Hi there,

If One-Fist is equiped with a sword, does he get the its off-hand bonus when attacking with his hook?

--Anselmus

Anselmus said:

No, because you have to have 2 Weapon Items equipped and One Fist can't do that. While yes his hook is a weapon, it doesn't count count as him wielding two weapons for the purposes of Off Hand bonuses.

If your true to the wording, what he says.

But if you continue the logic of 2nd hand weapons, its quite fair to give him the bonus. After all, its a special case that hasnt been covered explicitly by the rules. So my guess is, that is just got overlooked, like so many other things.

Dreepa said:

True it might be fair, but the fact that he's the only character who always gets to make 2 attacks (1 with the weapon, one with the hook) more than compensates for the lack of getting the off hand bonus.

I'd say give him the off hand bonus, if he opts not to make two attacks and just one with hook plus off hand bonus.

As the off hand bonus is meant to model that you have a benefit if you can wield two weapons at once, and he doesn't wield them at once at the same target in one attack, but is awesome enough to wield them independently.

This is somewhat unrelated, but anyway:

Can you dual wield a crossbow (or any other one-handed ranged weapon) and an off-hand weapon?

McRae said:

No. It must be 2 one handed melee weapons. DJitD pg 19

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.

Incidentally, One Eye and his hook should probably be FAQed.

The RAW are clear, but One-eye came with an expansion and it is possible that the possibility of off-hand bonus when using the hook was never even looked at.

Laughlin Buldar may be another one to look at with his 2H +1H combo almost certainly intended* to allow off hand bonuses despite the RAW requiring a hero to have 2x One handed weapon in order to use the bonus.

*(look at me, claiming intent knowledge now - well, almost )

You can equip a one handed ranged weapon and a one handed melee weapon if you want to. It will not provide a bonus though:

"If a hero has two one-handed Melee
weapons equipped at once, he may
gain the benefits of an Off-Hand
Bonus."

Big Remy said:

Always?

You mean he always gets an extra (at least one) attack - one that can't use surges. If he Runs, or moves with a Ready action he only gets the hook attack, not 2 attacks...

Its certainly a very good 'special' but its not as good as some (definite disadvantages). It still wouldn't be as good as some if it had been merely 'overlooked' and was FAQed to allow off hand bonuses.

I like One-eye, but he has some pretty clear disadvantages and his skillpick is more critical than some if he isn't to be a liability.

For me and my group, One-fist is classified as a "derp" character.

He's up there with Eilam and Sahla - useless.

My brother and I are playing through RtL right now and are in the silver campaign level, We read through the rules and then did a logical thought process.

The hook is a multifaceted disadvantage in the fact that it will never be able to use surges for anything and the fact that he is only ever able to use a one handed melee or ranged weapon. We also decided that it would become a Major handicap the further we went into the campaign if he did not get the off hand bonus, realated to the fact that some of the higher lvl monsters have more armor than he would ever be able to get through even with power dice. So we give him the off handed bonus, and it has been working out well there are still some monsters that he can't hurt but that is mostly because he is spec'ed as a tank, not Melee Damage dealer.

We have actually found him to be Very Handy tank for finishing off guys while still running to cover line of sight.

Hope this helps.

P.S. I do agree that it should be FAQ'ed still.

Corbon said:

Bad use of the word " Always ". I should have said when he's doing an action where its legal for him to make an attack, he usually gets an extra due to the hook.

One Hand is actually one of my favorite characters. Granted, his hook attack doesn't gain the benefit of surges or off-hand bonuses (the hook is not, alas, an equipped one-hand melee weapon), but you still get to roll his melee power dice (and can use fatigue to add/upgrade). He can take a run action and still get a decent attack in- red/green + power dice is nothing to sneeze at. I love to use ready actions with him as well- move, swipe a minion, set a guard order. Or do a battle action, get two regular attacks, then swipe with his fist. Add in Knight and you're getting 4 melee attacks for the cost of 2 fatigue

in RTL you could buy skills for him that could make him pretty broken. Giving him combat feats that boost his melee attacks would give you a mad powerhouse of a kicker. Does his sheet explicitly say he can't spend surges on anything or could he get the bracers that adds "2 surges: gain 1 fatigue?"

Neostrider said:

He can use the Bracers. Its just that there are usually better recipients.

