RosenMcStern

Just wait for the new version of the Conspiracy Theory to appear for more on Project Energy. Due within 48 hours.

20 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Effort? Readiness?

I am lost...

What does those means?

Effort -> Exertion Points. They will probably be called Effort Points in the text, but writing simply Effort on sheets is the clearest solution for those who do not come from wargaming background like many of us. "The character spends X Effort to perform Action Z" is the most natural way of expressing that concep.

Readiness -> Strike Rank. You may also call it Strike Readiness so that it has the same acronym. Again, "you lose X Readiness to act" or "with this Combat effect you decrease your opponent's Readiness by X" is the most intuitive way of explaining what is going on.

We knew that not everything is clear at first reading and we have been working on the language used.

Here is the new Character Sheet, in full colour and with the name changes and simplifications that we are progressively introducing. I have not changed the main link yet because that character sheet is hosted on the purchase page for the core book. 

Watch out for the new quickstart, it is almost ready!

There are Dark Elves already described in the Shade Land supplement, available on DriveThruRPG. Not exactly like yours, but similar. 

Ach! I had forgotten. It was supposed to be the basis for Galactic Frontier, but nowGF is postponed so it is just lying on various hard disks.

Simon, if you want to release it for free as a package, no problem. Although it is quite bulky.

You are not supposed to "save" points very often, so there is no specific space. 

First thought: permanent Consequences. Either the PCs can give up a valuable Positive Permanent Consequence, or they get a negative one.

Another possibility is Channelling points, rather than Focus. Not everyone has Focus, but anyone who uses magic has Channelling. Giving up points of Channelling means that a part of the character's subconscious mind is engaged with "something", for instance keeping "dark thoughts" that the entity has instilled in their brains at bay. Should they be forced to use the Channelling points to keep a spell running at some time, then the "dark thoughts" are released and initiate a long-lasting conflict to take control over the character's mind.

Or something similar. There are other similar examples in old threads.

10 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I got another idea this morning that might be a winner (more liked by more people). what if project base damage is 1D6, and additional might give a flat +2 damage.

This way a starting professional gifted sorcerer start (55%) can do D6+10 at close range. Always a major wound on a human.
And the powerful one with 85% will do D6+16 at close range (guaranteed major wound on a dragon) or D6+12 at medium range (possible major wound on a dragon)

Or another thought.. to keep dices.. maybe use D4 for elemental dices... mmmm...

 

Changing the effects of additional Might to a flat bonus is not something I would recommend. Toying with the "size" of the dice is instead a variation that we have tested, and it works well. In fact, the energy/elemental rules are designed to allow precisely this.

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and maybe I will leave increase damage and protection as is... have to try it out... toughness change many things...
(except for a reduced coverage for protection of (10 - might)+, instead of 0+)

Variable coverage for Protection is a splendid idea, and might end up as an option in the official rules. However, with 10-Might you have a "quadratic increase" of usefulness for Protection, as high Might gives both improved armour and improved coverage. Might should improve only one of the two. What about this:

• Protection provides the target with a +1 to armour protection, in addition to any physical armour already worn. The coverage for this magical armour layer is equal to the Size Class of the recipient of the spell. Additional points of Might can either improve armour protection or decrease coverage, at the caster's option.

Thank you all. We will soon assemble some sort of GM aid, and all of your input (and pansophy's) has been precious.

If someone is wondering why we have not done it earlier, the answer is I was waiting for the new look&feel to be ready. And now it is.

Consider also that it is not so difficult to survive a 4d6 blast for a human target who has a minimum of armor or protection, as Toughness of 9 is not uncommon (did it last spring with my dwarf alchemist - we exchanged fireballs with a magician, and of course the dwarf was the one standing after both firebolts connected). 

It is a welcome flood, as we had had sort of a draught during summer.

3 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

- what if 2 magical might = 1 elemental / kinetic might . ie. concentration 55%/channeling 6 can only do 3d6 of elemental damage (still 6EP cost though), or 3 armour, or +3 damage. suddenly it's much more manageable and still potentially lethal... and would be significant but not game changing...

This would effectively be nerfing  Palsy 8 can take down a dragon, while Project Lightning 8 with 4d6 damage (minus armour) has little or no hope of damaging it.

Keep in mind that the balance of power in Rd100 is not numerically equivalent to that of other BRP variants. Intensity 19+ was common in RQ3, and Intensity 10 is not unheard of in Mythras. However, Might 8 is something very, very big in Rd100. Sure, you can make a starting character who is able to fire these huge blasts, but at what price? He must forfeit ALL other skills, which means he will go down against goblins: while he fries the first one with a huge fireball, the second one kills him with a spear thrust, Rurik-style. We have actually played this kind of magic intensively, and it is not such a game changer. 

