Ambidexterity, ? Options

[Falkor]

Ambidexterity is now more of a hinderance than a help. I have to split my dice pool to use two weapons at once. So as before I may have been able to start with 8 dice to hit a target of 5, I now get 4 twice. They however have this listed as a positive thing that I would want to spend points on.

How is this a positive thing?

[blakkie]

It is a positive thing that you can use either hand to do a task. Such as using a weapon in the offhand.

Ambidexterity is NOT about doing things with both hands at the same time, it is about doing a task equally well regardless of which hand you do it with.

[Slacker]

Without the Ambidexterity Quality you still have to split your pool when firing two weapons at once.
Ambidexterity removes the -2 modifier when firing the weapon in your off-hand, since it allows you to use either hand equally as well.

[OSUMacbeth]

Disagree. The key to using two guns effectively now seems to be firing using only 2, 3 dice max with your first hand, then pop the rest into your second, and repeat. You may ask, what's the point? Well, with each time a person dodges successfully they lose a die from all future defenses until their next turn.

Ambidex does seem more useful in some ways as a way to do things with both hands. I have a friend who dual-wields ruger super warhawks so he can still fire twice a turn, and I use it so wield a pistol and still throw a grenade without penalties. I agree though, it's not what it once was.

EDIT: unless you're an adept. They can get dice pools large enough to make it good.

OSUMacbeth

[Crusher Bob]

Sigh, my response is in the other thread, in addition it only costs 5BP, hardly a large outlay.

[Falkor]

And so if you were to do it with both hands you would be only half as good at it. unlike in SR3 where if you spent point (positive Points) to get it you would be able to fire two pistols just as well as normal because you spent the points to do so. No I spen the points to not get a -dice when shooting with both hands, but really I still have dice taken away. And you think this is a good way to deal with Ambidexterity?

[lonehamster]

There is also a -2 dice modifier for your offhand attack when using two weapons. The Ambidextrous Quality negates that for 5 BP. This positive quality can also come in handy if you're normally right-handed while pretending to be someone who's known to be left-handed. :spin:

And as a first time poster and lurker since early August of this year, a hearty hoi! to everyone on DS :)

*edit*

...that'll teach me to step away midpost to make a sandwich. This was a new thread with 0 replies when I clicked on it. People here are -fast-!

[Slacker]

[blakkie]

[FrankTrollman]

It took me a while to wrap my mind around what you would actually do with Double Gunning to make it viable (outside of the obvious situation where you get the drop on someone and explode their head like a gajillion ways). The answer does seem to be in splitting your dice pool unevenly.

Every time an attack comes your way, you are -1 to your defense rolls against all subsequent attacks until your next action. So someone firing a couple of pistols is subtracting 2 more defense dice each round as compared to someone firing only 1 pistol. And while the minimum dice pool expenditure to make glitches happen at a non-constant rate is 3, that can still be advantageous if you aren't the only person attacking a single enemy.

So you whip out your real gun and a hamerli light pistol, and then you fire the hamerli first during each of your simple actions, and drop only 3 dice into it. The net result is that you are down 3 dice on both of your "real" attacks, and your opponent is down one defense die on your first "real" attack, and down 2 extra defense dice on your second "real" attack. And if anyone else makes an attack at the same enemy this round, you've made an absolute profit.

And there's even a very small chance that your light pistol is going to connect from time to time.

---

This is actually the first two pistol system that I've been able to endorse for anything that I can recall in any game ever.

-Frank

[OSUMacbeth]

Why use a light pistol in the off-hand?

OSUMacbeth

[blakkie]

[FrankTrollman]

Because you honestly don't care, and the Hammerli has the same range as a heavy pistol. You are giving up a DV on the weapon that doesn't matter for some concealability - not a bad trade at all.

-Frank

[Crusher Bob]

Hmm, if we go with the two cyberarm gyromounts and gas vent -3 TMPs...

Assume we roll 12 dice normally, our target gets 10 dice to dodge, has body 4 and is wearing an armored jacket.

If we were firing one weapon:

Single shot with 14 dice (we get smartlink bonus), so we get 1 net hit.
The gun dosen't penetrate, the target resists 5S with 12 dice, taking 1S.

Our second shot is a long narow burst
(14 dice again, vs his 9, we get ~2 net hits, and do 12P, I think we are still not penetrating the jacket, as it's probably base attack power... Our target takes 8S, bringing the damage total up to 9S.

With 2 guns:
we rolls 6 dice vs his 10 and 9 dice, getting nothing.

Next we'll fire 2 wide long bursts
so we get 6 dice vs hit 3 and 2 dice.
The We get 2 net successes on each and end up doing 2S in total.

Hmm

I've though of a much better way:
If you are unlikely to hit your target with your first attack, blaze away with both guns to lower his dodge pool by one. When your second attack comes around, fire only 1 gun, getting your smartlink bonus back, while your target has lost 1 die of dodge pool. Not a big advantage though.

I guess non-combat characters should all load up on two guns to lower the dodge pools of the opposition, allowing the sam to clean house...

[OSUMacbeth]

I think you may not be taking into account that even with three dice, that off-hander may hit every once in awhile.

OSUMacbeth