Using FuriouGreg's logic, however, I can see how multi-weapon fighting would be markedly harder than dual wielding. I'm curious as to what other folks might think of added Difficulty dice versus added Setback dice for four-armed characters...?

I think it would explain why Grievous doesn't always fight with all four arms.

I'm also thinking Grievous fights with four arms for defensive reasons. Perhaps the extra arms grant a bonus to Melee Defense at the expense of adding Setback dice to attacks?

I get it, both in a "how skilled do you have to be to pull this off?" and a "how do I stop this ruining my game?" perspective.

On the other hand I'm also unsure how easy it'd be to defend against.

I'll stop being spectacularly unhelpful now.

It's not an easy question to answer in any system, but I think this one can handle it. Perhaps the extra Difficulty dice are the best answer, but again I struggle with comparing that to Auto-fire.

For Grievous specifically, I think having four arms made his attacks much less accurate (extra Difficulty and/or Setback dice) while giving him the option to exchange his extra attacks for a bonus to Melee Defense (when he starts spinning two of them rapidly while fighting with the other two, in other words). Talents no doubt worked into it, although I could see how they'd be cybernetic upgrades as well; his very construction is what makes it all possible.

(Indeed, Grievous' player was a munchkin who wanted to create a literal lightsaber dueling machine with the attitude of Dr. Doom and Cobra Commander rolled into one. )

Well, my experience with Autofire hasn't been that bad but then my PCs aren't at a very high EXP rank yet. Also one of the times the PC rolled a despair so was out of ammo and didn't happen to have picked up extra so was forced to fight the rest of the scene with a Vibroknife.

Considering an autofire weapon has no upper limit to the number of attacks they can hit with (given enough Advantage and Triumph results, naturally), why should having four arms be functionally the same as having two arms as far as combat goes? There are tons of four-armed characters in Star Wars who fight with four weapons at once, it's not a "flavor" thing at all, I would say.

Auto-Fire also comes on weapons that require both agility and some brawn to use, two hands and have a 3A crit. Letting someone quad-wield superior mono-molecular vibroswords = 4 crits/turn and all your bosses are going to auto-explode. You'd be better off giving him god-mode missile tubes with infinite ammo.

You said he has 600 XP to play with, it is something like 300 to get him so he's rolling AT LEAST 7 yellow and 2 blue dice every melee attack. Stuff is going to explode in a red mist any time he starts swinging.

You're only looking at the weapons in the equipment chapter of the Core Rulebook; Corporate Secutor Authority Security Police and Captains both carry riot guns, which are Ranged (heavy) weapons with the Auto-fire quality but no Cumbersome rating (which is balanced out by only having a base damage of 7; they also feature a stun setting, which is pretty unique). You're also assuming said player is going to invest more than half his starting XP on combat (300 xp for Marauder plus more for Brawn and Melee ranks), and melee combat at that. While that's certainly a possibility to prepare for, it doesn't necessarily mean using four arms is inherently unbalanced.

As for getting 4 crits per round with mono-molecular vibro-swords, that would actually require 10 Advantages, which would net 5 hits with an Auto-fire weapon (or more if the weapon's owner has the Jury Rigged talent). Remember, unlike Auto-fire while dual wielding you must spend your Advantage results on an additional hit before you can activate Critical Injuries or weapon qualities . Extend that logic towards using four arms, and you'd have to roll at least 7 Advantages to score even one crit with a mono-molecular weapon since you'd need to land all three additional hits first .

You get 4 of your advantages from the superior weapons. The math is pretty clear, 4 arms is a huge advantage over auto-fire and auto-fire is already so good it's better than pressure point which people consider broken.

If you want to allow it, fine, but don't be surprised if everyone else in the party feels like they may as well go get a coffee when combat starts because they're not able to contribute anything meaningful once The Thresher starts swinging.

For Grievous specifically, I think having four arms made his attacks much less accurate (extra Difficulty and/or Setback dice) while giving him the option to exchange his extra attacks for a bonus to Melee Defense (when he starts spinning two of them rapidly while fighting with the other two, in other words). Talents no doubt worked into it, although I could see how they'd be cybernetic upgrades as well; his very construction is what makes it all possible.

(Indeed, Grievous' player was a munchkin who wanted to create a literal lightsaber dueling machine with the attitude of Dr. Doom and Cobra Commander rolled into one. )

Grevious wasn't a PC anymore than Jabba The Hutt or The Emperor. He also was built with the flaw "always loses against PCs".

