| Artificial 20 |
I'm trying to understand the interaction of a series of options around gauntlets. I'll make some discrete statements to see if everything I'm thinking of is rules-legal, or if not what parts are and aren't legal.
Items/quotes for reference:
This metal glove lets you deal lethal damage rather than nonlethal damage with unarmed strikes. A strike with a gauntlet is otherwise considered an unarmed attack. The cost and weight given are for a single gauntlet. Medium and heavy armors (except breastplates) come with gauntlets. Your opponent cannot use a disarm action to disarm you of gauntlets.
This armored gauntlet has small chains and braces that allow the wearer to attach a weapon to the gauntlet so that it cannot be dropped easily. It provides a +10 bonus to your Combat Maneuver Defense to keep from being disarmed in combat. Removing a weapon from a locked gauntlet or attaching a weapon to a locked gauntlet is a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity.
This is a gauntlet of thick leather or metal with blades or spikes protruding from above the knuckles, allowing the wearer to stab with the force of a punch. The cost and weight given are for a single gauntlet. An attack with a spiked gauntlet is considered an armed attack. Your opponent cannot disarm you of spiked gauntlets.
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Gauntlets are weapons, and you can attack with them.
Gauntlets can be made masterwork weapons, and enhanced as weapons.
You get free (normal) gauntlets with some armours.
Locked gauntlet is a modification that can be applied to armour.
You could take a single gauntlet, make it a masterwork weapon (with the spell Masterwork Transformation if needed), enhance it as a weapon, and make it a locked gauntlet on your armour provided you pay all the costs.
When using such a gauntlet as a locked gauntlet, you are still wielding the gauntlet as a weapon whether or not you can actually attack with it.
All the above applies to spiked gauntlets (e.g. you could make a spiked locked gauntlet), except they don't come free with any armour varieties.
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Which of the above do I have right and wrong?
| Gallant Armor |
Most looks right to me.
You could take a single gauntlet, make it a masterwork weapon (with the spell Masterwork Transformation if needed), enhance it as a weapon, and make it a locked gauntlet on your armour provided you pay all the costs.
Armor and shields can only be made masterwork as armor, not as a weapon. Masterwork armor/shields can be magically enhanced as a weapon, but they don't provide a +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls like a masterwork weapon would.
When using such a gauntlet as a locked gauntlet, you are still wielding the gauntlet as a weapon whether or not you can actually attack with it.
This is debatable. There is a FAQ that says that you are only wielding a weapon/shield if you are using it as a weapon/shield. So if you were holding a sword in your locked gauntlet, you would not be wielding that gauntlet as a weapon.
Unless otherwise specified, you have to use a magic item in the manner it is designed (use a weapon to make attacks, wear a shield on your arm so you can defend with it, and so on) to gain its benefits.
Therefore, if you don't make an attack roll with a defending weapon on your turn, you don't gain its defensive benefit.
Likewise, while you can give a shield the defending property (after you've given it a +1 enhancement bonus to attacks, of course), you wouldn't get the AC bonus from the defending property unless you used the shield to make a shield bash that round--unless you're using the shield as a weapon (to make a shield bash), the defending weapon property has no effect.
| Artificial 20 |
Thanks for the advice, your name rather suits the topic.
My thinking with your first quote of me was take a gauntlet (the weapon), masterwork it (because you need to to enhance it I believe?), enhance it, and then put it on a suit of armour and make it a locked gauntlet as well.
Also thanks for that FAQ, I had vague recall of such a thing. Do you know any examples of a weapon/shield that "specifies otherwise", as an example?
| Gallant Armor |
If a suit of armor is masterwork the gauntlet would also be masterwork. Similarly, if you are adding a gauntlet to armor that doesn't have gauntlets you make it masterwork as armor, not as a weapon (even if you are planning on using it as a weapon).
This satisfies the masterwork requirement to enchant the gauntlet as a weapon, but the gauntlet itself is not a masterwork weapon so it doesn't provide the +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls like a masterwork weapon would.
It's an odd quirk off the rules. A gauntlet is considered part of armor first and a weapon second, similar to a shield.
I don't know of any armor or weapon abilities that specify they work if you aren't wearing/wielding.
Is there something specific you are trying to accomplish?