so a player wants to dual wield...no problem, he's read the rules.
problem is he wants to wield a ranged and a melee weapon at the same time
Complex action melee attack - Monowhip
Simple action ranged attack - Ares Predator

so what do you think happens?
make one melee attack (half lowest pool), and two ranged attacks? (half lowest pool -2 per additional target?)

would you add reflex recorders after the dice pool split? or before?

I wasn't aware that you could combine a complex action that uses one skill and two simple actions that use a seperate skill to get one complex action.

personally I made melee attacks and unarmed attacks into standard actions. Grappling can turn into a complex action. This made more sense then the RAW to me and it allowed for more martial arts action. I got rid of the split dice pool stuff because it was too much when combined.

Then you let them make an attack for each action without allowing the spliting and it works out fine.

Here is how I'd imagine it work. IF and only if its possilbe

Say you roll 10 dice for monowhips normally
and 8 dice for pistols.

First you'd use the lower of the two skills as your base per dual dual wielding rules.
So pistols

You'd get four dice for two shots with the pistol (recoil and additional targets may apply) and one melee attack.

Reflex Recorders I believe are added afterwards.

Personally I think it be to much of a head ace
My elf wields a Monowhip and a machine pistol. He uses the machine pistol for guys he can't reach and the monowhip for anyone close by. He never uses both during the same Initiative Pass.

In that case, I think he's going to have to settle for using them one at a time.

Now if he picked a simple action melee weapon, I think he could combine them into a complex action, one for one.

But as it is, a monowhip is a complicated thing to control, and I really can't imagine using one while shooting a gun simultaneously.

All melee weapon attacks are complex actions. I would probably make it where they can defend with the melee weapon if they already used a simple action to fire their firearm. If they use the melee weapon first then they just have to wait for the next turn to fire their firearm. Just my opinion.

Well the way I look at it is:

Can I punch twice in three seconds? Yes.
The rules say I can't. Well the rules are wrong.

Simple reality check.

Yeah, you can but can you also hit 2 times in 3 seconds when your target is ducking, weaving and punching at you? It makes sense that you can do the attack but the rules aren't just punch, hit, punch, hit. It's abstract. The 1 attack per 3 seconds just represents actually connecting with one of those hits.

that logic works the other way and could be said of shooting too. It's up to you but it seems like it is cool to be able to kick a gun out of someone's hand and then stab them. Or you could disarm and shoot someone with their own gun. I think that it makes the game more cinematic and fun. So far it hasn't broken the game either.

So, now I have a question, and I'm too lazy to do the research (no, really, my book is MILES away... could take twenty minutes to get there...)

Is there any rule against splitting dicepools for complex actions?

So:

I do a melee thing.. complex action, no big. But I dual weild, say... Katana!... I split dice pool for my blade attack and roll two attacks, one for each hand!

If that's not illegal (and if it is, then SR4 has some 'splainin' to do....)... then extrapolate it out. Sure, split your dice pool (the smaller pool, natch) and now your half a complex action becomes shot a fool in the face instead of chopsocky number two.

Only one shot, because it's a split complex action, not a split simple action. You go with the 'higher level' action, just as you go with the 'smaller dice pool' gets split, unless I hallucinated that too...

Which makes me wonder what the official ruling is on intitiating a complex action with your second simple action of an IP. One of those "I just spent this simple action getting into place to go Kung Fu on his ass, but now I have to stand there staring at him like a dope with a simple action left, cause Its too complex to start swinging???" situations.

There is no point in dual wielding two katanas if you have one single katana you can split the dice pool to attack multiple times.

You are missing two things, Jack...

One is Style.

The second thing is all the ... and ! I used. It's not katana, its .....Katana!!....

Keep your geek cred alive, nothing is cooler than a dikoted, tank killing katana that TWO!!!

sometimes, in order to have good style, you have to sacrifice substance.

Of course, in real history, Musashi wasn't a two Katana freak, he used, and advocated, the small sword (wakizashi) as the off hand weapon, and never used his two sword style against a single opponent. The purpose, to the venerable master of swordplay, was to use the two weapons to herd lesser opponents into your killing zone. It was all about battlespace management back before the buzzword concept was invented.

I remember a story where Musashi in fact used two weapons against a single opponent, namely Shishido Baiken, who wielded a Kusarigama (don't know the english word for it, in german it's a 'Kugel-Ketten-Sichel', verbatim 'ball-chain-sickle').
Of course, the story might not exactly be accurate . On the other hand, it is said this encounter gave him ideas for the two weapon fighting style *shrug*.

In SR, using a melee weapon and a gun simultaneously can get complicated, e.g. normally there is this penalty for using a gun while in melee.

So, after reading through the earlier ideas, I would probably split the lowest dicepool, and allow only one shot, but without the melee modifier. Of course, this would mean people wielding only one gun would be able to shoot without penalty in melee too, but since that would require a complex action instead of a simple one, I think that would be OK.

Well, the absolute 'never' might be pushing it. I was basing my comments off of what I recall of the man, and his own words on the subject, which may or may not have included the word 'never'.

Of course, I don't recall any historicity to samurai duels with Kusarigama but it does make for good storytelling. About the only thing I think that has any historical weight is the fact he killed a man with a boat oar. I think to prove a point more than anything else...

Instead of splitting the dice pools, why not require a high skill level in order to duel wield? That would fit with the observations.

The way I read the rules a character isn't able to split complex actions up into bits. The rule about splitting melee combat dice pools is in order to attack multiple opponents with the same complex action.

Slashing someone with a sword or a monofilament whip precludes you from shooting them in the same action phase. Someone jacked up on stimulants or 'ware might be able to kick the gun out of a guards hand and then shoot him by virtue of using the first pass to disarm him in melee, and the second pass to pop a couple of caps into him.

Of course you're entitled to do whatever you like in your game, but remember the -3 dice penalty for using ranged weapons in melee will deplete his dice pool still further.