The more I look at the description of the free-hand trait, the more I wonder what the practical benefits of having a free-hand weapon are.
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.
So, despite its name, my "free-hand" weapon gets assigned to one of my hands (even if it's, say, an armor spike or blade boot). Then, I cannot use that "free" hand to attack if I have another weapon. Ergo, there's nothing really free about it. The hand is occupied and being used by one weapon or the other. That seems oddly similar to, oh I don't know, just having two non-free-hand weapons.
Why shouldn't my swordsman be permitted to Strike with his longsword, then Strike with his spiked gauntlet on the same hand? The motion involved wouldn't be dissimilar from a pommel strike of the sword, something we see in fantasy fights all the time. But, for reasons, this is not permitted unless each weapon has its own hand.
Sure you can call yourself armed while you open a door or scale that cliff with a free-hand weapon, but the trade-off in weapon traits and damage ultimately make it a rather poor bargain--to say nothing of all the other balancing factors like needing to pay out the nose for additional runes.
What do you like about free-hand weapons? What don't you like? How do you make use of them in your games? Do you feel that they should have a few less restrictions?
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Free hand weapons are really good for people who need a free hand for some things. You can use it to grapple/climb you can more easily grab a consumable/use battle medicine without having to sheath/un sheath weapons.
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The main appeal of the trait is being able to do things without having to worry as much about hand economy. You basically save an action every time you climb, interact, or need a hand to activate over someone with two weapons or a two-hander needs to drink a potion or open a door or whatever.
... That said there are a few key problems:
A) Paizo appears to have an internal rule that says free-hand weapons cap out at d4, which limits their power a lot. Especially since unarmed attacks are free-hand by default and have a much wider range of options. Also all the non-simple free hand weapons except the gauntlet bow are uncommon for some reason?
B) These scenarios aren't that common. The action economy save sounds great, but I can't remember the last time in a Paizo AP I encountered a switch, closed door, or climbable surface that felt relevant and being able to draw and use consumables more easily is cool but like- idk
C) You need a reason both your hands are full. Two-weapon fighting isn't real, and this doesn't really compete in the same design space as two-handers, so a lot of characters might just be better off wielding a better weapon in one hand and leaving their other hand free. Essentially, shield users or characters with special features that require them to keep both hands full. Then because of their overall weak combat profile, you probably want to be a character that has static damage bonuses so low die matter less.
Put together I feel like maybe the best use case would be a thaumaturge, since they have a decent array of static damage bonuses, don't wield two-handed weapons, and need to carry implements... so a gauntlet would negate some of your implement wielding penalties if you're okay with the loss of die size. A dex-based thaum who talks their GM into letting them use a bladed gauntlet is only losing one die size over the short sword so that's not even bad if you can find ways to leverage your trait.
Honestly one of the most damning features of free hand weapons though are just that unarmed attacks exist combined with Paizo's own internal rule. Put these two together and the default Fist attack everyone gets for free has a better trait line than most free-hand weapons. This further narrows down the list a bit by making them only make a ton of sense if you need a weapon. Again, thaumaturges with weapon implements, or anyone using poisons or something, or feats that require a weapon by design.
So you end up with a really specific confluence of circumstances required to make them good.
Specifically the one time I've seen one used in play was on a character who wanted to wield a shield, wanted to do battle medicine, but took a first level feat that was incompatible with unarmed attacks. That's just a lot of checkboxes to make the weapon feel worthwhile.
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To me the purpose of a free hand weapon is to have a melee weapon "in-hand" while using your ranged weapon.
So you archer is mostly just using a bow, but a creature comes up to you, you can attack the adjacent creature or use any other "wielding a melee weapon" actions without needing to take an action to pull it out (manipulate) and then drop or stow once you are done.
They make for great side weapons for agile and maneuvers, secondary damage and crit options, etc. Tekko-kage pairs well with rapier, for example, since sword crits grant off-guard which is often easy to get.
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Free hand-weapons work better than a fist w/ Doubling Rings and their ilk and make a fine second weapon for Double Slice or Twin Takedown while retaining the utility of consumables, Battle Medicine, and otherwise interacting w/ one's environment. There are other good feats (perhaps mostly Fighter ones?) that require weapons rather than unarmed attacks. I can think of several normal builds (as in supported by feats & Archetypes) that could make good use of them, just not the popular sword & shield or two-hander builds.
