Critical strikes is great for the harm spell as well. Pretty much K/O anything with that strat, oddly enough due to the f/c lower cleric levels the magic resist spell is very very good.
Looking at everyone's dps comparisons. It seems a lot of people are just factoring in dps for a 6 second window. Which honesty is impractical.
Lets compare something more realistic. Enemy Needs 3+ to hit (ada golems, most demons, bosses, anything where dps actually matters). For instance dragons would be a good example so lets use Abaz as an example. Lets say 1 HLA, 3mil exp or so just for comparison.
-15 ac with ~600 hp
Fighter lvl 20 (pure) w/Crom + Belm (25 str, IH, CS, Thac0 = -17) 8 Crom attacks (5+3+5+14+5) = 32*8 TOTAL = 256 damage average all hit
Fighter/Thief lvl 13/15 (multi) w/Crom + Scarlet (25 str, IH, Thac0 = -5) 8 Crom attacks (5+3+5+14+2) =27*8 2 Scarlet attacks (4.5+3+14+2) =23.5*2 TOTAL = 263 damage average 50% hit rate = 131.5 Damage average
Thinking over what's the best possible melee damage dealer it's probably Kensai/Thief w/Hindo + Scarlet and headband of the devout.
Ken/Thief lvl 13/15 w/Hindo + scarlet, 25 str, max damage, thac0 = -10) 8 Hindo attacks (14+14+5+4) = 37*8 2 scarlet attacks (11+14+5+4) = 34*2 TOTAL= 364 damage average 75% hit rate = 273 damage average (actually not as impressive as i thought)
Fighter lvl 20 w/FoA (22 str, GWW, thac0 = -14) 10 FoA (19.5+10+5) = 34.5 TOTAL = 345 95% hit rate = 327.75 damage average
*note that without gww or ww, the damage here drops to 103.5 w/shield
Is there some mod to make 2handed weapons more viable? Like an increase in damage, or perhaps some twohanders which add an extra attack, next to other bonuses.
Dual wielding will still be OP due to the abilities of both wielded weapons, but as it stands now there's not much to entice someone to wield 2handers, apart from Carsomyr and the Blackguard version of it. Staff of the Ram would be better without the knockdown ability. Ravager.. meh.
Many of the 1handed weapons have spell like abilities which u can use even if you're not wielding it, as long as its in one of the weapons lots. A few staves have this as well, but one of them is for mages.
There was this staff in icewind dale found in a monastery if im not mistaken, that delivered various effects on hit, due to it having built in compartments with needles and whatnot.. poisonous, it also had a small chance to hurt the wielder, due to the complexity of the weapon. If such an interesting 2-hander was available I'd run through the game with it... as a pure Kensai probably. But I'm on android so no mods until I get me a new pc.
Is there some mod to make 2handed weapons more viable? Like an increase in damage, or perhaps some twohanders which add an extra attack, next to other bonuses.
Dual wielding will still be OP due to the abilities of both wielded weapons, but as it stands now there's not much to entice someone to wield 2handers, apart from Carsomyr and the Blackguard version of it. Staff of the Ram would be better without the knockdown ability. Ravager.. meh.
Many of the 1handed weapons have spell like abilities which u can use even if you're not wielding it, as long as its in one of the weapons lots. A few staves have this as well, but one of them is for mages.
There was this staff in icewind dale found in a monastery if im not mistaken, that delivered various effects on hit, due to it having built in compartments with needles and whatnot.. poisonous, it also had a small chance to hurt the wielder, due to the complexity of the weapon. If such an interesting 2-hander was available I'd run through the game with it... as a pure Kensai probably. But I'm on android so no mods until I get me a new pc.
There's plenty of good 2 handlers from the Impaler to Ixils Spike to the Silver Sword.
Bg2 made considerable efforts to keep 2 handed fighting competitive and even though dual wielding is better in most situations due entirely to speed weapons it's still worthwhile IMO to keep at least one large weapon wielder around even if only because the NPCs in question are so good (Dorn, Sarevok, Keldorn etc).
IWD on the other hand is woefully stacked against large weapon wielders and I would never build a character in that game to use big weapons unless I didn't care about effectiveness at all.
Vanilla IWD is particularly egregious about large weapons, as dual-wielding wasn't implemented. Instead, rangers got an extra attack per round if they were using a melee weapon with no shield, to imitate dual-wielding.
But it worked with two-handed weapons, too. Right out of Easthaven, you could have a ranger using a greatsword at 2.5 APR. The only way a fighter could compete with a ranger outside of Heart of Fury mode was to use the Messenger of Sseth.
If they hadn't been so insistent on putting saving throws on a lot of two handed weapons' on-hit effects, they'd probably be more competitive. As it stands, the attack penalty for using two weapons becomes irrelevant as THAC0 outpaces enemy AC, while enemy saves become incredibly good, meaning that you have to toss out a lot of debuffs if you want two handed weapons to keep up.
