Hey everyone! I've just started another campaign and ended up choosing One Fist as my character. Does his "hook" attack benefit from the off-hand bonus of the sword? As much as I'd love for that to work, I'm thinking not based on pg 19 of JITD:

If a hero has two one-handed Melee
weapons equipped at once, he may
gain the benefits of an Off-Hand
Bonus. The weapon the hero does not
use to attack adds its off-hand bonus to
attacks with the other weapon.

The hook cannot be "equipped" and is not technically a "one-handed Melee weapon"

One could make the arguement that just because the hook is permament and can't be "unequipped", it is still equipped and that because it allows for a melee attack it is most certainly a "weapon".

Has there been any chatter about this in the past? What sayeth all the rules lawyers?

Thanks!

Oboewan said:

RAW is clear and One-Fist does not get the off hand bonus.

However, ToI has definitely strengthened One-Fist's case. Laughlin Buldar is depicted with a 2H weapon in one hand (as per his special) and a 1H weapon in the other hand. RAW this is useless as he can't get any benefit from the second weapon as he is not using two 1H melee weapons.
Either
a) Laughlin Buldar's special should read that he can count a single 2H weapon as though it was a 1H weapon (which is subtly different than what it actually says) or
b) The Off Hand bonus rule should be re-interpreted to say that an equipped unused melee weapon can provide an off-hand bonus during a melee attack.
Choosing a) basically says that the writer of Laughlin Buldar screwed it up (entirely possible). Choosing b) basically says that the intent of the original rule was a lot more flexible than strict RAW but the wording worked fine then because there were no other options. Only after later expansions added One-Fist and then Laughlin Buldar did the original wording prove to be 'faulty'.

One-Fist would benefit under b) but not under a).

My personal choice is to allow it (so b)).

Thanks for the thoughts. I've submitted the question through the website and we'll see how long it takes to get any kind of response.

Oboewan said:

The universe will probably end before you get an answer

Big Remy said:

Yup! BTW- Remy- I read your thoughts about this matter on another post and agree that it's not allowed with the RAW. Also I discovered that it's much easier to search these forums via google