Buckler with other off-hand weapons

[Saint_Yin]

This is the poignant section for the buckler:

Quote:

You can also use your shield arm to wield a weapon (whether you are using an offhand weapon or using your off hand to help wield a two-handed weapon), but you take a –1 penalty on attack rolls while doing so. This penalty stacks with those that may apply for fighting with your off hand and for fighting with two weapons. In any case, if you use a weapon in your off hand, you lose the buckler’s Armor Class bonus until your next turn.

I'm looking into methods of using a buckler without losing its Armor Class bonus when dual-wielding. I am uncertain if my method works, therefore I'm here to collect a second opinion. Below are my questions:

1) A character is wielding a weapon in both hands and has a buckler equipped. If the character does not use the weapon held by the same limb as the buckler, do they still receive the buckler's attack penalty?

2) If a character uses something such as a Kobold Tail Attachment or a Dwarven Boulder Helm to make their off-hand attacks, is the buckler's Armor Class bonus lost?

[Lost In Limbo]

1. I'm not really sure about the scenario you're describing here. Could you explain it in different words? Sorry.

2. No, while the rules text for bucklers (and shields in general) assume a standard humanoid setup with the shield worn on the off-hand, nothing actually restricts you to that. As long as you don't use the buckler wearing limb for anything else then it's assumed you use it for defending and gain the AC bonus.

On a related note, have you seen the thunderstriker fighter archetype?

[blackbloodtroll]

Real hand, or metaphorical hand?

[Entryhazard]

1) From the wording of the rules it seems that it's the very fact of wielding a weapon in the bucket arm that gives you the attack penalty regardless of effectively attacking with that arm in a given round.

2)If you perform your off-hand attack without using that arm you keep the shield bonus, and this applies both to bucklers and regular shields

[Scott Wilhelm]

Entryhazard wrote:

1) From the wording of the rules it seems that it's the very fact of wielding a weapon in the bucket arm that gives you the attack penalty regardless of effectively attacking with that arm in a given round.

The wording says to me that they meant for the -1 penalty to be only an off-hand penalty, but my reading agrees with Entyhazard as to what the rules actually say.

I didn't care for bucklers before, and I like them even less now.

Saint_Yin wrote:

2) If a character uses something such as a Kobold Tail Attachment or a Dwarven Boulder Helm to make their off-hand attacks, is the buckler's Armor Class bonus lost?

You only lose the Shield Bonus to AC if you are attacking with your Shield hand. But if your off-hand attack is something else: Boulder Helm, Armor Spikes, tail attachment or something, then you shouldn't be using a buckler at all: use a heavy shield instead for the extra AC. Heck, use a Tower Shield!

You might consider using a light shield and just bash with it with your off hand. Shield bashing feats are awesome. Take 1 level in Warpriest, and your unspiked Light Shield will do as much damage as a Spiked, Heavy Shield. Put the Bashing Enchantment on it so it will 2d6 damage.

And make it a Quickdraw Throwing Shield. Take the Quickdraw Feat. Get a Blinkback Belt. Now you have awesome Ranged potential while fully equipped for melee.