User:Tarkisflux/sandbox/Revised Multi-Weapon Combat

Multi-Weapon Combat
Not to be confused with Multi-Weapon Fighting.

Characters pick up and wield all kinds of crazy shit: longswords, daggers, spiked shields, spiked armor, boot blades, and so on. Sometimes they wield all of those at the same time, and the rules for how these work together leaves a lot to be desired. So I'm going to work on fixing them, work on making the rules for natural attacks more joined with the rules for weapon attacks, and then come back and rewrite this really lame intro blurb.

A creature can wield whatever they want with their limbs, including nothing, so long as they can lift it, it's properly sized, and they have the proper sort of appendage. They can similarly wear whatever will fit over their body properly. This means that, at first level, you can wield two longswords, two boot blades, spiked armor, and a spiked helmet if you steal enough gold to afford it. It probably won't do you much good though.

When a character makes an attack with their base attack bonus, they may do so with a natural weapon (like claws, teeth, or even unarmed) or with a manufactured weapon (like a sword or an axe). Normally this is a standard action. If they use a manufactured weapon, they use a full-round action to also gain additional attacks with their iterative attacks. They may make these attacks with any natural or manufactured weapons that they are wielding at the time. A character with a longsword and a shortsword and a +6 base attack bonus could use their first attack with the longsword and their second with the shortsword. The same character with a longsword, shortsword, blade boots, and armor spikes would be able to make their first attack with any of those items at +6 and their second attack with any of those at +1. In short, it doesn't matter how many weapons you wield, you don't get more attacks just for carrying around additional weapons.

If you want extra attacks with those extra weapons you're carrying around, you suffer some penalties. You may gain an additional secondary attack for each of your normal iterative attacks if you accept a -8 penalty to each attack. If your secondary attacks are made with light weapons, and most natural weapons qualify as light, this penalty is instead reduced to -5 for each attack. This penalty is reduced by 5 if you possess the Multi-Weapon Fighting Feat (Two-Weapon Fighting Feat). You may select this feat multiple times, each time gaining one additional set of iterative attacks to use. For our example character above, had he selected this feat twice he would be able to attack with his longsword at +6 and +1, his shortsword at +6 and +1, and either his armor spikes or his blade boot at +6 and again at +1.

If you have a bunch of natural weapons, you may instead select the Naturalized Weapon Fighting Feat (Multi-Weapon Fighting Feat). This feat allows you to attack once at your full BAB with any of your natural weapons, and then with all of your remaining natural weapons at -2.