I have a new player in my group who wants to play a besalisk (the four-armed cook that Obi Wan chats with in Attack of the Clones). He likes the idea of four-weapon combat.

I know that with two-weapon combat, you combine the two pertinent skills using the lower skill rank of the two and the lower characteristic rank of the two. Then you add an additional difficulty die to the pool. After the roll, you can spend two Advantages to hit with the second weapon.

How would I run four-weapon combat? Add another difficulty die? Upgrade difficulty dice instead?

My thought is to add the single difficulty die for multiple weapons as above, then upgrading for each additional weapon past the second. Is this reasonable, or should I simply add even more difficulty dice?

I recall this coming up before on the EotE board. Can't say there was a consensus

What I'd do is let the player have their fantasy, their bubble will probably pop very quickly. I'd just add more difficulty dice, one for each extra attack. Each difficulty die reduces both chance of success, and chance of an extra hit. So at Short range, that would be PPPP...not very good odds unless you're a master gunslinger, and very unlikely to hit more than once because you need 2 advantages to trigger each extra hit. So unless they're rolling YYYY, they're unlikely to hit even once, never mind multiple times. To hit with all four they'd need a success and 6 advantages...and if that happens they'll get their moment of glory and shout "This game is awesome!"

I wouldn't upgrade without increasing difficulty because while it might be more dangerous for the PC, their odds of success remain too high. You'll unleash a monster and probably regret it at higher XP levels. However, I would consider at least one upgrade (so RPPP at Short range) especially if there are distractions or the PC is engaged (which would also increase difficulty again).

Do like Autofire and require a pair of Advantages for each extra hit.

That is one way to go, although that does make it very hard for things to be effective. If it were me, and this was central to his character concept (IE: He's a combat focused character and this is his whole deal), I'd rule that he can choose to do one of two things during an attack, when armed with four blaster pistols.

He can either

A.) take a <B> to his attack roll for each additional weapon he fires. (in addition to standard rules for dual wielding). This gives us this idea that with that big a barrage coming at you, there is a higher chance of a second blaster bolt impacting. I would also consider just saying that if he has 4 single fire weapons, he can just use the autofire quality, because he is firing enough rounds. I would also probably rule that he can dual wield two-handed weapons, such as two rifles.

Or, he can alternately just use the dual weapon rules as normal and

B.) Use the other weapons to fire in an opponent's general direction, and simply select one opponent per additional weapon to add a setback die to their next attack (no stacking them both on one guy, he's either suppressed or he's not). This means the other weapons aren't being aimed so much, as just used for cover fire.

Allowing them to have both an offensive and defensive option like that gives them a feeling of additional tactical choice, without really breaking the game. Just my two cents for how I'd run it at my table.

That is one way to go, although that does make it very hard for things to be effective.

Not really. After all, he doesn't *have* to start with four blasters right away, that is the player's choice. The player here wants a freebie. The GM doesn't have to cater to something that is clearly overpowered for a beginning character, or invent a new mechanic when RAW-extended does the job. The player can start with a single hand, add a second as his skill rank goes up, etc. With appropriate character development he'll get there soon enough, and when he finally stands on that empty street at high noon, four hands cooly hovering over four blaster pistols in their four holsters, he'll know he finally earned the right to wear that hat...

Do like Autofire and require a pair of Advantages for each extra hit.

Yeah, this seems to make sense. Given that you could shell out 1.5k for a Heavy Blaster Rifle with autofire to get that effect, and it'd cost 2.8k to get 4 Heavy Blaster Pistols that have shorter range, less damage, and higher encumbrance...

Not to mention that to improve them you'd need to buy 4 times as many attachments and weapon mods. The benefit of effectively having a concealable autofire weapon is strong, but not that strong.

Do like Autofire and require a pair of Advantages for each extra hit.

Yeah, this seems to make sense. Given that you could shell out 1.5k for a Heavy Blaster Rifle with autofire to get that effect, and it'd cost 2.8k to get 4 Heavy Blaster Pistols that have shorter range, less damage, and higher encumbrance...

