The one handed One Handed weapon fighter

[othaero]

I have a player who is playing a one handed paladin. So im trying to come up with some negatives to his choice. I've already decided he will get a free feat for his "flaw". I just need some ideas for some negative consequences from it

[Stewzors]

If your stuck for ideas maybe a minor penalty to bluff & diplomacy? Hand gestures are an often forgotten important part of dynamic conversation and having only one hand may arguably be a hindrance in that regard.

Also drawing a weapon is a move action - maybe up it a category without specialised equipment?

[Eldariel]

I have a player who is playing a one handed paladin. So im trying to come up with some negatives to his choice. I've already decided he will get a free feat for his "flaw". I just need some ideas for some negative consequences from it

He definitely deserves more than just one feat - that's a huge handicap (though Regenerate-spell can easily restore his hand if it's just been lost). Losing out on the 1.5x strength bonus on melee, the ability to hold weapons in one hand while doing somatic components with the other, etc.

I think the handicaps come up rather automatically: he can't use two-handed items. He can't wield two one-handed pieces of equipment at the same time. He gets a massive (-10 seems about right) penalty in any checks significantly involving both hands (Climb, Swim, Tumble) along with a lesser, but still very significant penalty (say -5) in activities where having two hands is useful (Fast Mount/Dismount under Ride, Open Lock, Disable Device, most Perform/Craft/Profession). You can adjudicate it case-by-case. Also things like getting into armor, getting dressed, etc. will of course take longer.

[GreyBlack]

He definitely deserves more than just one feat - that's a huge handicap (though Regenerate-spell can easily restore his hand if it's just been lost). Losing out on the 1.5x strength bonus on melee, the ability to hold weapons in one hand while doing somatic components with the other, etc.

I think the handicaps come up rather automatically: he can't use two-handed items. He can't wield two one-handed pieces of equipment at the same time. He gets a massive (-10 seems about right) penalty in any checks significantly involving both hands (Climb, Swim, Tumble) along with a lesser, but still very significant penalty (say -5) in activities where having two hands is useful (Fast Mount/Dismount under Ride, Open Lock, Disable Device, most Perform/Craft/Profession). You can adjudicate it case-by-case. Also things like getting into armor, getting dressed, etc. will of course take longer.

Heh. Handicap.

[Kallimakus]

For ideas, Pathfinder has rules for loss of limbs (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/variant-rules-3rd-party/4-winds-fantasy-gaming/The-Loss-of-a-Body-Part)on the SRD (3rd party anyway)

Basically, loss of hand is -5 to some skills, -4 to grapple. Loss of the full arm is twice that.

I agree with the ideas for some actions like fast mount/dismount and getting into armour might be harder with one hand.

[othaero]

He definitely deserves more than just one feat - that's a huge handicap (though Regenerate-spell can easily restore his hand if it's just been lost). Losing out on the 1.5x strength bonus on melee, the ability to hold weapons in one hand while doing somatic components with the other, etc.

I think the handicaps come up rather automatically: he can't use two-handed items. He can't wield two one-handed pieces of equipment at the same time. He gets a massive (-10 seems about right) penalty in any checks significantly involving both hands (Climb, Swim, Tumble) along with a lesser, but still very significant penalty (say -5) in activities where having two hands is useful (Fast Mount/Dismount under Ride, Open Lock, Disable Device, most Perform/Craft/Profession). You can adjudicate it case-by-case. Also things like getting into armor, getting dressed, etc. will of course take longer.

Thats a good point.

[Von Zinzer]

If your stuck for ideas maybe a minor penalty to bluff & diplomacy?

I'd actually be tempted to give a bonus to bluff/feint if the character plays it as a distracting weakness, then BAM! Evil smote. Nothing like being underestimated to give you an advantage. All in the RP, I suppose, and for the GM to adjudicate.


...Losing out on the 1.5x strength bonus on melee, the ability to hold weapons in one hand while doing somatic components with the other, etc.

I think the handicaps come up rather automatically...

I agree that the drawbacks come up pretty automatically and that it's worth establishing what, exactly, the penalty is to each skill for being one-handed.

Side question: do you actually need, like, hands and fingers to do the somatic gestures? Does that mean you could never have an octopus caster?

[othaero]

I'd actually be tempted to give a bonus to bluff/feint if the character plays it as a distracting weakness, then BAM! Evil smote. Nothing like being underestimated to give you an advantage. All in the RP, I suppose, and for the GM to adjudicate.



I agree that the drawbacks come up pretty automatically and that it's worth establishing what, exactly, the penalty is to each skill for being one-handed.

Side question: do you actually need, like, hands and fingers to do the somatic gestures? Does that mean you could never have an octopus caster?

If I remember RAW says you cant. But im allowing it since I feel any spell caster would relearn how to cast with modified gestures.

I'd like to state for the record the player WANTED to be one handed

[Von Zinzer]

I can't blame a player for wanting to have a defining characteristic even at the expense of mechanical efficiency. I mean, this whole system is fun at least in part because the restrictions lead to creativity. Plus which, it adds a ton of story potential, right? How did the hand get lost, or was it a birth defect? If lost, where is the hand now? How has this affected the character throughout his life? Is he hell-bent on getting it back? Obtaining a replacement? Is his hand attached to some flesh golem somewhere and he occasionally has inexplicable nightmares about being the golem?

