In Baldur's Gate 2, I used to play Minsc with a nice two-handed sword. Every now and then he'd crit for an absurd amount of damage, and I'd be happy. However, it always bugged me that his skill in dual wielding went unused. I knew that skill counted for something. So I started a new game last week and tried giving him 2 maces. I noticed that his animation had him swinging a whole lot, but I had Liacor (+3 two-handed) burning a hole in my pocket, while Minsc was using +1 maces! It felt lame. I was sure that Liacor would be better!
So finally I did the math. Can anyone tell me if this is right? Because if it is, Minsc should NEVER use a two-handed sword. That build is ALL WRONG. Here we go:
10 round fight vs. A.C. zero opponent
Anyone see anything wrong with my math? Looking at the damage output, even weak maces FAR outclass good two-handed swords. Even if you could fully invest in Minsc's two-handed sword skill and get his swings up to 3x/round, he'd still only output 324 points of damage.
The difference in damage output is so stark that I almost don't believe it. I'm going to play for a few hours and watch the combat text scrolling by. I think I'll add up the real numbers and see if they are close to what I expect.
So finally I did the math. Can anyone tell me if this is right? Because if it is, Minsc should NEVER use a two-handed sword. That build is ALL WRONG. Here we go:
10 round fight vs. A.C. zero opponent
- using Liacor, needs a 5 out of 20 to hit (for 20 swings, 4 will be misses)
- can strike 2x/round, so 20 swings total (16 hits)
- Liacor does 1d10 +3 +5 (strength), that's a range of 9-18, average 13.5
- 16 hits x 13.5 = 216 points of damage, on average
- using +1 maces, needs 7 & 11 to hit (for 20 swings, 6 misses main hand, 10 misses off hand)
- can strike 3x/round, so 30 swings EACH hand (21 hits & 15 hits)
- each mace does 1d6 +2 +5 (strength), range of 8-13, average 10.5 points
- 36 hits x 10.5 = 378 points of damage, on average
Anyone see anything wrong with my math? Looking at the damage output, even weak maces FAR outclass good two-handed swords. Even if you could fully invest in Minsc's two-handed sword skill and get his swings up to 3x/round, he'd still only output 324 points of damage.
The difference in damage output is so stark that I almost don't believe it. I'm going to play for a few hours and watch the combat text scrolling by. I think I'll add up the real numbers and see if they are close to what I expect.