2 Weapon fighting question

[Underdog77]

In the table in the manual for two weapon fighting penalties, it mentions that the penalty for the 2nd weapon isn't as bad if the 2nd weapon is a "light weapon". My question is, how do you know which weapons qualify as light weapons for the purposes of this penalty? A dagger is obviously a light weapon, but beyond that how you know.

[lonely wolf]

IIRC it's written in the weapon's properties.

[Underdog77]

Yeah, but the weapon descriptions just say whether it's one or two handed and how much it weighs. That doesn't tell you whether it qualifies as a "light weapon".

[Stilgar]

I believe it are simple weapons,
mace, small blades (daggers and shortswords)
and quaterstaffs (but you can't dual them just as the ranged simple weapons).

But why not try, and see what weapons gives you a smaller tac0 penalty?

[koz-ivan]

light weapons are short swords, and daggers.

ie "small blades"

and nothing else. item descriptions are wrong if they say "makes a fine off hand weapon" or the like, for any non small blade.

[Stilgar]

Originally posted by koz-ivan
light weapons are short swords, and daggers.

ie "small blades"

and nothing else. item descriptions are wrong if they say "makes a fine off hand weapon" or the like, for any non small blade.

How do you know this?

[Demis]

Light weapons are considered all the weapons that are one size smaller than your size. If you are a human (medium-sized) then any weapon ranked as "small" or below is light for you, thus a shortsword is light for a human and can be used as a light
off-hand weapon. However a halfling weilding 2 shortswords will still have the a penalty since a shortsword is not "light" for him to be used efficency as an off-hand weapon.

Unfortunately IWD2 does not mention the size (different from type) of a weapon IIRC at the description.

[Mirk]

a good way to check this is to equip a weapon combo, and then look in the record screen, weapons statistics. IWD2 goes into a lot of details listing the different bonuses and penalties applied to each weapon. if you see a "proficiency -4" modifier for your main-hand weapon, the off-hand is not light. the proficiency modifier should be -2, or -1 if you have weapon focus.

[koz-ivan]

Originally posted by Stilgar
How do you know this?

both game experience, and reading other boards.

[Stilgar]

Originally posted by koz-ivan
both game experience, and reading other boards.

Now that I read it again, I could have chosen my words more carefully (sorry for this, I ment if you have seen it in the manual, or in game info)

Thanks

[Underdog77]

Thanks for everyone's inputs.

I guess I will just try different combos and see how the to hit numbers change.
Despite what one person said, I'm hoping that a handaxe qualifies because that's what I want to use for my ranger.

Just one of the areas where I think they left out some information in the game and/or manual.

Like for instance, I also haven't been able to see any listing of weapon speeds anywhere like there were in IWD1, and that's a pretty important bit of info to know.

[lonely wolf]

not every new thing is better from the older one (hope you will understand...)

[koz-ivan]

Originally posted by Stilgar
Now that I read it again, I could have chosen my words more carefully (sorry for this, I ment if you have seen it in the manual, or in game info)

Thanks

the book's are quite often wrong, also there will be problems sometimes w/ even the in game descriptions.

--

re hand axe - there are none. i agree that it's a cool off hand weapon and liked it in nwn, but it won't work in iwd2.

[Underdog77]

Actually there are handaxes in the game, my ranger has one.

[Mirk]

there are handaxes, they just don't count as light weapon, despite the in-game description