a quick search didnt help me much and i couldnt find it in the books. What are the penalties for fighting with your off hand? Also, what might be a way to use two swords other than rapiers? And would the -2 to cut and thrust apply to just using a single rapier?

When taught to fight, you learn with one hand, as I understand it. Basically, learning to use the other hand would be an entirely separate proficiency. So the "penalty" would be to lose almost all dice from proficiency, I think.

That's to say that Westly and Inigo both had to have been trained in left hand fighting (in addition to right) for the scene to make sense in the real world.

Mike

I know most people disagree with me here, but I've never felt off hand penalties in games were realistic. Maybe its my own personal bias, but you can learn to use your non genetically dominant hand just as effectively in any endevor. I was born left handed, but as a kid I severely burned my entire left arm. Between ICU, bandages and surgeries it was more than a year before I could use it again. By that time I had learned to write and was considered right handed.

Once I got into martial arts and related pursuits I started switching off. My first Sensei was adamant that you should never rely on one hand, all techniques should be done with both hands in stances favoring either side. Lots of begining students had a problem with this, I didn't. For me it was just switching back to my real dominant hand.

But by the time I got to intermediate ranking everyone in every class was equally comfortable with both hands. It's one of those things that is only hard because few people bother to do it, and isn't quite as dramatic as learning to figh all over again (unless maybe you are someone like Jamie Lanister in Clash of Kings...master swordsman who looses one hand and has to relearn how to fight having never picked up a blade in his left before).

The same goes for shooting, all the good shooters I know can shoot with either hand. Actually I'm one of the few who has a real noticable preference: I'm notably less accurate with my right hand on the trigger. I prefer lefty, though I always have to swtich to my right hand to change mags (why do gun companies make ambidextrous safeties but only right handed mag releases?)

actually have first hand input here. I've been fencing for a few years now, and I blew out a forearm muscle last year and had to either switch hit or wait months and months to heal...so naturally I said damn the torpedos and bought a second set of all left handed equipment, vests, etc,.....(I'm a righty, but thought I'd give lefty a shot because I too have never had much problem flipping between left and right). While I found my technique was actually superior with that hand, coordination holding a long spindly piece of metal was completely absent. Probably I could have caught up with my right arm if I stuck with it long enough, but after 6 months I still sucked compared to my righty and my right arm healed so I switched back. In short, my brain kwew what to do and had no problem mirroring the technique, and my muscles positioned the blade exactly correctly accordingly, but the dynamic of movement did not translate over at all. Perfect motion (thanks brain and muscles) but painfully...and lethally had it been real life or death combat...slow. My fencing Maestro remarked that my ability to switch at all and do the moves with such accuracy and with as much speed as I did exectute the maneuvers was extremely unusual in his experience, and he basically attributed it to my being nearly ambidextrous in the first place with a mind unusually skilled in quickly converting the geometry...and basically remarked he probably could make a far more deadly fencer out of me lefty if I stuck it out than I would be as a righty...but it would take a lot of time and a lot of practice.

So in short, no...inequivocably no...skill in one hand does not normally translate to the other hand...even in people nearing ambidexterity. The knowledge sticks, and maybe even the muscle ability, but the muscle memory has to be rebuilt and the new hand has to be taught how to deal with motion. Anyone can point the weapon statically in exactly a correct stance given sufficient training...but it's the movement from A to B where the previously unused muscles have to learn how to deal with shifting centers of gravity, weight, leverage, etc,..... and build muscle memory for reflex actions.

...at least that was MY first hand experience. Others may have had different results.

Looking at a sport like basketball, where the sport is their profession, almost all players can perform basic manuvers with both hands. But even training with both hands, many are still one hand dominant. I think it is something that can be trained, but varied by individual, there will usually be some degree of dominance in one hand.

I gues think the reverse, to those of us that play baseball, throwing is very uncomfortable with the offhand, but catching is also uncomfortable with the primary hand. Muscle memory I would think.

so you guys are sayin just to come up with my own rules? lol. I was wondering about game mechanics and penalties guys. Not how physicaly possible it was. I've never trained with much for weapons, other than i had a few classes with a set of tonfa's and bo's. Tonfa's traditionaly being used in both hands so you trained them both at the same time and there was no diferance with either hand when using them. And the bo' is also trained both left and right handed.

Okay, I think we did a bit of an overanalysis.

But if you are looking at 2 weapon use, I would think there would not have been much training for this, other than the types listed (off-hand - shield, main-gauche, etc.). Western martial arts do not seem to have much akin to the 2 Tonfa or Sai style. I've heard of shortswords used in this fashion, but don't recall if this is more of a fantasy combo or real.

I don't see any sword/mace or handaxe/hammer combos being used realisticaly to good effect.

Sorry...my bad. My topic was off target and was more of a counterpoint to Tash's comment

but I've never felt off hand penalties in games were realistic

One older thread does discuss this too:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6655&highlight=hand+penalty

Still looking to see if I can find others....

added edit number 1:

SUCCESS! Jake himself hits this old thread three times on the topic:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=3189&highlight=hand+penalty

added edit number 2:
ah, I see the man of the hour posted while I was adding edit number 1. There you go.

Offhandedness makes a difference...sometimes. In the existing proficiencies, for example, that have an off-hand weapon, there's no penalty. Using the Main-gauche in the left hand as part of a sword-and-dagger combo is standard and well-trained into such a fighter. If that same fighter put the sword in his off-hand, however, he'd be hurtin' with it somethin' fierce.

I'm not sure that there's an official off-hand penalty in the book, but I would currently say that fighting with a primary-hand-weapon (based on the profiencies as-learned) in the non-primary hand would cut the Proficiency (not CP) by as much as half or more, unless lots of time had been spent training that way.

