Training Enchantment on Armor Spikes

[Driver_325yards]

Training Enchantment: Popular among those who seek to impersonate skilled warriors, a training weapon grants one combat feat to the wielder as long as the weapon is drawn and in hand. The feat is chosen when this special ability is placed on the weapon. That feat cannot be used as a prerequisite for any other feats and functions for the wielder only if she meets its prerequisites. Once chosen, the feat stored in the weapon cannot be changed.

Does Training Enchantment work on Armor Spikes? Thinking is whether the "drawn / in hand" prohibits the enchantment on armor spikes.

[Guru-Meditation]

I would interpret "drawn and in hand" with the intention that it is ready to be used. Thus armor spikes would always be giving the bonus feat as long as they are on your armor.

[blahpers]

Agreed. Wording the feat in such a way as to include armor spikes would be cumbersome and liable to leave out some other edgier case at the expense of valuable page estate.

Heck, you don't really "draw" a halberd or cestus, but I'm fairly confident you can have training on those.

[SlimGauge]

There was a thread about this
but no definite conclusions.

It's not clear if the training enchantment is like the defending enchantment in that it is USE activated or not (that is, you must actually attack with the armor spikes for the training enhancement to activate).
I personally believe that armor spikes aren't "drawn / in hand".

[blahpers]

SlimGauge wrote:

There was a thread about this

but no definite conclusions.

It's not clear if the training enchantment is like the defending enchantment in that it is USE activated or not (that is, you must actually attack with the armor spikes for the training enhancement to activate).
I personally believe that armor spikes aren't "drawn / in hand".

You'd think they'd have learned from the defending debacle. That ruling still makes no bloody sense.

[SlimGauge]

blahpers wrote:

You'd think they'd have learned from the defending debacle. That ruling still makes no bloody sense.

It makes sense enough and it is clear enough. There are far worse examples.

[blahpers]

SlimGauge wrote:

blahpers wrote:

You'd think they'd have learned from the defending debacle. That ruling still makes no bloody sense.

It makes sense enough and it is clear enough. There are far worse examples.

Relatively speaking, I can't disagree.

[YogoZuno]

Of course, instead of enchanting armour spikes, couldn't you enchant a gauntlet instead, for the same effect? You'll always have the gauntlet in-hand, even if holding another weapon, right?

[blahpers]

Not if they get all defending about it. : /

[graystone]

YogoZuno wrote:

Of course, instead of enchanting armour spikes, couldn't you enchant a gauntlet instead, for the same effect? You'll always have the gauntlet in-hand, even if holding another weapon, right?

Rumor has it that an FAQ is in the works to make a gauntlet not a weapon so that's not a long term fix.

blahpers wrote:

SlimGauge wrote:

There was a thread about this

but no definite conclusions.

It's not clear if the training enchantment is like the defending enchantment in that it is USE activated or not (that is, you must actually attack with the armor spikes for the training enhancement to activate).
I personally believe that armor spikes aren't "drawn / in hand".

You'd think they'd have learned from the defending debacle. That ruling still makes no bloody sense.

Can't agree more. Any ruling that can cause time paradoxes is not very good: having a trigger [making an attack] come after the activation [start of round] is just mind-bogglingly bad. It's the gold standard of what NOT to do with rulings...

[SlimGauge]

YogoZuno wrote:

Of course, instead of enchanting armour spikes, couldn't you enchant a gauntlet instead, for the same effect? You'll always have the gauntlet in-hand, even if holding another weapon, right?

I would say not, because you don't draw gauntlets, you don or wear them.

[Murdock Mudeater]

graystone wrote:

Rumor has it that an FAQ is in the works to make a gauntlet not a weapon

That would be a very smart choice. Gauntlet rules have always been murky.

[Murdock Mudeater]

Driver_325yards wrote:

Training Enchantment: Popular among those who seek to impersonate skilled warriors, a training weapon grants one combat feat to the wielder as long as the weapon is drawn and in hand. The feat is chosen when this special ability is placed on the weapon. That feat cannot be used as a prerequisite for any other feats and functions for the wielder only if she meets its prerequisites. Once chosen, the feat stored in the weapon cannot be changed.

