1) Yes your hand is free because you are not holding anything
2)Crane Wing activates when the opponent HITS you with a melee attack. You just stop the blade in mid air or something to this effect. For all intents and purposes the attack is a HIT.
3) The attack would have hit you, but you turned it into a non-hit. So there are no rider effects or anything else.
snake style is what you want if your looking to avoid attacks
Cestus is not an unarmed strike as far as I know, but since you have imp. unarmed strike its still 2 free attacks that you wouldn't normally get, and a much higher AC for those need to dodge attacks. (touch spells come to mind) Also if your a master of many styles you can have multiple styles active at once so you could do both, although id recommend just taking a 2 level dip for the style feats you want then going with a higher dmg class (ninja or fighter combo well)
I believe this means that you can either use your unarmed strike damage if its higher(monk),which is Bludgeoning damage or the cestus damage (someone without imp.unarmed strike), which is Piercing.
You can kick them, but why are you wearing two cestus? One is enough.
Might want to take a look over here deux
Benefit: While wearing a cestus, you are considered armed and your unarmed attacks deal normal damage. If you are proficient with a cestus, your unarmed strikes may deal bludgeoning or piercing damage. Monks are proficient with the cestus.
It says you are considered armed... but yet it also says your unarmed strikes deal normal damage?
Its a unfortunately "poor-by-necessity" wording. I will clarify, and you can see how much space it would take to properly write out the phrase to fully encapsulate the idea of "normal damage".
Benefit: While wearing a cestus, you are considered armed and your unarmed strikes do lethal damage. As you are considered armed, your unarmed strikes do not provoke attacks of opportunity as normal. If you are a monk, while wearing a cestus you may use your modified unarmed strike damage, and you may use a cestus to inflict either lethal damage or non-lethal damage, as described in the monk rules for unarmed strikes. If you are proficient with the cestus, you may deal either bludgeoning or piercing damage with your unarmed attacks. Monks are proficient with the cestus.
Blackbloodtroll has the right of it. There is NO weapon that allows a monk to use their unarmed strike damage and still be regarded as a weapon (ie, can be enchanted).
Can you wield another weapon in a hand that has a cestus equipped, and choose when attacking to strike either with the cestus or the other weapon?
"When using a cestus, your fingers are mostly exposed, allowing you to wield or carry items in that hand"
So I would treat it exactly like a spiked gauntlet.
A light melee weapon. You choose to wield the glove or the sword, as a free action, on your turn.
If you're wielding the sword at the end of your turn, you don't threaten with the glove. If you're wielding the glove at the end of your turn, you don't threaten with the sword.
Exactly like a spiked gauntlet.
Or can a single hand only wield or carry at any given time, and even a cestus or gauntlet is not an exception to this?
Pretty much.
If you're wearing gauntlets and holding a longspear, you choose which one you're wielding. If you're wielding the longspear, you're wearing the gauntlets, thus you don't threaten adjacent squares. If you're wielding the gauntlet, you're holding the longspear, thus you don't threaten at 10'.
And you would be right to ask for a citation of the wielding issue.
Sadly, you won't get a very good one.
The closest I can find is this:
Wielding means "actively trying to use the item," and is normally only used in the context of weapons or weapon-like objects such as rods, wands, and so on.
Otherwise, it's just an item you're holding/carrying.
And if you're not holding/carrying/bearing it, you're probably wearing it, or it's stowed in a sheath or backpack.
And if you're not wielding, holding/carrying/bearing, or wearing the item, it's probably unattended.
If you're wielding a sword, you're trying to hit people with it.
If you're holding or carrying a sword, you just have it on your person, perhaps because your fighter buddy dropped it and you didn't want him to lose it.
You probably can't wear a sword.
If you're not wielding the sword, holding/carrying/bearing the sword, or wearing the sword, it's on the ground.
I just want to know if I can "switch grips" on the non-cestus weapon in the same hand to carry it, and thus be now wielding the cestus... without having to put the other weapon away or drop it.
Changing grips is a free action. You can do it as much as you want, but only on your turn.
Yeah, SKR made that clear in the post linked above that it is a light weapon...
My follow-up question remains: Can you wield another weapon in a hand that has a cestus equipped, and choose when attacking to strike either with the cestus or the other weapon? Or while you have the other weapon equipped in that hand, is the cestus unavailable as an attack option?
Yes, but you couldn't use Crane Wing if you did.
I'm trying to have a whip in the same hand as my cestus, but keep my other hand open for other things...
