| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We start with:
A character carries items in three ways: held, worn, and stowed. Held items are in your hands; a character typically has two hands, allowing them to hold an item in each hand or a single two-handed item using both hands. Worn items are tucked into pockets, belt pouches, bandoliers, weapon sheaths, and so forth, and they can be retrieved and returned relatively quickly. Stowed items are in a backpack or a similar container, and they are more difficult to access.
What isn't defined (and this is the Thaumaturgic Pattern) is what you can hold and count as a free hand.
In fact, the clearest definition of a Free Hand comes from the free-hand weapon trait:
This weapon doesn't take up your hand, usually because it is built into your armor. A free-hand weapon can't be Disarmed. You can use the hand covered by your free-hand weapon to wield other items, perform manipulate actions, and so on. You can't attack with a free-hand weapon if you're wielding anything in that hand or otherwise using that hand. When you're not wielding anything and not otherwise using the hand, you can use abilities that require you to have a hand free as well as those that require you to be wielding a weapon in that hand. Each of your hands can have only one free-hand weapon on it.
Now, the Thaumaturge class text for using implements says:
The power of your implement can also be turned to the more common task of combat, its power adding to and amplifying the effects of runes and other magical empowerments. When you Strike, you can trace mystic patterns with an implement you're holding to empower the Strike, causing it to deal 2 additional damage per weapon damage die. Channeling the power requires full use of your hands. You don't gain the benefit of implement's empowerment if you are holding anything in either hand other than a single one-handed weapon, other implements, or esoterica, and you must be holding at least one implement to gain the benefit.
(Note that Scroll Thaumaturgy adds "scrolls" to the list of things you can hold and not mess up Implement's Empowerment.)
So:
If I'm wearing a buckler on my hand, can I wield an implement in that hand?
If my Regalia is the Shining Glove of The King of Pop, and I'm wearing it, my hand is definitely free, but does wearing the Regalia count as holding it? Can I hold the Mellow Chalice of The Dude in that hand as well?
Can I wear the Shining Glove of the King of Pop and wear a buckler on that hand and still get the benefit of the Shining Glove?
It looks like I shouldn't make the Shield Boss of the Boss my weapon implement, because I'm clearly holding the shield, and not the Shield Boss of the Boss.
Shields are also a case where pseudo-Talmudic scholarship exists. They have a weapon group for weapon specialization. They do a d4 when used to strike; they don't take penalties for being an improvised weapon. They're clearly not an unarmed strike.
Yet:
A shield bash is not actually a weapon, but a maneuver in which you thrust or swing your shield to hit your foe with an impromptu attack.
Which means you can't actually put a potency rune or striking rune on a shield. Nor can you use a shield without a Shield Boss or Shield Spikes a weapon implement.
There is an argument that attaching a Shield Boss to a shield turns a shield into a weapon...but we're back into pseudo-Talmudic scholarship now. (Nothing says you couldn't define your shield as a regalia implement named The Shield of Hyrule, and then attach the Shield Boss of the Boss as a weapon implement to the Shield of Hyrule and have two bits of regalia in one hand that you can use to raise your AC, and spend a feat on to shield block with...)
Now, let's assume I multiclass into the generalized Duelist archetype.
For everything other than the dedication feat, it says you need to have a free hand. A free hand is not the same as an empty hand. As far as I can tell, a free hand is only tangentially defined: You are free to hold and wield other items in a free hand going by the description under "hands" and the "free-hand" trait.
Does holding The Hoggywarts Wand of Hairy Potts in your free hand negate the conditions for Dueling Parry and Duelist's Challenge? How about the Mellow Chalice of The Dude?
What if I'm wearing the Shining Glove of the King of Pop? If it were a spiked gauntlet, I'd be able to wear it on my free hand with no problem. Does it count here?
If my choice of Implement has a game-mechanical function other than being an implement (gauntlet as either regalia or free-hand weapon, shield or duelist's cape as Regalia, wayfinder as Amulet), does using it as its other game-mechanical function still work?
Can a Magus/Thaumaturge use the Raise a Tome feat with their Tome Implement? Does doing so take it out of their hand when they do so, and negate the benefits of Implement's Empowerment? Or does it return to their hand before the start of their next turn?
Were I GMing this, I'd rule as follows:
You may not, no matter how clever you think you are, use two implements used in the same hand. Thus, no Shield of Hyrule with the Shield Boss of the Boss attached to it, while you hold a Gnome Flickmace in the other hand. This seems to be a straightforward use of the "too good to be true" rule.
