If One-Fist is equipping the basic sword and he makes his hook attack, shouldn't he add the off-hand damage bonus from the sword?

I understand that the rules state to receive any off-hand bonus you have to be equipping two melee weapons, but since his hook is making a melee attack shouldn't that be considered a second melee weapon?

Going strictly by the rules, One-Fist's hook cannot receive Off-Hand bonuses, because it is not a "one-handed melee weapon". To the best of my knowledge, there has never been any official word to suggest differently.

You can, of course, play with whatever house rules you like.

By the time you get high-level weapons his hook attack would be useless, so this could be a good way to balance it. High-level weapons add a bonus to his hook and beef it up so it can compete. Has anyone had a problem with the hook being useless late-game? I don't play enough to know one way or the other. Thanks.

Childofthesun1 said:

Depends. If you focus the majority of One Fist's training on dice upgrades in RtL/SoB the hook still remains decent in higher campaign levels to take out a weaker monster.

The Off-Hand Bonus on higher-level treasures isn't much better than on shop items. A Sword from the shop offers +1 damage. The Rage Blade, probably the best 1h melee weapon in the gold treasure deck, gives you...+2 damage. And that's the lucky draw; the other gold 1h melee weapon gives you Bleed, which averages 1.67 damage, but it's randomized and not applied until the monster's activation, which are considerable disadvantages.

Far and away the best off-hand bonus in the game is the Morningstar, a unique shop item from the Tomb of Ice expansion, which gives +1 damage and a free surge...but it makes a crappy primary weapon and the surge doesn't help you with the hook attack. And it's still a shop item, so it doesn't help with scaling in any event.

I believe the Off-Hand Bonus on all copper and silver melee weapons is +1 damage, exactly the same as the Sword. So letting One-Fist claim an Off-Hand Bonus on the hook is almost the same as just saying the hook gets +1 damage.

froghorn484 said:

As Antistone said, going strictly by the rules you cannot.

Any hero can make an unarmed attack with a fist, and add his melee trait, but that does not make a fist a melee weapon.

The rules actually require 2x 1H melee weapon for Off-Hand bonus to apply.

However there is a clear precedent in ToI that the off-hand bonus is not supposed to be quite so restrictive. Laughlin Buldar's special ability is to wield a single 2H weapon in 1 hand. Technically, Laughlin cannot receive an Off-Hand bonus for a 1H melee weapon in his other hand, but that is almost certainly the intent of his ability (the figure has 1 big axe and 1 small axe, so although 2H weapon + shield is neither useless or ruled out, clearly a 2H and a 1H weapon is supposed to work for him).
Note also the One-Fist comes from an expansion and the Off-Hand bonus rule was written before either he or Laughlin Buldar existed. The off hand rule when written had no issues. It is only latter heroes with odd special abilities that come into 'conflict' with a rule that wasn't written with them in mind.

It is therefore an entirely reasonable houserule to allow One-Fist (and Laughlin) to use an Off-Hand bonus despite not quite fitting the technical requirements.

As someone astutely pointed out the last time this came up (sorry I don't remember who), we all made an important mistake in previous discussions: Laughin Buldar's ability is NOT to equip a 2h weapon in one hand, it is to " use a single two-handed melee weapon as if it were a one-handed weapon." We could potentially have an argument over whether "use" means "equip" or "attack with" or both, but I think the most natural reading is both, in which case he's entitled to an Off-Hand Bonus even by strict RAW.

Also, One-Fist is not an expansion hero, he's from the base game. Doesn't rule out the possibility that the designers overlooked his interaction with the dual-wielding rules, but circumstances were about as favorable as possible for them to get it right.

Antistone said:

Ah, good point. Thanks for showing that, my group never used high-level weapons for off-hand and I haven't played in at least a year, so I had no idea. Thank you.

Childofthesun1 said:

I never have really found the hook to be "useless" per say. Being able to have three attacks during a battle action (2 x primary weapon + 1 x Hook) I've found to be pretty enjoyable, plus it makes our Overlord sweat a little bit. And if you build up his melee power dice to 5, his hook could do somewhere around 12 damage if max damage was rolled. Great for damaging, if not felling in one-blow, all sorts of small to medium-sized monsters.

Although, I do have to admit my group and I have only played through Adventure 6 of the core Descent which is the first adventure with demons, so I have yet to go through any really "Epic" encounters with him.

froghorn484 said:

Still my favorite character.... What's not to like? A free attack every round- red/green/ and two power dice. Do a run action to pick up some stuff, drink a power potion and attack with the hook.. . The only detriment with the hook attack is that surges are meaningless. He also does fairly well with a nice 1-h ranged weapon. A verty versitile hero imho.

The copper cursed sword is +2 damage for the off-hand. With it, Mighty, dice upgrades, and a belt the One-Fist in our SoB campaign is dealing out massive damage with his hook. If you give him the gauntles that spend 2 surges for 1 fatigue his surges aren't completely useless on his hook. We've got it, but haven't given it to him yet because Nanok needs it more for Able Warrior.

James McMurray said:

That's sweet but I'm in the camp that the hook doesn't benefit from the Off-Hand bonus. Nice with the gauntlets tho!