You get 4 of your advantages from the superior weapons. The math is pretty clear, 4 arms is a huge advantage over auto-fire and auto-fire is already so good it's better than pressure point which people consider broken.

If you want to allow it, fine, but don't be surprised if everyone else in the party feels like they may as well go get a coffee when combat starts because they're not able to contribute anything meaningful once The Thresher starts swinging.

Core Rulebook page 210, under the heading "Two-Weapon Combat", third paragraph; "To make the attack, he performs a combined check. First, the character denotes one weapon as the primary weapon. When making the combined check, he will be attacking with this weapon ."

In other words, only the weapon qualities on your primary weapon are factored into the dice pool, including Accuracy and Superior.

This came up in my game a couple of months ago, and upon rereading the rules on two-weapon combat I made my ruling. I believe it to be consistent with the RAW.

Multi-weapon combat wouldn't be any different, of course.

You get 4 of your advantages from the superior weapons. The math is pretty clear, 4 arms is a huge advantage over auto-fire and auto-fire is already so good it's better than pressure point which people consider broken.

If you want to allow it, fine, but don't be surprised if everyone else in the party feels like they may as well go get a coffee when combat starts because they're not able to contribute anything meaningful once The Thresher starts swinging.

Core Rulebook page 210, under the heading "Two-Weapon Combat", third paragraph; "To make the attack, he performs a combined check. First, the character denotes one weapon as the primary weapon. When making the combined check, he will be attacking with this weapon ."

In other words, only the weapon qualities on your primary weapon are factored into the dice pool, including Accuracy and Superior.

This came up in my game a couple of months ago, and upon rereading the rules on two-weapon combat I made my ruling. I believe it to be consistent with the RAW.

Multi-weapon combat wouldn't be any different, of course.

It also goes on to say you can trigger effects and crits on each weapon. The grenade you throw with your off hand doesn't lose the ability to explode because you threw it with the left hand, nor to swords lose their pierce. There is no reason why you'd remove their superior benefits.

There is no reason why you'd remove their superior benefits.

Yes there is, because things like Accurate and Superior are passive qualities that don't require any sort of activation. You can't "activate" Boost dice into a skill check you already made, nor can you "activate" Advantage results with other Advantage results. The only advantage to using multiple Superior weapons is the bonus damage... which is currently the only way to increase the damage of a Brawl or Melee weapon, incidentally.

Also, keep in mind that you have to hit with your extra weapons before you're allowed to activate Critical Injury rolls or weapon qualities. Even with four Superior weapons, you would have to naturally roll 6 Advantages to hit with four weapons and score a crit with one of them... and this is after adding a Difficulty die and two Setback dice to the pool.

Meanwhile, an Auto-fire weapon with Jury Rigged and the exact same roll would hit seven times in a row ... although it would probably do more than that, because there would be two less Setback dice in the pool.

Also, keep in mind that you have to hit with your extra weapons before you're allowed to activate Critical Injury rolls or weapon qualities. Even with four Superior weapons, you would have to naturally roll 6 Advantages to hit with four weapons and score a crit with one of them... and this is after adding a Difficulty die and two Setback dice to the pool.

This is not correct. If I'm using two weapons and I score a few Advantages, I can choose to inflict a Critical Hit without activating the second hit.

This is not correct. If I'm using two weapons and I score a few Advantages, I can choose to inflict a Critical Hit without activating the second hit.

Core Rulebook page 211, last paragraph of the Two-Weapon Combat section; "If he succeeds, he hits with his primary weapon as normal. He may also spend 2 Advantages or 1 Triumph to hit with his secondary weapon as well. If both weapons hit , he may spend Advantages or Triumphs to activate qualities from either weapon. Each hit deals its base damage, +1 per uncanceled success."

Not sure why a crit would be treated any differently than other weapon qualities, in this instance.

You're reading that wrong. If only the primary weapon hits, you can activate qualities from the primary weapon (including a critical hit) as normal. If you hit with both, you can activate from either (or both if you have enough Advantages and/or Triumphs).

No he's reading it correctly, it gives the conditions in order and specifically states that if you hit with both weapons (the second hit being activated since it's the only way the second weapon can hit) then you may spend further Adv and Triumphs on other effects for either weapon.