He doesn't have any limit of spending surges, but the hook attack just deosn;t have any functional way to spend them. He can still spend them for 'normal' attacks with other weapons - or if he has 'other' items that spend surges (like the gauntlets he can use those even on the hook attacks.

And yes, far from being brokenly useless, he can be seriously kickarse good in RtL.

The extra attack means he can operate either as a chaff sweeper (enabling your mage to go for big hits on tough monsters rather than blasting/breathing on the weak ones) or as a rather cool armoured runner (ie, the type of runner that can go ahead alone and still withstand everything thrown at him. The hook attack means that he can get a hit in on the annoying little monsters sitting on glyphs/chests etc despit running. Given, say Tiger Tattoo, Mighty and the Sheathe of Might or whatever it is (+1 damage to Melee attacks) and he can run 10, with 4 fatigue, and still get in an attack of R/G/3B+upgrades/+3 damage - killing the 'blocker' mid-sprint and continuing on his way. Rockin' rollin'.

I don't have his character sheet handy, but does it say he gets a green die with his hook attack?

The reason we don't like him is because we were thinking he only got to roll a single red die plus his two black dice with the hook attack.

Yes, he does get a green die. See his character sheet here .

I have been playing One-Fist in a recent campaign, and since he started the game with the skill that gives him +2 melee damage, he was easily the most effective and versitile character in the party. He has decent armour, and can run 8 spaces without spending fatigue and still get a melee hit.

He can equip a shield, run a mile, and peg that important target at the end of the hall, then effectively soak up the damage that comes afterward. He gets THREE attacks on a battle action, and since he has a ranged die, he's not completely usless with the axe of dazing goodness or the claws of webbing goodness.

Sure, he doesn't get to spend his surges without the bracers, but especially with the +2 damage from his skill, his claw attack is still quite effective. WITH the bracers, he can spend his fatigue much more freely, buying extra dice and extra movement, knowing that his hook attack will most likely replenish said fatigue (especially now that he rolls 3 silver for melee)

As for the off-hand bonus, that's intended to represent the effect of having the second weapon equipped to make up for the fact that it does not produce its own attack. Fluff-wise, most characters are not adept at dual-wielding, and so the second weapon only slightly augments the hero's fighting ability. In One-Fist's case, he is obviously very adept at using his hook as a weapon, and so he's the only character who gets the full benefit of both attacks. Asking for the off-hand bonus on top of that is a bit much, especially when the only circumstance I could see you "giving up" your attack to get the off-hand bonus would be in an instance when the equipped weapon would either be un-usable (such as when he runs) or completely ineffective (and let's face it, his equipped weapon will ALWAYS be more effective than the hook) so it really makes no fluff-sense that he'd be able to benefit. And since the rules support my take on the fluff, I'd say that's a pretty strong argument against.

It was said that One-Fist can't spend surges when he attacks with his hook. Where does this information come from?

Cheers

MaHaPaTe said:

Well...what is he going to spend it on? The Guantlets I guess, but past that I'm not sure what. The hook doesn't have a "spend X surges = Instant Horrible Death by Hooking" on it, so for damage and effects at least there's nothing to spend it on. Guantlets come to mind, as does Fear but I'm not sure what else.

quote:" One Fist only has one hand for porpose of equipping items" - this means that he can be give items which requaire one hand.

quote:"He can always make one Melee attack, rolling 1 Red and 1 Green die, in addition to his normal action" - so when he doesn't attack using the weapon he is equiped in, his Hool attack can use advantage of his off-hand bonus writen on the weapon card. For example if his main weapon is morning star when his only attack in round is attack of his hook he also gets off-hand bonus - 1 damage and 1 free surge.

mysiek001 said:

Except both of those quotes can also argue against him getting the Off Hand Bonus. The rules of OHB say that "If a hero has two one-handed Melee weapons equipped at once, he may gain the benefits of an Off-Hand Bonus"

His card says that One Fist only has one hand for the purpose of equipping items. The Hook does not count as an equipped item, so from an equipped item stand point, he only has one weapon equipped.

If the hook is not some-kind-of-weapon why he can roll not 1 red die, but 1 red and 1 green?

mysiek001 said:

So a chaos beast is a kind of weapon? As it can roll more than a mere red die, too.

Chaos beast is Chaos Beast so the rule for heroes does not reply to him, he has his own rule which stands as they are writen on his card.