
I wasn't trying to imply that a person with a sword would hypothetically have better reach and thus potentially get hit with less AoO's than dagger wielder when I was talking about the comparison of an armed or unarmed person diving into an enemies reach to deliver an attack(too much logic for the game, I think).
I was more talking about how open to attack they are, and how the weapon wielder would mostly be pushing the weapon itself into the person's square, rather than fists or feet(which can be opportunistically stabbed/bitten/whacked with a club, if the unarmed combatant is untrained).
But your arguments do make sense. And I was mostly positing the AoO idea because of how close I figure someone would have to get to make an attack without using an arm or a leg. Hence the chest bump joke. The matter of how the spikes threaten makes sense in this context though, now that I think on it.
Someone would likely be to preoccupied with trying to dodge the spikey should-check of death flying towards them to take an AoO against the armour-wearer.