There is no reason why you'd remove their superior benefits.

Yes there is, because things like Accurate and Superior are passive qualities that don't require any sort of activation.

Irrelevant. Pierce and vicious are also passive. You aren't removing them, obviously, there is no reason to remove the benefits of superior either. You're making a very weird special exception for no reason supported by RAW. If you want to houserule it like that fine, but that is not how people are going to play it. A better houserule is to not allow houserules that allow races with lots of arms to make crazy numbers of attacks.

Pierce and Vicious have nothing to do with the dice pool, but Superior does. You wouldn't add an additional weapon's Accurate rating into a dice pool either, and I sincerely hope you're not advocating for that. It would seem that you're the one who's making a house rule based on your own interpretation of the rules. That's fine if you want to do that, but I sourced page numbers and exact passages to justify my rulings, whereas you're just throwing your own conjectures at me as if I'm blind to their air-tight logic.

In any case, I've been a GM for 19 years, and in that time we'll just say I created a lot of memories for a lot of people. (My proudest accomplishment is being one of the only GMs to ever run a 3.5 D&D game for Dave Arneson himself, simply because he had been watching me for a few weeks.) In that time I also learned one GOLDEN lesson that I implore every GM out there to remember;

IT'S NOT YOUR JOB TO SAY NO, IT'S YOUR JOB TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY YES.

My player wants a robot who can fight with four arms and crawl around like an insect. He also wants one of the arms to have a built-in cutting laser, and he wants an Imperial probe droid's central eye installed inside the head of a Clone Wars-era super tactical droid. He's been going back and forth with ideas for quite some time, but last night he spent 6 hours drawing and inking a picture of this droid as he pieced together a wild backstory; all things he wanted to do before he looked at a rulebook.

Tell me; who am I to stifle his creativity? If someone wants to put THAT much thought into their character, do I not owe to them as a storyteller to figure out how to work this character into the game both narratively and mechanically?

My job is to say yes. "No" should be foreign word in any circumstance that doesn't ruin the fun of anyone at the table or spoil the mood of Star Wars.

Pierce and Vicious have nothing to do with the dice pool, but Superior does. You wouldn't add an additional weapon's Accurate rating into a dice pool either, and I sincerely hope you're not advocating for that. It would seem that you're the one who's making a house rule based on your own interpretation of the rules. That's fine if you want to do that, but I sourced page numbers and exact passages to justify my rulings, whereas you're just throwing your own conjectures at me as if I'm blind to their air-tight logic.

In any case, I've been a GM for 19 years, and in that time we'll just say I created a lot of memories for a lot of people. (My proudest accomplishment is being one of the only GMs to ever run a 3.5 D&D game for Dave Arneson himself, simply because he had been watching me for a few weeks.) In that time I learned one GOLDEN lesson that I implore every GM out there to remember;

IT'S NOT YOUR JOB TO SAY NO, IT'S YOUR JOB TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY YES.

My player wants a robot who can fight with four arms and crawl around like an insect. He also wants one of the arms to have a built-in cutting laser, and he wants an Imperial probe droid's central eye installed inside the head of a Clone Wars-era super tactical droid. He's been going back and forth with ideas for quite some time, but last night he spent 6 hours drawing and inking a picture of this droid as he pieced together a wild backstory; all things he wanted to do before he looked at a rulebook.

Tell me; who am I to stifle his creativity? If someone wants to put THAT much thought into their character, do I not owe to them as a storyteller to figure out how to work this character into the game both narratively and mechanically?

My job is to say yes. "No" should be foreign word in any circumstance that doesn't ruin the fun of anyone at the table or spoil the mood of Star Wars.

I am not trying to get in between the developing disagreement between you both, but...

Finding a way to say yes requires fairness to every player. If the four arms are being used by the player to gain an unwarranted and unpaid advantage, that the other players do not also gain, then it is simply unfair.

I have seen plenty of players be creative in order to munchkin out their character. That does not impress me. The player who creates a cool idea, and yes the droid in question is a pretty cool idea, but allows the extra bits to be flavor text until they find a good way to incorporate them into the game does impress me. I like the story items that even give a disadvantage to the character simply because it would be fun or cool to see.