Does Training Enchantment work on Armor Spikes? Thinking is whether the "drawn / in hand" prohibits the enchantment on armor spikes.

Does say in hand. I'd have to rule "no" on the armor spikes. Shield Spikes are also probably a no, since you don't really hold them (they are mounted on something you hold). Though a shield enchanted as a weapon should qualify.

I'd translate the Drawn requirement to being the Draw action, so really, just make ready for combat. So you'd only get the feat when actually using the sword as a sword, not when presenting the sword to another character or otherwise holding it in a non-combat capacity.

I think the bottom line intention here is that a character can only get two feats at once from this, one for each weapon. A double weapon would only confer feats from the head(s) being used.

[Ridiculon]

well its only a +1 enchantment, you could enchant the same weapon multiple times with different feats (a la bane)

[Murdock Mudeater]

Ridiculon wrote:

well its only a +1 enchantment, you could enchant the same weapon multiple times with different feats (a la bane)

Fair point. So, up to 18 feats gained this way. Still, don't think armor spikes and such are intended as a loophole, allowing more feats.

Though there's probably a limit on how useful a +1 weapon with 9 feats will be, when considering the cost involved. I think I'd rather buy something else...

[Ridiculon]

especially considering the feats cant be used as prereq's, there are only so many useful options

[blahpers]

Murdock Mudeater wrote:

graystone wrote:

Rumor has it that an FAQ is in the works to make a gauntlet not a weapon

That would be a very smart choice. Gauntlet rules have always been murky.

OK, that leaves the cestus and any weird exotic sort-of-free-hand weapons I may be missing.

[Murdock Mudeater]

blahpers wrote:

OK, that leaves the cestus and any weird exotic sort-of-free-hand weapons I may be missing.

Nah, the Gauntlets are worse. The issue is that most med/heavy armor includes gauntlets, which creates all sorts of odd technical issues due to them being both weapons and part of armor.

For example, +1 Ghost Touch Full Plate - do the Gauntlets included in the armor have the Ghost Touch Property? Why or why not? These are rhetorical questions. I've already had a long thread on this one, a while back, with no real conclusions.

Another example, I'm wearing +1 Mithral Fullplate, which in the description includes gauntlets. I obtain a set of +1 Adamantine Gauntlets. Can I equip the new Gauntlets while wearing the fullplate which includes gauntlets? Why or why not? Again, rhetorical questions. Treating them as seperate pieces from the suits of armor creates issues in the rules.

And it just keeps going from there. Stupid, long, gauntlet debates steming from them being part of armor and, yet, also weapons purchaseable seperately.

[blahpers]

Murdock Mudeater wrote:

blahpers wrote:

OK, that leaves the cestus and any weird exotic sort-of-free-hand weapons I may be missing.

Nah, the Gauntlets are worse. The issue is that most med/heavy armor includes gauntlets, which creates all sorts of odd technical issues due to them being both weapons and part of armor.

For example, +1 Ghost Touch Full Plate - do the Gauntlets included in the armor have the Ghost Touch Property? Why or why not? These are rhetorical questions. I've already had a long thread on this one, a while back, with no real conclusions.

Another example, I'm wearing +1 Mithral Fullplate, which in the description includes gauntlets. I obtain a set of +1 Adamantine Gauntlets. Can I equip the new Gauntlets while wearing the fullplate which includes gauntlets? Why or why not? Again, rhetorical questions. Treating them as seperate pieces from the suits of armor creates issues in the rules.

And it just keeps going from there. Stupid, long, gauntlet debates steming from them being part of armor and, yet, also weapons purchaseable seperately.

Same logic as enhancing shields as weapons. Armor enhancements and properties have no effect on a shield's weapon use unless the text of a property specifically says that it does. I'd wager it's the same for gauntlets. Besides, the ghost touch armor property is an armor property and completely separate from the ghost touch weapon property. They might as well be called ghost defense and ghostbusting.

