It's all about hands

In the game, there is no care taken for such things as characters main hand and how using your 'opposite hand' would work. In short, shooting with your left hand, or shooting with your right is the same, no matter if you're left-handed or right-handed. The rules described in this section is supposed to provide rules for using off-hand, beeing double handed (able to use both hands equally well, but not simultaneously and ambidextrous (as double handed, but can use both hands simultaneously at different tasks without any difficulty modifiers) characters.

When creating a character a player can choose to make his character left handed or right handed. This is mostly cosmetic but can be important in certain situations (a lefthanded character getting his left hand shot to small, slimy, icky pieces for instance). However, to be double handed, or ambidextrous the character must pay up with attribute dices (or remove from attributes if using a pre-existing template). To be double handed costs 1D, and to be ambidextrous costs 3D.

Example:

Rickard decides to play a bounty hunter (See p. 268 in 2nd edition, revised and expanded). He adds a line where he put that his character is left-handed.

Later he decides that beeing double-handed would be better, and thus has to subtract 1D from his attributes. Since he is human, he can't subtract an attribute to be lower than 2D. Rickard picks +2 from Mechanichal, and +1 from Strength, yielding 1D and giving his character a Mechanichal of 2D, and a Strength of 3D+1.

Thinking a bit further, Rikard decides that ambidextrous would be even better. A bounty hunter able to fire a blaster and throw fend of attackers with his vibro axe, simultaneously would be rather nifty. He needs to subtract another 2D of attribute dices. Since his Mehcanichal and Technichal is alrwady at the minimum of 2D he must subtract from something else. Taking 1D of from Perception, +1 from Strength, +1 from Dexterity, and +1 from Knowledge equals 2D, and gives the character the final stats of: Dexterity : 3D+2, Perception: 2D, Knowledge: 2D+1, Strength: 3D, Mechanichal: 2D and Technichal 2D. Rikards character is now ambidextrous.

Actions taken with the characters main hand is done as normally. Actions done with off hand is penalized with -2D. This does not apply to tasks where both hands are normally in use of course (i.e, tapping on a computer keyboard is not penalized in any way, but playing darts with your left hand if you are right handed does).

Example:

Benke is left handed and has a Blaster skill of 6D+1. Benke blasts at a storm trooper, and rolls full 6D+1. Later Benke manages to get into a cantina brawl and gets his left hand severly wounded. Benke has managed to grab his blaster right handed and fires at a brawler standing in the way for his retreat. Since Benke is using his off hand he only gets to roll 4D+1 for his Blaster skill check.

Wielding two weapons when left or right handed yields the same -2D penalty on the off hand weapon, and no penalty for the main hand. When wielding melee weapons (such as lightsaber) each action counts towards penalties, except for the first double. The exception is when doing extremely simple actions, such as fire two blasters against the same target, or punching the same target with both left and right hand. In these cases every 'double action' counts as a single action.

Example:

Benke, still left handed wields a vibro sword in each hand. Since slashing with a sword is a more time consuming and complicated task than firing a blaster Benkes forst 'double action' carries no penalties, but every following action does. Benke does 3 attacks on a hooligan, 2 with his main hand, 1 with his off hand. Benke has a skill value of 5D+1 in Melee Combat. The first attack rolls 4D+1 (normal skill, -1D penalty for multiple actions), the second 2D+1 (-2D for off-hand, -1D for multple actions), and the last, once again 4D+1. Had Benke found 2 attacks sufficient he'd roll full skil of 5D+1 for first attack, and 3D+1 for the second (i.e, no multiple action penalties).

Had Benke been double handed, or ambidextrous, he'd of course would not be penalized -2D for off hand, since Benke by definition has both hands as 'main hands'.

Example:

Wielding two heavy blaster pistols (unlimited fire rate) Benke does a Chow Yun Fat and throws himself through a door shooting a the thug inside 6 times with his dual-wielded blasters. Since Benke is shooting at a single thug, he only gets a -2D penalty on his Blaster skill check (3 'double actions'). Had benke fired at two different thugs he'd been penalized -4D (first 'double action' as one action, the remaining 4 shots is all actions, giving 5 actions and -4D penalty). And Benke would still penalize -2D for the shots using his offhand, wich basically gives -6D penalty for all off hand shots, yielding a skill check of +1 for those shots. Basically no chanse of making a hit, but in some situations accuracy is less important than keeping a maximum amount of blaster energy in the air.

Had benke in these examples been double handed he'd just a prevous not been given any penalty for off hand use and the same is true for ambidextrous characters.

Ambidextrous characters though is highly different. Ambidextrous characters gets the 3 first double actions for the price of 3 normal actions when dual wielding (for instance).

Further, when trying to do two tasks simoultaneously would normally impose an additional -2D penaltgy on the task. For a normal character this would mean -2D for the main hand task, and -4D for the off hand task in addition to -1D penalty for two actions. . A double handed character would get -2D on both tasks plus -1D for two actions. An ambidextrous character however would only be penalized -1D, for doing multiple actions.

Example:

Benke and his crew is having problems in the ship. Beeing attacked by a group of 4 TIEs, and beeing a member short (she's in sick bay) makes the situation a bit tense. Benke, however, decides to try to operate the shields with his off-hand, and fire the main blaster cannon with his main hand. These tasks are so different, and at least the shooting requries a lot of attention, that the -2D penalty for different, simoultaneously actions is warranted. Benke has a Starship Shield skill of 7D+1, and a Starship Gunnery skill of 5D+2.

Normally, benke would get to roll 2D+1 for shields (-2D for simoultaneous actions, -2D for offhand, -1D for two actions) and 2D+2 for gunnery (-2D for simoultaneous, -1D for two actions).

If Benke is double handed, the skill rolls would be 4D+1 for shields, and 2D+2 for gunnery (-2D for simoultaneous, -1D for multiple actions).

If Benkes is ambidextrous he'll get to roll 6D+1 for shields, and 4D+2 for gunnery, sicne the only applied penalty would be for taking two actions in the round.

These rules requires some extra fiddling with stuff like simoultaneous actions versus multiple actions (drawing your blaster, fire, dodging behind a trash can is multiple actions but neither is simoultaneous, where as operating shields and starshiop guns during a battle is simoultaneous actions, yielding penalties as explained above).

Giving ambidextrous charactes 3 double actions for the price of 3 normal actions might seem a lot, bet remember that ambidextrousness costs 3 attribute dices. That's quite a lot for a character IMHO so such a sacrifice should yield something in return.


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