Offhand Attacks

Keep in mind: This is NOTHING official, this is just some of the thoughts we've had that we felt like sharing and to try to get some player feedback.

Duel wielding. Currently it's mainly for rp flair, although some weapons do give bonuses (like +1 Defense). I've been tinkering with the idea of trying to find a system to allow both weapons to swing on a single attack. So far:

Attribute + Skill.Spec + Mainhand Damage + Offhand Damage - Offhand Size - 2* - Armor - Defense.

*-2 for the Offhand penalty that is negated with the Ambidextrous merit.

The main problem that would happen here is in terms of Magical Items. Most can be ignored due to the Stat Stacking rules. Can't get +4 Weaponry from both items, for example. If one gives +3 and the other +4, you get the higher of the two, not +7. Nor could you get Damage Improvement on both items. The same would go for other abilities like Armor Piercing and Toxicity.

Thoughts?

Hmm, looking at this roll equation it appears that you often wouldn't net anything by trying to add in your offhand. There should be some penalty, though, in addition to using your non-dominant hand. In addition, this would make the Ambidextrous merit even more important, but, sadly, those already in the game without it would be boned without other means of getting this merit.

I have suggested to halve the offhand weapon damage rounded down. My formula would look something like:

Attribute + Skill.spec + main hand damage + 1/2 offhand damage - offhand penalty (exclude with ambidexterity) - armor - defense

Problem is no one will use a second hand weapon without the ambidexterity merit or you will not gain any real benefit from it less your second weapon has a high damage modifier. Adding size to the equation makes using two weapons rather useless in my opinion even if you have ambidexterity. There has to be some sort of benefit to using two weapons without the ambidexterity merit or everyone will just go out and buy it.

Using my character as an example, and i do have the ambidexterity merit and weapon finesse using two bowie knives that are +2 damage would equate to:


4 + 4.Blades + 2 + 1 = 12 dice before defense and armor.

If i did not have ambidexterity before defense and armor:

4 + 4.Blades + 2 + 1 - 2 = 10

If i just used one single blade before defense and armor:

4 + 4.blades +2 = 11

To make it viable and useful their has to be some sort of benefit for someone who doesn't have ambidexterity and it would have to be better then just using a single blade. To be beneficial with my suggestion the offhand or main hand weapon would have to be at least twice the damage then the other. I know my suggestion isnt viable just throwing the idea out to see if other people have anything to add, take away or modify showing the math.

Ambidextrous is a CG only merit. Cannot buy it after the fact. If suddenly, though, there's a combat maneuver added that allows people to effectively use both weapons, there might be a small window at which to buy.

The size of the offhand has to add into it somehow. Maybe a -1 for being the same size, and for each size larger than the main hand, another -1. So a size 2 mainhand and a size 3 offhand would give you -2 to the attack.

Using Alister as an example with two long swords:

4 + 4.Blades + 3 + 3 - 1 (because the size is the same) = 14 dice before armor/def.

I do agree, without having the Ambidextrous merit, dual wielding seems rather worthless. I'm thinking, though, that those who use a massive two handed axe would still pick to use their massive two handed axes. The issue, though, would be people trying to duel wield those axes. Hell of a lot of damage without much penalty.

without a proper strength score i wouldnt allow some weapons to be dual wielded like large axes.

Why does the size of the off hand have to play into it? That seems unnecessary to me.

Additional complexity for the sake of flair doesnt seem like a worthwhile trade I vote we keep dual wielding nerfed without the addition of ambi.

why don't you re-evaluate the use of combat styles? I know i have asked this before and i know what one may say but with the way te system was designed it is hard to come up with viable methods to be able to duel wield without them and be fair.

Key problem points:

It's all one roll mixing ability to hit, and ability to damage. Makes it very hard to represent anything.

Defense is for the most part a static value. Nicely, we have defensive fighting to add a +2 def for a -2 attack, but that's it.

Attack already way overwhelms defense pools. Even getting rid of the Eternal Summer 3 plus Stone 1 stacking doesn't change that significantly. I would suggest allowing Defensive fighting to move as much as your Skill between Attack and defense, and perhaps a merit to allow something like Athletics to act as that value instead. Likewise, the Defensive Fighting Merit is degraded extremely by the Defensive Fighting Maneuver, so they could instead be a raise to the amount a character can move from Offense to defense.

Ambidexterity is a chargen only merit. Any rulings will make or break the value of the merit. So far, it let's you use a shield with only a -1 attack.

