(PF) Thunder and Fang and Power Attack question

[ProudGrognard]

Recently I have been toying with a Thunder and Fang build and I came across this question:

Thunder and fang says that : "You can use an earth breaker as though it were a one-handed weapon"

Power attack says: "You can choose to take a –1 penalty on all melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks to gain a +2 bonus on all melee damage rolls. This bonus to damage is increased by half (+50%) if you are making an attack with a two-handed weapon, a one handed weapon using two hands, or a primary natural weapon that adds 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier on damage rolls"


So, when the Earth Breaker is used in thunder and Fang style, does it gain the +50% increased damage or not? It seems to me that since it still is a 2H weapon used as though it is one handed, it should. But I also believe that this is going against the spirit of the rules.

What is your opinion?

[Blyte]

I agree, by the RAW you have quoted it seems you should (gain the full bonus), but it is very much against the spirit of the rules.

[roguemetal]

I would rule no. Thunder and Fang explicitly states, "as though it were a one handed weapon" which it is then defined as. It can either be one-handed OR two-handed, but you would need some sort of trick to make it both.

That said, the ruling for what defines a weapon as two-handed has always been vague, and unless there's errata I don't know about, the only places the rule is clarified are under the Weapon Categories, Light, One-Handed, and Two-Handed Weapons (PHB 113) where it describes that the weapon designation "is a measure of how much effort it takes to wield a weapon in combat" only implying a weapon's two-handed condition is based on the necessity to wield it that way. The second place is under the Strength Bonus rule. (PHB 138) And that rule only applies to the bonus to Damage and nothing else. So RAW you could get away with what you're doing using other tricks perhaps.

PHB is pretty clear that any size differences treat two-handed weapons of a smaller category as one-handed weapons for larger characters, so you probably can't go that route either...