Telonius
2015-10-01, 01:40 PM
Leafing through Magic of Incarnum, I noticed this odd paragraph under the Skarn racial features, on page 16:
Natural Weapon (Spines): A skarn can make one attack with his arm spines each round, either with his primary hand or with his off-hand (taking the normal penalties for fighting with an off-hand weapon). This attack deals 1d6 points of piercing damage; if it is used as an off-hand weapon, the skarn may add only one-half his Strength bonus to the damage roll. A skarn can’t attack with his spines and a weapon wielded by the same arm in the same round. If a skarn makes a spine attack with an arm carrying a shield, he loses the shield’s bonus to AC until the start of his next turn.
Now I know that MoI is pretty infamous for bad editing, but this seems particularly weird. Typically, natural weapons don't count as off-hand weapons at all. You either use a given natural weapon as a primary attack, or as a secondary (distinct from off-hand) attack. It seems like this means I should parse it as though it were a specific exception to the natural weapons rule: Skarn spines are an unusual natural weapon that can be used as part of a two-weapon fighting attack (but only once per round). So am I reading that correctly, or should I just assume they screwed up and meant Secondary instead of off-hand?
This would make a difference in the attack sequence. Let's say you have a base attack bonus of +2, Strength of 14, and are wielding a Longsword in one hand. If you treat the spine as a secondary natural attack, the attack sequence would be Longsword +4/Spine -1 (whether or not you had TWF). But if it's an offhand attack, and you have TWF, the attack sequence would be Longsword +2/Spine +2.
Given the existence of Spinemeld Warrior (that explicitly lets you TWF with both spines) I'm leaning toward saying it's a special exception and an offhand attack, but I'd like to get some other opinions on this.
Natural Weapon (Spines): A skarn can make one attack with his arm spines each round, either with his primary hand or with his off-hand (taking the normal penalties for fighting with an off-hand weapon). This attack deals 1d6 points of piercing damage; if it is used as an off-hand weapon, the skarn may add only one-half his Strength bonus to the damage roll. A skarn can’t attack with his spines and a weapon wielded by the same arm in the same round. If a skarn makes a spine attack with an arm carrying a shield, he loses the shield’s bonus to AC until the start of his next turn.
Now I know that MoI is pretty infamous for bad editing, but this seems particularly weird. Typically, natural weapons don't count as off-hand weapons at all. You either use a given natural weapon as a primary attack, or as a secondary (distinct from off-hand) attack. It seems like this means I should parse it as though it were a specific exception to the natural weapons rule: Skarn spines are an unusual natural weapon that can be used as part of a two-weapon fighting attack (but only once per round). So am I reading that correctly, or should I just assume they screwed up and meant Secondary instead of off-hand?
This would make a difference in the attack sequence. Let's say you have a base attack bonus of +2, Strength of 14, and are wielding a Longsword in one hand. If you treat the spine as a secondary natural attack, the attack sequence would be Longsword +4/Spine -1 (whether or not you had TWF). But if it's an offhand attack, and you have TWF, the attack sequence would be Longsword +2/Spine +2.
Given the existence of Spinemeld Warrior (that explicitly lets you TWF with both spines) I'm leaning toward saying it's a special exception and an offhand attack, but I'd like to get some other opinions on this.