Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - How does MainGauche and TwoWeapons skill fit with each other?

Nils_Lindeberg · 05-01-2020, 07:40 PM

I am not after house rulings. You can always do that. But I am trying to figure out what is RAW and what is RAI.

It seems a little strange to me that you can use a dagger in your left hand without any talent for it and make a secondary attack. And you can fight with two weapons without a talent, but with a high negative dex modifier. Cesti mentions punching and gives a -3/-3 adjustment, but at the same time mentions that a cestus works like a MG, which would mean -0/-4 if you used one cestus in your main hand, and then used your left-hand MG attack.

You can fight with a sword and an MG in your left hand. And you can hit a person with an unarmed attack (not UC), but it is not specified if you can do so with a torch in one hand, or a sword, and so on.

So can you hit someone with a punch, even though you have a sword in your other hand? If you can do that, one would assume you can do that with a sword attack and a punch too? With a -6 on both attacks at the very least. But with Two Weapons talent, you should be able to hit with a -0/-4. And I feel that it would be logical to be able to do that with a dagger, MG, a cestus that works like a MG and a fist, even though the latter is not specially mentioned.

And from that, you could take it one step further and do it with brawling or UC, but those ones are a stretch.

Normally you can apply a balance calculation to these things since TFT is a pretty darn balanced game. And doing so gives us a good reason to think that it would be balanced. In most cases where you could use this, a dagger would work just as well, and it would do more damage. But it would also mean you couldn't open a door or that you had to draw the dagger, while the punch is always there. Fairly balanced against having a small shield or a dagger I would say, and it would give us a more cinematic story with push, shoves, and so on from the swordsman that only have a single one handed weapon.

So if not RAW, or errata worthy, but RAI perhaps? Or would it be unbalanced or would it complicate things?

05-01-2020, 07:40 PM	#11
Nils_Lindeberg Join Date: Jul 2018	Re: How does MainGauche and TwoWeapons skill fit with each other? I am not after house rulings. You can always do that. But I am trying to figure out what is RAW and what is RAI. It seems a little strange to me that you can use a dagger in your left hand without any talent for it and make a secondary attack. And you can fight with two weapons without a talent, but with a high negative dex modifier. Cesti mentions punching and gives a -3/-3 adjustment, but at the same time mentions that a cestus works like a MG, which would mean -0/-4 if you used one cestus in your main hand, and then used your left-hand MG attack. You can fight with a sword and an MG in your left hand. And you can hit a person with an unarmed attack (not UC), but it is not specified if you can do so with a torch in one hand, or a sword, and so on. So can you hit someone with a punch, even though you have a sword in your other hand? If you can do that, one would assume you can do that with a sword attack and a punch too? With a -6 on both attacks at the very least. But with Two Weapons talent, you should be able to hit with a -0/-4. And I feel that it would be logical to be able to do that with a dagger, MG, a cestus that works like a MG and a fist, even though the latter is not specially mentioned. And from that, you could take it one step further and do it with brawling or UC, but those ones are a stretch. Normally you can apply a balance calculation to these things since TFT is a pretty darn balanced game. And doing so gives us a good reason to think that it would be balanced. In most cases where you could use this, a dagger would work just as well, and it would do more damage. But it would also mean you couldn't open a door or that you had to draw the dagger, while the punch is always there. Fairly balanced against having a small shield or a dagger I would say, and it would give us a more cinematic story with push, shoves, and so on from the swordsman that only have a single one handed weapon. So if not RAW, or errata worthy, but RAI perhaps? Or would it be unbalanced or would it complicate things?