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I wonder, did I understood the gist of parallel conflict?

Yes.

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- I like my dark elves (right now player are stranded on Master of Magic's Arcanum, land of Dark Elves and Dragonewt) to be long lived powerful sorcerer fighter. With those legendaries adamantium armor and weapons. The whole enchantment rule is.. designed for fewer powerful items, not for "relatively" numerous chainmail +2 with absorb (fire/electricity 2). I am not quite sure how they happen. I could just drop them in game of course... But how would one craft one is a mystery?! 😮 

Why do you say so? Keep in mind that the only limit to enchanting is the time and materials it takes. If the sorcerer is confident he does not risk Consequences that might devalue the item, i.e. the item has just a +1/+2 effect, then he will probably manage to enchant one every few weeks. A long lived powerful sorcerer fighter can provide all of his retainers with simple magic items. The big ones, of course, he will keep for himself, particolarly because with a 20+ pool to beat for enchanting it is almost impossible to not suffer some flaws, and that will easily translate to the item bestowing limitations on the enchanter. 

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- Dodge & Parry: one can dodge or parry a weapon or lightning bolt. the weapon table you can see Parry reduce the dice. It's not clear anywhere else, but I guess this is the best way to go about it. Which dice does it remove though? Might first? Weapon Dice? And for lightning, what's the parry value?
And dodge.. apparently that dodge everything.. Does it incur an encumbrance penalty?

If the defence is successful, damage is not rolled. However, if the attack roll is higher (or a crit vs. a normal success) then the attacker can use the Overwhelm combat effect to overcome the defence. It is only in that case that the Parry value has effect. The attacker chooses which dice are removed first, so it is usually the Might dice and not the weapon dice.

Dodge is a defence like the others, so the attacker can use Overwhelm against it: the defender manoeuvred with his body to put the weapon in the way of the attack, rather than moving the weapon to intercept. If you wonder why one would want to do so, just check how much SR does a parry with a greatsword or poleaxe costs. If you have no weapon in hand, then either the dodger wins the exchange or his Dodge has the only effect of wasting the attacker's combat effect on Overwhelm (this might still save his life, as it may prevent an impale or slash). Dodge works as "avoid all damage" only if you have a special martial arts technique (Evade).

And finally, when a ranged attack is dodged the attacker cannot use Overwhelm, but he has Glancing Blow instead. Little chance of incapacitating, but the target suffers SR loss for the pain and becomes vulnerable to further attacks. And if the missile was poisoned or enchanted...

18 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

- an electric touch 1D6 attack can be done for 1RP (and close combat?)
- a lightning bolt at close range (1, 30m) can be up to 5d6 (might 4) will cost 6RP.  can be dodge or parried with 1 penalty. it is unclear if the defence is total or remove a number of dice.

 

Yes. You may want to look at the Red Moon Rising package in the download section for more ideas about non-ranged elemental projection. In RMR you can even use it defensively.

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- a lightning bolt at close range (1, 30m) can be up to 5d6 (might 4) will cost 6RP.  can be dodge or parried with 1 penalty. it is unclear if the defence is total or remove a number of dice.

Correct, except that it is Might +4 (total 5), not 4. Defence is total, but if you allow combat effects on Projection spells (not specified in this version of the rules, and in any case it depends on the setting) then the spellcaster can attempt a Glancing Blow with the attack, doing 1d6 damage.

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- a shapechange at close range (+1) against a human might (+2) +base of 1 = 3, cost 2 RP (2 manipulations). and the follows a Will conflict. i.e. the victim is .. transforming.. and resisting.. 

Yes.

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now I am going to rid it a bit more.. but my understanding of parralel conflict, in case of spell. it cost 5SR to 'attack' (at normal skill) and one can defend for free without bonus, or with a trait/stun (if has one, such has willpower) by spending 5SR.
 

You defend with your Traits in any case. The defender uses the Concentration Action only to accrue a Bonus with an unrelated Trait, if one exists.

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the first one to drop to 0 resolution point lose (shape change complete or failed)
 

Yes, but you may also use the Quick Exit rules, and in fact this is recommended for Parallel Conflicts. The defender has no drawbacks in case of Quick Exit, while the attacker has the spell effectiveness reduced, with the exact effects depending on the spell. For instance, Disruption does half damage, and Confusion requires using Channelling to keep the target befuddled.

