Dual Wielding

[Valarian]

Personally, unless they have a full shield, I don't allow the parry bonus for ranged attacks.

[Corvo]

While I don't allow (nor need) dual wielding in my game, I remember there is a sort of precedent in Tales from the Wilderlands: Oderic, from Kinstrife, fights with sword and axe following the rules for Savage Assault.
Translating Hate points to Hope, it makes for a suitably dangerous character... And suitably tragic, since it's a Hope sink.
Alternatively, Rocmistro's rules are really nice (and more user-friendly than Savage Assault).
Or the weapon as buckler (but only for melee, imo, otherwise bucklers are useless)

[Stormcrow]

Oderic, from Kinstrife, fights with sword and axe following the rules for Savage Assault.
Translating Hate points to Hope [...]

Well spotted!

[Falenthal]

I haven't given it much thought, but I guess I would use something in this line:

- The combat is resolved using the skill of the main weapon as usual.
- That skill is reduced by double (or maybe just the normal?) the Encumbrance of the secondary weapon (a dagger is considered to have an Encumbrance of 1, thus reducing the main weapon skill by 2 grades).
- At the beginning of each round, the player may choose to add the basic Encumbrance of the secondary weapon either to his Parry Rating or tho the total damage done.
- The Encumbrance of the secondary weapon is, of course, added to the Fatigue Threshold of the hero.

[JoeArcher]

If you were to dual wield:

A second weapon would never be better defence than a shield, so I don't think it should give any parry bonus at all.

When attacking with two weapons it's not a good tactic to try to attack with both (doing more damage), most likely you would be able to make a better hit with only one weapon.

What a second weapon can do however is using an opening if you feint with your main weapon and then close in with the dagger, or as a quick counter attack when parrying.

If I were to use dual wield in my game I would let the off hand weapon hit at a TN of one lower than the main weapon. So if the TN to hit was 15 and you rolled 14, then your main weapon would miss, but you would be allowed to hit with the dagger.

[zedturtle]

If you were to dual wield:

A second weapon would never be better defence than a shield, so I don't think it should give any parry bonus at all.

When attacking with two weapons it's not a good tactic to try to attack with both (doing more damage), most likely you would be able to make a better hit with only one weapon.

What a second weapon can do however is using an opening if you feint with your main weapon and then close in with the dagger, or as a quick counter attack when parrying.

If I were to use dual wield in my game I would let the off hand weapon hit at a TN of one lower than the main weapon. So if the TN to hit was 15 and you rolled 14, then your main weapon would miss, but you would be allowed to hit with the dagger.

That's an interesting system...definitely a different approach to dual-wielding than I've seen before. But... your chances of getting a hit in with the off-weapon go down as you get more skilled (someone who has 4 dice won't miss by one a lot) and increase as when you get Weary (because the die average goes down). I guess it could be explained away in the fiction, but it seems an odd setup.

[JoeArcher]

Yeah you're right, that seems odd

I don't think I'd allow the off hand to hit at all when weary, so that fixes that specific issue.

As for more skilled characters not hitting with the off hand as often, that is a right problem, as one would think dual wielding actually required more skill.

Perhaps if you miss with your main weapon, then you'd be allowed to reroll one (or more, but that needs a bit of math to decide) of your dice to see if the secondary weapon hits.

[Azrael Macool]

So, I want to make it clear that I'm pretty new to this game, but I've read all the books. I was just thinking about this earlier today, in case one of my players wants to do something like this (yes, it's not very "Middle-earth-y", but you know, players want what they want, and I try to be accommodating when I can). They way I figured it, if dual wielding, you'd make one attack roll, using the lowest skill among your weapons (so, if you're wielding a sword and a dagger, and you're Sword skill is 3 and your Dagger 1, you'd only roll 1 Success die). Then, the TN to hit the enemy is increased by 2 if using a light weapon in your off-hand (I'm thinking dagger, short sword, and axe), 4 if it's a regular weapon (sword and spear, though maybe axe should be bumped up to this category), and 6 if using a long sword or long-hafted axe (and if I'm not mistaken, everything else is a two-handed weapon only, and therefore ineligible). Finally, when making an attack, on a success you may apply the damage of either weapon on a success, the damage of the other (instead of your own damage bonus) on a great success, and your damage bonus on an extraordinary success. In addition, you may use either weapon's Edge rating or Injury rating, your choice, and on a called shot, you may use whichever called shot effect of either weapon, or deal additional damage instead. You may also use whichever quality on either, as appropriate.

Now, I literally came up with this earlier today, and haven't gotten a chance to test it. The first thing I might do is completely disallow long swords and long-hafted axes from being dual-wielded, and/or up the TN increase to hit by 2. As for the damage, I think it would be fairly balanced, since a regular damage rating will almost always be about the same as weapon damage (Except for like... Hobbits, I guess, and Woodmen, but lower for Beornings and Dwarves). It could get crazy if you combined, say, a Keen Spear and a Grievous Axe... but that's also at the cost of +4 to the TN to hit. Maybe instead of the highest Edge and Injury rating, you use the lowest for both on a success, highest of one on a great success, and highest of both on an extraordinary success.

As for a secondary weapon being more defensive... While that's true, it wouldn't be any better than a shield, and since a buckler only gives you +1 to your Parry, than it wouldn't effect you're Parry at all. Though maybe there could be a special Quality,Defensive, only available for the dagger and maybe the short sword (can't imagine anything else would be able to have it), that grants you a +1 Parry rating (counts as a shield bonus), and another Quality, Balanced, could maybe subtract 1 from the added TN to hit. Both could only be applied once.

A bit complex, but hey, so is fighting with multiple weapons.

[Valarian]

You wouldn't be able to dual-wield with a long sword / long-hafted axe. The balance of the weapons would be off and the fighting style doesn't fit for long weapons until you get to pointy, stabby weapons in the renaissance. For those, a side-on fencing stance works.

Dual-wield in earlier times is short weapons; e.g. axe/sword, two axes, short sword/dagger. You either use the off-hand for defence, or you feint with the primary hand and attack with the off-hand. You stand facing your opponent. The only exceptions to that would be Roman gladiators, some of whom used trident (a long weapon) and net.

The easiest way to handle it is to allow only light one-handed weapons (e.g. hand-axe, short sword, dagger) and give either a +1 damage to the main attack or +1 parry bonus to your defence. It's an alternative to a buckler that presents a defensive/offensive bonus. This allows people to dual-wield without adding complication or breaking things.

[JoeArcher]

It's a decent solution valerian... except there is no reason not to dual wield then. If I were to include it, I'd like it to be an alternative, with pros and cons. I'd rather say +1 damage and -1 parry OR -1 damage and +1 parry, if you want to make it versatile like that.