I'm finally back in to SR after a 2 version hiatus (Ah, SR Revised....).

I'm trying to get a handle on the new system, and I think I'm doing pretty good.

My first character is an ork gunslinger adept (though fairly different from the Archetype in the book). I decided to go with Automatics with a specialization in Machine Pistols. That seems to give me the widest set of options. I can go from a single shot with a single weapon with a +2 bonus for smartgun, through dual bursts with a reasonable chance to hit the non combat wombats, all the way down to the insanity of dual long bursts in a round.

However, my DM was fairly surprised by my choice of Machine Pistols, rather than heavy pistols. His comment was, basically, wouldn't you rather just do one big shot that you know will hit?

To me, that's the point - I have options. But I haven't played yet - this is all theory. Am I gimping myself by taking machine pistols, rather than normal pistols? Am I going to regret ever using Burst shots?

To compensate, I have the following relevant bits:

I bought Agi 5, plus Muscle Toner 2, plus Suprathyroid, for a total of 8. Then Automatics 6, spec in Machine Pistols, plus Reflex Recorder (Automatic), plus Improved ability (Automatics) rank 3, for a total of 12 with machine pistols. So that's 20 dice, which seems fairly obscene, and more than enough to split in to two pools of 10.

I've got cyberhands on both arms with gyro stabilizers, and my guns both have Gas-Vent 3.

So the actual questions:

1. Do Gyro and Gas-Vent 3 stack, to give 6 points of recoil? If so, will that cover the likely recoil for 3 init passes worth of burst or SA fire?

2. Is burst fire viable in this situation, or did I build all this simply to default to using my XM30 with both hands all the time, because my main weapons suck?

3. Did I do anything illegal in the above? I stacked a lot of mods, but it seemed like it was all legal.

4. Any further suggestions?

1) Last I checked, yes. But, it's really not worth the effort to get for machine pistols due to the fact it can only affect one and takes up the whole upper body.

2) Burst-fire is viable with one weapon for two bursts and the other for one. I'd still stick with the XM30 in this case.

4) Well, if you can manage to accept the penalties, go for it. Just remember that dual-wielding has a penalty for it.

I also took the ambidexterity quality, so that's not an issue.

If the gyro vents are in the cyber arms, does that change your idea?

... I think someone just pulled a me.

Ahh, yes. I'm expecting that part. I thought you meant the -2 you would take w/o it.

I think, if I truly have 20 dice, then 10 dice per pool isn't bad. But then the question becomes whether having two pools at 10 dice each is good and useful, or whether I'm simply emulating two average combatants. 10 dice is 3.3 hits on average. Assuming a 4 reaction, that's 1.3 hits on their side, so 2 hits total. That's likely to get through up to 6 points of armor (2 hits there). So I'm shooting two people with higher than average reactions, and average armor, successfully. And I get four shots per pass. With 3 passes, that's 12 shots, oddds are at least a couple of those get through.

But 20 dice in a pool is just horrific. So it's tempting to drop the 2nd gun aspect and simply do horrible horrible things to people.

So I guess question 5 becomes "Is dual wielding worth it in SR4?"

With twenty dice to shoot with one gun you're going to find that after a little bit of play shooting with two feels absurd. It makes no sense to try to hit and wound with two guns when you can always hit and kill with one.

But I do caution you AND your GM against allowing such a large dice pool. One of our players had a similiar set-up and it ruined battle for him. WHen it came to be his turn he shot, there were some rolls where he always won, and then the guy was dead. NEXT! Things happened so quickly that his turns were over so fast. SHoot -> Dead. Period. Boring after the first few runs. Even for the D&D munchkin he was. Tone down the dicepool and you'll not only have something to work towards, but also have to think on your feet in battle, which is way more fun. Don't mean to preach, just what happened in our group

So I guess question 5 becomes "Is dual wielding worth it in SR4?"

Not if you have multiple IPs

But dual wielding does solve the problem of one-shot, one-kill. I shrink my obscene dice pool.

But so far, I'm getting the idea from you guys, and from running the numbers, that dual wielding falls in to the "cool, but useless" category. There are simply too many numbers you have to overcome (defense, armor) to be worth splitting your pool.

But I'll hold off on making that decision until a few more people chime in.

Well, there is the other problem: This kinda makes you a one-trick pony. So much of your setup is devoted to one area. Kinda like the archetypes for SR4. I can see that as easily being a problem.

If shrinking a obscene dicepool is what you're going for try spreading out your BP. There's always some skill out there that could use a rank or two, just in case. For example, the money/essence spent on the suprathyroid gland is rarely worth it. Also, having 6 in Automatics isn't as useful as, say, some negotiation or con if you plan on keeping a secret. Etiquette or Con are used when trying not to look suspcious, something a runner has to do A LOT!

Dude, dual-wield EVERYTHING. There's nothing that isn't better with two of them wielded akimbo. Don't stop at machine pistols. Read my lips: dual combat axes.

That enthusiasm is infectious. Yep, two axes would be awesome. So long as we're talking about the Path of the Badass, Use that improved ability power and weapon foci. If you're in it for the long haul look into the Adept metamagic Attunement instead of foci. That bonus never caps, while foci I think (keyword: think) cap at six. I certainly hope they cap at six...

