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PFS question. I have my unchained monk which I planning to take crane style then crane wing. Presently my monk fights with a 9 part whip (one handed weapon) but uses it 2hd to get extra damage. With crane style there is no problem fighting 2hd but Crane wing says you need to have a hand free. I was planning to use the 9 part whip 2hd then switch to 1hd as free action and was hoping I would then be eligible for crane wing to be in effect if attacked. The boards seemed mixed on the legality. There was a similar discussion on whether zen archers could use crane wing or not and the responses were mixed.
There's absolutely nothing that prevents you from changing your grip as a free action to take advantage of Crane Wing. If a spellcaster can shift a weapon into a light shield hand or change grips on a two-handed weapon to cast a spell, then a character can change their grip to make attacks. It even states somewhere that changing grip from A to B to A once per round is legit.
Indeed, you can only take the free action required to change grip on your turn, so AoO's are strictly one-handed.
There are conflicting FAQs on this topic.
Reading Regrabbing Two Handed weapons it is allowed but reading Changing grip on a weapon says you couldn't.
There are conflicting FAQs on this topic.
Reading Regrabbing Two Handed weapons it is allowed but reading Changing grip on a weapon says you couldn't.
From the looks of it, the basic distinction is whether you are doing the action that needs the free hand during your turn.
Spell casting (typically) works during your turn.
Crane wing and AoOs are things that mostly involve stuff outside of your turn.
If there were immediate action spells with somatic components (suprisingly, there doesn't seem to be any from a simple engine search), then I wouldn't allow that either.
The second FAQ just says that you can't simultaneously wield a weapon normally and as an improvised weapon at the same time. It says nothing about not being able to use normal grip-changing.
Still...allowing him to regrip and benefit from both 2 handing and crane style in the same round seems like it completely defeats the purpose of requiring a free hand.
Side note- I fear this will turn into another 'thing' that makes the team make paranoid feat rules like with the errata'd slashing grace (which was designed to avoid the shenanigans people tried to pull with dervish dance). I hope this doesn't flair up.
This is really far more simple than people often seem to make it. As an example -
Cleric:
- begins turn with two hands on his longspear.
"I take one hand off of my longspear" (free action).
"I cast a spell".
"I put both hands back on my weapon" (free action).
*Ends Turn with weapon in both hands*
- Reach AoO.
Monk:
- begins turn with one hand on his temple sword and the other free.
"I put two hands on my temple sword" (free action).
"I attack".
"I take one hand off of my temple sword" (free action).
*Ends Turn with weapon in one hand*
- Crane Wing Defense, Riposte AoO.
It's another metaphysical hand question. Most of the FAQs are very specific and interpretation is often required to understand the intent.
I believe the intent behind the first FAQ is to not nerf spellcasters by allowing them to release and re-grip weapons and so take advantage of AoOs. The second FAQ is trying to stop a mechanical advantage being gained. In the specific example given it is using a two-handed weapon to attack at both 5 and 10 feet and this can easily be applied to not allowing the two-handed strength bonus during attacks and the versatility of a free-hand for other things during or outside of your turn.
Until there is a better official explanation than highly specific FAQs these questions will keep rumbling.
Honestly, with the two FAQs, it is cut and dry as to whether this is allowed.
It's not.
Let's presume you start the round with your weapon properly gripped (two hands). You make all of your attacks, Fighting Defensively, so as to utilize Crane Style. You then proceed to shift your grip to one hand, which, according to the FAQ, is a Free Action. You then end your turn.
An enemy then proceeds to attack you, and then whiffs, albeit slightly. This triggers your Crane Riposte. Once this occurs, you make an attack at him for free, which does not require an action.
An important note regarding Free Actions:
You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally.
The ability to take a Free Action only precludes when a subject requires an action, and that action is taken normally. An Attack of Opportunity is not an action, and therefore the preclude to re-grip your two-handed weapon in order to execute the Attack of Opportunity is impossible unless you find a way to ungrip/re-grip without requiring an action. Furthermore, if the intent of an Attack of Opportunity is to emulate an Attack Action, that's normally a Standard Action. If you're performing an Attack of Opportunity, which emualtes a typical Attack Action, you're not taking that action normally, which further precludes this combination from working, meaning on multiple accounts this is debunked.
It's quite clear how this works: This is designed so that those with two-handed weapons (or with legal sword and boards, such as Light Shields) can still feasibly cast spells without having to sheathe their weapons all the time, as it's clunky and unwieldy. Things like Crane Wing, which require a Free Hand to perform its excess abilities outside of its turn, or things like Dervish Dance, which explicitly state that if your hands aren't free at all times, it ceases function, aren't intended to work in that same manner.
In short, Martials can't have nice things.
In short, Martials can't have nice things.
Well, melee casters are an entire play style (hell, more classes qualify as some kind of gish than as 'pure' casters, especially if you include cleric/oracle). But how many people use crane wing (...ok, correction- how many used it prior to being errata'd to oblivion because some GMs couldn't deal with a 1/turn block, because they loved throwing single T-rexes at their parties for some reason).
In short, Martials can't have nice things.Well, melee casters are an entire play style (hell, more classes qualify as some kind of gish than as 'pure' casters, especially if you include cleric/oracle). But how many people use crane wing (...ok, correction- how many used it prior to being errata'd to oblivion because some GMs couldn't deal with a 1/turn block, because they loved throwing single T-rexes at their parties for some reason).
