Limits on WP paired weapons

[drewkitty ~..~]

If a Character has more then one set of arms does WP paired weapons train the char to use ALL their arms simultaneously in one APM?

Please answer as You are the GM of your own game First, before arguing with how others would choose to have things for their games.

We already know PB canon does not have a direct answer for this situation.
(If you disagree with the highlighted statement then YOU need to provide the text (book, page, paragraph) to support your assertion. The Rifter Q&As meet the published and official standards. )
(For this topic the Old FAQ is non-canon because it was written up for the RMB and other 1st edition settings.)
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Some things they might come into play:
◎ The char has h2h MA which the char got the paired weapons as part of the level advancement.
◎ The char's race instinctively has h2h MA which the char got the paired weapons as part of the level advancement.
◎ Ranged vs melee attacks.
◎The char got the WP paired as an OCC skill
◎ The char got WP Paired as an Related skill…..secondary skill
◎ Has paired weapons due to being ambidextrous. (make the assumption that it is all their arms equally.)
◎ The char's race instinctively has paired weapons.
◎ Can the char take WP paired more then once (Once for each pair of arms?)
◎ extra Bionic arms.
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How I see it.

WP Paired is training the char to use ALL their arms at once, in the same APM/3 sec. with melee weapons only.
(Unless there is specific text in the setting's WP paired weapons descriptive text.)

Simultaneous ranged attacks need: another set of eyes per target, alien origins (i.e.: No Humans or similar humanoids). This would include firing a ranged attack while melee fighting. Otherwise the char would have the penalties listed in RUE's paired weapons text for paired ranged attacks with the WP paired weapons skill.
(w/o the paired weapons skill paired ranges attacks are wild shots and get the listed penalties for shooting wild.)

Magic and Psi take up the char's whole attention. Only parries and dodging.

Superpower/Racial powers: the same power can not be used in the same APM twice or more. Unless the power says in it that it can be split up. Might alter this for specific characters as an individual trait by GM fiat for coolness.

[ShadowLogan]

Overall I'd allow WP Paired Weapons to work with all 4 (or whatever number) of limbs for natural races as extensions of the 2 limb races. Anything a 2 limbed race can do using the skill, so can a multi-paired limb race (not saying I wouldn't apply penalties for difficulty) since all Paired Weapons amounts to IMHO is coordinated training, if a bi-arm limb race can learn to use their two limbs together, then a quad-arm limb race should to (quads are typical, I know there are a few higher and one tri).

I would not restrict it to melee weapons, I have no problem with using it with modern weapons (assuming one handed use), but it would count as shooting wild (unless of course you have specific training like a New West gunslinger), and apply dominant/off-hand penalties.

◎ Can the char take WP paired more then once (Once for each pair of arms?)

This depends on what version of the skill you are using.

Rifts Ultimate Edition is clear on this matter: you do not need to take the skill for each set of arms.

Otherwise THE ONLY REASON to take the skill more than once is if you are using a form of the skill that requires you to select what weapons you are trained to use in a paired format (some versions of the skill require selection, where others work for any skill you have a WP in, etc).

◎ extra Bionic arms.

I think we have established precedent in New West on how it works if YOU DON"T have Paired Weapons.

[eliakon]

My personal view on this is that I would say that I would not allow an additional attack with the extra arms, my reasoning is based on four things

1) the skill says "provides one additional attack or parry" which seems to be pretty clear there, one additional attack. As for stacking it... it is not a skill that is stackable, and thus no. Thus my view is that the skill talks about twin weapons, not 'every possible limb at once'. I might allow stacking for a member of a race that is multiply limbed who has trained with other members of that race in their races specific martial arts. This would NOT be simply "H2H Martial Arts" and not taking paired weapon twice as secondary skills. This would be case by case basis of someone who is a full on martial artist getting trained that way. In which case I might allow some new skills (paired +1 for a third weapon, Paired +2 for a fourth weapon, ect)

2) In game there runs into a problem with getting enough openings to make enough clear swings to generate enough attacks in one action. With paired weapons you are attacking from both sides at ones basically... but if you up that to 4 or 6 limbs your own swords start to get in the way.