[Zaq]

This is more a roleplaying concern than a mechanical concern, but speaking as someone who's temporarily lost the use of an arm more than once (broken limbs, joint replacement surgery, etc.), eating takes way the hell longer with only one hand. Stuff that normally requires a knife and fork obviously requires special consideration, but even a lot of what we consider to be "finger food" (sandwiches, burritos, etc.) is way harder to eat with one hand than you might expect. (You can eat a tiny little hors d'oeurve-style sandwich with one hand, but try picking up a big sub or even a good-sized burger with one hand and not having half of it fall apart when you try taking bites out of it. Cutting it into smaller pieces sometimes helps, but it's difficult to do that on your own, and a messy sandwich may get worse by cutting it.) Even stuff that you'd think normally only takes one hand (soup, rice, etc.) is more difficult when you don't have a hand free to steady the plate, use a napkin, take a drink, etc. It's by no means impossible to eat with one hand (especially if you have to do so for an extended period of time and have a chance to learn some tricks), but it does take way longer than you'd expect.

Basically everything gets harder with one hand, really. You can't easily open a door while holding anything. You can't tie your own shoes (okay, I'm sure someone can come up with a YouTube instructional video on one-handed shoe-tying, but it's a nontrivial concern), and dressing/undressing in general takes more effort. A Paladin might not be super concerned by this, but it's difficult to write without a hand to steady the paper. There's a large class of everyday activities that you don't think of as occupying two hands that really do want you to use your off-hand to steady or hold the item your main hand is manipulating. (Unless you have a big heavy cast iron pan, for example, try making scrambled eggs without using a hand to hold the pan steady. It's not completely impossible, but it's by no means simple.) Opening jars or bottles is nontrivial, and pouring liquid into a cup or bowl is tricky unless the cup is very heavy and stable. Retrieving any item from a stack other than the very top item is going to involve extra steps. You can't retrieve an item from a bag or from another container without putting the bag down on some kind of surface; that's a relatively small nuisance (though you probably won't have nice clean countertops in a dungeon), but you still wouldn't think of it until you've tried to do it. Even reading a book other than a lightweight paperback is going to be more difficult (and if that lightweight paperback doesn't want to stay open, that's a different problem).

Now, I'm writing this from the perspective of someone who temporarily lost the use of an arm. My most recent such experience (though I've had quite a few, as I have bad luck with broken arms) was a relatively extended temporary period (probably about 9 months to a year, depending on how you count things), but that's still different from someone who's spent their entire life without two useful hands or someone who's had years and years to adapt to one-handedness. One-handed people exist in the world, and they're far from helpless; this should be even more so in heroic fantasy. But my point isn't that being one-handed makes things impossible; my point is that being one-handed affects a lot more than two-handed people usually realize. Even if you can find a workaround, though, it's likely to take you longer than the same task would take someone with two good hands.

In terms of D&D combat/exploration, it depends on how much you abstract things. Plenty of players (myself included) are guilty of assuming that a character with two hands "full" (by combat definition, so holding a sword and a shield, or a weapon and a torch or a magic item of some sort, or whatever) can still interact with the world around them in a reasonably hand-centric way (do you announce that your character puts down/unreadies their shield, opens a door, and then picks up their shield again, or do you just say "I open the door"?). If you're already glossing over things like that, it's not a big deal to gloss over the fact that a one-handed character is going to have a hard time keeping a free hand. The obvious mechanical combat concerns (no 2 handed weapons, no TWF, no sword and board) have already been mentioned, and by RAW, you can't use a hand that's holding a weapon to make somatic components (there's a feat for that, but you can't do it without the feat), so casting will be difficult for this guy.

You'll have to go for a favorable GM ruling as far as hands-slot items are concerned; by RAW, you usually have to wear both gloves (/gauntlets/etc.) for the magic to function, but I feel like the RAI of that is just to prevent players from trying to mix and match gloves.

I guess the biggest thing is just going to be figuring out how big a deal you want this to be. D&D heroes tend to do unrealistic things to begin with, so if it isn't going to be fun at the table to deal with how much extra work it takes to do things one-handed, you can probably gloss over a lot of it, but if you want to really play it up, there's going to be a lot of ways in which this would realistically affect the character.

[the_david]

There's the Hand of Tyr feat in City of Splendors: Waterdeep. Maybe you should start there. It's perfect for a Paladin.

[CharonsHelper]

Does he have his arm? If so - he can still use a heavy shield since it is strapped to his arm. Though it should probably take longer to attach without help.

[Telonius]

Yeah, a melee character already losing out on the full benefit of Power Attack is pretty harsh. Ranged weapons are mostly going to be out as well. No Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Gloves of Dexterity, or any other set of gloves that requires them both to be worn to gain the full benefit. Depending on how the fluff works (can both rings be on the same hand? Really not sure there.... ) you might be down to one Magic Ring at a time. Anything that requires "one hand free" is going to be out, unless you're disarmed. Basically, a lot of practical concerns, and tactical options that no longer exist.

Given that, I wouldn't pile on the penalties too thick on top of what he's already got. Maybe a circumstance penalty to grappling, ride checks, climb checks, or balance/tumble.

Possibly a severe penalty to Use Magic Device checks and proficiency in Chainsaw, depending on the campaign. :smallbiggrin:

[TheCrowing1432]

I have a player who is playing a one handed paladin. So im trying to come up with some negatives to his choice. I've already decided he will get a free feat for his "flaw". I just need some ideas for some negative consequences from it

The true handicap

[Nando]

Complete Mage has the Warlock Invocation Disembodied Hand which seperates its users hand from their body, the only negative consequence for the user mentioned in the entry is: "When you use this invocation, your current and full normal hit point totals are reduced by 5 for as long as the hand is detached." (Complete Mage p. 124)