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Jegergryte
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Two-weapon fighting

Fri 07 Apr 2017, 01:56

Hey,

I have not found any rules for this in the game. Does it exist?

Assuming it doesn't and assuming you'd allow/want this in your game, how would you rule?
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Kaeam
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Re: Two-weapon fighting

Fri 07 Apr 2017, 11:50

Hello Jegergryte,

I would rule two-weapon fighting like this:
  • You divide your AP between your weapons.
  • If you attack at least once with your first weapon, you get an extra AP that can only be used on attacks made with your second weapon.
  • You can claim the initiative bonus from either weapon.
  • You can only wield one-handed weapons. 
  • You can wield a melee weapon in one hand and a ranged weapon in another.
  • You can't reload your weapons if both of your hands are full.
  • (OPTIONAL) Attacks made with your non-dominant hand suffer -2 penalty. You can negate the penalty if you are ambidextrous.
New talent:
Ambidexterity: You don't suffer the -2 penalty when attacking with your non-dominant hand.

Example:
The dreaded corsair captain Ibraaheem al-Bahar is wielding a knife in his right hand and a pistol in his left hand. He has 3 AP to spend and 3 enemies to kill:
  1. Ibraaheem claims the initiative bonus from his knife, which allows him to act before his enemies.
  2. Ibraaheem spends 2 AP on a regular attack to kill the first enemy with his knife. Because he attacked with his knife, Ibraaheem gets an extra AP that can only be used on attacks made with his pistol.
  3. Ibraaheem now has one regular AP and one extra AP left.
  4. Ibraaheem can either A) make a quick attack with his knife (1 AP) and a quick shot with his pistol (1 AP), B) make two quick shots with his pistol (1 AP each), or C) make a regular shot with his pistol (2 AP).
  5. Ibraaheem decides to make two quick shots at the remaining enemies with his pistol, suffering -4 penalty to each attack (-2 from quick shot, -2 because he is right-handed). Unsurprisingly, both attacks miss.
  6. Ibraaheem has no AP left, so he ends his turn and gets stabbed to death by the remaining enemies.
 
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Jegergryte
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Re: Two-weapon fighting

Fri 07 Apr 2017, 16:32

Ibraaheem has no AP left, so he ends his turn and gets stabbed to death by the remaining enemies.
Nice. :D
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ConnorsRPG
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Re: Two-weapon fighting

Mon 10 Apr 2017, 06:35

Or, as I just made up for Mutant Year Zero, you make it a talent which grants you access to a new stunt and for 1 stunt point you get to make a 2nd attack with a different weapon you are wielding ;) Seemed pretty easy.

Of course extra talents could unlock extra features such as a defensive aspect.

I went this way rather than messing with the action economy. (For eg, in Mutant, only actions and maneuvers, and if you gave up your maneuver, then 2-weapon fighters are then the least likely to move about, which to me is against stereotype). ANyway, glad someone else asked as I was just converting PCs and had same Q. :)
 
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Jegergryte
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Re: Two-weapon fighting

Mon 10 Apr 2017, 09:59

Nice idea ConnorsRPG.

From how I understand Coriolis combat, now looking more thoroughly in the combat chapter ... and being inspired by you guys... I have some ideas:
  1. TWC is basically just two quick attacks (as Kaeam points out) with two different weapons for 1 AP at a -2 modifier, but arguably you could also do it by making one normal attack (2 AP) and one quick attack (1 AP), if you'd rather not move about, I'd limit it to light weapons. The only rule you may want to add, is the off-hand rule, if you're into that sort of thing. ;)
  2. I'd make you claim the initiative for the weapon you intend to make your first attack with.
  3. A talent could allow TWC attacks (normal or quick) to be made with any one-handed weapons (non-heavy.)
I can see this making sense. It's a bit fiddly though, as you point out Connors. This route also prevents TWC to be used for more deliberate attacks, which may make more sense and be more realistic, but hey, not all groups feel the need to go that route. :) This route, involves more rolling though, I don't like adding unnecessary rolling. :P

