Hi all,
I was wondering...if I enchant a cestus...does it occupy my hand or wrist slot for purpose of Wondrous Magic Items?
If I enchant it with the Dueling property and then Quickdraw another weapon, would I be able to gain the initiative bonus before drawing the other weapon?
Because else the Dueling property, apart from very specific builds, seems quite useless, since it needs the weapon to be in hand at the very beginning of combat (which is an extremely rare circumstance for adventurers!!)!!
The -2 penalty of the Cestus for precision-based tasks doesn't apply to normal attacks, right? Only to fine manipulations, right?
Thanks,
Skarm
Concerning a slot, it depends on who you ask. I had a thread up concerning an unarmed character who needed like a million hand items. Gauntlets for magic weapon DR bypass, dust knuckles for poison, extractors gloves as hand slot... Some say RAW, they don't occupy the slot, others say common sense you can't wear three pairs of gloves (though I'd argue you might be able to layer 2). Then there was wearing wrist launchers on the character as well, which aren't said to occupy the wrist slot and people were more open to "yeah you could wear them under bracers". Long story, really GM's interpretation.
As for a Dueling weapon. The only time a weapon would not be in hand would be in the case of being surprised. You can draw prior to entering a room for example when your allies are gonna bust down the door, or if your perception check is high enough and you anticipate an encounter happening you can draw your weapon. It is not that rare of a circumstance.
As for the penalty, I'd say no? It specifies Disable Device for opening locks, not using tools in general so I'd say attack rolls would be fine. Even intended, since the Villain Codex has a magic Cestus that adds a chain to your weapon to stop it bring dropped.
Cestus occupies the weapon slot. Your hands slot is still free.
Cestus (and gauntlets made and enchanted to be weapons) are weapons, and by RAW do not take up non-weapon item slots. The your DM will usually give you a stink eye for wearing cestuses, wrist launchers, and a glove of storing or other glove-like magic item.
As for the dueling on cestus, by raw that works, since glove weapons have you "always armed" and you'd lose the bonus once you wield a weapon since mechanically you can not wield 2 weapons in one hand for enchant bonuses.
And yeah the -2 is for tasks (ie skills) only. So that would apply to whatever attempt makes sense to the gm when you describe the skill attempt (hand-based acrobatics, crafts, climbing, disable device, disguise, escape artist, hand based perform, hand based proffession, sleight of hand, hand based UMD are the usual suspects)