Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[thekemp]

Can i replace my shield for another weapon?
Is it worth it?

[Josephus]

This shouldn't be in suggestions.

Also, no, it won't work. That shield will probably save your life dozens of times in your adventurer's career, especially if you're going up against Dragons or anything that could splatter you with a single good hit.

Plus dual wielding isn't implemented in the game.

[Hyndis]

Dual wielding was never done in real life either except for the occasional gimmick, or a gentleman's duel. Either way its mostly a ceremonial thing rather than practical.

For practical combat you want a weapon and shield, or just a single really huge weapon. The shield will save your life repeatedly. A one handed weapon does not have the reach of a two handed weapon. With a two handed weapon you are sacrificing protection for a very long reach.

Dual wielding means you have neither the reach nor the protection. And you cannot hit very hard with two weapons. Even using a rapier and off hand blade you would still only attack with one weapon. The off hand blade was used for defense, not attacking.

[Joakim]

Agree with Hyndis,

Parrying daggers and the like are more like a gentleman's shield. Because you can't walk to a duel in style with a huge-ass shield. It just doesn't match with the latest fashion.

[NW_Kohaku]

This same topic was brought up very recently.  I will respond the same way here:

And how would dual weilding work?  If it's just another attack, (like choosing between grappling with the left hand or right hand when unarmed) it wouldn't be much help, since you can only do one attack (or action of any sort) per turn.  It would just be "I attack with my right hand this time... now my left!".  Maybe it would make sense if you had, say, a piercing weapon and a bludgeoning weapon, so that you could choose attack types, but otherwise...

If you want to say "both hands attack at the same time, and act just like normal attacks with full damage", well, then, you've just made a munchkin power.

[cephalo]

My militia commander can TRIPLE WEILD.

[Neonivek]

Dual wielding means you have neither the reach nor the protection. And you cannot hit very hard with two weapons. Even using a rapier and off hand blade you would still only attack with one weapon. The off hand blade was used for defense, not attacking

Actually that is almost always how it was done. One hand does an attacking swing while one stays behind in defensive posture. If you sack the defense you can double attack which is very difficult to defend against often forcing the target to defend or move away instead of attack, though the intent is that one will get through and not both. Some dual weapons were defensive and offensive and even when attacking you retain defensive posture.

It was done a bit more often then you give it credit for but your right it was uncommon. It was common for the offhand weapon to be smaller (as with Fencing and Samurai) but it was even more uncommon for both weapons to be the same size (Kali, Tonfa).

It to me needs to be done and balanced, but we have to wait for Toady to overhaul combat.

If you want to say "both hands attack at the same time, and act just like normal attacks with full damage", well, then, you've just made a munchkin power

Actually Relative to the power of the shield... even if two weapons meant two full power attacks is less worth a shield... But shields are CRAZY overpowered items of the gods and I am not even exagerating. It is in fact better to have a shield and no weapon then it is to have two weapons even if they both got an attack.

PLUS Two handed weapons were given a sizable improvement so two one handed weapons at full strength may not equal the damage output of one good two handed weapon. WHICH once again is still less significant then the power of a SHIELD!

If anything Shields are too good and everything else except ranged sucks by comparison.

[Hyndis]

You cannot effectively do a double attack with two different weapons. Its a reckless sort of attack that leaves you extremely vulnerable as well as off balance.

Try it. The guy with a sword and board, or the guy who the polearm or two handed sword will easily beat you.


Shields overpowered? Not at all. That is the entire point of a shield. A good shield and a skilled shield user is nearly invincible when attacked from the front. A buckler isn't all that effect, but a nice kite shield or even tower shield? You're not getting through that very easily.

[TheSummoner]

You cannot effectively do a double attack with two different weapons. Its a reckless sort of attack that leaves you extremely vulnerable as well as off balance.

Try it. The guy with a sword and board, or the guy who the polearm or two handed sword will easily beat you.


Shields overpowered? Not at all. That is the entire point of a shield. A good shield and a skilled shield user is nearly invincible when attacked from the front. A buckler isn't all that effect, but a nice kite shield or even tower shield? You're not getting through that very easily.

