Two-Weapon fighting

slaughterj

Mongoose
I have a number of questions related to Two-Weapon fighting:

1. How does this work if you have a sword in one hand but are unarmed in the other hand? Presumably you can swing a fist too, right? (But presumably it would trigger an AOO unless you have Improved Unarmed Strike.)

2. Regarding Two-Weapon Defense feat, what if the character is armed with just one weapon, i.e., just has a fist as the second weapon? Can he forgo using the fist as an attack to get a +2 parry bonus? (Presumably that would avoid the AOO as well for not taking a swing with the fist.) How would that work with the -4 penalty to Parry for being unarmed, since he isn't technically unarmed? It seems he should get no bonus (technically might get the +2, but then should get the -4 also, so instead would just operate under regular rules and no adjustment), unless he has Improved Unarmed Strike (which should avoid the -4 penalty to Parry for being unarmed, and grant the +2 parry bonus), correct?

3. The Borderer can get the Improved Two-Weapon Combat feat at 5th level, which is before he gets a second attack with his main weapon. But the feat gives a second attack with the off-hand weapon at -5. Presumably he still gets to do this (though I think they shouldn't have given him this until 6th level to make more sense), but the off-hand weapon should be either (a) the light weapon if he is wielding one, or (b) the 1-handed weapon that is getting the -4 penalty. Does all this sound correct?
 
slaughterj said:
I have a number of questions related to Two-Weapon fighting:

1. How does this work if you have a sword in one hand but are unarmed in the other hand? Presumably you can swing a fist too, right? (But presumably it would trigger an AOO unless you have Improved Unarmed Strike.)
Yes you can make an off hand unarmed attack, an unarmed attack is considered a light weapon. Yes you draw an AoO if you don't have IUS.

2. Regarding Two-Weapon Defense feat, what if the character is armed with just one weapon, i.e., just has a fist as the second weapon? Can he forgo using the fist as an attack to get a +2 parry bonus? (Presumably that would avoid the AOO as well for not taking a swing with the fist.) How would that work with the -4 penalty to Parry for being unarmed, since he isn't technically unarmed? It seems he should get no bonus (technically might get the +2, but then should get the -4 also, so instead would just operate under regular rules and no adjustment), unless he has Improved Unarmed Strike (which should avoid the -4 penalty to Parry for being unarmed, and grant the +2 parry bonus), correct?
Havent' run into this one before. I don't have my books at work but from memory it seems to be legal, though my gut is complaining "munchkin". If this is legal then you would definetly take the penalty for trying to parry unarmed as you are explicitly using your unarmed off-hand to parry (by virtue of using the Two-Weapon Defense feat with an unarmed off-hand).


3. The Borderer can get the Improved Two-Weapon Combat feat at 5th level, which is before he gets a second attack with his main weapon. But the feat gives a second attack with the off-hand weapon at -5. Presumably he still gets to do this (though I think they shouldn't have given him this until 6th level to make more sense), but the off-hand weapon should be either (a) the light weapon if he is wielding one, or (b) the 1-handed weapon that is getting the -4 penalty. Does all this sound correct?
Yeah, this is a known glitch. Seems the intent was to move combat style to 5th in order to preserve the rest of the level progression but they forgot about this hang-up. The best thing to do is to let a 5th level Borderer make 1 main-hand attack at +5 and 2 off-hand attacks at +5/+0, which is something no other class can do. Why does the Borderer get to do this? Because he is cool thats why. :roll:

Anyway the problem fixes itself at 6th level, no need to worry about it.

Hope that helps.
 
Yeah, the flip-flop between Boarder 5th and 6th levels occured with the Atlantean edition, but, as argo pointed out, it's not a big operation to "fix" adn 6th level works it out anyway.

Regarding the Parry with an unarmed hand thing: I might allow it of the opponent weapon was Blunt only and the character doing the Parrying would still take damage as if hit, but it'd be Subdual Damage. I mean, you can TRY to stop a mace with your hand, but it's gonna HURT!!! (lol)

Frankly, Improved Feint is a far better solution, IMO.
 
slaughterj said:
2. Regarding Two-Weapon Defense feat, what if the character is armed with just one weapon, i.e., just has a fist as the second weapon? Can he forgo using the fist as an attack to get a +2 parry bonus? (Presumably that would avoid the AOO as well for not taking a swing with the fist.) How would that work with the -4 penalty to Parry for being unarmed, since he isn't technically unarmed? It seems he should get no bonus (technically might get the +2, but then should get the -4 also, so instead would just operate under regular rules and no adjustment), unless he has Improved Unarmed Strike (which should avoid the -4 penalty to Parry for being unarmed, and grant the +2 parry bonus), correct?
This was a new thing, with some strange results. It's a Conan-specific 'problem', as Two-Weapon Defense works differently in D&D.
I agree that the best solution (and most logical thing) is to give the -4 parry penalty for using your hand like that. Characters with both Improved Unarmed Strike and Two-Weapon Defense could then do the parry-thing, but I'd be cool with that if they'd invested so many feats for it.

slaughterj said:
3. The Borderer can get the Improved Two-Weapon Combat feat at 5th level, which is before he gets a second attack with his main weapon. But the feat gives a second attack with the off-hand weapon at -5. Presumably he still gets to do this (though I think they shouldn't have given him this until 6th level to make more sense), but the off-hand weapon should be either (a) the light weapon if he is wielding one, or (b) the 1-handed weapon that is getting the -4 penalty. Does all this sound correct?
Yes, this is quite weird. Improved Two-Weapon Combat was knocked down to 5th level to make room for Diehard, I'm sure.
What I've done in my game is to allow the 5th level borderer +5/+0 attacks with one weapon and a +5 attack with the other, and I let him choose to do this with either weapon (as I thought it was kind of strange to have more attacks with your off-hand).

slaughterj said:
...the 1-handed weapon that is getting the -4 penalty
Just a minor note. If you wield two one-handed weapons, they both take the -4 penalty. In fact, all two-weapon fighting penalties are always for both weapons.
 
Trodax said:
What I've done in my game is to allow the 5th level borderer +5/+0 attacks with one weapon and a +5 attack with the other, and I let him choose to do this with either weapon (as I thought it was kind of strange to have more attacks with your off-hand).

That seems to be the way to handle it, and I thought the off-hand aspect was odd, especially since you have the same penalties (as you note below), you can just have the bigger weapon in the off-hand if need be.

slaughterj said:
...the 1-handed weapon that is getting the -4 penalty
Just a minor note. If you wield two one-handed weapons, they both take the -4 penalty. In fact, all two-weapon fighting penalties are always for both weapons.[/quote]

Good catch, that's what off-the-cuff will do to you!
 
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