Troll Lord Games

I Was thinking of a modification to this rule as many rpgs make the penalties so did I almost never see someone fight two handed. So here is a house rule I Was thinking of, well two house rules. 1. Instead of an off hand strike, make a siege check, if you succeed your off hand hits. 2. Make a second ark. If you succeed, you only deal weapon damage. No modifiers.

I can see that working, but would it be enough to encourage someone to use 2 weapons? In my house rules, as well as Treebore's, a Dex Prime character gets further reductions to the penalty, so some people have used 2 weapon fighting.

R-

What is discouraging about it? There is no penalty in the proposed house rule beyond making a second attack roll or seige check.

I don't think anything is discouraging about your rule. I think that it would work fine. I was just wondering if it would be enough to want to do it all the time.

R-

I see what you're saying!

This is how I do it in my games. I have had a fair amount of players want to fight with two melee weapons.

Characters who want to "specialize" in 2 weapon fighting I give them the opportunity to reduce the off-hand penalty by up to 3 (so, -3/-3).

The overall -3/-6 can be offset by a positive DEX modifier, and can be combined with the specialized ability if possible.

Being specialized and having a good DEX mod can never bring the penalties from fighting with two weapons greater than 0.

~O

That is what I Was moving away from. Dropping the atk penalty and applying a dmg penalty instead.

Here's a question, are you considering removing the penalty to attacks for the monks 2nd off hand attack? Steve has explained the 2 weapon fighting and the monks 2nd open hand attack as being the same thing.

R-

That is a good point I had not considered. I'll review the monks two handed rules.

Rigon wrote:Here's a question, are you considering removing the penalty to attacks for the monks 2nd off hand attack? Steve has explained the 2 weapon fighting and the monks 2nd open hand attack as being the same thing.

R-

Monks use the TWF rules, except they explicitly do not receive the penalties: "A monk’s secondary hand-to-hand attack ability does not suffer any penalty for two-weapon fighting and it inflicts the damage in the monk special ability chart."

The penalties too hit are there to make it harder.. possibly too hard. If you allow dex prime to remove one point from each and the DEX bonuses to further reduce then there is little left to stop someone from doing it all the time. They get level to hit bonus and STR to hit and STR damage bonuses... nothing stops the second hand attack from damage. What needs changing? Too steep of to hit penalties? You loose a shield but always gain an attempt at a second to hit with the prime hand weapon suffering little. Seems like extra attacks for little cost. However, what do you do when the fighter is specialized in that weapon and has 2 attacks per round.. four? What are the limits on the second weapon relative to the first. Bastard sword in the prime hand and a short sword or dirk in the second hand? A thief with two daggers? Seems like you can do just about anything you want with to hit penalties or with damage reduction to the second weapon.. but the second attack should be required to hit the target or in some way the target needs a defense against the attack. The roll needs to be penalized by the lvl of the opponent. Just be careful what the munchkins will do to your rules.

Two Handed Fighting:

If you want to be a two weapon Fighter take DEX as Prime. This drops the penalties by 1, to -2 for primary hand and -5 for the off hand. Dex bonus' offset these penalties, so an 18 DEX would change these to +1/-2. If DEX isn't prime then the penalties remain 3/6, but the DEX bonus still offsets these before a roll is made. So if you have a +2 DEX bonus the penalties are -1 and -4, then you roll your attacks as normal. Typically BtH + STR bonus' + magic.

I still think the penalties are too stiff. I have played too many games now where there is no penalty for two weapon wielding and the game didn't break. I just don't see a reason for penalties to dual weapon wielding anymore. However, I don't think one should be able to dual wield whatever they want. I would limit it D6 damage weapons or less. Basically, small or light weapons such as daggers, short swords, small axes, etc. and for a successful off hand strike, The PC does not get to add their str mod to damage with the weapon.

That being said, I like Tree's idea of attacking normally with str and just using the dex mod as a way to offset the penalty. You know, now that I think about it. CnC's dual wielding rules lend themselves to rouges and assassins very well. While using dex to attack one will be trying to get a flank or back attack in and if they have a generous CK, this could trigger their sneak attack ability (I let my assassins and rouges use sneak attack if they can achieve flanking with another player, a la 3.5E) which would actually give the rouge or assassin a much smaller penalty (assume +2 Dex, +1 or +2 for flank/back facing, and +4 for their sneak attack bonus). Not too shabby. I still don't like such stiff dual weapon penalties. I guess that is just me.

Unless you train to dual wield, the penalties are pretty appropriate IMO, having fought both ways IRL. It was one of the things I liked about the Skills and Powers books. You could chose to have been trained for reduced penalties. A class specific for dual wielding would also be an appropriate way to deal with things. (thinking) You could also modify the fighter with a high DEX or DEX prime by giving them the option of Weapon Specialization or Style Specialization-Dual Wield.

C&C is a low powered game compared to other versions of D&D. So its to prevent Low level characters from doubling their damage output at first level. If your a Fighter, and have a good DEX, and in my games, take Dex as a Prime, by 5th level your going to have positive modifiers to your rolls, over all, and effectively have 2 attacks every round well before 10th level. Then, when you finally reach 10th level, you will have 3 attacks around. Getting all this with a penalty lower than the -3/-6 as written in the book is pretty sweet.

