3.5 armor spikes: how do they work?

[sengmeng]

I was posting in the homebrew about a feat to allow an armor-spike attack without a free hand, and multiple people started posting that it was already possible... has anyone played this way? Anyone used armor spikes at all?

[ericgrau]

I couldn't find info one way or another in the rules. It's probably assumed that way from pictures or history or the fact that armor spikes can be used as a main hand or off hand weapon or even in place of grapple damage so they figure you must be able to attack with spikes from anywhere.

[Greenish]

The usual interpretation is that you can use armour spikes as an offhand weapon even while wielding a two-handed weapon.

[sengmeng]

Then why do the rules say you need a free hand?

[Karsh]

The rules don't say that. They say you can't attack with them if you've attacked with a different off-hand weapon:


You can also make a regular melee attack (or off-hand attack) with the spikes, and they count as a light weapon in this case. (You can’t also make an attack with armor spikes if you have already made an attack with another off-hand weapon, and vice versa.)

[Keld Denar]

Unlike iteratives, you can only make offhand attacks with one weapon, for some reason. All offhand attacks must be with the same weapon. Thus, if you are making offhand attacks with a shortsword, you can't also make offhand attacks with armor spikes. Well, not unless you have an extra arm or two and the Multiweapon Fighting feat...

[Salvag3]

Well im working on building a Dwarf Battlerager that deals most of his damage with Grapples, As I read the rules the spikes deal damage anytime you win a grapple check, So when you start the grapple and win to get your hold they deal d6 damage + your str bonus, then in later rounds if you op to deal damage from your grapple then you would be doing You chars base Unarmed damage in my case d3+str bonus and then the spikes deal another d6+str bonus, this only seems to make sense because you would be punching and kicking at your target while your smashing in to each other and trying to get a hold of each other