Bull.  In combat, the best thing you can do is keep a strong offense.  Strike first and the enemy is forced to defend.  Strike strong enough and all the enemy can do is defend.  It’s incredibly difficult to defend from two directions at once so a skilled warrior with two weapons is incredibly dangerous to one with a sword and shield.  After that, the best thing to do is not be where the opponent is attacking… in other words, dodge.  Only after that comes blocking.

Of course, this is only talking about 1 on 1 combat.  A man using two weapons would be torn apart by an archer since you cannot realistically deflect arrows with a sword/axe/whatever (the fact that you can in DF annoys me).  A wall of shields serves not only to protect the person holding the shield, but also the ally to his left… in larger numbers, the effectiveness of dual wielding is greatly diminished.

And on the subject of polearms, it’s the exact opposite.  A spear is a very powerful weapon in formation, no one wants to get close to a wall of guys poking and jabbing anything in front of them… but it is next to useless solo.  A spear has a very limited effective range, one on one, if you can dodge or deflect the first strike, it’s easy to close the distance and leave the spear wielder helpless… you could grab the pole itself making it all but impossible for the spear wielder to attack… you get the idea.

[Hyndis]

All spears are polearms, but not all polearms are spears. 

Take a look at a halbred or poleaxe. Those things are fearsome weapons. You also have several times more reach than a guy with two one handed weapons.

Dual wielding only has a place in Hollywood or in games for the looking cool factor. It really is not possible to wield two weapons at the same time in a manner more effective than a sword and board or a two handed weapon. There's a reason why dual wielding has almost no historical representation. People used what worked. You used either a shield and smaller weapon, or a two handed weapon like a polearm. Or a ranged weapon like a bow, crossbow, or gun.

[Aspgren]

When I think about dual-wielding ... I think about criminals and rogues, people who rely on quick and discrete attacks on unsuspecting people.

While not practical in the Robin hood sense, a medieval alley-robber would be a man or woman who has a small, concealed dagger - or two. It's practical if the criminal has to ambush two people who are in company - or, more realistically, sneak up and threaten a man with a knife at his throat.. while the other knife cuts his purse clean off his belt.

 Other than that .. I can only think of dual-wielding as a sort of backup weapon. A samurai might find himself in a tight spot where he has to draw his wakisashi to ensure an escape. Why the Japanese didn't use shields is beyond me...

[TheSummoner]

I used spear as an example because its the only Dwarf-wieldable polearm, but the same still applies.  Dodge or deflect the first strike, get within the wielder's dead zone, and a polearm is all but useless (unless in formation with several buddies watching your sides and stabbing at anything that comes close).

The reason dual wielding is underrepresented historically is because most battles were fought in formation... something absent from Dwarf Fortress.

In battle, offense is king.  Using two weapons gives you more offensive capability.  A two handed sword is more effective at close range than a polearm, but it still suffers, and unless you're in formation, it’s difficult to keep your distance.  A strong offensive fighter will charge in faster than the two handed swordwielder can backpedal and control the distance.  Unless the two handed swordwielder can cut him down quickly (and he’s only got one chance before the dual wielder is too close), the dual wielder is likely going to win.

A man with sword and shield would fare better, since both would have a similar optimal distance, but as I’ve said before, it’s difficult to defend yourself from two directions at once.  It would be a much closer fight, but the dualwielder has a strong advantage in that he only has to worry about one weapon trying to cut him down.

Finally, it’s perfectly possible to block with a sword/axe/whatever.  Arrows can’t be stopped that way, but an enemy swordsman’s attacks can be quite easily.

[NW_Kohaku]

When I think about dual-wielding ... I think about criminals and rogues, people who rely on quick and discrete attacks on unsuspecting people.

While not practical in the Robin hood sense, a medieval alley-robber would be a man or woman who has a small, concealed dagger - or two. It's practical if the criminal has to ambush two people who are in company - or, more realistically, sneak up and threaten a man with a knife at his throat.. while the other knife cuts his purse clean off his belt.

