A duel wield question

[Target]

I’ve not tried to duel wield, always gone for fists or sword and board. As there are several good longswords can you successfully duel wield them?

Cheers

[Legolas]

You can dual-wield longswords if you're not one of the smaller races (halfling and gnome). That would give you one extra off-hand attack, but this attack is made at -10 to hit. In addition, your regular attacks are made at -6 to hit.

Taking the Ambidexterity feat reduces the off-hand penalty by -4. Taking the Two Weapon Fighting feat reduces the penalty for main and off-hand attacks by -2 each. Using a smaller weapon in the off-hand (a shortsword, sickle or dagger rather than a longsword, for example) reduces the penalty by -2 each again.
Lastly, the Improved Two Weapon Fighting feat gives you a second off-hand attack.

Taking all the feats (requiring a DEX 15 or better) and using a proper set of weapons means that you can reduce the penalty to -2/-2, or -4/-4 if you want to use a pair of longswords. That's well worth it for two extra attacks per round, but you have to remember you're also giving up on a Shield AC bonus and the Two-Handed Weapon damage bonus.

Since it requires three feats, dual-wielding is best reserved for Fighters or Champions of Torm, as they get extra combat feats as part of their class package.
Better still is to use a ranger, who requires none of the feats, nor a DEX 15, provided they don't use medium or heavy armor. They get the attack penalty reducing feats at first level, and the bonus off-hand attack at level 9.

You can also get the Ambidexterity and Two Weapon Fighting feats as properties on certain items.

Lastly, since dual-wielding typically requires a high DEX score either to get the feats, or to compensate for lack of armor, it doesn't hurt to combine them with weapons subject to the Weapon Finesse feat. Longswords aren't included there, however.

So all in all, while you can dual-wield longswords with success, they're not the optimal dual-wielding weapons.
Since you're sacrificing attack bonus for attacks per round, you'll typically find it used by Monks (Kama's) or Weapon Masters (Rapier, Kukri), who benefit most from it.
Rangers use it with almost any weapon combination because that's what they do in NWN. Forget using bows, that's better left to Fighters and Arcane Archers.

[Zink Whistlefly]

Just to add to Legolas's excellent post, the other drawback to dual wielding is that the off hand attack(s) only get's half the strength bonus added to it, so a fighter with 18 STR normally having +4 to damage rolls will only receive a +2 damage bonus to the off hand weapon.

[Target]

Thanks, That seems a lot of effort for little extra. I have the Holy Avenger from SoU and I would like to use Ensirric as well, I was hopeing that would be a good combo.
Mind you I'm not sure what bonus Ensirric has.

[Zink Whistlefly]

You could always ask Enserric to take the form of a dagger and use that as an offhand weapon, although you're trading up to 4 points of damage for a +2 bonus to hit with all attacks...tough call.

[Stratos]

Legolas have already answered most questions regarding dual-wield, but there's still a few things I'd like to add:

*Dual-wielding is not as complex as it sounds. All you really need is 15 Dex and two feats; Ambidexterity and Two-weapon Fighting. If you play a human you can get both of these at lv. 1, and lv. 3 for non-humans. Improved Two-weapon Fighting is more of an "addon", definately worth getting but not essetial to dual-wield effectively.

*Double-weapons, like a two-bladed swords, requires dual-wielding feats to use in an effective manner. These type of weapons have the advantage that the "off-hand" is automatically considered as carrying a "small" weapon, so no "off-hand" penalty here for carrying to large a weapon here. A two-bladed swords is similar to dual-wielding two longswords damage-wise. Weapons of this type does require the Weapon Proficiency: Exotic feat, though.

*The "Dual-wield" feat that Rangers get at lv. 1 does NOT count as a prerequisite for Improved Two-weapon Fighting. To get ITWF you either need to gain 9 Ranger levels, or pick Ambidex. and TWF as normal.

[ 02-06-2006, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: Stratos ]

[Nightwing]

I'm duel wielding a short sword and a mace and I took the finess feat because my dex is 30 adjusted. My attacks come at +15 or even higher and I am getting three attacks with one and two with the other. I use this with my arcane archer just to change up the game play. I still do more damage with my bow but can hold my own in melee combat as well.

[Stratos]

Once my Barbarian have managed to drag himself through the original NWN OC with Linu in tow, I'm considering playing through SoU and HotU with a human Bard/Rogue multiclass. Perhaps Bard(16)/Rogue(10) or so. It will be a high dexterity character, Weapon Finesse and dual-wielding, probably short swords.

I've never really played with a thoroughly "roguish" character but with dual-wield, sneak attacks, Power attack and Bard spells and abilities I should be a decent fighter.

And if that doesn't work there's always traps.

[Nightwing]

Don't forget bows. A rouge is mean with his sneak attack, rapid shot and haste.

[Stratos]

Yep, I'll use a shortbow as well. All those different arrow types will cover my lack of elemental magic.

Speaking of sneak attacks, all attacks made inside the dark area created by the Darkness spell will be sneak attacks, right? Do I need Ultravision too?