Weapon styles

[Guest newguest01]

Hi!

 

I feel, that Sword and Shield Style and Single Weapon Style is always the worse choice from the Weapon Styles. I choose always 2 Handed or Two Weapons Style for my party.

 

The biggest advantage of the Two Weapons Style is not only the +1 attack/round, but you receive the passive bonuses of both weapons (for example Crom Faeyr and Axe of Unyielding).

 

The Sword and Shield Style is maybe worthy in BG1 bacause many of the enemy uses bows, but is obsolete in SoA and ToB, even with IR's revised shields.

 

I think the Single Weapon Style is worthy only in one case, a dual classed fighter-mage, 5 stars in a ranged wepon, then 5* katana, then 2* Sing.W.St. (this can be achieved Fighter lvl9/Mage lvl25).

 

Demi, do you thought about to revise the Weapon Styles?

It would better, to keep the advantages of the Single Weapon Style, but give an additional 1/2 attack per round.

And whats about, to give +2AC and/or a small bonus on physical damage res. (maybe 5%) to the 2* Sword and Shield Style?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well the shields are better... and there is no good way to make the single weapon style to add attacks per round.

[Demivrgvs]

Long story short, I'd love to tweak Weapon Styles but I can't unless the Mighty Taimon externalize them in a 2da or something like that via exe patching.

 

I've done what I could though, and I'm quite sure Sword and Shield is very effective within IR. IR's shield's may not have cool on hit abilities like an off-hand weapon, but they do have their own abilities while equipped (and we may improve them when/if necessary). The AC bonus itself granted by shields within IR is much higher than in vanilla (+1 to medium shields, +3 to large shields!), and some of them offer an outstandingly high level of protection (e.g. Fortress Shield grants +7 AC and 10% physical resistance!!!).

 

Thus it's a matter of chosing between defensive or offensive capabilities, but I don't think Two Weapons Style is better than Sword and Shield Style within IR, at least not in all cases.

 

The only style imo which still is underpowered within IR is Single Weapon Style...but without either Taimon's help or a strange workaround (which I currently cannot imagine) there's nothing (*) I can do about that.

 

 

(*) I've actually already tried to do something about that exploiting some abilities like Keen (SWS doubles the % chance to score critical hits of these weapons) but it still is almost nothing...

[yarpen]

(*) I've actually already tried to do something about that exploiting some abilities like Keen (SWS doubles the % chance to score critical hits of these weapons) but it still is almost nothing...

It's still better when used with second weapon. Especially when this second weapon has better damage outcome. And critical hit chance is raised for both of weapons.

[Jarno Mikkola]

(*) I've actually already tried to do something about that exploiting some abilities like Keen (SWS doubles the % chance to score critical hits of these weapons) but it still is almost nothing...

It's still better when used with second weapon. Especially when this second weapon has better damage outcome. And critical hit chance is raised for both of weapons.

Ah, but the Keen effect comes from the Single (handed)Weapon Style itself, as the effect is: +2 AC, 2*Critical Chance... so if we increase the weapons critical damage when using the single weapon...

[Demivrgvs]

(*) I've actually already tried to do something about that exploiting some abilities like Keen (SWS doubles the % chance to score critical hits of these weapons) but it still is almost nothing...

It's still better when used with second weapon. Especially when this second weapon has better damage outcome. And critical hit chance is raised for both of weapons.

It depends. Let's take two 13th lvl fighters, one equipped with a single keen sword and the other with one keen sword and a "ormal". The former would have 3 attacks per round with 20% chance to score criticals on each hit, the other would have 4 attacks, but with a 10% chance to score criticals on each attack. This is before taking into account any other effects, which can very easily make Two Weapons style the best choice (e.g. if both swords have Keen properties), but at least this is a small advantage for the Single Weapon style.

 

A Keen weapon with Single Weapon style may also be good for a backstab attempt...but other than these few cases it's way worse than the other three styles.

 

Anyway, I may actually point out that it's quite realistic to have Single Weapon style be the worst. In medieval warfare no sane warrior would have gone in a battlefield fighting like that. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to make this style more appealing, but I also think that only a dedicated kit should shine with such style (e.g. Duellist) and only a limited array of characters would "realistically" go for it (e.g. a bard which mainly focus on ranged attacks and seldom find himself in melee).

[the bigg]

SWS is a good choice for ranged combatants (who use a bow as main and switch to the side sword for an instant +2 AC when challenged).

 

Moreover, SWS offers similar protection to Sword and Shield for those who are constrained to Bucklers - the best buckler you can find is a +1 and offers no ranged AC bonuses, so buckler +1 and ** sword and shield nets a +2 ranged versus ** SWS, and by this point I'd prefer having one hand free and extra criticals.