Holy crap! I was playing Minsc WAAAY wrong!

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

• 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.

His overall damage output, on weak opponents, will be higher with two weapons (even weak ones), but I would stick with Lilarcor till I found better 1h weapons - quite a few monsters require +2, +3 etc enchants to even be harmed, and Lilarcor has certain immunities which also makes it very valuable.

All in all, I'd say the highest damage you can get a melee character to dish out is when dual-wielding a high damage weapon in the main hand, and Crom Faeyr in the off hand (to get 25 strength). Boosted with improved haste and various epic melee feats, such characters will kill anything in seconds.

lol, I always played Minsc with 2-handed sword too.

In general I dont think that 2h weapons give much extra bang for the back in 2nd edition. Critical hits aside damage bonuses are additive, right?

For this discussion it should be noted that the problematic enemies often tend to be resistant to weapons with less than a +3 enchantment.

aboyd said:

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.

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I also thought that the extra weapon only added one extra attack per round, rather than doubling the number of attacks. Wouldnt that mean that you overestimate the number of hits in the second case rather wildly? The maces still come out on top, but by a smaller margin.

Zaleukos said:

I also thought that the extra weapon only added one extra attack per round, rather than doubling the number of attacks. Wouldnt that mean that you overestimate the number of hits in the second case rather wildly? The maces still come out on top, but by a smaller margin.

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That would make a lotta sense. Otherwise this option is seriously overpowered. However, I don't know if it's true. Can someone verify? Does someone know what -- mechanically -- the game engine does with dual wielding?

My main char has duel wielding and Its not really "that good" (except against low lvl critters perhaps) even if I have tried to max the skills.

aboyd said:

That would make a lotta sense. Otherwise this option is seriously overpowered. However, I don't know if it's true. Can someone verify? Does someone know what -- mechanically -- the game engine does with dual wielding?

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I learned most of my BG knowledge from the ironworks forums at http://www.ironworksforum.com/ so you could probably get some info either from there or from www.pocketplane.net.

If you just want to test for yourself you could create two characters in multiplayer, use Shadowkeeper to give them the skills, weapons, and a ton of hitpoints, and just whack away. There is a pause at the end of each round feature so you could make as detailed statistics as you like.

zakhal said:

My main char has duel wielding and Its not really "that good" (except against low lvl critters perhaps) even if I have tried to max the skills.

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The 2nd edition system suffers from a lot of thresholding effects. Once you are good enough to hit your target it doesnt really matter much what weapon you use. (The exception is when a critter has a really nasty attack and you want to take it out fast).

As an example: the difference in average damage per non-critical hit between a 2h sword and a dagger is on average 3 points. Given that the dagger does 2.5 points of damage per hit, that you can have a strength bonus of 6 (? not certain about this number) points and an enchantment bonus of 3 points (necessary to hit some golems and other nasties) that is a whopping extra 25% damage for the two-handed sword compared to the dagger. That is somewhat underwhelming (given that very few RPGs let you kill things in one hit with a dagger I'll not bother about the realism aspect).

Baldurs gate 2 makes things a bit more interesting by allowing you to take skills that increase critical hit chance and the like, but it's still a pretty stupid system IMHO. 3rd edition makes a lot more sense in how it treats weapons and ability scores (not to mention how dexterity and armour work together).

I agree, 3d ed is by far the mechanically better of the editions. I won't comment on the background mythos, since I've never actually run a campaign in an official campaign world.

Zaleukos said:

The 2nd edition system suffers from a lot of thresholding effects. Once you are good enough to hit your target it doesnt really matter much what weapon you use. (The exception is when a critter has a really nasty attack and you want to take it out fast).

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This is very true. In ToB I had Viconia dual-weilding and she tore things up even without any skill in that combat style. I just had so many weapons, I gave her whatever she had proficiency for and let her go.

As for playing Minsc, he is a Ranger and so has the relevant skills. He's much more effective when played that way, but it's completely at odds with all his commentary and dialogue.

IMHO it would have made more sense to make him a barbarian as that class became available in BG2. Is there some traditional justification for making rashemen fighters "rangers" in game terms?

Prime Junta said:

I agree, 3d ed is by far the mechanically better of the editions. I won't comment on the background mythos, since I've never actually run a campaign in an official campaign world.

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I cant think of any background mythos that is so bad that a good DM cant compensate for it

To be fair most cRPGs have systems that arent significantly better than 2nd edition AD&D. Weapons are often represented by a damage value and possibly some resistance level that they can overcome. Armours tend to only be defined by weight and protection. I can barely think of any computer game that captured the real advantages of light armour and a dagger very well, but it's a tricky gameplay vs realism issue as it would suck to play a game where you could be killed in one hit by most competent enemies.

