How does the Second Chance feat work if you are fighting with two weapons?
"Benefit: When making a full attack, if you miss on your first attack, you can forgo making any other attacks for the rest of your turn to reroll that attack at your highest base attack bonus."
Pretty straightforward with one weapon. You take your highest BAB swing, and if it misses, you can swing again by giving up the extra swings you get from your +6 or better BAB. The intent is clear.
It less clear how this works if you are fighting with two weapons:
Does it only apply to the first weapon that swings? If so, does he also lose his off-hand attack at highest BAB in addition to the extra attacks from having a +6 or better BAB if he elects to reroll? Which weapon goes first? Or is it the player's choice?
The alternative view is that the "first attack" is supposed to encompass both of your full BAB attacks. Is this the correct interpretation? If so, does only one attack have to miss to trigger this feat, or do both have to miss? If one of the two hit, do you reroll only the attack that missed or do you reroll both? If both missed, do you reroll both attacks or only one of them?
Bonus attacks from TWF, Haste, etc. can be "shuffled in" among your primary iterative attacks with the only default limitations being that your BAB-5 off-hand from ITWF cannot come before your standard BAB off-hand and your BAB-10 off-hand from GTWF cannot come before the ITWF off-hand. So, if you have 3 iterative attacks and 2 off-hands, you can make the following:
1) Main/Main-5/Main-10/Off/Off-5
2) Main/Main-5/Off/Main-10/Off-5
3) Main/Main-5/Off/Off-5/Main-10
4) Main/Off/Main-5/Main-10/Off-5
5) Main/Off/Main-5/Off-5/Main-10
6) Main/Off/Off-5/Main-5/Main-10
7) Off/Main/Main-5/Main-10/Off-5
8) Off/Main/Main-5/Off-5/Main-10
9) Off/Main/Off-5/Main-5/Main-10
10) Off/Off-5/Main/Main-5/Main-10
10 choices to arrange 3 main-hand and 2 off-hand attacks and 4 of those choices involve making at least one off-hand attack before your main-hand attacks. Would it make sense or be fair for someone to be able to make one or all their off-hand, haste, etc. bonus attacks first, then take their first main-hand attack, miss, and forego their remaining attacks while the person who chooses to make a main-hand attack first must forego not only their iteratives but also bonus attacks in order to make the re-roll? No. Thus, I see three logical possibilities it can be broken down to:
A) Second Chance only refers to iterative/main-hand attacks and has no effect or bearing on off-hand attacks, bonus attacks from Haste or haste-like effects, natural attacks, etc. Thus, "give up your remaining attacks" refers only to main-hand iterative attacks being forfeited.
B) Second Chance requires you not "lock" yourself by taking bonus attacks before your first normal main-hand attack in the same way that, if you use Multishot to double your damage dice on the first ranged attack of a full-attack, it "locks" you into the full-attack and you cannot "step down" the full-attack into a standard attack. If you take non-iterative bonus attacks first, you're locked out of using Second Chance because it's impossible to give up all your other attacks for that round... you've used some of them already.
C) Second Chance applies to the first attack you take by any means, whether it's a main-hand, off-hand, haste bonus, whatever attack and you lose all further attacks from any source as well.
Option A, I feel, is the most reasonable one. It gives you the advantage of using the feat without punishing you for also wanting to use other valid effects. Option B, while the most complicated and limiting, does have a certain precedent regarding abilities tethered to certain conditions and you must be "backwards compatible" as far as the requirements of the ability go. C is the easiest and most straight forward, though the "easy way" isn't necessarily the best way. The player in me wants to go with Option A, but the systematizer in me wants to lean more towards option C and the overachiever wants to go with option B. In short, "The Boulder is having conflicted feelings..."
"Benefit: When making a full attack, if you miss on your first attack, you can forgo making any other attacks for the rest of your turn to reroll that attack at your highest base attack bonus."
Seems pretty straight forward to me. The feat does not care how many other attacks you may have due to TWF. If you want to use it you forgo any additional attacks after the first you may have. And it doesn't matter either whether your first attack is with your main or your off hand since the feat calls out the first attack during the full attack; as soon as you made at least two attacks you cannot use the feat anymore.
Thank you both.
follow on question: suppose you have one natural attack. You do not get iterative attacks for having a high BAB with natural attacks. Can you apply this feat to the natural attack, even though you are not "giving up" an iterative attack.