My thoughts are these:

Not everyone is ambidextrous just because they know a two weapon skill. Buckler and sword is about as difficult as sword and main gauche. I suggest that there be a merit that can be learned, Offhand Fighting or whatever, that reduces the offhand penalty, but obviously not as much as Ambidextrous does. If you wanted to get pricey, you could also allow Offhand defense, to enable he shield ruling, thus allowing training and not handedness dictate the value of said items.

Since we can't add to the complexity of the to hit process, or allow fake outs or feints, an idea for off hand would be to allow it to /subtract from the targets defense/. This is much like added damage, save that it can't help against an overwhelmed foe, and Armor still applies. If you wanted you could have a simple rule like if the targets Armor is greater than the weapon damage, this effect can't be used.

You could also say that off handed attacks count as an additional attack for degrading defense, the target has more to watch, so everyone has an easier time hitting them. This is more powerful than the option above, but doesn't help the fighter with the two weapons.

You could go all brutal and say the offhand weapon is a -1, -2 or more to attack, but an exceptional success on the main hand allows the damage rating of the off hand to be rolled against the Armor of the target only.

I like the idea of dual wielding, but I just don't know how this would work out well. I feel like it should just be kept as flair and my two major concerns are:

1.) Sure, you can't stack bonuses, but there are a LOT of bonuses and this gives a cheaper way to divvy them up.

2.) Alister, you might rule that that you need a proper strength score to dual wield a pair of war axes, but I'm sure there are several people that could easily manage it.

So yeah, I just feel like keeping the vanilla combat is a balanced boat and trying to tweak a formula might not take into account things that can happen. Especially with a formula sort of 'made on the fly'.

Because fighting styles are overpowered and not balanced to each other, let alone against someone who doesn't have them. They are also needlessly complicated.


Another idea would be to do something like defensive fighting.

+X to hit, but -X to defense, as you're using both of your arms and leaving the main block of your body open. (Some off hand weapons would, yes, still give you the +y to defense.)

My thoughts, seperately and unnconnected:

1) It seems unnecessary to find a way to add even more damage capability. Damage is off the charts already.

2) Even with a small addition to damage, people will still try to take advantage.

3) If you provide a small window, it may still leave some people out of luck who have not saved up enough XP, depending on the size of the window.

4) The size of the offhand matters because dual wielding two war axes is even more ridiculous than wielding one and you would see it done commonly. Why have a dagger at + 1 or a sword at + 2 in your off hand rather than a war axe at + 5?

Cobalt wrote:

Because fighting styles are overpowered and not balanced to each other, let alone against someone who doesn't have them. They are also needlessly complicated.


Another idea would be to do something like defensive fighting.

+X to hit, but -X to defense, as you're using both of your arms and leaving the main block of your body open. (Some off hand weapons would, yes, still give you the +y to defense.)

your example is like one of the two weapon fighting style bonuses pretty much at level 2. Ya gain +2 defense but -2 attack penalty. You cant even attack with two weapons less you spend 3 dots in the merit which is a lot and that only to a single target and you lose ALL your defense if you make the second attack. That is a very big drawback in my opinion but could be worth it just to be able to make a second swing in hopes to dispatch your enemy. If you don't he is attacking you with his full dice pool. Only the highest level allows you to even attack 2 separate targets with the same drawback.

My idea behind bringing this up to Cobalt in the first place was the idea to balance out the field between one handed and two handed weapons. Idea, two swords being the same as a war axe in terms of damage so that way people are allowed to rp /how/ they want without being gimped when it actually comes to rolling the dice.

The idea of a penalty to offhand comes from D&D where they used size categories to determine a penalty because it's difficult to be as good with two weapons as it is to be with a single one.

An idea, though, based off how the Two Weapon fighting style works in the book. You can add the offhand weapon's damage to your attack roll, but lose the weapon's size in defense?

Using 4's across the board with two long swords.

4 + 4 + 3 + 3 +whatever else - armor - defense, and for the rest of that turn the person is at -2 defense.

Want to use two great axes? Sure, why not? Bumping Strength to 5.

5 + 4 + 5 + 5 +whatever else - armor - defense, and for the rest of that turn the person is at -4 defense.

But you ask, what happens if I'm already less than 4 defense? Negative defense, where you take 1 extra damage on each successful attack. So, base 2 defense, swinging two war axes (the -again's wouldn't stack), you'd be at -2 defense, meaning you take 2 additional damage for each successful hit. This would give people the /option/ to go balls out for an attack, knowing full well they're going to get the crap knocked out of them if they get hit.

