I'm bringing up these individual cards (see other posts) because they seem to be the most oft' asked things by my players (so far).

What's up with double strike compared to twin pistols? Double strike seems to be the most broken card in the game..or am I missing something?

What would you do to fix it? Add a purple and black die? Give a minimum 2 recharge time like Troll Feller Strike?

jh

I think just like you that 'Double Strike' action card is a bit imbalanced. Even if you cannot use a shield you can easly deal a big damage. One additional misfortune dice to the dice pool is poor penalty in comparison to the possibilities of this card.

I think this one may look better on paper than it is in actual practice. Unless you're going to try to dual wield morning stars, a character with double strike is most likely going to be armed with 2 hand weapons. That's +5 damage when getting 2 successes in a Reckless stance. Considering that the action is one harder to execute than a melee strike, it promotes going deep into stance to generate the multiple successes as getting a single success is no better than a Melee Strike. Added to the prospect of rolling fatigue, rolling 2 banes causes fatigue as well. So it is potentially more tiring to use Double Strike. My only experience with the card is the Troll Slayer in the demo and he was suffering from fatigue big time in both instances. A character gives up the ability to have a shield, which reduces potential defense rating and removes the Block reaction from their available active defenses. Also, a character with two hand weapons probably has to forgo carrying a ranged weapon further limiting his attack options. The extra damage potential theoretically makes up for the loss of other options.

Consider a ranged weapon armed foe at long range. With no range weapon of his own, the Double Strike character has to potentially take several shots of ranged weapon damage on the way in or else burn fatigue to close more quickly. The extra fatigue puts him at a disadvantage right from the start and limits how many Double Strike attempts they can make before being too tired to risk it.

Does Double Strike do more raw damage when rolling multiple successes than a lot of other action cards? Yes, but it has drawbacks beyond the additional to use or recharge that some other actions have.

It is hard to see the down side when the thug in my group with 5 STR rolls 5 dice + 1 specialty die + 1 training dice and hits for 16 pts damage( hand weapon plus morningstar and the GM made him specialise in both weapons to get 1 die benefit). It just seems that 2 successes isnt enough to warrant this. then he hits again with the primary weapon when he scores a comet!

My character has 5 AG and uses a pistol and I cant get close to that!

He did suffer fatigue but due to such massive damage outlay the fight didn't last long enough for that to be a big problem.

It surprises me a little that there is no connection between this card and the parry card, like sword and board, as the second weapon would as often (if not more) be used for parrying as attacking.

AaronC said:

well you can use shield , for example tower shield that gives u 1 soak and 2 defence, + if improved block also extra 1 soak and misfortune dice. + since u have a pistol you can attack from range for good damage as welll,. i dont see the imbalance. Forfeiting a shield is also forfeiting much defence and soak

Emirikol said:

what do you want ? That twin pistols should work same as double strike , but be ranged ? I think most people see the imbalance in that..Ranged is powerful. Can you parry a ranged attack, i would think not. Block and dodge yes, but parry seems weird. So ranged has a benfit there as well as the obvious benefit of being away of the close combat

mac40k said:

That's true. Starting encumbrance values are low and that ranged weapon will have to be left behind or the PC probably will be encumbered from the start.

bjornandersen said:

But don't you feel it would be quite weird for a ranged character (especially with a pistol) to run around with a shield? Just to compensate for lack of damage output? I can't remember to hear about any formation using such a strange combination. And in general I believe it's easer to be more effective in shooting simultaneously with 2 pistols than hitting with two swords.

And from my experience hardly any fight starts at long range. Most start at close because as in all decent computer games they start with a dialogue scene. So far no one in my games hesitated to burn enough fatigue to engage the shooter, and the advantage in melee easily compensates even for misfrotune dices (if there are any) caused by strain.

If you get into a prolonged fight, not having a shield could be a major problem. even more so if you come up against multiple ranged weapons, as you may be able to dodge one attack, but without a shield will be unable to block the next before the Dodge has recharged. If you think double strike is too powerful and all your players are using it., put a couple of adversaries wearing plate and wielding tower shields, plus henchmen with longbows, and see how long your players last without shields. A Brettonian raiding party should do!

ragnar63 said:

exactly, ebverything has its counter, double strike is good damage wise, but a shield and sword build is much better soakwise and defencewise. Also I dont feel its correct to compare double strike with twin pistols, its like comparing apples and oranges. Range has its positive and negative sides, same has meleee, its two different fighting styles.