 Other than that .. I can only think of dual-wielding as a sort of backup weapon. A samurai might find himself in a tight spot where he has to draw his wakisashi to ensure an escape. Why the Japanese didn't use shields is beyond me...

The Japanese most often held their katanas with both hands, and the schools that trained in dual-weilding with those wakizashis were so rare as to be more legends than fact.

As for the first part of this post...

Methinks you might have gotten your notion of dual-weilding from D&D.  Just as a little parable for dual-weilding lunge attacks that are just as powerful and accurate and take no longer than regular attacks without doing something stupid like diving forward and landing prone, let me compare this to something else in D&D: Rangers (or anyone willing to spend the feats) get a bow attack where they put multiple arrows on the same bowstring, and fire them all at once.  Yes, up to 4 arrows, all put on the same bowstring firing all at once, with no reduction in damage. 

Too bad that completely breaks all notion of conservation of energy, as the same force in that bowstring being pulled back that would be applied to just one arrow is now being divided between four arrows, meaning you just launched four arrows, each of which have 1/4 the energy and speed, and likely none of the accuracy.  That's even assuming you could pull a bowstring back while holding onto 4 arrows at the same time.  It's pure munchkin mechanics.

Swinging a weapon is a full-body activity.  It's not just the weapon that moves, or even the arm.  To be a proper strike, the rest of the body has to move with it.  This means that to swing both weapons at the same time, you either have to do some foolish forward lunge that largely amounts to leaping forward, and trying to fall onto your enemy, weapons-first, (which, again, leaves you absurdly vulnerable if it doesn't kill your enemy, and such an attack would be highly graceless,) or to be a clapping-like motion that would first require completley exposing yourself to pre-emptive attack, and not allow you to reach forward any.  Even then, the clapping attack still isn't going to be able to attack with full power, much less full accuracy.

[Hyndis]

Swinging a weapon is a full-body activity.  It's not just the weapon that moves, or even the arm.  To be a proper strike, the rest of the body has to move with it.  This means that to swing both weapons at the same time, you either have to do some foolish forward lunge that largely amounts to leaping forward, and trying to fall onto your enemy, weapons-first, (which, again, leaves you absurdly vulnerable if it doesn't kill your enemy, and such an attack would be highly graceless,) or to be a clapping-like motion that would first require completley exposing yourself to pre-emptive attack, and not allow you to reach forward any.  Even then, the clapping attack still isn't going to be able to attack with full power, much less full accuracy.

This.

Moving a weapon that is heavy enough at a fast enough speed to do any damage means you need to put a lot of force behind it. That means putting your shoulder into the swing. To do this you're moving your entire torso along with that swing. You can only do that for one weapon at a time.

It is pretty much physically impossible to attack with two weapons at the same time with any amount of force behind the attack unless you're basically jumping up and falling forward with them, which puts you so off balance you're probably just going to fall forward right onto your face, and this of course gives the other person plenty of time to move out of the way.

The clapping type motion, moving both weapons in from the outside together, simply will never have enough force to do much damage. Probably won't even go through clothing.

Dual wielding is a D&D thing. Fantasy games and spinoffs, like WoW, have dual wielding. Dragon Age Origins? Dual wielding, and its kickass in that game. It just does not work in real life.

Yes there are a few people who insist upon dual wielding in SCA, but its a gimmick. Its just not effective.

In the case where people did dual wield swords, they did not use them how D&D and other modern fantasy uses them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main-gauche

Its a glorified shield really. Thats it.

[NW_Kohaku]

I'd also like to say that those who do use dual-weapons, like tonfa, tend to do so by using one as a shield, and the other as a weapon, and the only advantage to dual-weilding is the ability to switch which hand is the defense, and which is the offense.  That's still basically exactly the same thing as what I first posted in this thread:  "I attack with my right hand... AHA! Now with my left!"

It means using lighter, weaker weapons to attack in exchange for a potential for unpredictability whose value is questionable... especially in a game like DF, where there is no such thing as a defense penalty due to circumstances like being completely surrounded and outnumbered 30-to-1, much less something like a feint.