Swapping gauntlets is weird and not really addressed well by the rules. Given that, I've always just treated the gauntlets as not having any bearing on the armor itself--they're just thrown in as a separate item when you buy full plate, same as if you bought a kit. It solves basically every problem with gauntlet/armor confusion.

None of this solves the training issue though.

[toastedamphibian]

Are mithral scalemail's gauntlets masterwork weapons that bypass silver dr? They are metal parts of the armor so presumably they are mithral. They are gauntlets, so they are weapons. Mithral weapons are always masterwork. Do they, together, make up 1/4th of the armors value? What about Adamantine armor? The gauntlets are 6k out of the 10k price. Can I sell the gauntlets and replace them with standard gauntlets? Magic gauntlets? If my Wounderous item gauntlets are made of iron, do I lose my Adamantine DR?

Point being: Gauntlets are a mess.

[Java Man]

On this tangent I rule that smiths who make special material armor are frugal/cheapskates. That is only the largest and most important parts are made of 'not steel.' So the ganuntlets don't have enough unobtabium to do whatever, unless.they are bought separately as weapons.

[blahpers]

Java Man wrote:

On this tangent I rule that smiths who make special material armor are frugal/cheapskates. That is only the largest and most important parts are made of 'not steel.' So the ganuntlets don't have enough unobtabium to do whatever, unless.they are bought separately as weapons.

I just let 'em have it. They already paid crazy money for adamantine armor; let 'em have their gloves that they probably aren't proficient in anyway. But either way works, and neither is more RAW than the other.

Edit: Ha, didn't realize the 3,000 gp price was for one gauntlet. OK, that's a little much. Steel it is.

[Murdock Mudeater]

blahpers wrote:

Edit: Ha, didn't realize the 3,000 gp price was for one gauntlet. OK, that's a little much. Steel it is.

And it makes them masterwork as weapons, instead of as armor, which is what they are bought as.

And it becomes more goofy when your druid wants Dragonhide Full Plate. As weapons, the gauntlets can't be made of dragonhide....but as armor, full plate requires gauntlets. And the Druid can't use metal armor. Just a mess of rules.

blahpers wrote:

None of this solves the training issue though.

Which issue? I think it's pretty obvious that you can't have armor spikes in hand, and you certainly can't draw them, so this weapon property doesn't affect armor spikes.

Regarding Gauntlets, the whole thing is a mess of rules. I think if you are enchanting gauntlets, you are looking for a rules debate.

But sure, if you want a ruling, I'd suggest that you can qualify Gauntlets as drawn and in hand when you are "Wielding" them as the only weapon in your hand. I think you'd still need to attack with them to benefit from their property, like a Defending weapon.

For shields, I think if you enchant them as weapons, you still need to use them as weapons to benefit from their properties. Though I've been really unclear how the HP and hardness increases for Shields and Double weapons apply to the item for sunder purposes.

[blahpers]

Hoo, the double weapon HP/hardness/saving throw question. My favorite "no freaking idea" PF question. : ) I house it with "if magic/special, the ends have their own stats, the middle is nonmagical, and if they get specifically sundered down the middle you can repair them as though repairing a single nonmagical possibly-masterwork weapon". Probably works better with some weapons than others, and makes double weapons a bit weaker to sundering, which kinda sucks, but I don't have a better solution.

[Cavall]

I wouldn't allow armour spikes to have training as they are neither drawn or in your hand.

The in your hand part alone makes me disallow them outright.

[blahpers]

Cavall wrote:

I wouldn't allow armour spikes to have training as they are neither drawn or in your hand.

The in your hand part alone makes me disallow them outright.

There goes the monk's headbutt. : )

[Cavall]

I wouldn't allow a monk to hold his head in his hand like a weapon and enchant it either.

[graystone]

Cavall wrote:

I wouldn't allow armour spikes to have training as they are neither drawn or in your hand.

Yes, but does that refer to a hand or a 'hand'? With the 'hand of effort' debacle, hand doesn't have to refer to an actual hand or actually having something in said hand. Armor spikes would be 'in your hand' as far as a hand of effort or the ability to attack with it.