Make sure to get Gymnastics instead of dodge so that you're more mobile while dual-weilding your axes (ally spirit dikoted axes?). It saves BP to dodge gun-fire with ridiculous flips than just straight getting out of the way. To dodge melee use the parry manuver, making your axe skill even more awesome. If you're truly badass you can target multiple guys with each axe swing, splitting your Agi+Blades three times total. Remember, specs and other such bonuses are not split, just the skill+att.

And if you really improve your jumping you can long-jump faster than you run. Gymnastics is also used for reducing falling damage.

Just imagine, dual-axe weilding jumping dwarves that fly wuxia-style around the battlefield. Deadly Disney gummy-bear warriors!

Dual wielding against the elite (like the Red Samurais) won't work. You're more likely to miss twice that way.

Another point, cover/vision modifiers are applied after the splitting of the dice pool.

Dual wielding is cool, but not beneficial in a lot of situations. So, if you are aware of the limitations, go for it, I say .

Dual-wielding is well worth it in situations where you can kill the opposition with only half your dice pool. You get double the firepower that way.

However, those situations are very rare - your opposition would need to be quite a long way below you. Situations where you want the full pool every shot are far more likely.

I suppose a gunslinger adept type with two pistols would be able to pull it off - it is very impressive if you can take out four guys in a single IP, but you're better off switching to one gun if serious opposition shows up.

Because when the shooting starts, you run to the shadows!

This character does actually have other abilities - mainly the ability to be sneaky, and the ability to act as a field medic. And a couple points in con, just because it seemed universally useful.

Bt as much as dual wielding has the ubercoolness, I'm pretty well weaned over to the single weapon side.

The main reason I min/maxed so horrifically was precisely the fact that you split your dice pools when dual wielding. It seemed like the best way to get to an effective level with two weapons was to be horrifically overpowered with one. But even then, you're still just acceptable, which is no fun if your position in the party is "ranged specialist."

Thanks for all the help! On to my next oddness.

Lorechaser there were a few things you got wrong ruleswise with 2 gun fighting, as well as some stuff that looked a little odd about your character build (at least for a starting build).

In SR4 Dice pools are based on Attribute + Skills + Modifiers.
Everything that doesn't specifically say "this increases your Attribute" or "this increases your Skill" is a modifier. If it say "you get additional dice when using this skill" it's a modifier.

Specialisation, Reflex recorders, Adept Improved Ability are all Modifiers.
Adept Attribute Boost, Improved Physical Attribute, Muscle Augumentation, Skillsofts all change your actual Attribute or Skill.

This is important because when 2 gun fighting you split your pool BEFORE adding or subtracting ANY modifiers.

So a 2 gun fighter adds his Agility + Skill, splits it between guns, and then adds or subtracts any relevant modifiers.

Interestingly enough this means that Adepts in particular can be effective 2 gun fighters without maxing out their single gun pool by pumping their Improved Ability to the max. An Adept with Ag 3, Pistol 5, Specialisation Hv Pistols, Improved Ability - Pistols 5, Smartlink and Ambidexterity will have 17 dice with a single Pistol and 11/11 dice with 2 Pistols.


The other stuff about your build that looked odd -
1) Superthyroid gland. Availability 20 is well above the 12 limit for starting characters.
2) All that Bioware and Cybergear is chewing up your Essense. Each Essense point lost (round up) cost you a magic point you've paid for. i.e. If you buy 4 Magic points and lose 2 Essense, you're left with 2 magic points of a max 4.
Are you sure you could afford all those Adept abilities as well as all the Cyber/Bioware?

Stephen

I totally missed this thread the first time.

I think with machine pistols, dual wielding would work really well. Using full auto, you're adding +9 dv, you'd be hard pressed to get +9 DV from hits alone on 20 dice. Doing that twice, it's like you've got a SA weapon with 27 dice behind it, besides what ever hits you get with your actual dice.

The big difference is that they might have a decent chance at dodging a dual full auto attack. Since you'd only be throwing 4 dice per arm after recoil penalties (3 uncomped bullets per weapon = -6 to both pools). But you can compensate for that by throwing wide bursts, they'll never dodge with -9 dice from their pool.

I think the biggest problem would be reloading every other combat turn or so.

Stephen: He bought cyber hands, those are .25 ess each he's only down 1 magic point max with all the cyber he's got.

I agree that the build is a little funky - I flat wouldn't allow it in my game, legal or no.

Using two weapons comes with steep penalties and only a few advantages. If I had to choose that, I'd go one of two weapons: submachine guns or heavy pistols. The heavies don't come with the recoil problems of a machine pistol, but crank out much the same damage. Submachine guns do better damage, are better for single wielding, and come with a MUCH longer range than a machine pistol. Submachine guns are also cheaper and come with better ammo capacity and built in options.

what's with all the thread necromancy lately?

is there some reason people keep pulling up threads from a month or more ago?

I'm in the process of working on a two gun build (non-adept) and I was pointing out about all the mods like specalisation occuring after the dice pool is split. One of the other players remarked on reading my points that per Raw I was right but that in a discussion on Dumpshock they had got it wrong. I read the thread and proceeded to join so I could point out the errors.