The only thing that I find WAY dumber about AD&D compared to other games is the system of memorising spells, I cant think of any good justification for forcing casters to decide on tomorrows spell list in advance.

Off-hand weapons can never make more than one attack per round. Ever. Even with haste/whirlwind/whatever.

Also, the "three attacks per round" you list means 2 attacks with the main hand weapon, and one with the off-hand.

Minsc at level 15 (with proficiencies, 3 points in dual-wield and 2 in two-handed style):
Lilarcor
Dmg: 1D10+9
Avg: 14
Thac0: 0
Attacks/round: 2.5
25 attacks, 95% hit = 332.5 avg dmg versus AC 0.

Mace 1 (Main-hand)
Dmg: 1d6+7
Avg: 10
Thac0: 2
Attacks/round: 2.5
25 attacks, 90% hit = 225 avg dmg

Mace 2 (off hand)
Dmg: 1d6+7
Avg: 10
Thac0: 4
Attacks/round: 1
10 attacks, 80% hit = 80 avg dmg

Total for dual-wield: 305 avg dmg over 10 rounds versus AC 0.

I haven't included crits here, but that should increase Lilarcor's edge. By level 18 they all get the same to-hit chance which maxes out the dual-wield alternative to 332.5 avg dmg against AC 0 over 10 rounds.

Best combo in the end is Dual Wielding Runehammer and Crom Fayer. With the Crom Fayer being in the off hand.

Anyway, there were lots of tricks in that game once you got high enough level. For example having that highest level Contigency spell fire off with 3 Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting spells when enemy's sighted would insta-win most hard encounters in the game.

Two-handed swords do more damage against "Large" size creatures. 1d10 is for regular size monsters in 2nd edition.

Sergius64 said:

Best combo in the end is Dual Wielding Runehammer and Crom Fayer. With the Crom Fayer being in the off hand.

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If you are playing ToB I think there are some higher total damage output weapons in the game. I ended up with my thief duel wielding crom fayer in his offhand and my barbarian had either 23 or 24 natural strength and rages took him up to 25 if I recall correctly (can't recall if it is possible to go over 25, been too long since i played it).

bjon045 said:

Two-handed swords do more damage against "Large" size creatures. 1d10 is for regular size monsters in 2nd edition.

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Is that feature implemented in Baldurs Gate II (I know it was in the Goldbox games and in EotB)?

The highest possible natural strength is 20 (starting with 19 as a half-orc, getting +1 in Watchers Keep. A humans' max strength is 19; 18+1). Rage gives +5 strength, so that would indeed bring you to 25 (which is maximum, there's no way of getting higher in BG2). However, there are quite a few belts in the game that would set your strength to 19-22 regardless of natural strength. Also, Crom sets it to the 25.

Also, there is no difference between hitting large or small creatures in BG2 as far as I know. In fact, there's no "large" or "small" at all - a halfling can wield a halberd just as easily as a half-orc, and get the exact same damage/bonuses.

And what about if you bring a couple of characters from BG1?

EDIT: It was 23, you actually can gain up to 5 str. 3 str at the end of bg2 (when playing the evil path) and 2 in watchers keep. (And importing from BG1 gives humans another +1 str)

Would have to test to see if 2 handers do 2d6(or something like that) like they do in the gold box games or not. The extra damage would barely be noticeable unless you were looking for it.

IIRC there's no half orc race in BG1, and there is only one strength tome, so the numbers stay the same unless you use TuTu to play a half orc in BG1.

Zaleukos said:

IIRC there's no half orc race in BG1, and there is only one strength tome, so the numbers stay the same unless you use TuTu to play a half orc in BG1.

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It's possible to have a natural str of 24 with just one character if you bring a char from BG1 or start as a half orc which makes the benefit of crom fayer not quite so good, that is what I was trying to get across.

IC, I've never managed to play evil in BG2 (that path feels a bit underdeveloped compared to the good one) I had forgotten about Watchers Keep.

I'm pretty sure that the 2H swords do 1D10 damage in BG (and dont they do 1D10 damage against normal sized enemies in the goldbox games as well?).

At any rate I dont think the difficulty of vanilla BG2 makes the difference in damage output for the different weapon types all that crucial. Due to the thresholding effects of AC a shield might tip combat balance more than a few extra points of damage per hit... The crucial difference is most of the time that between hitting and not hitting rather than between dagger and 2H sword.