Hands doesn't have to actually mean a physical hand anymore as far as pathfinder is concerned. Without something else to lean it one way or another, I can't say either way is RAW as RAI is up in the air.

[John Murdock]

i would say that the enchantment work since paizo has gone to the literal definition of hand with off hand attack, you can't make an off hand attack with your armour spike if your other hands is not free because its an off hands attack, make no sense i know, so since your armour spike is an off hand the enchantment work with their literal twisted meaning of off hands.

i would have preferred they use the term primary attack and secondary attack like for natural attack/weapon, instead of main hand and off hand

[Zarius]

My GM and I interpret the enhancement to basically mean that you're intending to use the weapon that round. Two main examples we discussed heavily are as follows:

First, if you have the Training (Martial Weapon Proficiency: Armor Spikes) enchantment ON your armor spikes, you would only be considering proficient in a round in which you were actually attacking with your armor spikes. (I know, this isn't a big deal because why the hell would you NEED to be proficient in them if you aren't using them, next example clarifies.)

Second, if you have the Training (Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Katana) on one Katana, and you utilize a pair of them via the TWF chain, but you only use the OTHER Katana, becuase you're making an attack of opportunity in a round you didn't attack, such as you cast a spell on your last actual turn, you don't count as having the Exotic version of the proficiency and thus would take a -4 on the attack.

Basically, we treat the training feature as a semi-limited at-will Wondrous Item that activates as a free action - you can use it as much as you want, but deciding to actually use that weapon is what causes you to draw on the magic.

My character has claws and a sword/shield (two different builds). He's got weapon Finesse, so he can apply dex to ANY attack with a finesse weapon. He also has Deadly Agility, but it's given to him by an Amulet of Might Fists via the training enchantment, so it only applies to his claws and unarmed strikes, but not to his finesse sword, because of how we treat it.

[Zarius]

John Murdock wrote:

i would say that the enchantment work since paizo has gone to the literal definition of hand with off hand attack, you can't make an off hand attack with your armour spike if your other hands is not free because its an off hands attack, make no sense i know, so since your armour spike is an off hand the enchantment work with their literal twisted meaning of off hands.

i would have preferred they use the term primary attack and secondary attack like for natural attack/weapon, instead of main hand and off hand

There's actually very, VERY specific reasons for the difference in terms with Natural Attacks.

With Manufactured weapons, even a four-armed creature only gets to use two "weapons" for any given attack set, though a four-armed creature CAN change which weapon is it's Main Hand and it's Off Hand weapon from attack set to attack set if it's gotten to the BAB of having iterative attacks.

On the other hand, a four armed creature with claws, a bite, and three tail stings can use all eight attacks in one round, even at a BAB of +0.

Using the same term in two different areas to refer to two entirely different principals is both bad form and confusing, and Paizo has enough problems with both bad forms AND confusion. Please, don't complain that they didn't use MORE confusion.

[John Murdock]

it would not be confusing i mean, you have primary natural attack and secondary natural attack which has its own rule and its stated how it work, if you have primary attack and secondary attack instead of main hand and off hand it would be more easy to know what they do, and you put in the rule that a primary attack is an attack done with a weapon or unarmed strike and the secondary attack is an extra attack with is own penalty like in two weapon fighting say for off hand attack, but instead you write secondary attack

and since your main hand or primary attack can be used by any hand it is not more confusing, and its even less confusing since people think but if i attack with the other hand i am doing an off hand attack, that's why there the faq about it and say no its not an off hand but a main hand attack which is confusing since people when talking about a main hand they think about the strong hand (right for right handed person and left for left handed person) and off hand being the weak hand

[Zarius]

You have primary NATURAL ATTACKS. The plural there is important. Claws and Bites, unless otherwise specified in the natural weapon description for that creature, are primary attacks. If you've got a four-armed creature with claws on all arms, that's FIVE primary attacks per round, and three secondary attacks from the mentioned tail stings. EVERY ROUND.

