Warforged and Slam Attacks

[reveal]

Here's the situation:

A PC has a battlefist on his right hand. This enhances his natural slam attack to 1d8. He is asking if he can also wear a battlefist on his left hand. In combat, he is asking to use either his right battlefist or left battlefist to attack but not use both in the same round.
So does he take an penalties if he switches? If he uses his right battlefist, which is his main hand, and then, in one round, uses the left instead does he take a penalty on the attack? It's a natural slam attack so I'm really confused.

 

[Jdvn1]

D&D doesn't have a concept of handedness.

You can just say, "You use one hand to ... and the other to..." Which hand it is doesn't matter.

 

[reveal]

D&D doesn't have a concept of handedness.

You can just say, "You use one hand to ... and the other to..." Which hand it is doesn't matter.

Yes it does. There are off-hands, which is why the two-weapon fighting feat is so important.

 

[Jdvn1]

But there isn't 'right hand' or 'left hand'. You can just choose which hand you're using, generally. You aren't better with one, necessarily. That's one reason why they got rid of Ambidexterity.

Having penalties to an 'off-hand' describes the difficulty of fighting with more than one weapon.

 

[Timeron Malachi]

Here's the situation:

A PC has a battlefist on his right hand. This enhances his natural slam attack to 1d8. He is asking if he can also wear a battlefist on his left hand. In combat, he is asking to use either his right battlefist or left battlefist to attack but not use both in the same round.
So does he take an penalties if he switches? If he uses his right battlefist, which is his main hand, and then, in one round, uses the left instead does he take a penalty on the attack? It's a natural slam attack so I'm really confused.

If he, for example, had a base attack of +11, and he wanted to attack with his left, then right, then left, I don't see any reason why he couldn't do that.

Does he want to put different enchantments on each fist or something? I guess, if he's doing this strictly because he thinks it'd be neater than throwing one punch, then let him.

 

[Testament]

If he, for example, had a base attack of +11, and he wanted to attack with his left, then right, then left, I don't see any reason why he couldn't do that.

Does he want to put different enchantments on each fist or something? I guess, if he's doing this strictly because he thinks it'd be neater than throwing one punch, then let him.

Problem here is that you can't make iterative attacks with a natural weapon. If he has the Second Slam feat from Races of Eberron though, then I don't see why he couldn't do this.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Here's the situation:

A PC has a battlefist on his right hand. This enhances his natural slam attack to 1d8. He is asking if he can also wear a battlefist on his left hand. In combat, he is asking to use either his right battlefist or left battlefist to attack but not use both in the same round.
So does he take an penalties if he switches? If he uses his right battlefist, which is his main hand, and then, in one round, uses the left instead does he take a penalty on the attack? It's a natural slam attack so I'm really confused.

If I'm correct, I don't believe the Warforged actually has to attack with his fist in order to use the augmented Slam attack- if I'm not mistaken, it simply changes his slam attack to a d8 instead of a d6 (since you can't get more than one attack with it, there's no reason it should be limited to one fist as opposed to the other). True, from a flavor standpoint it makes no sense to allow him to attack with his other hand and deal the same damage, but I don't think there's any indication (other than the fact that the Battlefist is, in fact, a gauntlet) that their Slam attack has to be with their fists at all.

 

[Rath the Brown]

Here's the situation:

A PC has a battlefist on his right hand. This enhances his natural slam attack to 1d8. He is asking if he can also wear a battlefist on his left hand. In combat, he is asking to use either his right battlefist or left battlefist to attack but not use both in the same round.
So does he take an penalties if he switches? If he uses his right battlefist, which is his main hand, and then, in one round, uses the left instead does he take a penalty on the attack? It's a natural slam attack so I'm really confused.

If a PC is wielding two weapons, but only makes one attack, do they still suffer the two-weapon fighting penalties with that single attack? If you believe that they do suffer the penalties, then give penalties to the warforged with two Battlefists as though it was fighting with two weapons.

If you think the PC would not take any penalties, then why would a warforged doing essentially the same thing take penalties?

If I'm correct, I don't believe the Warforged actually has to attack with his fist in order to use the augmented Slam attack- if I'm not mistaken, it simply changes his slam attack to a d8 instead of a d6 (since you can't get more than one attack with it, there's no reason it should be limited to one fist as opposed to the other). True, from a flavor standpoint it makes no sense to allow him to attack with his other hand and deal the same damage, but I don't think there's any indication (other than the fact that the Battlefist is, in fact, a gauntlet) that their Slam attack has to be with their fists at all.

I think the description of the slam attack coupled with the fact that the Battlefist is a gauntlet gives you plenty of indication that to get the improved slam damage, the attack must come from the fist that is wearing the Battlefist.

Slap or Slam: The creature batters opponents with an appendage, dealing bludgeoning damage.

Since a slam attack is made with an appendage, it makes sense that the attack must come from the appendage equipped with the Battlefist in order to do the extra damage.

 

[Hypersmurf]

But there isn't 'right hand' or 'left hand'. You can just choose which hand you're using, generally. You aren't better with one, necessarily.

Yes, there is. No, you can't. Yes, you are.

The definition of '[glossary]off-hand[/glossary]' from the PHB Glossary:
off hand
A character's weaker or less dexterous hand (usually the left). An attack made with the off hand incurs a -4 penalty on the attack roll. In addition, only one-half of a character's Strength bonus may be added to damage dealt with a weapon held in the off hand.

Not "the hand you aren't choosing to use at the moment"; it's your "weaker or less dexterous hand (usually the left)".

Handedness certainly exists in 3.5, despite the lack of the Ambidexterity feat.

-Hyp.

 

[Jdvn1]

Yes, there is. No, you can't. Yes, you are.

The definition of '[glossary]off-hand[/glossary]' from the PHB Glossary:
off hand
A character's weaker or less dexterous hand (usually the left). An attack made with the off hand incurs a -4 penalty on the attack roll. In addition, only one-half of a character's Strength bonus may be added to damage dealt with a weapon held in the off hand.

Not "the hand you aren't choosing to use at the moment"; it's your "weaker or less dexterous hand (usually the left)".

Handedness certainly exists in 3.5, despite the lack of the Ambidexterity feat.

-Hyp.

Sorry, don't buy it. A person who can use both hands equally well can't necessarily use both hands at the same time. Using two weapons is more difficult than using one, thus the usefulness of the feat and the penalty to attack regardless.

If you have shortswords in both hands and you're using your right arm to brace a door, you might use your left hand as your primary attack. If you're falling down a pit and you grab a branch to catch yourself with your left arm, you could use your right as your primary attack. Or, a GM could rule that since one arm is doing something so important and requires more concentration, your other arm will be less dextrous and takes the off-hand penalty. The lack of the Ambidexterity feat gets rid of confusion between 'right and left' versus 'primary and off-hand'.

It's 'usually the left' because for most people, most of the time when the issue would come up, your left hand would be the off-hand. "weaker or less dextrous hand (usually left)" doesn't necessitate handedness.