Dual Wielding Rules?

#1

Hello everyone,

Unless I’ve missed something, I haven’t been able to find explicit rules around wielding two weapons in combat.

How are others generally handling this over the table?

#2

I reviewed the book and I do not see any discussion of two-weapon fighting or dual welding that is “official”.

However, the benefit to the character is having another weapon to use to absorb attrition with and to continue fighting. Here are some suggestions for how to handle this and you can discuss with your players on how they wish to handle it:

  • Roll both damage dice and take the better outcome (a la Dungeon World or Cairn).
  • Gain a +1 to your Defense, as in a defensive fighting method
  • Gain +1 Balanced Weapon effect on main weapon (defense reduction) to bypass enemy defenses (which is good against higher def enemies, but doesn’t really help against no defense enemies)

You could create a Skill like Shield Fighting, but there are similar improvements in the Crown and Skull choice that players can make at 25 HP earned in the campaign.

#3

Hank gave his ruling on the Discord for Duel Wielding as a skill:

25_PM

#4

Many thanks, Celstra! And thank you as well for the great alternative suggestions, SpicyVikingTofu.

#5

I had an idea for this as well. You basically ‘Hurry’ but don’t move. You still receive the -5 to defense, but can make an attack with your off hand.

#7

I didn’t like this skill at first, but considering how you have access to it in the beginning and then you would need to have a secondary weapon to activate the skill, it makes perfect sense. The investment needed would be minimum of 4 (1 for a small weapon and 3 for the skill). Even getting the skill started at 10 would only give you a 50% chance of getting any bonus. Cool, clean, effective, and in line with the GM section talking about how to do what the players want and create new skills and abilities.

#8

Am I reading this correctly where the “Then, roll the skill. Inflict the margin of success with that roll as the damage…” means that if I have a 10 in the skill and I roll a 2 on the skill check the attack deals 8 damage? 10 - 2 = 8 being the margin of success.

#9

@ArmoredCow Yes, that’s how I interpret the text of the skill.

It also leaves room for GM discretion on how to handle customized effects on offhand weapons. For example, if the offhand was customized with the deadly effect, I would probably let my players add the base damage dice (say, a D6 for a shortsword) to the damage after a successful skill check. So in your example, 8 damage + 1D6.