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note that the wizard should allocate at least 5SR each round on the spell to take effect or it fizzle out...

Why? The rule is that you must not go below 0 SR, if you do not roll for one round the spell makes no progress against the target, but it does not end.

Details about Projection spells will vary from setting to setting. Also, the new quickstart will introduce the concept of "charging" powers, which makes spells more unpredictable.

Consider also that arcane magic is meant for earth-shaking magicians. You can easily create Dr. Strange with these rules. If you want to avoid overpowered magicians you better use just cantrips. A magician with a high Concentration and a simple Disruption 4 or Confusion is already very effective.

Red Moon Rising is in the making, we have just finished the bulk of playtesting. The delivery of the kickstarter is delayed, with a probable 3-year delay. [Norberto ninjaed me...]

Fulcrum AC is producing Galactic Frontier with another game system for the time being. The announced Rd100 version will happen at some time, but we do not know when.

The unannounced project will have some sci-fi elements in it, but I doubt they will fit in your MOO universe.

And hey... we have another big fan in Queensland! We will have to rent some warehouse space there if things go on in this way!

It is appropriate to post an update about this year's schedule. It is evident that the International Edition is not being kickstarted anytime soon. We are indeed still progressing with it, and should have the new Quickstart available next week. You might wonder, though, which is the reason for yet another delay when we were so enthusiastic about the new edition and the new Medievalia supplements. The fact that I moved to Belgium again has probably something to do with it, but it is not the only reason.

A few weeks after the announcement in this thread, we started negotiations for a licensed setting. It was one of those tasks which you start with a "Not gonna happen, but it would be unforgivable to not give it a try" attitude. And yet it turned out that it was doable, after all.

Once the thought of acquiring this license became more and more concrete, we realised that it made sense business-wise to produce this supplement before the new edition. It is a standalone game using a modified Rd100 engine, so it does not require the International Edition to be published in order to incorporate elements from the revised rules. It then turned out that it would be a good plan to :

• Release the revised Quickstart
• Crowdfund and release the new "Project Z"
• Release the International edition (with or without crowdfunding)

in this exact order. Which in turn means that the International Edition could be postponed to 2020, as it is now too late to undertake two big projects by the end of the year.

We will announce the new timeline as soon as we have green light for the new project.

Lotsa interesting points...

16 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Not that in matter much, this game requires lots of xp anyway, and the main limiting factor (as I understand it) is training time and teacher availability. It's just 5xp feel right to me... but hey pitch in if you disagree.

Playtest definitely says that 1 xp is ok. There are already exceptions for very broad-use Traits. 5 xp is way too much, it would hinder character evolution a lot.

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While SR is totally a very neat way to grad attack speed (hey maybe many punches but only 1 or 2 sword attacks), also much simpler and logical than Mythras, and enable "fast enemy" in a very seamless fashion... it taxed our cognitive abilities (me and my players) a bit much, particularly when I got 3 players and 7 NPC... (maybe I am suffering from a bad case of old age?)

Toughest situation I encountered was 3 PCs vs 30 NPCs, with the PCs holding position in a corridor while the enemies kept coming. Total duration of the battle 1,5 hours - and it was after midnight, and after much beer. Once you have found a way to keep track of SR on the fly (I recommend d20s besides figures, but Pansophy has also created a neat tabletop combat tracker), combat tends to run much faster than other BRP variants.

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Additionally, on a tangent topic, what if I want to use spell and sword in the same melee round. Sword would use melee SR and but spell INT SR, what about that?

In the published version of the rules you must spend 5 SR to "switch mode". This will be dropped in the next iteration of the rules, with only "engaged/non engaged" considered when determining initial readiness. This will appear in the new quickstart available next week. 

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Exertion Point
Gone are the magic point, enter Exertion points!
But it's more than just a new fancy face! You got twice as much of them and they can go into negative numbers. Effectively the spell casters have 4 times more casting power. And for fighter it doesn't seem to matter much, until you take a major wound of course, in which case it starts hurting.
I guess I am still unsure what to make of them. And their newness (to me) make them less appealing than magic point (which, in BRP, are used for everything!).

Also thinking to inflict exertion point penalty on minor wound (pdf seems unclear to me here, minor wounds seem to only affect EP of next combat as far as I could see)

Exertion points are not a way of limiting magic use as they are in all other versions of BRP. They have this function as a side effect, particularly if you use elemental projection spells and want to limit their effectiveness. In practice, you will see that a magician hardly ever runs out of exertion points because of casting. The issue is for a wounded magician, whereas each power use brings the caster more in the negative.

