Question about Wielding a Guisarme and a Cestus!

[BlingerBunny]

So I made a Skald, and I'm trying to make combat a little more helpful for myself by wearing a Cestus and wielding my Guisarme.

I know the Guisarme has Reach and Trip, but I'd like to know how it would work to switch between wielding my guisarme to holding it in my offhand, punching someone with my cestus.

What kind of action is it?
Could I effectively threaten squares adjacent to me as well as within my Guisarme's reach?

[wraithstrike]

It is is a free action to switch a weapon to your offhand, but in most situations you will either be fighting someone at range or up close.

You should also be able to threaten both squares.

[Castilonium]

Skalds are proficient with martial weapons, so you can get some armor spikes, which will avoid any rules confusion about the cestus if somebody argues with you.

[PurpleFruitNewt]

BlingerBunny wrote:

So I made a Skald, and I'm trying to make combat a little more helpful for myself by wearing a Cestus and wielding my Guisarme.

I know the Guisarme has Reach and Trip, but I'd like to know how it would work to switch between wielding my guisarme to holding it in my offhand, punching someone with my cestus.

What kind of action is it?
Could I effectively threaten squares adjacent to me as well as within my Guisarme's reach?

Free action to switch between. So I'd call that you could threaten *either* the adjacent square or the next one out, your choice made on your turn.

But yeah, Castilonium is right - armor spikes are easier and more effective.

[Guru-Meditation]

Yeah, i have to join the previous posters. Go get Armor Spikes. With the Cestus-method you can either threaten 5ft OR 10ft, as you can only do the switch on your turn, and not on your opponents turn, when most AOOs happen.

[K-kun the Insane]

I had the same problem with my Fighter wielding a Glaive-Guisarme and a Cestus. I took a level of Brawler, so now I threaten everything around me.

[Qaianna]

How would armour spikes be 'better' than a cestus in this situation? Wouldn't you still need to dedicate something to that close attack? I always thought of the cestus, spiked gauntlet, and armour spikes as being about the same as far as wielding them.

[Talib Aguiye Ironsi]

Surprised that nobody linked to the FAQs on the matter.

Can I use my longspear to attack at both 10 feet and 5 feet?

And

Can I use two-weapon fighting to make an "off-hand" attack with my armor spikes in the same round I use a two-handed weapon?

And

What kind of action is it to remove your hand from a two-handed weapon or re-grab it with both hands?

Basically, your (Cestus/Gauntlet/Spiked Gauntlet) isn't available to threaten when it's holding another weapon, but Armor Spikes don't take up a hand, so if you're wielding a reach weapon and wearing Armor Spikes you can effectively threaten everything within 10ft.

Or, on your turn, you could just switch the grip of your reach weapon and attack adjacent.

[Trekkie90909]

There are a couple points about the cestus:

First most GMs don't allow free actions during the enemies turn. I know it's allowed by the rules, as specifically evidenced by the rules for speaking. That said by the rules GMs can say you can't take a free action if they feel you couldn't (limit number of free actions/turn), so there's equal RAW on that for both sides of the argument and refer to rule 0.

Second, but related to the first is for your build to work you have to take a lot of free actions (release 2 handed grip, make an attack, return to 2 handed grip); if a GM feels this action sequence is too long for a free action, or that doing it multiple times is abusive they should shut you down RAW (in addition to rule 0).

Armor spikes bypass these issues because you aren't switching your grip; it just goes off normal AoO rules. Also they don't impose a -2 penalty to precision based tasks (which could be ruled to include attack rolls).

[Nefreet]

Trekkie90909 wrote:

most GMs don't allow free actions during the enemies turn. I know it's allowed by the rules, as specifically evidenced by the rules for speaking.

Other way around.

Free actions can only be taken on your turn.

Speaking is an exception.

Edit: and confirmed in an FAQ.

[Trekkie90909]

My mistake, haven't had this issue come up in a while :P. Thanks for the link.