While you could have a THOUSAND arms and still only be able to use up to two of them per attack set. One of which is your MAIN hand, the one you're focusing most of your attention on, leaving the other as the OFF hand, the one you're attacking with but inherently care less about.

They are ENTIRELY unrelated concepts, and need to HAVE different names for them to avoid confusion. Stop arguing in favor of using the same freaking term for entirely different concepts.

Oh. And pathfinder doesn't have categories for left handed or right handed, so there is no "weak hand." It's just which weapon you're focusing more effort on.

[Murdock Mudeater]

graystone wrote:

Cavall wrote:

I wouldn't allow armour spikes to have training as they are neither drawn or in your hand.

Yes, but does that refer to a hand or a 'hand'? With the 'hand of effort' debacle, hand doesn't have to refer to an actual hand or actually having something in said hand. Armor spikes would be 'in your hand' as far as a hand of effort or the ability to attack with it.

Hands doesn't have to actually mean a physical hand anymore as far as pathfinder is concerned. Without something else to lean it one way or another, I can't say either way is RAW as RAI is up in the air.

Even if they don't mean holding it in your hand, weapon must be able to be drawn. Armor Spikes are always at the ready, so they can't be drawn. I don't think this one is intended to function on Armor Spikes.

I would consider it on a weapons that can be either drawn or physically in hand, but for weapons that can be neither, like armor spikes, I just don't think this one works like that. Don't think I'd allow it on the Dwarven Helmet, either, for the same reasons (unless the logic is that the dwarf is holding the helmet in hand when attacking with it, never been clear on that one, but I interpret it as a head mounted weapon...).

I'd be on the fence with Hook Hands and Gauntlets, as they can't be drawn, but can certainly be in hand. The Boot Blade can certainly be drawn, but won't ever be in hand, so on the fence for that one too.

[John Murdock]

Zarius wrote:

You have primary NATURAL ATTACKS. The plural there is important. Claws and Bites, unless otherwise specified in the natural weapon description for that creature, are primary attacks. If you've got a four-armed creature with claws on all arms, that's FIVE primary attacks per round, and three secondary attacks from the mentioned tail stings. EVERY ROUND.

While you could have a THOUSAND arms and still only be able to use up to two of them per attack set. One of which is your MAIN hand, the one you're focusing most of your attention on, leaving the other as the OFF hand, the one you're attacking with but inherently care less about.

They are ENTIRELY unrelated concepts, and need to HAVE different names for them to avoid confusion. Stop arguing in favor of using the same freaking term for entirely different concepts.

Oh. And pathfinder doesn't have categories for left handed or right handed, so there is no "weak hand." It's just which weapon you're focusing more effort on.

did you even read what i wrote? because my impression is it do not seem like it.

a creature with a thousand hand can make a thousand -1 off hand attack, and if it has a thousand hand +2 claw (so a thousand +2 arm) it could make a thousand -1 off hand attack and 2 claw attack has secondary natural attack or use them to make 2 more off hands attack

primary natural attack is a different concept from primary attack from what i has written especially if you said it is handle and rules like the way main hand attack are rules, and like i said natural attack has their own rule.

and with the right handed and left handed i know pathfinder don't have categories but people yes that's the difference and that's what make a lot of confusion with off hand and that's why there a faq about it like i wrote.

if you wish to continue with that i think the best thing is to do it either by going to another forum (since this is the rule forum) for this or doing it in private since it is not the right place to continue it

[Cavall]

graystone wrote:

Cavall wrote:

I wouldn't allow armour spikes to have training as they are neither drawn or in your hand.

Yes, but does that refer to a hand or a 'hand'? With the 'hand of effort' debacle, hand doesn't have to refer to an actual hand or actually having something in said hand. Armor spikes would be 'in your hand' as far as a hand of effort or the ability to attack with it.

Hands doesn't have to actually mean a physical hand anymore as far as pathfinder is concerned. Without something else to lean it one way or another, I can't say either way is RAW as RAI is up in the air.

Doesn't say "in your 'hand'" so RAW hand means hand.

You can't draw armour spikes and they can't be in your hand. Two reasons to disqualify.