The World of Avlis

I noticed that even though my base attack is 6, 2 + 4 dex, I get a 0 when wielding a Double Scimitar. I thought the Double Scimitar was a staff weapon. Is it actually considered basically two weapons?


Ch'neth.

Yes, double weapons count as weilding two different weapons, although the off-hand attack counts as a light weapon, for purposes of attack modifiers.

If you want to get your attacks up to a reasonable amount, you'll need Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting.

This was a major letdown with my Barbarian and his double-axe, so I know how you feel. I guess there's not many two handed weapons who use only one-handed attacks?

Pekarion wrote:This was a major letdown with my Barbarian and his double-axe, so I know how you feel. I guess there's not many two handed weapons who use only one-handed attacks?

there isn't double bladed weapons that only get one attack. There are two handed weapons though.


Greatsword, greataxe, Mauls, etc. Those weapons require you to wield them with two hands, even though there is only one "head" on the weapon. (double axe's have two blades, but still only one head)


Double Scimitars, double axes, etc. ~those~ are also two handed weapons. But they are "technically" two seperate weapons. You attack with the top, as well as the bottom. So engine wise, you are wielding 2 weapons. Thats why you still need other feats. Its not a let down, there is a big advantage to it.

although the off-hand attack counts as a light weapon

(depending on weapon) you get to wield a heavier weapon on your second hand, only suffering a light weapon penalty. That is nice.

Yeah three certain feats and your coming at a opponent with six attacks /round and seven if your hasted. Double axe would be good for if you didnt want to carry two weapon/s weights arround like i do currently, ofcourse i can pull up a shield and still use a weapon in my other hand.

Another adventage would be if you find some bad ass double headed axe that has elemental damages and lots of enhancements, that means you dont have to go out trying to find another one just so your second weapon is killer bad ass well.

downsystem wrote:Yeah three certain feats and your coming at a opponent with six attacks /round and seven if your hasted. Double axe would be good for if you didnt want to carry two weapon/s weights arround like i do currently, ofcourse i can pull up a shield and still use a weapon in my other hand.

Another adventage would be if you find some bad ass double headed axe that has elemental damages and lots of enhancements, that means you dont have to go out trying to find another one just so your second weapon is killer bad ass well.

also when enchanting them, it takes less enchantments to be just as useful.


dual blade vs. dual wield

Hmm never considered the enchantment thing,.Thaat would be much easier with one weapon.

I meant it as a letdown that I found out the hard-way, It is certainly good but I wasn't aware of how it worked until it was too late(feats wise;))

But this got me wondering, is the second blade on a double-weapon considered as small? to get less penalties?

I think it is, this is probably done to compensate for the fact that it is actually one weapon (I didn't get a -4 AB, but just -2 AB with ambi and two-weap)

Li'll Divvil wrote:I think it is, this is probably done to compensate for the fact that it is actually one weapon (I didn't get a -4 AB, but just -2 AB with ambi and two-weap)

This is because the off-hand side of a double weapon counts as a light weapon when dual weilding.

For example, if you dual wielded two medium weapons, such as two scimitars, you'd have -4 to your AB.

If you dual wielded a scimitar and shortsword (which is light), you would only have -2.

does it count as a light weapon in that you get a dex bonus for it with the appropriate feat? weapon finesse I believe.

Not that it makes double weapons a very good finesse option since it's 2 out of 6 attacks, but yes.

Gairus wrote:Not that it makes double weapons a very good finesse option since it's 2 out of 6 attacks, but yes.

Whoa, he's back-ish??

Double scimitars are also a CEP custom weapon type, so a lot of the weapon specific feats just won't work on them. It's possible that hte game doesn't consider them proper dual weapons because of that.

Smeg, forgot about that. Better stop giving answers with 6 month old knowledge :'C (Finesse works with the offhand attacks of standard double weapons but not the CEP ones, forgout about the CEP quirks.))

downsystem wrote:Hmm never considered the enchantment thing,.Thaat would be much easier with one weapon.

IIRC there's a problem with this though, b/c Dual Scimitar is a CEP item, not a bioware item - something about weapon enchantments not effecting both blades.

Maybe this has been fixed, *shrugs* dunno

-tid242

If you like double bladed weapons, you could go ranger. You get basically two free dual weild feats from the get go. Then at lv 9 you get improved 2 weapon fighting for free.

Fighter/Rogue, thus said, I'm not worried too much about getting the proper feats.

So let me get this straight. I'm going to get penalized, because it's dual wielding, but I am not going to get any benefits from the right feats, because it's a CEP Item?!

What else is CEP, so I don't waste my money on items that won't work with the feats I have?