Purple wrote:

My idea behind bringing this up to Cobalt in the first place was the idea to balance out the field between one handed and two handed weapons. Idea, two swords being the same as a war axe in terms of damage so that way people are allowed to rp /how/ they want without being gimped when it actually comes to rolling the dice.

The idea of a penalty to offhand comes from D&D where they used size categories to determine a penalty because it's difficult to be as good with two weapons as it is to be with a single one.

An idea, though, based off how the Two Weapon fighting style works in the book. You can add the offhand weapon's damage to your attack roll, but lose the weapon's size in defense?

Using 4's across the board with two long swords.

4 + 4 + 3 + 3 +whatever else - armor - defense, and for the rest of that turn the person is at -2 defense.

Want to use two great axes? Sure, why not? Bumping Strength to 5.

5 + 4 + 5 + 5 +whatever else - armor - defense, and for the rest of that turn the person is at -4 defense.

But you ask, what happens if I'm already less than 4 defense? Negative defense, where you take 1 extra damage on each successful attack. So, base 2 defense, swinging two war axes (the -again's wouldn't stack), you'd be at -2 defense, meaning you take 2 additional damage for each successful hit. This would give people the /option/ to go balls out for an attack, knowing full well they're going to get the crap knocked out of them if they get hit.

I had the same idea in my head but i say you just lose your defense for the rest of the turn period. Weather you only have 3 defense or 5 defense its gone. Only armor would come into play if you are even wearing any. If you want to take size info consideration i would say nothing more then size 2 weapons can be dual wielded. you can have 2 size 1's, two size 2's, a size 1 and a size 2, but size 3 weapons can not be dual wielded at all. They would be considered to large to dual wield and to be used effectively need all of your concentration. This would also help balance out people duel wielding large damage type weapons. Thoughts?

Purple it seems you're going on more about finesse vs. strength based fighting and while you can get a little more damage out of a waraxe than a sword, finesse fighters usually have a higher defense. There are tradeoffs and I really don't feel like you can call what's at DW so unbalanced that it needs tweaking to make dual wielding better.

i just had another thought....will this possibly be used for duel wielding guns? Like using a pistol in each hand?

Glitch wrote:

Purple it seems you're going on more about finesse vs. strength based fighting and while you can get a little more damage out of a waraxe than a sword, finesse fighters usually have a higher defense. There are tradeoffs and I really don't feel like you can call what's at DW so unbalanced that it needs tweaking to make dual wielding better.

Where not making duel wielding better because right now it doesn't exist. Most combat is all based on Strength less your one of the few that takes weapon finesse merits and that merit is only good for one specific kind of weapon you specify so its primarily based on strength. Dual wielding anything calls more for finesse then brute strength in my opinion.

I dislike the idea of negating /all/ defense. There are some weapons that actually add defense that make sense to be held in the offhand (Fankir's Horns, Main Gauche). That's why it would depend on the size of the offhand. Limiting everything to size 2 or less would prevent people from blasting out the two massive weapons in a last minute, "Oh shit!" sort of attack. There's nothing finesse about that; it's all about going rawr enough to kill the thing before it can kill you. Albeit, yes; I'd expect more "finesse" fighters to use this, but there's nothing stopping a high strength fighter from strapping on two katanas (that sounds so dirty) and going to town with them like a food processor or, as I used to call my fury warrior on WoW, a weedwhacker.

Yeah, but limiting everything to size 2 is then an artificial limit to try and make dual wielding only really viable to a certain subset. I just think dual wielding should be left in the poses and not the dice rolls.

Alister wrote:

i just had another thought....will this possibly be used for duel wielding guns? Like using a pistol in each hand?

I'd probably say no to that. Unless both guns are fired at the exact same time (damned hard to do) the first shot would always throw off your second. Due to the hand/eye dominance it'd probably further compound the problem. I'm right/right and trying to even shoot an airsoft gun with my left sucks.

It's hard to pose "I hit you with the sword in my left hand" when you don't actually roll for said hand. Well, not hard, just not factual.

Glitch wrote:

Yeah, but limiting everything to size 2 is then an artificial limit to try and make dual wielding only really viable to a certain subset. I just think dual wielding should be left in the poses and not the dice rolls.

I agree here. If you're going to allow two-weapon fighting, allow it for everyone not just a certain group. I'm still against the idea, but if it came into play I'd definitely have two war axes at the ready. A touch of Eternal Summer 3 to boost the Strength rating and I'm good to go to do even more damage that I already do. Why not? This is the main reason why I think it is very unnecessary.