I jokingly made that statement because when I originally compared it, I was going to say:
This is designed so that those with two-handed weapons (or with legal sword and boards, such as Light Shields) can still feasibly cast spell without having to sheathe their weapons all the time, as it's clunky and unwieldy. It's not designed to finagle your way to use stuff that requires a free hand while still using things that require both hands to use.
And that statement actually contradicts itself. Substituting hands so as to cast spells can be construed as "finagling your way to use stuff that requires a free hand while still using things that require both hands to use," all the same as attempting to use Crane Wing or Dervish Dance (or Slashing Grace), so I had to revise it.
I made that statement because of the irony that a Staff Wielder can still cast spells from either the Staff or his own repertoire is allowed and extremely powerful, but a Martial using two weapons (or a two-handed weapon) to get Dexterity to Damage or to provide an unorthodox defense isn't because [reasons], and isn't nearly as powerful.
All I can say is, that's Paizo's design philosophy. And that's about all that needs to be said. Let's not turn this into a Caster/Martial Disparity thread. The answer for this is clear, and the reason and logic for it is provided.
"When fighting defensively with at least one hand free..." sounds to me like your hand has to be free that whole time.
*shrug*
"When fighting defensively with at least one hand free..." sounds to me like your hand has to be free that whole time.
*shrug*
More grounds for two-handed weapons to not work with Crane Style.
Though, that has a gray area. It ultimately boils down to whether that refers to when you take the action, or while receiving the modifiers of the action.
A lot of people would say "When you take the action," though that can also be grounds for disallowing because if you fought defensively with a two-handed weapon, you didn't fight defensively with at least one free hand, meaning you couldn't even use the Free Action to ungrip it and then proceed to deflect, as you were not "fighting defensively with at least one hand free."
If people said "while receiving the modifiers," then it could be plausible, because you must fulfill the pre-requisites at the time of activation, but you still couldn't riposte.
I personally think it'd be the second, as Fighting Defensively has repercussions outside of the action.
Darksol, I think you may have misread the question.
It wasn't asking about Crane Riposte, only about Crane Wing.
If you did have Crane Reposte, you could still make the retaliatory attack, btw, just not with the two-handed weapon wielded in two hands.
Bolded part was what my intent. My apologies if it didn't come across as such.
Honestly, with the two FAQs, it is cut and dry as to whether this is allowed.
It's not.
Let's presume you start the round with your weapon properly gripped (two hands). You make all of your attacks, Fighting Defensively, so as to utilize Crane Style. You then proceed to shift your grip to one hand, which, according to the FAQ, is a Free Action. You then end your turn.
An enemy then proceeds to attack you, and then whiffs, albeit slightly. This triggers your Crane Riposte. Once this occurs, you make an attack at him for free, which does not require an action.
If he was talking about a two-handed weapon, I'd agree with you.
However, in this particular case, the OP is wielding a one-handed weapon in two hands to get 1.5x damage on his attacks.
At the end of his turn, he takes one hand off the weapon. He can still make make AoOs or Riposte attacks with the weapon in one hand; he just doesn't get 1.5x damage.
At the start of his next turn, he puts his second hand on the weapon and gets 1.5x damage on his attacks again.
I wouldn't allow it to be used 2H, Crane Wing has a drawback and you're not respecting it. The round concept is only that, for game purposes everything you do happens on your turn, but in actual fact you're acting during the entire round.
If you allow this, you'll need to allow Deflect Arrow to be used with 2H weapons as well. You might as well remove all requirements from all feats that say you need to use 1 hand.
There is no ambiguity here. It is a free action to shift grips. As long as it's your turn and you don't have a condition that stops you from using free action, you are free to change your grip before you attack, after you attack and in between two attacks. You can definitely take a hand off your weapon at the end of your turn to apply crane style.
Edit: Left the tab opened and didn't refresh before posting. I missed a lot of posts because of that.
It seems a lot of people aren't noticing that he is using the weapon 1-handed after his turn. His is not using a free action outside of his turn, he is switching grips at the end of the end of his turn and using it 1-handed until his next turn starts, thus leaving a hand free. All AoOs are being made with a 1xSTR multiplier.
I wouldn't allow it to be used 2H, Crane Wing has a drawback and you're not respecting it. The round concept is only that, for game purposes everything you do happens on your turn, but in actual fact you're acting during the entire round.
If you allow this, you'll need to allow Deflect Arrow to be used with 2H weapons as well. You might as well remove all requirements from all feats that say you need to use 1 hand.
While the round concept may be an abstraction, it is part and parcel of the combat system, and critical to its functioning. If you try to apply this "realistic" logic to other aspects of the game, you'll quickly see how quickly everything breaks down. For example, just imagine trying to calculate when attacks of opportunity are possible as foes are moving around - you'd need to figure out the trajectories, speeds, timings, and positions of everyone as they move around each other. It's simply not practical, and that's just one small example, too.
As for Crane Wing, in this example he IS respecting the limitation. Namely, that you have to have a hand free while taking advantage of it. By not wielding the weapon in two hands while it is not his turn, he is giving up most/all of the advantages of the weapon until the start of his next turn, which is very relevant for AoOs.
Deflect Arrows is also entirely usable using this same tactic, btw. Again, you will be giving up the benefits of wielding the two hander while it is not your turn.
Exactly. It will work most of the time because you don't usually get attacked during your turn (when you have both hands on the weapon), and you don't have both hands on the weapon after the end of your turn (when you're most likely to get attacked).
But if someone does manage to attack you while you have both hands on the weapon (readied action, AoO, etc.), then you can't use Crane Wing or Deflect Arrows against that attack.