Off-hand weapons. Meaningless?

[toxicspirit]

A club!

 

[Cirex]

Yes, that was what I was arguing for, that a rogue bugbear with a broadsword and dagger can apply his rogue powers with the dagger. Your original post implied that he can't.

I have no idea where the whole broadsword for rogue powers just because you have a dagger in your offhand interpretation came from.

If my first post gave that impression, it was a mistake I did. That interpretation is something I've seen around here and Gleemax just too often.
"I use a dagger to trigger the wield light blade condition and use a bastard sword to use rogue powers na na na na na".

 

[Andor]

A Ranger's Two-Weapon Fighting Style and the Off-Hand property of weapons are examples of exceptions that prove the rule. By telling you explicitly what you can do, they also make it abundantly clear what you can't do.

Reasonable people understand this, especially in an exception-based system.

I've seen this kind of thinking a lot and it's just not how it works. Exception based design works like this:

General rule A is stated and applies to all case A situations unless a more specific rule exempts the general rule for subcase A(1).

EG: An attack of opportunity has to be a basic attack unless a more specific rule applies like the Heavy Blade Opportunist feat.

So knowing what rules apply to a subcase tells you exactly nothing about the general rule. They are defined seperately.

So in the annoyingly common in 4e event that a subcase is stated but the general rule is not.... you have no idea what the general rule is.

To invent a silly example if the Purple Fungus monster had a rule that any sunrod within 10 squares burned with a clear purple light, then that tells you exactly nothing about what color of light a sunrod normally gives off.

And unless someone can find it, I have not yet seen a general rule that prohibits Peter Lorre's Wizard character from "The Raven" from wadeing into the brawl with a battle axe in one hand and a long sword in the other.

 

[Danceofmasks]

But .. doesn't the off-hand weapon property describe exactly that?

 

[Andor]

But .. doesn't the off-hand weapon property describe exactly that?

Correct. The off hand property describes a subcase. What confuses me is that I can't find a general rule that differes from the specific rule.

It seems clear the off-hand weapon property, and the ranger two-weapon fighting power to to provide a sub-case where a second weapon can be wielded. It seems probable to me that WotC intended the general rule to be that normally you can't wield a second weapon. But they forgot to put that rule in the book unless someone can point it out to me. *forehead palm*

 

[Khelzor]

It seems pretty straightforward to me:

General Rule: PHB pg 270

Simply wielding a weapon in each hand doesn't allow you to make two attacks in a round. If you hold two melee weapons, you can use either one to make a melee attack.

Off Hand Property: PHB 217

An off-hand weapon is light enough that you can hold it and attack effectively with it while holding a weapon in your main hand. You can't attack with both weapons in the same turn, unless you have a power that lets you do so, but you can attack with either weapon. (Read with the general rule above, that you can only make an off hand attack if the off hand weapon has the off hand property.)

Ranger Two-Blade Fighting Style: PHB 104

Because of your focus on two-weapon melee attacks, you can wield a one-handed weapon in your off hand as if it were an off-hand weapon. (Read with both the rules above that you can use any one-hand weapon in the off hand.)

1. Anyone can have weapons in both hands.
2. Anyone can effectively use a weapon in the off hand if it has the off-hand property. (The converse being that you can't wield/use one if it doesn't have the off-hand property, ie. you can hold a non off hand weapon in the off hand you just can't use it.)
3. A TWF ranger gains the off-hand property on all one handed melee weapons held in the off hand.

What is so hard to understand?

 

[DLichen]

The free switch between wield and hold for one. You can hold something in your other hand no matter what, but wield is never properly defined.

Rogue powers say that you get a bonus when you wield a weapon, but as written, that would always benefit you, even if you attack with a weapon in your other hand since wielding does not explicitly mean attacking with.

Similarly, the two weapon fighting feats key off holding two weapons, not wielding two weapons. As written, this means you can wear a light shield, hold a dagger in it, and get the benefits of two-weapon fighting.

The D&D department needs to steal one of the dudes from the Magic comp rules department to write their books, since this is just sloppy.

 

[Andor]

It seems pretty straightforward to me:

General Rule: PHB pg 270

Simply wielding a weapon in each hand doesn't allow you to make two attacks in a round. If you hold two melee weapons, you can use either one to make a melee attack.

Off Hand Property: PHB 217

An off-hand weapon is light enough that you can hold it and attack effectively with it while holding a weapon in your main hand. You can't attack with both weapons in the same turn, unless you have a power that lets you do so, but you can attack with either weapon. (Read with the general rule above, that you can only make an off hand attack if the off hand weapon has the off hand property.)

Ranger Two-Blade Fighting Style: PHB 104

Because of your focus on two-weapon melee attacks, you can wield a one-handed weapon in your off hand as if it were an off-hand weapon. (Read with both the rules above that you can use any one-hand weapon in the off hand.)

1. Anyone can have weapons in both hands.
2. Anyone can effectively use a weapon in the off hand if it has the off-hand property. (The converse being that you can't wield/use one if it doesn't have the off-hand property, ie. you can hold a non off hand weapon in the off hand you just can't use it.)
3. A TWF ranger gains the off-hand property on all one handed melee weapons held in the off hand.

What is so hard to understand?

Because the general rule you quote from page 270 does not support the conjecture you make in parenthesis under point 2.

Be that as it may I have found it!

As far as I can tell the off-hand weapon property matters under one of two circumstances.

1) If you have the epic feat "Two weapon flurry" you only gain the secondary attack if your second weapon has the off-hand property.

2) If you have access to a Ranger two weapon attack through multi-classing many of them specify a primary and an off-hand weapon. This doesn't matter to a ranger with the two-weapon fighting path because his class ability lets him use any one handed weapon as an off-hand weapon, but if you multiclass into ranger you don't get that benefit so you do need an actual off-hand weapon for the power to work fully. Come to think of it an Archery path Ranger also needs to be careful about it.

As far as I can tell however the off-hand designation is meaningless as far as the 'two weapon fighting' and 'two weapon defense' feats go.

Normally there is no particular reason to wield, say, a long sword and a warhammer, but you could always make a fighter with both 'Crushing Blow' and 'Storm of Blows' and weild them both so you could get optimal use out of either power. Although personally if I were going to do something like that I'd use a throwing weapon in my off hand in case the Warlord grants me a ranged basic attack or something.

(Incidently, do we know which power used to be called "Feather me yon oaf"?)