You can hold an implement in your free hand for Dueling Parry. You may not use Dueling Parry on the same turn you use that hand to use the implement in it, but it counts for Implement's Empowerment if, for whatever reason, you don't want your weapon to be one of your implements.
If your implement has another game mechanical function (dueling cape, shield, etc), you can use the implement or that other game mechanical function on a turn, but not both; it still counts for Implement's Empowerment.
|
Some thoughts on this:
Shield and towershields aren't allowed, regardless of whether the boss is your implement: Implement's Empowerment clearly calls out what you are allowed to hold in your hands and shields aren't one of those things.
That being said, can you wield a buckler? Strictly speaking, you aren't Holding it, so I guess you can. Looking at the mechanics and what's the likely intention, Thaumaturge can already get +1 AC from using parrying weapon or casting shield cantrip, so using a buckler grants the same benefit of +1 AC and seems "acceptable".
Dueling Parry doesn't work if your hand isn't free. If you're wielding an implement in your hand, it's clearly not free.
You keep your esoterica in easy-to-access places on your person and are well practiced in brandishing your implement and esoterica together, so you can draw and use esoterica with the same hand you're using to wield an implement.
First Implement and Esoterica explains that you can draw and use esoterica with the same hand you wield an implement, but makes no claims about that hand counting as free for anything else.
I *think* you could have a spiked gauntlet in a hand and use that hand to wield an implement or esoterica - however, you wouldn't be able to attack with that spiked gauntlet since you're using that hand to wield your implement.
Meanwhile, if you tried have a spiked gauntlet in one hand and a one-handed weapon implement in the other and tried to benefit from the implement's empowerment while performing some sort of two-weapon attack like twin feint, you wouldn't benefit from implement's empowerment since it's text clearly limits you to a single one-handed weapon - it's not intended to be used with 2 weapons or a 2-handed weapon.
Dueling Parry doesn't work if your hand isn't free. If you're wielding an implement in your hand, it's clearly not free.
While that can persuasively be argued as the design intent, that is not, in fact, supported by the only (tangential) definitions we have of what a "free hand" is.
Which is that you can use a free hand to manipulate things. You cannot manipulate things that you are not holding.
Free hand is not the same as empty hand.
First Implement and Esoterica explains that you can draw and use esoterica with the same hand you wield an implement, but makes no claims about that hand counting as free for anything else.
And makes it a free action to draw and use an implement for its intended purposes.
Again, we're dealing with murk because 4 years ago, nobody really thought defining "free hand" was worth the trouble.
I *think* you could have a spiked gauntlet in a hand and use that hand to wield an implement or esoterica - however, you wouldn't be able to attack with that spiked gauntlet since you're using that hand to wield your implement.
Unless that gauntlet is your weapon implement, and your mace is your regalia implement. While nothing explicitly states you can't hold two implements in the same hand (and nothing explicitly states that you can't make a free-hand weapon an implement!), doing so prevents someone from Disarming your implement, and lets you have two non-weapon implements in one hand and a one-handed weapon in the other hand.
Meanwhile, if you tried have a spiked gauntlet in one hand and a one-handed weapon implement in the other and tried to benefit from the implement's empowerment while performing some sort of two-weapon attack like twin feint, you wouldn't benefit from implement's empowerment since it's text clearly limits you to a single one-handed weapon - it's not intended to be used with 2 weapons or a 2-handed weapon.
On this, we agree. I think it needs to be added explicitly to my catch-all of "No matter how clever you think you are, you can't have two (or more) implements held in the same hand." Good catch, as it were.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Free hand is not the same as empty hand.
Nope, free hand equals empty hand, unless you have something that explicitly says that "this still counts as free hand despite you using it for something else" like the free hand weapons.
This is pretty evident from spell components:
Somatic components require you to wiggle your fingers, which can be done while you're holding something in your hand.
Material component requires you to have a free hand.
Two things. One requires a free hand, one requires that you can use your hand but you can hold things in it. Ergo, Free equals you not holding anything in it.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=281
The intent is super clear, arguing that free hand is "something other than an empty hand and some specific exceptions" is so infuriatingly rules lawyerish that you instantly reminded me why I hate these forums and why they are completely and utterly useless for resolving any sort of rules related questions.
