Double Slice when (main-hand) Disarmed

[Calybos1]

Double Slice lets the two-weapon fighter apply his full Strength modifier to the offhand weapon's damage.

But what about when the main hand has been disarmed, and you're still wielding the other weapon in the offhand? You're no longer 'two-weapon fighting,' so...?

[Nicos]

So...what?

If you are not TWF then you do not apply any feat taht work with TWF, in this case nothings happens. You just make your normal attacks with one weapon.

[Jiggy]

Indeed, you don't even have an "off hand" if you're not employing the TWF mechanic to gain an extra attack. So if you're only attacking with one weapon, you just make your attacks and damage rolls the way you would if TWF had never been in the picture to begin with.

[Calybos1]

So, the attack is done with the normal offhand penalty and half-Strength to damage. OK.

[Skull]

It still works. Your off-hand sort of gets treated as your main hand is one way of looking at it.

The way i see it: the feat basically ups the damage from your off-hand to full str bonus. No matter what the main hand is doing. You could still punch with your main and attack with offhand.

[Nicos]

Calybos1 wrote:

So, the attack is done with the normal offhand penalty and half-Strength to damage. OK.

THere is no OFF hand if you are not TWF. If you are only attacking normally with one weapon then it does not matter with wich hand you wield that weapon.

[Jiggy]

Calybos1 wrote:

So, the attack is done with the normal offhand penalty and half-Strength to damage. OK.

No.

If you're not taking any extra attacks via TWF (and if you're only using one weapon, then you can't take the extra attack from TWF) then you don't have an off hand at all and take no penalties whatsoever and apply your full STR bonus to damage.

[Driver 325 yards]

The only unique circumstance I can think of is if you are disarmed right in the middle of 2-wp fighting. Let's say you have four attacks.
Main Hand Attack, Off Hand Attack, Main Hand Attack (Disarmed by crane style monk), Off hand Attack.

In a case like this, the Off Hand attack would still do 1/2 strength damage.

Also, you can't be clever and right before your last attack drop you main weapon and claim to be one handed fighting to get full strength damage.

[Lord Twig]

The main hand/off hand rules are used to simulate that most people have one favored hand and one off hand. I am right handed. If I try to do things with my left hand I am not as good with it. This is true whether or not I am doing anything with my right hand at all.

However, by a strict reading of the RAW you never actually have to choose which hand is your main hand and which is your off hand. You can (unrealistically) switch them at will. So to answer in a strict reading of the rules, when your main hand is disarmed, the next round you can just declare that your currently armed hand is the main one now and the other hand is your off hand.

I don't particularly like this as, to me, it violates the spirit of the rules (simulating the fact that some people have a favored hand).

But the character your talking about has trained to be good with both hands. This changes things from a story point of view as well.

The Two Weapon Fighting feat simulates the ability to fight with two weapons at the same time (one in each hand). It does this by reducing the penalties of not only using two weapons at once (reducing the penalty by 2), but also by removing the penalty for using your off hand (reducing the off hand penalty to 0).

Likewise Double Slice increases the effectiveness of a weapon in your off hand to the point where it is just as good as fighting with your main hand (full Str bonus).

Thus it can be inferred that if you lose one weapon you can continue to fight with the other at full effect regardless of which weapon is lost. You are effectively completely ambidextrous.

As a house rule I say your main hand and off hand are fixed. So if you were to fight with just one weapon in your off hand you would take a -4 penalty and get 1/2 Str bonus. Two Weapon Fighting would reduce the penalty to 0 and Double Slice would increase the Str bonus to full. Of course a character could just switch hands on his weapon as a free action instead, but you get the idea.

TL;DR: Strict RAW you can change which hand is your "main" hand pretty much at will. I think you might be locked into which hand is your "main" until the start of your next turn, but not positive on that.

[Jiggy]

Lord Twig wrote:

The main hand/off hand rules are used to simulate that most people have one favored hand and one off hand.

Actually, no.

That used to be the case in older versions of D&D, but that was (intentionally) done away with a long time ago. There's no longer any such thing as "main hand/off hand rules" except in the context of TWF. It's not just a strict reading of the rules, it's the intent and spirit of the rules (at least in Pathfinder) as well.

I know this because I was involved in the thread which led to this FAQ about TWF, as well as the subsequent thread in which designer Sean K Reynolds commented on the intent of the TWF rules to correct people who thought you still had an off-hand even if you weren't using the TWF mechanic. To use his words, "the concept of an 'off-hand' only applies when you are using the two-weapon fighting option in the Combat chapter."

So your (correct) interpretation of a "strict" reading of the rules is, straight from the horse's mouth, the spirit and intent of the rule: no such thing as 'off-hand' if you're not using the TWF mechanic.

Hope everybody doesn't mind the little history lesson. :)

[Artanthos]

Calybos1 wrote:

So, the attack is done with the normal offhand penalty and half-Strength to damage. OK.

