Minsc, talking sword or dual wielding?

No, Minsc can go up to 3 slots in dual wield like any warrior. He's a ranger after all, and they get two in dual wield for free. Take advantage of it.

Also, two handed swords with the exception of the paladin one, all have speeds of 8 or so. Halberds are faster with speeds of 5.

I hate to admit it, but the only good 2-handed sword is Carsomyr and my paladin uses that. The vorpal blade is too late in the game to qualify. Lilacor is OK but Minsc is much better with a killer mace and the flail of ages. Way more damage, way faster. He does need a helmet of charm protection, but those are fairly plentiful. I honestly used him as a ranged weapon guy most of the time. He used bows for a while, then the Azuredge throwing axe. If he had to go into melee, I dropped the bow or shield and went dual-wield.
I say ranged weapon or dual wield. Forget about 2-handed swords.

You're kidding me?
Two handed swords have a base damage roll of 1D10. That's what makes them good. Lilarcor is available incredibly early in the game. It's a +3 weapon, so it's doing 1D10+3, and gives you a mind shield. That's pretty good for a pissy little quest in some sewer.
The warblade does 1D12+4 damage and is the most powerful weapon in the game.
The unholy reaver does 1D10+4 and any enemy you hit with it will never be able to land a shot again.
I can't possibly agree with this. Carsomyr is fine, but it's not the best two-hander, and definitely not the only two-hander worth getting. Furthermore, two-handers are probably the strongest and most abundant weapons in the game. This isn't just my opinion, it's entirely factual.
For those of you who didn't know, speed factor merely determines at which point in the round the fighter will attack. It doesn't affect how often they attack. In short, the merit of a low speed factor is far less than most people believe it to be.

[Draggor]

I too used Minsc with a double handed sword. I mostly used him as a missile guy with a longbow and it was easier carrying around a double handed weapon than always switching around. I also have Aerie and Viconia in my party and they use up the good crushing weapons. Minsc just seems like a double handed weapon type guy. I'm currently carrying around The vorpal sword and wave though I've only used wave once, on Kangaxx. You do get the vorpal sword early enough in the game to make it useful. Thie discussion is the beauty of Minsc though he's so useful and flexible. For me it just came down to the fact that more characters other than Minsc can use maces than double handed swords and seeing he carries a bow might as well have another double handed weapon too.

Armasiel,

One sword that does 1d10+3 damage hitting twice per round does 14 damage on average in a round if it hits every hit

vs.
Two common +2 maces, 1d8+2, hitting three times per round one of which will hit 10% less often (-2 in the offhand) do 18.9 damage. Granted, because they are +2 maces they will hit 5% less often than a +3 weapon, so reduce the damage to 18 hp per round.

Who says we shouldn't dual wield?

I checked and even with only two slots in two weapon style, two +2 maces beat the Linacor.

The maces would do 17.29 damage on average.
This does not even begin to include how much better crushing weapons are against any armor.

Armisael,
Although you make a good point about speed, our colleagues made clear the point I was making about more damage faster. I did use Lilacor for a while, and I liked the mind shield, but I got a helmet that took care of that and never used the sword again. I simply killed much more efficiently with 2 blunt weapons. I didn't see another good 2-hander until the vorpal blade. I thought about buying the Warblade (it looks like a cool sword) but I would have had to change my tactics, and I was almost through the entire game. I usually agree with you on most tactics, but Minsc is always going to be ranged attack or dual-wield for me. It's a credit to his versatility that you can play him many ways and be very successful. (Even if you're holding him back by using a 2-hander) Sorry....I couldn't resist that last comment.

I got the impression from your post that you were saying Carsomyr is the only two-handed sword worth wielding, and the only reason to specialise in two-handers at all. Disregarding Minsc for a moment, I thought that was ridiculous. Putting him back into the equation, in the earlier parts of the game I gave him Lilarcor, and after that I gave him the shield of harmony and the augmented mace of disruption.
G.W., I never said a bad word against dual wielding. Minsc is a ranger, so dual wielding with him makes a lot of sense. The only reason I didn't have him dual wielding was because I needed a way to prevent his bad intelligence from getting him dominated and confused.

Incidentally, I'm buggered if I know how Minsc got to be a ranger at all with such low intelligence and wisdom. Probably the same way Anomen dualled to a cleric.

[Memnoch]

Personally, I always saw Minsc as a 2H weapon wielding melee fighter because that's the way I used him in BG1. He would've been a kickass barbarian. His 18/96 (or whatever) strength is too good to waste on using ranged weapons, which is a shame because there are quite a few good longbows in the game.

I just didn't use him to dual wield because my PC was always dual wielding and I didn't want anyone to steal the glory from myself!