4 Slots in Two-Handed and 2 Slots in Bow / Or 4 Slots in Two-Handed and 2 Slots in Two-Handed Style?

HaHaCharade

In BG I always took a pure fighter who was focused on two-handed. This always left 2 slots for a bow. Now that we've got styles, I'm curious if I should put all 6 slots into my sword (4 in sword and 2 in Style) or if I should keep the bow around. I'm thinking to keep the bow because obviously if I'm going two-handed I can then use a two-handed bow as opposed to if I dual-wielded or used a shield. Anyway just looking for opinions.

Shin

It depends on your planning. The first two points in 2h swords and the first point in 2h style gives you the most benefit. The third and forth point in 2h swords (and the second point in 2h style) are sort of marginal, while the fifth point is a big increase if you use the true grandmastery mod. So unless you plan on going all the way to grandmaster, you might want to consider saving points 3 and 4 for something else.

As for bows and other ranged 2h weapons, I don't think they benefit from the 2h style, iirc it only applies to melee weapons.

HaHaCharade

Shin said:

It depends on your planning. The first two points in 2h swords and the first point in 2h style gives you the most benefit. The third and forth point in 2h swords (and the second point in 2h style) are sort of marginal, while the fifth point is a big increase if you use the true grandmastery mod. So unless you plan on going all the way to grandmaster, you might want to consider saving points 3 and 4 for something else.

As for bows and other ranged 2h weapons, I don't think they benefit from the 2h style, iirc it only applies to melee weapons.

Thanks. Maybe I'll go like 4 in Two-Handed, 1 in Two-Handed Style, and 1 in Bow or something Hodge-Podge. I'll have to play around with it. I doubt I'll use a Grand Mastery mod.

Shin

Hm, I also seem to recall that true grandmastery would be implemented as baseline in the EE, so maybe you won't need to.

HaHaCharade

Shin said:

Hm, I also seem to recall that true grandmastery would be implemented as baseline in the EE, so maybe you won't need to.

What do you mean by that? I know that the XP Cap is staying the same, or should be per Trent Oster.

Shin

Essentially, grandmastery in BG1 was quite significant, but then in vanilla BG2 it was made almost useless, marginalizing the use of putting more than 2 points into any weapon skill. This was alleviated by the true grandmastery mod which bumped the BG2 grandmastery up to original BG1 levels. If I remember a post by @Tanthalas correctly, the original BG1 grandmastery will be in the EE, negating the need to mod it.

Tanthalas

Yeah, true Grand Mastery will be in BGEE, but with no changes to the level cap, you won't reach level 9 anyway so its kind of moot unless you remove the level cap.

It will be relevant for the Black Pits though.

Shin

Also relevant if you plan for character development in BG2. Finishing BG1 with 4 points will gain grandmastery a lot faster than finishing with 2.

AndreaColombo

I believe having your characters be proficient with both a ranged and a melee weapon is essential not only to their versatility, but also to their deadliness.

Especially in BG1, ranged weapons—and bows above all—are extremely powerful.
Use them against enemy casters to disrupt their spells, and against meleers to weaken them before they can actually engage you in combat. If the enemy is using bows himself, use them too to negate the latter advantage to them.

Personally, I would go 3 slots in two-handed sword and 3 in bow; or 2 slots in two-handed sword, 1slot in two-handed style and 3 slots in bow.

Worth of notice is that fact that if you choose axe as your melee weapon, you can use thrown axes as ranged weapon without the need to invest any slots into them (they use the same proficiency as melee axes). In BG1, they are quite deadly.

Mungri

Maybe just put 1 point in two weapon style, 1 point in bows, and everything else in two handed swords.

HaHaCharade

AndreaColombo said:

I believe having your characters be proficient with both a ranged and a melee weapon is essential not only to their versatility, but also to their deadliness.

Especially in BG1, ranged weapons—and bows above all—are extremely powerful.
Use them against enemy casters to disrupt their spells, and against meleers to weaken them before they can actually engage you in combat. If the enemy is using bows himself, use them too to negate the latter advantage to them.

Personally, I would go 3 slots in two-handed sword and 3 in bow; or 2 slots in two-handed sword, 1slot in two-handed style and 3 slots in bow.

Worth of notice is that fact that if you choose axe as your melee weapon, you can use thrown axes as ranged weapon without the need to invest any slots into them (they use the same proficiency as melee axes). In BG1, they are quite deadly.

Yeah but Kagain will be my go-to Axe dude

Shin

It also depends on party composition. Imo if you have Kivan or Coran along they handle the ranged combat rather well, maybe with Imoen as support. No real need to develop other fighters into adequate archers as well, unless of course you enjoy it that way.

Oxford_Guy

BTW on character creation you will only be able to put a max of 2 points into a single weapon prof or style in BGEE, according to the fix log

Shin

Yeah, that's the current limitation as well.

Oxford_Guy

Shin said:

Yeah, that's the current limitation as well.

In BG1, not Tutu/BGT, so some people might not realise the restriction

Mungri

Oh I didn't know about that. Doesn't matter because you want a weapon style and ranges proficiency of some kind on fighters anyway, so the 2-1-1 split seems ideal.

But what if I roll an archer? Maybe 2 points in two different ranged weapons then, which is pants. What's the point in having true grandmastery then if grandmastery can't be reached?

HaHaCharade

I personally hate styles. What a bunch of dumb added fluff-crap. *Rant*

Shin

Oxford_Guy said:

Shin said:

Yeah, that's the current limitation as well.

In BG1, not Tutu/BGT, so some people might not realise the restriction

Hm, really? It's always like that in my BGT/Tutu games unless I edit profsmax.2da. Must be one of the mods in my setup that changes it if so. The way I see it, the restriction is meant to be there for characters created in BG1, but not when they're created for a BG2 starting point.