Moreover, exertion points work well only if you use SR. If you drop SR, then you have to drop exertion points, too, or they will turn into pointless bookkeeping with no real effect.

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Magic Strength
In fact this is probably a moot comment, no real question here.
Many GM, depending on their background, would have a different opinion. Me I like short duration, short fixed range and excessive spell casting cost like BRP. One reason is that doing extraordinary feat is good enough for me as a GM and my creature and players. I don't want them to be superextracagifragilistic! 
Most importantly I don't want to make the fighter type of character redundant or weak by comparison (in the killing business).

Have a look at Rise of the Yokai Koku Buddhism. I suspect it is the right power balance for you. You can be a specialist magician who relies on attack spells, but you will never overshadow a samurai in combat in this way. 

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Also I liked how one could spend (lots) of permanent POW to enchant in BRP. Won't work here though, or maybe it could, mmm..... But there is some interesting novel idea for Enchantment in the Revolution book, and I can also use XP.

Enchanting is a mini-game in itself in Rd100. Once you get a grip of the rules (there is a thread here with revised rules for enchanting rituals, and they are in Rise of the Yokai Koku, too), most players who can enchant will do it all the time: foci, familiars, small magic items, etc. 

The core issue here is that there is no "loss of permanent resources" disincentive to enchanting. It is just a matter of time, and skill necessary to win the Conflict. The drawback is that if you fail the item may have unintended side effects - determined by the GM, who is encouraged to be creative. Much more fun than "You rolled 99 - you wasted your hard-earned POW".

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Paperback book
I know some rule updates are coming. What if I want to buy the hardcover version of the book. Is a new update coming soon as well, i.e. better hold off or doesn't matter?

Hardcover plus the new Quickstart should give you a ruleset which is rather close to the forthcoming International Edition. Which will appear in 2020 - the reasons for this delay will be announced soon.

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onus Question
If 2 average human fight with fist (toughness 6, might 0, fist damage d2), how do they eventually knock each other out?

With the Subdue combat effect. But a fistfight between humans is the typical situation where using Basic Combat is recommended.

3 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

As a side note the advantage rule seems somehow... broken... i.e. a successful 30%score will be an advantage roll 85% of the time! 😮 might go with half score or something.....

On the contrary, they work perfectly and are much simpler than any other implementation of BRP (no math!). Everyone loves them once they get accustomed. They are also built to complement the "you wish to roll high but within your skill range" paradigm which many people find counter-intuitive in other BRP implementations which use both opposed rolls and criticals. Advantage rolls are more frequent at the higher end of the spectrum, so you always want to roll high.

Thank you for answering Lloyd's questions while I was offline, Simon and Olivier.

Some clarifications:

• Clarity of the rules: we are aware of the issues, a rewrite is underway. The new free Quickstarter with focus on Advance Combat and Powers is scheduled to appear on Sep 5^th, so please have a little more patience.
• Traits, Stunts and Slots: the system is designed with maximum flexibility in mind, so that you can easily play as suggested in the core rules or as Soltakss does, and the core assumptions will still work. Slot occupation can change the balance between powers and stunts
• Powers as Traits: all non-divine powers (cantrips and arcane) use up one slot, as Manipulations traits do. However, you may wish to allow some of these traits to use the same slot, or use your Allegiance instead of Concentration to determine how many slots you have (done in Merrie England). The rules themselves encourage you to change these basic assumptions to better represent the environment you are playing in, particularly for divine magic. A good example of this is in Rise of the Yokai Koku, which deviates from the core divine magic concepts and represents Shinto and Buddhism with completely different rulesets which try to reflect the core tenets of these two religious practices.
• Fine-tuning magic: yes, the rules allow this. There are some guidelines in the core text, but examples are better. The Sengoku Japan of Rise of the Yokai Koku is a good example where magic is all-pervasive but not overpowered.
• Motivations: motivations as described in the SRD work well only in the Mecha/Anime genre, for which this ruleset was originally designed. The revised rules and the new quickstarter will contain a simpler approach to using Motivations.
• Might: do not forget that you use Might in Basic Combat, too, where each point is a straight +1 and not a d2 roll. Moreover, Might of non-kinetic attacks is represented by other dice, not just d2s, so it is better to keep it abstract to keep it coherent with other forms of Might.
• Sword damage: swords can use the Slash combat effect against an unarmoured foe. A typical sword blow is 1d6x2, or 2-12, more than enough to take you down. Also note that basic toughness in a limb is 4 or 5, so a basic sword slash can easily cause an amputation (it would not be d100 otherwise). In general, the effectiveness of a weapon depends heavily on the combat effects it can use, and not on sheer damage. This is an explicit design choice.
• Advanced Combat and number of attacks/parries: Rd100 is "tuned" for a level of crunchiness in combat which is on par with Mythras. However, it is "crunchy" in different places, and it is also different from the BGB and RQG, even if it does allow muiltiple defences with a penalty. Multiple attacks are the norm in a round, but everything depends on the result of the first exchange of the round: whoever wins will usually start to "erode" the opponent's SR and keep the loser on the defensive until he loses an exchange or forces the target to miss a parry and take damage. It's a very different combat model, you have to try it to understand how it works.

