Using two weapons, Clarification of the rules Options

[Kevin Adams]

Ok, searching on two-weapons brings up too many hits so i thought i'd pose my question.

The rules on using two weapons (in this case guns) state that you split your die role between the two weapons. This yields two attack roles. I have a player, who wants to use two pistols, that happen to be SA pistols. Would this result in just two shots or four shots? And, assuming its 2 shots like i expect you folks will tell me, why would someone ever want to use two pistols at once other than to show off?

Hope this makes sense? Its early in the morning.

Thanks,
K

[blakmetalmedik]

Yes. He would split his dice pool between the two, making it so he can do far more damage if he hits with both shots, the advantage is that this is still a simple action (IIRC). So he could turn around and do it again in the same pass, for a total of 4 shots

EDIT: To clarify abit...

First init. pass:

He splits his dice pool, allowing him to shoot both pistols as different attacks but under the same action. The damage rolls are rolled apart from one another.

then for his second simple action in the pass, he can turn around and do the same thing again.

for a total of 4 attacks. meaning 4 sets of damage being done if he hits

[Stingray]

..and no +2 die from smartgun system, recoil modifiers growing..( 2xSA pistols..Personalized grip + underbarrel weight mods
are good..).. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Dakka Dakka]

He could also just fire twice once with each weapon, circumventing the dual-wielding rules altogehter. In this case he gets the full pool for both shots, can use the smartlink each time and has no recoil whatsoever, since it is the first shot for both weapons.

If the weapon is capable you can also do this with short and long bursts.

[Ol' Scratch]

That tactic is particulary useful with SS weapons, suger the Ruger Super Warhawk. The Ambidexterity quality essentially lets you wield two of them, simulating a 6P/-2 SA Heavy Pistol with an ammo capacity of 12, at the cost of not having a free hand available. And that makes reloading a bit of a pain, but ideally you won't be in too many fights that last more than six passes.

[Dakka Dakka]

Still prefer two Ingram Smartguns with 5 RC each. The long bursts should make some fine red mist.

[remmus]

..and no +2 die from smartgun system, recoil modifiers growing..( 2xSA pistols..Personalized grip + underbarrel weight mods
are good..).. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

never understood why a smarlink is negated if you dual wield since it seams like a system that requires the less amount of brainpower from the user himself to aim properly so it shouldn´t be so much more harder to make two crosses align with the target then one

[Dakka Dakka]

Probably the same reason why they errataed the Improved Skill Adept Power to an Increase in the Skill from a DP Modifier. They don't want someone to shoot just as well with two weapons as with one.

Unfortunately this makes dual ranged combat a poor choice as opposed to two-weapons style melee.

[MusicMan]

Unfortunately this makes dual ranged combat a poor choice as opposed to two-weapons style melee.

Which has some basis in real life actually...

The reason a smartgun does not work with dual wielding is the same reason you can't stick laser sights on two handguns and dual-wield them with any real results in real life, you eyes can only focus on one thing at once; smartguns are--at their base--a glorified laser-sight; you still have to look at where you are pointing them, and you can only look at one thing at a time.

It really makes sense.

[remmus]

Probably the same reason why they errataed the Improved Skill Adept Power to an Increase in the Skill from a DP Modifier. They don't want someone to shoot just as well with two weapons as with one.

Unfortunately this makes dual ranged combat a poor choice as opposed to two-weapons style melee.

still doesn´t make sense, you are already reducing your chance to hit by 50% by splitting the dice pool so doing it to make sure dual wielding isn´t to über makes no real sense, for lasersights that I can grasp, but with smartgun it seam like they shot them self in the foot by making something that screams "makes dual wielding a piece of cake" and then bluntly say you can´t benefit from it with no rime or reason.

Which has some basis in real life actually...

The reason a smartgun does not work with dual wielding is the same reason you can't stick laser sights on two handguns and dual-wield them with any real results in real life, you eyes can only focus on one thing at once; smartguns are--at their base--a glorified laser-sight; you still have to look at where you are pointing them, and you can only look at one thing at a time.

