Khalid's True Class profs

[Domi]

OK, I have created the 2 fighters.

 

StR17, DEX18, CON 18

 

The stars:

 

Dual:

Level 1 (4 prof points): 2 in LS, 2 in DW (Base THACO: 20, MH:18, OH:22, NA:5/2)

Single:

Level 1 (4 prof points): 3 in LS, 1 in S&Sh (Base THACO:20, MH:17, NA:3/2)

 

Equipped: Long Swords, non Magical; Med Shield on the Single.

 

Attacking Deseased Gibberlings, Dire Wolves (3), Wolves(1), Dread Wolves (2) Hobgoblins on Map 1 and Map 2 and FAI. From 0 kills each, always targeting a different closest creature untill only one remains. Both died once from a single hit (otherwise I healed them as we went by Ctrl+R):

 

Dual:

Total XP Value of the Kills: 79%

Percentage of Total Kills: 60%

XP Value of Kills: 2400

# of Kills: 20

Most Powerful Enemy: Dread Wolf

 

Single:

Total XP Value of the Kills: 20%

Percentage of Total Kills: 39%

XP Value of Kills: 618

# of Kills: 13

Most Powerful Enemy: Dire Wolf

[Linguist in Training]

hmm, what about a fighter wielding a two-handed weapon? It makes sense that a a character dual-wielding would outperform one with a shield.

 

Don't forget that the two-handed proficiency doubles the chance of a critical hit (and a critical hit with a good two-handed weapon is something awesome to behold)

[Domi]

Two handed weapon I would not even consider a competitor to a dw. That is one of the reasons I never have Minsc in the party. While he tries to swing the dw's would have already killed the low hp monsters. two handed is good when mosnters have very high hp's. It is not the case in BG.

[Linguist in Training]

Well, Minsc is a ranger so he automatically gets dw, but I digress...

 

Against gibberlings, dual wielding certainly beats using a two-handed weapon (even if it is fun to watch the gibberlings getting consistently chunked by someone using a two-handed weapon).

 

However, against bosses and some of the tough encounters with powerful humans (hence, with good HP and AC) later in the game, the added damage and greater chance of critical hits that comes from two-handed weapons becomes rather significant.

 

Here is a rather extreme example: I just finished my battle with Aec'Latec (or however you spell it ). In my party I had Khalid (dual-wielding), Minsc (dual-wielding), and my paladin PC (wielding Spidersbane). Aec's AC was so low that critical hits were practically the only time we could hit. Needless to say, my PC did the majority of damage to Aec because he got his powerful critical hits twice as often. While they are wasted on Gibberlings, in this case the extra damage and more frequent critical hits were very useful.

 

It seems to me that dw wins against mobs of monsters, two-handed wins against powerful bosses, and they come out about even against small groups of strong creatures (often parties of humans).

[Domi]

I concur, but another reason why I like dw in BG2 is because of two things: there are so many 'cool' weapons that otherwise you cannot use them, and second are whirlwind attacks that added to dw are horrifying. But, I guess, I am just trying to rationalize my preference of the dw fighters over the 2-handed or sword-and-shield. Maybe it's just cute animation.

[Linguist in Training]

Well, the dual-wielding animation is sweet - there can be no denying that. I usually make my warrior characters dual-wield for purely aesthetic reasons.

 

Also keep in mind that two-handed magical weapons can be very powerful. It shouldn't be too hard to imagine why I gave my Paladin two stars in two-handed swords instead of making him dual-wield. *cough*Carsomyr*cough*

 

So while the dual-wielding and sword-and-shield styles allow a character to simultaneous use two magical items. The two-handed weapon proficiency allows a character to use an extremely powerful weapon. It all balances out IMHO.

 

It's a matter of style, really. hmm, this topic has gone just a little off course, oh well.

[Lemernis]

Thanks for doing this , Domi!

 

I know I suggested the above prof allocations for the Fighter, but it was subsequently pointed out to me in one of these threads that for a Fighter, three profs in a weapon and one prof in Sword and Shield doesn't really benefit the fighter much. There is no penalty for using a shield even if the character has gained no proficiency in Sword and Shield Style. Best to give the Fighter four profs in a weapon.

 

The comparison as meleers will be a slightly fairer if you give the Fighter High Mastery (****) in a weapon, though that will only add one bonus point of damage per round. Attacks per round will still be 1.5 though. I think it is not until level 7 that a fighter with High Mastery receives 2 attacks per round, and he won't go above this with a melee weapon.

 

But anyway, if you look at the attacks per round in the above contest it's pretty clear that the dual wielder is going to be the winner. The dual wielder begins the game with the maximum number of attacks per round (2.5).

 

Now if the fighter has **** in Long Bow, and is equipped with composite longbow, then it's going to be a much closer contest, since attacks per round will be the same. The number of kills should be about equal then. There I would be curious to see if the speed factor of the weapons involved comes into play.

 

Anyway if both are meleeing, the dual wielder will always get more kills. But I agree with Linguist that it's just fun to watch a warrior with high Str dole out some massive hits with a two-handed weapon.

[Idobek]

For me, the problem with using shields in the BG2 engine is the sucky animations, the BG1 animations rocked. Bucklers in particular suffer, perhaps this is why there are so few of them on SoA/ToB.

[Lemernis]

I recently watched a PBS documentary on Helen of Troy, where the fighting techniques used in the ancient world world were demonstrated with various combinations of weapons, eg, shield and spear, shield and short sword, etc.

 

It was fascinating. I've seen other such shows on Discovery Channel. Very complex strike and parry movements were used. Ancient and medieval combat involved a lot of coordination between two hands, spin moves, etc. The shield was often used offensively to push opponents off balance, to smack them in the face, and so on.

 

It would be kind of neat to see a D&D computer game that offers more of a focus on those finer aspects of combat. But which is also an RPG of course, not just FPS hack 'n slash fare.