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However... I used feat to still provide multiple attack.. (occasionally) and was counting down attack rank by 5 increment.. and it proved relatively simple..

It is also, basically, how Revolution Advanced Combat works .The only difference is that weapons have variable costs for attacks.

We will release more news about future releases as soon as we have a stable plan. Our initial plans for 2019/20 might change because of an event I cannot announce yet.

In any case the International Edition will appear before the Companion. The new edition of the quickstart, which highlights some of the changes in the IE, is almost ready for release in English.

Have a look at Revolution D100 (link to the SRD is in the subforum) and the Red Moon Rising package (it is in the download section). It implements something similar, and works seamlessly with Innate powers and feats.

In particular, Psionics and Red Moon Rising magic categorise powers in "families" which require knowledge of the basic power to learn the most advanced ones.

In view of the recent discussions both here and and on Yog-Sothoth.com,  I issued an official press release about the validity of our OGL, primarily to reassure our sublicensees, both those with a formal licensed and those who go OGL.

http://www.alephtargames.com/en/news/114-revolution-d100-and-the-ogl

I think it is also a good idea to disclose these two lines from the personal message I sent to Michael Hopcroft.

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What I would really object to is for you to make a derivative of Revolution D100 under the terms of the OGL and then declaring it compatible with RuneQuest (a trademark that you cannot use so freely). That would be a breach of the OGL and I would call for termination. 

Let me rephrase: Revolution D100 is our intellectual property, based in part on works by other parties which were released under the OGL, and no one can question this. We have released it under a valid OGL, and issue valid licenses for its localisation and for its use as trademark. Any statement to the contrary is to be disregarded (unless accompanied by a court ruling).

However, licensees are expressly prohibited to use Revolution D100 to create works that infringe the trademarks or copyrights of third parties. This is clear in the OGL, but let me restate it.

I already replied to Michael in private. However, the short form for anyone else interested in licensing, is:

• You can do the hell you want with the OGL materials (the SRD), except using it for violating other parties' Trademarks or copyrights, or other laws in the US or EU or UK.
• The text in the core book is not all OGC so you cannot use it as a reference until licensed, and we charge third parties for the translation (on royalties).
• To put a Revolution or Revolution Compatible or "based on Revolution" logo on the supplement, yes, there should be a formal agreement as you would be using our trademark in an ostensible way. There are two ways you can do that:
• the preferred way is to publish through Alephtar, as we have no partnership program ready (yet)
• if you want to self-publish, we do not charge anything for the logo license but you need some paperworks in place, primarily to make sure no one develops porn or racist games with our logo on them. No one on these boards would ever do such things, but better safe than sorry  

Backed! You are almost there, just another thrust from the main rocket engine...

15 minutes ago, Imryn said:

All character development amounts to "skill tick hunting". Every rule that has "you must have xx% in this skill and that skill" encourages "skill tick hunting". It is fundamentally built into the game system. It is hardly fair to criticise my house rule for this when almost every single official rule is guilty of exactly the same flaw.

 

I stress that this has been discussed countless times in the last 11 years here. Did you read all of these discussions? You are correct that it is a weak spot "built in" the game system - no rule set is perfect, and this is one of the contentious points of BRP. But you are not correct when you say that it is the same as any other rule which says "you require xx%". Skill tick hunting is defined as "deliberate use of a subpar skill in order to gain more experience checks", and is not encouraged by all rules that require a skill to be high enough. It comes into effect only when you have two skills you can apply and you deliberately choose the lower one in order to gain the exp check. In these situations, the usual advice to the GM is "deny the experience check because the character did not seem to be in a stressful situation".

So my point stays. Having such a low skill in Dual Wield means you cannot effectively use it, and should never rely on it in a real fight until you are 90% in it.

