|
Greetings.
Had a wonderful session last night but one rule question did pop up. I have a player who uses TWF. His on hand is a short sword and his off hand was a dagger. For the encounter it so happened that the dagger had a property making it a better weapon for a single attack than the short sword.
So during a round the PC moved across the map to get into position and had a single attack for the round. The Player announced that he was going to choose to make his off hand his on hand for this round. I ruled against this and said he can only attack with his on hand unless he is making a full attack. He would have to actually physically switch weapons so the dagger was in his on hand to do what he wanted.
A few players disagreed with my ruling believing you should be able to decide which hand is your on hand any given round. To keep things moving we didn't spend a whole lot of time on it. In the end it didn't really matter no one lost a life or anything terribly important. I would like to close the matter going forward and was wondering if you good folks could help me straighten this out. Did I rule correctly?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Off hand is a label applied ONLY to a hand making a secondary attack that isn't part of your iterative chain. So, the hand you strike with first is always your "on" hand.
While it is not explicitly stated anywhere in the rules, I believe that Manimal is correct - particularly if you follow the changes in rules from 3.0 to 3.5 and into Pathfinder - Two Weapon Fighting in 3.5 amalgamated the original Ambidexterity and Two Weapon Fighting feats from 3.0, granting all features of both feats - the important one being that a character who was Ambidextrous didn't have an "off hand", just a "primary hand" and "the one they get less attacks with this round". This has not changed going into PF, but, as I mentioned, it isn't explicitly stated anywhere.
There is no such thing as an off hand in pathfinder unless you are making iterative attacks with two weapons. So you can claim that either hand is your primary hand if you are only making one attack.
Basically, they are saying everyone is ambidextrous and you take the minuses from being off balance with the second weapon.
|
You only ever get any penalties for TWF if you actually get the benefits of TWF. What this means is he can attack with either weapon at full bonuses if he only has a standard action available. This also allows things like two-handed weapons and unarmed strike/armour spikes being used for TWF:
I have a TWF barbarian in my Kingmaker group that is using a dwarven waraxe two-handed: his off-hand is a dwarven boulder helmet (which he crafted partially out of a giant centipede head).
*SLASH* *HEADBUTT* ^_^
This also allows things like two-handed weapons and unarmed strike/armour spikes being used for TWF:
No, not really. If they are using a weapon two-handed, they do not have an "off-hand" weapon attack to make, regardless of the limb performing it. But I think the OP has had his question answered sufficiently.
By RAW I have to agree with the other posters, in older editions you did have an off-hand or even left/right handedness, it got simplified in the current and 3.x editions.
I do know gaming groups that do still play like that though, it might add a bit of color but probably adds more complication than it's worth, even those groups assume anyone that has TWF is in effect ambidexterious and can switch on and off-hands every round.
Off hand is a label applied ONLY to a hand making a secondary attack that isn't part of your iterative chain. So, the hand you strike with first is always your "on" hand.
While I think the spirit of this answer is probably correct, I just want to point out that if you are fighting with two-weapons and making a full attack, then you can choose to make your primary hand attack first (usually what people do) or you can make your secondary hand attack first. So my point is that the first attack doesn't have to be your "on" hand.
|
This also allows things like two-handed weapons and unarmed strike/armour spikes being used for TWF:No, not really. If they are using a weapon two-handed, they do not have an "off-hand" weapon attack to make, regardless of the limb performing it. But I think the OP has had his question answered sufficiently.
Actually, that isn't quite correct. The "handedness" terminology is a bit of a misnomer. Two-weapon fighting is more about have a primary and secondary weapon, as opposed to main "hand" and off "hand". Thus, if you have two weapons you can make an attack with, you can attack with both at the listed penalties, even if the off-hand item doesn't require a hand (you could, for example, use a Greatsword and Unarmed Strike as part of Two-Weapon Fighting, or Greataxe and Armor Spikes, etc.).
|
|
This also allows things like two-handed weapons and unarmed strike/armour spikes being used for TWF:No, not really. If they are using a weapon two-handed, they do not have an "off-hand" weapon attack to make, regardless of the limb performing it. But I think the OP has had his question answered sufficiently.
You're incorrect actually. You do not need a free hand to use certain light weapons (spiked armour, dwarven boulder helmet, barbazu beard). Since the character doesn't need a hand to attack with it, he can make use of Two-Weapon Fighting to get an extra attack by giving all his attacks the TWF penalty.
"Off-hand" is a term that should really be taken out of the game because it confuses so many people.