Show Must Go On-Twin on Wrong Weapon?

[Perpdepog]

So I was looking through the Circus Weapons section in the back of The Show Must Go On, and I noticed something.

Fire poi have the Twin weapon trait, but normal poi don't. Furthermore throwing knives do have the Twin weapon trait. Since poi have the fact they are wielded in pairs in their weapon description I was wondering if this was an error.

[Zapp]

Interesting find.

Yes, I too would be interested in any insight on this. (Adding this post mostly for any replies to show up in my "focused" forum view :-)

[Patrick Renie]

Great catch, Perpdepog! I asked my colleague Mark Seifter, aka the 2e Weapons Master, to help me answer your question.

In this case, the description is a bit misleading, since the rules as written are correct. Poi do not have the twin trait, while fire poi do. The reason for this is for game balance—poi would just be too good to be simple weapons if they also had the twin trait in addition to all their other traits.

(This could be justified in world by saying that the stakes for mishandling mundane poi are much lower than for mishandling fire poi. Hence someone who is trained in using fire poi is so good with these dangerous weapons that they can even wield two at a time with ease.)

Thanks for your question, and hope you're enjoying circus life so far!

—Patrick Renie, Developer

[Zapp]

Thank You

[Perpdepog]

Thanks a lot, Patrick. Muchly appreciated.

I'm kind of interested in the justification for giving throwing knives the Twin trait as well, though I figured it was mostly to differentiate them from, say, walking up and stabbing someone with a dart, which otherwise has the same traits.