DUALWIELDING WITH TWO WEAPONS

Any character may choose to dual-wield, attacking either with two guns or two melee
weapons, one in each hand, in a single round. The attacks are rolled according to
the usual rules, with two exceptions.
Firstly, a penalty die is applied to all attacks including the first.
• In the case of dual-wielding melee weapons: one penalty die is applied to both
the left-hand and right-hand attacks.
• In the case of firearms: the Multiple Shots rule (see page 113, Call of Cthulhu
Rulebook) is applied to all shots, regardless of which hand they are made with,
i.e. each bullet fired—whether a single shot from each gun or multiple shots per
gun—has one penalty die applied to the attack roll.
Thus, a character attacking with a knife in each hand, or firing bullets from two
handguns, makes both attack rolls with a penalty die. Modifiers for other factors
may be also applied, in addition to setting the firearm difficulty level by range.
Secondly, the chance of a fumble is increased:
• If the dice roll required for success is 50 or over, a fumble occurs on a dice
result of 96–100 (up from the usual 100).
• If the dice roll required for success is below 50, a fumble occurs on a dice
result of 90–100 (up from the usual 96–100).
Note: a firearm malfunction only occurs if the dice result is within the
malfunction range for the particular weapon.
Dual-wielding causes fumbles to occur far more often. As always, the Keeper decides
what has occurred with a fumble result—suggestions include:
• Harm to self: the attacker accidentally shoots him or herself in the foot, or
strikes him or herself in the face with the butt of their own club.
• Harm to an ally: the attacker accidentally slices into a friend, or hits a friend
with a ricochet.
• Loss of balance: the attacker loses their footing and falls to the ground, or
knocks into a friend causing them to fall.
• Loss of weapon: one of the attacker’s weapons slips from their hand, perhaps
thrown away some distance.
• Entangled: the attacker’s weapons become somehow entangled in their own clothing
or some aspect of the environment (such as tree branches or curtains).
Dual-wielding makes no change to a character’s ability to fight back (using one
weapon of their choice) when targeted with an attack.
Unarmed attacks, such as fists, count as melee weapons for the purpose of the dual-
wielding rules. A character may attack with a sword in their left hand and strike
with their right fist (taking a penalty die on both attacks for dual-wielding).
Note that dual-wielding handguns makes reloading very difficult. Handguns can be
dual-wielded in Pulp Cthulhu. It is the Keeper’s decision on how pulpy they wish
their game to be—e.g. would you let a character dual-wield shotguns, or do you
prefer to just apply the rule to handguns?