It really makes sense.

not really, a smartgun gives you a crossair that moves as you move the gun, for a lasersight to be effective you still need to aim along the gun, a smartgun system you can just hold the gun as you like and use the cross to aim in giving much more brainpower over to coordinate two crosses

[Shrike30]

Where using a pair of guns comes into its own is, well... pretty much the only place where you'd expect it to: when you're inside of a few meters and there's nothing making it harder for you to hit. Dumping 4 short bursts into a target, if you can actually *hit* with them, racks up a huge amount of damage for your target to try and shrug off. Obviously, recoil compensation helps a lot with this. Even if you don't manage to hit or do any respectable damage, your character has just slapped a bigass -4 on the target's dice pool for avoiding whatever the next guy in the initiative order is about to try.

I've got one character who's actually got Pistols (Akimbo)... the Specialization only kicks in when he fires two simultaneously. That +2 modifier gets applied after the pools are halved, and lets him squeak by with 5 dice per shot when he goes to town, not an insurmountable drop from his usual 7 dice (including laser sight). If you're close enough to the target to get the Point Blank bonus (say, you just jumped up onto the table he's sitting at), the +2 from that gets applied after you halve the pools, too. Putting someone into a situation where you've got a few bonus dice and you're running two guns simultaneously is when you can make life really, really hard for them.

As someone mentioned earlier, having a machine pistol or SMG in each hand allows you to fire two Long Bursts per turn, and allows you to stack recoil compensation onto each gun. Personalized, gas-vented, underbarrel-weighted, full-auto-modified 5-7C's with extended mags run 6 points of RC apiece, and let you put down 8 long bursts in 4 passes with no penalties before you've got to reload. Getting that kind of recoil compensation onto something like an Ingram Smartgun with an extended mag pushes that out to 12 long bursts in 6 passes. And if you really must kill something, you could always start firing them both at the same time (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Dakka Dakka]

Four simultaneous short bursts have a recoil of -2, -4, -7, -10 which of course are applied after the split. With RC it looks a little better since only the uncompensated recoil is transferred. In melee however you have no recoil and the defender gets -1 for the first and -2 for the second attack. Not to mention the maneuver which allows you to go on full defense while attacking with one weapon.

I don't see why a laser sights should not work with two weapons at the same time. Just as with the smartlink you only have to match the beam/crosshairprojection with your target. Any difficulties for bad posture are the same. To avoid confusion as to which laser is which you could use different colors.

[Doc Byte]

The reason a smartgun does not work with dual wielding is the same reason you can't stick laser sights on two handguns and dual-wield them with any real results in real life, you eyes can only focus on one thing at once; smartguns are--at their base--a glorified laser-sight; you still have to look at where you are pointing them, and you can only look at one thing at a time.

I've tried aiming with two flashlights and that worked fine. Of course I didn't try it with a gun but I'm sure it would be helpful. Unfortunately one can't halve a single dice.

[Nightfalke]

[img]http://www.schlockmercenary.com/comics/schlock20020412.png[/img]

From Schlock Mercenary, an amazing webcomic

I think this sums it up nicely.

Edit: Bah. Image tags are failing me!

[Dakka Dakka]

Why would you halve a die? The rules only speak of splitting. There is not rule that the pool has to be split evenly. 1 and Pool-1 should be fine as well.

@Schlock Mercenary: This only becomes a problem if you want to shoot more than one target simultaneously.

[MusicMan]

not really, a smartgun gives you a crossair that moves as you move the gun, for a lasersight to be effective you still need to aim along the gun, a smartgun system you can just hold the gun as you like and use the cross to aim in giving much more brainpower over to coordinate two crosses

No, you don't need to aim along the gun with a laser sight (it does help to do so, of course); the laser sight paints the target with a red dot so you can see where you are pointing your weapon (give or take up to an inch of offset).

... and the different between a crosshair and a little red dot is...?

