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Old 11-23-2016, 10:05 AM   #4
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Dual weapon attack & offhand weapon

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Originally Posted by AllySanders View Post
My friend wants a dual-sword wielding warrior, and plans to purchase the dual weapon attack and offhand weapon training.
GURPS' basic realism makes this much harder than some other RPGs.
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1) does she have to purchase dual weapon attack for the weapon she plans to use in each hand, or only once?
Anyone can attempt a dual-weapon attack, but you're at -4 on each attack (unless you All-Out Attack). This penalty can be bought off with the Dual-Weapon Attack technique (Martial Arts, p80), but that requires having the Weapon Master advantage, which is expensive, and cinematic.

If you're using weapons that use different skills in your two hands, you need to buy DWA technique for each of them. Using two shortswords would only require buying the technique once. And note that your Weapon Master needs to cover both the weapons you use.
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2) does she need to purchase offhand weapon training for both weapons, or only for the weapon to be used in the off hand?
Only for the off-hand weapon.
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Say she has a short sword in the right hand and a dagger in her left, so she has purchased offhand weapon training for the dagger only to get rid of the -4 penalty. She loses the dagger at one point in combat and is now down to only the short sword in the right hand. On the next turn, her enemy cripples her right arm, so she switches the short sword to her left hand. If she does not have offhand weapon training short sword, would this mean that she must take the -4 penalty now?
Yes. This is another reason why using a pair of identical weapons is easier.

It seems that a lot of people who historically fought with sword and dagger used the dagger almost entirely for parrying. To do this in GURPS, you buy the Main-Gauche skill (Basic P208, Martial Arts p58) rather than Knife skill. Main-Gauche is a harder skill, but has no penalty for parrying with a knife (usually -1) or for parrying with the off-hand (usually -2).

In general, when designing a GURPS hand-to-hand fighter, the Active Defences are the thing that needs the most attention. Simply hitting people isn't very difficult. Avoiding getting hurt is the important thing, and Active Defences are the best way of doing that.
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