Weapon swapping mid-combat

Steenay

I'm away from my house for the next few days and this crossed my mind a lot recently. Is it possible to increase your damage per round by utilizing the ability to switch mid-combat with your weapons? Like for example a Sling has 1 APR and Darts have 3 APR, would I be able to Dart attack once then quickly switch to the sling to do it's attack, all within the same round?

malachi151

OMG. I don't know the answer, but I can't imagine actually doing this...

Steenay

malachi151 said:

OMG. I don't know the answer, but I can't imagine actually doing this...

Yeah it would probably require too much concentration but it would still be nice to know if it's possible. I love theorycrafting and testing things but like I said, I am away for a few days and can't test it myself. Hopefully someone knows.

malachi151

It might actually be worthwhile at level low levels, like levels 1-3 against stuff like the Ogre with the Belt, etc. You'd have to use auto pause.

Grond0

Surprisingly enough it is possible yes, though it requires micro-management to take advantage. In combat every character has their own personal combat round. Thus for instance when you command your character to shoot at a nearby enemy with their sling that starts a combat round. A +1 sling has a weapon speed of 5, so your attack will come roughly half-way through a round (initiative makes a random amendment to this). That still leaves half a round in which it's possible to do something else. That could be for instance using a wand, but it's also possible to switch weapons for something that would still have an attack left in the round - such as darts. You can then switch immediately back to sling for the start of the next combat round.

Steenay

Grond0 said:

Surprisingly enough it is possible yes, though it requires micro-management to take advantage. In combat every character has their own personal combat round. Thus for instance when you command your character to shoot at a nearby enemy with their sling that starts a combat round. A +1 sling has a weapon speed of 5, so your attack will come roughly half-way through a round (initiative makes a random amendment to this). That still leaves half a round in which it's possible to do something else. That could be for instance using a wand, but it's also possible to switch weapons for something that would still have an attack left in the round - such as darts. You can then switch immediately back to sling for the start of the next combat round.

Wow, okay. That could be interesting to test certain weapon swaps and find the best for each type of situation/class. Thanks for confirming this.

gunman

Grond0 said:

A +1 sling has a weapon speed of 5, so your attack will come roughly half-way through a round (initiative makes a random amendment to this).

In original BG1, all ranged weapons had a speed factor of zero, even if the description said otherwise. Has this been changed in the EE ?

Grond0

@gunman BGEE is based on the BG2 engine and uses the weapon proficiencies and speeds from that.

gunman

Can't remember if original BG2 was the same. Best way to test is to have a party with various ranged weapons equipped (short bow, sling, heavy crossbow) and see if they all fire the initial salvo at the same time.