Holding Weapons

[Xio]

Something I've been wondering for a while. Why is it you can hold some weapons in your off-hand but not all? If you can wield a weapon in your main hand, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to do such in your other hand. I understand not everyone is ambidextrous and whatnot, but I don't see how that should stop you from holding the axe you had in your left hand in your right. Maybe if you could 'barely' manage to sustain the weapon in your main hand properly, ok. Since the offhand is -usually- weaker to some extent. Otherwise, I don't see the logic in it.

[Sokotra]

From what I've seen, it's mainly just to get the point across that the weapon is heavy or unwieldly to the point that you can only successfully wield it to any degree of success with your primary hand.

I'm glad you brought this up, though, because I was just thinking the other day that maybe strength/size(weapon and wielder both) should factor into whether or not certain weapons would be wield-able in your secondary hand.... I don't think it is, but I could be wrong.

[NoteworthyFellow]

I'm glad you brought this up, though, because I was just thinking the other day that maybe strength/size(weapon and wielder both) should factor into whether or not certain weapons would be wield-able in your secondary hand.... I don't think it is, but I could be wrong.

I think it is.  As an example, I'm used to playing human or half-elven characters, because what's primarily what I played back in the day, before my several-year break from Arm.  On my return, I rolled up a dwarf, and found that I could no longer dual-wield a weapon that I could on the humans and half-elves.  I could still wield it in my primary, but I couldn't use it in my secondary, even though I clearly remembered doing that before.  Now, this could either mean that off-hand weapons have been nerfed since I last played (always possible), or size plays a factor, because I was able to wield a smaller weapon in that off-hand just fine.

[Maybe42or54]

Size of weapon definately affects if you can wield it in your week hand.

[Mr.B]

It's just certain weapons that must be wielded in the primary hand. Sure, it'd be cool if we could dual-wield huge bastard swords like Conan the Barbarian on Crack, but it simply doesn't work that way code-wise.

[psionic fungus]

Are you certain about this, Mr. B?

I have my doubts.  Try playing a Half-Giant?

[Maybe42or54]

I used to carry around a weapon made for a half giant. I saw a half giant carry it in his off hand, I had to etwo it though. I don't know if this helps, but I threw it into the burner.

[Xio]

I can understand not being able to hold a weapon you have to etwo, its makes perfect sense if you can't hold it alone in your 'strong' hand why could you in your 'weak' hand. Size, sure. But why's my 'weak' hand smaller than my 'strong' hand? I understand the weak hand not being able to wield it as well, use it as strongly or effectively, but I don't seen exactly why you can wield something but then not hold it. Seeing as the weight code (You test its weight and decide that you could use it.) is pretty vague, I can't really tell if its just because my 'strong' hand can just barely manage to maintain that weapon. If its because of that, ok I understand. Though the weapon I had in mind vs other weapons my char could hold in his offhand 'perfectly', suggests to me that my char would really have no problem holding it in his offhand.

Maybe there are other factors that I don't know about, just what I'm seeing. Hopefully the whole weight thing will be less vague in Arm2 and make this whole ordeal less complicated for me.

[Angela Christine]

I think that some weapons can't be held in the off hand to prevent people from using two of them at the same time.  You might be able to handle a giant double edged battleaxe in one hand, but it would be crazy to try to fight wielding two of them.  Some weapons would work with a shield or a parrying dagger in the off hand, but trying to use two of them at the same time would be silly, so the code prevents you from using it in your off hand.

[Xio]

I can see where that would make sense, but if you ask me, for you to wield that weapon in your primary hand it mustn't be too big in comparison to you otherwise it should be an etwo weapon. I see no problems with tacking on penalties for dual wield two extremely large weapons such as hitting yourself, setting yourself off-balance etc. I'm not really wondering about this for dual-wielding purposes, but if you are the type of person who likes to wield shields, this can get annoying. Especially if you just spent the last of your sid just to find out you can't hold your weapon, yea you could just wield it but that kinda defeats the purpose of the style you have set out for yourself.

Maybe I'm being unreasonable and picky *shrugs* Just how I feel about the whole situation.