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View Full Version : The mechanics of wielding more than 2 weapons. (3.5)



Coidzor
2009-07-07, 03:23 AM
Ok. Say I have a long sword in my main hand, a boot blade, a braid blade, and a dagger in my offhand. What are my attack options with a BAB of +6/+1? With TWF?

What about, say, two braid blades, two bootblades, two elbow blades, and a pair of punching daggers and BAB +8/+3?

As far as I can tell, TWF and its related feats only apply to attacks coming from either one's main hand or one's off hand.

But I haven't seen anything covering the mechanics of actually attacking with any of these weapons, or indeed, of attacking with anything not in one's hands(aside from just counting an unarmed strike as a headbutt, which is its own kettle of fish about how many unarmed strike weapons does a monk/humanoid have), not even in Complete Scoundrel the source of the hidden weapons.

So as far as I can tell, they can only be used as a substitute for using the main hand to attack with on a one-for-one exchange per iterative attack as allowed by BAB?

warrl
2009-07-07, 03:38 AM
If you don't have the Quick Draw feat or equivalent, you can attack with the weapons in your hands. You can drop a weapon any time, but you can draw one only during your turn as a move action (or *during* a move action).

(For certain weapons, fetching and loading ammunition is a free action. For certain other weapons it can be made a free action via an appropriate feat.)

If you do have the Quick Draw feat, drawing a weapon is a free action. You can, for example, throw a dagger and draw another one with the same hand (if you have two attacks per round with that hand). You can even draw a weapon for an opportunity attack.

Monks and head-butts are special cases.

VirOath
2009-07-07, 03:51 AM
If you are already wielding a weapon, any hidden one would be an off hand attack. If you aren't wielding a conventional weapon, then you pick a main and an off hand weapon from your list of hidden.

If needing a bit of cheese, see if you can get the DM to hand wave Multi Weapon fighting instead. Though, that's not RAW or RAI strictly, so it should only be talked with about your DM, never assumed if you really want it.

Edit: I should be clear. You can wield a weapon and have a hidden one be a main hand weapon, but due to the smaller blades and them being light weapons, normally backups, you normally wouldn't. Unless you have a hidden weapon that's better than your other options, you'll want to be using a hand held.

Coidzor
2009-07-07, 04:28 AM
So wielding any weapon makes it count as your main-hand weapon if it's primary or as your offhand weapon if it's not primary. And there's only the two slots RAW.

I got that?

RagnaroksChosen
2009-07-07, 07:59 AM
I always assumed that you get extra attacks with those weapons... boot and elbow blades... taking penalties for two weapon fighting on them and proficiencies where applicable.

Yuki Akuma
2009-07-07, 08:07 AM
I think a normal humanoid can only get one extra off-hand attack per [foo] Two-Weapon Fighting feat. But mixing up the extra boot blades/elbow blades/braid blades shouldn't be too broken...

Some sort of feat to let you freely choose which weapon gets used would probably be fine, too.

kemmotar
2009-07-07, 08:31 AM
Well what i'd probably do is have as many concenaled weapons as possible. I think I remember a rule in the complete scoundrel saying that on the round you draw a concealed weapon you can sneak attack with it. Most special conceal weaposn (boot blade, wrist blade, knee blade etc) have mechanisms that make drawing them a free action.

You can have as many weapons as you want, but it matters with which ones you decide to attack. TWF for example applies when you attack with both weapons, thus simply holding an offhand weapon does not mean you get the penalty if you don't attack with it (at least that's my understanding).

Thus you don't get multi weapon penalties for having more than two weapons. Concealed weapons are usually used by rogues, so on a 1v1 fight you can cycle through your arsenal to get off more sneak attacks while not getting penalties for using more...

Multiweapon fighting is in the MM (unless I'm mistaken) so a DM may or may not give to a "normal" PC.

Thus just make a non-psionic +1LA thri kreen. You qualify for multiweapon fighting easily and increase the number of weapons you can hold by 6:
4 held
4 elbow blades
4 wrist blades
2 knee blades
2 boot blades

Now get an item for pounce...