Opinions on Two-Weapon Style.

[PyroANTIC]

I'm curious what people think of the Two-Weapon Style. I've notice that the user gets a large minus to their use, even with a few points in the style. Is it actually worth using? What are the full benifits?

[Soft Lockpick]

Extra attack = minor benefit.

Extra weapon you can use to get awesome stats from = major benefit. Often weapons have much more important magic traits than shields will, and IMO that's where two weapon style shines. Especially if the character has non AC methods of defense like the notorious Kensai Mage.

[danconnors]

With three slots spent in two weapon style you only get a -2 in the offhand weapon, and nothing off the main hand weapon. As your player advances, especially in fighter classes, his THAC0 will get so low that the -2 effect will be meaningless. With THAC0 of zero or better, all he needs roll is a 2. You have to roll 2 or better anyway or it's a miss. Two one hand weapons generally do more damage than any two hander weapon, so your damage dealing capability is probably the best of any fighting style.

In addition you can keep handy the souped up shield, with special abilities, saves, immunities, for boss fights. For these you fight one handed with the shield. Of course if one of your one hand weapons also has unique abilities, saves, immunities, that's the one hander you equip.

[Hjelpmooglene]

I think it depends on your playstyle. Two weapon style gives you an extra attack and the ability to carry 2 weapons that could have special effects.

However, I think two handed weapon style is very useful. You get an extra 5% to get a critical hit with two handed weapons.

Sword and shield definitly has it's uses for a tank. Reduced armor class is always nice. Also, you can get some very useful shields in baldur's gate 2.

[PlotinusRedux]

2ws isn't worth it if it gives a penalty to your main hand. 2 points in it gets rid of that, though, and gives you an extra attack. In BG1, that extra attack is nice in and of itself. In BG2, that extra attack becomes less important, but the special bonuses offhand weapons can give you becomes important, like Belm in the offhand which gives a full extra attack with the mainhand weapon, others that provide immunities, etc.

I find the game heavily weighted towards dual wielding over 2-handed as a result. 3rd edition rules addressed the issue by giving an extra 50% strength damage bonus to 2-handed weapons, I'm sure there had to be a mod that does that--in fact, I think I'm going to look for one now, I've been wanting to play a 2h Blackguard but I just keep getting sucked back into dual wielding being so much better.

Singled handed and sword and board are just too weak to be helped. There are too many other ways to lower AC from the start, and in the end game AC becomes nearly worthless.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

The problem with crit bonuses is that nearly everything you NEED to crit is immune, because unlike proper DnD where crit immunity is rare or limited to very specific list of creatures, any helmet prevents crits, and in their desire to make crit useless bioware even stuck hidden helms on a variety of creatures just to make them harder to kill.

And extra +1 attack is always better then not having it. Even with the penalty for *, you'll on average hit more often then just attacking with a single weapon, and once your thac0 crosses the 10 mark, after bonuses, dual-wielding completely out-paces not dual-wielding in total damage done.

[Soft Lockpick]

Also don't forget that 5% to crit isn't even as good as +1 to hit. You were likely already hitting with the extra crit range. It's just a damage boost 5% of the time. The reason 2 handers are viable is the weapon quality, not the style bonuses.

I'd tier them as such:
Dual wield
Two hand
Sword and Shield (there are a few cheesey shields in the mix after all)
Single weapon

[kaiyl_kariashi]

Sword and shield isn't worth the points even if you use a shield. You're better off diversifing your weapon proficiencies then taking that, since it at least makes your party more flexible with gear to have a good spread of options.

[Soft Lockpick]

Personal preference. If you don't like playing the inventory management weapon swapping game, or you prefer to min max into a particular set of weapons and shields then sword and shield is superior. You are technically stronger with the style bonuses than you are with a second weapon option at any given time. Also dependent on factors like party size (meaning how broke you are) as that will greatly influence the weapon diversity you have.

You state many things that are pure opinion as fact Kaiyl. Just saying.

[White Knight]

For a begginer, is better two weapons on both hands or a weapon and a shield? I'm using two weapons and i think it a little difficult to level up my protagonist. And when/where I can find katanas on the game? I want to use two katanas.

