Dual wielding?

[MasterSmithwise]

So there's no rules on dual wielding that I can see. I made a house rule for it and want to run it by everyone else, as well as see if anyone has actually seen an official rule, or made a house rule themselves that works well.

What I did was notice that a buckler just gives a +1 to parry. It's not nothing, but it isn't great. so for dual wielding I simply told my players that a) they obviously have to be using 2 one handed weapons, and b) they're going to trade out the +1 parry bonus for a called shot option. So, if wielding a spear and and axe, you can break a shield or go for a piercing blow. I told my players to simply declare which weapon they're attacking with that turn. The player that was curious about that ended up going with bow, so it didn't matter, but I left the rule in place.

Thoughts?

[Hermes Serpent]

Thoughts?

The first rule of Dual-wielding here is you don't talk about it.

However see any number of earlier threads where various people slag off dual-wielding or claim everyone does it in the movies for a real interesting set of answers.

I won't tell you my thoughts or I'd get banned.

[Deadmanwalking]

Sure, that works. Actually...I think you can to do this RAW. I'm not thinking of any reason you couldn't, anyway.

It's more than a bit weak mechanically (since it requires two different weapons, and thus weapon skills, to be useful), but I don't see any huge issue with it. If you want to incentivize dual wielding (which I'm not positive I'd do, but does seem to be your goal) you might want to add some additional benefits.

[Glorelendil]

My answer:

1) Call your buckler a "dagger" and use it for defense.

2) Spend a virtue point on Dour-handed and call it "Dual Wielding"

3) When you roll a Great or Extraordinary success, describe it as off-hand damage.

Solved, with no rule changes/additions at all.

EDIT: Buy another point of Dour-handed and it call it "Advanced Dual Wielding", etc.

[Glorelendil]

One thought that occurred to me for people who really want a system that allows for two attack rolls, is that you could limit the choice of offhand weapons to only dagger. That would mean that players would want to invest XP into another weapon, so that alone makes it a nice "cost" to dual-wielding.

[Deadmanwalking]

One thought that occurred to me for people who really want a system that allows for two attack rolls, is that you could limit the choice of offhand weapons to only dagger. That would mean that players would want to invest XP into another weapon, so that alone makes it a nice "cost" to dual-wielding.

Or they could focus monomaniacally on Daggers and wield a pair of them. But Daggers suck compared to most other weapons, so that maintains a notable price for doing this.

Solid idea.

[Majestic]

If I were going to allow dual wielding, I'd probably look at the instance in the RAW that already has that mechanic, the Special Ability called Savage Assault.

An interesting moment came up in my game Saturday night, as Ghor the Despoiler (who has both Savage Assault and uses the two-handed Heavy Scimitar, so it hardly makes sense for him to make a second attack with a secondary weapon) rolled his main attack and got a great or extraordinary success.

[Morgoth]

Spear of the Last Alliance gives an extra attack on a great success at the cost of a point of hope. You could make a virtue called Dual Wielding and make it do the same thing if you have two weapons. It'd be a little weaker since you'd have two attacks with weaker one-handed weapons rather than two attacks with a great spear, but lots of cultural virtues/rewards are better than general ones, so I think it would be pretty balanced.

[MattG]

One thought that occurred to me for people who really want a system that allows for two attack rolls, is that you could limit the choice of offhand weapons to only dagger. That would mean that players would want to invest XP into another weapon, so that alone makes it a nice "cost" to dual-wielding.

I like that supplemental dagger especially. Maybe it could work with made up Reward designed for only short swords or daggers. While dual wielding, on missed roll (but not with an Eye) for primary weapon, when Body bonus wouldn’t meet the TN, one could still spend that point of Hope to roll k12 twice for dagger and keep better result as the second attack.
Morgoth's idea is good for general dual wielding.

[Deadmanwalking]

Looking at the Shield Fighting Virtue for Men of the Lake also seems like a good call for mechanical inspiration involving dual-wielding.

Something very similar where you use the off-hand weapon's damage instead of the Encumbrance of the shield seems like a solid general Virtue, if perhaps a bit too good (that Virtue is ridiculous). Using, say, a sword off-hand would thus be 3 Encumbrance less than a Great shield...and -3 Parry, but otherwise much the same. Yeah, that's probably too good for general use when combine with some of the options other Cultures have. Maybe something a bit lower damage...