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Two-weapon Fighting
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Error
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
I overlooked a reasonable source of official information on this... d6 Fantasy, where the two-weapon trope is well-established. d6 Fantasy opts for a very simple rule, on page 70:

Quote:
Multiple Weapons
Weapons that characters can use with one hand and in either
hand, such as daggers, may be employed at the same time in the
same round. The character incurs a multi-action penalty.


Have two weapons? Take a MAP if you want to use both. The same is in d6 space.

Nice to be right once in a while.

Does each action have its own initiative?
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 1:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, but just because WEG printed it in a book doesn't automatically settle the issue. If nothing else, there are too many real world examples of paired melee weapons: sais, nunchaku, Chinese broadswords, various types of daggers and so on and so forth. The use of paired weapons has endured for too long in martial arts for there to be no benefit to it whatsoever.

Something that occured to me that would work for melee weapons, at least, is to allow paired melee weapon users to ignore 1D of MAP, but at the cost of a +5 increase in base Difficulty (which only Melee Weapons have). For example, a character could wield two lightsabers simultaneously, and ignore 1D of MAP, but the Difficulty would go up from Difficult to Very Difficult. IMO, this represents the greater complexity of wielding two weapons at a time, and also increases the chance of an inexperienced fighter getting in their own way.

Just a thought.
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Okay, but just because WEG printed it in a book doesn't automatically settle the issue. If nothing else, there are too many real world examples of paired melee weapons: sais, nunchaku, Chinese broadswords, various types of daggers and so on and so forth. The use of paired weapons has endured for too long in martial arts for there to be no benefit to it whatsoever.

Absolutely true. Even RAW can be tedious.

I did mention a few posts above that melee weapons would be just about the only ones I could see ever getting any kind of bonus for dual-wielding. This is because you use the two weapons in concert to achieve a greater result than you would with one, as long as you were trained correctly. Defending against sais is horrible, for example. Your opponent just immobilizes your weapon with one sai, and pins you to the wall with the other...

It's blasters/ranged weapons I don't see getting bonuses to dual-wielding. It's just harder to stabilize, aim, and fire a weapon in each hand than it is to do so in one, and this is also reflected in the real world. (Do police dual-wield? Infantry? No, because one stable and aimed gun is more effective than two that are less so.) Blasters that can be fired twice a round can be fired at -1D for each roll just like normal MAPs work.

CRMcNeill wrote:
Something that occured to me that would work for melee weapons, at least, is to allow paired melee weapon users to ignore 1D of MAP, but at the cost of a +5 increase in base Difficulty (which only Melee Weapons have). For example, a character could wield two lightsabers simultaneously, and ignore 1D of MAP, but the Difficulty would go up from Difficult to Very Difficult. IMO, this represents the greater complexity of wielding two weapons at a time, and also increases the chance of an inexperienced fighter getting in their own way.

Just a thought.

I like that, just so long as there is no out-and-out bonus to dual-wielding. Lightsabers it makes perfect sense...DL-18's not as much.

Then again, what that really does is transfer the penalty to somewhere else in the process. With your system, if someone dual wields, they lose the MAP, and they get +5 to whatever the difficulty was already going to be? Just so I understand. And this happens every round they decide to dual-wield?
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 11:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the most important thing with house rules is to first decide how heavily the rule will feature in the game/campaign.

If you anticipate a character being built around the two-weapon style, then you need a more in-depth rule. If its just meant to be an infrequent "hey, check this out, this will be cool," then simpler is better.

But if its going to be a theme in the game (because a PC is a dual wielder, for example) then you need to provide enough of a benefit that the two weapons provide a distict advantage in appropriate situations, but at a cost that will discourage other character types from doing it, too.

If it is too accessable, then everyone will start doing it. If its not "different enough" from single wielding, then there's not much point.
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 4:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Error wrote:

Then again, what that really does is transfer the penalty to somewhere else in the process. With your system, if someone dual wields, they lose the MAP, and they get +5 to whatever the difficulty was already going to be? Just so I understand. And this happens every round they decide to dual-wield?


Exactly, i might almost be tempted to just stick with the base diff, but take the -1d MAP..
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
Error wrote:

Then again, what that really does is transfer the penalty to somewhere else in the process. With your system, if someone dual wields, they lose the MAP, and they get +5 to whatever the difficulty was already going to be? Just so I understand. And this happens every round they decide to dual-wield?


Exactly, i might almost be tempted to just stick with the base diff, but take the -1d MAP..

You're missing the point. The base Difficulty for a Melee Weapon becomes less and less meaningful as the character's skill level increases. Under normal circumstances, a character's Melee Combat skill roll just has to be higher than the Difficulty and the opposed Melee Parry roll separately, not stacked, and a character with 8D in Melee Weapons is far more likely to consistently beat a base Difficulty than a character with 4D.

