Attacking with two weapons

By Seam, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

If a character attacks with two weapons, and assuming he succeeds, what is the damage (leaving all circumstances like lowest bonus etc. aside)?

1) The "first" weapon does its base damage, plus all additional successes, right?

2) What is the damage of the "second" weapon? Does it only do its base damage, or does it benefit also from every additional succes?

Thanks.

The Core Rulebook specifically says "Each hit does the base damage +1 damage per uncancelled success"

page 218 in Force & Destiny

Each hit of an attack deals base damage + successes. This includes hits from off-hand weapons, and the linked and auto-fire qualities.

I guessed as much but wanted to be sure. Thanks!

To clarify though, the second weapon -only- does damage if you spend two advantage to do so.

Just dual wielding, appropriately setting the difficulty of the attack, and succeeding only means that the "main" weapon hits. Two advantage is needed for the second to hit as well. The damage, as has been indicated, is base damage + total net success (for each hit).

Essentially dual wielding is a poor mans autofire (and note, its of diminishing value to dual wield autofire weapons, unless you're using some fairly specific talents or upgrades).

Autofire weapons are more restricted...at least in my games. Two pistols are gonna get into a room before two or even one autofire weapon

Plus, with dual wield you're able to use weapons with different qualities, which can be handy. Though obviously you'll need the requisite adv.

Edited by SanguineAngel

Yah, like 2 thermal detonators, cuz if 1 is good, 2 are awesome.....

4 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Yah, like 2 thermal detonators, cuz if 1 is good, 2 are awesome.....

Only go two thermal detonators if you're serving with admiral Akbar.

I was wondering, with dual wielding is each hit counted separately or combined with soak? For instance, if I use dual wield 2 pistols with damage of 4 against an enemy with a soak of 4 is the damage 0 or 4?

2 separate hits, Soak for both.

7 hours ago, 2P51 said:

2 separate hits, Soak for both.

Yeah, it's important these are taken as 2 separate hits, not one hit for combined damage of the weapons. Aside from the fact that it doubles the soak:

  • You can score 1 critical injury per hit on a target, so if you land a second hit with a dual-wielding attack, you can score a second critical.
  • The Parry & Reflect talents allow you to reduce the damage of a hit , so if you land a second hit with a dual-wielding attack, they get to trigger it and reduce the damage of each hit individually- reducing the damage by more, but at the cost of more strain.
  • Some armours (e.g. Koromondain Half Vest) degrade in quality when they suffer a hit . So more hits = more degradation.
16 hours ago, 2P51 said:

Yah, like 2 thermal detonators, cuz if 1 is good, 2 are awesome.....

And three, well that's just good business!

Equalizer Pistol (Superior (I think that is the term in English) Mod included) = automatic Advantage

Paired Mod = only 1 Advantage to fire second Weapon

And there is a Mod that lets you use one less lilac die (whats its name?) while fireing with two weapons

Thats my end goal. Though I did not know soak counts for both hits. Does Shield count for both hits too, meaning, do I have to add two blacks if the enemy has Shield 1?

33 minutes ago, Seam said:

Does Shield count for both hits too, meaning, do I have to add two blacks if the enemy has Shield 1?

That's a good question, but I'd think not. The second hit is triggering based on the success of the first hit. If the target has a shield adding a setback, that shouldn't double due to the attacker using two weapons. Narratively it sounds wrong because it's as if the first hit penetrating the shield is allowing the second attack to automatically penetrate. I think I'm ok with that because narratively you could have the shield as soak rather than defense and that does reduce the second hit still. It's almost more like defense is the target dodging, ducking and weaving, and if the attacker has already compensated and rolled well, hello double attack.

2 hours ago, Seam said:

Equalizer Pistol (Superior (I think that is the term in English) Mod included) = automatic Advantage

Paired Mod = only 1 Advantage to fire second Weapon

And there is a Mod that lets you use one less lilac die (whats its name?) while fireing with two weapons

Thats my end goal. Though I did not know soak counts for both hits. Does Shield count for both hits too, meaning, do I have to add two blacks if the enemy has Shield 1?

No, because Defence affects the attack , not the hits . You make one attack check, applying Defence and any bonuses from items like shields, and then score 1 or more hits from it. Defence doesn't affect damage. Soak, however, does.

16 hours ago, Roderz said:

That's a good question, but I'd think not. The second hit is triggering based on the success of the first hit. If the target has a shield  adding a setback, that shouldn't double due to the attacker using two weapons. Narratively it sounds wrong because it's as if the first hit penetrating the shield is allowing the s  econd attack to automatically penetr  ate. I think I'm ok with that because narratively you c  ould have  the shield as soak rather than def   ense a  nd th  at does reduce the second hit still. It's almost more like defense is the target dodging, ducking and weaving, and if the attacker has already compensated and rolled well, hello double attack.  

Remember that narratively you are firing more than two shots. Story wise you could have just unloaded 20 shots from each gun but mechanically it's just one roll with up to two hits, or more with automatic weapons.

I have a question regarding the automatic Advantage from mods like Superior and Bantha's Eye laser sight.

