2nd weapon is NOT a light weapon?

[Mindos]

What exactly happens when you dual weild two regular weapons, i.e, the off-hand one is NOT light?

From the wiki, and from what I can find, it's a little vague:

Less to-hit?
25% hit penalty?
Procs lowered?

I can't seem to find definitive answers. I've read about people dual weilding to great success but my limited data set testing seems to show a marked decrease in effectiveness.

What say the community?


ps. using a pure ranger to test.

[Tscheuss]

If your offhand weapon is not light, you do not get full benefit from TWF, Imp. TWF, or Greater TWF reductions to offhand/mainhand Hit penalty, and you miss more. Exception: Oversize TWF

Wiki explains this here.

[Philibusta]

OK, here's the deal on Two-Weapon Fighting:

On "one-handed" vs "light" weapons:
If you're wielding two weapons, say two long swords (for simplicity's sake) and you do NOT have the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, you will be at a -6 to-hit with your main hand, and a -10 to-hit with your offhand. Take the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, and these penalties are reduced to -4/-4.

Now, if the weapon in your offhand is light (so now you're swinging a long sword with your main hand and a short sword with your offhand), the normal penalties would be -4/-8. But with the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, the penalties are reduced to -2/-2.

But if you want to lessen your (-4/-4) penalties for using those two long swords mentioned above, you'll need to take the feat Oversize Two-Weapon Fighting, also. This feat will give you the benefit of being able to treat one-handed weapons in your offhand as if they were Light weapons. So, with the feats Two-Weapon Fighting feat, and Oversize Two-Weapon Fighting, you'll be able to swing those two long swords at only a -2/-2 penalty.

There's no way to get the penalty lowered more than this, and that is a good thing. It represents the fact that it's just more difficult to fight effectively with two hands swinging different weapons than it is with just one weapon in one hand.

On Proccing:
Any old character can pick up two weapons and start swinging them around, and despite their dismal to-hit penalties, they will have a 20% chance to proc an offhand attack. The Two-Weapon Fighting feat will raise that chance to 40%. The feats Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, will raise the proc chance to 60% and 80%, respectively.

So...in conclusion...if you wanna build a good Two-Weapon Fighter, (or a Ranger Tempest, as I suspect is the case here), you'll want to take the Oversize Two-Weapon Fighting feat if you want to wield two long swords, scimitars, whatever...one-handed weapons. The other feats (Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting) you will receive for free, as a Ranger, as you gain levels.

Hope that helps



EDIT: LOL Gee, thanks a lot, Tscheuss! I go to all the trouble of explaining all that and while I'm doing it you ninja me with one sentence and a link. Thank you for helping me to waste my time (twas funny tho, made me laugh)

[BOgre]

There's no way to get the penalty lowered more than this, and that is a good thing. It represents the fact that it's just more difficult to fight effectively with two hands swinging different weapons than it is with just one weapon in one hand.

Incorrect. Tempest II and III each reduce the penalty by an additional -1/-1, so a fully feated/tempested ranger will be at 0/0 penalty.

[Tscheuss]

OK, here's the deal on Two-Weapon Fighting:

snip...
Hope that helps



EDIT: LOL Gee, thanks a lot, Tscheuss! I go to all the trouble of explaining all that and while I'm doing it you ninja me with one sentence and a link. Thank you for helping me to waste my time (twas funny tho, made me laugh)

Now, how was I to know?

[Philibusta]

Incorrect. Tempest II and III each reduce the penalty by an additional -1/-1, so a fully feated/tempested ranger will be at 0/0 penalty.

aHA! Thanks for pointing that out.