Can I dual-wield with only -2 penalty when I'm wearing chain mail?

[Zoltan]

Can I dual-wield with only -2 penalty when I'm wearing chain mail? If no, what's my penalty for this? And If I wear plate mail it increaes to 4?

[Micah Foehammer]

I tried this out with a dwarven fighter that I multi-classed to a ranger for one level. Using a light off-hand weapon and wearing mithral splint, he suffered a -4 / -8 penalty to his attacks.

My understanding is that the combined benefits of two-handed fighting and ambidexterity (ie: the ranger's dual wield special feat) ONLY kick in if you are wearing LIGHT armor. A chain shirt is classified as medium armor, so you only get the +2 benefit of using a light offhand weapon.

Try switching to Studded leather (clasified as light armor) and you should see the penalties drop considerably at the cost of only 1 step in AC. Both a chain shirt and studded leather have a max dex bonus of 4.

[ecarletti]

Rangers don't trully get "ambidextry" & "2 weapon fighting"
for free. They get sort of meta feats wich work like these
but ONLY if you have no or light armor.

If your character (not ranger) get the 2 feats, he could
dual fight in plate mail if he choose to do so.

[Zoltan]

so I can use two-handed sword as well for my ranger? or longsword+shield. I cant really decide can you give me some tip?

[DraconisRex]

It's simple, do you want one more attack, plus lowering all your other attacks by two, or do you want to live?

Two weapon fighting is fine against enemies with a negative CR, like the goblins, orcs & what-not in Chapter 2. But when you're fighting tougher creatures you'd better bring heavier armour and a sheild, or a medivac unit.

[Draggor]

2 weapon fighting also works where you've got a big attack bonus so the penalties don't hurt. Plus creatures like dragons or giants have a total attack bonus of 15 or more so a shield isn't going to make much difference but you need all the attacks you can get just to hit them

[Kerneth]

As I noticed the other day fighting a certain dragon with my monk (ac29) vs my paladin (ac36), the extra armor class from the shield made the biggest difference not in how often I got hit, but in how often the knockdown feat put me on my butt. My monk would get knocked down, take a few melee hits, stand up, and...instantly get knocked down again. My paladin, on the other hand, only got knocked down a few times the entire fight, and had a much easier time with the dragon.

On the other hand, the paladin was prior to the latest patch, and I think they changed how often the monsters use their special attacks in that patch, because it sure seems I'm having more things use Feat attacks lately.

[Zoltan]

is there a difference between 2-handed swords and longswords? I mean you hit more often with a longsword?

[Tobbin]

Originally posted by Zoltan: is there a difference between 2-handed swords and longswords? I mean you hit more often with a longsword?

Depends on how you roleplay. for the most part, two-handed swords POTENTIALLY do more damage (like 2-18 I think) whereas the longsword does 1-8. You can dual-wield with another weapon if you choose longsword though. You can't use a shield with a two-handed weapon. So the breakdown is:

Longsword:

Longsword + shield -> 1-8 hp damage + AC bonus

Longsword + another weapon -> same damage with longsword + damage with another weapon (you do get penalties with this type of fighting though and you have to have the dualing feat) If you have improved dual-fighting, there are MUCH less penalties (I just got Ranger level 9 and he got this automatically - I hit MUCH more often now)

2-handed sword:

2-handed sword -> 2-12 hp damage

Some people like 2-handed because of the extra damage, but a shield REALLY helps. I prefer using a longsword + shield, but am starting to use dual-wield for the cannon fodder encounters.

EDIT: Oh yeah, in answer to which one you HIT more often with, it depends on what you chose weapon specialization in. That weapon will hit more often (not counting +'s on the weapon)

[ 08-01-2002, 12:36 PM: Message edited by: Tobbin ]

[Zoltan]

no I mean weapon speed. recovery time. they all are the same? no of attacks