My simplest solution would be to simply charge an extra pair of the cheaper prosthetic arms at creation. Add whatever gadgets or tools into them as they can afford. Then allow them to use a single set of arms at a time. No extra actions, no dual wielding fists (unless you allow other players to as well), and no free benefit. They can use the extra arms to hold more weapons to allow more possible actions.

Let them be creative in not breaking the one action per round rule but still find ways of using both sets at once. Perhaps they can hold the unconscious prisoner while still firing at the enemy. Perhaps they can be piloting or driving (no pilot action, just flavor text of flying around) while doing something else.

Just my thoughts.

Just my thoughts.

These are constructive thoughts, and I thank you for that. As it were, however, I don't see the four arms granting one player an unfair advantage. For one thing, in a 7 player group there's only one character geared toward combat. This character currently has a heavy blaster rifle with Auto-fire a base damage of 18, all done with the RAW; if I allow another player to have four arms that can used to make additional attacks (with addition of extra Setback and/or Difficulty dice to the pool), things shouldn't be too unbalanced. Multi-weapon attacks would be harder than two-weapon attacks, and therefor MUCH harder than Auto-fire attacks (which still do more damage anyway).

Plus, I really do think rules on playing four-armed characters should be available. Codru-ji, Xexto, Morseerian, Myneyrsh, Pho Ph'Eahian, and Besalisk are all examples of four-armed species. General Grievous and Pong Krell are two examples of characters who regularly fight with four weapons, and something cool like that shouldn't just be fluff.

Is adding a Setback die per additional arm used in a multi-weapon attack really not enough...? (Keeping in mind that multiple Superior weapons do not stack.)

Just my thoughts.

These are constructive thoughts, and I thank you for that. As it were, however, I don't see the four arms granting one player an unfair advantage. For one thing, in a 7 player group there's only one character geared toward combat. This character currently has a heavy blaster rifle with Auto-fire a base damage of 18, all done with the RAW; if I allow another player to have four arms that can used to make additional attacks (with addition of extra Setback and/or Difficulty dice to the pool), things shouldn't be too unbalanced. Multi-weapon attacks would be harder than two-weapon attacks, and therefor MUCH harder than Auto-fire attacks (which still do more damage anyway).

Plus, I really do think rules on playing four-armed characters should be available. Codru-ji, Xexto, Morseerian, Myneyrsh, Pho Ph'Eahian, and Besalisk are all examples of four-armed species. General Grievous and Pong Krell are two examples of characters who regularly fight with four weapons, and something cool like that shouldn't just be fluff.

Is adding a Setback die per additional arm used in a multi-weapon attack really not enough...? (Keeping in mind that multiple Superior weapons do not stack.)

There are plenty of ways to house rule four arms into play. I would play with all of them and find what works best for your group.

I tend towards simplicity when doing things like that. If your players are happy with it, I would say happy gaming.

Pierce and Vicious have nothing to do with the dice pool, but Superior does. You wouldn't add an additional weapon's Accurate rating into a dice pool either, and I sincerely hope you're not advocating for that. It would seem that you're the one who's making a house rule based on your own interpretation of the rules. That's fine if you want to do that, but I sourced page numbers and exact passages to justify my rulings, whereas you're just throwing your own conjectures at me as if I'm blind to their air-tight logic.

In any case, I've been a GM for 19 years, and in that time we'll just say I created a lot of memories for a lot of people. (My proudest accomplishment is being one of the only GMs to ever run a 3.5 D&D game for Dave Arneson himself, simply because he had been watching me for a few weeks.) In that time I also learned one GOLDEN lesson that I implore every GM out there to remember;

IT'S NOT YOUR JOB TO SAY NO, IT'S YOUR JOB TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY YES.

My player wants a robot who can fight with four arms and crawl around like an insect. He also wants one of the arms to have a built-in cutting laser, and he wants an Imperial probe droid's central eye installed inside the head of a Clone Wars-era super tactical droid. He's been going back and forth with ideas for quite some time, but last night he spent 6 hours drawing and inking a picture of this droid as he pieced together a wild backstory; all things he wanted to do before he looked at a rulebook.

Tell me; who am I to stifle his creativity? If someone wants to put THAT much thought into their character, do I not owe to them as a storyteller to figure out how to work this character into the game both narratively and mechanically?

My job is to say yes. "No" should be foreign word in any circumstance that doesn't ruin the fun of anyone at the table or spoil the mood of Star Wars.

