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two-weapon style game mechanics

Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and the manuals and the wiki and all text in game and all the FAQs are vague about two-weapon style.

Now Star Wars Knights of The Old Republic 1 and 2 (albeit are 3rd edition) have stuff on two-weapon style:
1) You get two attacks at the same time.
2) The bonus from your strength applies more to the primary weapon than to the offhand weapon. The bonus also is even larger if you use a two-handed sabers instead of two sabers but BG1 and 2 don't have weapons with blades on both ends so the point is that the strength bonus in theory would be different for the one in the offhand or not apply.
3) There are special abilities that give you more attacks per round and fighting forms ("force forms") that give you more attacks per round. The BG equivalent I guess is haste and greater attacks per round from weapon master. Well in the KoToR games, the extra attacks always copied the damage from the primary weapon and the special effects like stun from it.

Now I'm not sure if the strength bonus is any different at all for 2E.

But I wonder especially if the bonus attacks per round always use the weapon in the primary hand and never the offhand.

And can it at least be confirmed that two weapons do give me extra attacks? I originally played the BG games before KoToR and I always saw two weapons as just "why? you lose the chance for a shield." But the KoToR FAQs are all about how dual-wielding is way better (and it is in those games.









Comments

  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    edited January 2018
    bob_veng said:

    strength bonus is applied equally to both hands

    bonus attacks always use the primary weapon

    using the offhand gives you a single extra attack with the offhand. if you equip in the offhand a weapon that inherently gives a bonus attack (there are several of those) you will gain two extra attacks from the offhand, but the first will be performed by the main hand. this is a good thing because the bonus attack weapons by themselves are much weaker than the best single handed weapons, which you want in your main hand.

    if you use haste, you will always just gain an extra attack for the main hand. if you use improved haste, your number of attacks is doubled and you might gain as many as four additional attacks by using the offhand. three of those will be performed by the main hand. a cap on the number of attacks without the improved haste effect is 5 (so with lvl 3 haste also 5), and with it it's 10.

    it's impossible to have 10 attacks with a two handed weapon short of using a certain short-lasting ability. 7 attacks is a usual peak number of attacks for guys using those (with improved haste). the difference between 7 and 10 attacks is not monumental.

    there is the aforementioned high level ability that makes everyone automatically do 10 attacks for a single round. this sounds great on paper, but there is a much better ability that makes all your hits critical, and you can't have both on at the same time. so with two weapons you can have both 10 attacks (all the time more or less) and all crits (often, most of the time when it counts) and with 2h weapons you can have either ~7 attacks and all crits or 10 attacks and ~1 crits... dual wielding is therefore considered the ultimate powergaming style

    actually with the gauntlets of extraordinary specialization you get an extra half attack per round, so then you can have 4 attacks per round with a 2 handed weapon and with improved haste that bumps it up to 8

    and critical strike does have one flaw; enemies immune to critical hits, although if you use improved haste with critical stirke, then that is quite the combo indeed

    although with that being said, i haven't used critical strike in around 14 years i would say, for some reason i find greater whirlwind more useful and critical strike not necessary although i play unmodded games on insane difficulty with double damage on, so i don't know if that has a big effect on critical strike's usefullness
    ProontThacoBellAerakarQuartz
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    Aerakar
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975

    sarevok57 said:

    actually with the gauntlets of extraordinary specialization you get an extra half attack per round, so then you can have 4 attacks per round with a 2 handed weapon and with improved haste that bumps it up to 8

    Base APR = 1
    Level 7: +.5
    Level 13: +.5
    Specialization: +.5
    Grandmastery: +.5
    Gauntlets: +.5
    ... = 3.5 APR, or 7 with Improved Haste. Am I missing something?
    ah my mistake, i forgot that grand mastery only gives +.5 attacks per round not +1 ( silly me )

  • sarevok57 said:


    and critical strike does have one flaw; enemies immune to critical hits

    Usually it's bosses and the masses of toughest enemies that are immune too, messing it all up.

