Weapon styles and shapeshifting/summoned weapons
magpie
Member Posts: 79
I posted this here http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/387743/#Comment_387743 as the answer to a question, but I might as well share it here as well.
Things seem to be a bit complicated with shapeshifting and magically created weapons and weapon styles. So far my findings in v1.2 seem to point to these rules:
1. All magically created melee weapons and all shapeshift forms that do not explicitly carry a two-handed weapon (flint and fire salamander) benefit from single weapon style IF you do not have a shield equipped before shifting/summoning.
2. If you do have a shield equipped, you'll use sword and shield style instead.
3. Flint and fire salamander use the two-handed weapon style instead of the single weapon style or sword and shield style. The fire salamander also seems to benefit from/need the spear proficiency.
4. If you equip a weapon in your shield slot, you'll still use single/two handed weapon style, BUT you will get an extra off-hand attack.
This is all based on me testing in v1.2. I might have misinterpreted or overlooked things of course.
Things seem to be a bit complicated with shapeshifting and magically created weapons and weapon styles. So far my findings in v1.2 seem to point to these rules:
1. All magically created melee weapons and all shapeshift forms that do not explicitly carry a two-handed weapon (flint and fire salamander) benefit from single weapon style IF you do not have a shield equipped before shifting/summoning.
2. If you do have a shield equipped, you'll use sword and shield style instead.
3. Flint and fire salamander use the two-handed weapon style instead of the single weapon style or sword and shield style. The fire salamander also seems to benefit from/need the spear proficiency.
4. If you equip a weapon in your shield slot, you'll still use single/two handed weapon style, BUT you will get an extra off-hand attack.
This is all based on me testing in v1.2. I might have misinterpreted or overlooked things of course.
3
Comments
MMM gets no benefit at all from weapon styles, correct? I've read that having an offhand when casting this will give you a ranged "melee attack" so I wonder whether two-weapon style is a factor. Also, no benefit from proficiencies?
In general, is the off-hand attack is based on your two-weapon style + specific weapon proficiency?
Do you keep bonuses from your offhand? For example, Drizzt's scimitars. I'm guessing the main hand is overwritten.
Does flind form benefit from halberd proficiency or is salamander the only one? Ogre and morning star?
EDIT: haha, wow. Drizzt's defender scimitar does keep giving its -2 AC, whether wielded as main or off hand, but you get a mysterious +2 'bonus' to AC as well, negating it
That's an interesting observation about the AC bonus. How about the fire resistance from the other scimitar? I know @_Nightfall_ mentioned that you can keep the damage resistance from Defender of Easthaven so I would assume that's the case as well.
For MMM, if it works as you said for melee weapons then that means you don't get any benefit from damage/proc. Does it deal the meteor's damage (fire etc.) or the base damage of the weapon?
I just realized this means you could be pretty awesome dual wielding and then casting Chill/Ghoul Touch. Hmm, so the flind is non-proficient by default? I guess these forms are really bad for a mage because of the huge nonproficiency penalty. On the other hand it means a fighter/mage with specialization will probably do better with the flind than the ogre.
Thanks for your research. I don't mind looking up some of this stuff myself but I figured they were questions worth sharing.