Originally Posted by
Eidre
Proposal: characters must have at least one empty hand to do any of the following actions: open doors, zap wands, read scrolls, quaff potions, cast wizard spells, pick up items from the floor, use hand-type-skills (alchemy, lock picking, picking pockets, etc). They would also have penalties to actions using the hands (swimming, climbing), and couldn't hold a light-source. Therefore, characters would be strongly motivated to have their off-hand free while exploring and travelling, drawing their second weapon or shield only when they saw the enemy hordes closing in (possibly dropping their torch/lantern to the ground in the process...where exactly on the body is the "light source" slot, anyway?).