Double wielding or wielding a doublehanded weapon?

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hi, i am just curious as to which is more effective in dealing lots of damage ...

double-wielding allows for an additional attack or two each turn, does it not ? and double-wielding lighter weapons would mean a greater swing/attack speed.

wielding a doublehanded weapon gives the most damage because by default, it takes 1.5x the strength bonus into account when calculating the damage, right? but such weapons tend to be larger and more unwieldy, which usually mean a slower swing/attack speed.

yeah, both methods sacrifices the use of the shield ... not a very smart choice, but i am trying to role-play, so i would have to sacrifice such details.

any feedback on which is your preferred method if you have to choose between the two of them? i understand such would be a matter of preference, but in terms of damage, number of attacks and attack speed ... which is the more preferred one?

just curious

 

Big numbers = Two handed weapon

Cool as hell = Dual Wielding.

 

It depends on the charecter type.

A high Strength warrior type with the best BAB progression is best used for dealing the maximum damage possible. Any buffs and items you give this type should be damage increasing as well. And maximum damage is dealt by two-handed weapons like greatswords(2D6), greataxes(1D12) and halberds(1D10).

With dual weilding you will do lesser damage at lower AB. Also, unless you use a small blade in your off hand (which only gets one attack/round) your AB will decrease still further. Builds whose goal is not to inflict maximum damage could go for dualweilding.

 

hi Shrikant , it's true that the offhand has to be a light weapon, or it will affect the AB. but i was thinking that to make up for the damage with weapons that has a higher critical range (eg. scimitars, rapiers). An additional attack or two each round not only helps boosts the damage, but in the case of fighting against magic users, increase the chance of disrupting their spells.

cool vs big numbers ... if only it was cool with big numbers ... hahaha ...

 

You are right about that. I have the stronger bastard swords component of EoU installed and my favorite combo is the Brilliant Short Sword +5 in the main hand and Bastard's Son (Executioners Eye cast on user when used) in the off

That was true in BG II and that was broke. Really, dualing Katanas

 

dual wielding katanas with 1d10 damage each?? err ... holding a katana in the offhand would reduce the AB rite? or does it not?

 

Not in BG II. Once you put ** in dualweilding, it didn't matter what weapon you held in your hands. The main weapon had no penalty to hit and the off-hand one only a minor one. It was so bad that someone joked about making a mod allowing halforcs dual greatswords. Imagine dualing the Silver Sword & Lilarcor


In IWD II dual weilding is better balanced. Here is the entry from the manual:

Code:

Two-Weapon Fighting Penalties
Circumstances 						   Primary Hand Off Hand
Normal Penalties 						-6	-10
Ambidexterity feat 						-6	 -6
Ambidexterity feat and Two-Weapon Fighting feat 		-4	 -4
Off-hand weapon is light and Ambidexterity feat 		-2	 -2
and Two-Weapon Fighting feat

By the way can anyone list what comes under 'light weapons'?

 

to use the dexterity bonus from the finesse feat, i think only daggers and short swords are allowed, unless i misinterpret the description there.

for neverwinter nights, it seem that the finesse feat supports a greater variety of weapons, including rapiers, kumas, etc.

sometimes i get confused over the size and weight of weapons. small weapons need not be light and light weapons need not always be small in size. an example is the rapier, which in nwn is considered a medium (not small) weapon, but was allowed as a offhand weapons with no penalties in dual wielding due to its light weight. i dunno if i got this wrong though.

 

Come to think of it, I always end up using a small blade in the main hand and anything appropriate in the off, specially with the DG high AC sheild charecter. The best initial stats I can get for this guy are 08-20-10-14-20-2. Obviously, using finesse will increase my chances to hit. And the +6AB from finesse completely overcomes the -4 penalty for dual weilding without a light blade in the off hand (I always take Ranger[1] for the free Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting feats). I so wish finesse would work with clubs and maces

 

If you have two cool light weapons with very good bonuses or special abilities, you would do well to dual wield them to get the wo bonuses at once.

On the other hand, two handed weapons deal a higher punch thanks to 1,5x STR bonus, but they are either slow or does not have that mcuh cool abilities.

So I think they are pretty balanced. It is up to character really, a big bad half-orc with massive STR can use a two-handed weapon like those scary axes very efficiently, whilst a quick and elusive tiefling, elf, drow etc. can dual-wield cool weapons and with weapon finesse it will be powerful AND cool.

 

i just recall another advantage of duel wielding. each weapon can have different magical properties or damage type (pierce/slash/crush) and when combined together, give better magical bonuses or a more well rounded damage category.

i know of some monsters that are more resistant to certain kinds of damages but not others, so this might come in quite handy too.

yeah, i really wish the finesse feat can include more weapons. if only they can make this feat have 3 levels. having the basic level will allow you to wield light weapons such as dagger and short swords. having a second level will allow more weapons to enjoy such bonuses, and to increase the to-hit bonuses on such weapons. having the 3rd level would mean you can include most of the weapons into this finesse skill with minimal penalties and maximum benefits ...

[ December 14, 2005, 00:53: Message edited by: Twin Scimitars ]

 

I think TWF really comes into it's own when used with a level or three (or more!) of Rogue. The sneak attack bonus is added for both attacks, and is added while flanking, not only backstabbing like all other bioware games!

 

Whoa I did not know that, so a dual-wielding rogue can sneak attack always when flanking an enemy? And how does flanking work in the game?

Then a lvl 30 rogue can do additional 10d6 damage with each strike, which is damn powerful! Add other nastiness like crippling strike etc. and wow! Who said high level rogues were weak?

 

"Flanking" just means standing behind your target, and applies for both IWD games if you have the "Pseudo-3e" rules stuff activated in IWD1. Of course, there's really nothing to stop an enemy just turning round, and then it's goodbye sneak attacks, hello pain!

 

Actually, flanking is standing anywhere behind 60' from the direction in which the target is facing iirc. Any charecter can only see the front 120' while fighting, so standing at the edge of the vision or beyond allows you to flank-attack.
However flanking is dangerous as The Magpie said. If the target switches to fighting the thief, say bye bye.
Can someone test what kind of additional damage or attack bonus flanking allows? I don't think it allows all the additional damage that sneak attack does.

 

Sneak attack damage refers to both backstabbing (while hidden) and flanking, so it's the standard extra 1d6 for each odd Rogue level (1, 3, 5, etc.). That level 30 Rogue gets a whopping 15d6 per flank attack. 15d6!

This can't be exploited in IWD2 nearly as ruthlessly as in ToEE -- in that game, I tried a party of four rogues with long-reach weapons (like halberds and spike chains) and nearly every attack was a flanking attack. Whack, smack, wrack, and ruin! But I suspect that IWD2 has some kind of limit on repeated flank attacks on the same target; I tried playing a party of rogues, but didn't get the same rapid-succession flank attacks like in ToEE. Not sure why -- has anyone else observed this?

On the same score, I don't know if IWD2 counts the sneak attack damage for both weapons if you're dual-wielding. I've been dual-wielding a Pal 2 / Rog 13 who flank-attacks in every battle, and I've never seen the bonus damage counted twice.

 

IIRC you can only sneak attack a target once. So if you were to target multiple enemies one after the other, you can get 1 sneak attack on each. If you want to sneak attack one target more number of times, go out of its range of vision, hide, return.
I guess that's how it works for flank attacking as well.

 

Huh. My bad then, the game doesn't work like it does in 3e then.