Starting from the real world, per se', when do we see dual melee weapons used in history? I say melee first because it's more likely to cause a stopper than firearms. WoD already has a rule for shooting an extra bullet very quickly after the first: Short burst, +1 die. This may not be the answer, but it's something.

Shields, using your off-arm as a club. Parrying daggers and sword-breakers and the like. Dual hand-held axes. Scimitars? Indiana Jones says scimitars.

Before doing research, I suspect to find that except for the shield and axes, the rest required extensive training or that they were only done with weapons with exceptional balance, making it about throwing around extra blades in front of you (two daggers, two axes) or doing something more substantial with them.

Throwing around another blade in front of you can be as easy as +1 die. Or +size dice or +1/2 damage dice, it can be tweaked but it should not be substantial. "+ dmg - size" was an idea of how to keep something like that from being substantial. Right now I'm liking +1 die.

Basic Dual-Wield: +1 die

What is "substantial"? Doing anything more than increasing the danger-zone in front of you. Using the "finesse" merit, adding to your defense, trying to break a weapon, or possibly any weapon whose size is equal to or greater than your Strength. (The last one is a loose idea, and needs checking against other rules. Yes I know you already have a )

Substantial Dual-Wield: Reduces both weapons to no-again (reduces n-again by 1). +1 die if using both weapons, or may perform the non-damage action of your off-hand.

The alternative from this is cribbing from Gunslinger, where a substantial double-attacking dual-wield is: + off hand weapon - 4 (- 2 with ambidexterity).

I know we have some strength monsters, and my goal would be more to find a way to make it interesting than gibbing your opponent in one round. It would also be nice to keep this as simple as possible for people who have to learn the Darkwater ruleset (a reason we don't have more house rules).

Thenomain wrote:

Starting from the real world, per se', when do we see dual melee weapons used in history? I say melee first because it's more likely to cause a stopper than firearms. WoD already has a rule for shooting an extra bullet very quickly after the first: Short burst, +1 die. This may not be the answer, but it's something.

Shields, using your off-arm as a club. Parrying daggers and sword-breakers and the like. Dual hand-held axes. Scimitars? Indiana Jones says scimitars.

Before doing research, I suspect to find that except for the shield and axes, the rest required extensive training or that they were only done with weapons with exceptional balance, making it about throwing around extra blades in front of you (two daggers, two axes) or doing something more substantial with them.

Throwing around another blade in front of you can be as easy as +1 die. Or +size dice or +1/2 damage dice, it can be tweaked but it should not be substantial. "+ dmg - size" was an idea of how to keep something like that from being substantial. Right now I'm liking +1 die.

Basic Dual-Wield: +1 die

What is "substantial"? Doing anything more than increasing the danger-zone in front of you. Using the "finesse" merit, adding to your defense, trying to break a weapon, or possibly any weapon whose size is equal to or greater than your Strength. (The last one is a loose idea, and needs checking against other rules. Yes I know you already have a )

Substantial Dual-Wield: Reduces both weapons to no-again (reduces n-again by 1). +1 die if using both weapons, or may perform the non-damage action of your off-hand.

The alternative from this is cribbing from Gunslinger, where a substantial double-attacking dual-wield is: + off hand weapon - 4 (- 2 with ambidexterity).

I know we have some strength monsters, and my goal would be more to find a way to make it interesting than gibbing your opponent in one round. It would also be nice to keep this as simple as possible for people who have to learn the Darkwater ruleset (a reason we don't have more house rules).

cant do just one die with the -2 penalty for using an offhand weapon already by the book unless you have ambidexterity then your +1 die works fine. And with history we got to remember this is a roleplaying game. We want to play out of the norm, we want to play fantasy not reality, at least i do not want to play reality.

And with role-playing history, we have to remember that games need a consistent reality. Old WoD's was high-fantasy, New WoD's is low-fantasy. In either case you can't dismiss an argument because it has the word "reality" in it, and in nWoD's case talking about history ("our reality") is even more probative.

Even if we did want to make dual-wielding-longswords gibbing madness, we run into the problem that nWoD's core theme and rules are not well set up for it. It's possible, but theme and rules inform one another.

And worse, WoD's rules are not always logical. I could even say "not usually logical".

The simple +1 was an attempt to take advantage of this in order to keep things simple. I could have said: + 1/2 on-hand weapon + 1/2 off-hand weapon - 4 (or -2 with ambidexterity) with the strength requirements of each weapon increased by 1, weapon bonus calculated and totaled before halved.

That's valid, but it's not simple. A straight +1 might not be right, either, but now you know the kinds of rules I think WoD should have.