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just not the popular sword & shield or two-hander builds.
That. That is the core of the 'problem' here.
Free-hand weapons aren't as optimized in combat than other options. Hence - no point in printing them.
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As mentioned, a free-hand weapon is mostly an action economy thing for characters without an unarmed attack from ancestry or class; not having to draw or stow a weapon can be very useful. The "can't be Disarmed" can also be a nice feature.
One other use case for a free-hand weapon: bomber alchemist. You can even add a weapon siphon to the free-hand weapon.
The bladed gauntlet even has the Modular B, P, or S trait.
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just not the popular sword & shield or two-hander builds.That. That is the core of the 'problem' here.
Free-hand weapons aren't as optimized in combat than other options. Hence - no point in printing them.
I feel like that's kind of reductive. The broader issue is that you need a lot of things to be true in order for their core benefit to do anything. So a huge swath of builds can't really benefit from the trait in the first place.
The weapon category also suffers a lot from limited variety. Every single free-hand weapon is agile d4 except the crossbow, so that further limits who might want to wield one.
Also "not as optimized in combat" feels like a snippy way to throw shade at people but I mean it's literally a weapon combat is when you use it.
I understand it being alright on an archer build, but I'm not convinced it's better (or even competitive) to other existing options on any of the other situations or builds described in this thread so far.
If you're dual-wielding, there are better weapons out there.
If you're keeping your hand free to climb, use maneuvers, treat wounds, or interact with your environment, you can simply go without it. You still get what you want and your primary weapon is going to be better in nearly every way.
If you're ONLY using a free-hand weapon, then you're not only holding yourself back, you're not benefitting from the one thing most people say makes it good (free-hand is useless if you already have a free hand).
I can't think of a reason to use a free-hand weapon in conjunction with another one-handed weapon over nearly anything else.
There are selling points: it's agile, and it can't be disarmed, to name two, but considering even your fist is better in some respects it's kind of a hard sell.
Maybe someday something will destroy your primary weapon (somehow) and instead of drawing out a better backup weapon, you can save your SINGLE action to start making really subpar attacks. You never know.
Not a total waste of page space, but very, very niche.
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The point of a free hand weapon is being able to do multiple things instead of one thing. If you only want to do one thing they aren't going to be for you. For those who like to do multiple things, they save a lot of actions on drawing and stowing weapons.
The point of a free hand weapon is being able to do multiple things instead of one thing. For those who like to do multiple things, they save a lot of actions on drawing and stowing weapons.
This is definitely true on action-starved builds. My halfling animist with his sling staff needs both hands for striking with that weapon. However, if he finds himself in melee and wants to maximize embodiment of battle, saving an extra action is pretty clutch.
Unfortunately, doubling rings do not work between melee and ranged weapons. But that leads to the question of whether a halfling sling staff can be used in melee. I suppose that’s GM dependent, but I don’t think I’d allow it.
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If you're dual-wielding, there are better weapons out there.
But none that will let you do battle medicine or drink potions or open doors.
Which is sort of the point, if you fulfill the conditions necessary to want to wield a free-hand weapon (doing things with both hands, needing a weapon and not an unarmed attack, and wanting to perform some action that requires a free hand)... there is literally nothing else in the game that will let you do your shtick.
The trouble is that is a fairly specific confluence of requirements.
Though I think it's also fair to say that it's kind of stupid that a lot of them are downgrades from the fist (the only difference between punching someone with my bare hand and a reinforced chunk of steel is that the latter won't let me use dex? really???) and the lack of trait variety hurts them.
But also like-... I'd argue gauntlet bow thaumaturge is genuinely just fine, you're not really sacrificing that much and adding some meaningful versatility by having a melee weapon, ranged weapon, and free hand all in one package (oh and essentially a buckler too) while still being able to have two implements out at once.
If you're ONLY using a free-hand weapon, then you're not only holding yourself back, you're not benefitting from the one thing most people say makes it good (free-hand is useless if you already have a free hand).
While even more niche, free hand + empty hand does let you perform activites that require two free hands. There aren't a ton of those now though.
Though not technically a free-hand weapon, my buckler has been a decent stand-in for the Shield cantrip. Sure, I can't block with it, but it only takes up a hand while I'm using it, allowing me to often use that same hand to draw scrolls.