Perhaps somewhere in between. To allow for an easier Mutant connection, as you call out:
  1. So borrowing from FFG SWRPG, I'd make TWC a -31 check combat check, and add a stunt that allows you to hit with your second weapon and deal damage, limited to only light weapons.
  2. To explain further: you designate which weapon you use for initiative, this is the one you attack with and deal damage with if you only roll 1 success. If you roll more than 1 success, you can spend one of these additional successes to hit the same target with the second weapon. Additional successes can be spend to increase damage2 (to go with FFG this means additional damage applies to both weapons, you may not want to do that in this game,) critical hits can be activated on each weapon once.
  3. You use the bonus from the weapon you designate at your initiative weapon.
  4. Autofiring and two-weapon combat should just not be combined in my opinion, but if you feel like it, go for it... but a total of -5 is pretty bad :P
  5. TWC can be performed as either quick (1AP), normal (2AP) or deliberate/aimed attack (3AP), adding the appropriate modifiers to the check (you can still aim in MY0.)
  6. The suggested talent3, allows any non-heavy one handed weapon to be used for TWC.
  7. Alternately (or additionally4) it decreases the TWC penalty to -1.
  8. A third effect, in this dual wielding madness, if you're into that sort of thing, could allow you to hit a second target when TWC, a new stunt requiring an additional success. This could either be part of the talent(s) or as a basic stunt.
This solution involves only one roll and is therefore an all or nothing action, which I think makes sense, but then that's how I've played it in SWRPG for that past several years.

1I think makes more sense than -1 or -2 as it should be difficult, but furthermore, if you roll just 1 additional success you can deal up to 3 more damage, if dual wielding pistols. For a total of 5 damage if you're wielding a Thermal cricket and Vulcan cricket, rolling 2 successes.
2 Alternately you may not allow the additional damage stunt to be activated when dual wielding. YMMV.
3 I'd suggest this to be the only talent. When allowing using non-heavy one handed weapons in TWC, just looking at pistols, this could result in 2 successes equalling 6 damage (Vulcan pistol Arax Omir and thermal pistol.)
4 If you want this as a talent effect, I'd suggest this to be a second talent, that required the above talent. Also you may want to change it even further, to only decrease the penalty by 1 per instance of the talent bought, and you can maximum have 2 (ranks) of it.

EDIT: Adding and changing some stuff. Also: I'm not sure which one I'd use, if any. My GM may not allow it anyway :D
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Kaeam
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Re: Two-weapon fighting

Mon 10 Apr 2017, 21:35

Nice work, Jegergryte! Now people have more options to choose from.  :)

However, I have some questions and comments concerning your suggestion:
  • You need a dice pool of 5 before you add the -3 TWC penalty to even have a chance to get the second attack.
  • Your maximum damage is slightly lower than if you only attacked with one weapon.
  • What happens to your second attack if you manage to kill your enemy with the first attack?
  • How are things like vibro reloads and scopes handled if only one of your weapons has them?
  • What happens if your weapons have different ranges?
  • How would you handle characters that have additional limbs and can thus wield more than two weapons?
  • How does defending work against TWC?
 
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Jegergryte
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Re: Two-weapon fighting

Mon 10 Apr 2017, 22:41

All very good questions! I haven't thought about most of them. Let's see...
  1. Good point, but for a combat focused character I don't see that as a problem. Also, it's not supposed to be easy. You could of course lower it to -2
  2. Really? I thought extra successes only added 1 point of damage. You could of course opt to allow additional successes to add damage to both weapons' damage, so if you roll 3 successes, you hit with primary weapon (1 success), you can hit with secondary weapon (1 success), add 1 point of damage to both attacks (1 success.) So your Thermal and Vulcan cricket wielding yahoo goes from 5 to 7 damage for one additional success. Normally, the Vulcan cricket does 2 damage, so that could be 4 total with three successes, if you opt only for damage. The Thermal cricket would end up on 5. Going the route I suggested would lower the damage by 1. It becomes somewhat a question of weapon combination, and of course damage 1 weapons won't add much except a factor of cool you don't have with one weapon (excepting auto-fire weapons.) ;) :P
  3. Nothing, it's lost. That's the cost of going in guns blazing or swords twirling. If it was a quick attack, he still has 2 APs left, if it was a normal attack he still has 1 AP left, if it was a deliberate/aimed attack, his round is over.
  4. Scopes: Bonus applies if it's the primary weapon, i.e. the one you attack with, that is the one you use the initiative bonus from. Also, I'd say you can only benefit from from Sensor Scope and Advanced Scopes, the Optical Scope seems more like a rifle mounted spyglass thingy. Vibro-reload: This is a bit of a different beast. But again, I'd apply the bonus only if it was the primary weapon (initiative weapon), but target would get their +2 Armour Rating to protect against the damage originating from that weapon. This entails rolling protection for each weapon separately, but that sort of makes sense, and it solves this issue. It's also how its done in the system I get this idea from.
  5. Obviously, since there can be only one target, the target can be no further away than the weapon with the shortest range.
  6. I'd ignore it, unless they were robots or have heavily augmented machine minds, or some odd kind of homebrewed alien with quad-wield special abilities... then I'd leave it up to the homebrewer ;) but you could of course just require additional successes to hit with additional weapons, and if you want to limit the player/NPC you add a -1 per weapon beyond the second.
  7. Well, you don't defend against ranged attacks, if I recall correctly. So, in melee, and assuming I remember how this works correctly, you roll against their initial attack roll and your successes cancel theirs. So if you cancel enough successes they cannot hit you twice, but perhaps still once...
Well, that was a quick attempt before bedtime. :)
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Kaeam
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Re: Two-weapon fighting

