Dark Souls Message Board  

So as some may know and others may not know this, if you cut the tail off of a boss, they'll drop you a demon weapon. This can sometimes be hard to do but playing the PC version the first time I found it very easy. Basically when you kill the boss, quickly run around to it's tail and attack it. It'll drop the weapon once it fully disappears.

I was fighting the first boss after the tutorial place and I killed him but was frustrated that I did not get at his tail so as he was fading away I ran around to his tail just to see if I could still chop the thing off and after hitting it once with a strong attack of my sword it dropped the Demon's Greataxe. I tried on the bosses after that and it was working each time.

I don't know if it's a glitch or something but it's pretty good if you want all the special boss weapons.

It is not a glitch, it's an intentional detail. Any boss with a tail will give you a special weapon if you cut it off. There aren't may of them. All of the dragon bosses, eg the Gaping Dragon, Seath the Scaleless, and the Hellkite Dragon on the upper bridge of the Undead Burg all have tail-weapons, and I don't remember who else has them that isn't a dragon besides the Taurus Demon.

I know they drop weapons but I just thought that it was odd I was still able to grab the weapon just by hitting the tail once as it's fading away after the boss was defeated. I thought you'd only be able to get it if you chop the tail off while it's still alive.

It definitely sounds like a glitch. The tail had to be cut off before he died on 360 (post-patch definitely perhaps pre-patch too?)