Dual Wield Questions

alaundo

Can you folks shed some light on the mechanics of dual wielding please? Especially which weapon put in mainhand and offhand. Planning to use Flail of Ages and Crom Faeyr in BG2.

Oxford_Guy

Which class will you be playing?

Abel

@alaundo Dual Wielding will get you an additional attack with the off-hand weapon. Trade off is, you will miss the protection of a shield for example. Also, your THAC0 to both hands will decrease unless you spend points in the Dual Wielding skill (up to 3). It seems you'll be playing some kind of Cleric based character. So, your choice of weapon is quite good. When I dual wield other characters in BG2, I like to give them a +1 attack off-hand weapon (Belm, Kundane).

Shin

- Generally when you equip an offhand weapon you get one attack with that offhand weapon, and your standard amount of attacks with your main hand weapon, which will depend on your class and number of invested proficiency points.

- When a weapon grants +1 attack such as Belm, your main hand will get the extra attack regardless of which hand you place the weapon in.

- Crom Faeyr traditionally makes for a good OH weapon for fighter classes, since it has relatively weak (but situationally useful) on-hit effects but confers the powerful 25 strength hit/damage effects for every MH attack as well. It makes for a very strong combination with e.g. Flail of Ages or Celestial Fury.

Lemernis

Crom Faeyr and the Flail of Ages is a combo that's hard to beat.

Oxford_Guy

Can

Lemernis said:

Crom Faeyr and the Flail of Ages is a combo that's hard to beat.

Does the "free action" ability of the +5 FoA prevent you being hasted, though?

Shin

@Oxford_Guy Correct.

Abel

That's why I never upgraded FoA past +4.

ptonda

In addition to what has been said already, and although it may seem logical, always put your highest-damage weapon in your main hand, because is the one which is gonna hit more often. Off-hand is perfect for weapons that enhace some stat or provides a global magical effect, like (of course) Crom Fayer.

And also, do not dual-wield unless you have at least two proficiency points in dual-wielding. This way you get no penalties in THAC0 in your main hand. The third point only reduces from -4 to -2 the THAC0 penalty in the off-hand.

Finally, if you're a pure warrior, and since BG:EE it's gonna use the proficiency charts of the original BG (although you can dual-wield and all the improvements made on BG2), I highly recommend to not put a third point in dual-wielding and use them to boost the proficiency in the weapon you choose. Mastery in a weapon grants you a +2 THAC0 +1 damage over Specialization, and if you go all the way with your weapon, you would get an extra attack per round in Grand Mastery, which is vastly better than the BG2 Grand Mastery.

Lemernis

A bit of a tangent here, but in looking through a thread about dual-wielding longs swords vs. katanas at Game Banshee that @Oxford_Guy posted in the F-M thread, I see reference to Flail of Ages + Defender of Eastheaven being a great combo... Not really seeing why the poster felt so strongly about it, though.

Abel

@ptonda Useful addition.
Actually, the BG:EE proficiency chart is a compromise between those of BG and BG2. If I remember correctly, Grand Mastery granted +1,5 attacks in BG.

alaundo

Oxford_Guy said:

Which class will you be playing?

Planning to play as half orc cleric / fighter multi

Abel

@Lemernis FoA, DoE is an option if you have nothing better under your belt. It could be that other characters are already using better weapons.

alaundo

Ok thx for the insight so far. So what would be a good BG1 dual wield combo for my cleric fighter then? I guess that +2 warhammer from the basilus quest in the mainhand + what?

Abel

@alaundo Staff Mace would be a potent main-hand weapon. Anything you want in off-hand. Could be Warhammer or Mace +2.

ryuken87

For those saying FoA and Crom Faeyr is a good combo, it is but it's a waste. With Righteous Magic and DUHM you can get 25 str easily anyway, leaving Crom open for someone who can't (e.g. a ranger or a fighter). Additionally, you can then put the Defender of Easthaven in the off-hand allowing you to boost your damage resitance to 80% +.

Abel

@ryuken87 You're right, Crom would benefit a Blade more. Actually Fighter/Cleric don't have so many options for weapons. So, yes DoE is a strong pick in off-hand.

ptonda

@Abel

You remember right, Grand Mastery grants 3/2 extra attacks. But that is exactly from the BG chart, nor the BG2, because in BG2 you always get 1/2 extra attacks, never more.

Regarding to the EE proficiency chart, it's the BG one, it has nothing to do with BG2. Believe me

Abel

@ptonda Actually, BG:EE uses a different chart. Thus why I was mentioning a compromise.

ptonda

@Abel
The link redirects me to this thread

Where did you found that information? I'm currently beta-testing and I'm pretty sure the present chart is the old one from BG, without compromises.

Abel

@ptonda Do you see the link now? I made a mistake with the <a tag.

ptonda

@Abel

Yeah, I see now. You're right. I didn't notice that it's exactly one extra attack over the basic proficiency, not over the specialization or the minor masteries.

Abel

@ptonda Yes I agree it can be confusing. There should be something to indicate it's not cumulative or whatever.

reedmilfam

Still good stuff, I think.

Went through the BG manual and didn't see attacks per round/level for fighters. I thought they went to 3/2 a few levels up (aside from specialization), but maybe I'm getting 3rd Edition confused.

Oxford_Guy

reedmilfam said:

Still good stuff, I think.

Went through the BG manual and didn't see attacks per round/level for fighters. I thought they went to 3/2 a few levels up (aside from specialization), but maybe I'm getting 3rd Edition confused.

There are a number of different ways fighters can gain extra attacks - they gain 1/2 an attack with all weapons at Level 7, another 1/2 at Level 13 and so on (see: http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Progression_Charts), they can also gain attacks through weapon specialisation, dual wielding (always only one extra attack) and magic weapons (e.g. Belm and Kundane), which give extra attacks.

awin123

Defender of Easthaven is arguably the best OH weapon for clerics since they can't use + attack ones. Crom isn't really that great since you can practically raise your strength on demand as a cleric, not to mention that you can get Defender right out of the gate whereas Crom takes a long time and a lot of expensive/useful items to put together. I normally don't even build Crom unless I'm playing a dual wield non cleric fighter type, as was mentioned earlier it's a good Blade item since they can reliably get extra attacks from offensive spin, it's also good for fighters since they can get Whirlwind attack and can't increase their strength otherwise, of course you could just use a girdle and a + attack OH but it's nice to have options.

reedmilfam

@Oxford_Guy thanks! I didn't find it in the BG1 manual, which (in retrospect) should have prompted me to look in the BG2 manual.

Son_of_Imoen

Abel said:

@ptonda Useful addition.
Actually, the BG:EE proficiency chart is a compromise between those of BG and BG2. If I remember correctly, Grand Mastery granted +1,5 attacks in BG.

I would love to see that chart!

Oxford_Guy

Son_of_Imoen said:

Abel said:

@ptonda Useful addition.
Actually, the BG:EE proficiency chart is a compromise between those of BG and BG2. If I remember correctly, Grand Mastery granted +1,5 attacks in BG.

I would love to see that chart!

@Son_of_Imoen - here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/65183/#Comment_65183

reedmilfam

I'm beginning to see why people call the Archer kit a gattling gun...

Oxford_Guy

I wonder which chart they'll use for BG2EE, though, they may stick with the current BG2 one