A discovery story about off-hand with blade/swash and further comments.

Mephisto66

Well guys/(or girls), i am playing/testing a blade in enchanted edition. Started from BG1EE with 95 total points(took my 45 minutes for rolls ) then imported to BG2EE. Maxed all stats (7 str,16 wis and 18 rest= 95 stats at all) since str is easy to have with items in both games and can find 3 wisdom books. Now my stats are like 19 str with belt, 18 wis after sacrifing wis at spellhold dream and 19 stats again for rest. I will go evil at tears of bhaal for +3 long sword, have-no-fear cloak, kill lil "sarevok" for a second time and more and more stats. Well now i am in drow city over 3m exp. I invested my proficiencies to 2 weapon style. And I am wearing cloak of unerring strikes which gives -2 thaco to off hand (or montolio's cloak which u can change in ToB). and on top of that i got my hands on belt of skillful blade since i got in dark-skin-pointy-ear-race (drow) city which gives %10 slash damage bonus and another -2 thaco so my off hand is better than my main hand right now. it feels like u write with right hand normally but after getting this cloak and belt you can even paint better than Da Vinci... So anyone tried this? Well since i use the belt for having better str since i have 8 str now normaly i m not gonna try it before getting crom faeyr in my main hand (after two items mention main become offhand) well u can do this for swashbuckler also even since the belt works for only 2 kit classes so i guess playing with swashbuckler will do better results than blade at 2 hand weapon style melee combat. In conclusion just waiting for comments

SomeSort

I typically don't even bother boosting my off-hand THACO when dual-wielding, since most of your attacks come from your main hand. (If you have four attacks per round, three of them will be with your main hand and one with your off-hand, so a 2-point off-hand THACO boost is kind of like a 0.5-point THACO boost overall on average.) I'll never put the third pip into two-weapon fighting unless I've exhausted literally every other weapon proficiency I might want to use at some point.

Being a Swashbuckler changes things a bit because you're not getting extra attacks from specialization and levels like the warrior classes, (unless you use mods). Even then, the best off-hand weapon is typically Belm or Kundane, which grant you an extra attack per round, which you make with your main-hand weapon.

Grond0

Against most enemies you'll be better wielding speed weapons in both hands, though that is much less likely to be optimal against tougher opponents. With improved haste that lets your blade or swashie get a very respectable 8 APR to plough through weaker groups.

Mephisto66

i use two long swords but the main thing is here your off hand becomes much better than ur main hand wiith certain items if u play blade or swashie. with two weapons, u will have lots of variety... crom faeyr, daystar,celestial fury, black blade (+3 longsword u get at hell), angurvadal, hindo's, answerer, spectral.... and i know improved haste thing. i love slaying kangaxx with a daystar at chapter 2.

at end my party was; blade (MC) two weapons(angurvadal and the answerer),
keldorn to dispel all with carsomyr,
sarevok with the new evil carsomyr (lvl24 fighther dualed to thief... ok it is hard so i gave sarevok gesen bow at most of the times),
imoen (alacrity,black blade, improved haste, prot. magic weapon, fire shield, stoneskin, tensei), after spells staff of magi or arrows (not even for breach or spellstrike. those are not even needed)
jaheria just for bugs and romance. totally useless and unneeded. spectral for level drain
anomen, two weapons rune hammer and crom faeyr, turn undead, buffs, cure disease and poison. every team needs at least 1 cleric u know

and melissan was too easy. most of 'em are immune to level drains which is important vs slayer shadows. before attack just use whirlwinds to dispel faster cause melissan often stoneskin and mariliths are too nasty