Lanyards in DF II: The Ruling

After some thought about Lanyards and the discussion that followed, I decided on a pair of rules for lanyards.

A loose lanyarded weapon is -4 to the limb involved and -1 to other rolls (including defenses with the non-affected limb or whole body.) Size doesn't matter for simplicity.

A weapon can be lanyarded to the upper body; this causes a -1 to the rolls listed above, and potentially fouls up movement - a DX roll is required (at -1) for each yard of movement to avoid tripping and falling. Weapons lanyarded to the body can only be readied with a DX roll, not Fast-Draw.

If not specified, a lanyard is wrist-to-weapon on the same hand. For a two-handed weapon, the dominant hand is assumed to be connected to the weapon unless specified otherwise.

I found what I feel like is the best way to handle lanyards and Fast-Draw. Readying a weapon in Close Combat requires a DX roll (per Readying in Close Combat on p. B391); doing so quickly requires the DX roll followed by a Fast-Draw roll. I'll port that rule over to lanyards - it will take two rolls to get a lanyarded weapon up quickly. Still easy for DF-level combatants, and I don't generally like to add additional rolls, but it's an existing setup we've used. And heck, it's another risk of a critical failure . . . which may have consequences beyond "drop the weapon" and a free restart.