Duel Wielding

[Doobie]

Alrighty, I have the two weapon fighting feat and the ambidexterous feat (or whatever its called) and I'm an elf. It says in the manual that the penalties for dual wielding in the main hand and off hand should be at -2/-2 (assuming my off hand weapon is a "light" weapon).... It also says in the manual that rapiers are considered to be light weapons and thus ideal to be wielded as an off hand weapon by medium sized creatures (elves are medium as stated in the manual). But when I equip an weapon with the rapier as my off hand weapon, it shows that my penalty is -4/-4 as opposed to -2/-2, is this a bug or is it just me...or am i reading the manual wrong or something?

[DeSoya]

Hey Doobie. Welcome to IW!

The reason that your penalties are -4/-4 when dual-wielding rapiers is lost in the mists of time. Actually it's just a definition thingy. Rapiers act as light weapons for the purposes of the Weapon finesse feat but they are still medium weapons. The idea is that you can utilize your dex when whacking things with one rapier but it's still just as heavy as it used to be should you want to use two at once. In essence rapiers are special weapons that act as a light weapon sometimes and act as a medium weapon just in time to screw you over.

DeSoya

[Doobie]

well then, thats pretty dumb...especially seeing how it says that they are "ideal" offhand weapons in the manual. While I'm on the subject here, is there a way to figure out the speeds of various weapons...obviously certain weapons are faster than others but which ones and how fast?

[Morgeruat]

actually 3rd edition did away with weapon speeds a greatsword swings just as fast as a dagger, or a heavy crowbow gets fired

[illandrius]

if you are a ranger (may apply to other classes too) you only get the bonuses when wearing light armor.

Yes light armor only if you want to duel wield effectively.

[DeSoya]

And no exotic weapons for Rangers. You MUST use two weapons to gain the benifits of your feats.

DeSoya

[Jerhal]

You end up being better off using two weapons that are the same, instead of using a lighter smaller weapon for your off-hand. Once you get Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization the bonus' they give more then make up for the penalties of using two weapons of the same kind. Unless you spend 2 more feats on your smaller weapon (which is a waste) you actually have a lower to hit value with the smaller weapon.

It also seems you can't dual wield light flails. The light flail always needs to be in the main hand for some reason. Although you can pair it up with a mace or hammer in the off hand.

[Lady Blue03]

Question: It said Gladiators dual-weild in the class description, but i havnt found the ambidextrious/dual-weild feat yet and im lvl 7. Is it one of the lvl 9 feats? Or am i just not looking at them close enough

[DeSoya]

Gladiators? You mean the fighter packages?

Actually, it seems as if the specialization doesn't apply to the off-hand. A fact which I find rather annoying. My character wields two shortswords. The first does 1D6+4 (Strength and Specialized) the second does 1D6+2. It's really lame. The idea of wielding two of the same weapon certainly is a good one though. Or just two light weapons. Then weapon finesse works with both.

DeSoya