Dual Weapon Question

[Vassago]

Ok, if I read the manuel correctly, Rangers gain the ability to use 2 weapons as if they had both Ambidexterity & Two-Weapon Fighting feats. Without Ambidexterity, a character suffers a -4 pentalty to their off hand attack while using 2 weapons and with Two-Weapon Fighting, a character's penalties for fighting w/ 2 weapons are reduced by 2. I created a Tiefling Ranger and gave him 2 long swords (regular ones) and when I was viewing my characters info under weapons it had a -4 pentality for each one. Is there something I am missing? I also noticed that I can take both of these feats when I was creating my character, but didn't bother to b/c I thought I was supposed to get them for free. Please help explain this.

[Festus]

OK, you're on the right track, but a few details are missing.

Rangers get the "effect" of ambi and 2-weapon as long as wear ONLY light or no armor. So if you wear medium or heavy armor, you'll need the two feats.

The -2/-2 for attacks ONLY works if you use a small weapon in the off hand. This is in the manual, but you have to actually read it.

For my rangers, I typically use a short sword/dagger or handaxe in the off hand, so I get full advantage of the feats.

[Vassago]

I knew about the armor, but missed the part about the small weapon. I had my Ranger equipped w/ Studded Leather. Oh well, I'm nixing the idea of using a Ranger anyway, but might add 1 level of Ranger to a Rogue that I am considering creating. I'd like to dual wield my Rogue w/ short swords or daggers, depending on what I find throughout my journey.

[Khazraj]

I have never really noticed a problem with dual wielding longswords amd scimitars, even flails! Is this because at a higher level the BABs are quite high and so the -4 penalty does not seem much?

[Nightowl2]

You can reduce the penalty by 1 if you take weapon focus (2 dots) in the particular weapon, such as longsword (or shortsword) or whatever. And yes, at higher levels, the penalty doesn't mean so much anymore.

Nightowl2

[Gimli]

True, but at high levels, dualing doesn't have any advantage since the game has a cap on the number of attacks you can make per round. Once you hit 5 attacks (whether through level alone or level plus a haste spell) you'll do the same # of attacks with a single weapon. Plus you could take the -4 from dualing and apply it to the expertise feat for a +4 AC bonus. To me there are 2 benefits from dualing. Early in the game it's nice as it effectively doubles your attacks (but your BAB is bad too, and early on it will cause alot of misses); and you can get any magical effects from 2 weapons at once, that's probably the best thing about it.