Author Topic: Reach weapon and armor spikes  (Read 3088 times)

Offline NunoM

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Reach weapon and armor spikes
« on: August 29, 2012, 11:56:00 PM »
Reach weapons and armor spikes are the poor character's spiked chain... or, at least, those that can't/won't spend a feat on EWP to use the weapon...

That being said, how does this work for AoOs?

Imagine this situation:
A character wielding a glaive and (wearing?) armor spikes, has the "Combat Reflexes" feat and meets an opponent spellcaster...
The (dumb!!!) spellcaster goes first and approaches the character, until he's 5ft away from him.
As the spellcaster leaves the range of the glaive at 10ft to move to the 5ft adjacent to the character, he triggers an AoO from the glaive.
The spellcaster manages to survive and carries on with his intrepid (and dumb) action: casting a touch spell while NOT on the defensive, thus causing another AoO from the character, because he also threatens with his armor spikes.

It would take a really gutsy spellcaster to do this, i know, but how does this work for the character, exactly?
- Can the character interchange the attacks between the glaive and the armor spikes?
- If so, does the character apply the "Attack with two weapons" penalties, or what?

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Reach weapon and armor spikes
« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2012, 12:19:35 AM »
Yes, he can.
No, he doesn't. You only apply the TWF penalties if you use two weapons to gain extra attacks. You could, in theory, actually hold two weapons in your hands, and go back and forth with them while making iterative attacks (from having a high BAB), and not take any TWF penalties, nor only get 1/2 Str damage on one as an "off-hand" weapon.

In 3.0 this was not the case, as the Ambidexterity feat existed, but in 3.5 they really got rid of the entire concept of "off-hand" as a separate thing from TWF.
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Offline littha

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Re: Reach weapon and armor spikes
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2012, 12:20:49 AM »
It would take a really gutsy spellcaster to do this, i know, but how does this work for the character, exactly?
- Can the character interchange the attacks between the glaive and the armor spikes?
- If so, does the character apply the "Attack with two weapons" penalties, or what?

Yes you can change between attacks.

The two weapon fighting penalties are only if you want the extra attacks.

Offline NunoM

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Re: Reach weapon and armor spikes
« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2012, 02:11:25 AM »
Great! Thanks a ton, guys! :D

The two weapon fighting penalties are only if you want the extra attacks.

Can i get some RAW on this, please?

Offline littha

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Re: Reach weapon and armor spikes
« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2012, 02:37:30 AM »
Quote
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. When fighting in this way you suffer a -6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a -10 penalty to the attack with your off hand. If your off-hand weapon is light the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)

If you don't take the extra attack you don't take the penalties. There is more rules text to this but I am afb atm.

Offline NunoM

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Re: Reach weapon and armor spikes
« Reply #5 on: August 30, 2012, 02:26:27 PM »
I may be seeing this wrong, but i always treated TWF like this: if you hold one weapon in each hand and use your off-hand for attack, you're using 2 weapons.

@littha: The way you state it, that seems to mean i could perform a full-attack interchanging weapons, as long as i don't exceed my attacks/round granted by BAB. Is this correct?
If so, i can understand that 3.0 "Ambidexterity" feat reference above... All characters are ambidextrous now! This looks like RAW, but not RAI, IMO...

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Reach weapon and armor spikes
« Reply #6 on: August 30, 2012, 04:50:06 PM »
I may be seeing this wrong, but i always treated TWF like this: if you hold one weapon in each hand and use your off-hand for attack, you're using 2 weapons.

@littha: The way you state it, that seems to mean i could perform a full-attack interchanging weapons, as long as i don't exceed my attacks/round granted by BAB. Is this correct?
If so, i can understand that 3.0 "Ambidexterity" feat reference above... All characters are ambidextrous now! This looks like RAW, but not RAI, IMO...
It is RAW. Who knows what RAI is? They removed the feat, so I'd say it is RAI. I don't really care much. The rules are actually pretty clear, if you forget about the 3.0 rules.
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Offline NunoM

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Re: Reach weapon and armor spikes
« Reply #7 on: August 30, 2012, 07:29:09 PM »
Consider 3.0 rules more forgotten than the realms then ;)

Thanks for the input!