Superior has nothing to do with the dice pool.

It's fabulous you're proud of your GMing accomplishments, but apparently 19 years is not enough for you to have figured out what a horrible idea giving out these extra attacks is going to be. Even after we've told you exactly why.

A GM's job is not to say yes, whatever book you got that nonsense from, toss it in the garbage where it belongs. Rules are saying no, and the reason you bought a rulebook is to say no well. Your rule for handling 4 arms is not saying yes, it is saying no badly.

Here is exactly how you should handle the situation. "Yes, you can have as many arms as you want." "No, you can't have more attacks than other players."

Superior has nothing to do with the dice pool.

It's fabulous you're proud of your GMing accomplishments, but apparently 19 years is not enough for you to have figured out what a horrible idea giving out these extra attacks is going to be. Even after we've told you exactly why.

A GM's job is not to say yes, whatever book you got that nonsense from, toss it in the garbage where it belongs. Rules are saying no, and the reason you bought a rulebook is to say no well. Your rule for handling 4 arms is not saying yes, it is saying no badly.

Here is exactly how you should handle the situation. "Yes, you can have as many arms as you want." "No, you can't have more attacks than other players."

Wow, how horribly NOT constructive that is. And what a terrible attitude to have about saying "no" to your players. That's just unimaginative and frankly a little sad. I wouldn't want to play in any of your games, and I've always been able to work up a waiting list of people wanting to get in on mine with minimal effort. It's lots of fun, and I take pride in it even as I allow players to create droids with four arms.

More to the point, Superior adds an Advantage result to the result of a skill check. As you only make an attack with ONE weapon even while attacking with two, having multiple Superior weapons would not add an additional Advantage result to the result. I don't know where you're getting that from, and if you would like to debate that minutia without being a **** about it I'd be more than happy to, but I feel I've more than outlined the reasons why I interpret the RAW already, as well as the reasons why I want to figure this out.

Core Rulebook page 32, fourth paragraph: "It should be noted that no character is ever a 'wrong' choice, regardless of the campaign. The GM should never discourage a player from a particular character choice and should integrate all the character concepts into the game at hand."

In this case, the character concept involves a droid that fights with four arms, and not just as window dressing. My answer is "yes", because "no" is just plain boring.

^ All that being said, it actually gave me an idea; perhaps each additional arm could grant an additional free Advantage result on combined multiweapon combat checks. This might cut down on a "abuse", but I still struggle with how well this compares to Auto-fire. Any thoughts?

^ All that being said, it actually gave me an idea; perhaps each additional arm could grant an additional free Advantage result on combined multiweapon combat checks. This might cut down on a "abuse", but I still struggle with how well this compares to Auto-fire. Any thoughts?

Does he have to have a granted advantage? Not granting an advantage that he hasn't earned through expenditure of XP or credits as listed in the book (and since this one isn't in the books, there may be a good reason for that) will certainly limit abuse.

^ All that being said, it actually gave me an idea; perhaps each additional arm could grant an additional free Advantage result on combined multiweapon combat checks. This might cut down on a "abuse", but I still struggle with how well this compares to Auto-fire. Any thoughts?

Does he have to have a granted advantage? Not granting an advantage that he hasn't earned through expenditure of XP or credits as listed in the book (and since this one isn't in the books, there may be a good reason for that) will certainly limit abuse.

I would like four arms to grant some kind mechanical advantage in combat, yes. Why shouldn't it? It's not impossible to do, and of course it will cost a fair number credits, consume cybernetic upgrade slots, and possibly even cost some XP if something like that could be worked out.

Using four arms to fight fits within the established universe and so far I'm seeing no real reason why it's so taboo as to overshadow pre-existing RAW like Auto-fire. A dude carrying four pistols using the established RAW for two-weapon combat with the addition of two extra Setback dice thrown in no way surpasses a damage 18 Auto-fire weapon.

Or am I missing something...? (Not the Superior thing again, I'd really like to put that to rest unless someone has something new to add.)

I would like four arms to grant some kind mechanical advantage in combat, yes. Why shouldn't it? It's not impossible to do, and of course it will cost a fair number credits, consume cybernetic upgrade slots, and possibly even cost some XP if something like that could be worked out.

There is a counter-argument that having four arms should inflict some kind of mechanical penalty. Why shouldn't it? It's not impossible that the arms would get in the way of one another.