A duel wield question

[robertthebard]

It helps some, but not much.

[Stratos]

Thanks.

[Target]

Can I have a little hint on which sword is more powerful, the HA or Ensirric, I've no idea what that sword can do?

[Nightwing]

I'm not sure, I have sold the Ensirric sword both times because the sword I had seemed better. Right now my druid is duel wielding a Scimitar and a Rapier both with crit ranges 12-20 they are both +3 bonuses and have 1d6 elemental damage. She is doing pretty good with those two. Never tried the other one.

[Witchdoctor]

If you want to dual wield using a long sword, I would suggest considering Aramil's blade. It is available in HOTU in chapter 3 for sale in the Djinni's store, or also in chapter one as a boss treasure drop if you have weapon focus in long sword.

Aramil's blade is a +6 keen dc14 vorpal long sword with +8 strength balanced by -4 dexterity. It also lets you call lightning once per day. The -4 dex is a drawback, but there are belts and bracers of dexterity that will give you the 4 dex back.

Since this is found in HOTU, you can also upgrade it at the drow weapon smiths forge. Upgrades to +10, haste, elemental damage, regeneration, true seeing, etc are available. You can only add so many of the available upgrades on (an already) enchanted weapon, but there is a way around that. I found that after the weapon smith refused to further upgrade the weapon, if I switched out to another long sword and then asked for an upgrade, he would say yes and then the upgrade menu would come up. If I had the inventory screen open and switched out the plain longsword and put Aramil's blade back in, then selected the upgrade I wanted, the upgrade was done to Aramil's blade. An exploit, but a nice one. You can also use the black pearl in the undead cult area to add strength drain (dc24, I think) to the blade after you are done with the weapon smith's upgrades. It makes Aramil one kick butt weapon, with the only drawback of -4 dex. It costs a lot of GP, but you should have a lot of extra cash by then anyway, especially if you imported a character from the OC or SOU and carried over money. You lose your equipment at the start of HOTU, but do keep your cash after all.

Edited: Actually, I was checking Aramil's stats and the enhancement may vary according to the character level. The above stats were from the Gamebanshee NWN/SOU/HOTU guide, but I read elsewhere that the enhancement may be +3 or +4, depending on character level. I forget. I got it playing a fighter/bard/RDD that I built in HOTU by starting a new figher in HOUTU and using the XP granted to manually bring him to level 15 at the start of the game.

[ 02-07-2006, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: Witchdoctor ]

[robertthebard]

Yeah, I remember reading about that exploit here, I think. But I don't generally play in the sp campaigns anymore.

[Target]

I'll have to remember that exploit, sounds a nice little trick.

With the crafting options in HotU, can you make your own magical longsword?

[Nightwing]

If you have enough money. I think each +1 is $50,000.00 or maybe $30,000.00 then you can add 2d6 elemental damage as well as haste, true seeing and so forth. It all costs $$$$$

[Stratos]

Heh, I skipped the NWN OC and went straight to SoU.

I recently started a dual-wielding female Bard/Rogue, but made a few minor "mistakes":

1. I picked an half-elf while a human would have been preferable.
2. I started as a Bard instead of a Rogue.
3. I had a Dex score of 14 at the beginning, picked Two-weapon Fighting and though I would pick Ambidexterity at level 4 and an extra point in Dex at level 3. Turns out I've mixed things up a wee bit; you get a new feat every 3rd level and a new attribute point every 4th, not the other way around. :embarrassed:
I picked Weapon Finesse at level 3 instead and have to wait until level 6 before I can get Ambidexterity.

No greater harm done, though, but I had to get Dorna as a hireling until I'm strong enough to survive on my own.

[robertthebard]

Weapon finesse won't really help that much with two weapon fighting. It uses your dex score for attack rolls instead of your str, and only works on small weapons, and rapiers (a med weapon).
Edit: If your dex is higher than your str, that is... oops.

[ 02-08-2006, 08:29 PM: Message edited by: robertthebard ]