Spinning Lance and Shield of Swings Questions

[Alexis Demos]

I'm looking at what feat I want to pick up next for my Dragoon/Hellknight and I am trying to find clarification for a few things about the Spinning Lance ability and how it works with Shield of Swings.

For Reference:

Ultimate Combat wrote:

Spinning Lance (Ex): At 7th level, a dragoon may

alternate attacks with the piercing head of his lance with
reach, or with the butt end (treat as a club) against adjacent
targets. Unlike a double weapon, the masterwork quality
and magical special abilities apply to both ends of the lance, except for those weapon special abilities that apply only to
edged weapons. This ability replaces armor training 2.

Advanced Players Guide wrote:

Shield of Swings (Combat)

A wild frenzy of attacks serves to bolster your defenses.

Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: When you take a full-attack action while wielding a two-handed weapon, you can choose to reduce the damage by 1/2 to gain a +4 shield bonus to AC and CMD until the beginning of your next turn. The reduction in damage applies until the beginning of your next turn.

So I have some questions.

The first one is with a lance, while mounted, you can wield your lance and shield. Dismounted, the lance becomes a 2-handed weapon so I have to drop either the heavy shield or I can drop the lance and pull out a 1-handed weapon (my short spear usually). With Spinning Lance, can I keep the shield and lance and then strike with butt end of the lance while dismounted?

To me that would make sense, but I imagine I just wouldn't be able to use the reach end of the lance as that would require two hands. All it would effectively do is keep me from having to drop the lance and spend a move action to draw the short spear as they do the same damage since all my bonuses for Dragoon would apply to the butt end of the lance too.

Does the lance still have to be wielded two-handed while dismounted even with the spinning lance ability? Typically you can hold a two handed weapon in one hand as a free action, but it isn't considered "wielded." However, since spinning lance makes your weapon into either a 2-handed reach weapon (lance) or 1-handed melee weapon (club), it makes this pretty murky to me.

My next question has to do with Spinning Lance in conjunction with Shield of Swings. So, the feat specifically mentions that the two handed weapons simply has to be wielded and used during a full attack round to gain the bonus. So if I strike an adjacent opponent with the club end of the lance for a full attack around, do I still gain the +4 bonus for Shield of Swings or do I have to get a full attack round with the lance end? More so, if I am able to use the club end of the spear with a shield, would that impact Shield of Swings's bonus?

Spinning lance essentially gives you a reach weapon that doesn't have a dead zone. It's not like a double weapon where each end is counted as a separate weapon and this is what is confusing me.

This is a Pathfinder Society character as well, not a home game so I can't just ask my GM per say and have us come up with something just for us to use, I sort of need to the actual intention Paizo had in mind.

[Kyrrion]

The lance should be treated as two-handed weapon when dismounted, regardless of Spinning Lance. You might treat the butt end as a club, but you have to have the lance equipped to actually gain access to use the end as a club. You can't just equip and wield "half" of the lance.

Since you do have a two-handed weapon equipped and are wielding it, Shield of Strikes should work regardless if you attack with the butt end or not.

That's the way I see it working - it utterly does not make sense to me to be able to wield the butt end as a one-handed club weapon with a shield. The other side of the lance with the main head of the weapon would be a very clumsy counterbalance to a weapon that doesn't have a counter balance.

[Kazaan]

Here's how it all works out.

First, the Lance is always a 2-h weapon, regardless of whether you are unmounted or wielding it "in one hand" due to being mounted. This is explicitly different, as clarified via FAQ, from a 2-h weapon being "wielded one-handed". Wielded in one hand means it is still, mechanically, a two-handed weapon for all rules elements except only how many hands are occupied by wielding it. So a lance, while mounted, still counts as a 2-h weapon for things like Shield of Swings, Overhand Chop, etc. This also means you still get 1.5x Str and Power Attack bonus, but you cannot wield an off-hand weapon because those don't mesh with 2-h weapons; your free hand can only be used for guiding your mount, using a shield, etc. By contrast, wielding a 2-h weapon one-handed means it no longer counts as a 2-h weapon for any rules elements related to wielding and use but, instead, counts as a 1-h weapon.

Now, regarding Spinning Lance, keep in mind that this does not say it makes the weapon count as a Double weapon. It just gives the weapon an additional "mode" of attack. So, with 3 iterative attacks, you could divide those 3 attacks at BAB/BAB-5/BAB-10 into any combination of reach/adjacent attack modes. But it doesn't let you TWF with the lance alone. The Lance is still a 2-h weapon so Shield of Swings still functions properly. The only thing to note is that a Club (which the adjacent attacks are treated as) is a 1-h weapon so, arguably, if you make only adjacent attacks as with a Club and no attacks using the weapon at reach, you aren't attacking with a 2-h weapon since you are attacking with a "virtual" 1-h weapon. That, however, is the only wrinkle to consider.