The World of Avlis

i just had a read on the Wiki pages about Double-Sided weapons and found that they are classed as dual-wield weapons. My main uses a double bladed sword, does that mean with the ambidexterity and two weapon style feats he will improve with its use? When I started the char I really didnt think that I would be wanting those two feats!

Yep, off hand is Finessable too, I think.

yep.. i've had my character dual wield two shorts shorts.. off hand took up the finesse bonus when i took it. Course a true figther prolly wno't benifit much from finese.. since it only apply to small weapons.. a dual blades is definately not small...

so you're looking at two weapon fightint, ambidext and then improved two weapon to get the attack penalties knocked down as far as they go. (-2/-2) i believe.

From what I recall, a human size uses two longswords the offhand weapon does not get the -2, but more. Using a double swords the off hand counts as one size smaller,,so you get the -2.

Bah, another feat to take. Only the two weapon fighting feat is reasonable to take though, the others require a dex of 15. Ill survive without the others.

From what I read, without Ambidexterity and with only Two Weapon Fighting, your attack will be -2 on your main hand, and -6 on your off hand (using Double-Sided Weapons). You will only have 1 attack on your off hand.
Is that really worth it?

Thesockgap wrote:i just had a read on the Wiki pages about Double-Sided weapons and found that they are classed as dual-wield weapons. My main uses a double bladed sword, does that mean with the ambidexterity and two weapon style feats he will improve with its use? When I started the char I really didnt think that I would be wanting those two feats!

Wield a one-handed weapon like a longsword in one hand to see what your attack bonus 'should' be. Then wield the double weapon to see how much attack bonus you're losing. It will be significant.. -6 or -8, I believe, without Ambidexterity and Two Weapon Fighting (or Ranger Dual-Wield in Light Armor). Also, without the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, you'll be unable to take Improved Two Weapon Fighting, which means you'll be sacrificing quite a bit for one extra attack.

There's a standard item in NWN called 'Bracers of Locking Grip' which will grant you the Ambidexterity feat even if your dexterity is less than 15. I'm not sure if this item exists on Avlis or not, though.

Moredo wrote:Yep, off hand is Finessable too, I think.

I think that got taken out for the double weapons in some patch or another. I tried making an OC character with higher dex than strength and which had finesse, and I wasn't gaining any bonus for the off-hand with a double weapon.

Jazz wrote:From what I read, without Ambidexterity and with only Two Weapon Fighting, your attack will be -2 on your main hand, and -6 on your off hand (using Double-Sided Weapons). You will only have 1 attack on your off hand.
Is that really worth it?

nope.


If your gonna dual wield, I ~highly~ suggest getting all the feats for it.


Two Weapon Fighting
Ambidexterity
Improved Two Weapon Fighting

Edit: Deleted

Thanks for all the facts guys, something to consider there. Dispite the negitives to atack bonuses I still love the double bladed sword. I think it looks great in combat. My paladin uses it and has taken some appropriate feats (specilisation, improved critical ect) and it works very well. Up untill I read the wiki pages today I didnt notice the negitve AB when I was playing so it cant be that bad. Ill consider the Two Weapon Fighting feat but the ambidexterity requires too high a dex for my char and Improved Two Weapon Fighting requires ambidexterity so thats out too.

I did wounder why more people idnt use the double weapon types. Now I know why.

oh balls.. he practically said nothing of any relavance. besides.. most of the feat talk should be taken entirely ooc'ly. If he wished to persue two weapon tactics it would be advised that his character find another that dual welds and ask about it. Discussing feats here, which the info is readly available for in the manual for the game is just stupid to say FOIG. That being said there is a whole chart in the manual for the original game listing all the relavante penalties for two weapon fighting and what feat has what effect on the attack bonuses.

Jazz wrote:

The Imp is nice, but not as important, and the Ambidex can be obtained at a <FOIG> area.

You know, even this is too much info, if you ask me. Some things really should be found out IG.

Why is this FOIG? All the two weapon feats we have been discussing can be found out in the game manual.

I thought you automatically got the Ambidex boni while fighting a two-bladed weapon.

Relax with the FOIG ffs.

Krator wrote:I thought you automatically got the Ambidex boni while fighting a two-bladed weapon.

the plot thickens. Anyone know if this is true?

Nope, you don't. The off hand part of the double weapon merely counts as a light weapon.

Hmm, one other thing. Does your str bonus count towards damage the way it does with single large weapons like greatswords? ( I believe it's 1.5)

Nope, it's just like duel wielding normally. Full strength bonus on the main hand, 0.5 strength bonus on the off hand.

Was doing some research on this so sorry for the serious bad rehashing of a very old thread for anyone that came by this in the future, but I wanted to add my two sense. There is one benefit to using dual headed weapons like this that wasn't mentioned, and it is that you can save the cost of using two many charges on a wand for buffing by only having to do it once and both heads of the weapon get the bonus damage. Maybe mages like you more since you don't take as many spells of theirs.

Can we just skip to the end of the year and give downsystem the award for Most Threads Horsoliched?