Not to mention that to improve them you'd need to buy 4 times as many attachments and weapon mods. The benefit of effectively having a concealable autofire weapon is strong, but not that strong.

Yup, plus there's that one blaster pistol in DC I think that is Autofire already so it isn't like this is introducing a hit capability with a handgun that isn't already in the game anyway.

So, he'd be using 4-8 Encumbrance just to carry all his pistols. Which is pretty big. I think I would apply the dual wield penalty (+1 difficulty) for each extra pistol like Whafrog does. Yes, it's steep, but just because someone has 4 arms it doesn't mean they can aim four pistols effectively. Humans have 2 arms, but there is a reason why people don't dual wield pistols on a regular basis.

After the first +1 difficulty though, I might start upgrading to Challenge dice.

It's an interesting problem to chew on. I'd be interested to see how it turned out during actual campaign play.

You can also consider that the lower pistols, you can't aim them very effectively. You can't sight them with your eye. So its a hip fire sort of thing. Yes there are famous trickshot artists that can fire from the hip very accurately, but still. It ups the difficulty.

Just go with regular combat checks and give the blaster pistols Linked 3 or use standard auto-fire rules for the extras if you want it. Or just say it's narrative and use a regular combat check but "pretend" that he's using all four weapons.

Or perhaps use auto-fire rules and linked 2.

I don't see the need to be terribly punitive to the idea of it since the character can just carry one autofire pistol and have the same chance at the number of hits and also be able to attack multiple targets, as opposed to this idea which regardless of the four hit potential, is still limited to one target.

I wouldn't go with Linked though as that doesn't convey any penalty at all as do two weapon combat and autofire both, but I think a single Difficulty tacked on, along with the significant Encumbrance issue some have pointed out is more than a balance to the option.

I don't see the need to be terribly punitive to the idea of it since the character can just carry one autofire pistol and have the same chance at the number of hits and also be able to attack multiple targets, as opposed to this idea which regardless of the four hit potential, is still limited to one target.

I wouldn't go with Linked though as that doesn't convey any penalty at all as do two weapon combat and autofire both, but I think a single Difficulty tacked on, along with the significant Encumbrance issue some have pointed out is more than a balance to the option.

Interesting point. I still think coordinating 4 arms is more difficult than spraying an area with an auto-fire weapon. Besides, what if the player then wants to carry four auto-fire weapons? The potential for low-XP carnage seems excessive.

I like the +1 difficulty, and +2 Advantages per weapon the character wants to successfully hit with. Maybe give them a blue or two due to race (to help with hitting with multiple weapons)... Generally, two weapon fighting in every system is one of those "I read this in a book somewhere and it was AWESOME, I want to be that AWESOME, it has to be easy to do". Actually being accurate with multiple weapons at the same time is NOT an easy thing (there is a MythBusters on this somewhere), as anyone who has ever tried to fight in a florentine style. You spend a lot of time re-learning how to move so you do not interfere with your own weapons, before you start worrying about your opponents attempts to kill you.

It is a really cool cinematic narrative thing! I am all for it, but making it too easy will completely remove combat as an option, since this character would literally mow everything down in 1/4 the time of a similarly skilled individual.

Kevynn

I don't see the need to be terribly punitive to the idea of it since the character can just carry one autofire pistol and have the same chance at the number of hits and also be able to attack multiple targets, as opposed to this idea which regardless of the four hit potential, is still limited to one target.

I wouldn't go with Linked though as that doesn't convey any penalty at all as do two weapon combat and autofire both, but I think a single Difficulty tacked on, along with the significant Encumbrance issue some have pointed out is more than a balance to the option.

Interesting point. I still think coordinating 4 arms is more difficult than spraying an area with an auto-fire weapon. Besides, what if the player then wants to carry four auto-fire weapons? The potential for low-XP carnage seems excessive.

Two weapon combat makes zero sense in the real world so we will just leave that out since we are talking about shooting ray guns in space. Firing even two weapons accurately would need to be at close range. In reality it's a lot easier to spray an area with machine gun fire than it is to hold a machine gun on a single target.

