Fighting with two weapons but not two weapon fighting.

[Dark Immortal]

The shielded fighters fifth level ability allows them to, among other things, alternate between using his weapon and his shield when full attacking. It doesn't provide extra attacks nor any penalties like two weapon fighting does.

Here's my issue/question:

Can't we already do that?

If I were wielding two different weapons and had a single attack for the round, on that attack I could choose to use either weapon (let's say a longsword and a warhammer). I would have my full bonus to hit with whichever weapon I chose to attack with.

If I were hasted I could swing once with each weapon at my full Bab and still suffer no penalty. If I had an iterative, I could swing with one weapon all three times or with one weapon twice and the other a single time-even if they are both are not light weapons.

So did I miss a rule somewhere, is this something specific to shields I forgot, or does this portion of the shielded fighters ability just reiterate a basic function that all characters have?

[wraithstrike]

Could you quote the text you are asking about?

[CrystalSpellblade]

Shielded Fighter wrote:

At 5th level, a shielded fighter gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls when making a shield bash. These bonuses increase by +1 every four levels beyond 5th. With a full-attack action, a shielded fighter may alternate between using his weapon or his shield for each attack. This action does not grant additional attacks or incur penalties as two-weapon fighting does.

Bolded section is what he is referring to.

[Kazaan]

Looks like a Prone Shooter situation; it addresses a situation that simply doesn't exist in the game. Likely a misunderstanding on the part of whoever wrote this archetype. So, by RAW, the bolded benefit does absolutely nothing and the only purpose of the ability is the +1 scaling bonus to attack and damage for shield bashing. If you were to houserule, I'd say make it work like TWF in that you can TWF with shield and weapon taking penalties as if you had the TWF feat.

[Cyrad]

It seems like we get a lot of archetypes written by designers who don't understand the game rules. I'm looking at you, Myrmidarch.

[Nefreet]

[/thread]

[Kazaan]

Apparently, Tyrone writes a lot of archetypes.

[Dark Immortal]

OK, good to know the rules didn't change on me. Nothing like being positive you know something very basic and having the rug pulled out from under you.

[Haargoth]

I think you would still get only half strength damage with off hand still... assuming you don't switch hands and don't have the feat double slice.

[Nefreet]

There is no "off-hand" unless you are TWFing. If you use your left hand for your 1st iterative (for example) and your right hand (or left foot, or head, or whatever) for your 2nd iterative, your 2nd iterative does not suffer a penalty to damage.