No.

A person with only a single weapon has no off-hand.

[Lord Twig]

Jiggy wrote:

Lord Twig wrote:

The main hand/off hand rules are used to simulate that most people have one favored hand and one off hand.

Actually, no.

That used to be the case in older versions of D&D, but that was (intentionally) done away with a long time ago. There's no longer any such thing as "main hand/off hand rules" except in the context of TWF. It's not just a strict reading of the rules, it's the intent and spirit of the rules (at least in Pathfinder) as well.

I know this because I was involved in the thread which led to this FAQ about TWF, as well as the subsequent thread in which designer Sean K Reynolds commented on the intent of the TWF rules to correct people who thought you still had an off-hand even if you weren't using the TWF mechanic. To use his words, "the concept of an 'off-hand' only applies when you are using the two-weapon fighting option in the Combat chapter."

So your (correct) interpretation of a "strict" reading of the rules is, straight from the horse's mouth, the spirit and intent of the rule: no such thing as 'off-hand' if you're not using the TWF mechanic.

Hope everybody doesn't mind the little history lesson. :)

Point taken. Yes, it does not really take a strict reading of RAW. It is RAI and all that as well.

In my world though, people are still right handed or left handed. I guess in Golarion people are born selectively ambidextrous (they can choose which is their main hand at will), which is fine. Some people are born with the ability to throw fireballs, so it's a minor thing. I just add handedness for verisimilitude. I did mention it was a house rule.

This just wouldn't work as well without it:

Quote:

Inigo Montoya: You are wonderful.

Man in Black: Thank you; I've worked hard to become so.

Inigo Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.

Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?

Inigo Montoya: Because I know something you don't know.

Man in Black: And what is that?

Inigo Montoya: I... am not left-handed.

Man in Black: Of course not, no one is. Everyone can use either hand equally well.

Inigo Montoya: ...

Yeah, just doesn't work.

[Jiggy]

Yeah, anything that moves us away from that movie is an issue, but hey, that's what houserules like yours are for. ;)

[Driver 325 yards]

Lord Twig wrote:

...So to answer in a strict reading of the rules, when your main hand is disarmed, the next round you can just declare that your currently armed hand is the main one now and the other hand is your off hand.

Yes, I agree that the next round you can declare a new main hand. I was speaking about an instance when you are disarmed in the middle of your two-weapon attacks. In such a case, you have to stick with the hand you have selected as your main hand and off hand. If not, then you could just constantly change which hand is your man hand in a sequence of two-weapon attacks so that all of your attacks come from you main hand.

Attack right handed (declaring my right hand as my main hand] then
Attack left handed (declaring my left hand as my main hand]

[bbangerter]

Being disarmed has no impact on the feat.

I can choose to use my unarmed strike main hand and my dagger holding off hand in a TWF attack and get the full str bonus on the dagger if I have the feat.

So it makes no difference if I was disarmed before I started my TWF attack, or got disarmed in the middle of my attack. I still have an off hand that gets the full str bonus.

[Mudfoot]

You have a spare hand, so you might as well wield it in both hands if it's not a light weapon. Then you'll do more damage than you would with Double Slice anyway.

[Kazaan]

Even if you have a weapon in each hand, have 2 iterative attacks, and take one attack with each weapon, both of them are main-hand attacks so both get 1x Str to damage and you suffer no TWF penalty. If you choose to go over BAB by leveraging TWF penalties, you designate one weapon as your "off-hand" and use it for all additional attacks and these additional attacks get only 0.5x Str to damage. You can even intersperse them however you please among your main-hand iterative order so long as you follow the "first-second-third" off-hand order. So if you have 4 iteratives and GTWF, you could equally perform the following:

Main/Main-5/Main-10/Main-15/Off/Off-5/Off-10
Main/Off/Main-5/Main-10/Off-5/Off-10/Main-15
Off/Off-5/Off-10/Main/Main-5/Main-10/Main-15

And any other order you so choose so long as your main-hand attacks all occur in subsequent order relative to other main-hands (and only other main-hands) and your off-hand attacks all happen in subsequent order relative to off-hands. If you get a bonus attack from Haste or a Speed weapon, you can put that attack wherever you want in the order. Your only limits to order are that a "lower" bab iterative attack cannot happen before a "higher" bab iterative and a "lower" off-hand cannot happen before a "higher" off-hand. Beyond that, anything goes.

So, going back to the original question, if you are in the middle of a full-attack, and you're disarmed of your main-hand weapon before you've taken all your iterative attacks, your remaining off-hand attacks are still off-hand attacks and still benefit from double-slice. You can quick-draw a new main-hand weapon or use Unarmed Strike or simply forego your remaining iterative attacks. If you're disarmed of your off-hand, however, it's gone since you must "designate" an off-hand from the start and cannot change it (since its "handiness" class determines what penalties you take).