There is no mechanical benefit in the game to employing 2+ auto fire weapons. It does nothing for you. You still have an added Difficulty die for autofire. You still only get the extra hit per pair of Advantages, so there is functionally no difference between one autofire weapon or firing two, four, or 20 at once.

I don't see the need to be terribly punitive to the idea of it since the character can just carry one autofire pistol and have the same chance at the number of hits and also be able to attack multiple targets, as opposed to this idea which regardless of the four hit potential, is still limited to one target.

I wouldn't go with Linked though as that doesn't convey any penalty at all as do two weapon combat and autofire both, but I think a single Difficulty tacked on, along with the significant Encumbrance issue some have pointed out is more than a balance to the option.

Interesting point. I still think coordinating 4 arms is more difficult than spraying an area with an auto-fire weapon. Besides, what if the player then wants to carry four auto-fire weapons? The potential for low-XP carnage seems excessive.

Er, you get no additional benefit from dual-wielding autofiring weapons- you still have to spend AA/T to score each additional hit. Also, whether or not coordinating 4 arms is more difficult is a moot point- the cost of an ability should reflect the benefit it grants, rather than the cost to master. This is an FFG game, not GURPS (thank god!).

I like the +1 difficulty, and +2 Advantages per weapon the character wants to successfully hit with. Maybe give them a blue or two due to race (to help with hitting with multiple weapons)... Generally, two weapon fighting in every system is one of those "I read this in a book somewhere and it was AWESOME, I want to be that AWESOME, it has to be easy to do". Actually being accurate with multiple weapons at the same time is NOT an easy thing (there is a MythBusters on this somewhere), as anyone who has ever tried to fight in a florentine style. You spend a lot of time re-learning how to move so you do not interfere with your own weapons, before you start worrying about your opponents attempts to kill you.

It is a really cool cinematic narrative thing! I am all for it, but making it too easy will completely remove combat as an option, since this character would literally mow everything down in 1/4 the time of a similarly skilled individual.

Kevynn

If you look at the dice, really just treating it as autofire works best. You're highly unlikely to roll 6 advantage in the first place so it's not as if you'll be consistently hitting with all 4 weapons. Even if you *can* consistently land 4 hits... you could've landed them with a Heavy Blaster Rifle instead, at a greater distance, for more damage. You're not even *near* going to mow people down in 1/4 of the time.

---

I put some thought in and there is *one* unique advantage just allowing +1D, 2A per extra hit would give you. You can score marginally more critical hits in for certain unusual roll results and gear loadouts. At 2A per hit, 2A per crit, if you roll 10A and no T and have 3 Disruptor Pistols you can still score 3 hits, 3 crits. Whereas with a HBR, you'd only score 3 hits, 2 crits.

For a character firing at point-blank range, with 6 Agility/5 Ranged(Light) and aiming twice... 0.7% of attacks will generate enough Advantage for this to come up. That's utterly negligible.

Personally I would just say mechanically 4 arms would act just the same as 2. Just give them a racial bonus of Extra Clips if they wield more than 2 weapons. You really don't want give a player more than 1 extra hit. Because they will eventually get really good at doing those extra hits despite the extra difficulty.

There are some really good comments and ideas here! Basing it on Auto-fire seems to be a popular answer! I also like KRK's option that gives the player a second tactic for firing four guns.

So, my player can make a choice when he wants to go crazy with the guns a'blazing.

1) If he wants to try to shoot one or more targets for damage, I'll have him add two difficulty dice, and he can spend pairs of Advantages for each hit past the first. He can choose targets for successful hits. It will be tough to hit more than twice until he can spend lots of XP on skill ranks and he won't likely ever be able to roll on the Crits like this, and I'll make sure he understands that. But I'll also let him know he can spend lots (and lots) of coin and have his guns modded for the Superior Weapon Customization, which would make hitting with guns three and four much easier.

2) He can follow the normal rules for two-weapon combo for shooting with his upper, more aimable arms, while laying down some suppression fire with the two guns in his lower, hip-shootin' arms. This will add a setback die to a couple targets down range for their next actions. In this case, he can hit with two guns fairly often, and the other two hands/guns aren't useless.

