Attack Enchantment

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So, in IWD2 you have both an attack score and an enchantment score.

Yesterday, after finding out I could not sure the Selune Moonblade I bought Short Sword of Striking. It says it has plus 5 enchantment vs enemies who need to take magic damage. In BG2 this seemed to be almost any foe worth his salt but in this game I am not sure if thats the case. Are there alot of foes who this weapon would be good against? Is enchantment level important?


I have 3 decent weapons, Sorrows Tear, Short Sword of Striking and Tye Dung Blade (haahha sorry not positive on the name). Am I correct in thinking that Short Sword of Striking and Tye Dung blade are the best to use?


Any good short or long sword thats somewhat early in the game that I should be looking out for? Thanks everyone.

 

What BTA says is true, in most cases. In IWD2 there are weapons of sure striking that do not grant any bonus to attack or damage, only the enchantment bonus to beat enemy damage resistance. It may be that you have one such sword. I don't think there are many enemies that this would be particularly useful against. That is, you'd be better off say with a +3 weapon that does increase attack and damage.

Good shortsword? Yes. Chapter 2. Ice temple. Battlesquares. -- Battlesquares are tedious, but pay off well, and one such pay off is an excellent shortsword that you will use forever after.

 

I believe the OP is talking about the shortsword you can buy from the merchant who is located just south of Torak's camp, who appears after you save the villagers? It is a sure striking short sword. It does NOT grant attack or damage bonuses. It DOES grant the ability to hit foes who have resistances of up to the need of a +5 weapon to hit them. I would think most of the foes in the game who have this requirement also have DR, which makes the shortsword a weak option, though it is better than nothing against such foes.

 

Just thought I'd point out some of the similar themes in our posts!

 

So, that moonblade would have been pretty pretty good huh.


Hopefully there will be some point in the game where Short Sword of Striking comes into use. I hope they have elemental weapons eventually. Those are always my favorite. I would like to dual wield a lightng and fire or ligthing and frost weapons.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the moonblade as it doesn't add your strength bonus to damage. It's a good sword early on, but I usually drop it when I find something better.

 

I think it's safe to say you will enjoy the end of the game.

-Max

 

Moonblade is something you should never discard. Its damage is magical, which may come in handy against enemies with high (physical) damage resistance. But I admit I also end up using other powerful weapons most of the time.

It weighs 2lbs, IIRC, so it's one of the few longswords that can be used offhand with no penalties, if you have Ambidexterity and Dual Wielding feats.

 

I thought weight was irrelevant, at least as far as the game engine was concerned. What mattered was weapon type designation as each type was given a size value.

 

This seems to be correct. Golden Heart is 1 lb., but is a longsword, so dual-wielding Xvimian Fang of Despair and Golden Heart results in "Proficiency: -4" for both, even with a ranger. However, if you swap them (make the Xvimian Fang of Despair the off-hand weapon), it's only "Proficiency: -2", even though they both weigh 1 lb. Ergo, weight is not what the game engine uses to compute off-hand penalties.

In general, I avoid dual-wielding in favor of two-handed weapons.

-Max

 

BTW, what weapons were considered "light"? I can only remember shortswords and daggers off-hand (pun intended), and I think the hand-axes. I can't recall if clubs or maces can be wielded in the off-hand.
Was there a list somewhere? RTFM doesn't help.

 

i guess the weapon type matters then. i was just parroting info from the manual, but it's rife with mistakes like that.
i play with plenty of mods installed, and the powerful single hand weapons easily trump any two handers when dual wielded. the bastard's son bastard sword had executioner's eyes effect, so i dual wielded it before getting any dual weapon feats, or even bastard sword proficiency!
two handers are good in the vanilla game, but there are worthy vanilla dual combos too.
in my modded game, the only unmodded weapon that saw any use, was the two handed throwing axe.

 

As far as I remember their use is to overcome damage reistance (am I or BoV wrong on this)? With big weapons DR just takes off a bit of damage if you can't overcome it. With short weapons though you might only be hitting for 0 damage and mightn't be able to hurt the monster at all regardless of how often you hit. A sure striking weapon guarantees you can always hit for a bit of damage but isn't as good as other magic weapons at any other time. I wouldn't be too bothered if it's just an emergency weapon for a wizard or an off hand weapon. If you'rs normally using a short sword though it can be useful.

A decent melee fighter like this is 1 ranger level with weapon finesse. Dual wield small weapons with light or no armour and you've a decent warrior who doesn't need much strength. Especially good for a cleric or druid if you combine with a monk level to get the wisdom AC bonus.

 

Just a couple great mindls thinking alike...

 

Note: sure striking does not guarantee you can overcome damage resistance. Some resistance is keyed to weapon type, e.g. blunt melee vs. piercing ranged vs. blunt ranaged, etc. In fact, I found recently that Madae in HoF has high (20?) DR against a +5 club (bludgeoning damage) but 0 DR against a +5 warhammer or +5 quarterstaff (also bludgeoning). I don't know if this is a bug or if there are actually multiple types of bludgeoning melee damage.

Anyway, "sure striking" just means "counts as a +5 weapon for DR purposes."

Note that there's only a rough correlation between "big" weapons and doing more damage, especially with one-handed weapons. A weapon small enough to use weapon finesse on or be dual-wielded at only a -2 will do maybe a point or two less than a larger weapon, but your main tools for overcoming DR are 1.) switch weapon type (e.g. slashing to bludgeoning), 2.) get higher enchantment, 3.) boost STR/Power Attack and try to brute-force through the DR.

-Max