In essence, this rule would limit dual weapon use to characters with sufficient skill to use them, with the only penalty being that of slightly raising the bar they would've had to clear anyway.
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 7:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, but the same could be said of the single MAP... which is actually less severe, since the average die is only 3.5, but you're assessing a 5. "Better people will ignore the penalty" stands in both cases.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 2:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
Yes, but the same could be said of the single MAP... which is actually less severe, since the average die is only 3.5, but you're assessing a 5. "Better people will ignore the penalty" stands in both cases.

That's only half the picture, though.

With Melee Combat, there are actually two dice contests per dice roll. The dice is rolled, then compared separately to 1) the Base Difficulty and 2) the target's reaction roll, and must beat both to succeed. What this is doing is increasing the chance of failure on #1 to decrease the target's chances in #2.

Example 1:
    Mak the Knife wants to stab someone. He has a knife (Very Easy Difficulty) and a Melee Combat skill of 8D. His target has a knife as well, and a Melee Parry skill of 6D. Mak wins initiative, and rolls 8D for a result of 25, easily beating the knife's Very Easy base Difficulty. His target rolls 6D for a result of 22, also beating the Very Easy base Difficulty, but not beating Mak's Melee Combat roll. Roll for damage.

That's how it works in the RAW. Now lets change it up with the rule I suggested.

Example 2:
    Mak now has two knives. He declares one attack with each knife, at Easy Difficulty for both (Very Easy Difficulty +5). Because he can ignore 1D of MAP, he rolls 8D twice, for a 31 and a 20. Both attack rolls still beat the modified Difficulty. His target, however, must either make 2 separate Melee Parry rolls at 5D (due to the -1D MAP for 2 actions), or declare a Full Reaction and go completely on the defensive.

I'd also say that the Full Reaction must be made against the unmodified Base Difficulty.

My point is that, if a character's skill level gets high enough, the increased Difficulty is no longer a concern (apart from Wild Dice failure), but causes the target to suffer a -1D penalty.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 5:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So is there a point to a character dual-wielding before a certain time? And at that certain point, what makes it worth it to dual-wield a melee weapon rather than just continue to develop skill for a single weapon?

In short: Why would Mak pick up the second knife at all?

I'm trying to understand. This is getting too complicated for me and the RAW seems to deal with these situations just fine already with MAP's.

Perhaps rather than resolve this with die codes and difficulties, the ability to dual-wield would be something a PC could buy (like ambidexterity) at some point after sufficient practice. Then I could see a bonus being applied so that there is a reason to use two melee weapons (more skill dice and the possibility of double the damage).
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The same reason any character would do anything that gives them a +1D bonus in a fight: every little bit helps. Remember, the only time we see dual lightsabers in use, they provide some benefit, but certainly not a decisive one.
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Last edited by CRMcNeill on Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So, how would you handle a shield (like, hunk of flat metal that you interpose between you and others)? Add 5 to the difficulty of your weapon, but get the associated cover against incoming attacks?
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
So, how would you handle a shield (like, hunk of flat metal that you interpose between you and others)? Add 5 to the difficulty of your weapon, but get the associated cover against incoming attacks?

My first impression is that makes sense. Perhaps with differing difficulty based on the size of the shield, as a bigger shield will be harder to work around than a smaller one.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
MrNexx wrote:
So, how would you handle a shield (like, hunk of flat metal that you interpose between you and others)? Add 5 to the difficulty of your weapon, but get the associated cover against incoming attacks?

My first impression is that makes sense. Perhaps with differing difficulty based on the size of the shield, as a bigger shield will be harder to work around than a smaller one.

Hahaha, it's funny you guys are talking about this because I have an NPC in production that wields a lightsaber in one hand and an energy shield in the left. I envision him as a knight but not one who is given to paladin behaviors.

Are there rules in the RAW about forearm-mounted energy shields? How about personal shields in general? Or personal shields dual-wielded with a vibroblade, lightsaber, or archaic melee weapon?

I want this char to block blasters, lightsabers, and physical weapons with relative ease. He is not Force-sensitive, so he will always be at a disadvantage when fighting Jedi. But he possesses the technology to make an escape if necessary. Against other types of characters, this one is a threat in combat and is has a reputation as a good soldier for hire. He is also good at repairing his gear.

So this is dual-wielding of a different type: offensive weapon in one hand and defensive structure in the other.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 2:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd probably just call that use of melee parry-shield, with a speciality IN the shield..
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
I'd probably just call that use of melee parry-shield, with a speciality IN the shield..

So like this?

Melee parry: 5D
Melee parry: energy shield 7D
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