I like it.

I'll also tell my player that with four arms, he could effectively simply two-weapon combo rifles. He could also go with two pistols in his upper limbs and, say, two swords in his lower limbs when things get too close for comfort. He wouldn't have to spend maneuvers switching weapons and it would look very piratical, which I'm sure he'd love too.

As a bonus, I'll tell him his species is good at doing things with all four limbs at once and give him a blue bonus die. He'll be thrilled with that!

Thanks everyone!

I'd also like to throw this one out there: just because you have four arms doesn't mean you're more effective in combat.

I think there was a Schlock Mercenary comic that touched on the issue, but even with extra arms, you still have binary vision. You need both your eyeballs trained on a single target in order to have any hope of hitting it. As far as I know, besalisks have the same type of vision that humans do, as opposed to birds or many lizards, who can track things independently with each eye.

So I would suggest sticking with your first option, RLogue, at least from a (space) biology point of view.

There are some really good comments and ideas here! Basing it on Auto-fire seems to be a popular answer! I also like KRK's option that gives the player a second tactic for firing four guns.

So, my player can make a choice when he wants to go crazy with the guns a'blazing.

1) If he wants to try to shoot one or more targets for damage, I'll have him add two difficulty dice, and he can spend pairs of Advantages for each hit past the first. He can choose targets for successful hits. It will be tough to hit more than twice until he can spend lots of XP on skill ranks and he won't likely ever be able to roll on the Crits like this, and I'll make sure he understands that. But I'll also let him know he can spend lots (and lots) of coin and have his guns modded for the Superior Weapon Customization, which would make hitting with guns three and four much easier.

2) He can follow the normal rules for two-weapon combo for shooting with his upper, more aimable arms, while laying down some suppression fire with the two guns in his lower, hip-shootin' arms. This will add a setback die to a couple targets down range for their next actions. In this case, he can hit with two guns fairly often, and the other two hands/guns aren't useless.

I like it.

I'll also tell my player that with four arms, he could effectively simply two-weapon combo rifles. He could also go with two pistols in his upper limbs and, say, two swords in his lower limbs when things get too close for comfort. He wouldn't have to spend maneuvers switching weapons and it would look very piratical, which I'm sure he'd love too.

As a bonus, I'll tell him his species is good at doing things with all four limbs at once and give him a blue bonus die. He'll be thrilled with that!

Thanks everyone!

Er, option 1 is basically pointless though? As I've said; he could just get an autofire weapon and get any number of extra hits for 2A each. In fact, it would make more sense for him to just wield an autofire weapon and 'reskin' it as a set of 4 pistols with these rules.

He's basically got no incentive to use the second set of arms, because that extra difficulty means he's even less likely to get the advantage he needs to score 3 hits- he'd be better off using one set.

For a 4/3 character using 2 weapons at close range: ~40% chance for 2 hits

For a 4/3 character using 4 weapons: ~22% chance for 2 hits, ~5% chance for 3+ hits

This is a realistic, quite good character, firing as close as he can against targets in the open- and it's very unlikely to be worth it even for him.

Option 2 is if anything the most overpowered suggestion so far, because you're giving him a racial ability of "When attacking, add [black] to two enemy NPCs next actions". Which costs 2A- effectively giving him 4A free on all attacks.

I mean, it's laudable that you don't want to let this guy overshadow the other PCs, but your implementation will have him trivially overshadowed by any player with an HBR.

I'm now leaning more towards 2P51's use of the autofire rules, but just not clear on one thing: do you add difficulty for both dual wielding *and* autofire? Or just autofire? Because if it's just the latter, then why couldn't anybody with 2 pistols just use autofire instead of dual wielding? They'd have a chance of getting more hits. If PCs with 2 pistols have to use dual wielding, and 4 pistols uses autofire, the latter gets a freebie.

New suggestion: 2 pistols = dual wielding. 3+ pistols uses autofire, but generates an automatic threat for each weapon over 2. Helps limit too many additional hits and may cause strain, which seems appropriate.

