New to the game, need advice

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I will be importing my dwarf fighter from BG1 and was wondering about weapons and proficiencies in BG2.

1) what would be a good weapon to stick with? axes, long swords, katanas? (In BG1 there seems to be far more swords than axes so I use long swords)

2) sword and shield, or 2 weapons? In BG1 I find using a large shield very useful for the extra missile protection, but using a second weapon in BG2 sounds tempting but you loose all the extra AC/missile AC..... So in the end, does 2 weapons pay off or is the extra AC needed?

Thanks

 

There is an excellent Katanas available very early in BG2, but the fight is quite hard for a new player, and it isn't obvious at all where to find the fight. So if you want a spoiler-free experience, which would probably be the most fun, I'd recommend against Katanas.

Long swords are an interesting choice, as there are some good longswords throughout the game, but the best of them is very dependent on the manner in which you roleplay through the story.

You'll want a weapon proficiency that has several good weapons in it that are relatively easy to find. To that end, I think axes are a fantastic choice. There are several very strong axes in BG2, many of which are easy to find, and in ToB there is an axe which some people consider the best single-hand weapon in the game. So you can have the fun of a strong profiency without having to comb walkthroughs to figure out exactly where to find the weapons you need.

So perhaps axes as your primary weapon, and then get a few points in scimitar, or warhammer, or long sword if you want to dual wield.

In terms of pure power, with optimized weapons and such, I'd say dual wielding a mace and a scimitar is the best option from a powergaming standpoint, but for your first run-through I'm sure it would be much more fun to use whatever you feel like, or to stick with weapon-types that have several good choices (like axes) instead of just one or two super-good choices that are hard to find (like katanas).

Two weapons is generally superior. In particular, there are a couple off-hand weapons which confer huge benefits that no shield can really match. Shields are quite lacking in BG2, IMO.



Enjoy! I'd recommend not fretting too much over these things... BG2 is certainly enjoyable with a wide variety of weapons, and there are powerful weapons in many different types. So if you really want to go for a given weapon type, or if you really want to use a shield, I'd say go for it! Have fun.

 

1) Go for axes, that's funny with a dwarf. There be many a good axe in BG2 arrrg

2) There have been made many calculations, and indeed the 2nd weapon is good both for damage and abilities.

Have fun

 

My idea was to pick one weapon and one style, that way you get very powerful with what you use, but you are also limited (its working nicely in BG1). Instead of putting a point in longswords, a point in war hammers, and a point it short swords (for example) I would put all 3 in long swords.

BG 2 has a bit more involvement in creating your character than BG1 so I just wanted a bit of advise on what to start with. Thanks for the tips so far.

What do you mean by shields are lacking in BG2?

 

There are good shields in BG2, but in the later levels, and especially in ToB, a shield's AC bonus does not help much, enemies become so strong that AC is only semi-effective. You need to kill them faster than they can hurt you.

Dual-wielding really boosts up your offensive power, granting an extra attack, BUT also the equipped abilities of your off-hand weapon, be it an another extra attack, STR bonus, immunity, or so...

 

I was just checking out a nice page that listed all the weapons from BG2 and what they did. Either Im an idiot, or just really tired, but Im not following you about the off handed weapons special abilities. Do you mean that weapons give special bonuses when equipped as the off hand weapon and not the main weapon?

 

Nope, Silverstar meant that certain wepaons give bonuses just for being wielded, so putting them in the offhand is a good call for extra damage potential.

On katana's for instance, if you have the bonus merchants (if you don't, go get it, they're here in SP!) there's a good Katana for off-hand wielding for fighter mages and bards. The D'akkon Zerth Blade (was that it's name?) Gives -1 bonus to AC and extra spells. but since it's only a +2 Katana, it's not the best weapon around so putting it on the offhand is useful and having a damagewise more powerful weapon on the mainhand makes a good combo for a dualwielding F/M.

Flails are funny for dwarves as well. Or dual-wielding flails. That looks funny for a little munchkin and the mental image of fighting with two flails is rather amusing to boot. There's at least two good flails you can get early on, and the other one is damagewise one of the most powerful weapons in the whole game.

For a dwarf you really can't go wrong with warhammers. You can't. There's a powerful throwing hammer that can be used only by dwarves, and that's available early as well.

 

Personally, I'd go axes/hammers, as I love Crom Feyr, but it's rather odd (and a little hard) to get and I don't know that there are any particularly awesome replacements. That said, as an off-hand weapon, I generally use Crom Feyr all the way through TOB.

To expand on Iku's point, and to further advertise one of my favorite weapons in the game, Crom Feyr gives it's bonus of setting your STR to 25 (25!) whether it's in the primary hand or the off-hand. I think it's golem killing ability (being an on-hit ability) may only be for the off-hand attacks, but I'm not sure.

 

I think the best way to go about this, given that you're a 1st timer, would be to specialize in one weapon (so, say, grand-mastery in axes), and then get a point or two in several different weapon-types that have good off-hand weapon choices available.

So maybe something like grand-mastery in axes, then a point or so in warhammers, scimitars, and flails. This will significantly increase the odds of finding a very good weapon combo without having to follow walkthroughs, which might spoil your first experience of the game.

If you just want to use one weapon type for both your main weapon and off-hand weapon, I think flails is clearly the best choice (flail of ages + defender of easthaven). I can't think of anything that even approaches that combo for a dwarven fighter, especially if you are a berserker. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Flail of Ages + Defender of Easthaven is the best 2-weapon combo period, even if you allow mixing weapon types (although flail-of-ages + belm is close). Crom Faeyr is consistently overrated, in my opinion, because there are about 5 trillion ways to increase your strength in BG2, yet very few ways to increase damage resistance (in the case of defender of easthaven) or get extra attacks per round (in the case of belm).

 

To be honest, you can go with whatever you like. Even though some weapon categories are underrepresented, you can find a decent weapon of every sort.

That said, first time through you're most likely to encounter good weapons of the following categories:
- long swords
- 2-swords
- halberds
- axes
- flails
- maces

As said, 2 weapon style beats sword+board pretty much hands down. One advantage of sword+board is the ability to use throwing weapons. There's a nice throwing axe and throwing hammer and using their ranged ability to soften up the enemy is a good tactic.

Also, shields only get redundant when you hit ToB, they prove deceptively effective throughout SoA, especially if you use other methods to keep your AC low.

 

I recommend putting proficiency points into axes and hammers. There are good axes in SoA and the weapon I consider the best weapon in the whole game is an axe you can find in ToB. There are also good throwing axes in the game.
As secondary weapon type I recommend hammers since some enemies only take damage from blunt weapons and the dwarven thrower is a hammer.

I'd just put points into axes and hammers and wear a shield for the extra AC (which does make a difference for most of the game) without putting points into the "sword and shield" style which offers only a nearly useless bonus.
This way you'll stay flexible and need only one click to switch from melee to ranged if you have a throwing axe, dagger or hammer.
If you're dualwielding you can do more damage but you can't switch to ranged without entering the inventory (annoying).
The whirlwind HLAs will give you 10 attacks per round even without dualwielding in ToB.

If you decide to dualwield don't put more than ** into the style, the third point is wasted on the long run.