Cannot Equip Ranged Weapon When An Off-handed Weapon Is Equipped

Abel

1. Current behavior
Cannot equip ranged weapon (in main hand) when an off-handed weapon is equipped.
2. Expected behavior
Should be able to equip one-handed ranged weapon (in main hand) even when an off-handed weapon is equipped.

Tanthalas

Yeah, I agree. Unfortunately this problem will still be in BGEE at launch at least.

Hopefully they fix this one in the future.

Abel

@Tanthalas Yeah, I'm quite surprised this behavior wasn't already mentioned too!
Revise it would really boost weapons that can do both melee/range like magical throwing axes.

bigdogchris

@Abel It has been mentioned here several times.

Abel

@bigdogchris Err, my bad, couldn't find the relevant thread. The search function didn't help much though.

bigdogchris

@Abel The search function for the forum needs some work

Abel

@bigdogchris Yep, precisely

hornap

I think, you could be able equip even two-handed ranged weapon. And game just should ignore off-hand. It allow easy switch, without using inventory every time.

Worg

Don't you need like the other hand to reload the sling? or can you do that while holding a longsword? I could possibly go along with a buckler, but a weapon seems a bit silly.

hornap

@Worg: I presume, NPCs arent stupid, so if you tell them: "Shoot that guy!", they put off-hand to sheath, or shield on back, and start shooting. Same thing, what they do with first hand, or two handed weapon. Of course, they should stop having bonuses from off-hand, in that moment.

bigdogchris

Worg said:

Don't you need like the other hand to reload the sling? or can you do that while holding a longsword? I could possibly go along with a buckler, but a weapon seems a bit silly.

You're right, even with a sling you need both hands

Sharn

I remember IWD2 allowed you to have different weapon's set up and when you switched to a bow for instance it would put away the sword and the off hand item.

artificial_sunlight

NWN (2) did also a great job to make te weapon switch easy, drag and drop to the quickslot bar to make weapon-shield combi's

AndreaColombo

This would be a GUI feature more than a bugfix, but of course I agree with the OP.

Abel

@AndreaColombo @Balquo I don't agree with you. As I understand them, bugs would at least be unexpected/abnormal behaviors whereas features would only be desired behaviors. I provided both, seemingly well agreed on, current and expected different behaviors. So I don't think it was a good idea moving this thread from the Bugs section.

AndreaColombo

@Abel - it would be a bug if it was actually present in the game, but not working properly or entirely. In this case, being able to quickly swap between two-handed weapons and dual-wielding/sword-and-shield and viceversa would be a new GUI feature (which has been officially requested to the devs in the beta section, btw).

ajwz

IWD2 system would be the best (and probably easiest) method to adopt.

AndreaColombo

For those who never played IWD2 (I know, right? Shame on me) ... how does that system work? Everyone's saying it rules but I have no experience of it.

Bagger

@Abel
Indeed!

lolth

must be fix

dwarvan alee....

Bugrat

AndreaColombo said:

For those who never played IWD2 (I know, right? Shame on me) ... how does that system work? Everyone's saying it rules but I have no experience of it.

@AndreaColombo

Basically if you look in the upper right corner of this screenshot there are four weapon banks and each can hold a mainhand and offhand weapon. In this screenshot the guy has a dual wield setup in slot 1 and a 2-handed shortbow in slot 2.

IIRC, you could switch between weapon sets from the main screen by right-clicking your weapon in the main UI which would bring up your four weapon banks to choose from. Also IIRC, you could have an offhand item such as a shield in your first weapon bank and it would carry over to your other weapon banks if you only had a mainhand weapon equipped in that bank.

AndreaColombo

Oh my God—that's brilliant!