Bastard Swords (And Lack of Availability)

[ericsaxon35]

Why are there none available. I mean I have found every weapon under the heavens, in the adventures I've had up to now. (Almost 5 chapters.)

But the one weapon I almost never see ANY variety of, are Bastard Swords. I mean if this sort of weapon is so extremely rare, than why is Valerie specialized in using it?

[Brian Sirith]

Yeah, I had her specialize in a dueling sword cause by the end of my first playthrough she had a weapon she picked up in... chapter 3 or something.

[merlance]

I too used that +1 flaming bastard sword for 75% of the game. I eventualy gave her something else despite her having focus, specialization, and improved critical in bastard sword.

[Lonesome Wolf]

Did you find the "Oppressor"?
Objectively speaking it´s probably the single best weapon I´ve found so far (being past Varnhold events) and it fits a regent style Valerie pretty well.
And as soon as you get your barony your merchant there sells a pretty nifty Flaming Bastard Sword iirc.

Won´t argue that there´s a lack of diversity thou, but imo something "common" like a Longsword/Shortsword is worse off by far in this game.

My hope is that with entering Pitax events and eventually more frequent human enemy encounters, this will pick up. (being mostly pitted against animals, monsters, cyclopes, barbarians so far...)

[Shadenuat]

It's the way of developers trolling you. They give 2 companions bastard swords and then put dueling swords everywhere instead.

[CBAnaesthesia]

There are a ton of Bastard Swords later in the game. One of your artisans can make you a +4 that gives +6 to Charisma in Chapter 3 or 4 depending on how good your kingdom stats are.
You also get excellent +4 and +5 Bastard Swords in Chapter 5, one from a tricky quest (the Mysterious Shrines) and one from the main Pitax quest.

[Morgian]

The +4 and +5 bastardswords are in Pitax and beyond, plus the one on Armag. I like the brilliant one from the palace best I think, as it ignores armor. Technically Amiri's sword is good, because it becomes +4 and furious (+6 when raging) after the sealing.

[CBAnaesthesia]

Originally posted by Morgian:

The +4 and +5 bastardswords are in Pitax and beyond, plus the one on Armag. I like the brilliant one from the palace best I think, as it ignores armor. Technically Amiri's sword is good, because it becomes +4 and furious (+6 when raging) after the sealing.

I never got the Brilliant one. Is that from the updated Golden Golem riddle quest?
I was talking about Unstoppable Khanda +4 and Ravena's Blade +5
You can also upgrade Amiri's sword again in Chapter 6, apparently, after you get her back.

[Guy]

As people mentioned there are several great Bastard swords that are better than plain +4 one ( you can buy almost any +4 weapon at the rushlight tournament )

What I haven't found yet ( and my fighter is specialized in ) is a good Estoc, so I am stuck with a vanilla +4 Estoc that I bought from the tournament.

[CBAnaesthesia]

Originally posted by Guy:

As people mentioned there are several great Bastard swords that are better than plain +4 one ( you can buy almost any +4 weapon at the rushlight tournament )

What I haven't found yet ( and my fighter is specialized in ) is a good Estoc, so I am stuck with a vanilla +4 Estoc that I bought from the tournament.

There aren't many good Estocs. There's one you can buy very late in the game that's great, though.

[Shadenuat]

That's the whole thing about loot in this game.

If you remember BG or BG2, the progression there was very smooth, with occasional rewards, but generally speaking, it went like this:
- You used +1/+2 weapons most of the time.
- You could get your hands on +3 items, but they were either very expensive, or had whole quests for them (like Lilarcor).
- You could get some very, very powerful items, but that was usually about beating content out of your league (like fighting Firkraag for Carsomyr); most newbies would return later. If you did beat those encounters though, you had yourself a supah weapon for the whole playthrough.
- Endgame you got more powerful weapons, but +5 weapons were still relatively rare, if not exceptions to the rule. Not everything (say Katanas) even got a +4 version until ToB.

Also, crafted relics just made more sense. Swords were not scattered around in 12 parts, and if you beaten a dragon, you bet you could make something out of it scales (something Kingmaker for some reason missed on completely - owlbear pelts are only good for taverns, and dragonscale suits are brought by artisans).

PK though, plays in 3 basic stages:
- +1 or +2 weapons;
- Pitax, baby! Buy +4 stuff in loads! +5 items in packages!
- Endgame, baby! Final Fantasy design kicks in - you get a merchant who sells "ideal" equipment for everyone.

What should have happened probably this:
- +1 and +2;
- Artisans make +3 and +4 stuff for their ruler, and sometimes you find those on some hard monsters;
- The +4 to some rare +5 stuff scattered around endgame encounters or even real quests for them (i.e. Lilarcor/Crom Fayer/Flail of Ages equivalent quests).

Combined with bloated list of weapon types and either broken or lolrandom Artisans (thanks for that 3d Fauchard, babe) and overall munchkinism (here, a crossbow which does 5 different types of damage!) it makes PK play worse than BGs did in terms of loot.

To counter this, they should a) maybe even get rid of some weapon types, since if they have almost no upgrade paths in game, why have them? b) re-distribute loot around the game in a more reasonable manner (there are enough locations and monsters who don't drop anything good at all). c) add at least some flavour to endgame items which for now are just lolmunchkin stuff.

[Reaver79]

How's about double bladed swords/orcish double axes ? Im past Armag and i still havent found one of either apart from the early purchaseable double blades sword +1.

[Morgian]

Ah yes. There is one of each. A +5 orcish double axe was somewhere in Pitax, and a named +5 double sword on the bland hilltop encounter after Pitax.

[RJM]

They do make efforts to ensure there's reasonable weapons of all kinds. One of the drawbacks of having a really broad character generation system with dozens of weapon choices to pick between is that making unique, interesting magic versions of all of them and placing them in the world is awkward. More so when you want upgrades so you need at least three of each.

[ericsaxon35]

Originally posted by RJM:

They do make efforts to ensure there's reasonable weapons of all kinds. One of the drawbacks of having a really broad character generation system with dozens of weapon choices to pick between is that making unique, interesting magic versions of all of them and placing them in the world is awkward. More so when you want upgrades so you need at least three of each.

That's nice but NO

I have allowed the game to auto-level all the NPCs. That means if the game is specifically making Valerie a BASTARD sword user, then the game should have some upgrades for her, prior to the end of Chapter 5.

And I don't mean some 2 handed giant garbage.

[RJM]

And you've had answers indicating where to get them already.