Kyoketsu shoge - what the what?

[Charon's Little Helper]

I've searched the forums - and it's been asked several times - how the heck does this thing work?

Kyoketsu shoge 6 gp 1d3 1d4 ×2 20 ft. 1 lb. S or P disarm, grapple, monk, reach UC

Benefit: The blade can be used as an off-hand melee weapon or thrown like a dagger, while the rope and circlet can be whipped around and swung at opponents as a bludgeoning reach weapon.

My theory - It's both a monk dagger (with crappy crit) which can be thrown like a rope dart and can be finessed (mention of off-handing) and can used as a two-handed reach weapon with bludgening damage (not finessed).

I'd like to know officially. I've been considering a throwing weapon build (possibly PFS) with a dip into monk for flurry instead of using TWF, and this thing seems like a good canidate if my theory is right. He wouldn't get much out of the reach since that part can't be finessed, but otherwise it looks like just the thing if my theory is correct.

Can I get someone to weigh in?

[Hogeyhead]

Honestly I wouldn't use it for the simple reason: ygmmv (your gm may vary). because it doesn't seem well defined some gms may decide it works in your favor, some gms may not. In a home game no prob, you ask he/she answers, you use it/don't, whatever. In PFS you could build a build for 5 levels, then bam! New gm 'no doesn't work all your abilities are scraped, that neat fighting stye you had? Gone and I don't care.'

So to be breif: Don't use for PFS.

[Charon's Little Helper]

Well - maybe I'll try it at next Origins and have a high ranking judge (VL level or higher) weigh in on it. And I'll use a level 1 character so that I can re-spec if they decide to make it suck.

[Kazaan]

It's an odd weapon and debate has been going back and forth on it for ages. Some things to note:

1) It is not listed as a double weapon. Compare to Kusarigama and Double-Chain Kama which are double weapons. This means that it is a single two-handed weapon and enchanted all in "one piece", by RAW.

2) It does specify that the blade can be used as a dagger. Meaning you could be holding the chain and, even though it's a two-handed weapon by default, you can either attack with the dagger as a melee weapon or a thrown weapon and it only takes up one "hand" worth of attack economy. Thus you could TWF with non-hand Unarmed Strike (ie. Kick) + the Dagger portion of the Kyoketsu Shoge.

3) While the Rope Dart specifies it can be "pulled back" by the rope quickly and this is presumed to be a free action, the Shoge has no such language in it. So it is even more uncertain what kind of action it is to "pull" the dagger back. This could just be a flavorful way of saying "attack with reach".

4) It lists that the ring end can be swung around to deal bludgeoning damage, but this is not listed in the weapon's damage types in the table.

[Rhatahema]

Agreed that you shouldn't use this in PFS. I wouldn't use this weapon at all without rewriting it. It's just terribly written. Besides that, from a quick bit of research, it doesn't bear much similarity to how the weapon was used either. The ring was used to disarm, entangle, or trip, not to hurt someone through blunt force, and the blade doesn't seem to have been thrown at all. So I'd pick something else for a throwing build.

[Arachnofiend]

The general rule for how the eastern weapons work is "there is no rule, only suffering".

[William Ronald]

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Well - maybe I'll try it at next Origins and have a high ranking judge (VL level or higher) weigh in on it. And I'll use a level 1 character so that I can re-spec if they decide to make it suck.

Well, since it is terribly written and Rhatahema's research shows it was not used as Charon's Little Helper thought, is there a weapon that comes closer to his desire to have a very versatile weapon to use for a throwing build?