[Soft Lockpick]

Katanas are rare in BG1 and somewhat in 2 as well. Though you can buy one in the candlekeep store and if I remember right thunder hammer has one? Not sure though.

For a beginner focusing on defense is more important than focusing on offense IMO. The first stage to learning this game is learning how to not die in fights, how to play it more tactically. Once you have that down you can start figuring out what defenses are able to be traded off for more offense. HOWEVER, I think a better defense than shields is range in BG1. In BG2 it's not the same, but at low levels and with the more open BG1 maps a bow and arrow squad can kite things all over and win. Focus on a bow heavy party and you'll see good success.

[White Knight]

Thnks for reply. I see it, my two ranged characters (imoen and khalid) are leveling up faster than others, and my melee chars miss too much: my protagonist is with so little dexterity (just 9). Better to start from beggining again for me.

[PlotinusRedux]

Originally posted by Linuxgamer:

...my two ranged characters (imoen and khalid) are leveling up faster than others....

Just to be clear, the entire party splits the same XP, it's just some classes require less XP to level, with thief (Imoen) requiring the least. The quote sounds like you think they get more XP if they hit more or something like that.

[White Knight]

Originally posted by daddy:

...sounds like you think they get more XP if they hit more or something like that.

Yes, I thought that who hit and kills more get more XP. Because when I started the game, I saw that I need 2000 xp to level up the characters (maybe this was not for everyone, but I presumed that). I need to read the manual more...

[kaiyl_kariashi]

yeah, there's no bonus xp for combat. There was technically supposed to be, for warrior type classes (+10 personal xp bonus for getting the killing blow on an enemy) but it's not implemented.

Yeah, the xp table is a little weird, so it's hard to generalize how fast a certain class levels.

Druids start as one of the faster leveling classes but eventually become the slowest once they hit level 13.

Thieves/Bards are always consistently the fastested leveling classes.

Clerics (and monks) start fast, slow down to crawl in the mid levels, and then speed back up again once they get to higher levels.

Fighters/barbarians are reasonably consistently in the middle in terms of leveling speed the entire saga.

Paladin/Rangers level slightly slower then fighters at first but get even slower as the game progresses rivialing mages who slow down down almost as badly as druids do at higher levels.

Mages/sorcerers start the slowest, get a little fast in the mid-levels and then slow back down a lot in the higher levels.

And due to the different amounts of xp levels, the highest levels certain classes can attain are capped differently.

in BG1 - (maximum total character xp: 161,000)

Thieves/Bards/Druids can hit level 10.
Mages/sorcerers can hit level 9.
Everyone else can hit level 8.

(for multiclass their xp cap is split equally by their number of classes, where as a dual-class subtracks the exp their first class gained from the maximum their new class can gain)


---------------------------

Dexterity has nothing to do with melee combat.

And 90% of the range of stats you can get during character creation do nothing or only give a very minor benefit until you can much later in the game have an opertunity to break the normal limits imposed by character creation, via items/events. (it's not until around 19-20 that stats kind of start to give significant bonuses...but unfortunately, most of them aren't implemented that well, aside from strength which does have most of it's proper benefits, so there's no real incentive to worry about it much).

Developing good tactics and party practices though will ultimately help you a lot more then levels or stats ever will.

Use a character that can stealth to scout ahead when able so you aren't completely caught off guard by encounters and can weigh your options and decide if you've got the means to beat them or if you should come back once you've better prepared.

Read your spells carefully and weigh their pros/cons around what current capabilties your party possesses. And try to make sure you alway have a few universally useful spells/abilties (buffs are a solid option for these slots) for those times where you're forced into a battle you couldn't prepare for.

If you have mages or bards, hang on to any extra spell scrolls or wands you find as emergency back-up spells if you run out normal slots and need another debuff/buff/summon/etc to turn the battle in your favor. (some spells though are pretty useless, like infravision, so make it's a useful spell before decide to keep it or not.

Reflected image is a spell I'd never learn or memorize (it just gives a 50% chance for a single attack to miss) but if I had a scroll of it, popping during an ambush could save the mage's life if no other readily available defense was available or would take too long to cast.

[White Knight]

Good tips.