I am curious about 2 h wepons mentioned previously. How is it possible achiev 10 APR with 2h weapon? Is it GWW which set it to 10? Becasue i know IH only double APR. Even with GM, bracers +1/2 APR, fighter class over 13 lvl, I still can not see 5 APR with 2h weapon.
I am curious about 2 h wepons mentioned previously. How is it possible achiev 10 APR with 2h weapon? Is it GWW which set it to 10? Becasue i know IH only double APR. Even with GM, bracers +1/2 APR, fighter class over 13 lvl, I still can not see 5 APR with 2h weapon.
My result is 4 APR.
Is there anything I didn count?
Your result is 3.5 APR (unless you've modded your game). GWW is the answer.
OT: That's one of the few things 3E (at least in NVN, I don't play PnP) did better, it gave you one and half your STR bonus for twohanded weapons IIRC, but since you got so ridiculously high APR dual wielding, it was still the better choice there as well.
Thanks for all your info. I've read it all and I learned a couple of new things. Too lazy to do these kind of calculations myself, hehe..
Comments
Looking at everyone's dps comparisons. It seems a lot of people are just factoring in dps for a 6 second window. Which honesty is impractical.
Lets compare something more realistic. Enemy Needs 3+ to hit (ada golems, most demons, bosses, anything where dps actually matters). For instance dragons would be a good example so lets use Abaz as an example. Lets say 1 HLA, 3mil exp or so just for comparison.
-15 ac with ~600 hp
Fighter lvl 20 (pure) w/Crom + Belm (25 str, IH, CS, Thac0 = -17)
8 Crom attacks (5+3+5+14+5) = 32*8
TOTAL = 256 damage average all hit
Fighter/Thief lvl 13/15 (multi) w/Crom + Scarlet (25 str, IH, Thac0 = -5)
8 Crom attacks (5+3+5+14+2) =27*8
2 Scarlet attacks (4.5+3+14+2) =23.5*2
TOTAL = 263 damage average
50% hit rate = 131.5 Damage average
Thinking over what's the best possible melee damage dealer it's probably Kensai/Thief w/Hindo + Scarlet and headband of the devout.
Ken/Thief lvl 13/15 w/Hindo + scarlet, 25 str, max damage, thac0 = -10)
8 Hindo attacks (14+14+5+4) = 37*8
2 scarlet attacks (11+14+5+4) = 34*2
TOTAL= 364 damage average
75% hit rate = 273 damage average
(actually not as impressive as i thought)
Fighter lvl 20 w/FoA (22 str, GWW, thac0 = -14)
10 FoA (19.5+10+5) = 34.5
TOTAL = 345
95% hit rate = 327.75 damage average
*note that without gww or ww, the damage here drops to 103.5 w/shield
Dual wielding will still be OP due to the abilities of both wielded weapons, but as it stands now there's not much to entice someone to wield 2handers, apart from Carsomyr and the Blackguard version of it. Staff of the Ram would be better without the knockdown ability. Ravager.. meh.
Many of the 1handed weapons have spell like abilities which u can use even if you're not wielding it, as long as its in one of the weapons lots. A few staves have this as well, but one of them is for mages.
There was this staff in icewind dale found in a monastery if im not mistaken, that delivered various effects on hit, due to it having built in compartments with needles and whatnot.. poisonous, it also had a small chance to hurt the wielder, due to the complexity of the weapon. If such an interesting 2-hander was available I'd run through the game with it... as a pure Kensai probably. But I'm on android so no mods until I get me a new pc.
Bg2 made considerable efforts to keep 2 handed fighting competitive and even though dual wielding is better in most situations due entirely to speed weapons it's still worthwhile IMO to keep at least one large weapon wielder around even if only because the NPCs in question are so good (Dorn, Sarevok, Keldorn etc).
IWD on the other hand is woefully stacked against large weapon wielders and I would never build a character in that game to use big weapons unless I didn't care about effectiveness at all.
But it worked with two-handed weapons, too. Right out of Easthaven, you could have a ranger using a greatsword at 2.5 APR. The only way a fighter could compete with a ranger outside of Heart of Fury mode was to use the Messenger of Sseth.
I tend to use the polymorph trick myself. which are now web immune. so it's overkill anyways. But it has the trade off of lowering Str and Dex to 16.
I am curious about 2 h wepons mentioned previously.
How is it possible achiev 10 APR with 2h weapon?
Is it GWW which set it to 10? Becasue i know IH only double APR.
Even with GM, bracers +1/2 APR, fighter class over 13 lvl, I still can not see 5 APR with 2h weapon.
My result is 4 APR.
Is there anything I didn count?
With 2h it seems devastating.
Thanks for all your info. I've read it all and I learned a couple of new things. Too lazy to do these kind of calculations myself, hehe..