Sticking by the book would keep it very unattractive until a game gets around 9th level or higher. Which, according to previous discussions in these forums rarely happens. So there would be no point to go the 2 weapon route in such games. Which is why I made it possible, with good DEX, selecting DEX Prime, etc... to make it pretty effective by 5th level.

that is the reason for dropping the str mod to dmg on the off hand atk. That being said, I found the dual weapon advantage in the CKG. It reduces the penalty by 2 for each hand so it becomes -1 and -4. That is much more manageable. I would gladly award that advantage to a dedicated dual wielder.

jdizzy001 wrote:that is the reason for dropping the str mod to dmg on the off hand atk. That being said, I found the dual weapon advantage in the CKG. It reduces the penalty by 2 for each hand so it becomes -1 and -4. That is much more manageable. I would gladly award that advantage to a dedicated dual wielder.

Yeah, but that makes no sense to me. Thats like saying your primary arm has an 18 Str, but your secondary arm is only 9 Str.

Treebore wrote:Yeah, but that makes no sense to me. Thats like saying your primary arm has an 18 Str, but your secondary arm is only 9 Str.

I supposed one could argue that the intial attack is made normally- getting the full power of ones body behind the blow, and then making the second attack as an afterthought, without the rest of the body helping. Kind of like throwing a baseball while sitting down.

But not all attacks may be made that way. One could argue for multiple styles here.


-Fizz

As you mentioned Tree, CnC is a lower powered game and to prevent people from literally doubling their dmg output checks and balances were put into play. If we want to go with something that makes sense, then we should eliminate any penalties attached to a dual weapon attack. Fighting with a weapon in each hand is highly effective even for the "untrained." Which is why we saw it in many different cultures. Sword and dagger, trident and net, katana and wakizashi or in the case of some of my scottish ancestors a smithing hammer in each hand, just to name a few.

Really it depends on stance and style in how much power can be put into each hand of the dual attack. Weaponry matters little. My favorite combination to use while sparring in the SCA was a hand axe primary and mace in my off-hand in a reverse hold. I could hook weapons with the hand axe and then snap strike for rather devastating hits or block with the mace but it does take a rather serious amount of practice to pull off. If your stance is off, as Fizz noted it makes it a bugger to get any real power behind either blow. That said, I have never understood the damage penalty for dual wielding myself nor used it due to that.

A better penalty for TWF is your main-hand weapon's EV to the main-hand and the combined EV of both weapons (or just double the EV of the off-hand weapon if you want to keep it simple - it is more exploitable that way though) for the off-hand. That way you can use smaller, weaker weapons with less penalties; or larger, stronger weapons with more penalties.

Is there really even a need for a change to TWF?

Look at an example of a reasonably low level encounter:

Here is a comparison between a BtH 3 dual wielder with two +1 weapons, 18 Dex, and 13 Str vs a BtH 3 SnB wielder with a +1 weapon, +1 shield, 18 Str, and 13 Dex.
Note, both of their ACs are exactly the same.
Against AC 16, a dual-wielder using two Godentags inflicts an average of 6.375 damage (0.45*8.5 + 0.3*8.5)
Against AC 16, a SnB-wielder using a Godentag inflicts an average of 6.3 damage (0.6*10.5)


They are basically identical in all regards, except the dual-wielder has a negligible advantage in damage and splits his damage between two attacks (which means less wasted overkill damage).
As they level up, their accuracy should remain relatively constant due to BtH + enchanemnt bonuses scaling relatively well in comparison to target ACs. However the dual-wielder's negligible damage advantage will increase due to each damage bonus essentially being counted twice as much as the SnB-wielder's. In return, the increasing enchantment bonuses will give the SnB-wielder an AC advantage.
It seems fair to me.

Well, thats one of the great things about C&C, we can seek input from each other and then decide how we want to do it for our own games. The book only matters at conventions, in sanctioned convention play. Which the Trolls do pretty much only at Gary Con, as far as I know. So BtB actually rarely ever matters, if at all, for our private games.

Treebore wrote:Well, thats one of the great things about C&C, we can seek input from each other and then decide how we want to do it for our own games.

That is basically why I posted the example.
I was one of those people that would never consider dual-wielding because I believed the penalties to be too high. It wasn't until I ran those numbers that I realized I was quite wrong about that.
I think the issue regarding dual-wielding is just one of perception. We don't dual-wield because we think it is crappy, even though it isn't.

All good and true points gentlemen. And with most of the reservations I had with CnC, in the end, I have decided to play the game RAW due to conversations like these.

I have been thinking about this, in particular to what i said earlier about damage and strength modifiers.

You can either put all your might into one attack with the second being an afterthought. Or you can split your strength into the two weapoons (for example lunging simultaneously at your foe). Your body has the same strength to contribute each round. So i wonder about playing it per the core rules, with the exception that you can only apply your full strength to damage once per round.

It's the difference between swatting flies and punching your way through a metal door. One is rapid series of light swats, while the other is a single burst of all your available power. You're equally tired at the end of each round.

Two-weapon fighting should be something that is useful, but only in particular situations. Otherwise, there is either no reason to use it, or every reason to use it. (Ignoring any issues of flavor and roleplaying.) I think that two-weapon fighting is meant to be for cases when you face multiple light opponent, hoardes of goblins for example, where you can afford the to-hit penalty and don't need excessive damage. The single attack remains better for tougher opponents.

Anyways, just my take.


-Fizz