3) Out of game it runs into a fairness question VERY quickly.
Paired weapon attacks can only be parried if you have paired weapons yourself... fine if everyone has 2 arms and paired weapons provides the listed "one additional attack or parry" But if you have a four armed combatant that means that they can make 4 attacks... 2 of which WILL get through. If they have 6 arms then they get 4 attacks that can not be defended against... and if you are level 5 with the Tentacles super power you get 12 attacks 10 of which will get through and can't be stopped! That is SERIOUSLY unfair to the opponent as it makes it basically impossible to fight the multiple armed opponent. Who is already getting bonus APM from the limbs anyway. So now they get more attacks per melee, and can do more strikes with each attack to boot!

4) The fourth and final thing is that I feel that allowing anyone with multiple limbs this ability does a disservice to things such as the Xictic Super Warrior or Jeridu who are explicitly described as being able to do this. My thinking there is that if this was the normal way that paired weapons worked, then there would not be any need to call out that these exceptional specimens, who are regarded as being highly dangerous in melee, have this ability as it would just be "well yeah, they have more arms duh". Instead it is treated as if the ability to attack with all limbs at once is a rare and frightening trait.



My personal compromise is that I would grant each additional limb to increase the number of simultaneous attackers that the person may handle by +1 per limb after 2. So the hypothetical 4 armed person can parry attacks from 5 people at once.

I would also point out that you could have that four armed person wield a pair of two handed weapons, or two one handed weapons AND two shields, or carry two swords a pistol and a shield, Or otherwise diversify their weaponry in ways that a two armed person can't.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Eli You cited text in your #1. Please state which PB gamebook you are citing. Remember not all settings have the same text in their skills listings and combat rules.

[eliakon]

Eli You cited text in your #1. Please state which PB gamebook you are citing. Remember not all settings have the same text in their skills listings and combat rules.

I wasn't citing a text but if you inisist


I'll lead off with the game with the most characters with more than two limbs and go down the list from there

"Users of paired weapons can strike and parry simultaneously, can do twin strikes against a single target or against a pair of targets, and can parry two different opponents at the same time. In other words, warriors skilled in paired weapons often can do two actions for every one of their melee attacks.

Masters of paired weapons can strike and parry simultaneously, can do twin strikes against a single target or against a pair of targets, and can parry two, different opponents at the same time. In other words, warriors skilled in paired weapons often can do two actions for every one of their melee attacks."

"users of Paired weapons can:" <list of 4 things follows, specifically Strike and Parry simultaneously, Twin Simultaneous strike against the same target, strike two different targets, or parry two different attackers.>

"Four-armed characters only need to take W.P. Paired Weapons once, not once for each pair of arms. A character who already has W.P. Paired Weapons would not gain any additional bonuses or benefits by taking the skill a second time."

(which shows that the skill WAS written with four armed characters in mind, that they get no additional bonus and that they STILL get the listed ability of twin attack or two parries, not four attacks or four parries since the skill explicitly says two)

"Users of paired weapons can strike and parry simultaneously, can do twin strikes against a single target, or against a pair of targets, and can parry two different opponents at the same time. In other words, combatants skilled in Paired Weapons often can do two actions for every one of their melee attacks."

I can go on...
...but every single book uses the exact same language to describe Paired Weapons.
To wit, that it allows you to take two actions for each one melee attack so spent.
Even when it explicitly discusses four-armed characters they do NOT get an exemption from the 'can take two actions' They can carry four weapons, and use any two of them in each action... but they still are explicitly described as getting two actions. Furthermore the skill explicitly says that you can NOT take it a second time to get more benefit out of it. And since that is in the section about four armed characters it seems pretty clear that they put that text in to explicitly make it clear that you can not stack multiple uses of Paired Weapons to get more than two actions.

Or put another way, the skill provides exactly what it says it does, no more no less. The ONLY exception to this is if a specific Race/Class/Whatever has a specific note that it is exempt from the normal rules.