In short, I think that any solution that adds a new skill that replaces normal weapon skill is ineffective. Any added skill should complement, not replace.

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How about having every second attack be  undefendable with parry - the attacks are so fast that the parrying weapon is out of position? I could easily work something like that in, but I thought it would be too powerful.

This would be in line with how it used to work in RQ3. But in RQ3 you had to give up parries in order to make a second attack.

Honestly, i do not think there is an easy solution to this problem. Dual wield is already overpowered in the RAW (one extra attack at no disadvantage - this means doubling the potential damage you can deal in a round), so either you "nerf" the normal situation and add a new skill/attribute that is a prerequisite for you to make the extra attack, or the new feature is basically not worth the effort you put in learning an extra skill: better improve your main weapon skill to further decrease your opponent's chance to parry.

1 minute ago, Imryn said:

There is only one advantage, yes. See my reply to @Joerg about obtaining the skill.

Your skill isn't reduced, you still have your existing skills and can choose to use them as per the RAW rules whenever you want. I imagine that while training up a newly obtained dual wield skill a player will only use it enough to get a skill check, and only against weaker opponents, and then revert to RAW two weapon use. Or even use two weapons enough to get a skill check for the left handed weapon then use a shield.

This amounts to "skill tick hunting", that is the well known technique of using a suboptimal skill against a weaker opponent in order to advance it through experience. This is an undesirable effect of the skill check advancement system, covered in detail in so many discussions on these boards, and generally regarded as something that should not be encouraged.

In other words, your HR encourages players to do something that we usually recommend new GMs to discourage. 

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You don't specifically mention it, but would you also be happier with the rule if the required % to learn it was lower? Starting the skill with a lower % requirement for both weapons would mean that the character was levelling the skill up at an earlier point in their career, against weaker enemies.

The high skill level required is just another nuisance in a mechanics that has the core flaw of being hardly of use.

Note also that requiring a skill to be "at least xx%" is akin to the concept of "level", which should not exist in RuneQuest.

So no, moving the slider of the requirement to a lower value would not change my opinion. I would still see it as a "fun breaker" rather than a "fun creator".

In all honesty, I think your house rules are unnecessary and hardly effective.

22 hours ago, Imryn said:

 

• When attacking using a dual wield skill the attacks take place simultaneously (not sequentially) and in the order determined by the weapons SR i.e. 1^st attack takes place at the SR of the weapon with the lowest SR, 2^nd attack takes place at the SR of the other weapon, 3^rd attack takes place at double the SR of the first weapon, 4^th attack takes place at double the SR of the second weapon , and so forth. If both weapons have the same SR the attacks take place simultaneously.

The rules only grant a single advantage: the SR of the second attack is not the sum of both SRs. While this can be useful, it is not so overwhelmingly useful as to justify Divine Intervention to gain, and above all the highly disruptive effect of having your skill reduced once you have reached 90+ skill in your weapon. 

22 hours ago, Imryn said:

I think this house rule will allow the kind of flowing coordinated action we see in martial arts movies (the good ones, not the garbage), without being overwhelmingly powerful.

Potentially a character could be making about 8 or 10 attacks per round (I think SR 2 is the lowest a 1h weapon gets) but it would be a very long road to get there. Because the lowest skill out of the dual wield skill and the individual weapons is used the player will have to advance 3 skills to improve, and because magic that affects a single weapon doesn’t affect the dual wield skill, it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to get up to the 250% plus needed to max out attacks.

You seem to think that a character with 200% or so skill will make four attacks per round in this way, but this is not what will happen. In reality, a dual wielding combatant will still make two attacks per round in most cases. The reason is simple: with the "subtract the percentiles above 100" rule, splitting attacks is no longer a viable tactics, unless you are facing non-sentient opponents who never defend actively. I see very, very few cases when making two attacks that your enemy will parry may be better than making one attack that surely hits.

So, all in all,

• it is overwhelmingly difficult to learn the technique
• while you are progressing in the dual wield skill, your effectiveness is severely impaired (you go back to basics when you used to be a master)
• once you have learned the technique, the benefits are not a showstopper

I see no reason to bother learning Dual Wield in these conditions.

Note also that once you are 90% in two skills, your friends will probably be high level, too. Your average opponents will probably no longer be trollkin at that point, so you will have to use your now-reduced skill against opponents matched to your allies' unchanged skill level. In these conditions, it is safe to say that the dual wielder will never be back to 90% level: he or she will be dead long before.