One hand wearing a cestus, holding a whip. No problem. Especially since the whip doesn't threaten. If you're going to make an attack with the whip, it'll be on your turn. So wield the whip (Free), do whatever attack, then wield the cestus again (Free). You'll threaten with the cestus any time you're not actively attacking with the whip.
Your other hand is free the entire time.
Bonus: if you don't need the free hand during the attack, use both hands on the whip for 1.5xStrBonus to damage. Just let go with the one hand after the attack(s) so your hand is free again.
a Gauntlet isn't a weapon
It hasn't been changed in the CRB yet, but it's intended to be a weapon like all the other close weapons.
The brass knuckles problem stems from the Core Rulebook putting "gauntlet" in the "Unarmed Attacks" category, as brass knuckles are listed as "Unarmed Attacks" because gauntlets are there.
Brass knuckles should be armed (light melee weapon) attacks. (As should gauntlets and spiked gauntlets.)
Which makes it clear that using brass knuckles is not an unarmed attack (and the description of the weapon should not refer to unarmed attacks), and therefore monk's don't get their unarmed damage with them. They can, as others have pointed out, still use them to flurry, and allows for things like silver brass knuckles and +5 flaming brass knuckles.
The cestus description confuses the issue by referring to unarmed attacks; it's clearly a light melee weapon and doesn't relate to unarmed strike rules at all.
Rope gauntlets are light melee weapons and its descriptive text shouldn't confuse the issue by referring to "unarmed strikes."
Three posts down:
None of those three weapons allow a monk to use his level-based unarmed damage; they just do the damage listed on the weapon table. This isn't errata (they were never intended to allow monks to do that, as they can already deal lethal or nonlethal at their discretion), it's a clarification of the use of terms like "with unarmed attacks" in the descriptive text of those three weapons (they aren't unarmed attacks, and mentioning unarmed attacks at all confuses the issue).
And finally, after conferring with Jason Bulmahn:
Yes, the answer changed... because Jason and I discussed the precedent it sets for the Core Rulebook and vice versa.
Treating brass knuckles, gauntlets, spiked gauntlets, cesti, and rope gauntlets as "unarmed attacks" doesn't make a lot of sense (because you're not unarmed, you have metal/leather/rope/etc. there).
(...)
Making all of these weapons act 100% like weapons and not refer to unarmed attacks at all means these questions go away.
This is now sounding awesome... I hope the stance doesn't change when I DO threaten with the whip after getting Improved Whip Mastery ;) hehe
It'll be the same as any other weapon. Free action to wield. This means at the end of your turn, you choose if you're wielding the whip or the cestus. If it's the whip, you don't threaten with the cestus, and vice versa.
Ok cool... I think, though I guess I may be at the mercy of the GM for if it works though. I only outlined having, a pair in/on each hand to eliminate from the argument the idea that one of the weapons was switching hands at any point in the example.
In reality, I'm trying to have a whip in the same hand as my cestus, but keep my other hand open for other things... and then I can just decide which weapon to have "active" from the hand with the cestus on it and whip in it as needed for DR...
Still works?
The rule is to have one hand free to use Crane Wing, as long as you don't actually have a weapon held in one hand (ie it is free) then it should work. If you are holding a weapon in one hand, it isn't free regardless of whether you are using the weapon or not.
Whether or not a cestus counts as having a hand free or not depends on your GM - if you apply the ruling that cestus, gauntlet, brass knuckles etc. all count as light weapons, then your GM may rule that wearing one you hand is not free because you are 'armed' even if you can use your hand. Myself I would say that as I understand a 'free hand' yoy have the hand free, but it's a grey area.
I actually switched the concept to be about Snake Style, so that doesn't matter for that purpose... but if you would rule that the hand isn't free so I could not switch between the cestus and whip without putting the whip away/droping it...
It's not clear what you mean here.
A hand that is wearing a cestus and holding a whip is not free.
Being free has nothing to do with which of those weapons you're wielding. You can wield the cestus and hold the whip, or you can wield the whip and wear the cestus. Only one of those weapons is 'active' at a time. You just can't change which is active when it's not your turn.
If your other hand is free, then it's free, and it doesn't matter at all what your other hand is doing.
A hand being free just means it's not doing anything. You need a free hand to cast spells with a somatic component, you need a hand free to catch an arrow or pick up an item.
And remember, if you're concerned about holding too many weapons to use monk feats, you can make unarmed strikes with kicks and headbutts, in addition to punches.
Also: "rawyering" I love it.