Two Weapon Fighting

[Shadowsoul]

Hi everyone.

 

Recently I've been busily making characters for the game I'll be running at the UK Student Nationals.

 

I've come up with a couple of characters that use martial arts and two weapon fighting, one is a Bone Elf who uses two kukris and the other is a Hoplite who fights with spear and shield.

 

My question is - can a martial artist use two different martial manouevres with their two attacks.

 

I.e. could the Bone Elf make a defensive strike with one kukri and an offensive one with the other? Or could the Hoplite shield bash someone and make an offensive strike with his spear?

 

Now some manouevres clearly can't be done together e.g. Root and Passing Strike. But I don't think it's impossible for a martial artist to make two different attacks with their two weapons, so long as they remain within the bounds of common sense.

[EvilEmpryss]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

The short answer is yes, with common sense on the GM's part being the ruling factor.

 

Some maneuvers work really well together, like attacks that work "only after block" or "only after dodge". A leg sweep and a martial strike would be extremely effective, giving the target 1/2 DCV just before hitting with the strike.

[braincraft]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

You can explicitly do this with Sweep. Some people let you do this with Multiple Power Attacks, too. If you're really into it, you could even build a power to simulate combinations.

[Sociotard]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

I'd say that you could use attacks with two different OCV values, but you would only get the worst DCV value.

 

My reasoning is that when a character uses any given strike, it lists a DCV modifier. He will be at that modifier until he does something else. If a character can do an offensive manuver, then immediatley do a defensive one and keep the high DCV advantage, then some serious game balance problems crop up.

 

So lets say a character decides to attack with Defensive Strike and Offensive Strike. Before taking into account Sweep or Autofire or whatever else he used to attack twice, He would make one strike at +1 OCV and another strike +4d6 at -2 OCV. After his last action, he would be at +1 DCV until his next action, not +3 DCV.

[Markdoc]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

Two points:

First, as a general rule, when using two powers/Maneuvers together (for example in amultipower attack) you take the worst of the modifiers for both. That makes sense - if a grab gives you an OCV/DCV penalty, you are not going to find it any easier to grab or avoid attacks if you are trying to throw a kick or a punch at the same time.

Secondly, the use of multiple attacks always occurs together: you can't - as a single attack - throw someone and then hit them while they are at half OCV, nor flash them and then whack them while they are blinded. That's two sequential attacks, not one simultaneous attack. There's a very solid game balance reason for this: especially if you use hit locations

 

cheers, Mark

[braincraft]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

The rule is that, for simultaneous attacks in which one or more attacks affect defenses, the defenses don't get lowered until the whole simultaneous attack routine is completed. Otherwise you could MPA a Def Supress with your attack, or knockdown and take advantage of the reduced DCV before your opponent has the chance to get up, or whatever.

[Markdoc]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

The rule is that' date=' for simultaneous attacks in which one or more attacks affect defenses, the defenses don't get lowered until the whole simultaneous attack routine is completed. Otherwise you could MPA a Def Supress with your attack, or knockdown and take advantage of the reduced DCV before your opponent has the chance to get up, or whatever.[/quote']

 

As an aside, you can build such attacks - you just can't do it with MPA or linked. I had a PC in my game who had a signature martial arts move (the rib-breaker), where he would throw someone to the ground and then stomp on them. That was built as a triggered HA, the trigger being "Successfully threw opponent to the ground". That triggered attack did go against the lowered DCV since it was a seperate attack, which - by definition - went after the "grab and throw" routine.

 

cheers, Mark

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

Hi everyone.

 

Recently I've been busily making characters for the game I'll be running at the UK Student Nationals.

 

I've come up with a couple of characters that use martial arts and two weapon fighting, one is a Bone Elf who uses two kukris and the other is a Hoplite who fights with spear and shield.

 

My question is - can a martial artist use two different martial manouevres with their two attacks.

 

I.e. could the Bone Elf make a defensive strike with one kukri and an offensive one with the other? Or could the Hoplite shield bash someone and make an offensive strike with his spear?

 

Now some manouevres clearly can't be done together e.g. Root and Passing Strike. But I don't think it's impossible for a martial artist to make two different attacks with their two weapons, so long as they remain within the bounds of common sense.

For combining multiple Maneuvers like this, Multiple Power Attack generally makes the most sense (IMO).

 

Taking it a step further, explicitly designing a martial arts package into the curve of the MPA rules by picking specific maneuvers that combine well together is a fine art and characters with such a style can vary greatly in their effectiveness based on whether they are employed correctly to take advantage of this natural synergy. Many of the MA based characters I make are built around this concept, in fact.

[braincraft]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

As an aside' date=' you can build such attacks - you just can't do it with MPA or linked. I had a PC in my game who had a signature martial arts move (the rib-breaker), where he would throw someone to the ground and then stomp on them. That was built as a triggered HA, the trigger being "Successfully threw opponent to the ground". That triggered attack [b']did[/b] go against the lowered DCV since it was a seperate attack, which - by definition - went after the "grab and throw" routine.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Well, at least he paid for the trigger; that's not terrible. Especially since it sounds like his big gun.

[CTaylor]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

I'd just build it as a big OCV bonus that simulates the target being on the ground, then because the throw went off, they're on the ground.

[braincraft]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

I'd just build it as a big OCV bonus that simulates the target being on the ground' date=' then because the throw went off, they're on the ground.[/quote']

 

Well, yeah, you could always do it the easy way.

[Markdoc]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

Well' date=' at least he paid for the trigger; that's not [i']terrible[/i]. Especially since it sounds like his big gun.

 

Oh, no - it wasn't terrible at all - it was his signature move and he paid for both the trigger and the HA. I don't recall it ever being a problem. I'm just pointing out that that's one way to build multiple sequential attacks.

 

We had a situation once - very amusing where two fighters faced off who had a similar shtick called "counterstrike" - an HKA triggered by being hit in HTH combat, with the special effect that if someone successfully attacked them, they were fast enough to sneak in an extra blow in return. You can see where this is going - each time one of them stabbed the other, they got stabbed in return. It was very short fight.

 

cheers, Mark

[Vondy]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

 

We had a situation once - very amusing where two fighters faced off who had a similar shtick called "counterstrike" - an HKA triggered by being hit in HTH combat, with the special effect that if someone successfully attacked them, they were fast enough to sneak in an extra blow in return. You can see where this is going - each time one of them stabbed the other, they got stabbed in return. It was very short fight.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Lets get stabby!

[CTaylor]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

Markdoc: wouldn't that just be a damage shield?

[Markdoc]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

Markdoc: wouldn't that just be a damage shield?

 

We used to do this with a limited version of damage shield, but under 5th, that got way too expensive, even including limitations like "not on own attacks".

 

So yes, it's an option, but it's a rough one for Heroic level characters.

 

cheers, Mark

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Two Weapon Fighting

 

Thanks for all your input guys.

 

I feel happier about it now and I'll just use my common sense as to which manouevres can be used together, I'll also bear the point about using the lowest DCV in mind.