  • RAM021RAM021 Member Posts: 403
    sarevok57 said:

    sarevok57 said:

    actually with the gauntlets of extraordinary specialization you get an extra half attack per round, so then you can have 4 attacks per round with a 2 handed weapon and with improved haste that bumps it up to 8

    Base APR = 1
    Level 7: +.5
    Level 13: +.5
    Specialization: +.5
    Grandmastery: +.5
    Gauntlets: +.5
    ... = 3.5 APR, or 7 with Improved Haste. Am I missing something?
    ah my mistake, i forgot that grand mastery only gives +.5 attacks per round not +1 ( silly me )

    The fact that Grand Mastery is not consistent throughout the IE series certainly does not help...
    sarevok57ProontQuartz
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  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975

    RAM021 said:

    The fact that Grand Mastery is not consistent throughout the IE series certainly does not help...

    The BG2 engine (BG2, TOB, TuTu, BGT, BGEE, BG2EE, EET) has always been consistent. (BG1 might have been different, and IWD was different. Those may have been for the sake of convenience, e.g. IWD gave rangers an extra +1 APR when wielding a single weapon, because there was no way to dual-wield.)
    in vanilla BG1, you get your +5 to damage at 4 proficiency points instead of 5 proficiency points, and once you hit 5 proficiency points you got an extra full attack per round instead of only half ( vanilla IWD was the same ) then vanilla bg2 came out and completely revamped the table basically making weapon proficiencies past 2 points complete garbage

    then the EEs came out and they used the proper weapon proficiency table from vanilla BG1 ( with the correct fixes) and brought that table over to BG1EE and BG2EE, although in IWDEE they still kept the 5 points of proficiency gives an extra full attack per round as apposed to an extra half attack per round
    SkatanRAM021Quartz
  • RAM021RAM021 Member Posts: 403

    RAM021 said:

    The fact that Grand Mastery is not consistent throughout the IE series certainly does not help...

    The BG2 engine (BG2, TOB, TuTu, BGT, BGEE, BG2EE, EET) has always been consistent. (BG1 might have been different, and IWD was different. Those may have been for the sake of convenience, e.g. IWD gave rangers an extra +1 APR when wielding a single weapon, because there was no way to dual-wield.)
    First, three different games on the same(ish) engine having varied implementations is pretty much the definition of inconsistent.

    Second, since BG2 and the EEs are also not the same implementation, that would not be the normal definition of 'consistent'.
    Quartz
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited January 2018
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
    Post edited by [Deleted User] on
    bob_veng
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975

    RAM021 said:

    RAM021 said:

    The fact that Grand Mastery is not consistent throughout the IE series certainly does not help...

    The BG2 engine (BG2, TOB, TuTu, BGT, BGEE, BG2EE, EET) has always been consistent. (BG1 might have been different, and IWD was different. Those may have been for the sake of convenience, e.g. IWD gave rangers an extra +1 APR when wielding a single weapon, because there was no way to dual-wield.)
    First, three different games on the same(ish) engine having varied implementations is pretty much the definition of inconsistent.

    Second, since BG2 and the EEs are also not the same implementation, that would not be the normal definition of 'consistent'.
    The BG1 engine is extremely different from the BG2 engine. As different as PST, probably. And the IWDEE engine is as well - it's basically the BG1 engine with a bunch of cool new capabilities tacked on.

    Once the BG2 engine matured, it became the de facto standard: vanilla TOB, TuTu, BGT, IWD-in-BG2, BGEE, BG2EE, IWDEE, and EET. This is the engine used by the vast majority of people playing these games, for well over a decade.

    This discussion was solely about APR. BG1-era games (BG1, IWD) gave +1 APR for 5 stars, while post-BG2-era games (SoA/TOB, TuTu, BGT, IWD-in-BG2, BGEE, BG2EE, EET) have all consistently given +.5 APR for 5 stars. The only inconsistent outlier here is IWDEE, goes out of its way to mimic the older behavior. Sure, it's a little bit of inconsistency, but it's not that much.

