Dual wielding?

[Fridokind Wargaug]

I have house ruled, that only daggers can be dual wielded, although the dagger I made up for this rule has 4 damage, Gandalf rune for edge and 14 injury. So you basically have a weapon (when both rolls hit) with 8, 10 and 14, which is not better than some two handed weapons, so it's not OP.

Additionally, we have a sickle, which you can use two of, but only if you have 4 skill points, it it's better than the dagger (4,10,16) but still worse than the two-handed axe, especially because we use a system that punishes eyes during combat more, so chances are double you roll an eye.

[Rich H]

Love how this subject keeps cropping up again... and again... and again.

As I raft of changes I only allow duel-wielding to be picked as a Virtue for the Slayer Calling - other Callings get new Virtues but they are not the subject of this thread.

DUAL WIELDING
Forgoing a shield drastically lowers defence, but it does free the hand for other tasks, like pulling another knife. In untrained hands, such abandon oft proves fatal, but for the adroit or talented, it can be a vicious combination.

You wield two, one-handed weapons with lethal grace and potent skill. This is limited to club, dagger, hand-axe, mace, morning star, and short sword. The encumbrance value of both weapons must be calculated for determination of Fatigue (paired daggers have an Encumbrance of 1). One weapon must be designated the primary; the other is the secondary. The bonus of dual wielding depends on current Stance:

• Forward: Reduce the Edge of the primary weapon by one

• Open: Increase the Injury TN of the primary weapon by two

• Defensive: Add a parry value equal to the Encumbrance of your secondary weapon +1 (ie, not the paired total, just a single weapon, so a dagger has +1 to parry while a short-sword adds +2 to parry).

In all cases, only a single attack roll is ever made and no more than a single target can be attacked per turn.

[MasterSmithwise]

Love how this subject keeps cropping up again... and again... and again.

Well... it's not well covered. My players and I googled for it extensively and found no results. I know there's a clan of people that think dual wielding is a stupid thing, but it's really not that bad, and a lot of people enjoy the cinematic value. Especially in a game that's as narration driven as TOR.

As I raft of changes I only allow duel-wielding to be picked as a Virtue for the Slayer Calling - other Callings get new Virtues but they are not the subject of this thread.
The bonus of dual wielding depends on current Stance:

• Forward: Reduce the Edge of the primary weapon by one

• Open: Increase the Injury TN of the primary weapon by two

• Defensive: Add a parry value equal to the Encumbrance of your secondary weapon +1 (ie, not the paired total, just a single weapon, so a dagger has +1 to parry while a short-sword adds +2 to parry).

I think for a "rules light" system such as TOR, this virtue is too much. It doesn't fit well. That and it doesn't embrace the variety of weapons. An axe in the offhand will yield drastically different results than a dagger, and I think that should be appropriately reflected as simply as possible.

I think I might go with my original house rule, but add in a parry bonus equal to the encumbrance of the weapon. I like that encumbrance idea. Given that a player would have to rank both weapons, it makes sense that they'd get a bonus to begin with that sets them equal with shield users. But It should also be chosen as a virtue, since a player can effectively be a more efficient entry level combatant. The encumbrance for a buckler and a sword aren't dissimilar, (If I'm remembering correctly) but the short sword offers more parry.


It should also be noted that when my players are creating heroes, I allow them to take any combination of weapon skills that are offered in the original weapon sets. I think it's silly that you're locked into just 2 sets of proficiency. so with that in mind, a play can decide to use swords and axes as 2 weapons they want to be good at anyway, and the experience cost to make dual wielding really worth it isn't so bad.

[Hermes Serpent]

If you think the subject has not been covered extensively here then your Google-fu is not very good.

Dual-wielding is, IMNSHO, an abomination that D&D has inflicted on any number of better games by making it better than using one weapon effectively when it was used mostly in one period of history.

It's your game and you can do what you want but don't complain if your mods break the game system.

[MasterSmithwise]

If you think the subject has not been covered extensively here then your Google-fu is not very good.

Dual-wielding is, IMNSHO, an abomination that D&D has inflicted on any number of better games by making it better than using one weapon effectively when it was used mostly in one period of history.

It's your game and you can do what you want but don't complain if your mods break the game system.

Well that was unfriendly and unhelpful. Your post's only purpose was to make me feel like I'm in the wrong because I like the idea of dual-wielding. I'm asking for people's thoughts on dual wielding. You already stated immediately you don't like it. I would appreciate it if you refrained from bashing the idea any further since we all know your stance now. I'd just like creative/constructive feedback please.

[MasterSmithwise]

Just so I can say I did all I can, I googled dual wielding again. My players had stated they googled it and didn't find anything, and they're pretty competent people so I just trusted them. However, in this case it appears they did something odd with their googling because I searched "the one ring dual wielding" and got a billion of posts. So I'll just go sift through those. My bad for not double checking my players. Lesson learned.

[Rocmistro]

Don't worry too much about Hermes Serpent. He means well, he's just a bit grumpy sometimes.

[Valarian]

The way I deal with dual-wielding is to limit it to the "light" weapons (hand-axe, short sword, dagger, etc). You add the encumbrance for both weapons (2 daggers = 1 enc). When using the weapons, the player gets to choose whether they add +1 to parry or +1 weapon damage that combat turn. In essence, they concentrate on off-hand defence or they use their off-hand weapon to score a better hit on the opponent.

You, under no circumstances, get 2 attacks. Therein lies the abomination Hermes Serpent gets so upset about. The historical usage of a second, off-hand, weapon was debated ad nauseum elsewhere in the thread history.

As for the search:
search.php?keywords=dual+wielding&terms ... mit=Search

[Glorelendil]

Don't worry too much about Hermes Serpent. He means well, he's just a bit grumpy sometimes.

He's sort of like a cross between Gandalf on a bad beard day and Beorn.

[Rich H]

Love how this subject keeps cropping up again... and again... and again.

Well... it's not well covered. My players and I googled for it extensively and found no results. I know there's a clan of people that think dual wielding is a stupid thing, but it's really not that bad, and a lot of people enjoy the cinematic value. Especially in a game that's as narration driven as TOR.

It's a subject where the horse has been flogged, run off, caught, flogged again, run around the field for a time and then turned into dog food, glue, and ended up in Tesco Lasagne! ... I see from an earlier post that you did miss other threads on it.

I think for a "rules light" system such as TOR, this virtue is too much. It doesn't fit well. That and it doesn't embrace the variety of weapons. An axe in the offhand will yield drastically different results than a dagger, and I think that should be appropriately reflected as simply as possible.

Thanks for the feedback, but I reject what you've said there. The house rule I quoted above takes into account the differing stances (an established part of the RAW) and how dual wield could mechanically differ using them, it uses the encumbrance rating of the weapon (another established part of the RAW regarding weapon defences), ties it to a Virtue (another established part of the RAW), and also doesn't over complicate the rule with different weapon types which are ultimately just there to service the same need (dual wield) so keeps it 'rules light'. These *all* fit in with the RAW. I'd submit that your original suggestion is a far more "unfitting to such a system as TOR" to be frank; well, until you altered it to take on some of the house rule I use.