...free hand + empty hand does let you perform activities that require two free hands. There aren't a ton of those now though.
That's a good point.
The only one that comes to my mind is climbing.
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Grab an Edge requires a critical success to function unless you already have a free hand. For instance, a sword and board fighter that steps on a Bottomless Pit hazard is all but screwed, but the same fighter with a free-hand weapon instead?
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As mentioned, a free-hand weapon is mostly an action economy thing for characters without an unarmed attack from ancestry or class; not having to draw or stow a weapon can be very useful. The "can't be Disarmed" can also be a nice feature.
Even for ancestries with unarmed attacks, a free-hand weapon can offer some things an unarmed attack can't: for instance, some things only work on weapons like alchemical blanches, poisons, ect. Have a Bladed Gauntlet on your off hand and now you can hit weaknesses to any physical types [B/P/S], can be made of a special material to trigger another weakness, can add a blanch or poison while Blazons of Shared Power can keep it competitive with your main weapon.
Say you're a dex build with a main weapon that is an Elven Curve Blade. You run into a monster with B or P or the special material you have your Bladed Gauntlet made out of and you can just drop the hand off the Bladed Gauntlet hand and attack.
Or another case is for unarmed builds, especially non- 9th+ monk ones. In the earlier levels especially, there isn't a lot of variety in damage types and a free hand weapon can bring that to the table when that static damage bonus matters more than the loss of the damage die. Plus if you have an alchemist friend that like poisons, now you have something to add them to.
Another is the alchemist, which had double brew making 2 items at a time: free hand weapons can let them do that without dropping something.
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Well, I'm convinced. It's clearer to me now that the benefits of free-hand weapons, although relatively minor, are also many.
Thank you all for the many enlightening responses.
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I've missed RD posts.
I feel like they always generate either interesting discussion or heated debate and I'm here for it.I was thinking there might be overlap between free-hand and concealable, but there really isn't. Just the wrist launcher, which is not great.
Gauntlets are part of my heavy armor. We might be asked to turn in weapons, even hand wraps, but no one asks the fighter to start taking off his armor. No silly thievery checks needed, and at high levels, I'm etching basic runes on the inside of the gauntlets. Or maybe my wizard buddy is keeping runic weapon ready.
One of my gauntlets is sliver and the other is cold-iron. Someday, I'll remember which is which.
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I've missed RD posts.
I feel like they always generate either interesting discussion or heated debate and I'm here for it.I was thinking there might be overlap between free-hand and concealable, but there really isn't. Just the wrist launcher, which is not great.
Gauntlets are part of my heavy armor. We might be asked to turn in weapons, even hand wraps, but no one asks the fighter to start taking off his armor. No silly thievery checks needed, and at high levels, I'm etching basic runes on the inside of the gauntlets. Or maybe my wizard buddy is keeping runic weapon ready.
One of my gauntlets is sliver and the other is cold-iron. Someday, I'll remember which is which.
People in Golarion would definitely know that the armor's gauntlets are weapons. Even if the GM forgets.
People in Golarion would definitely know that the armor's gauntlets are weapons. Even if the GM forgets.I've missed RD posts.
I feel like they always generate either interesting discussion or heated debate and I'm here for it.I was thinking there might be overlap between free-hand and concealable, but there really isn't. Just the wrist launcher, which is not great.
Gauntlets are part of my heavy armor. We might be asked to turn in weapons, even hand wraps, but no one asks the fighter to start taking off his armor. No silly thievery checks needed, and at high levels, I'm etching basic runes on the inside of the gauntlets. Or maybe my wizard buddy is keeping runic weapon ready.
One of my gauntlets is sliver and the other is cold-iron. Someday, I'll remember which is which.
"Runes on the inside" is a bit of an assumption too, as is thinking screeners wouldn't be using Detect Magic (especially at high levels). The cold iron & silver ask for attention.
It's a bit of an RPG conceit that weapons are allowed in social circumstances if the threat level requires weapons, so I wouldn't worry about it overmuch. Plus screening for weapons opens up a can of worms with encounter balance & party composition/preparedness, at least in published material.
Yeah, subterfuge isn't one of the free-hand weapon niches.
We really do need more tools for low-impact equipment mods. I want concealable polearms that look like staves until the pointy bits spring up, or whips that look like belts.