    This is really not worth spilling ink over...
    actually the default bg2 engine gave +0 APR with 5 proficiency points, as soon as you hit specialised, the extra attacks stopped coming in, rumor has it that this was done for "balance" issues, but in my opinion they crippled it way too hard in vanilla bg2, the way that it is implemented now is a million times better in my opinion, it's balanced and actually implemented as intended
    RAM021Quartz
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    sarevok57
  • AltairAltair Member Posts: 128
    I love dual wielding... my Half-Orc Fighter-Thief equipped with Celestial Fury and Belm does wonders in BG2EE. But I only play it with the Legacy of Bhaal mode, otherwise it is a bit too easy.
    RAM021Proont
  • RAM021RAM021 Member Posts: 403

    RAM021 said:

    RAM021 said:

    The fact that Grand Mastery is not consistent throughout the IE series certainly does not help...

    The BG2 engine (BG2, TOB, TuTu, BGT, BGEE, BG2EE, EET) has always been consistent. (BG1 might have been different, and IWD was different. Those may have been for the sake of convenience, e.g. IWD gave rangers an extra +1 APR when wielding a single weapon, because there was no way to dual-wield.)
    First, three different games on the same(ish) engine having varied implementations is pretty much the definition of inconsistent.

    Second, since BG2 and the EEs are also not the same implementation, that would not be the normal definition of 'consistent'.
    The BG1 engine is extremely different from the BG2 engine. As different as PST, probably. And the IWDEE engine is as well - it's basically the BG1 engine with a bunch of cool new capabilities tacked on.
    The EE engines are the same... which as we pointed out is part of the problem given their different implementations of the same rule.

    Once the BG2 engine matured, it became the de facto standard: vanilla TOB, TuTu, BGT, IWD-in-BG2, BGEE, BG2EE, IWDEE, and EET. This is the engine used by the vast majority of people playing these games, for well over a decade.

    Even ignoring IF whether what you say is true, de facto does not trump de jure. In any event it is not germane when discussing the different implementations of the same rule throughout the IE series.

    This discussion was solely about APR. BG1-era games (BG1, IWD) gave +1 APR for 5 stars, while post-BG2-era games (SoA/TOB, TuTu, BGT, IWD-in-BG2, BGEE, BG2EE, EET) have all consistently given +.5 APR for 5 stars. The only inconsistent outlier here is IWDEE, goes out of its way to mimic the older behavior. Sure, it's a little bit of inconsistency, but it's not that much.

    And here we thought it was about "two-weapon style game mechanics" or at least the inconsistency between the Grand Mastery mechanical implementations to which we replied.

    This is really not worth spilling ink over...

    And yet you continue to do so.


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    ThacoBell
  • RAM021RAM021 Member Posts: 403

    RAM021 said:

    This discussion was solely about APR. BG1-era games (BG1, IWD) gave +1 APR for 5 stars, while post-BG2-era games (SoA/TOB, TuTu, BGT, IWD-in-BG2, BGEE, BG2EE, EET) have all consistently given +.5 APR for 5 stars. The only inconsistent outlier here is IWDEE, goes out of its way to mimic the older behavior. Sure, it's a little bit of inconsistency, but it's not that much.

    And here we thought it was about "two-weapon style game mechanics" or at least the inconsistency between the Grand Mastery mechanical implementations to which we replied.
    Must I really quote you, to remind you what you wrote just a few posts up? I guess so:

    For
    RAM021 said:

    sarevok57 said:


    ah my mistake, i forgot that grand mastery only gives +.5 attacks per round not +1 ( silly me )

    The fact that Grand Mastery is not consistent throughout the IE series certainly does not help...
    So, you're wrong. You know, it's okay to admit you're wrong, when you're wrong. You should try saying it out loud. It's healthy. :wink:
    Apparently you need to quote us to remind YOU what we are talking about. Re-read what you just quoted:
    The fact that Grand Mastery is not consistent throughout the IE series is the inconsistency between the Grand Mastery mechanical implementations.

    Since you are wrong you should probably take your own advice.
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