CEP = Community Expansion Pack basically many of the placables you see are from CEP (tables, thrones, bushes, statues, weapons, etc). Many of the 'hard-coded' things may or may not work 100% with CEP items b/c the code doesn't 'see' them as valid objects.

http://www.avlis.org/viewtopic.php?t=46285
http://www.avlis.org/viewtopic.php?t=65801
http://www.avlis.org/viewtopic.php?t=75706

Here are some threads that might help you answer your question. And don't take ranger lvls for the feats if you've already got fighter lvls, it'll ding your xp and your fighter gets a bonus feat every 2 lvls anyway.

Hope this helps, the first link I provided should probably be the most informative I think.

-tid242

chaneth wrote: So let me get this straight. I'm going to get penalized, because it's dual wielding, but I am not going to get any benefits from the right feats, because it's a CEP Item?!

To clarify:

A dual-sided weapon is treated the same as wielding two different weapons at once (dual-wield, which is where ambidex, two weapon fighting, etc, etc come in) You will thus get penalized for using such a weapon to the same extent that you would be penalized for trying to wield two diff weapons at the same time.

What I was talking about with CEP items is that in certain circumstances, like spells, may not work properly b/c they don't 'see' that it's a dual-weapon. Specifically what I recall reading where spells like flame-weapon, or Greater Magic Weapon, only enchanting 1 blade instead of both. It isn't a huge deal, in the greater scheme of things, however it's something that some players may have found annoying after investing heavily in being able to use said weapon. Also I believe Feats such as Weapon Specialisation cannot be used with items that were not available from Bioware originally. Again nothing show-stopping (unless you were going to Weapon Master in said weapon), but annoying... However the dual-wielding feats will work fine, b/c the engine still 'sees' that you're dual-wielding, it just doesn't know what weapon you're using, specifically.

At least this is as I see it. Comments anyone?

Hope this helps.

-tid242

Check the weapontype on any weapon you find. If it has an asterisk next to the name, it's a CEP weapon and thus stuff liek Focus, Specialization, Improved Crit, etc won't work with it, along with a lot of the weapon enchanting spells.

Really, the only people I ever see using the CEP weapons are Clerics, Druids and transmuter mages, since a lot of them forgo the weapon feats for defensive or caster feats, and thus rely on self buffs and a few weapon buffs that generally DO work on CEP weapons to compensate, so it doesn't matter for them.

Fuzz wrote:Check the weapontype on any weapon you find. If it has an asterisk next to the name, it's a CEP weapon and thus stuff liek Focus, Specialization, Improved Crit, etc won't work with it, along with a lot of the weapon enchanting spells...

Note that Weapon Finnesse will also not work - in NWN, Weapon Finnesse applies to a hardcoded list of weapons, rather than that "light, medium, heavy" qualities as per the PnP rules.

And it's not so much that Focus, Spec, IC, etc. "won't work" with them, it's that you can't take those feats for those weapons. They'll work just as well as any other weapon you don't have Focus for. A subtle difference yes, but a difference nonetheless.

Hmmm. I'm going to have to ditch my double scimitar then, and maybe go for a double sword.

But I have one question.....according to the thread you posted weapon finesse does not apply to the main hand, but does apply to the off hand?

Is this still true? I have weapon finesse as a feat, and thus if it's no use on double weapons then I'll have to go back to my original plan of using two seperate swords.

Thanks for all the input. I just want to be sure regardless. It's not real important, as my character already has exotic feat. (needed it for Katana), and I just got Weapon Finesse at level 3. Hince the importance, since I have already chosen Weapon finesse.

Thanks again,

Ch'neth

P.S. I know it might seem a bit silly to have weapon finesse when you are wielding a Katana.....buuuuut......hehe. Let's just say Ch'neth uses Katana half the time.

What I'd do if I where you is to download one of those level-up mods and try a few experiments, then you can see it for real. At least that's what I do when I have these sorts of questions. Try this one.

Asking questions here is one way of course, but then as you saw above sometimes you don't get the whole story, or the info is out-of-date, or whatever. So to be sure, try it.

[EDIT: Just for you, I just tried it in test mod above. No double-weapons are finessable. It doesn't matter that the off-hand side is treated as "light", because Weapon Finesse (in NWN) is nothing to do with light weapons, it is a specific list of weapons that can use it, and double-sword (or long sword for that matter) is not one of them.]

[EDIT2: Here's the list of weapons that Weapon Finesse works with (here).

[EDIT3: BTW, the above experiment took about 2 mins. Its a lot quicker than asking all these questions on the boards ]

chaneth wrote:...weapon finesse does not apply to the main hand, but does apply to the off hand?

Gairus wrote:Not that it makes double weapons a very good finesse option since it's 2 out of 6 attacks, but yes... standard double weapons but not the CEP ones...

(Yes, it has some use)