Off hand penalty

[garhkal]

Ok. Brought out of Darth Omega's thread on advantages/disadvantages etc, and going through some of the prior threads we have had on two weapon use.. What SHOULD be a good off hand penalty for using 2 hands? -1d? -2d? No penalty, it should give a bonus due to the cinematics of it??
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[gavin storm]

I'd say 1d
_________________
Gavin Storm
Causing Imperials headaches, one punch at a time, since 2000

[CRMcNeill]

Would that be 1D for just the off-hand in addition to a MAP?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[gavin storm]

as people aren't naturally ambedextrus, yes.
_________________
Gavin Storm
Causing Imperials headaches, one punch at a time, since 2000

[shootingwomprats]

When this becomes a factor, not only in combat, say a skill use requiring two hands, depending on the situation I will give a -1D (this is addition to any MAP) or increase the difficulty (either increase 1 category or +1 pip to +2D difficulty to the TN).
_________________
Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
http://d6holocron.com/shootingwomprats
@swd6podcast, Twitter

[Dromdarr_Alark]

I liked how D&D had penalties for both hands. Doing two different things with two different hands is more difficult for both.

What do you think?
_________________
"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[garhkal]

I can see that, so sort of a -2 pips to your active on hand when doing an action with both, and -1d+1 for the off (keeping with adnd's -2/-4 penalty.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[griff]

-2D for shooting with both hands (jango gett) if fired in same round. -1D for just using the off hand if the dominate hand is in useable.
_________________
"EXECUTE ORDER 67. Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like order 67..... No, wait. Yes, yes it does. EXECUTE ORDER 68" Palpatine's last moments - robot chicken.

[DarthOmega]

Well looks like everyone agrees that there should be a penalty. I personally think that anything done with the off-hand should be done at 1 higher difficulty category (Moderate becomes Difficult, Difficult becomes Very Difficult etc). Mainly because it's simple, and isn't yet another bonus or penalty to apply to a roll, as it seems there are plenty enough of those to go around.
_________________
Knowledge is power, and power corrupts...so what does that say about knowledge?

Read my gaming blog at www.alteredrealities.net - click on the tabs near the top for the different pages that usually have character bios and other info.

[jmanski]

Im good with that. I think, cinematically, shooting two blasters should be possible but not overpowered. Unless the player is looking for an advantage, I think the added difficulty works.
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[atgxtg]

I was thinking half die code. But the character can buy a specialty with the off:hand to raise this.

[jmanski]

I like that idea
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[cheshire]

Wow... you guys are tough. I was just going to go for a -2 pips. But if consensus goes in the other direction, then I would go with consensus rather than a rogue lunatic like me.
_________________
__________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[garhkal]

[Whill]

I have an off-hand penalty in my game. Using an off-hand for something that would normally default to the primary hand renders a -1D penalty. That's good enough for my cinematic reality.

My character sheets have a Handedness stat, and players must declare and record a handedness at PC creation. I have a few optional Advantages that can be bought with a skill die at character creation, and one of them is Ambidexterity which does nothing but offset the offhand penalty.

I have one 4-arm PC species and the bottom pair of hands are automatically both offhands. Players of that species must choose one of their top two hands for their Handedness, and the Ambidexterity advantage for them offsets the offhand penalty for the other top hand only.

As far as shooting two blasters in the same round with one in each hand, both shots would have the MAP, plus the offhand shot would also have the offhand penalty so it would make more sense to shoot twice from one blaster in your primary hand. It would make no difference to a character with Ambidexterity, but there would still be no advantage to shooting two blasters over shooting one twice.

Billy the Kid in Young Guns seemed to be ambidextrous, but he still alternated the shooting of each gun. The only advantages he seemed to gain from shooting two guns were increased total available ammo before needing to reload (or draw another loaded gun), and doubling the fire rate of a six-shooter. Those concerns aren't as impactful in Star Wars.

RAW isn't concerned with handedness but my level of suspension of disbelief requires it at least exist in my game, but going any deeper than a -1D offhand penalty and an advantage to offset that is splitting hairs too much for me. Handedness just doesn't come into play too much in my game, but it's there just in case someone's primary hand is injured, caught in or holding on to something, or otherwise unavailable. In almost all cases I don't require players to declare which hand their PC is using. By default the primary hand is assumed to be used unless there is some extenuating circumstance.
_________________
*
Site Map
Forum Guidelines
Registration/Log-In Help
The Rancor Pit Library
Star Wars D6 Damage