Low AC vs dual-wielding.

[mizuno]

personally, i've found most of the shields are way too weak compare with the weapons in SoA. hope they will have soem better shields n ToB. the holy avenger and the combination of crom/FoA are too good at the moment. and staff of magi, staff of woodland, and some other great weapons as well. and the one more down side is with a shield equiped, characters can't use bows and crossbows, that's is a very bad disadvantage!!! the ToB need some great one-hand weapons as well, at the moment, they are way 2 weeak as well, i only except some of them

[ThorinOakensfield]

Dual wielding is nice, but i recommend taking single weapon style. You can get 3 ac bonus and get alot of critical hits! The ac improvment makes up for no shield, and you can have a really good thaco and damage.

[Vehemence]

Ok, something to look at which I don't think has been discussed:

Multiclass Cleric/Mage can hold a shield and a sling at the same time.

Your all talking about dual weild vs shields, but thats restricted to fighter class, since it's useless to have anyone else dual weild when they can't have +++ in dual weilding. Otherwise all you end up with is some moron swinging two weapons at you with a horrible THAC0.

Others such as the cleric/mage can use shields more effectively and giving them a nice AC bonus when they sorely need it.

Honestly, for a fighter, dual weilding or a shield? I'd personally go for the dual weilding. But still, an elven fighter with dual weilding longswords would still rate second to a fighter with a nice two handed sword and ++ in two handed weapon style.

Shields aren't useless, they just suit different purposes and have their benefits in other areas.

Something to think about anyway...

[sigurd]

The biggest reason Dualwield is best is the abilities the weapons give, not the extra attacks.

A shield with -5AC or Crom faeyr, raising str to 25?

And lots of other weapons with abilities that works by just wealding the weapon, shields give mostly AC bonuses, exxcept baldurans, but that gives severe penalties as well

[Bruce Lee]

I like to use Crom Fayer and a shield however you get it so late so FoA and sentinel is very useful. I am convinced that the shield style is more powerful now. Only getting hit on critical hits does mean a lot. Many monsters have a thac0 ranging from 3 to -3 so getting an effective ac of -23(it is possible) will ensure that only critical hits hit me. This is very powerful since many of the nasty effects in the game follows from a succesful hit, level drain, intelligence drain, ability drain etc.
I am not bragging or anything but my swashbuckler/fighter didn't use any healing other than regeneration from ring of gaxx from chapter two till the end. Granted this character can be boring cause you can pretty much put him on autopilot. I tested his fighting skills by letting him loose in Ust-Natha. With a prot from magic cast on himself I set him on standard attack and went away to cook dinner, when I came back the town was cleared and he was uninjured.

[Nighthawk]

Bruce: Ust Natha is really not that hard to clear out. Have you tried it with a fighter dual wielding FoA and Defender of Easthaven (since you wouldn't have Crom Faeyr yet)?

You can get your effective AC for Ust Natha to -17 without using a shield (Full Plate +5, Dex, Rings of Gaxx, plate modifier, berzerker enrage). Since the limit the game counts is AC -20 and almost nothing except crits will hit you anyway, why use a shield?

Generally, either way will work. Very few fights in the game (dragons, early ones b/f all the equipment) are physically challenging.

[Craig]

Originally posted by craig:
<STRONG>Halberds away, Um sorry but you've left two handed weapons out i made a charector who has done 26 (halberd) damage none critical using normal starting lvl norm weapon two and you can get weap speed down to 3!! and theres dragon breath, come-on there isnt a single thing imune to all those damage thingys so think about it </STRONG>

any one listening??? must berserker rage lol