Guardian's Deflection

[willot]

Quote:

Guardian's Deflection (Fighter) Reaction Feat 6

Fighter
Requirements You are wielding a single one-handed melee weapon and have your other hand or hands free.

I have a player who wields two swords who wants to know why Paizo hates dual wielders? When I see Feats like this I too begin to wonder?

Why is it a requirement that one hand must be free for this?

[HumbleGamer]

Maybe it's versatility vs damage.

By using a single weapon and a free hand you gain all maneuvers, a dueling stance and some other features.

By wielding 2 weapons you allow yourself to perform very strong attacks like TwinFeint, TwinTakedown and the king of all DoubleSlice.

For what I happened to see, given this 3 action/reaction system they seemed to have dedicated most of the time to balancing stuff around it, despite of lore/flavor. But it's just my opinion.

[HammerJack]

How is it hating dual wielders to have feat support for free hand fighting, as well? It's not like there aren't also feats that require a weapon in each hand.

[Elicoor]

To answer your main question, you have to consider the number of different combat styles that exist in PF2.

You have:
- Two-Handed (a weapon wielded in two hands)
- Two-Weapon (a weapon wielded in each hand)
- Weapon+Shield (a weapon wielded in one hand, the other using a shield)
- Thrown (some weapons that need to be drawn and thrown at the enemy)
- Projectile Weapon (a weapon that throws projectiles at the enemy)
- Fencing (single weapon, other hand empty)
- Unarmed

The fighter has a lot of feats that are dedicated to a single style among these seven. Playing a fighter implies you have to choose between those styles to define your main attack style. A few examples:

- Guardian's Deflection is related to Fencing
- Double Shot is related to Projectile Weapons
- Double Slice is related to Two-Weapon
- Aggressive Block is related to Weapn+Shield
- Brutal Finish is related to Two-Handed

Plus, you have to remember that the class dedicated to Fencing, Swashbuckler, only arrived with the APG, so some feats had to be dedicated to that style, especially considering that the Aldori Dueling style is quite known and prevalent as one of the setting-defining points.

On another topic, but also related, that feat by itself has a lot of issues. As its reaction needs you to know if the attack should have missed with a +2 to AC, if your DM usually rolls behind their screen, or simply by not having access to the stats, you can never tell if the attack would have missed. Making the trigger extremely DM-fiat sensitive. I can totally understand the fact that the Paizo team didn't want to make a 5e shield-like reaction, where adding a +2 might have no effect besides using your reaction for the turn, but worded that way, it somehow implies you should know the exact roll, instead of just knowing if your ally was hit/crit/missed/critfailed.

[Candlejake]

Doesnt really feel like paizo hates dual wielders. Dual wield Ranger, fighter and rogue work pretty well as does barbarian with the archetype.

That feat doesnt work for dual wielding but others do.

I mean i could also look at double slice or twin riposte and be like "Wtf, i cant use this with my Greatsword? why does paizo hate twohanded weapons"

[Thomas5251212]

HammerJack wrote:

How is it hating dual wielders to have feat support for free hand fighting, as well? It's not like there aren't also feats that require a weapon in each hand.

That was more or less my reaction; that the point was to make single weapon options attractive once in a while, too, since there are already plenty dependent on two-weapons, two-handed weapons, or weapon-and-shield.