Jake

Hi folks.

Our group made aquick and dirty ruling on this a while back.

When using your off-hand for fighting with a main weapon:
-1CP if AG 9-10
-2CP if AG 7-8
-3CP if AG 5-6...

Maybe we're way off, but...

What do you think?

I'd be more inclined to either do it as a flat penalty, or base it off something else - MA, maybe - if you want the sliding scale there.

The bloke with low AG is already suffering from a lower Reflex, and so is less able to cope with the penalty; the bloke with really high AG will have a higher Reflex and can cope with it better. So the effect you seem to be after, of a high AG character dealing with it better, is built in there.

The defaults to something really different seem to be about -4, so that's what I'd be inclined to do for off-hand, and I'd let people train up in it if they want to. (For appropriate proficiencies; Pugilism & Wrestling, for example, I wouldn't bother. My Ringen instruction uses as much left-hand punches as right.)

For appropriate proficiencies; Pugilism & Wrestling, for example, I wouldn't bother. My Ringen instruction uses as much left-hand punches as right.

... or base it off something else - MA, maybe - if you want the sliding scale there.

Agility (AG) is a measure of nimbleness, dexterity, speed and hand-eye coordination.

The bloke with low AG is already suffering from a lower Reflex, and so is less able to cope with the penalty; the bloke with really high AG will have a higher Reflex and can cope with it better. So the effect you seem to be after, of a high AG character dealing with it better, is built in there.

The defaults to something really different seem to be about -4, so that's what I'd be inclined to do for off-hand, and I'd let people train up in it if they want to.

Starshadow wrote: It may not be true to Real Life (TM), but it makes the game a little more realistic, and we won't drown in new rules.

Lots of other ways that you might need to use the other hand.

* The usual hand is wounded beyond use in the fight. Even if it'll heal up someday, or be replaced with a hook or something, for right now, you need to use the other.

* Braggadocio. Per the Westly/Inigo scene. Or fighting with your good hand tied behind your back.

* Doing something more important with the primary hand, like carrying an infant (actually I trained to do that lefty so that I can use my right for other things - but I might be unusual).

* Fighting with a weapon specifically designed for the opposite hand. Might be able to use the other hand, but you'd still get a penalty (Modern Fencing epees come to mind).

So it's a pertinent question. I like Jake's answer, cutting proficiency down to a default level - and then I'd give another -1. Gives the untrained a need to use their primary hand, too.

Yes, pugilism is a "two weapon" style, and thus has no disadvantage for making the appropriate moves from the appropriate side. But if you wanted to fight "southpaw" you might have the penalty for, say, jabbing with the wrong hand. I can only see the braggadocio reasoning for why this might happen, however (there's no mechanical rule for "jabs" or such). Interestingly because I learned to fence when I was young, I also box southpaw. Meaning I have a nasty jab, but no cross at all.

Mike

If you use our scale, an average person (AG 4), would get a -4 penalty.
That would make it equally hard to cope with as a flat penalty. Same agility = same reflex = equally difficult.

First, I'd examine the combat pool and have a look at its components. We find
a) Natural abilities, the REFLEX, consisting of Agility and Wit, which are useable anywhere from a longsword fight to catching a thrown apple. Sense of timing, distance and "lines" (vectors of physical force) also belong here.
b) Trained abilities, the WEAPON PROFICIENCY, which mirrors technique and muscle memory (both offensive and defensive, which blurs at a certain stage) built for using a certain weapon in a certain way.

So I'd say that, when using a weapon off-handed, you'd get all of your REFLEX dice and a certain portion of your WEAPON PROFICIENCY. After all, your sense of timing and distance couldn't care less in which hand you hold your weapon.
Now it comes down to just how much of your proficiency you can carry over. I'd make it simple:
1/4 PROFICIENCY without special training or gifts.
1/2 PROFICIENCY with the Ambidexterity Gift, Minor
3/4 PROFICIENCY with the Ambidexterity Gift, Major
FULL PROFICIENCY with any of the above and the difference trained by spending SA points.

So far Richard_Strey is closest to what my guess would have been based on the existing system...and seems to match what Jake said in this thread and the previous ones I inserted links to (especially the last one) in the posting on this thread right before Jake's post. Not saying the other ideas aren't good...just saying I think Richard's got it closer to what Jake was thinking by leaps and bounds.

Hmmm.

If you have a typical initial starting Proficiency of 8. Then 1/4 is 2 dice and 1/2 and 4 dice.

That means the Minor gift of Ambidexterity is worth 2 dice, the major being worth 4.

Further, even with the major gift you're still down 2 dice. Being down 2 dice is is a significant swing in TROS terms. Significant enough perhaps to make the Major gift all but useless.

I'd be more inclined to make the minor gift simply lose 2 dice from the pool, and the major gift be get full dice.

I'd be more inclined to make the minor gift simply lose 2 dice from the pool, and the major gift be get full dice.

Ambidexterity, technically speaking, is when an individual is born without a genetic preference for either hand. That would be a major gift.

While I don't think there is such a thing in the book as "minor ambidexterity" I would say that something like what I have (see my above post about switching hands due to injury) as a "minor gift" because it's not really the same as being ambi (I can only write with my right hand, because I learned to write while my left was still crippled from the burns).

I like richards system. My only thought is that as Dexterity includes eye to hand coordination, the reflex should perhaps also suffer, as you usually do not have the base coordination in the off hand.

The ambidexterity gift says you can fight either side without penalty, so I guess the question is what would be the penaly?