That said I missed the fact that his build had 3 levels of Improved Ability, which required 3 Magic levels, for a total of 5 Magic levels having to be purchased.

I don't think the build was particuly broken once you removed the illegal stuff like Superthyroid Gland, at least not as a two Gun fighter, but it would be rather limited.

I can't see why anyone would ban it.
1 Init pass, heaps of build points chewed up.

He's spent 147 build points with only 2 abilities spent on (Ag and Magic) and only one skill brought.

Also just realised that his Cyberhands only have Ag 3 (no space left to upgrade their Ag) and since the guns use his hands, they use his hands Ag, rather than his Augumented stats.

If he wants to Augument his Cyber hands Ag he'll have to go to Cyber Lowerarms, which increase the Essence cost by 4. This would then allow him to enhance them by 4 (availability 12), for a total of Ag 7. Still less than the Ag 8 he was working on, but not bad.

You'll still left with the problem that you have only 1 init pass. You could try rating 2 Synaptic Booster, for 1 Essence, requiring the purchase of another Magic point, at 25 build points, and at 160,000 nuyen on top of the 70,000+ already spent you're looking at serious money cramp. Not to mention the lack of Stats and skills with another large chunk of build points just gone (59 counting the Cyberarms).
You'd probably have to stick with 1 level in Wired or Synaptic booster.

Of course you could go the Adept route, with Improved Reflexs, but that would require Initiation, which can't be done at start, and hordes of Karma.

Stephen

About 20 minutes ago I read a similar thread in a german forum. Someone quoted an errata that said that reflex recorder dice are added directly to the skill, not only to the value.

Yep, ref recorders are an add to skill thing as well.

There's no list of weapons with how many hands they require. The closest is the rule for dual wielding, which specifies that it can be used only with pistols and SMGs.

I play a Sam that Dual weilds Heavy pistols and I found a big loop hole that gets rid of most of the negatives. Since firing a single shot is a simple action and you can take two simple actions in a round, I fire one shot from one pistol and one shot from the other. I don't have to split my dice pool, I don't have to deal with recoil since each hand is resting while the other is fireing, and I have ambidex. quality so no penalty for using two weapons.

And you are only sending out two bullets, instead of four... this is only interesting if the gun doesn't fire SA.

True I do fire half the amount of rounds but I was ment to help get rid of penalties liek recoil and dice pool split not look cool. Also sometimes I use a pair of SMG's firing burst, a little harder and fewer dice but still effective.

On the otherhand the single hardest hitting Pistol in the core book is the Ruger Super Warhawk, SS , 6P, -2AP. Load it with EX Exlosive rounds, available to a starting character, and you're looking at a base 8P, -4AP.
Nothing much short of a Troll or a really stoked Orc is likely to be standing after a hit from one of those (still kicking, sure, but prone and hurting is always a nice state to keep your enemies in).

Of course they can't be silenced........

Stephen

For what it's worth, the build has changed a good bit. Machine pistols had style, but the SMGs are really the way to go.

So here's what finally came about:



It's actually far more likely that I'll simply load the two guns with different ammo, and change based on which I need than actually firing both in one pass, but it's working out pretty well so far.

Dual Wielding is in fact generally worth it.

Here's the deal: hits from your attack roll add to DV on a 1:1 basis, so the hits from the split dice pool or the regular dice pool are essentially the same. So what you're really doing is allowing your opponent a second chance to Dodge and Soak. In exchange for which you do your base damage twice.

So iif the base damage on your weapon is more than the hits your opponent is likely to get on their Reaction + Body + Armor, you're better off dual wielding.

Let's put that into perspective: you pull out two machine pistols and fire short bursts full of explosive rounds. That's a base DV of 7, so if their Body + Reaction + Armor is 21 dice or less, it's totally worth it to take the extra shot.

And remember that the explosive round subtracts 1 from their armor and the fact that it's a second shot subtracts 1 from their defense roll (2 from their defense rolls on your second SA during your IP). So if they happen to be Red Samurai (who have 4 Body, 6 Reaction, and 10 Armor), you're ahead. Not by a lot, but it's a 5 point Edge, what did you want?

And remember: things go to shit on you if they go Full Defense, because then they add their Dodge or Gymnastics to their defense roll and your dicepool splitting technique looks a lot worse. But, that involves them skipping their next turn. You can then move on to another target with your other attacks. In most firefights, if you can take one action to keep 4 enemies suppressed, that's awesome even if you don't inflict any damage. You're part of a team, afterall.

-Frank

Very good point, Frank. That was my main motivation for picking it - more options in combat never seemed like a bad thing.

True. Which seems extremely silly.

From my reading, you add magic when you're trying to dispel a spell, or just pure dice if you're resisting a spell, yes?

Yeah, I always forget dispelling. Clearly not something this character is going to be doing, though.

When my group ran the number we calculated it was only beneficial with 2 SMGs with high recoil comp, tracer rounds, long bursts.

As pointed out you can't use Smart-links for dual weapons which elimantes a cheap source of +2 die mod.