In the spirit of the recently posted, and very excellent, martial-arts thread, I'd like to get a little discussion going on about some additional melee maneuvers I could be adding to my game.
A little background info so everything makes a bit more contextual sense:
I'm trying to flesh out melee combat because I've been adapting SR4 to my homebrew fantasy campaign, meaning, melee combat will be a lot more common than in primarily firearm-combat oriented standard SR4.
That said, I've been working on adding a few new maneuvers to characters with a respectable melee skill, but to be truthful, I'm not much of a numbers and systems person, hence why I turn to you again, Dumpshockers. I would like to make these available as different 'modes" of melee combat available to characters with the appropriate melee combat skill, not as "purchase-able maneuvers".
Wielding a one-handed melee weapon in 2 hands
Brought up by a prospective player, he was wondering if there would be any modifications if he were to wield say, a long sword, a weapon typically used with one hand, in both hands. Given some thought, I thought that perhaps this situation could be best represented by adding +1 (or maybe +2) to a weapon's DV while subtracting 1 from the weapon's reach (representing a somewhat more narrow range of motion, but greater applied force). This would not have effect on weapons that naturally require the use of two hands and weapons that are simply to small to use with two hands.
Wielding 2 one-handed melee weapons simultaneously (Dual-Wielding)
This, I believe has been covered a few times already on Dumpshock. The mechanic suggested was granting the dual-wielding character +1 reach, due to the complications of effectively employing two weapons (more or less using the second weapon to keep your opponent at bay/on guard).
Attacking an opponent's weapon/held object
In the case that you would like to smash what your opponent is holding, rather than simply disarming them (haven't thought of a practical reason for this yet, but players keep asking about it). I was thinking of using the mechanic for knocking an object out of an opponent's grasp (-4 DP) but instead of standard damage rules, using the object armor and structure ratings covered under the "Barriers" section.
Feinting
This one I'm pretty hazy on, suggestions have ranged from inability to defend or parry (as per surprise) or simply giving the superior position modifier.
I'm leaning towards making this a free-action that results in a standard Con test (fooling the opponent by juking, pretending to make a strike, etc.) that would give the superior position modifier, but I'm open to suggestion.