I was planning out a duel wield character and in my mind I was counting on the 2 automatic Advantages from mods to always guarantee being able to hit with the second weapon if the first weapon attack was successful. (or conversely using the paired weapon mod to reduce the amount of needed Advantages to 1 then using either Superior OR Bantha's eye sight)

Then I was testing out some dice rolls and came up with excess threat a couple times and suddenly it dawned on me that probably even those automatic Advantages could be cancelled thereby not letting the second weapon hit.

So, my question is are Advantage symbols from mods cancelled by the dice roll or are they guaranteed?

38 minutes ago, Typherian said:

I have a question regarding the automatic Advantage from mods like Superior and Bantha's Eye laser sight.

I was planning out a duel wield character and in my mind I was counting on the 2 automatic Advantages from mods to always guarantee being able to hit with the second weapon if the first weapon attack was successful. (or conversely using the paired weapon mod to reduce the amount of needed Advantages to 1 then using either Superior OR Bantha's eye sight)

Then I was testing out some dice rolls and came up with excess threat a couple times and suddenly it dawned on me that probably even those automatic Advantages could be cancelled thereby not letting the second weapon hit.

So, my question is are Advantage symbols from mods cancelled by the dice roll or are they guaranteed?

My understanding is that they can still be cancelled out as normal - the mods are helping push the odds in your favour for scoring advantage, but are not supposed to guarantee it 100% as things would become unbalanced very quickly.

2 hours ago, Typherian said:

So, my question is are Advantage symbols from mods cancelled by the dice roll or are they guaranteed?

Yes, the automatic advantage would be cancelled out by an excess threat you generated on the roll.

Conversely, if you had an item that provided automatic threat, any excess advantage that your roll generates would cancel that out as well.

And if you had a set-up that generated an automatic advantage and an automatic threat, such as a blaster pistol with both Superior Weapon Customization (automatic advantage) and Set Trigger (bonus success on first combat check of the encounter, but also automatic threat on that same combat check), then they'd cancel each other out the same as any advantage or threat generated from the dice roll would.

As Kualan noted, those automatic advantage from the attachments in question help push the odds in your favor, but aren't a full guarantee that you'll still have them once the results of the roll have been determined.

8 hours ago, Typherian said:

I have a question regarding the automatic Advantage from mods like Superior and Bantha's   Eye la  s  e  r sight. 

I was planning out a duel wield character and in my mind I was counting on the 2 automatic Advantages from mods to always guarantee being able to hit with the second weapon if the first weapon attack was successful. (or conversely using the paired weapon mod to reduce the amount of needed Advantages to 1 then using either Superior OR Bantha's eye sight)

Then I was testing out some dice rolls and came up with excess threat a couple times and suddenly it dawned on me that probably even those automatic Advantages could be cancelled thereby not letting the second weapon hit.

So, my question is are Advantage symbols from mods cancelled by the dice roll or are they guaranteed?

Just keep in mind Superior is an Advantage whether you succeed on the roll or not, the laser sight requires a successful check. Superior is a lil present maybe even if you fail.

On 9/16/2018 at 11:11 PM, Seam said:

Equalizer Pistol (Superior (I think that is the term in English) Mod included) = automatic Advantage

Paired Mod = only 1 Advantage to fire second Weapon

And there is a Mod that lets you use one less lilac die (whats its name?) while fireing with two weapons

Thats my end goal. Though I did not know soak counts for both hits. Does Shield count for both hits too, meaning, do I have to add two blacks if the enemy has Shield 1?

It's actually not a mod that lets you reduce the difficulty of two-weapon attacks, it's a talent in the Gunslinger tree. (Guns Blazing I think.)

On 9/14/2018 at 4:25 PM, Kilcannon said:

Autofire weapons are more restricted...at least in my games. Two pistols are gonna get into a room before two or even one autofire weapon

What about autofire pistols?

On 12/16/2018 at 8:30 AM, Eoen said:

What about autofire pistols?

Again, I've seen a player try to dual wield auto pistols.

First, out of the box, it doesn't do anything for you:

-If you autofire, increase the difficulty, and get extra hits on 2 adv.
-If you dual wield, increase the difficulty, and get an (single) extra hit on 2 adv.
-If you dual wield and autofire, increase difficulty twice, and get extra hits on 2 adv. It sure sounds cool, but its making things worse for you.

Essentially the only way to make dual wielding autofire useful is to get that talent (or is it a mod, its been a while) that reduces the adv cost of the dual fire shot by 1, while also having the talent/mod that removes the difficulty increase from dual wielding by 1.

When you do that, you increase the difficulty once for autofire, the first extra hit is at 1 adv, and subsequent ones are at 2 adv. For all the effort put into this though, you practically would of been better off either committing to only dual wielding (and having a combo of cool/wacky attack options to allow you to do different things with advantage), or committing to autofire and picking up the talents/mods that improve that.

Not trying to be pedantic but for newer folks to the system it's Two-Weapon Combat not Dual Wielding . From some of the questions here in this thread it's obvious that there is some confusion because Dual Wielding works pretty different in other systems and you kinda have to unlearn what you have learned from games like D&D to really get it. It's not a criticism I just find it's easier to explain how it works to new players used to games like D&D to grasp the rule quicker when you drop the term Dual Wielding.

Edited by FuriousGreg