Expanded weapons charts.

[Rocmistro]

Elf, that pretty much sums up my position on it. That's why I think keeping it relegated to daggers, torches, maybe whips, possibly short sword and hatchets too.

I don't know if Aragorn with the torch on weathertop is canon or PJ's poetic license. Either way, I approve of that.

[Beran]

There was one in the RichH collect Home Rules.

Thanks.

[Corvo]

I honestly hope that dual wielding, that abomination, never gets put into TOR. However throwing axes are historical for the era many of the cultures are derived from so that makes sense, but they are more 'chuck it just before the enemy charge hits you as a distraction' than an effective weapon so maybe an effect on first round of combat rather than anything more.

To be fair, some type of "dual-wielding" creeped already in TOR
In Tales from the Wilderland, page 60 circa (Kinstrife and Dark Tiding), we have Oderic using Savage Assault skill with Sword and Axe

(that said, I mostly agree with your sentiments)

[zedturtle]

Elf, that pretty much sums up my position on it. That's why I think keeping it relegated to daggers, torches, maybe whips, possibly short sword and hatchets too.

I don't know if Aragorn with the torch on weathertop is canon or PJ's poetic license. Either way, I approve of that.

• Even as he swooned he caught, as through a swirling mist, a glimpse of Strider leaping out of the darkness with a flaming brand of wood in either hand.

So there you go, dual wielding sticks is in-canon. All else is doubtful.

[aramis]

Actually guys I hate dual-wielding in any game that isn't set in a renaissance style setting where the lack of armour and fencing styles make it useful. Even then, during the period when it was actually used, it was pretty rare.

The use of and off-hand dagger while using smaller round shields, and a broadsword in the on-hand, is a "tradition" of Scotland. It's well documented in the 18th C, attested to vaguely prior.

The 14th century German manuals also include offhand dagger with dexter sword; again, it's not seen as an innovation.

Some of the illustrations in the Bayeux Tapestry appear to be sword and spear (with reigns in the spear-hand, and the spear couched). This may or may not be a use-posture, but the scenes in question are action scenes.

One cannot rule out two weapon fighting - in fact, some of the surviving literature implies it to have been uncommon and noteworthy for being used, but still not worthy of more than describing the pair of weapons. Usually it's sword and dagger, or spear and dagger, sometimes sword and dagger with shield. The evidence is strongly ambiguous as to whether the pre-15th C use was serial (one after another) or multiple weapons fighting.

[Yepesnopes]

To be fair, some type of "dual-wielding" creeped already in TOR
In Tales from the Wilderland, page 60 circa (Kinstrife and Dark Tiding), we have Oderic using Savage Assault skill with Sword and Axe

(that said, I mostly agree with your sentiments)

Also Lake Town characters can attack with both their weapon and shield in the same round (I don't remember the name of the ability). My character had it, if I recall good, after a successful attack you roll the feat dice again, on a roll of 8+ you strike also with the shield, inflicting damage equal to its encumbrance.

[Valarian]

I disagree that dual-wielding small weapons is an abomination. As Arthadan has posted, the combination of a small sword and axe, or two hand axes, or a dagger in the off-hand, can be found through history if you look. From Roman gladiatorial combats, Viking raids and invasion, Celtic sagas. It's not just a renaissance construct. Even the shield was a weapon when the shield wall had been broken, used to beat people away as well as defend.

I simple expedient of choosing +1 damage or +1 Parry in a combat round allows dual-wielding as a character concept without adding game breaking complexity or power.

[Woodclaw]

I'm really not completely opposed to dual-wielding, but I feel like it's both unnecessary and a slippery slope to munchkinism. The spirit of the game is such that you could use existing rules and make the fluff equal dual wielding. E.g., you could take "Dour Handed" and say that it means you have a dagger in your offhand that both counts as a buckler and does the extra damage.

If there were a single example of dual wielding in the Sacred Texts I'd be more enthusiastic of a rule.

If by "sacred texts" you mean the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, actually there's one example at least -- born more out of desperation than choice, I admit: when Sam faces Shelob to save Frodo, the description says that he rush her with his own Numenorean blade in the right and picks up Sting with the left (I can't find the exact quote but I belive it was the opening of "The Choices of Master Samwise" -- Two Towers, Book IV, Chapter 10)

[Hermes Serpent]

It's still an abomination used by players who usually don't understand the use of medieval weaponry to justify extra damage in RPGs. Sword and shield where the shield is used to bash is not the sort of dual-wielding that most players understand as dual-wielding. That is "big sword in one hand and sword or axe in the other and I do twice as much damage" rather than "I use my off-hand weapon as a parrying device in place of a shield and can sometimes with a bit of luck stab him somewhere useful".

Having written material for Chivalry and Sorcery and played that and RQ for years as well as studying medieval warfare I've seen all manner of justifications for a player wanting to use two weapons to make an uber-warrior that have virtually no basis in fact beyond they saw it done in a film or on tv.

You can flavour your One Ring off-hand parrying device as an axe if you want but it still mechanically counts as a shield.

[Glorelendil]

Jump ahead to the Dark Ages after Rome’s fall, just before Christianity starts to take over, our best source for fighting styles in Northern Europe are the Icelandic Sagas. The Sagas are full of examples of warriors using a weapon in each hand, not counting the 8-10 times that it is mentioned that a warrior switches weapon hands to confuse their opponent, an act that shows a certain amount of ambidexterity which makes two weapon fighting possible.

There are several examples of different fighting styles. The one that shows up the most is axe and spear, the favoured style of Thorgeir, one of the main characters in Fóstbrœðra saga. He is mentioned fighting in this manner on at least two occasions. Sword and spear is mentioned as being used by two different people in Njal’s Saga. There is a little bit of confusion about whether the most famous mention is sword and spear, or sword and halberd. I am talking about Gunnar in Njal’s Saga and his altgeir. The altgeir is a weapon that is typically translated as a halberd, but no proof has ever been found of such a weapon. Some more recent translations say that it's a spear meant for piercing mail. Continuing the trend of fighting with two swords, we see an example of it in the Droplaugarsona saga, showing that the trend didn’t die with the Gladiators of Rome. As you read through the sagas, you even see the strange pairing of fighting with a halberd and staff. It seems that nearly every combination of weapons is used at some point or another. My favourite weapon pairing (sword and axe) has two examples in the sagas. Thormod enters battle in Fóstbrœðra saga armed only with a sword and axe, and in Víga-Glúms saga, Eyiolf does the same. This is discounting the idea of the Atgeir as a halberd, otherwise there'd be three examples of sword-and-axe type weapons.

Just want to point out that...no offense to Icelanders...the Icelandic Sagas are wonderful stories but hardly "historical record."