Defender question...

[Dwarmaj]

I have a few question reguarding defender weapons.

1) Can someone hold a defender weapon in thier off hand and still get the bonus? How about someone who doesn't have the two weapon fighting feats, but are only attacking with their primary weapon?

2) Do multiple defender weapons stack? It seems like they do, just checking.

3) Although expensive, could someone have Defending on Bracers of Striking, and on two weapon in hand, then get the AC benefit from all three?

4) Can the Defending ability be placed on a Spiked shield? It seems that someone could have a +5 Spiked shield with a +5 defender attached.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

1) Yes. This is especially useful with Off-Hand Parry.

2) Looks like they do.

3) By the rules, they might. Might be worth ruling that if you've got a weapon in each hand, you're not "wielding" the Bracers of Striking.

4) You could, but it wouldn't do any good. Defender takes away from the weapon's enhancement bonus to add to AC-- taking away the enhancement bonus from the shield lowers your AC by the same amount you'd be raising it with Defender.

 

[kreynolds]

1) Can someone hold a defender weapon in thier off hand and still get the bonus? How about someone who doesn't have the two weapon fighting feats, but are only attacking with their primary weapon?

I believe you have to attack with it (or at least use up an action, whether it be standard for one or full for both) to get the bonus, but I can't cite a source for you.

 

[Caliban]

I have a few question reguarding defender weapons.

1) Can someone hold a defender weapon in thier off hand and still get the bonus? How about someone who doesn't have the two weapon fighting feats, but are only attacking with their primary weapon?

No. If you aren't using the weapon, you can't use the abilities.
(Unless noted otherwise, weapon abilities are use activated.)

2) Do multiple defender weapons stack? It seems like they do, just checking.

It's an unnamed bonus, so they will stack.

3) Although expensive, could someone have Defending on Bracers of Striking, and on two weapon in hand, then get the AC benefit from all three?

No. You wouldn't be able to activate them all at once. (It would require you to make an unarmed attack and two weapon attacks at the same time.)

4) Can the Defending ability be placed on a Spiked shield? It seems that someone could have a +5 Spiked shield with a +5 defender attached.

Yes.

 

[Hypersmurf]

4) You could, but it wouldn't do any good. Defender takes away from the weapon's enhancement bonus to add to AC-- taking away the enhancement bonus from the shield lowers your AC by the same amount you'd be raising it with Defender.

Except possibly in the case of using the Divine Shield feat, I'm not sure that's true.

I was under the impression a spiked shield would have to be enchanted separately as a shield and as a weapon. A shield +3 has an enhancement bonus to its armor bonus, but if you bash with it, you don't get +3 attack and damage - after all, that +3 costs you half what it would for a +3 club!

So if you had a spiked shield enchanted as +5 blinding bashing whatever as a shield, and +5 keen defending as a weapon, then you could transfer its weapon enhancement to AC via defending, but its armor enhancement wouldn't be affected.

-Hyp.

 

[Apok]

Re: Re: Defender question...

No. You wouldn't be able to activate them all at once. (It would require you to make an unarmed attack and two weapon attacks at the same time.)

Why couldn't you do this? If you have a fighter wielding two weapons with at least one additional iterative attack, you could make your primary swing with your main weapon, your iterative attack as an unarmed attack (or vice versa) and your last swing with your off-hand weapon.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Re: Re: Re: Defender question...

Why couldn't you do this? If you have a fighter wielding two weapons with at least one additional iterative attack, you could make your primary swing with your main weapon, your iterative attack as an unarmed attack (or vice versa) and your last swing with your off-hand weapon.

I'd allow it... but I'd enforce Multi-Weapon Fighting and Multi-Dexterity penalties. -4 to your primary, -8 to the others, assuming your off-hand weapon is light. If it's not, -6/-10.

Ambi and TWF wouldn't apply, since you're using more than two weapons.

But that's a personal opinion, and not wholly backed by rules.

-Hyp.

 

[Apok]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Defender question...

But that's a personal opinion, and not wholly backed by rules.

Maybe, but it could be done. As to weather or not it would be worth it, that's another matter.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

4) Can the Defending ability be placed on a Spiked shield? It seems that someone could have a +5 Spiked shield with a +5 defender attached.

I'm going to go out on a limb and disagree with Caliban here. Putting spikes on a shield turns your entire shield into a martial piercing weapon. (pg. 106 PHB)

Shield Spikes: When added to your shield, these spikes turn it into a martial piercing weapon...

I interpreted that to mean that from now on, your shield is treated as a weapon for all intents and purposes. Meaning: now you can only put melee weapon special abilities and enhancement bonuses to hit and damage on your spiked shield.

The shield special abilities are not an option, however, as your spiked shield is technically a weapon.

 

[Caliban]

Re: Re: Defender question...

I'm going to go out on a limb and disagree with Caliban here. Putting spikes on a shield turns your entire shield into a martial piercing weapon. (pg. 106 PHB)

This is correct. It was a Martial Bludgeoning weapon before you added the shield spikes (PHB, page 106, Shield Bash Attacks), now it's a Martial Piercing weapon.

But it's still a shield.

I interpreted that to mean that from now on, your shield is treated as a weapon for all intents and purposes. Meaning: now you can only put melee weapon special abilities and enhancement bonuses to hit and damage on your spiked shield.

The shield special abilities are not an option, however, as your spiked shield is technically a weapon.

This is incorrect. Adding shield spikes doesn't stop it from being a shield. A shield is both a weapon and armor, and can be enchanted with both weapon and armor abilities, whether or not you add spikes to it. (DMG, page 179, Shields, first paragraph, last sentence: "You could, in fact, build a shield that also acted as a magic weapon, but the magic offensive bonus cost would need to be added to the defensive bonus cost of the shield.")

A shield that has a +1 enhancement bonus to AC costs 1,000 gp additional gp.
A shield that has +1 enhancement bonus to attack/damage costs 2,000 additional gp
A shield that has a +1 to both costs 3,000 gp (plus the cost of a masterwork shield).

If you want it to do 1d6 Piercing instead of 1d4 Bludgeoning, you can add spikes to it.

If you want it to do 1d8 Bludgeoning, add the Bashing shield enhancement (total cost: 4,000 gp because it has to be a +1 shield first). The Bashing enhancement does not stack with the +1 weapon enhancement, but the +1 weapon enhancement will allow you to add weapon special abilities to it.