[remmus]

No, you don't need to aim along the gun with a laser sight (it does help to do so, of course); the laser sight paints the target with a red dot so you can see where you are pointing your weapon (give or take up to an inch of offset).

... and the different between a crosshair and a little red dot is...?

still as long as you aim at one or two target within the save field of vision I see no issue using a smartgun system, combat trained people need to keep track of 3-4 heck sometimes more targets in combat so if anything not using something like smartgun when dual wielding seams stupid.

[Dakka Dakka]

It does. The RAW however is that you can't use it when dualwielding.

BTW is there a rule prohibiting to install several smartlinks in cybereyes or vision wear? That way you could save the free action to switch weapons when you shoot only twice with two weapons.

@laser sights: Maybe you're thinking about a reflex or red dot sight. This indeed wouldn't make much sense to use while dualwielding. A laser sight is just a small laser aligned with the barrel of the gun.

[remmus]

It does. The RAW however is that you can't use it when dualwielding.

BTW is there a rule prohibiting to install several smartlinks in cybereyes or vision wear? That way you could save the free action to switch weapons when you shoot only twice with two weapons.

@laser sights: Maybe you're thinking about a reflex or red dot sight. This indeed wouldn't make much sense to use while dualwielding. A laser sight is just a small laser aligned with the barrel of the gun.

so far as I understood the smartlink in eyes of glasses can take data from theraticly unlimited amount of smartlinked guns your using, so you won´t find any use having several smartlinks, it´s like installing several copies of the same OP on your computer.

[Dakka Dakka]

If that is the case, you are right. Then however it makes even less sense that you don't get the bonus if you are dualwielding. Also this opens interesting possibilities to see where your teammates are aiming.

[MusicMan]

it´s like installing several copies of the same OP on your computer.

Now I want to crank up my virtual machine and see how many copies of Windows XP I can get running at the same time on my computer (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) . I typically run Ubuntu and have Windows running in a VM... I wonder how many Windows boxes I can run like that before I crash my computer... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)



Thanks... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dead.gif)

[remmus]

If that is the case, you are right. Then however it makes even less sense that you don't get the bonus if you are dualwielding. Also this opens interesting possibilities to see where your teammates are aiming.

well if they allow it, obviously there is some kind if ID/Password system with each smartlink gun that your register to your smarlink implant or eyewear as a measure of security.

[MusicMan]

If that is the case, you are right. Then however it makes even less sense that you don't get the bonus if you are dualwielding. Also this opens interesting possibilities to see where your teammates are aiming.

Yes, but trying to split your concentration to aim two cross-hairs (or red dots) and fire both of them while maintaining proper form will negate any real help you might get from the system. There is a perfectly good reason that SWAT officers don't mount laser sights on handguns and dual-wield them that way. Everyone I know who "dual"-wields weapons in shooting competitions (which is only in Western shooting that you see it), alternates hands when they shoot.

If it was at all possible to make dual wielding work better than just using a single SMG or carbine, then the FBI, CBP, and SWAT would have been all over it a long time ago.

[remmus]

Yes, but trying to split your concentration to aim two cross-hairs (or red dots) and fire both of them while maintaining proper form will negate any real help you might get from the system. There is a perfectly good reason that SWAT officers don't mount laser sights on handguns and dual-wield them that way. Everyone I know who "dual"-wields weapons in shooting competitions (which is only in Western shooting that you see it), alternates hands when they shoot.

If it was at all possible to make dual wielding work better than just using a single SMG or carbine, then the FBI, CBP, and SWAT would have been all over it a long time ago.

that has more to do with recoil management and the fact they always want a hand free for other duties, if there was a way to make a gun that was 100% recoiless even if you shot like a maniac and somehow left at least one hand free for use then yes dual wielding would be more frequently used by SWAT, FBI etc in sitation where a handgun is best suited.

[Saint Sithney]

@Schlock Mercenary: This only becomes a problem if you want to shoot more than one target simultaneously.

In which case, you've got a -2 dice pool penalty from choosing Multiple targets, according to RAW. Don't know if that penalty applies to both shots though..