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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeff Wilder" data-source="post: 2465824" data-attributes="member: 5122">My argument actually boils down to the fact that since these terms are not game-defined, interpreting a rule in such a way that requires you to have game-definitions for these terms is absurd.Here's the language, one more time:Hypersmurf's Model -- "Fight this way" refers to, and only to, the clause "if you wield a second weapon in your off-hand."On the face of the language, this is a reasonable way to read the rule.  The problem is, as Hypersmurf himself has admitted, it requires rules distinctions between terms like "wield," "use" and "hold."  The problem is that these are terms that the game rules constantly use interchangeably and very confusingly.  It leads to things like a fighter having drawn a shortsword under the rules, and being armed with the shortsword under the rules, but somehow not wielding that shortsword, but only holding the shortsword.Surely I can't be the only person reading this who finds it bizarre?On the other hand, if you simply read the language in a second reasonable way, you get:Jeff's Model -- The first sentence can just as easily -- and just as reasonably -- be read to mean, "You can get one extra attack per round with a weapon in your off-hand."  With that meaning in mind, the entire first sentence becomes the antecedent for "fight this way."  You're "fighting this way" whenever you want to be able to get an extra attack with a second weapon.This model does not require a TWF to make bizarre distinctions between "wielding," "holding," "using," "armed," and so on.  All the TWF has to do is "fight this way" -- he pays the penalties, and at any point in the round he can take an extra attack with a second weapon.  As a reminder, this is exactly as Wizards Customer Service said to handle things, for whatever that's worth, and I purposefully structured the question to make it difficult to arrive at that conclusion without understanding the rules.No, it's not.  The only disitnction made is between "armed" and "unarmed."So, given that, why not accept the reasonable reading that doesn't require the creation of rules and distinctions -- "wielding," "holding," "using" -- that don't exist?  What is the investment in the creation of those distinctions?You cannot.  In order to threaten, you have to be able to make an attack.  If you haven't accepted the TWF penalties, you cannot make an attack with the off-hand weapon.  But you are still wielding that weapon.There is nothing in the description of TWD that says anything about suffering TWF penalties.  All that is required is that you be wielding two weapons (or a double weapon) ... you do not have to be fighting with both.Note that even under Hypersmurf's definition it's possible to wield a double-weapon and not be TWF, since a double-weapon can be used perfectly well to make a single attack.  And all that is required to gain TWD is that you be wielding the double-weapon.Again, why the insistence upon a reading that has so many bizarre consequences, when an equally reasonable parsing of the language comes up with something that suffers none of those bizarre consequences?  What am I missing?</blockquote>

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