[drewkitty ~..~]

My personal view on this is that I would say that I would not allow an additional attack with the extra arms, my reasoning is based on four things

1) the skill says "provides one additional attack or parry" which seems to be pretty clear there, one additional attack. As for stacking it... it is not a skill that is stackable, and thus no. Thus my view is that the skill talks about twin weapons, not 'every possible limb at once'. I might allow stacking for a member of a race that is multiply limbed who has trained with o

Citation.

[eliakon]

My personal view on this is that I would say that I would not allow an additional attack with the extra arms, my reasoning is based on four things

1) the skill says "provides one additional attack or parry" which seems to be pretty clear there, one additional attack. As for stacking it... it is not a skill that is stackable, and thus no. Thus my view is that the skill talks about twin weapons, not 'every possible limb at once'. I might allow stacking for a member of a race that is multiply limbed who has trained with o

Citation.

Did you bother to read my last post?

You know the one where I quoted the paired weapon skill, verbatim from several books (I didn't do every book since every single book uses one of two printed versions.... so if you read the two core views you have read EVERYONE OF THEM)

THAT was my citation.
"provides on additional attack or parry" was a summation of the much, much longer "You can use paired weapons to use two weapons to do one of the following four things..."

[Big Red]

If I remember right, I allowed characters to use more than two sets of arms with paired weapons, but I required them to take the WP skill for each additional set of arms. It wasn't something I ran into much.

[Axelmania]

PB canon does not have a direct answer for this situation.
(If you disagree with the highlighted statement then YOU need to provide the text (book, page, paragraph) to support your assertion.

A pair is 2 things.

The skill says it lets you do "twin" strikes.

Twin also means 2. 3 is called triplet, 4 is called quadruplet, and so on.

Therefore, the book has only ever indicated 2, anything else is speculation unsupported by the text.

The ability to do quadruple strikes is a special ability given to warriors in Rifts Xiticix Invasion, outlined specifically in addition to their natural paired weapons skill, showing it is something separate.

[drewkitty ~..~]

PB canon does not have a direct answer for this situation.
(If you disagree with the highlighted statement then YOU need to provide the text (book, page, paragraph) to support your assertion.

A pair is 2 things.

The skill says it lets you do "twin" strikes.

Twin also means 2. 3 is called triplet, 4 is called quadruplet, and so on.

Therefore, the book has only ever indicated 2, anything else is speculation unsupported by the text.

The ability to do quadruple strikes is a special ability given to warriors in Rifts Xiticix Invasion, outlined specifically in addition to their natural paired weapons skill, showing it is something separate.

Thank you for not answering the question posed in the OP.

Please expound on how you would rule in game you GM about char that naturally have more then one set of arms. Thus making them outside what the "WP Paired Weapons" text covers.
Please note the situations I brought up and take your time to think on them.

Like……how the paired weapons skill concerning melee weapons vs ranged weapons.

or like…. the char has an instinctive h2h MA that is specifically said to fit their body type and once they have gotten to the L7 level up.

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Eli...

What you did was dump a whole dump truck of indirectly supporting text into a post. I didn't see any attribution to the quote in point #1 of your 1st post. Whether this was because you put the attribution in the middle of the text your wrote and I didn't see it due to when I started scanning for the specific attribution all I saw was something other then What I Asked For, or it wasn't there.

So can you attribute the text you quoted (appeared to quote) from you #1 point?

[eliakon]

PB canon does not have a direct answer for this situation.
(If you disagree with the highlighted statement then YOU need to provide the text (book, page, paragraph) to support your assertion.

A pair is 2 things.

The skill says it lets you do "twin" strikes.

Twin also means 2. 3 is called triplet, 4 is called quadruplet, and so on.

Therefore, the book has only ever indicated 2, anything else is speculation unsupported by the text.

The ability to do quadruple strikes is a special ability given to warriors in Rifts Xiticix Invasion, outlined specifically in addition to their natural paired weapons skill, showing it is something separate.

Thank you for not answering the question posed in the OP.

