D&D 3E/3.5 (3.5) Improved trip, two weapons

[Vegepygmy]

I agree I and I believe that was the OP's underlying question .

By Jove, you're right! I completely missed that he used the term "off-hand" in his original post.

Hopefully, we've now clarified that if you're wielding two weapons (say, rapier and sickle), and using TWF to gain an extra off-hand attack with the sickle, you're stuck using the sickle if you choose to trip with it and thus gain another, "free" attack because of your Improved Trip feat.

But if you're wielding two weapons (say, rapier and sickle), and using your BAB alone to attack twice, you can trip with the sickle and then substitute any melee attack you want when you make your "free" attack gained via the Improved Trip feat.

Hopefully, that's clear.

 

[Dandu]

To the best of my knowledge, you trip can someone with an unarmed attack (say, your legs) and then make an attack against them with whatever weapon your designate if you use the Improved Trip feat.

The question about what happens with a sickle is irrelevant because you can't trip with a sickle.

 

[Dross]

If you use the sickle to trip, you have to use the sickle to gain the "free attack". The book says "as if you hadn't made the trip attack" and you did not use the rapier in that instance so you could not use the rapier.

Dross is wrong and Visigani is right[/B]. You get a free melee attack as if you hadn't used that part of your attack sequence to trip; in other words, if you full attack at +6/+1 BAB, and you use your +1 BAB attack to trip, you get a free melee attack at +1 BAB, not +6 BAB. That's all it's trying to say.

In such a situation, Improved Trip allows you to make an immediate melee attack as if you hadn't used your sickle attack to trip...but if you don't make that free attack with the sickle, you don't get to make one at all, because the only reason you were allowed to make the trip attack was that you were using a sickle.

Um, Vegepygmy there is a contradiciton here (see bolded).
I did say that you have to use the sickle (or the +1BAB situation) in the given example.

 

[Flarlarlar]

Hopefully, that's clear.

Yeah that was pretty much it, thanks

The question about what happens with a sickle is irrelevant because you can't trip with a sickle.

wot

 

[kitcik]

The question about what happens with a sickle is irrelevant because you can't trip with a sickle.

I can't miss the opp to correct Dandu, altho there is probably some errata somewhere that will make me look like a fool.

PH: "Because of a sickle's shape, you can also use it to make trip attacks. If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can drop the sickle to avoid being tripped."

 

[Jimlock]

If you use the full attack option, you get one attack for every 5 or fraction of 5 BAB. These attacks can be made with any weapon (including unarmed strike) you have "in hand." So if you are holding a longsword in one hand and a dagger in the other, and you full attack at +11/+6/+1 BAB, you can swing the longsword at +11, kick somebody at +6, and throw the dagger at +1.Does that answer your question?

Now, if you are using the weapon itself (not just your BAB) to get an extra attack, you're using the Two-Weapon Fighting rules, and you can't swap an unarmed strike for the off-hand attack you gained because you TWFed. So, using the same example as before (longsword and dagger, no TWF feat), you'd be full attacking at +7 with your longsword (+11 BAB, -4 penalty to regular attack for TWF), kicking at +2 (+6 BAB, -4 penalty to regular attack for TWF), stabbing with the dagger at -3 (+1 BAB, -4 penalty to regular attack for TWF), and using the extra off-hand attack you gained by TWFing to throw the dagger at +3 (+11 BAB, -8 penalty to off-hand attack for TWF). Any of the first three attacks can be made with any weapon you want; the last one has to be with the dagger, because choosing to use the dagger is what allowed you to make that extra off-hand attack at all.

I believe this is incorrect. Regardless of whether he uses the extra attack given by TWF style, penalties apply normally for wielding (attacking) with two weapons.

 

[billd91]

I believe this is incorrect. Regardless of whether he uses the extra attack given by TWF style, penalties apply normally for wielding (attacking) with two weapons.

This comes up frequently in rules debates. I generally hold to the interpretation that you do NOT apply the TWF penalties when not gaining the extra attacks in a round.

If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. You suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand when you fight this way.

[emphasis mine]

The way I see it, if you're not getting the extra attack with the off-hand weapon, you're really not fighting "this way" as detailed in the TWF rules.

If someone were to argue that the guy using a weapon in his off-hand in the course of using his normal iterative rate needs to apply an off-hand penalty of -4 to that attack, I might be convinced. But 3.5 kind of muddled that when they folded ambidexterity in with the TWF feat, obscuring whether or not the game system intends there to really be a separate penalty for wielding a weapon in a non-primary hand.

 

[Jimlock]

If someone were to argue that the guy using a weapon in his off-hand in the course of using his normal iterative rate needs to apply an off-hand penalty of -4 to that attack, I might be convinced. But 3.5 kind of muddled that when they folded ambidexterity in with the TWF feat, obscuring whether or not the game system intends there to really be a separate penalty for wielding a weapon in a non-primary hand.

If he get's a penalty to the off hand, why shouldn't he get a penalty to the primary hand? The very fact that he fights (attacks) with a weapon in each hand is enough to convince me that he can't fight as well as if he was wielding/fighting with his primary hand only. The body just doesn't behave the same way, nor can one apply his strength to the full...nor is the technique the same.. I don't know it kind of makes sense to me...

Also in the PHB p160 it says:

Two-weapon Fighting

If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you get one extra attack with that weapon. Fighting this way is very hard, however,...

IMO the "fighting this way is very hard" is clearly a reference to the fact that "you wield a second weapon in your off hand", and not to the fact that you get an extra attack because of it...

The text continues like this: Fighting this way is very hard, however, and you suffer a -6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a -10 penalty to the attack with your off hand.

No matter if i see this as referring to any attacks made by the off-hand (because i have concluded that the penalty applies to those simply wielding/attacking with two weapons...since the previous line...) ...I can see (ohh...well) how one can argue that because the text says "to the attack" and not "to the attackS" its a direct reference to that single extra attack, therefore the penalties apply only when this extra attack is used.

Thankfully, the 2007 Rules Compendium clarifies the misunderstanding:

RC p148:

Two-Weapon Fighting
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack with that weapon when you make a full attack. Fighting in this way is very difficult, however, and you take a –6 penalty on your attack rolls with your primary hand and a –10 penalty on attack rolls with your off hand. You can reduce these penalties in two ways...

 

[Jimlock]

...another source that clarifies everything down to the last detail is the official 3.5 archive on the WotC site:

Rules of the Game: Two-Handed Fighting (Part One)

Rules of the Game: Two-Handed Fighting (Part Two)

Rules of the Game: Two-Handed Fighting (Part Three)

 

[kitcik]

So if you trip with the 0ff-hand, must the Improved Trip bonus attack be with the off hand (or whatever weapon is in it)? I think so...