A lot of people are a unhappy with the insane amounts of attacks a character/npc can unleash while using Lightning Attack and wielding 2 weapons all for the low low cost of 1 half action.

Im wondering what you guys have done about this (if you did anything).

I know there are other stupid things in the game (force storm for instance) but you have to start somewhere.

I ruled that any Evasion allows to evade hits from multiple attacks. For example, if a dual-wielding character lightning attacks another and scores 3 and 2 hits (so 3 DoS and 2 DoS) then, if the opposing character only has one Evasion, and rolls 5 DoS on it, he evades all hits. If he scores lower than 5 DoS, he chooses which hits he evades. This mitigates it a bit.

Sorry but you're saying that you can actually swift/lightning attack your offhand as well? I'd like a quote or page number on this.

If a character with the Two-Weapon Wielder (Melee) Talent is armed with two melee weapons, he may perform a melee Attack Action (either a Standard Attack, Swift Attack, or Lightning Attack) with one of these weapons. He may then perform a melee Attack Action (either a Standard Attack, Swift Attack, or Lightning Attack) with the other weapon, with any applicable modifiers to the Test. This attack may be against any target in melee.
- Pg 244

As for how we house-ruled it, we simply ruled that all attacks in a round, barring one, need to be standard attacks, and you can determine when in your attack chain you do something else. That way, stuff like Multiple Arms etc still allow you to punch a lot of rapid strikes in through you opponent's defense, but they can usually mitigate some of the hits from the onslaught that is a lighting attack.

So can you use multiple arms(x) to get even more lightning attack flurries, by RAW?

Yupp. Every pair of arms, which RAW counts your original two once you get an extra arm, grants an additional attack that can be used if a character has two-weapon wielder.

So now you see why Im looking for some solid house rules to stop this madness.

Im thinking make each lightning attack a half action on its own, so if you want to lightning attack with both arms its 2 x half action. If you have extra arms then you get 1 attack that cant be lightning or swift per arm. Im just not sure if thats even enough.

Kobalts idea was good too though, not sure if there is a way to combine them.

Crate said:

Each Lightning attack being a half action is decently balanced.

Page 234 - "characters in Black Crusade may only take one action with the attack subtype and one action with the Concentration subtype during their turn."

Assuming you've not let them run rampant your PCs shouldn't be sporting anything above a 60 in Weapon Skill. Without Blade Dancer, they'll suffer a -10 with each weapon and another -10 for the Lightning Attack, compounding to -20. This allows for four degrees of success per attack (and with two weapon fighting they'll get two attacks). Lightning Attack's only limitation is that the number of hits cannot exceed Weapon Skill Bonus.

The game designers have left us a hint on how to approach this problem. Everything below is calculated given maximums (maybe the target is stunned, or it's a point blank shot or something) so it's an ideal circumstances kind of thing..

If we look at the Full Auto rates of fire, the only one that can be used with Two Weapon Fighting is the Autopistol, firing a maximum of six shots in an attack. This would be the same -20 as our melee counterpart. The mechanics work out the same for the number of hits, but we need to consider the implications of damage. The Autopistol is 1d10+3 Impact with no penetration value. Damage output, for the maximum, would therefore be something along the lines of 6d10+18 - but at a range and without any armor diffusing element.

In Melee combat, this could be far, far, far worse. A human chainsword is 1d10+2 R, has a Penetration value of 2 and Tearing, and then gets Strength Bonus to the damage as well. The output would be something like (minimum damage mod from strength, maximum number of attacks) 6d10+24 with effective penetration damage of an additional 12 - a difference of 18 points - more than 3d10. This is thinking a human with low strength is doing the attack, not a Space Marine. The advantage of Range is far outdone by increased damage output from melee weapons.

To mitigate this, I would rule that the maximum number of melee hits any character can land in a single turn is equal to their Weapon Skill Bonus. There are other factors in place regarding ranged combat (namely, most of the full auto weapons can't full auto with a gun in each hand and those that can don't do too much damage). Not by attack, by turn.

JediMike42 said:

and eventually make dual wielding useless?

Typically people don't roll in the single digits frequently. You are more likely to connect with two attacks than one, so being able to Lightning Attack twice in a round (once with each weapon) would still be advantageous. This would just cover those rare moments when somebody rolls extremely well on both of their attack rolls (which, given that, rolling moderately well on two attack rolls would still net more hits than rolling the best possible result on a single attack roll).

JediMike42 said:

You can make it Weapon Skill Bonus+1 per each additional lightning/swift attack roll this turn so it better covers multiple arms trait, but still has limitations.

I would personally disagree with the multiple lightning attacks be RAW. IIRC, you may only take ONE attack action per round, even if they are only a half action each.

I was right. Black Crusade Core Rulebook, page 234, under "Using Actions" fourth paragraph.

"In addition, characters in Black Crusade may only take
one action with the Attack subtype and one action with the
Concentration subtype during their turn."

Sorry, you MAY make two lightning attacks provided you are wielding two weapons, but with applicable modifiers stacked (so -30), and this would consume your full action. This was a big change from the other two systems, pardon my error.

Or if you use 2 x balanced weapons, have two weapon wielder, ambidextrous and blade dancer we are down to a total of -10 (because lightning attacks give -10).

BangBangTequila: FFG has given answer to the whole "which one of the rules is right and which is wrongly written?" in here and as such, if you are using two weapons and what to do a lightning attack with both your weapons and it counts as a single half action. So as part of a single half action you can do two lightning attacks at -10 modifier, unless you aim this barrage of attacks.

In light of this ruling, its pretty strange that the Slaanesh psychic power "The Six Blades of Prosepheron" on page 51 of Tome of Fate book states that while this power is in effect "he must make two Lightning Attacks on each turn (thus spending both of his Half Actions)" and "Note normally making two lightning attacks would be impossible, but here is permissible." Seems that this is another case of the right(or writing) hand not know what the left(answering) hand is doing.

In my opinion, the whole "You can do two lightning attacks as a single half action and aim these attacks and each attack can do a maximum of hits equal to your WS bonus" is way too powerful. I have ruled it so that you can make one lightning/swift attack and one standard attack as a single half action. This way you are still getting lots of attacks, but not way too many. And most likely you are also getting atleast one hit through your enemies reaction-barricade.

Asoral said:

I agree. Being able to make a lightning attack with every pair of arms you have avaiable is insanely powerful.
The way I see it right now is like this.
Lightning Attack with one hand / arm.
Standard attack with the second hand / arm.

Another standard attack per pair of arms.

With that psychic power from Tome of Fate that I heard about you may do this a second time (thus ignoring the restriction of only a single action with the attack subtype per round).

The way the group I'm playing is handling it is that one Lightning attack is a half action, but if you want to use your other arm(s) to lightning attack, that takes a full action. It actually fits with the Implied rules in Tome of Fate and makes it a tactical choice for the person making the attack.

Asoral said:

Asoral said:

Has anyone put this question to FFP yet ? Whether the wording for that psychic power is wrong or if its meant as a correction of how dualwielding / lightning attack works.

I would agree with this. In every other system FFG put forward you could use these talents when dual wielding, but you could only ever apply the benefits to one weapon per turn.

Granted, the definition of that power MIGHT be that you make two lightning attacks, even if you only have one blade. That would still fit with the answer FFG has given us, since you would be making two half action attacks.

BangBangTequila said:

Sorry for not copying the whole power, but the power specifically requires you to be wielding at least two melee weapons and also has two-weapon wielder as a prerequisite.