Weapon Descriptors and Feats

If you use a feat that requires a specific kind of weapon descriptor (power or finesse) and one of your weapons does not have that descriptor, you suffer the penalties of the feat on that weapon, but not the benefit.

Example: A character with Two Weapon Fighting as a power feat and Power Attack uses a punch dagger and a longsword. If she Power Attacks for 3 points, both weapons suffer a -3 to hit, but only the punch dagger gets bonus damage.

Similarly, if you use a feat that prohibits a specific kind of weapon descriptor (power or finesse) and one of your weapons does have that descriptor, you suffer the penalties of the feat on that weapon, but not the benefit.

Example: Consider a character with Two Weapon Fighting and Combat Expertise. As long as one of the two weapons is not a power weapon, you can gain the defense benefits of Combat Expertise, but both weapons suffer the penalty to hit. You can’t use the feat with the power weapon, but you can with the other weapon, and only one weapon is required to get the defense bonus, not both.

Weapon Descriptors and Weapon Sizes

Regardless of what size creature it is made for, a weapon retains the same descriptors. So a tiny greatsword is still a power weapon, and a huge rapier is still a finesse weapon.