When using only a single attack, it's a Standard Action, i.e. an Attack Action.
The feat only works when making a full attack, not a single attack.
With that said, I'd recommend getting Improved Second Chance if you still want to keep all of those attacks.
Presuming that it works by Method C as I described above, if you have one natural attack, you could make a full attack to attack with a weapon plus the natural attack. Say, for the sake of example, you have a Bite and a Dagger. You make your Bite first (at -5 BAB since it's a secondary natural attack in conjunction with mfg weapons); it misses. Then, you use Second Chance to give up your two iterative attacks with the dagger to re-roll the Bite at full BAB. If it doesn't miss, even at BAB-5, you continue with your normal dagger attacks. You then look your GM in the eye, put on a pair of sunglasses, and hold a sign below your face on a transparency sheet that reads [Deal with it].
That would make sense if you could choose which attacks you make first.
RAW, you must make attacks going from highest BAB to lowest BAB. In your example, a Primary Dagger + Bite would result in Dagger/Dagger-5/Bite-5, since the Bite in a Full Attack with manufactured weapons functions as a secondary natural weapon.
If you had Multi-Attack as a feat, though, it'd be Dagger/Bite-2/Dagger-5. Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that since the Dagger has the highest BAB, you take the Dagger attack first.
**Edit** I personally don't like the Second Chance feat line; if you somehow miss with your highest BAB (outside rolling a 1 obviously, which does happen), it's definitely not worth the re-roll as a cost of sacrificing your other attacks, or taking an additional -5 on your other attacks, which will be hard to hit as is (especially if you miss with your highest BAB, which should be nigh-automatic). There are definitely better feats available to choose from, especially for Int-based melee characters. Just my 2 cp though.
Darksol, can't a player choose to take a "full attack" with the single attack available so long as they haven't used their move action, and thereby benefit from the Second Chance feat or anything else that might only work in conjunction with a full attack?
Kazaan, I was asking the question in the context of not using anything other than the natural attack. Love the sign. Have to have one made.
Dragontamer wrote: Darksol, can't a player choose to take a "full attack" with the single attack available so long as they haven't used their move action, and thereby benefit from the Second Chance feat or anything else that might only work in conjunction with a full attack?
Kazaan, I was asking the question in the context of not using anything other than the natural attack. Love the sign. Have to have one made.
Not really. You can't "Full Attack" with just a single attack type unless you can do so multiple times (with a manufactured weapon) or with multiple weapons (TWF or Natural Weapons). By that logic, I can Full Attack with Vital Strike and get an extra attack via Haste; but I can't because Vital Strike is an Attack Action, using a single attack.
Even so, the clause for the Full Attack Action states that you can choose between attacking and full attacking while making a Full Attack. However, with only one attack type (at only one roll), you can't make a Full Attack, the condition needed to utilize the feat in question.
While RAI, I wouldn't really care about whether it works or not since I find the feat tree for Second Chance kind of lame and pointless, the RAW says otherwise.
@ Kazaan: Here's the Full Attack Action rules which says you must go from highest to lowest. Sorry to spoil your munchkining. :P
Darksol the Painbringer wrote: @ Kazaan: Here's the Full Attack Action rules which says you must go from highest to lowest. Sorry to spoil your munchkining. :P Aw, isn't that cute; he thinks I haven't read that clause.
PRD wrote: If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest. If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first. If you are using a double weapon, you can strike with either part of the weapon first. If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest. Off-hand attacks are not because your BAB is high enough. Haste bonus attack is not because your BAB is high enough. Natural Attacks used in conjunction with manufactured weapons are not because your BAB is high enough. So BAB ordering only applies to your main-line iterative attacks; you can shuffle in bonus attack from sources other than high BAB freely. Sorry to spoil your spoiling of my clever tactic.
Fair enough in terms of RAW, of course I believe the RAI behind my thinking still holds effect; though it doesn't change the fact that the Second Chance feat line is junk and even if you decide to use it, there would be no point for TWF or other attack types since it all goes in the crapper.
Also, it still only works on your first attack that you make, i.e. the attack you designate with first; with that said, it's pointless to use it on an off-hand/secondary natural attack since they only provide half (or standard with the right feat) in strength, and actually make it harder to hit, in compromise of other attacks which are much more likely to hit.
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