Wolf Stance and Trip.

[Some Kind of Chymist]

Trip weapons let you do four things

1. Perform trip without a free hand.
2. Use the weapons reach to perform this trip.
3. Add the weapons item bonus to the athletics check
4. Drop the weapon to downgrade a critical failurw to a normal failure

How does this interact with Wolf Jaw strikes; which a monk can do in Wolf Stance if they are flanking?

I assume you can add your item bonus from handwraps of mighty blows; but can you 'drop' wolf jaw (leave the stance) to avoid a crit fail.?

Bonus Question: You can't enter a stance outside of encounter mode; does that mean you can't deal piercing damage with Wolf Jaw strikes outside of combat to an object?

[Edge93]

I don't know if you can "drop" Wolf Stance like that, I wonder if there's anything in the free-hand/unarmed trait that clarifies that.

There is another intended benefit by dev word, since Wolf Jaw is Finesse it's meant to let you use Dex in place of Str for Athletics checks to trip.

On the bonus question, RAW yes but it's perfectly reasonable to allow it, given that the restriction is clearly there to prevent someone from walking around in stance all the time or if they expect a fight so that they can save that one action at the start of battle.