Please expound on how you would rule in game you GM about char that naturally have more then one set of arms. Thus making them outside what the "WP Paired Weapons" text covers.
Please note the situations I brought up and take your time to think on them.

Would that not be covered by the citation I provided

"Four-armed characters only need to take W.P. Paired Weapons once, not once for each pair of arms. A character who already has W.P. Paired Weapons would not gain any additional bonuses or benefits by taking the skill a second time."

Like……how the paired weapons skill concerning melee weapons vs ranged weapons.

There is nothing to speculate on. The skill clearly says what the rules are

"W.P. Paired Weapons is designed for melee weapons like knives, swords, clubs, etc, not guns. When shooting two guns at once there is a penalty of -2 to strike with the regular hand and -6 to strike with the off hand."

or like…. the char has an instinctive h2h MA that is specifically said to fit their body type and once they have gotten to the L7 level up.

Then they have W.P. Paired as per the skill. Unless the specific race has a specific statement that it uses a non-standard version of the skill, then it would have the skill exactly as written. No more no less.

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Eli...

What you did was dump a whole dump truck of indirectly supporting text into a post. I didn't see any attribution to the quote in point #1 of your 1st post. Whether this was because you put the attribution in the middle of the text your wrote and I didn't see it due to when I started scanning for the specific attribution all I saw was something other then What I Asked For, or it wasn't there.

So can you attribute the text you quoted (appeared to quote) from you #1 point?

Sure

"Users of paired weapons can strike and parry simultaneously, can do twin strikes against a single target or against a pair of targets, and can parry two different opponents at the same time. In other words, warriors skilled in paired weapons often can do two actions for every one of their melee attacks.

"users of Paired weapons can:" <list of 4 things follows, specifically Strike and Parry simultaneously, Twin Simultaneous strike against the same target, strike two different targets, or parry two different attackers.>

These two quotes are of the books exact text on paired weapons.
They tell us what you can do with paired weapons.
Specifically they say you can do one of four things.
Attack twice (i.e. gain an attack) Attack two things (i.e. gain an attack), Attack and Parry (Gain a parry), or Parry twice (Gain a parry)
thus they tell us you can use paired weapons to gain an attack or parry. (my point #1)

When combined with this

"Four-armed characters only need to take W.P. Paired Weapons once, not once for each pair of arms. A character who already has W.P. Paired Weapons would not gain any additional bonuses or benefits by taking the skill a second time."

We can note that the skill DOES take into consideration four arms... and that even though you have four weapons in your hands you still only get the allotted two actions.
This is similar to how a person can hold a sword in each hand, but still only attack with one of them if they do NOT have paired weapons. The Paired Weapons skill grants the ability to make two actions with one melee attack. It specifically says two actions though, even for the four armed person.
That clearly means that it grants what it says. See the below quote, in red.

"Users of paired weapons can strike and parry simultaneously, can do twin strikes against a single target or against a pair of targets, and can parry two different opponents at the same time. In other words, warriors skilled in paired weapons often can do two actions for every one of their melee attacks.

[Prysus]

If a Character has more then one set of arms does WP paired weapons train the char to use ALL their arms simultaneously in one APM?

Please answer as You are the GM of your own game First, before arguing with how others would choose to have things for their games.

Greetings and Salutations. As a G.M., this has never come up in my games (I banned Jeridu almost immediately after the book was released, well actually I think I banned Land of the Damned races in general to save myself grief). No player has ever tried to run a different multi-armed character other than that. However, the way I'd probably rule it (though this has never been play tested) is ...

A multi-armed character (Jeridu, Rahu-Man, etc.) with Paired Weapons could use all 4 (or 6, etc.) arms in one single turn. However, each pair would use one attack per melee. While mechanically the attacks/paired arms add up as if only using two, this allows the character to inflict massive damage in a single turn. This could help kill enemies before you suffer more damage or even scare someone off (you can attack a lot at once and will run out of attacks fast, but that doesn't mean the opponent knows that).

