Weapon questions

Drayen

Is it me or there are weapons that feel completly worthless.. why grab a dagger that does 1d4 damage when you can use a longsword for 1d8? Why use a staff that does 1d6 when you have two-handed swords and halberds that do 1d10... That's a question I've been asking myself for so long, is there any advantage to using "gimp" weapons with low damage ranges?

Also, another question, I was pretty sure your attack per rounds was fixed depending on your skill points in that weapon, but after testing a bit, i realized my archer with Firetooth +5 and 5 grandmastery points attacked about 2 times per round instead of 3 times as was written in the character sheet... and using a shortbow gave him 3.5 attacks per round?? Can anyone enlighten me on this one : O

Also for Dual wielding, i was wondering, you don'T actually seem to attack twice per attack, how does it actually work? I hear a lot of people say if you dual wield, the way to go is one beefy weapon with another weapon that adds an attack per round like belm.. Does this mean it's stupid to wield flail of ages and stormstar for exemple? I'm getting the impression the second weapon is mostly a stat stick..

TJ_Hooker

1) Not all weapons are created equal. Most of the weapons you mentioned are items that are often used by classes that have limited weapon selection, such as mages, so the other weapons with higher base damage simply aren't available to them. Also, sometimes even though the base weapon is unimpressive, there will exist a magic version that is quite good. For example, the Dagger of Venom in BG1, or the Staff of the Ram (possibly the most powerful weapon in the game) in BG2.

2) Bows and throwing daggers have a base APR (attacks per round) of 2, darts have 3, all other weapons have 1. You get +1/2 APR for hitting level 7 and 13 if you're a warrior class (barbarian, ranger, paladin, fighter, and their respective kits). You get +1/2 APR for having 2 pips in a weapon. Depending which game you are playing, 5 pips will give you: no extra attacks (vanilla BG2), +1 (vanilla BG1, BG2 with "True Grandmastery" mod), +1/2 (BG:EE). All these +'s are cumulative.

3) Dual wielding gives you one additional APR with the weapon in your offhand. Due to a bug, if the weapon in your offhand grants an extra attack (Belm, Kundane), you actually get that extra attack with your main hand. The only way to get more than 1 APR with your offhand is Improved Haste.

Drayen

So basically if i have 3 attacksper round dual wielding, i attack 2 times with my mainhand and once with my offhand? if i greater whirlwind i attack 9 times with my mainhand and 1 time with my offhand, correct?

And i guess 2 APR base for daggers make them not as horrible as i thought.. thou i guess 4APR of 1d4 isnt that impressive vs 3 APR of 1d8... although i guess strenght bonuses make them not too far from eachother.

As for bows I guess ill stick with longbows for my archer then, 1 more APR makes bows a lot stronger than crossbows imo

TJ_Hooker

Drayen said:

So basically if i have 3 attacksper round dual wielding, i attack 2 times with my mainhand and once with my offhand? if i greater whirlwind i attack 9 times with my mainhand and 1 time with my offhand, correct?

Exactly

Also, here's another good thing to keep in mind: a character with good stats and equipment will actually be getting most of his damage from various bonuses (proficiency, strength, a high +X enhancement on the weapon, etc.). The actual base damage of the weapon isn't as important as most people think, especially when you consider that the difference in average damage between a 2 handed sword and a dagger is only 3 (5.5 compared to 2.5).

revaar

The thing about base damage dice is that after you get to a certain point (after Cloakwood usually), the other traits of a weapon become more important, as you will have high enough bonus damage from things like strength and specialization that other things like bonus elemental damage and equipped abilities become more important.

With ranged weapons, you also have to check out the abilities of the ammo you are using. While there are about a million magic arrows you'll find, there are some crossbow bolts that are absolutely killer (bolts of lightning for example), and darts can be some of the most effective tools for shutting down a group of mages, even for a level one thrower, despite the lowest base damage of all weapons.

atcDave

As others have said, the weapon's (magic) characteristics and your skills and abilities matter more than the base damage of the weapon.
One thing this means is that the best magic weapons can be is short supply if you have too many characters using them; that is, if you decide long sword is your favorite weapon so you have three different fighters using long sword, you might have a hard time finding enough long swords! You're better off having everyone in your party focus on something different.
And even the best weapons have some trade offs with the type of damage they do (if all your fighters have slashing weapons, you will be in trouble when you encounter something that is only vulnerable to crushing attacks) or if they're two handed (two handed sword does a lot of base damage, but you can only use one of them at a time and NO shield!).

It is always best to be using a variety of weapons in your party.

Drayen

I guess this does make daggers quite good for classes like thieves thou... going from 1attack of 1d8 +str bonus and +5 wep damage to 2 attacks of 1d4 + str/+5 wep damage bonus is pretty good.

TJ_Hooker

Just to clarify, daggers only get 1 attack per round, the same as other melee weapons. It's only throwing daggers that have a base APR of 2.

Yovaneth

Also, don't rely on the screen to show you what's going on. What you see is not what is being calculated behind the scenes.

Urd1en

First of all, the particular item does matter - dagger of venom +2 (poisons target on hit) beats pure dagger +2. Not all weapon classes have specimens with handy additional abilities, not all of that abilities are equally good.

Second, the average damage. Abstract dagger's 1d4 vs axe's 1d8 is simply (1+4)/2=2.5 vs (1+8)/2=4.5. As we can see, axe has plainly +2 damage comparing to dagger. That is all axe's damage benefit.

Third is damage type. Blunt, slashing, piercing. Watch out the foe's armor type - any type has/may have its own AC correction depending on a damage type. Blunt is the champion. Only split mail has AC bonus vs blunt. Piercing is the least lucky type.

The fourth may go critical chance. Single weapon style and two handed weapon style both give you a chance to hit a crit in 10% of cases (against regular 5%). Critical hit doubles the damage done, BUT beware helmets, they cancel the damage being doubled.

The rest damage affecting things are - strength, kit abilities, special abilities, bracers, spells, potions and so on.

DreadKhan

Crit is still a guaranteed hit I think, so even without extra damage might come in handy. Erm, if you're hunting Ulcaster maybe? Heh. But yeah, average damage is what people should look at, and what abilities are applied by the weapon. Spider bane, Tinkle, albruin, and icingdeath are about the best. Elemental damage is less useful in bgee since stoneskin is a nonissue, and no trolls! In bg2, it is a different story.

Erm, only other thing I can think of in bgee is Stupifier, dagger of venom, and ranged weapons that give status effects. These very from gamechangers to situationally worthless, though most enemies can get poisoned or paralyzed, if they fail a save.

ZanathKariashi

The Gnasher club +2 in BG2 is a nasty effect as well, a on-hit, no save dot, un-typed damage, that stacks with itself and by-passes stoneskin.....nasty...being limited to +2 is the only thing keeping it off best weapons charts, and it's STILL a great weapon regardless, since +2 is still useful vs the majority of the enemies in the game...Very few enemies require +3 and only 4 need +4 or above. (there's also one that needs +5, but it's SOOO rare, you'll likely never see it, unless you're specifically TRYING to encounter it..and even that usually requires upwards of hours of reloading)). It's ho-hum in the hands of a character with 1 base attack, but if you can get multiple main-hand attacks it will rip enemies apart. You can also jump between enemies, poking them once and moving one, in cycle, keeping them locked in hit-reactions till they die.