Tue 11 Apr 2017, 00:08

Thanks for the answers, Jegergryte.  :)

Your potential maximum damage depends on the weapons you use, the size of the TWC penalty, and whether extra successes spent on damage affect both attacks or not, so TWC might actually end up having higher potential maximum damage:
  • If you only attack with one weapon, your potential maximum damage is [weapon's damage] + [pool size - 1]
  • If you attack with both weapons and extra successes only affect one of the attacks, your potential maximum damage is [first weapon's damage] + [second weapon's damage] + [pool size - penalty - 2]
  • If you attack with both weapons and extra successes affect both of the attacks, your potential maximum damage is [first weapon's damage] + [second weapon's damage] + 2 x [pool size - penalty - 2]
On the topic of extra limbs, there is a bionic sculpt (Morph) that can grant you an extra pair of arms, so quad-wielding isn't completely in the realm of homebrewing :P:
EXTRA PAIR OF ARMS: You can perform an extra fast action per turn, as long as you can use the extra arms for that action.
 
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Jegergryte
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Re: Two-weapon fighting

Tue 11 Apr 2017, 09:52

Yeah, also. There's the coolness factor and other mechanical interaction. So coolness factor isn't enough for a lot of players, I know, but it's one that I stand by as enough justification for almost anything. So, let's ignore it, as "we" always do ;) :P

1) Other mechanical interaction could be one or more talents, for instance reducing the penalty. This of course makes TWC quickly contingent upon gaining those talents, if the talent(s) changes the mechanical working of the this action, that is to say if it directly manipulates the dice pool. We, or I at least, don't want TWC to be an automatic go-to for max damage output, yet I don't want it to be pointless either. If going for a penalty reducing/removing talent, I'd probably opt for requiring separate successes for increasing the damage of each weapon, and limit TWC weapons to light weapons, no talent to allow normal one-handed weapons.

2) If I stay with a flat non-adjustable -3 penalty, I do believe additional damage should apply to both weapons. I'd still consider limiting TWC to light weapons only if 1 success adds 1 damage to two different weapons.

3) An overlap between mechanical benefit and coolness would be allowing new weapons to be used, that is to say non-light, non-heavy, one-handed weapons, which I think may be a better solution than allowing penalty reduction (but that's me,) yet it still represents power creep. It increases damage output, but the if we retain the penalty, damage potential is kept somewhat limited. I wouldn't combine this with penalty reduction. Regarding increasing damage, I'd probably do 1 success for both weapons, as long as the penalty was a flat -3.

All of these should be play-tested though to make sure what works best in practice (which I assume will vary between groups,) as opposed to armchair game theorising :D :P


4) To hit a second target could either be a talent: you declare before you roll and use the modifiers coming from the target that is the hardest to hit, this talent allows you to spend the success for activating the second weapon to also hit a second target. Or just add a stunt that requires an additional success to hit a second target (so 3 total successes: 1 to hit, 1 activate second weapon and 1 hit second target.)

5) Regarding Morph: I'd probably not let you hit with a third weapon, sure you can do an extra 1 AP action per turn, which could translate to a quick attack, I know, but using the ideas I have here I wouldn't let a third or fourth arm let you wield and use more weapons for attacking simultaneously. Arguably you could use the third arm to make a quick attack first (or afterwards,) and make a normal TWC attack too.

I've moved into the lands of TWC being a talent in its own right I think, if not its own little mini-game... Or at best a series of linked talents. Fun exercise, but its getting a bit much now :D it's moving away from what I understand the design intent of the system seems to be.


After some thought, I think I'd just go for TWC being a combination of a quick attack/shot and a normal attack/shot. Not sure I'd add the extra AP for an additional attack as a default thing, I'm not sure its needed, but it could arguably be a Gunslinger talent that let's you add 1 extra attack-only AP when attacking with a light weapon once per round, this attack-AP must be with used with a different weapon. Sure, this is more rolling of dice, but this seems to be more in line with the design intent... perhaps.
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Kaeam
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Re: Two-weapon fighting

Tue 11 Apr 2017, 12:10

Yeah, it is probably best not to make two-weapon fighting too complex.  :P


If you feel that two-weapon fighting doesn't need to give characters more attacks, wielding two weapons still gives you more flexibility as you have two attack options to choose from. For example, you could load one pistol with vibro rounds and another with armour-piercing rounds, making you able to effectively fight both armoured and unarmoured enemies without having to swap weapons all the time.  ;)

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