Note: I'd also toy with the idea of allowing multiple attacks as a single action (so a four armed character attacking with all four arms, for instance, as a single action), but force the character to purchase W.P. Paired Weapons for each set of arms. Though yes, I know this conflicts with the wording in RUE. Also, for the combat munchkin, spending an extra skill or two for more power is rarely a deterrent. So I'm not sure I'd actually use this one, but I'd consider it at the very least.

*****

"Four-armed characters only need to take W.P. Paired Weapons once, not once for each pair of arms. A character who already has W.P. Paired Weapons would not gain any additional bonuses or benefits by taking the skill a second time."

While the above quote is accurate, I disagree with your interpretation. Or, at the very least, disagree it's as clear as you try to pretend it is.

Red Mark #1: The book does tell us that a four-armed character only needs to select it once. The way I'd read that sentence implies that selecting it once allows it to work for all four arms. The wording of "only need" indicates (to me) that the maximum benefit for the single selection, then "not once for each pair of arms" coming after indicates (to me) that it applies to all the arms already.

Red Mark #2: An accurate quote, but irrelevant to the four-armed character quote. That's a separate matter. For example, a human character who selects W.P. Paired Weapons and then gains Paired Weapons as a result of Level 7 Hand to Hand doesn't gain any benefit. This doesn't have anything to do with four-armed characters any more than the only applying to weapons you have a W.P. in or not applying to guns is only directed at four-armed characters.

Now, I won't refute the other quotes regarding the usage of "two" and "paired" aspects. If you want to argue by the strictest reading of the rules, then yes, you can't benefit by more than two arms. However, I don't feel confident that's the intent of the rules at all. The rules are written with humans in mind. RUE, for example, tells us on page 279 to roll 3D6 for our attributes, despite the fact the book included dragons with non-3D6 attributes in the same book. In PF2 they tell you to roll attributes, S.D.C., and psionics before you pick your race (which isn't until Step 4). Palladium has a tendency to write the rules for humans, and then add notes after for you to apply and translate. How exactly they always intend that translation isn't always clear.

I, for example, view that Red Mark #1 above to indicate they'd allow a Rahu-Man (or other multi-armed character) to use Paired Weapons to all their arms simultaneously for the cost of one selection. Now I, as a G.M., dislike this ruling. I'd rule it differently in my house. However, I genuinely believe that's what your Red Mark #1 is trying to tell us. And while you can try to split hairs on the wording directed at humans referring to only two, if you go only by what's strictly written the game tends to not work at all. We, as individuals, make the game work by following intent instead of the strict wording. Farewell and safe journeys for now.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Eli…

Okay, so, what you are saying (while avoiding saying it in a way that make it look like you made a mistake) is that you were stating a concept found in multiple WP paired text, but not directly quoting something, as it appeared you were.

I don't understand why you didn't let Axe speak for himself.

[say652]

I would house rule it.

Like the Advanced Skills in Rifter 30.

Wp Quad Weapons 1 slot.
Wp Specialization Quad weapons 2 slots
Wp Mastery Quad Weapons 3 slots.

The reason i suggest house rules because Rifter material isn't often Canon.

[eliakon]

Eli…

Okay, so, what you are saying (while avoiding saying it in a way that make it look like you made a mistake) is that you were stating a concept found in multiple WP paired text, but not directly quoting something, as it appeared you were.

I don't understand why you didn't let Axe speak for himself.

I didn't 'make a mistake'.
There is a reason I used quotes is that I was paraphrasing the statement.

And that was because it didn't seem like I needed to "cite a source" since literally every single book, in every single game said the exact same thing.
That would seem to me that ANY SOURCE on paired weapon would provide the exact same material (to wit that you get to do two actions for one) and what those two actions are.

When you asked that I go into details on this I did so.

So I guess my mistake was assuming that something that is published in every single core book, ever, would need to be cited specifically. As I assumed that you would just want citations on things that were in doubt (for instance, the later quote in RUE about four armed characters, which is not universal.)

As for Axe... it seemed that Axe was making a statement based on what I had already posted.
As such it seemed redundant to ask that he provide a citation that had already been provided.

[Axelmania]

You could perhaps use a pair of two handed weapons? Throw two nets at once?