Hello, long time no chat!
I was playing with traveller and animal attacks. Some animals have, for example claws and teeth. How do you handle that? OR what if a player has two knives, one in each hand? Are there rules for this? I could not find them.
I think in CT, many of them were treated as blade, cutlass, etc. with some sort of mods applied. Animals of modest sizes were rarely a real danger to well equipped mercs, but sometimes to the 'thinky' classes who didn't come loaded up. In larger numbers, or if you have a massive animal (we had an 800 kg one at one point), then they should be very dangerous.
You could go the way that D&D did:
claw/claw/bite
and if you are a feline with back claws, two more. If both hit, they do double damage as this simulates the attempt to disembowel.
Really, Traveller (all variants0 spends a lot of ink on systems for planets, animals, economies, and vehicles/ships, but really all of those are story vehicles, not ends in themselves. If you rule in ways that place your players in peril and provide tension and don't just kill them outright, then your game will be memorable.
I agree (and think I've written about this in the past). Only I can't help a slight, very slight these days, sense of guilt that I'm somehow 'cheating' or not giving my players the full Traveller experience!
I used to do all those designs, now I realize I can off the cuff the descriptive colour, make rolls that make sense in where critters or vehicles/ships are part of a scene, and I focus on the story goal that having them there assists.
Absolutely. Of course, the one caveat I have is that I'm writing for publication I feel I have to put in the 'correct' details so that referees, in turn, *can* just use what they want in the way that they want. Yesterday I spent some time turning a couple of MgT1 ships into MgT2 rule compatible. (Well, in one case I wasn't strictly converting so much as correcting a published one <sigh>). I've run the adventure they're part of twice without needing any of the detail, but I'd feel remiss in not providing it.
I had a giant underwater kracken sort of thing that used to 'dry fish' with filaments up onto the beeches. When it caught you, it pulled you underwater. If you had the right gear or could breathe hold a long time, you could then try to free yourself.
See. I think I'm doing this wrong. Recently in The Traveller Adventure we had a side adventure on Junidy out on the oceans. (The idea had been to have something of an easy introduction for a new player. Who then didn't make it. Ah well.) The PCs were out at sea on a sailing vessel and hit a semi-submerged shipping container that had fallen overboard from an ocean freighter. As they're sinking, of course they get attacked by a kraken just to ratchet up the tension and as they try to fend it off, *parent* turns up. Much bigger. It turned out, juvenile was trying to help keep them afloat as they took on water but had bitten off more than it could chew, as it were. Maybe I should have red shirt crew being dragged screaming off the decks...
If not, panic set in fast (in the players, not just their characters). Killing an NPC red shirt is always a classic way to underscorethe danger. The more gross and sudden, the more shocking to players.
Yes, definitely doing it wrong. :-) In our last outing (Annic Nova as a side adventure to TTA) I had a family of now feral anolas on the Annic Nova 'attack' the players with cuddles. Well, the little ones did after the parental had had a go at one of the PCs and been despatched.
You don't usually want the players to die (unless they are wilfully stupid), but you do want them to feel like they might if they weren't really smart and lucky....
I have a feeling I'd be lynched if I actually killed a PC after four years and 23 sessions of TTA. But I wouldn't say that out loud.
While I'm here, I've got the MgT2 core book in front of me and have found the bit on dual weapons:
"If a Traveller is using two weapons at the same time, he may attack with both in the same combat round. However, he may not aim with either, and will suffer DM -2 on the attack rolls for both."
You can see why, with a -5 penalty, the other characters have removed the firing pins from Captain Loyd's OMGs. ;-)
(and if you missed the joke in the - perhaps too long TTA write up - it was then suggested that maybe they should, for extra safety, remove the pins from the rather gung-ho Lily's grenades)
But perhaps the answer to the original question, is - yes, the critter can attack with both weapons at the same time but at some form of negative DM.
tc