Anyone else think it's odd that a Skeleton with Well-armed can attack with a bastard sword at reach but is unable to attack with an unarmed attack that detached arm might have? You can't punch, claw, ect with the arm or even attack with a gauntlet [you aren't holding it].
I don't actually think it's that weird, if you're trying to create fewer unclear interactions. If you change well armed to something like "a one handed weapon or an unarmed attack made with hands" you'd need to start defining the anatomy involved in unarmed attacks that aren't clear, like a lot of stance strikes.
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I see it as a reinforcement of the idea that you no longer have any free hands. Basically, while it is detached, you no longer control the arm directly, instead using it as an extension of whatever it is holding.
Hence gaining reach but not being able to use the detached hand to grab tall stuff and/or manipulate things at a distance.
I don't actually think it's that weird, if you're trying to create fewer unclear interactions. If you change well armed to something like "a one handed weapon or an unarmed attack made with hands" you'd need to start defining the anatomy involved in unarmed attacks that aren't clear, like a lot of stance strikes.
How is that any harder than having to do the exact same thing when fighting normally? You have to figure out if you can make that claw attack without the feat anyway so where is the extra work? For instance, with monk strikes, they too can use weapons so again, it's something that would need worked out with or without the feat.
And if it would be an issue, then Out of Hand for a zombie can only use unarmed attacks so... the can of worms gets opened anyway.
I see it as a reinforcement of the idea that you no longer have any free hands. Basically, while it is detached, you no longer control the arm directly, instead using it as an extension of whatever it is holding.
Hence gaining reach but not being able to use the detached hand to grab tall stuff and/or manipulate things at a distance.
This doesn't make sense to me: if you have the hand make a fist before you remove it, you can't hit with it...? I'm cool with not being able to swap weapons or use the hand to manipulate but it's much harder to hit with a sickle than a fist if you remove any hand movements IMO.
PS: You also can't use a gauntlet as it's not in your hand so that doesn't really match either: you can't batter someone with a fist or gauntlet but a sap is ok. ;(
I see it as a reinforcement of the idea that you no longer have any free hands. Basically, while it is detached, you no longer control the arm directly, instead using it as an extension of whatever it is holding.
Hence gaining reach but not being able to use the detached hand to grab tall stuff and/or manipulate things at a distance.
This doesn't make sense to me: if you have the hand make a fist before you remove it, you can't hit with it...? I'm cool with not being able to swap weapons or use the hand to manipulate but it's much harder to hit with a sickle than a fist if you remove any hand movements IMO.
PS: You also can't use a gauntlet as it's not in your hand so that doesn't really match either: you can't batter someone with a fist or gauntlet but a sap is ok. ;(
I mean, we can assume that the hand holding the weapon is probably "locked" in place, right? Otherwise, you'd just drop the sword/club/let's be honest flickmace, as soon as you tried to strike with it unless it was.
An experiment: Punch something like a pillow. Do it naturally, the way you would if you had to punch someone. Now, try that same punch with a perfectly straight arm, without adjusting your wrist, fingers or any other flex point on your arm. Now imagine that you now have that locked arm in your other hand. Imagine swinging trying to replicate that original punch with that locked arm.
I doubt that you could comfortably do anything but swing that arm like a club honestly. The fact that by default it allows you to use a weapon like a Whip or anything that requires follow through is weird enough.
That doesn't mean I think the feat is perfectly written btw. We are missing some key information. Like what exactly does happen if you use Well Armed with an empty hand? Does the arm become a defacto club or something? Do you still get the extra 5 feet of reach?
I suppose we'll have to fill in those blanks for ourselves.
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Paizo continues to make unarmed attacks exist in a weird null-space, making the game more complicated and awkward for little gain. It just is what it is, unfortunately.
I mean, we can assume that the hand holding the weapon is probably "locked" in place, right?
We could but nothing in the feat suggests that the arm has to start off holding a weapon or that you can't switch weapons. It's pretty light on actual details.
Otherwise, you'd just drop the sword/club/let's be honest flickmace, as soon as you tried to strike with it unless it was.
The other option is that the hand could still be able to open and close at will. Or the arm moving at the wrist and elbow.
That doesn't mean I think the feat is perfectly written btw. We are missing some key information. Like what exactly does happen if you use Well Armed with an empty hand? Does the arm become a defacto club or something? Do you still get the extra 5 feet of reach?
I suppose we'll have to fill in those blanks for ourselves.
Indeed, this was mostly why I posted, to see if I was missing something and/or to see what others thought. It just seemed odd to me that it was weapon only. I can understand why Out of Hand is unarmed only [it's effectively a tiny almost familiar minion] but well-armed leaves me with more questions than answers.
Paizo continues to make unarmed attacks exist in a weird null-space, making the game more complicated and awkward for little gain. It just is what it is, unfortunately.
Yep, I have to agree. It's what makes it hard to figure out if something like this was meant as a specific exclusion of unarmed attacks or it just slipped through the cracks.
I think the general design principle (albeit it's one I think is bad for the game) is that you should expect nothing to work with unarmed attacks unless it specifically calls them out, given that I'd err on the side of intentional exclusion.