I'm now leaning more towards 2P51's use of the autofire rules, but just not clear on one thing: do you add difficulty for both dual wielding *and* autofire? Or just autofire? Because if it's just the latter, then why couldn't anybody with 2 pistols just use autofire instead of dual wielding? They'd have a chance of getting more hits. If PCs with 2 pistols have to use dual wielding, and 4 pistols uses autofire, the latter gets a freebie.

New suggestion: 2 pistols = dual wielding. 3+ pistols uses autofire, but generates an automatic threat for each weapon over 2. Helps limit too many additional hits and may cause strain, which seems appropriate.

Not sure 1 Threat per weapon beyond 2... maybe a Setback per weapon beyond 2? Give it a little more bite...

Kevynn

I dunno. Really, it works just like two-weapon combo but with one added difficulty for the two extra arms/guns/attacks. It will be difficult in the beginning to score shots three and four, but it will be an ability/skill that the PC can grow into with XP and loving devotion.

My player is happy he can do his thing. I'm happy the mechanic isn't overpowered or over-complicated. The player has a tactical option with the suppression fire gimmick. (And in fact I'm going to make suppression fire an action anyone can do.)

I call it a win. Saturday, when we play next, we'll see how it works in a couple combat situations.

I dunno. Really, it works just like two-weapon combo but with one added difficulty for the two extra arms/guns/attacks. It will be difficult in the beginning to score shots three and four, but it will be an ability/skill that the PC can grow into with XP and loving devotion.

My player is happy he can do his thing. I'm happy the mechanic isn't overpowered or over-complicated. The player has a tactical option with the suppression fire gimmick. (And in fact I'm going to make suppression fire an action anyone can do.)

I call it a win. Saturday, when we play next, we'll see how it works in a couple combat situations.

What's your player's stats, because with 4 purple dice I think they will find it is hard to even land a successful attack and might get frustrated and not bother with it depending on their dice pool.

Do like Autofire and require a pair of Advantages for each extra hit.

OMFG I'm so glad people appreciate this. Autofire used to be 1 Adv/extra hit, even after two-weapon fighting was changed.

Convincing the devs to change this during the EotE beta was a headache. Before that change was made, autofire was insane.

The PC's stats, yes.

I created the species pecs for besalisks, so I'll sum that up first. Then also, the player is joining an already existing game, so I gave him an extra 50 XP. He claimed +10 XP and +2500 credits for +20 Obligation. His Obligation is Obsession -- he wants to be the most famous treasure hunter ever, whatever it takes.

Besalisk

Brawn 3, Agility 2, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Willpower 1, Presence 2

Wound Threshold: 11 + Brawn; Strain Threshold: 10 + Willpower

1 rank of Charm; 1 rank of Perception

100 XP

--------

Bellell, Ne-er-Do-Well Treasure Hunter

Species: Besalisk

Career: Explorer; Specializations: Archaeologist, Sharpshooter

Soak 4, Wound Threshold 14, Strain Threshold 13, MDef 1, RDef 1

Brawn 3, Agility 3, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Willpower 1, Presence 2

Skills: Athletics 1, Charm 1, Cool 1, Negotiation 1, Perception 1, Piloting - Space 1, Ranged (Light) 3, Ranged (Heavy) 1, Core Worlds 1, Lore 2, Outer Rim 1

Talents: Well-Rounded, Grit x2, Sniper Shot, True Aim x2, Lethal Blows

He has four regular blaster pistols and wears armored clothing.

--------

With his 3 Agility, 3 Ranged (Light), and two True Aims, he's rolling four proficiency dice and a boost die (assuming he uses a maneuver to True Aim) against...

...three difficulty dice at short range

...four difficulty dice at medium range

...five difficulty dice at Long range (with one upgraded to a challenge die).

If he uses a second maneuver to regular Aim, throw in another boost die.

He knows it's not going to be easy to score multiple hits a lot. But the player is happy, and he knows he can spend XP to become better at it. The mechanic itself is simply an extension of the two-weapon combo rule, so it's not overly complicated, and I'm happy with that as GM.