Allowing Technique Mastery with Dual-Weapon Attack

[Tomsdad]

I tend not* to have cinematic stuff so it not really come up as a huge issue for me, but that said TM is one of those areas that in abstract are fine but you have to watch for game breaking combinations in play. Especially when compound a cinematic tech with TM!


*and when I do run cinematic stuff it tends to be pretty genre specific which acts as it own limitation here (I have soft spot for pulp two fisted adventures)

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It is not about being cinematic, you have plenty of people in martial arts (and SCA) learning and improving cinematic techniques (which are fine in demonstrations or tournaments but would get you killed in real life combat), it is about being plausible. An archer who can shot two arrows at once, against two different targets, more skillfully than they can one arrow against one target is not only implausible, it is Looney Tunes level of silly. The same applies to any form of dual weapon combat, and that level of silliness does not fit without most GURPS campaigns.

Thing is there is nothing inherently silly about using two weapons at once (check out escrima* which has been doing so in a variety of combinations for a while), it's just hard, and IMO some combinations work better than others.

But well that why DWA defaults to -4 unless you allow a cinematic perk which makes dual wielding cinematic-ally easy

EDIT actually sorry I realise your saying being able to attack with two weapons at once better than one! Yes I agree with you.

*or rapier and dagger, or hell anyone with a shield and something else in their otherhand

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

EDIT actually sorry I realise your saying being able to attack with two weapons at once better than one! Yes I agree with you.

GURPS has a number of traits that amount to buying off a penalty that don't always make it obvious that's what they are doing. I happen to think this one is clear about it, but there certainly are some that aren't.

My favorite example is Sanitized Metabolism - no it does not make sense somebody would be more helpful if you squeeze into the elevator with them before you ask rather than ask from the outside before the door closes. It counters a penalty that isn't actually defined anywhere.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by malloyd

GURPS has a number of traits that amount to buying off a penalty that don't always make it obvious that's what they are doing. I happen to think this one is clear about it, but there certainly are some that aren't.

...

I think the issue for me here is not so much buying off the penalty, but then getting better than the underlying thing with TM. But it's really about the difference between action benefiting from TM and the underlying skill